Modest Proposeal/Scale of things

[pengolodh_sc]

No: HPFGUIDX 43393

--- In HPforGrownups, Jodel wrote:
> Actually there are a couple of small things on the subject which
> I thought I'd mention.
> 
> First; in tying the probably number of adults in a community
> to the number of school-aged children (a good idea, btw) no
> one has mentioned that the ratio needs to be adjusted to allow
> for wizard's extended lifespans. There is a strong probability
> that this has resulted in there being anything up to twice as
> many adults to children as has been established in mundane
> world studies. 

[snip]

Actually we have - I did it in posts made about a year or more ago, 
and I think others have too.  Demographics of modern-day Scotland 
indicate that the number of students in the age-bracket 11-18 years 
old constitute roughly 10% of the total population, which means 1000 
students for a given town or area indicates a total population of 10 
000.  When several of us have extrapolated the number 20 000, that is 
from a simplification in the xpansion of statistical data to cover 
the expanded lifespan of wizards, assuming (1) that the average 
lifespan of wizards is twice that of muggles, and (2) that the 
expansion is linear (which it in actuality is not), leading to the 
estiamte that there is a 20:1 ratio between the total population and 
the number of students in the British wizarding-world.

> Some factors to consider are;
> 
> 1. Dumbledore at the age of 150 is regarded as old, but not yet
> frail from age. If Dumbeldore is a (physically) representitive
> example we might postulate that wizard lifespansd are roughly
> twice that of Muggles. (There is almost certainly an older
> discussion on wizarding lifespans somewhere in the archives.
> But it was before my time and I am only active through the
> Digest, so I will apologize for repeating anyone else's
> arguments without attributiuon.)
> 
> 2. That the children presently attending Hogwarts do NOT
> appear to be maturing at a slower rate than their Muggle
> ccounerparts suggests that unless wizard's extended lifespans
> are due to a natural slowing of the aging process upon maturity
> this extention of lifespan may be artificial, dependent upon
> certain routine physical maintenance spells developed over the
> past 300-400 years. 
[snip]

Not necessarily.  Whenever I have seen fantasy-literature inwhich 
some sub-group of particularly noble humans (or elves) is 
particularly long-lived (whether they be the Numenoreans/Dunedain of 
Tolkien, the Elcyion Lacar of Katharine Kerr, or others), the trends 
seems to be that they reach maturity as quickly as other men, but 
that they stay at the prime physically for much, much longer (looking 
to most people as though they're betweeen 30 and 40 years old), and 
that they only start aging properly when getting close to the end of 
their natural life.  Remember that Dumbledore around 1940-45 (when he 
must have been around 100) had auburn hair, and that Professor 
McGonagall in the books is described as having black hair.

> 3. There is no more reason to believe that wizards' lifecycles
> progress in the same steady pace of Muggles' unmodified
> physical processes than that they don't. 

[snip]

> (A supportive observation of this might be found in the fact
> that for various reasons, Black, Lupin, Pettigrew and Snape,
> all in their mid-30s, all evidently look every day of their
> ages, and more.)

They also all seem to have a reasons for doing so - Black having 
spent 12 years in Azkaban, Lupin going through his monthly, and there 
seems to be reason to believe Snape is carrying around quite a few 
ghosts of his own.  Pettigrew too has had his share of stress.

> I modestly propose that; Yes, wizards live approximately twice
> as long as Muggles, but that they do not remain young
> significantly longer. 

[snip]

Based on my points above, I disagree about how long they stay young - 
I think they stay in their prime much longer.

Best regards
Christian Stubø