5 ms·

In the UK, your chance of death within the year crawls from approx 0 to 5% between 0 and 80 but then climbs rapidly to 30% by 100 and >50% by 110. https://www.

by oli5679 10y ago

In the UK, your chance of death within the year crawls from approx 0 to 5% between 0 and 80 but then climbs rapidly to 30% by 100 and >50% by 110. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html The recent 100 years of medical advances have lead to massive life expectancy gains (1/4-1/3 year per year in the developed world) but has had no noticeable impact on the age of the oldest living humans or mortality rates of centurions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_people https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_... Based on this, I think there's a good case for pessimism when speculating whether any living human will live to 150+.

duncan_bayne 10y ago
"I confess that in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years" - Wilbur Wright "It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere." - Thomas Edison "There has been a great deal said about a ... rocket shot from one continent to another, carrying an atomic bomb and so directed as to be a precise weapon ... I say, technically, I don't think anyone in the world knows how to do such a thing. and I feel confident it will not be done for a very long period to come. I think we can leave that out of our thinking. I wish the American public would leave that out of their thinking." - Dr. Vannevar Bush Edited: what I meant by the above is that humanity has a solid track history of mis-estimating the pace of progress in new fields.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- krastanov 10y ago
  But mis-estimation goes both ways. Most academics were very optimistic about early general AI, for instance.
  - duncan_bayne 10y ago
    Absolutely. Also, there was a lot of misplaced optimism about helicopters replacing cars. But either way, I don't think the pessimism is justified.
    - Idontagree 10y ago
      I just find it a little difficult to believe that the one thing to have truly plagued mankind for all his existence (death) has suddenly received a serious blow. It has literally never happened before (as far as we know), and I'm not saying it can't, but current technology is like an infant if you consider it in the scale of what could be. I don't think death is just some easily fixed malfunction, but maybe many do.
      - chongli 10y ago
        I don't find it that hard to believe. I think of doctors as highly trained mechanics. We've already figured out how to keep old cars going forever. Humans are several orders of magnitude more complex but the basic idea is the same: fix the problems that kill you, one at a time.
      - dwaltrip 10y ago
        How is death the "only thing" that has truly plagued mankind? What about the need to eat? Relieve ourselves? The need for love and social connection? These are universal as well, and there are many other things that we have always been faced with.
- oli5679 10y ago
  I accept that its impossible to forecast the future with certainty. Sometimes humankind makes amazing breakthroughs that domain experts did not see coming (and sometimes progress is much slower that anticipated). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_Part_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_Part_II I wouldn't assign a probability of 0 that humans make the breakthroughs needed to see many of us becoming double-centurions. However, the last hundred years of medical research hasn't made much meaningful progress in preventing the rapid death of centurions, so I assign a probability far lower than 1.
- bsder 10y ago
  > Edited: what I meant by the above is that humanity has a solid track history of mis-estimating the pace of progress in new fields. There is a difference. Annual probability of death does NOT appear to be a distribution that we just have to expand. If it were, we should have had some human get to 150 years old by now--there appear to be real internal biological limits that kill us off before that. Having to remove (likely multiple) real hard limits from the human biological system is a very different problem. You will likely have to get them all before you get any extension. Of course, once you do that, you will likely get a HUGE extension.
Zigurd 10y ago
That's correct. It will take a fundamental change that may only be possible with genetic modification to get past the 110-130 range. 150 appears to be solidly out of reach.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  Given enough genetic modification, nothing is really out of reach. And more basic biotech is probably enough for massive improvement.
peripitea 10y ago
I think the centurion thing is probably just because we have not focused on the types of things that kill them yet. Look at this: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy/#it-is-not-only-about-child-mortality-life-expectancy-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy/#it-is-not-only-a... Life expectancy for a 50 year old has gone from 71 100 years ago to 83 today, and shows no signs of slowing. If anything, it appears to be accelerating. In just the last 50 years, life expectancy at 80 has increased by 50% (from 86 to 89). The data in this graph suggests that it takes longer for life expectancy to start to go up at higher ages, but does not suggest that there's any age at which this will stop happening. We probably just have to wait until enough people start making it to that age that it makes sense for us to focus on the relevant problems for that age.
- oli5679 10y ago
  That is a really interesting visualisation, but I believe it supports my argument. Now, 30% of the UK population reach 90, but there has been no meaningful progress in post-90 life expectancy in the last 100 years. It is commonly claimed that close to 50% of heath services resources are dedicated to caring for you in the last year of your life. As an anecdote, my friends who work for the NHS have noted that they now see 60 year olds as 'young' in the wards. A back of the envelope estimate would be that 1/6 of NHS resources are dedicated to caring for 90+. How much is enough?
  - peripitea 10y ago
    I think a better way to frame my argument is: look at the inflection points for each of the starting ages in the graph. 'at birth' has been going up since we have reliable data (1845). @20 has been going up since 1875. @60 has been going up since 1915. @75 has been going up since 1945. @85 only started to go up around 1980. @90/@95 look like they've only barely started to go up in the last decade. @100 and above are still completely flat. 100 years ago you could have looked at this data and just as easily said that there must be genetic/resource barriers to increasing life expectancy for 60-year-olds, since we've never been able to make a dent in their life expectancy -- at the time, the graph for @60 would still have been flat. Today that is obviously incorrect. The same thing could have been said 50 years ago for 80-year-olds, and again, that's now obviously incorrect. It's entirely possible that your hypothesis is valid, but if I had to guess I would say mine is more likely. Put another way, it's possible that 50 years from now the graph will still be flat for 100-year-olds, but I see no fundamental reason why that should be true, and the data certainly suggests to me that it won't be. A good way to test this might be the following: Based on the rest of this graph, I would guess that a decade from now, we'll see noticeable acceleration in the @100 line. If we don't, that might suggest that there is some fundamental barrier, or at least some anomalously hard problems there.

by oli5679 10y ago

duncan_bayne 10y ago

"I confess that in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years" - Wilbur Wright "It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere." - Thomas Edison "There has been a great deal said about a ... rocket shot from one continent to another, carrying an atomic bomb and so directed as to be a precise weapon ... I say, technically, I don't think anyone in the world knows how to do such a thing. and I feel confident it will not be done for a very long period to come. I think we can leave that out of our thinking. I wish the American public would leave that out of their thinking." - Dr. Vannevar Bush Edited: what I meant by the above is that humanity has a solid track history of mis-estimating the pace of progress in new fields.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
krastanov 10y ago
But mis-estimation goes both ways. Most academics were very optimistic about early general AI, for instance.
- duncan_bayne 10y ago
  Absolutely. Also, there was a lot of misplaced optimism about helicopters replacing cars. But either way, I don't think the pessimism is justified.
  - Idontagree 10y ago
    I just find it a little difficult to believe that the one thing to have truly plagued mankind for all his existence (death) has suddenly received a serious blow. It has literally never happened before (as far as we know), and I'm not saying it can't, but current technology is like an infant if you consider it in the scale of what could be. I don't think death is just some easily fixed malfunction, but maybe many do.
    - chongli 10y ago
      I don't find it that hard to believe. I think of doctors as highly trained mechanics. We've already figured out how to keep old cars going forever. Humans are several orders of magnitude more complex but the basic idea is the same: fix the problems that kill you, one at a time.
    - dwaltrip 10y ago
      How is death the "only thing" that has truly plagued mankind? What about the need to eat? Relieve ourselves? The need for love and social connection? These are universal as well, and there are many other things that we have always been faced with.
oli5679 10y ago
I accept that its impossible to forecast the future with certainty. Sometimes humankind makes amazing breakthroughs that domain experts did not see coming (and sometimes progress is much slower that anticipated). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_Part_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future_Part_II I wouldn't assign a probability of 0 that humans make the breakthroughs needed to see many of us becoming double-centurions. However, the last hundred years of medical research hasn't made much meaningful progress in preventing the rapid death of centurions, so I assign a probability far lower than 1.
bsder 10y ago
> Edited: what I meant by the above is that humanity has a solid track history of mis-estimating the pace of progress in new fields. There is a difference. Annual probability of death does NOT appear to be a distribution that we just have to expand. If it were, we should have had some human get to 150 years old by now--there appear to be real internal biological limits that kill us off before that. Having to remove (likely multiple) real hard limits from the human biological system is a very different problem. You will likely have to get them all before you get any extension. Of course, once you do that, you will likely get a HUGE extension.

Zigurd 10y ago

That's correct. It will take a fundamental change that may only be possible with genetic modification to get past the 110-130 range. 150 appears to be solidly out of reach.

AstralStorm 10y ago
Given enough genetic modification, nothing is really out of reach. And more basic biotech is probably enough for massive improvement.

peripitea 10y ago

I think the centurion thing is probably just because we have not focused on the types of things that kill them yet. Look at this: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy/#it-is-not-only-about-child-mortality-life-expectancy-by-age https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy/#it-is-not-only-a... Life expectancy for a 50 year old has gone from 71 100 years ago to 83 today, and shows no signs of slowing. If anything, it appears to be accelerating. In just the last 50 years, life expectancy at 80 has increased by 50% (from 86 to 89). The data in this graph suggests that it takes longer for life expectancy to start to go up at higher ages, but does not suggest that there's any age at which this will stop happening. We probably just have to wait until enough people start making it to that age that it makes sense for us to focus on the relevant problems for that age.

oli5679 10y ago
That is a really interesting visualisation, but I believe it supports my argument. Now, 30% of the UK population reach 90, but there has been no meaningful progress in post-90 life expectancy in the last 100 years. It is commonly claimed that close to 50% of heath services resources are dedicated to caring for you in the last year of your life. As an anecdote, my friends who work for the NHS have noted that they now see 60 year olds as 'young' in the wards. A back of the envelope estimate would be that 1/6 of NHS resources are dedicated to caring for 90+. How much is enough?
- peripitea 10y ago
  I think a better way to frame my argument is: look at the inflection points for each of the starting ages in the graph. 'at birth' has been going up since we have reliable data (1845). @20 has been going up since 1875. @60 has been going up since 1915. @75 has been going up since 1945. @85 only started to go up around 1980. @90/@95 look like they've only barely started to go up in the last decade. @100 and above are still completely flat. 100 years ago you could have looked at this data and just as easily said that there must be genetic/resource barriers to increasing life expectancy for 60-year-olds, since we've never been able to make a dent in their life expectancy -- at the time, the graph for @60 would still have been flat. Today that is obviously incorrect. The same thing could have been said 50 years ago for 80-year-olds, and again, that's now obviously incorrect. It's entirely possible that your hypothesis is valid, but if I had to guess I would say mine is more likely. Put another way, it's possible that 50 years from now the graph will still be flat for 100-year-olds, but I see no fundamental reason why that should be true, and the data certainly suggests to me that it won't be. A good way to test this might be the following: Based on the rest of this graph, I would guess that a decade from now, we'll see noticeable acceleration in the @100 line. If we don't, that might suggest that there is some fundamental barrier, or at least some anomalously hard problems there.