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 whic

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.