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What is wrong with the sentence about the medication? This is not advice by the way. You can't take advice from old people on how to live old because they don'

by jraph 2y ago

What is wrong with the sentence about the medication? This is not advice by the way. You can't take advice from old people on how to live old because they don't know themselves how they managed it. And there's the survivor bias. And that would be anecdotal. Only the scientific method and solid studies can give us insight on what makes us live longer. Advice you quoted seems harmless, and is seducing, but we don't know if this is what allowed this long life. Her advice tends towards avoiding stress and we know that stress is to be avoided, so that might (and probably is) good advice, but we know that from scientific studies and you will need to adapt the advice to you, taking in account what stresses you and what relaxes you. Some old people have been drinking a glass of wine a day or smoking a lot and that somehow didn't kill them, they might even believe that it helped them stay alive longer, and there's probably even some truth in this because they might have enjoyed it and we also know that being happier helps you live longer, but that might still be terrible advice that has all the chances to harm you. It might have even harmed them, maybe they would live even longer without the smoking and the drinking. Everybody is different and some good advice for one person might not apply to another. An old person might know what's good for them, but that may not apply to you. Only solid scientific studies will help us know what tends to work for many/most people.

givemeethekeys 2y ago
> they don't know themselves how they managed it I disagree. You can definitely look at oldest people and ask them how they're different from their peers who died younger. You will get examples of choices that they made which lead to their longevity. Maybe they ate better, exercised better, slept more, didn't sweat the small stuff... or maybe they chose to get every single available vaccine to ensure against illness. Of course, they may also have "better" genes. > there's the survivor bias Well, yeah. Many people want to live "longer" - as in out survive everyone else.
- jraph 2y ago
  That's not what survivorship bias means. More on this in my reply to your sibling comment. > Of course, they may also have "better" genes. That's part of the issue: they might have something different from you such that their advice may not apply to you. And since they have an exceptionally long life, they might not be like the majority. But you are likely to be like the majority (you probably don't know yet. If you knew you might not even need advice in the first place). But we don't hear much about stuff to avoid from people who died younger. Not that those people also know about a number of data point of 1 anyway. That's why we need rigorous studies.
david-gpu 2y ago
> And there's the survivor bias Isn't that precisely the reason why you would want to ask old people, because the survivor bias has eliminated people with habits that were not conducive to a long life?
- jraph 2y ago
  No, that's exactly the trap that must be avoided: Quoting Wikipedia [1] > Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not. For example, you'll hear the advice from the 1% of people who survived drinking every day and who might even think it was good for them, and not the warning from the 99% for whom it didn't work, or worse, who died from it. Unfortunately, you are 99% more likely to be like these 99% than like that 1%. (Numbers totally made up). Intuition gets in the way with this kind of stuff. It's all too easy to be willing to take advice from old people who appear wise to us for all sorts of cultural reasons, but they are most probably not experts in this stuff and they actually most likeky really don't know better. They have a number of data point equal to 1. Our intuition makes it quite hard to understand this, even for people with scientific / statistics background, but all this stuff we know from this background doesn't stop applying when it comes to old people. It doesn't mean it's not enjoyable or interesting to get an old person's view on this, but one should not forget to apply critical thinking. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
  - david-gpu 2y ago
    > For example, you'll hear the advice from the 1% of people who survived drinking every day and who might even think it was good for them, and not the warning from the 99% for whom it didn't work, or worse, who died from it. Let's use an example to understand. Let's say that 30% of the population fifty years ago drank and smoked, and 10% did neither. Say that if you drink and smoked, then your chances of living to a hundred years is 1%, but if you do neither then it is 10%. In that scenario, how likely is it that when you ask a centenarian they will be drinkers and smokers vs abstaining from both? How does it compare to the general population? Would you live longer than the general population by following the advice of the centenarians? Does it make sense now?

by jraph 2y ago

givemeethekeys 2y ago

> they don't know themselves how they managed it I disagree. You can definitely look at oldest people and ask them how they're different from their peers who died younger. You will get examples of choices that they made which lead to their longevity. Maybe they ate better, exercised better, slept more, didn't sweat the small stuff... or maybe they chose to get every single available vaccine to ensure against illness. Of course, they may also have "better" genes. > there's the survivor bias Well, yeah. Many people want to live "longer" - as in out survive everyone else.

jraph 2y ago
That's not what survivorship bias means. More on this in my reply to your sibling comment. > Of course, they may also have "better" genes. That's part of the issue: they might have something different from you such that their advice may not apply to you. And since they have an exceptionally long life, they might not be like the majority. But you are likely to be like the majority (you probably don't know yet. If you knew you might not even need advice in the first place). But we don't hear much about stuff to avoid from people who died younger. Not that those people also know about a number of data point of 1 anyway. That's why we need rigorous studies.

david-gpu 2y ago

> And there's the survivor bias Isn't that precisely the reason why you would want to ask old people, because the survivor bias has eliminated people with habits that were not conducive to a long life?

jraph 2y ago
No, that's exactly the trap that must be avoided: Quoting Wikipedia [1] > Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not. For example, you'll hear the advice from the 1% of people who survived drinking every day and who might even think it was good for them, and not the warning from the 99% for whom it didn't work, or worse, who died from it. Unfortunately, you are 99% more likely to be like these 99% than like that 1%. (Numbers totally made up). Intuition gets in the way with this kind of stuff. It's all too easy to be willing to take advice from old people who appear wise to us for all sorts of cultural reasons, but they are most probably not experts in this stuff and they actually most likeky really don't know better. They have a number of data point equal to 1. Our intuition makes it quite hard to understand this, even for people with scientific / statistics background, but all this stuff we know from this background doesn't stop applying when it comes to old people. It doesn't mean it's not enjoyable or interesting to get an old person's view on this, but one should not forget to apply critical thinking. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- david-gpu 2y ago
  > For example, you'll hear the advice from the 1% of people who survived drinking every day and who might even think it was good for them, and not the warning from the 99% for whom it didn't work, or worse, who died from it. Let's use an example to understand. Let's say that 30% of the population fifty years ago drank and smoked, and 10% did neither. Say that if you drink and smoked, then your chances of living to a hundred years is 1%, but if you do neither then it is 10%. In that scenario, how likely is it that when you ask a centenarian they will be drinkers and smokers vs abstaining from both? How does it compare to the general population? Would you live longer than the general population by following the advice of the centenarians? Does it make sense now?