I recently learned that there are some biological symmetries between almost all living creatures, in terms of size versus metabolism rate. Tiny creatures like mice and the shrew have very fast metabolisms; their hearts beat quickly, they breath rapidly, and they eat more than their own weight each day. But they burn out fast; their lives are relatively short, just a few years. Elephants are bigger than us, they have slower metabolisms. They live about as long as modern humans do today (70-80 years), but that’s a bit of an unfair comparison given that humans have the benefit of their brains and civilization; go back 2,000 years, and our average life span was more like 35 years. Admittedly, elephants in captivity don’t live as long as in the wild, but then again, how long would we live if we were held in captivity by elephants and they provided for our needs?
The bottom line of all this is that we get about 300 to 500 million breathes in our lifetime; shrews, mice, cats, dogs, humans, horses, and elephants get a bit less, more like 200 million (but again, until about 2,000 years ago, less than 10% of the overall history of the homo sapiens species, we would only get around 250 million breaths in our average 35 year lifespan). So, civilization has given us maybe an extra 150 million breaths. The question is, are we using those breaths wisely? Are we happier than shrews, dogs, cats, horses and elephants in the wild?
That’s a tough question to answer. But the process of civilization did make humans more wealthy on average, and it made certain individual very wealthy relative to everyone else. So we are able to ask this question: » continue reading …
