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by aydyn 1034 days ago
Ignore that response, theyre just being a jerk.

There are other mammals who live much longer than humans. Evolution optimized for continuation of the species, not longevity of the individual. So there is absolutely optimization room for increasing human lifespan.

1 comments

> There are other mammals who live much longer than humans.

This didn't ring true to me so I did a bit of reading. AFAICT there's one[0] species of mammal that can live much longer than us. We're at least tied for second-longest lifespan of all mammals.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowhead_whale

I think you should look at it in terms of lifetime calories burned per unit of body mass. Most mammals have very similar lifespan measured in this manner. With the exception of bats. Because they really needed to burn way more calories, so they figured it out how to do it without accumulating damage to their bodies that eventually leads to death at the same lousy rate that all other mammals can get away with.
Therr are multiple whale species that live 100+.

Also take into account that human lifespan in the wild without medical tech is ~40