On 30/3/23 09:48, Jonathan Clark - jonathan at att.net (via tml list) wrote:
> Wow, good discussion here. Let me underline that I do not claim that
> my ideas are well thought out (or even thought out at all), this is
> pretty much all just background colour for me.
<snip>
>
>
>>     Then you get those socialist hell-holes with fully socialised
>>     health-care, but they're boring so Travellers don't go to those.
>
> Chuckle.
More likely in areas with a strong Vilani influence - universal
healthcare being a comparatively cheap investment in keeping your
workforce going.
>
> Alex Goodwin:>     Looks like you're assuming golden age (from later
> on in your post) -
>>     where do human races with predispositions to longevity (eg
>> pureblood-ish
>>     Vilani, Daryens, etc) fit in?
>
> FWIW I run my own highly variant TU in which I am happy to make as
> many non-canon assumptions as make sense to me. That said, it's a good
> question which I have not thought about.
>
>>     Given old age being considered a disease/disorder, where do
>> senolytics
>>     (medicines that clean up the debris of metabolism aka aging
>> damage) fit in?
>
> Senolytics aka anagathics? (James Blish, I think.) Again, without
> thinking about it too much, I'd suggest that if you have those then
> they are all part of the normal medical care system. You hit a body
> age of (say 50), and you get started on those drugs. Like getting a
> colonoscopy these days.

Not quite as I understand them - anagathics directly _prevent_ (some
fraction of) aging damage accumulating ahead of time, while senolytics
_repair_ (some fraction of) existing aging damage.  Any prevention from
senolytics is indirect.  That may be a distinction without a practical
difference.

And how do either of those two classes of drugs differently affect
Vilani/Daryens/etc compared to baseline Terrans?

As you seem to be more comfortable with transsophont Traveller than I am
- what happens IYTU if, thanks to broad administration of
senolytic/anagathic drugs, baseline life expectancy in golden age
exceeds what Vilani bloodlines renowned for longevity managed in the ISW
(iirc, 300 years or so)?

>
>>     IIRC, there's seven major classes of aging damage suffered by us
>>     baseline Terrans (the ones that happen fast enough to knock us
>> mob off
>>     today - there may well be more, but we keel over too quickly for
>> those
>>     others to have an effect).  Cancer is only one of them.
>
> And Grandfather et al may have genetically engineered the Vilani for
> long life, fewer fragile genes/gene complexes/cancers, etc, etc.

Don't underestimate founder effects.  Start with an initial group that
(due to chance) aged slower to begin with, apply the ol' Yaskoydray
Yoink, then bung them in an early evolutionary environment where
longevity (somehow) and genetic robustness (again somehow - Vland is not
the deathworld Terra is, let alone STRAYA) got selected for.  If the old
bastard mucked with them on top of that, how could we tell at 300,000
years remove?

This didn't go as far as speciation, as GT:ISW implies (via Terrani
hybrids being interfertile with both parent strains and each other) that
Vilani are H. sapiens sapiens.

>
> <snip>
>
>>     So you're handling the radiation damage inflicted by the
>> cold-sleeper's
>>     own body to itself?  Would make for some interesting Frozen Watch
>> shenanigans.
>
> I handwave radiation damage, to be honest. Too much paperwork :-) EG
> no radiation in JumpSpace, and ships in RealSpace have significant
> electromagnetic fields to deflect such nasties. Otherwise, dragging
> this back to RL for a minute, no-one is ever going to spend any
> significant time outside the van Allen belts. I'm happy to accept that
> there are easy fixes for minor genetic damage. Perhaps everyone gets a
> complete scan of their DNA / epigenetics at birth, and part of your
> standard annual physical checkup is to get another one, and then
> injected with some virus which resets the DNA back to the original.
> Handwave time, again.
I was specifically talking about autologous radiation damage (very low
dose caused by the body's own cells, but with J. Random switchoff,
self-repair is similarly slowed), but I take your point.
>
> Me:
>>     > 6) Some types of genetic fragility - I'm thinking of things which
>>     > would express _in utero_, before it's possible to pop the
>> foetus out
>>     > and stick it into an auto-doc. After that things like
>> CRISPR/Cas9 with
>>     > a few thousand years development can take care of pretty much
>> anything).
>
> Alex Goodwin:
>>     Following along the "few thousand years development", wouldn't the
>>     capability to _fix_ most cases of that imply being able to
>> _screen for_
>>     such cases, ntm risk factors leading to it?  In our timeline today,
>>     genetic counselling is available for such wonders as sickle-cell
>> anemia,
>>     Tay-Sachs disease, etc - that capability would probably advance
>> in parallel.
>
> Yes, I agree, but these things happen. Horny teenagers, backward
> planets (the kinds that Travellers *do* tend to visit :-) ), and so
> on. Again, this is background colour to me.

I suspect we're thinking at different scales.  How far is _backward_,
given the medical knowledge would be moderately easy to import?

I also like to build out the background details of a setting so I can
figure out the stuff happening in the background, which gives not a toss
about the PCs (unless they cook off a nuclear device, or the like - waay
off topic, but have you tried a ground forces game where PCs are generals?).

>
> Me:
>>     > uterine replicators.
>
> Jeffrey Schwartz:>     T5 says you can grow clones either in fast-grow
> in a tank, or slow
>>     grow in a tank I suspect that counts as uterine replicator
>
> Good point, thank you!
Yeah, that works - scarily well.
>
> Alex Goodwin:
>>     Why would it have to be the same across one planet?  Frinstance,
>> noble families
>>     might have some private area for their demented geezers, while
>> the hoi polloi
>>     have to settle for nursing homes.
>
> I think we can guarantee that that sort of thing is *definitely* going
> to happen. Maybe not with dementia but with medical care in general,
> and everything else. Otherwise, what's the point in being rich? :-)
>
> Jonathan

Very true.

Alex