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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/lif

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.
  - oli5679 10y ago
    I suppose both stories would be consistent with this graph. To me: "the data certainly suggests to me that it won't be" is a bit strong for a data series which is completely flat for 100 year old life expectancy and 90 year old life expectancy only increases by 1 year between 1948 and the present day. I guess I would be a little disappointed if my life expectancy at 90 hasn't crawled up to say 96, but I see many people on HN placing a high weight on it being somewhere in the range of 200-infinity. The other interesting context is that all lines would be close to flat for most of human history. The idea that I can expect to die much older than my father did is as unique to the past 150 years as the expectation that I will die with significantly higher hourly wage than my father. I guess this is another version of Gordon's tech-progress debate.
jessriedel 10y ago
This is an incredible graph, an excellent example of nonobviousness of how to properly do trend extrapolation. Thanks for sharing.

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.
- oli5679 10y ago
  I suppose both stories would be consistent with this graph. To me: "the data certainly suggests to me that it won't be" is a bit strong for a data series which is completely flat for 100 year old life expectancy and 90 year old life expectancy only increases by 1 year between 1948 and the present day. I guess I would be a little disappointed if my life expectancy at 90 hasn't crawled up to say 96, but I see many people on HN placing a high weight on it being somewhere in the range of 200-infinity. The other interesting context is that all lines would be close to flat for most of human history. The idea that I can expect to die much older than my father did is as unique to the past 150 years as the expectation that I will die with significantly higher hourly wage than my father. I guess this is another version of Gordon's tech-progress debate.

jessriedel 10y ago

This is an incredible graph, an excellent example of nonobviousness of how to properly do trend extrapolation. Thanks for sharing.