It’s interesting to note that those oh-so-advanced humans prefer to save children to saving adults, even though there don’t seem to be any limits to natural lifespan anymore.
At our current tech-level this kind of thing can make sense because adults have less lifespan left; but without limits on natural lifespan (or neural degradation because of advanced age) older humans have, on average, had more resources invested into their development—and as such should on average be more knowledgeable, more productive and more interesting people.
It appears to me that the decision to save human children in favor of adults is a result of executing obsolete adaptions as opposed to shutting up and multiplying. I’m surprised nobody seems to have mentioned this yet—am I missing something obvious?
There are at least a couple of factors I see as relevant: choice, responsibility, and the notion of giving them a chance to live.
Children, necessarily, have much of their life controlled for them. They are not allowed to make a lot of important choices for themselves, whether they want to or not. So, it is important for those making choices for them to make the right ones, to justify not allowing them that control. I’m not sure I’m quite articulating the concept here, but...
It is the explicit social, legal, and moral obligation of parents to appropriately care for their children. In a broader sense, it is a general obligation of society to care for the weak, helpless, etc.
Part of why the death of a young person is a greater relative tragedy today is that they have greater remaining potential lifespan, but part of it, in many peoples’ mind, is that they have not yet had a chance to experience various major things. You’d feel a little sad for someone who, for example, died without ever having been in love, even if the person is 83, right? A little kid has missed a lot of experiences.
It’s interesting to note that those oh-so-advanced humans prefer to save children to saving adults, even though there don’t seem to be any limits to natural lifespan anymore.
At our current tech-level this kind of thing can make sense because adults have less lifespan left; but without limits on natural lifespan (or neural degradation because of advanced age) older humans have, on average, had more resources invested into their development—and as such should on average be more knowledgeable, more productive and more interesting people.
It appears to me that the decision to save human children in favor of adults is a result of executing obsolete adaptions as opposed to shutting up and multiplying. I’m surprised nobody seems to have mentioned this yet—am I missing something obvious?
There are at least a couple of factors I see as relevant: choice, responsibility, and the notion of giving them a chance to live.
Children, necessarily, have much of their life controlled for them. They are not allowed to make a lot of important choices for themselves, whether they want to or not. So, it is important for those making choices for them to make the right ones, to justify not allowing them that control. I’m not sure I’m quite articulating the concept here, but...
It is the explicit social, legal, and moral obligation of parents to appropriately care for their children. In a broader sense, it is a general obligation of society to care for the weak, helpless, etc.
Part of why the death of a young person is a greater relative tragedy today is that they have greater remaining potential lifespan, but part of it, in many peoples’ mind, is that they have not yet had a chance to experience various major things. You’d feel a little sad for someone who, for example, died without ever having been in love, even if the person is 83, right? A little kid has missed a lot of experiences.