Today, a quick look at "marginal returns to modernity" and how our WEIRD modern brains appear to be ageing faster than those of people who live in communities that have chosen not to fully embrace global industrialised modernity.
Of course modern science and medical care is more likely to get us to an age where such cognitive decline will even be noticeable - but that said, why can't we have both? (Longevity and wellth*)
Where else can you spot "marginal returns" to progress?
Where else can you see that more gets us less not more?
When is enough enough?
And what other lessons about balance can we take from the past into the future?
(As Grimes said on Twitter recently - it would be "cool" to leave space for the "AI Amish" to live among us. Yes, it would be "cool" to opt out of the parts of modernity - be they lifestyle or technological that do not serve us of that have past the point of marginal maximum.)
(*not a typo, a pun)
Read more:
Marginal returns to modernity : https://www.wired.com/story/aging-brain-volume/
AI Amish : https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/1655715136047570944
Marginal returns to modernity