[HN Gopher] Our muscles will atrophy as we climb the Kardashev S...
___________________________________________________________________
Our muscles will atrophy as we climb the Kardashev Scale
Author : hosolmaz
Score : 64 points
Date : 2024-12-16 17:34 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (solmaz.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (solmaz.io)
| tonetegeatinst wrote:
| Interesting blog post. I think the majority of what you see is
| that due to how rapidly technology and other fields have bloomed
| via human involment, and due to how we have become an
| interconnected society due to the industrial revolution.
|
| I think that the major way humans cope/tackle this is via
| specialisation. While not for everyone, most people seem to find
| a job in a field, and the work in that field helps us support a
| more complicated society than we can fathom. Most people can't
| memorize all the stuff from multiple domains, or they would burn
| out. Most people don't understand how truly complex a
| semiconductor is, or how electricity and power is generated, or
| how to design a car. These are just basic examples but I'd argue
| a really good example of how humans have chosen a specific domain
| or thing and over time developed better understandings of the
| field and topic. The average person could do any job I'd argue.
|
| We are not as physical as we used to be, we have "engineered"
| ourselves replacements. The tractor, the car; both replaced
| horses but at the cost of needing someone who understood the
| principal of the new technology.
|
| Be it robot workers replacing amazon warehouse employees, or the
| tractor that improved the farmers ability to harvest or plant
| crops; both required smart people to not only develop them but to
| maintain them.
|
| I'd argue while we really are less physically active, due to
| technology and general advancements we have made over the years;
| this comes at the cost of mental strain. We mentally must process
| and think more than ever before, pushing our brains to keep up so
| we can stay relevant.
| cyberax wrote:
| Stupid premise.
|
| We already have exercise mimetics in pre-clinical trials. If you
| can keep yourself fit with zero expenditure of time, why wouldn't
| you?
| delichon wrote:
| The joy of motion and physical effort.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| The parent means "why wouldn't you stay fit (either manually
| or with drugs)" rather than "why wouldn't you do it with
| drugs".
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Because some of us have high levels of skepticism with that
| stuff. Even the GLP-1 inhibitors are too new to really get
| a handle on. The only proven methods to health are those
| that have existed before we ever came along: a clean diet
| and (good) exercise.
|
| History shows time and time again that there are no free
| lunches in nature.
| gr3ml1n wrote:
| Do you have any useful search terms for them?
| 383toast wrote:
| i assume EMS (electrical muscle stimulation)
| cyberax wrote:
| No, exercise mimetics are drugs that stimulate the same
| biochemical pathways as regular exercises.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Sometimes I think that is what metformin and statins do,
| because weirdly enough both seem to blunt the exercise
| response. I'd love to take them but I already exercise.
| cyberax wrote:
| "Exercise mimetics" are fine. You need to look at the
| professional publications. It's a very active area of
| research, so things change rapidly.
|
| The newest research:
| https://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/388/2/232.long
|
| Here's a nice, but a somewhat obsolete review:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8728540/
| DevX101 wrote:
| Bold take to proclaim we'll figure out interstellar travel before
| we figure out how to prevent muscle atrophy.
| 383toast wrote:
| also bold take to proclaim we'll still have human bodies before
| moving up kardashev scale
| guerrilla wrote:
| We are human bodies.
| exe34 wrote:
| Replace it one cell at a time. Ship of Theseus awaits to
| set sail.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Bodies are processes, like chemical reactions or baseball
| games, not "objects." No problem.
| exe34 wrote:
| objects undergo processes. atoms in your body are
| replaced over a period of hours-years.
| chimpanzee wrote:
| Is a tornado an object or a process?
| reverius42 wrote:
| Is a thought an object or a process?
| srveale wrote:
| Homo sapiens is subject to speciation just like every other
| animal.
|
| Then there's cyborgs...
| chimpanzee wrote:
| Amen.
| pk-protect-ai wrote:
| also bold take to proclaim, that humans will be required for
| teleoperation...
| 7thaccount wrote:
| One of the lead SETI researchers wrote about this and how
| biological life might just be a transitory phase.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| We already know how to prevent it, it's called anabolic
| steroids or testosterone. Once I read a study that showed
| sedentary people on testosterone gained more muscle mass than
| people actually working out.
| automatic6131 wrote:
| Bhasin et. al 2001. If you get in many internet fights about
| bodybuilding, it's an important part of your repertoire :-)
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| If you don't get in many internet fights about
| bodybuilding, testosterone can fix that too.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Yes that's how you get an enlarged heart and die by 35.
| GenerWork wrote:
| I take it you're talking about people like Dallas McCarver,
| whose autopsy found his testosterone levels to be extremely
| elevated [0] because of the number and volume of substances
| he was taking. If you're just taking base TRT and actually
| do cardio alongside weightlifting, you'll probably be fine.
|
| [0] https://drmirkin.com/histories-and-mysteries/dallas-
| mccarver...
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Fundamentally the heart is a muscle and anabolic steroids
| and test stimulate muscle growth in muscles at a cellular
| level. There's no way to have one and not the other.
|
| That's just the tip though. They have all kinds of far
| reaching effects ranging from curtailing height,
| significantly reducing IQ, constant skin breakouts,
| altered moods, hair loss, severe anxiety, paranoia,
| kidney and liver failure, bone breakages etc, severe and
| permanent decrease in the testosterone you naturally
| produce etc.
| loeg wrote:
| Great-grandparent comment is talking about
| supraphysiological doses of test and anabolics, not
| replacement-level T (TRT). I agree that physiological
| dose TRT in people with otherwise-low T is safe.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Even more importantly, test causes hair loss.
| loeg wrote:
| Sort of. Some fraction of test (natural or exogenous)
| converts to DHT via 5a-reductase, and some people (not
| everyone) have DHT-sensitive hair loss.
| YawningAngel wrote:
| Those are really unpleasant and dangerous to take and
| basically not an option for half the population though
| layman51 wrote:
| My first thought is the study must be capturing what they
| call "newbie gains" or "diminishing returns". The sedentary
| experimental group can gain muscle so fast because they are
| just starting out on their journey.
|
| Also, it kind of reminds me of the idea that athletes take
| these as performance enhancing drugs because it helps them in
| the same way that following a strength-training program would
| help them.
| loeg wrote:
| It isn't just beginner gains. Testosterone and anabolics
| are really, really effective. (They also have horrible side
| effects.)
| justinator wrote:
| It truly is a wonder therapy with no known side effects. I
| pair it with Ozempic! /s.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Testosterone is a very broad spectrum way to mess with your
| whole body.
|
| Much better to do something targeted like reduce myostatin.
| loeg wrote:
| You probably know this, but -- while the myostatin area is
| an interesting subject for research and drug development --
| unlike testosterone, therapies are not commercially
| available (yet).
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| They'll also tear their ligaments and tendons when they go to
| use that muscle mass...
| jjcm wrote:
| This is me. I cycle on and off testosterone (100mg/w for 12
| weeks typically) and combine it with light exercise (20-30min
| of lifting 3x a week). Other than that my only exercise is
| walks with my dog (typically ~45min). The rest of the time
| (~12hrs/day+) I'm at my desk. When I'm on testosterone it I
| definitely see major results, just from that level of
| exercise.
|
| My perspective on it is it is borrowing from the future. I
| feel better while on it, but it's just changing what the
| problem is. I've turned a sedentary lifestyle issue into a
| hormone issue. There are side effects (ie enlarged heart in
| the future). I'm using it as a crutch while I have a
| demanding job that keeps me working for longer hours.
| loeg wrote:
| FWIW the research does not show enlarged heart or many of
| the other negative side effects for people taking TRT at
| therapeutic, physiological doses (like, your 100mg/week is
| not supraphysiological for many men with low T). (And if
| you aren't low T, why take exogenous T? Especially given
| your concerns about borrowing from the future.) The heart
| issues and other bad side effects happens when bodybuilders
| take 200-5000 mg/wk doses.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| We know how already: exogenous testosterone (or other, more
| anabolic hormones), but that has downsides like left-
| ventricular hypertrophy, masculinization in women, and (usually
| reversible) infertility.
| loeg wrote:
| Yes, yes, it's safe to presume GP means "figure out muscle
| atrophy without the well-known terrible side effects of
| current treatments" from even a mildly charitable reading of
| his comment.
| yreg wrote:
| Interstellar travel is not a prerequisite for K1 or K2.
| mperham wrote:
| I think realistically we have to reduce our body mass by 99% if
| we want to go interplanetary, much less interstellar. It's
| extremely expensive to drag around 70kg of meat and minimizing
| weight is key to making solar sails work.
| owenpalmer wrote:
| We definitely don't need to reduce it for interplanetary
| travel.
| knowitnone wrote:
| Sure, let's remove 70kg. That'll get the ship moving...not.
| dmonitor wrote:
| that's a fun thought experiment, but not at all practical
| rbanffy wrote:
| Will we even remember what a muscle is at that point?
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| It's not just steroids and replacement testosterone.
|
| I recall certain classes of drugs that make mice into muscle-
| bound warriors, I believe using a different pathway then
| steroids.
| ecshafer wrote:
| This post vastly under-estimates the amount of malnutrition in
| most societies pre-modern times. Even with heavy physical labor,
| I would be willing to bet that the average physical laborer in
| say 1800, who we know was significantly smaller, would be weaker
| as well. Farmers and people who do physical labor do build
| muscles, but they also have modern high nutrition diets and
| medicine.
| snozolli wrote:
| _In another vein, technology could also help us perfectly fit
| bodies by altering our cells at a molecular level. But if there
| is no need to move to contribute to the economy, why would anyone
| do such an expensive thing?_
|
| Because it's nice to have the strength when you need it. Also, it
| protects your body. I developed a bulged disc in my neck from
| decades of spending too much time at a computer. Muscular balance
| and variety of movement is critical to maintaining a healthy
| body. Not to mention benefits like lessening injuries from
| accidents.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Also because physical attributes are a key component of
| attractiveness, regardless of their actual utility.
|
| We're not just economic units. We eat, we love, we breathe
| fresh air, we sleep. Even in a far-flung future, if we are
| still human, we are still animals.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| And it is not even expensive to a full type 1 civilization on
| the Kardashev scale. We just need to hack some genes to not
| require exercise to develop muscle mass. We already can do it
| with drugs, and we probably could do it genetically if it
| wasn't for safety and ethical concerns. As for the cost, I
| expect a Type 1 civilization to be able to fix genetic diseases
| as a routine operation, and they could fix muscle atrophy at
| the same time, if desired.
|
| Muscle mass requires more energy, but by definition, a Type 1
| civilization has no shortage of it. And I expect making food
| out of thin air (like plants do) would be the kind of
| technology such a civilization would have.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| If society ever developed along the lines proposed, which is
| highly improbable to begin with, then speaking of humanity as a
| whole is a complete nonstarter.
|
| We'd naturally fork, because that future sounds like a dystopic
| hellscape to many (if not the overwhelming majority).
|
| And indeed once we reach the point of being able to reliably
| colonize other planets, large scale splintering (both physical
| and cultural) will begin near immediately. You'll have
| libertarian planet, Islamic planet, even the Mormons will finally
| have their planets! And so on.
|
| And the people who want to sacrifice their bodies to go enter the
| machine will certainly have their own little slice of the
| universe as well.
| 383toast wrote:
| getting splintered metaverses seem way more feasible than
| splintered physical planets
| elzbardico wrote:
| Then you get a Chicxulub and it is all over.
| jerf wrote:
| You have to have _everyone_ go into the splintered metaverses
| to avoid physical expansion. Everyone. Every biological body.
| Every AI. Every AI written for the specific purpose of having
| a long enough time horizon to settle new locations
| physically. Even the AIs written specifically to marshal
| together the physical resources to build more metaverse
| computing power. Even the AIs and fiesty biological bodies
| who one way or another end up with a 100% bias towards
| physical reality. Even the many, many beings who will quite
| accurately observe that no matter how short-term appealing
| this is a long-term loss. Even the beings who specifically
| want to be the ones in charge of the physical machinery and
| see an advantage to continuing to expand it. Every. Last.
| Being.
|
| I don't think this degree of uniformity is plausible.
|
| I reject this as an explanation for the Fermi paradox for
| similar reasons, except they're even more relevant across all
| of the putatively common alien civilizations. I don't even
| find it plausible that all of human civilization would do
| this, let alone all of every civilization ever.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| I couldn't agree more, but with one exception. I tend to
| heavily indulge the simulation hypothesis, but the nuance
| here being that it's not necessarily just an arbitrarily
| simulated complete reality.
|
| Our lives do an unbelievably good job of teaching us
| endless unteachable lessons. What if life as we know it is,
| for instance, little more than a day's lesson in another
| reality? Or a day of a gaming? Perhaps a test of character
| for some sort of role? There's no reason to assume time,
| and life expectancy as we know it, are universal truths.
| Even within our own reality the rate of the passage of time
| is variable.
|
| The only problem I have with the simulation hypothesis is
| it being turtles all the way down. Imagine you pass from
| this world only to 'awake' in another. How does the exact
| same simulation argument not just apply yet again? It seems
| fundamentally unfalsifiable and circular, but I suppose
| that is standard for any explanation of life.
| c22 wrote:
| I believe this is actually one of the strongest arguments
| for the simulation hypothesis. If simulated worlds are
| possible then there are almost certainly more simulated
| worlds than non-simulated worlds (of which there can only
| be one) so therefore the odds of existing in a simulated
| variety are never less than half and likely much higher
| or else simulated worlds cannot exist with enough
| fidelity to remain undetected.
| dpassens wrote:
| I think the last part is the problem with this argument.
| We can already simulate worlds (Minecraft), they're just
| very different from our own. It has to be possible to
| actually simulate our universe. Not just theoretically,
| but also practically: Someone needs to have enough
| energy, time, engineering ability, other resources, and
| enough motivation1 to run the simulation.
|
| Also, if you permit me to get spiritual for a moment, I
| believe that it could be theoretically possible to
| simulate any fully materialist universe, but I'm not
| convinced consciousness can arise from doing maths. Since
| I am conscious, this universe must not be simulated, no
| matter how many simulated worlds actually exist.
|
| [1] I'm assuming that most creatures intelligent enough
| to understand the concept of simulating a universe will
| want to try it. But if it takes an entire civilization to
| do so and that civilization has to choose between, say,
| spending the energy on simulation running or on food
| production, it's pretty clear what will happen.
| UltraSane wrote:
| In the excellent very hard sci-fi novel Diaspora by Greg Egan
| humanity has split into 3 main branches that don't really trust
| each other much.
|
| biological humans, which are subdivided into various
| genetically altered varieties and the original unmodified
| humans.
|
| nuclear powered humanoid robots that are not allowed on earth
| but are perfect for working in space.
|
| fully simulated humans being run on nuclear powered computers
| buried deep underground for security. Their minds run 700 times
| faster than normal humans.
|
| This feels pretty plausible to me.
| meiraleal wrote:
| Can't wait for the Rastafari planet
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| While its fun to explore ideas, this post commits the
| intellectual sin of simple extrapolation-ism when everything is
| just oh so much more complicated than that. As others are
| pointing out here in the threads, biological interventions for
| physical strength are inevitable.
|
| This stands to reason once you mentally discard exercise as a
| pre-requisite of strength. An elephant is strong, not because it
| exercises, but because of the biological mechanisms e.g. genetics
| that says: grow big, grow strong, and the effect size of those
| mechanisms are much much larger than individual differences due
| to exercise. It is clear, at least to me, that the need for
| exercise for adjusting strength has more to do with not spending
| extra energy building a body that has high upkeep if it isn't
| needed for survival.
| keiferski wrote:
| I don't know, to me it seems like biomedical engineering and
| manipulation will take off and develop a lot sooner than people
| willingly "upload" their minds to a machine - itself a dubious
| idea full of problems. I think it's far more likely that current-
| state humans _won 't_ be exploring the stars, but a genetically
| modified version of them will be.
|
| I think there is much less angst regarding the idea of upgrading
| humanity piecemeal, a la the Ship of Theseus, than there is to
| fully discarding one's body for a digital existence. This has
| already sort of happened over the last few hundred years with the
| concept of transplantable organs. Prior to the widespread
| acceptable of the interchangeability of organs, it was not
| uncommon to think that your self and body are unified and linked
| in a way that implied organ transplation was problematic or
| undesirable.
|
| And on that note - is it just me, or are biological visions of
| humanity's future fairly scarce in sci-fi and in futurism
| (another name for sci-fi)? My guess is because such topics seem
| dominated by software engineers, physicists, etc. that are less
| interested in biology.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I recently re-read Frederick Pohl's _Plague Of Pythons_ which I
| will try hard not to spoil for you. In it there is not only the
| most evil set of villains that I 've ever seen in science fiction
| based on dear Tellus, but they suffer muscular atrophy too.
| GlacierFox wrote:
| Sounds like an interesting book, added it to my reading list.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| "Gateway" by the same author definitely worth a read, too.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Oh yeah, _Gateway_ one of those sci-fi books that reads
| like literature.
| RunningDroid wrote:
| "Plague of Pythons" is available (for free) on Standard Ebooks
| for anyone else interested in reading it:
|
| https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/frederik-pohl/plague-of-py...
| visarga wrote:
| When we get to that point we will have the right methods to
| sculpt our bodies as we like. It's a matter of hormones or some
| other biological hack.
| derektank wrote:
| There's no guarantee of this. It's quite possible that muscle
| and bone cells require the stress of weight loading to develop
| properly and that there's no simple hack to make them do it
| without that response.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Maintenance of one's muscular-skeletal system is a Goldilocks
| problem. Too little exercise leads to atrophy, but too much also
| leads to degeneration. Eg the productive lifetime of slaves in
| the labor-intensive Caribbean sugar plantation system was only
| about 10 years. Breakdown of joints, ligaments and tendons was a
| common problem related to overwork (and is commonly seen in
| athletic training today).
|
| Similarly, my understanding of the history of yoga in India is
| that it was introduced because of the sedentary lifestyle of the
| Brahmin caste, and much like with office workers today in the
| USA, it served to keep them in decent physical shape.
| usixk wrote:
| Physical health is directly correlated to mental health, if
| anything we'd all be jacked to the teets
| caycep wrote:
| everyone knows our future is predicted by Wall-E
| justinator wrote:
| I don't think I actually agree with this guy. As anyone who is
| trying to grow their body knows, rest is important -- just as
| important as working out and workouts aren't all-day affairs
| either. You can get very strong with only a few hours/week in the
| gym.
|
| That's different than subsistence farming, where you're doing a
| lot of work at sub max levels most every day. You may get
| strongish, but you won't get large.
|
| Consider a modern day elite marathon runner, who works out >10
| hours/week. They can only do so at sub max levels of effort. The
| top end are prone to injury (overtraining), and the training
| itself limits muscle development.
|
| The majority of us are getting weaker and fatter. A few of us are
| still testing the limits of human physiology. The difference is
| you have a choice to be whatever part of the spectrum you want to
| be. Most choose "weak and fat".
|
| Much of this is tied to nutrition, which I don't think is talked
| about in the fine article. Same story, we have a choice to eat
| the best for us food, or to eat crap. That wasn't always the case
| for the subsistence farmer.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| You can get large with decently defined muscles with medium
| time investment.
|
| But real strength, like farmers traditionally had, is hardly
| visible and needs an insane amount of time just handling heavy
| weights.
|
| These people look completely average but can easily handle way
| more weight than the totally jacked body builder can.
|
| But if the goal is mainly the physic and not strength... Then
| yes: a few hours a week is plenty
| jajko wrote:
| I wouldn't claim they can handle more weight (since top
| bodybuilders are lifting insane weights to get those
| muscles), but they can certainly do it for much longer than
| bodybuilder who trains for short bursts of maximum efforts.
| Our body literally builds only around the effort it
| experiences, and 0 more, running in absolute minimalist mode.
|
| If you ever ie been running, say at 10km consistently, try to
| move that one day to 20km while maintaining the intensity.
| Significantly harder, you may experience various connective
| tissue issues too and not just muscle and energy management.
|
| Or break a leg or two like I managed with recent paragliding
| accident, don't move one of them for 3 months and you will
| find that body, in its quest for lowest energy spending at
| all costs literally consumed all connective tissue to barest
| minimum, so stuff just doesn't move at all. I guess other
| mode didn't develop since in our distant past, like in rest
| of animal kingdom, broken leg meant certain death.
| hwillis wrote:
| Silly.
|
| 1. Myostatin inhibitors are _already_ in development. We 're
| already using a drug that stops us from getting fat, why would we
| not use a drug that prevents atrophy?
|
| 2. This is entirely focused on what would be efficient at a
| global scale, while decisions are made on individual's desires.
| People (in general) want to look muscular and fit; it's as
| hardcoded into our reproductive desires as anything else is.
| Given increasing resources, is it reasonable to assert that
| people will choose to totally forgo their biological body? Why is
| it impossible for them to have the same productive advantages
| while retaining a physical body for when they want it?
|
| Human desire trumps production, _even in the long term_ , or at
| least medium term. I could eat monkey chow every day and never
| have to do dishes or cook ever again, and save an extra 10 hours
| a day. I could wear the same thing every day so a machine can
| fold it. I can put my brain in a jar to avoid commuting. But no
| matter how much technology advances, if I still spend 8 hours
| working with my brain implant or whatever then I'm still doing at
| worst 24% as good as the guy working 24/7. Why would it ever be
| worth giving up such basic human pleasures as eating or sex just
| for 4x the salary?
| mywittyname wrote:
| > Given increasing resources, is it reasonable to assert that
| people will choose to totally forgo their biological body?
|
| Maybe sexual selection will be altered by further technological
| changes. If we manage to technologically replicate the feeling
| of amazing sex with super hot individuals on demand, there
| would be little point in expending the effort it takes to have
| a great body for that purpose.
|
| There are plenty of other reasons great to exercise regularly.
| For one, it helps stave off the negative effects of aging in a
| way that I doubt a pill will ever manage. But that's also an
| argument for ridding us of these pesky bodies that we have to
| be carried around in.
| swayvil wrote:
| If paying the rent is our aim, who knows what unnecessary
| limbs may be disposed of. What need has a programmer for
| legs? Or arms even, if neuralink happens.
| frankhhhhhhhhh wrote:
| Sounds a lot like slavery.
| up2isomorphism wrote:
| He probably should worry about our brain atrophy sooner than our
| muscles.
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _Kardashev Scale_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40327782 - May 2024 (28
| comments)
|
| _Kardashev Scale_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27067895 - May 2021 (5
| comments)
|
| _Classifying Civilisations: An Introduction to the Kardashev
| Scale_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26108947 - Feb 2021
| (1 comment)
|
| _The Kardashev Scale_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24084021 - Aug 2020 (1
| comment)
|
| _Nikolai Kardashev (of Kardashev scale fame) died_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20619494 - Aug 2019 (1
| comment)
|
| _Kardashev Scale_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20603386 - Aug 2019 (31
| comments)
|
| _Kardashev scale_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2183106
| - Feb 2011 (15 comments)
| archagon wrote:
| I've been wondering if a similar phenomenon will be observed with
| our mental muscles. Will future generations know how to write a
| coherent e-mail or essay? Will they know how to approach solving
| a complex problem without AI assistance? Will doodling in class
| be supplanted by Midjourney prompting? Why bother thinking too
| hard when the machine can do it for you?
|
| When we are all immersed in the substrate of AI, will there be a
| gym equivalent for the intellectual?
| rekabis wrote:
| Bold of them to assume we'll survive the century at any level
| above the Iron Age, and with any population above the high
| millions to low billions.
|
| Capitalism is keeping us locked into the "Business As Usual"
| model that will bring us to civilization-destroying climate
| change by the middle of the century, and with tropics-denying
| lethally high wet bulb temperatures that will get well into the
| temperate zone by the end of the century. Think most of CONUS
| being uninhabitable for multiple days to weeks every year, with
| or without AC.
| swayvil wrote:
| The ideal towards which we all strive is, of course, the Dalek.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| Why do we use weird arbitrary milestones like the (logarithmic)
| Kardashev scale. It adds literally nothing useful to otherwise
| fun conversations like this.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Jargon is often used for in-group signaling.
| wy35 wrote:
| Yes. "Kardashev Scale" has now become a slop indicator.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Tech can surely overcome muscle atrophy if it was a real issue.
| Do we even need muscle if we add more powerful add on to walk for
| example? I would argue we want to keep muscle because we can have
| very precise control and feeling, unless the new stuff can make
| it even better.
| bradarner wrote:
| A castle built on sand. The only way to take the premise of this
| claim seriously is to ignore data for the past 100 years.
|
| When I was in the US military, we all complained about the Body
| Mass Index standards. They were based on the WWII era "normal".
| Men were smaller. Less muscle mass. Shorter. If the average fit
| American young man tried to fit into a pilot's cockpit from the
| 1950's, it would feel quite cramped. Like it was built for much
| small people. It was.
|
| We have certainly climbed the Kardashev scale since the 1950's.
| To what degree is a matter of contention. But, all would agree
| that we have moved up the scale.
|
| Muscle atrophy has not been correlated with the growth. The
| opposite seems true. The average American, both male and female,
| has more muscle mass than in 1924. A 2024 person spends
| significantly more time on average in a gym pushing their muscles
| to hypertrophy than in 1924.
|
| In addition, it is likely that the romantic picture of the
| average laborer "bodybuilding" is fictive and ignores how muscle
| atrophy and hypertrophy works. Most laborers are NOT doing
| activity that leads to hypertrophy. They are staying well within
| cardiovascular zones of muscle activation. Hence, bodybuilders as
| we know them are largely a modern phenomenon. And they are
| certainly WAY more muscular.
|
| Seems the model that underlies this claim is built on seemingly
| demonstrably false premises.
| RankingMember wrote:
| > The average American, both male and female, has more muscle
| mass than in 1924.
|
| I don't necessarily disagree with your thesis, but I'd be
| genuinely interested in reading the source on this, unless you
| just mean because people are bigger overall they have more
| muscle as a function of weight.
| bradarner wrote:
| No, I do mean precisely the average muscle mass is higher.
| Granted we are dealing with statistics. There is inevitably a
| lot more context than just a myopic focus on this single
| fact.
|
| Dated but still relevant:
| https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/evolution-bmi-values-us-
| adult...
|
| This is particular relevant in the military because your
| fitness level is graded relative to you BMI. Hence, it is
| common trope one hears in the military. It is a practical
| question in the military. If the BMI is based on 1950's
| pilots and today's soldiers have a higher average BMI, then
| it can have an impact on promotions, fitness scores, health
| assessments, etc.
| loeg wrote:
| > The average American, both male and female, has more muscle
| mass than in 1924.
|
| This is true, but sort of a sleight of hand -- obese people
| that don't exercise have more muscle mass than non-obese people
| who don't exercise, just to carry around all of the fat. And
| obviously the average American, both male and female, is more
| overweight/obese than in 1924.
|
| (I agree with basically everything else you say, though.)
| bradarner wrote:
| Agreed, I was debating whether or not this was relevant to
| mention.
|
| What I could have added was a caveat that sample non-obese
| people from each time would indicate that 2024 people have
| greater average muscle mass.
|
| Personally, a more interesting question is whether growth
| along the Kardashev scale leads to a greater disparity in
| muscle mass vs body fat. The past 100 years would seem to
| indicate that it is possible. That being said, it could also
| be a uniquely American phenomenon. My hypothesis would be
| that avg muscle mass among French men has still grown over
| the past 100 years but I don't think obesity has grown to the
| extreme that it has in the USA.
| nradov wrote:
| The major federal government food assistance programs came out
| of findings in WW2 that many potential recruits were literally
| malnourished and underweight. They had grown up poor and
| starving during the Great Depression. Beyond the human tragedy
| this was a national security issue. Some men were too small and
| weak to meet military standards.
| voldacar wrote:
| It's worth noting that the anatomic accuracy of classical
| statues like Laocoon, the Farnese Hercules, etc. indicates that
| there were at least _some_ men walking around in antiquity with
| an amount of muscle mass that could only be developed by
| deliberate hypertrophy training of the whole body, as opposed
| to just getting muscle as a side effect of specific athletic
| training. It seems like these people were doing something quite
| similar to modern bodybuilding, goal-wise.
| tartoran wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(ancient_Greece)
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Anecdotal: I helped my dad a few years ago do a lot of
| genealogy. He had pictures going back to the late 1800s for one
| branch of the family that just arrived from Ireland. Most of
| the men were shirtless and you could count every rib. There was
| very little muscle.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Y'all are talking about noise inside of stage 2 from the
| link. A lot of it just being due to economics.
| whatever1 wrote:
| I need three hands so that I can hold my smartphone at alll times
| kibwen wrote:
| Not that our muscles aren't important, but I'm less worried about
| our muscles atrophying as a result of technology and more worried
| about our brains atrophying as a result of technology.
| sneak wrote:
| More people read more things off of more screens than ever
| before in history.
|
| This fear is unfounded. It isn't the proliferation of
| technology that is making people dumber; it's the American
| cultural deemphasis of education, entirely independent of
| technology.
| knowitnone wrote:
| Yes, with the internet, I've read more, learned more than it
| would have ever been possible without the internet. But with
| LLMs, I fear the part of our brain that performs
| reasoning/critical thinking will diminish. Just look at all
| those who fell for flat-earth, alien cow abductions, anti-
| vax, etc.
| ganzuul wrote:
| ...So I'm advanced?
|
| This means I'm advanced.
| jonnycoder wrote:
| He says he has a hard time beating his feather in arm wrestling
| despite him working out. Anecdotally blue collar people have much
| strong wrist flexion (cupping) than us white collar people, but
| pronation and technique can help negate that. My experience shows
| that power cleans can help with arm wrestling but not many people
| do those.
| loeg wrote:
| Yeah, arm-wrestling is kind of a specific skill that isn't
| covered by most "exercise" (including strength training) unless
| you are specifically focused on it. It's like notorious for
| skinny-looking specialists being able to best jacked non-
| specialists.
| nunez wrote:
| Absolutely correct.
|
| Traditional office culture makes it very difficult to get a
| proper workout in while, at the same time, confining you mostly
| to your chair, hunched over a desk (and/or craning over a small
| screen), to view things on a screen that eats away at your eyes
| by default.
|
| WFH made this worse. I've worked with so many people that start
| work at 0700 and end at 1700 or later.
|
| Add shitty, cheap food, 2.5 kids and a partner in there, and
| you're basically on an express train to bad hips, bad knees, poor
| health markersa and immobility at (not so) old age.
|
| "Work out during your lunch hour," you say. The author spends a
| lot of time on muscle use. Powerlifting workouts require lots of
| rest between sets, especially as you get stronger. Spending 2h on
| a workout is normal in powerlifting. Not happening during lunch
| hour, not like this matters because someone will just schedule a
| meeting over it anyway.
|
| "But I wake up at 0400..." No. Just no. (A) A parent with two and
| a half kids is not getting up at ass o clock in the morning to
| chase that pump (or work out to stay healthy) when their kids are
| gonna wake them at 0640, and (b) this is an awesome way to either
| sleep like shit forever or incinerate the last fledglings of your
| social life.
|
| All this aside, the farmer life is a super hard way to live, .
| Overuse injuries are very common. However, we went the complete
| opposite direction in building today's office culture, and it's a
| real shame.
| maxglute wrote:
| Be hipster type II civilization brain in a jar. Wonder what it's
| like to have muscle / strength train. Incubate a body, start
| lifting.
| rbanffy wrote:
| The timescales involved in us becoming even a K1 species are
| probably enough to say we won't be anything resembling current
| humans, neither physically nor socially.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > why would anyone do such an expensive thing?
|
| I find it amusing that somehow resources would still be
| constrained as we go closer to be a Kardashev I civilization.
| bangaloredud wrote:
| "Our neurons will atrophy as we climb the Kardashian Scale"
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-12-16 23:01 UTC)