5 ms·

There is nothing science fiction about continued improvement of modern medicine. The lives of the elderly today are dramatically different from those 2 or 3 de

There is nothing science fiction about continued improvement of modern medicine. The lives of the elderly today are dramatically different from those 2 or 3 decades ago. In another 3 or so decades it will be different still.

philwelch 15y ago
That's speculative, and not really that true. My dad (born 1927) has high blood pressure, and he's on the same no-salt diet his father was on. Some things don't progress. Sometimes technology gets to a local maximum and the next breakthrough is perpetually about 50 years away (i.e. energy production). We won't be the first generation to die of cancer despite spending our youths convinced that they would have cured cancer by then.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  That's a really terrible example. The survival rates of many forms of cancer have dramatically increased in recent years. The only reason we don't have a "the cure" is because if you understand what cancer really is, that is a nonsensical concept.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    Sure, but cancer still remains a leading cause of death along with heart disease. In other words, no one is living that much longer even if cancers earlier in life can be successfully treated. And that has almost nothing to do with the eventual degradation of the mind and sensory organs that nearly everyone experiences in old age.
Nick_C 15y ago
I'm not so sure. For one, most of us know the dangers of extrapolating past the end of data points, so we shouldn't base longevity changes on an extrapolated graph. Secondly, there are signs that longevity has peaked. There was an article a couple of weeks ago that got bandied about in the Australian press (which I can't find now, darn it) that life expectancy is now a little shorter than it was a decade ago. From memory, it was USA data, so perhaps a US reader will remember it.

5 ms·

There is nothing science fiction about continued improvement of modern medicine. The lives of the elderly today are dramatically different from those 2 or 3 de

by burgerbrain 15y ago

philwelch 15y ago
That's speculative, and not really that true. My dad (born 1927) has high blood pressure, and he's on the same no-salt diet his father was on. Some things don't progress. Sometimes technology gets to a local maximum and the next breakthrough is perpetually about 50 years away (i.e. energy production). We won't be the first generation to die of cancer despite spending our youths convinced that they would have cured cancer by then.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  That's a really terrible example. The survival rates of many forms of cancer have dramatically increased in recent years. The only reason we don't have a "the cure" is because if you understand what cancer really is, that is a nonsensical concept.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    Sure, but cancer still remains a leading cause of death along with heart disease. In other words, no one is living that much longer even if cancers earlier in life can be successfully treated. And that has almost nothing to do with the eventual degradation of the mind and sensory organs that nearly everyone experiences in old age.
Nick_C 15y ago
I'm not so sure. For one, most of us know the dangers of extrapolating past the end of data points, so we shouldn't base longevity changes on an extrapolated graph. Secondly, there are signs that longevity has peaked. There was an article a couple of weeks ago that got bandied about in the Australian press (which I can't find now, darn it) that life expectancy is now a little shorter than it was a decade ago. From memory, it was USA data, so perhaps a US reader will remember it.