7 ms·

Did we expect it to grow forever?

latexr 2y ago
If someone said “my son has stopped wetting the bed”, would you reply “did you expect them to wet the bed forever”? What if someone said “my leg no longer hurts”, would you reply “did you expect it to hurt forever”? How about “my bag of candy is almost empty”, would you reply “did you expect it to be full forever”? The information that something stopped or slowed down is still useful without having to think it was going to go on eternally. It allows you to adjust your plans for the future.
- wesselbindt 2y ago
  > my mother died > did you expect her to live forever?
Brajeshwar 2y ago
If not forever, but if 200-ish becomes a norm, it would be super awesome. Now, it is like, “Awesome, I know this, I know that. I need to learn that.” “Hold on, time to die.”
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  I assure you many aspects of a society where 200 years old becomes a normal life expectancy would be a hellscape and not "awesome." We already currently have a massive societal and economic problem with aging populations as things currently are.
  - geodel 2y ago
    Come on wouldn't it be great fun with a dozen diseases, broken hip bone, shitting in diapers (if one can afford) people celebrating their 177th birthday. Seems people would sacrifice their first born if such dream life is guaranteed.
    - derektank 2y ago
      Physical exercise is the most potent life extension intervention we have. So it's very unlikely we'll get anyone to 200 if they're stuck in bed with a broken hip.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    The problems are due to what aging involves and the lack of young people inverting the population pyramid; getting us to 200 at all means solving every age-related biological problem, while also meaning we have longer to start a family and have kids to stabilise that population pyramid.
    - JohnMakin 2y ago
      Lol ok so imagine your dream scenario is everyone, magically and with equality, is able to live and reproduce to absurdly long time frames - that’s also a hellscape in so many easily imaginable ways. you’ll start to see jobs requiring 100+ years experience or with the right genetic modifications to make you insurable enough to invest a 60 year career into. Since this is all science fiction, we can imagine all sorts of things as we understand this is fiction. My only real point is this isn’t a utopian future. we can’t deal with the amount of humans we already have at the ages they live to. I don’t see what solving aging does to solve any of these problems.
      - JohnPrine 2y ago
        you'd rather everyone die than to see experience requirements for certain jobs go up?
        hackable_sand 2y ago
        What a rude comment. Everyone already dies.
      - throaway2112 2y ago
        Kind of ironic that your "hellscape" is created by an increased difficulty to get a job.
        JohnMakin 2y ago
        Kind of ironic only in that's literally how society works
- Ekaros 2y ago
  200 at what qualitative life point currently? 80? 90? 100? Spending an other 100 years like say from 80 to 100... Well you are alive, but still...
  - asoneth 2y ago
    My grandfather lived to 104. More impressive was that he still played tennis regularly in his 90s. It's not his lifespan I aspire to, but his healthspan.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  The macroeconomic implications of that large a fraction of the population being above working age or such a large fraction of one's life not being working years are not exactly great.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Apart from the fact that "working age" doesn't mean the same thing in a world that has anti-aging interventions? Our economic system is incompatible with the next 200 years irregardless of what specifically gets invented. At 5%/year, that's a factor (not percentage) of 17292 growth; in energy terms that's not quite boiling the oceans, but it is making the poles the only barely livable zone. In any sense besides energy, this kind of growth implies automation that makes the meaning of work radically different than today. Human or superhuman AI would be an example of that, but the successful creation of that has other complications that we can currently only guess at with less awareness than the Victorians had of climate change or biodiversity loss.
geodel 2y ago
And then some. I understand some tech billionaire want to live forever by eating hundreds of pills a day for nutrition, anti-aging, disease control etc. Their life may be "great" for some definition of great. But do billions of people on earth think that their life will become great in another 50 years even if it is rather miserable right now? I just live under rock to not know the desires of modern human.
nerdponx 2y ago
The actual story here is that it's slowing down because the lower tail is growing, not because the upper tail is compressing as we hit some kind of upper limit of human longevity. That is: more people are actually dying younger, which has been gradually offsetting other people living longer.
- edflsafoiewq 2y ago
  I wonder if "life expectancy" is really such a useful metric, since it aggregates so many different things together. It's kind of like measuring "aggregate years of human life lived".
  - nerdponx 2y ago
    It's still useful because it provides some information. Specifically, a change in life expectancy, or a change in the rate of change in life expectancy (as here) means something. We just don't necessarily know what that something is without further study.
  - throw4847285 2y ago
    It leads to a lot of misunderstandings. For example, lower life expectancy throughout history is far more attributable to higher infant mortality than to adults dying young. But people think everybody died at 45.
- mr_toad 2y ago
  That’s the exact opposite conclusion of this paper. “Our analysis also revealed that resistance to improvements in life expectancy increased while lifespan inequality declined and mortality compression occurred.”
shirro 2y ago
It seems reasonable to expect it to grow even at a diminished rate until everyone enjoys equivalent access to health care, nutrition, occupational safety etc but that is subject to the political environment, priorities of the electorate and the capacity of the economy. Without pandemic, famine, war or natural disaster a decline in life expectancy is generally the result of public policy for a rich democracy and not an inevitability. I think we need to distinguish between longevity and health though. Lots of people live with chronic disease and giving them more quality of life counts for more than longer life IMO.

If someone said “my son has stopped wetting the bed”, would you reply “did you expect them to wet the bed forever”? What if someone said “my leg no longer hurts”, would you reply “did you expect it to hurt forever”? How about “my bag of candy is almost empty”, would you reply “did you expect it to be full forever”? The information that something stopped or slowed down is still useful without having to think it was going to go on eternally. It allows you to adjust your plans for the future.

wesselbindt 2y ago
> my mother died > did you expect her to live forever?

Brajeshwar 2y ago

If not forever, but if 200-ish becomes a norm, it would be super awesome. Now, it is like, “Awesome, I know this, I know that. I need to learn that.” “Hold on, time to die.”

JohnMakin 2y ago
I assure you many aspects of a society where 200 years old becomes a normal life expectancy would be a hellscape and not "awesome." We already currently have a massive societal and economic problem with aging populations as things currently are.
- geodel 2y ago
  Come on wouldn't it be great fun with a dozen diseases, broken hip bone, shitting in diapers (if one can afford) people celebrating their 177th birthday. Seems people would sacrifice their first born if such dream life is guaranteed.
  - derektank 2y ago
    Physical exercise is the most potent life extension intervention we have. So it's very unlikely we'll get anyone to 200 if they're stuck in bed with a broken hip.
- ben_w 2y ago
  The problems are due to what aging involves and the lack of young people inverting the population pyramid; getting us to 200 at all means solving every age-related biological problem, while also meaning we have longer to start a family and have kids to stabilise that population pyramid.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    Lol ok so imagine your dream scenario is everyone, magically and with equality, is able to live and reproduce to absurdly long time frames - that’s also a hellscape in so many easily imaginable ways. you’ll start to see jobs requiring 100+ years experience or with the right genetic modifications to make you insurable enough to invest a 60 year career into. Since this is all science fiction, we can imagine all sorts of things as we understand this is fiction. My only real point is this isn’t a utopian future. we can’t deal with the amount of humans we already have at the ages they live to. I don’t see what solving aging does to solve any of these problems.
    - JohnPrine 2y ago
      you'd rather everyone die than to see experience requirements for certain jobs go up?
      - hackable_sand 2y ago
        What a rude comment. Everyone already dies.
    - throaway2112 2y ago
      Kind of ironic that your "hellscape" is created by an increased difficulty to get a job.
      - JohnMakin 2y ago
        Kind of ironic only in that's literally how society works
Ekaros 2y ago
200 at what qualitative life point currently? 80? 90? 100? Spending an other 100 years like say from 80 to 100... Well you are alive, but still...
- asoneth 2y ago
  My grandfather lived to 104. More impressive was that he still played tennis regularly in his 90s. It's not his lifespan I aspire to, but his healthspan.
potato3732842 2y ago
The macroeconomic implications of that large a fraction of the population being above working age or such a large fraction of one's life not being working years are not exactly great.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Apart from the fact that "working age" doesn't mean the same thing in a world that has anti-aging interventions? Our economic system is incompatible with the next 200 years irregardless of what specifically gets invented. At 5%/year, that's a factor (not percentage) of 17292 growth; in energy terms that's not quite boiling the oceans, but it is making the poles the only barely livable zone. In any sense besides energy, this kind of growth implies automation that makes the meaning of work radically different than today. Human or superhuman AI would be an example of that, but the successful creation of that has other complications that we can currently only guess at with less awareness than the Victorians had of climate change or biodiversity loss.

geodel 2y ago

And then some. I understand some tech billionaire want to live forever by eating hundreds of pills a day for nutrition, anti-aging, disease control etc. Their life may be "great" for some definition of great. But do billions of people on earth think that their life will become great in another 50 years even if it is rather miserable right now? I just live under rock to not know the desires of modern human.

nerdponx 2y ago

The actual story here is that it's slowing down because the lower tail is growing, not because the upper tail is compressing as we hit some kind of upper limit of human longevity. That is: more people are actually dying younger, which has been gradually offsetting other people living longer.

edflsafoiewq 2y ago
I wonder if "life expectancy" is really such a useful metric, since it aggregates so many different things together. It's kind of like measuring "aggregate years of human life lived".
- nerdponx 2y ago
  It's still useful because it provides some information. Specifically, a change in life expectancy, or a change in the rate of change in life expectancy (as here) means something. We just don't necessarily know what that something is without further study.
- throw4847285 2y ago
  It leads to a lot of misunderstandings. For example, lower life expectancy throughout history is far more attributable to higher infant mortality than to adults dying young. But people think everybody died at 45.
mr_toad 2y ago
That’s the exact opposite conclusion of this paper. “Our analysis also revealed that resistance to improvements in life expectancy increased while lifespan inequality declined and mortality compression occurred.”

shirro 2y ago

It seems reasonable to expect it to grow even at a diminished rate until everyone enjoys equivalent access to health care, nutrition, occupational safety etc but that is subject to the political environment, priorities of the electorate and the capacity of the economy. Without pandemic, famine, war or natural disaster a decline in life expectancy is generally the result of public policy for a rich democracy and not an inevitability. I think we need to distinguish between longevity and health though. Lots of people live with chronic disease and giving them more quality of life counts for more than longer life IMO.