[Mkguild] Life Expectancy in MK universe

[Kit]

Well originally my including Olsen's story was because those arguing for the
other side kept bringing it up and I wanted to point out that it was a very
bad argument. Furthermore the fact that, as you say, those two were NOT
experts and would be more likely to describe what they see than apply the
term of 'old age' to a young child. That said, I think basing our arguments
off of this brief appearance of death in one story is really stupid if all
we have to base our arguments is casual wording.

Now to address your first point. You are perfectly correct that they would
not be able to identify individual causes of death and just associate it
with old age. However, they would not be able to recognize these things as
being killed the same way since they don't associate these things with such
young looking and acting people. They wouldn't recognize a kid dying of a
heart attack or stroke as having died from the same thing that killed the
old guy down the street. To most people it would look like the old guy
finally succumbed to his weakness whereas the kid would appear to just
abruptly drop dead. They don't have the advantage of knowing both people
were killed by the same thing. Now this point is kind of vague and we can
argue over it quite a bit more, but since it's relating to what people
perceive as old age and how this affects the argument through Olsen's story,
I say we leave it behind with the other arguments based off that scene. The
debate is more about what should happen to ARs when they eventually die, not
what happened to the AR that DID die because, as we've already found, the
evidence from that scene is inconclusive.

Which brings me to your second argument. Yes, these things can still build
up, but if we allow for heart attacks and stroke, than we also need to allow
for poor eyesight, rheumatism, and all sorts of things that happen to old
folk. If we go by this argument, then the ARs do in fact age while never
hitting puberty. I think it is quite clear from established canon stories
that this does not in fact happen, leading to either a mysterious death
which can only be caused by the curse itself or having all of this aging
compressed into the AR's final day of life. So while you bring up several
interesting points, in the end we are right back where we started from.

Kit

On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 1:52 AM, Stephen Tigner <stephen.tigner at gmail.com>w=
rote:

> I re-ordered the text I'm quoting in reply to, to consolidate it a bit. n=
.n
>
> On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 10:29 PM, Kit <stormkit10 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > First, to answer your question: I was referring to the part where they
> said
> > he died of old age. The rest was showing why it wasn't evidence for
> sudden
> > death.
>
> Okay, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're making an
> assumption that your argument about it supporting your argument of the
> curse weakening and rapid aging before death is self-explanatory based
> on the story's exposition. Which it isn't, at least not to me, sorry.
> I would appreciate an explanation of exactly how the story shows
> evidence _against_ "sudden death" as you put it. I can see not
> supporting either, or supporting sudden death, given Berlin's wording,
> but not against sudden death. And again, if I'm way off base in my
> assumption here, please correct me. ^_-
>
> >Even if someone was killed by a heart attack, they'd be
> > considered to just drop dead and not of old age.
>
> Would they really? That's one of the points I was trying to make. What
> assumptions would be made by people, both commonly and by those who
> would make official declarations in this setting? Would they really
> have the knowledge or techniques to be able to determine it was a
> "heart attack" for the reason of death and not just an assumption that
> they just were really old and died suddenly because of it?
>
> Keep in mind that in the MK timeline, this curse hasn't been around
> all that long, and so there's many unexplored and unexplained things
> about it. Just as scientific knowledge had to be revised as new
> discoveries were made, and there were some pretty crazy assumptions
> (see Newton's "Corpuscular Theory" in optics, for an example).
>
> It could very well be that if they don't have the ability to as finely
> distinguish the causes of death like we do nowadays, the assumption
> could be made, if someone died of a stroke or a heart attack, for
> instance, that it was just of old age.
>
> > That said, this point you bring up is a very convincing one. No one
> > really does die of old age, old age just makes a person weak enough to =
be
> > killed by stuff that wouldn't kill a younger person. In fact this
> argument
> > almost convinced me until I realize that these heart attacks and other
> > natural causes couldn't kill a person unless they are weakened by
> something
> > such as old age.
> ...
> > The whole point of the AR
> > curse in many people's eyes is that victims don't start to get weaker
> with
> > age. A 90 year old kid would be just as energetic as a 15 year old one.
> > Granted childhood diseases could take out several and random chance and
> > violence several more, but those that don't have nothing to make them
> weak
> > enough as time goes on to be taken out by such 'natural causes'. Unless
> the
> > curse has some sort of inherent time limit (a case I'm willing to
> consider),
> > then something needs to happen to make them weak enough to be killed by
> > infirmities.
>
> I expected this argument actually. n.n Which is why I mentioned the
> fact that young people can and do die unexpectedly, and due to causes
> (such as strokes) that you'd normally associate with old age. They
> don't necessarily have to have been "weakened" by age to succumb to
> death by "natural causes". I also mentioned an example of cholesterol
> plaques eventually clogging up arteries and causing heart attacks as
> one example of something that wouldn't be affected by the fact the
> body isn't breaking down.
>
> I believe one of the reasons why you don't see heart attacks sooner is
> that it takes years to build up those plaques. The body can stay
> youthful, but things like that can still build up, over time. Sure age
> weakens the heart, but if it's clogged, it's clogged, regardless of
> age.
>
> Oh! Don't forget stuff like cancer as well. Some carcinogens do occur
> naturally, and they may not know about the existence of cancer. And
> that can cause death fairly quickly depending on the cancer, sometimes
> with little or no notice, and effects people of all ages, but again,
> could be construed as dying of "old age".
>
> There may be other maladies they could succumb to that wouldn't be
> tied to age either, but could be blamed on them, but heart attack,
> stroke, and cancer are the ones that come to mind as examples right
> now.
>
> So I think the argument here comes down to: Medical
> knowledge/techniques available, and assumptions linked to such. And
> the likelihood of an AR suddenly dying of one of a malady that because
> of the former would be called dying of old age.
>
> To summarize the first: Again I contend that with the state of
> medicine as it is then, they may not be able to as finely determine
> cause of death as they can now, and just may attribute any number of
> causes, some of which may effect ARs, with faulty assumptions about
> ARs dying of "old age" due to the newness of the curse and how much is
> unknown about it.
>
> (Extra note that just occurred to me) Also, the two speaking aren't
> exactly medical practitioners, and even if they *had* a specific
> reason, the characters could have just automatically associated such
> (like a heart attack) with old age, and assumed they died of old age.
>
> And summary of the second: Contributing factors to diseases of 'old
> age' can still be there, even if the body itself isn't breaking down
> due to age. These factors, and the diseases themselves, can affect
> younger folks as well (stroke, heart attack, cancer, for example).
>
> Sorry if that was rambling a bit, but I hope it makes sense. n.n
>
> -- Stephen
>
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