5 ms·

Why I Hope to Die at 75

27 points by jsc123 12y ago

mathgeek 12y ago
The use of any specific number of years is, to me, arbitrary. Essentially this argument comes down to hoping to die before old age really sets in. I think for anyone who aspires to this mindset, it's better described as "I hope to live as long as my body will let me enjoy life, and not a moment shorter or longer." Having seen every member of the last two generations of my family die while I was in my 20's and 30's, I find myself hoping I live as long as that mindset dictates. I also hope that lasts until I'm far older than 75.
- zdean 12y ago
  I wonder if the author would have picked 47 as his number had he lived in 1900. It seems he's content with the advances that have increased life expectancy since then but feels it somehow inappropriate to shoot past 75. As a counter-example, Frank Lloyd Wright was productive up to his final year at 92: http://www.planetclaire.org/fllw/works.html http://www.planetclaire.org/fllw/works.html
  - rayiner 12y ago
    In 1900, a 60-year old white male, like the author, could expect to live to about 75, versus about 80 today. Medical advances over the last century have largely addressed death in childhood or middle age. Vaccinations and antibiotics are probably responsible for most of the increase in life expectancy. I don't think technologies that prevent early death are at odds with the author's argument.
    - mathgeek 12y ago
      I would say that scientific advances would definitely play into the argument. Suppose that modern investments into "reversing aging" pay off to the tune of adding twenty years to the average healthy lifespan, regardless of how many years it takes until we get there (i.e. 20 more years of healthy life, on average). A like-minded author in 21XX would almost certainly say he/she wishes to die at 95.
      - rayiner 12y ago
        Sure, but that's a different argument than the one 'zdean made about life expectancy in 1900.
- saalweachter 12y ago
  This author would have been 7-8 when "My Generation" (with the lyric "hope I die before I get old") was on the air.
3327 12y ago
I tell this to my friends, I am much younger but none the less there is a time when everything is awesome and fun and after that its just pain and no reason to struggle and try to keep hanging on. Its like a date that is not working and you are just trying to make it happen to no avail. Enjoy youth, have fun, love and cherish and when the music stops - its time to turn off the lights...
bryanlarsen 12y ago
Happiness peaks at the age of 85. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2384327/Happiness-decreases-age-peaks-past-50--85-happiest-year.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2384327/Happiness-...
rayiner 12y ago
The rebuttal to this is life-extension, but I have to say that's not something I'm looking forward to. First, a future with people living dramatically longer is going to be one with fewer kids, at least at equilibrium population levels. Second, it will slow-down social change and innovation. Even if scientific advancements can help people retain their creativity, anyone at 80 is going to be burdened by decades of assumptions. Imagine if the generation that stood behind George Wallace when he said, in his inauguration speech, "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," were still the core of our body politic. There is no higher social benefit to life extension, at least none that I can see. It's a uniquely individualist/selfish technology.
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  Life extension has very little impact on population levels. Population is an exponential equation, with the average number of children in the exponent. Life length is a simple constant.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    In equilibrium: death rate = 1 / (life expectancy at birth) = birth rate. The number of kids per couple may stay the same, but the number of kids born per year decreases as the inverse of the life expectency, and the percentage of the population that is kids goes down.
- _random_ 12y ago
  Please don't be offended, but your vision is very limited. Like early sci-fi limited. If everything goes well you might end up being a distributed mind having multiple avatars across different planets. Your kids could be not just randomly generated gene sequences, but something better. If that fish crawled out of the water, we can overcome life-extension consequences.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - 12y ago
xlm1717 12y ago
I think what this boils down to is an unwillingness to deal with hardship. It feels more and more like Americans are starting to avoid pain at all costs.
- nine_k 12y ago
  Not only personal hardship: feeling that you are a burden to your relatives sucks, and it sucks for the relatives, too.
Red_Tarsius 12y ago
I don't. I want to live for as long as I can, feeling constant pain, seeing new technology unfold and be extremely grumpy. I want to be there and help out my grandchildren with the wisdom of a lifetime. I want my grandchildren to take care of me and learn to be grateful for their youth. 75 is not that old, both of my grandmas are around/past that age and they are strong and clever as ever.
- DanBC 12y ago
  > feeling constant pain Do you currently live with pain?
  - tdfx 12y ago
    I was going to point this out, as well. There is a certain level of physical pain where your ability to focus on anything external to the pain is severely diminished. Having recently spent time with people in end of life situations, I have to say that the urge to "fight on" is definitely championed more often by those who are far removed from the day-to-day details.
cpursley 12y ago
As someone who's job involved visiting nursing homes in a past life, I don't understand the desire for general life extension. Most of these elderly folks were full of tubes and pills (at the cost to taxpayers of $7k per month). This is no way to live. We as a society should focus less on "life extension" and more on living healthy lives and curing disease in general. Old age is not a disease. What's wrong with living and dying with dignity?
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > As someone who's job involved visiting nursing homes in a past life, I don't understand the desire for general life extension. Most of these elderly folks were full of tubes and pills (at the cost to taxpayers of $7k per month). "Elderly folks in nursing homes" are not a representative sample of people in their age range. There is a pretty significant selection bias there. > We as a society should focus less on "life extension" and more on living healthy lives and curing disease in general. Most focus on "life extension" is on curing diseases of aging and repairing or presenting progressive damage that results in decreased quality of life and, ultimately, death, so I don't think the goals you prefer are actually much different than what focus on "life extension" already means in practice. > What's wrong with living and dying with dignity? Nothing. Lots of us would just prefer more of the former, and doing the latter later.
nine_k 12y ago
This guy for some reason posits that by 75, meaningful life is over. He says: > living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. This makes sense, but I don't see why 75 is the age. One can become the described above shadow of oneself earlier, or can still be interested in life and actively contributing past this age. It would be best to say "I plan to die when I feel old, decrepit, and useless, or right before it". Well, so do I. But I also hope that both medicine and my actions will keep pushing the age when this is going to happen.
- guessbest 12y ago
  Age doesn't determine anything. It is just a number. Health is what determines longevity and that is what everyone wants in abundance. Otherwise, I'm with you. I want to keep using this mind and body as long as modern science will let me.
drygh 12y ago
> By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life. The author seems to reach this by asserting that the things he currently values will not be possible when his health declines. How does he know that these values won't change by the time he's 70? The things we value constantly change. As kids, we value playing games, eating candy, making friends, etc. These values change as we become young adults, and seem to change throughout different stages of life. The things the author seems to currently value can be found here: > It (old age) robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. Not all people value creativity, and ability to contribute to society equally though. The author seems to be defined by his work and ability to keep up the image as a highly-functional, productive, independent member of society. If this is how you define yourself, then of course old age looks like a loss. > Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible. People do this to live a higher quality life too, and the benefits are short-term. Ironically, not doing these things can arguably "rob us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world", something the author seems to value more than anything else.
jqm 12y ago
eh... I'll be impressed when he writes the same article at age 74.

27 points by jsc123 12y ago

The use of any specific number of years is, to me, arbitrary. Essentially this argument comes down to hoping to die before old age really sets in. I think for anyone who aspires to this mindset, it's better described as "I hope to live as long as my body will let me enjoy life, and not a moment shorter or longer." Having seen every member of the last two generations of my family die while I was in my 20's and 30's, I find myself hoping I live as long as that mindset dictates. I also hope that lasts until I'm far older than 75.

zdean 12y ago
I wonder if the author would have picked 47 as his number had he lived in 1900. It seems he's content with the advances that have increased life expectancy since then but feels it somehow inappropriate to shoot past 75. As a counter-example, Frank Lloyd Wright was productive up to his final year at 92: http://www.planetclaire.org/fllw/works.html http://www.planetclaire.org/fllw/works.html
- rayiner 12y ago
  In 1900, a 60-year old white male, like the author, could expect to live to about 75, versus about 80 today. Medical advances over the last century have largely addressed death in childhood or middle age. Vaccinations and antibiotics are probably responsible for most of the increase in life expectancy. I don't think technologies that prevent early death are at odds with the author's argument.
  - mathgeek 12y ago
    I would say that scientific advances would definitely play into the argument. Suppose that modern investments into "reversing aging" pay off to the tune of adding twenty years to the average healthy lifespan, regardless of how many years it takes until we get there (i.e. 20 more years of healthy life, on average). A like-minded author in 21XX would almost certainly say he/she wishes to die at 95.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      Sure, but that's a different argument than the one 'zdean made about life expectancy in 1900.
saalweachter 12y ago
This author would have been 7-8 when "My Generation" (with the lyric "hope I die before I get old") was on the air.

3327 12y ago

I tell this to my friends, I am much younger but none the less there is a time when everything is awesome and fun and after that its just pain and no reason to struggle and try to keep hanging on. Its like a date that is not working and you are just trying to make it happen to no avail. Enjoy youth, have fun, love and cherish and when the music stops - its time to turn off the lights...

bryanlarsen 12y ago

Happiness peaks at the age of 85. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2384327/Happiness-decreases-age-peaks-past-50--85-happiest-year.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2384327/Happiness-...

rayiner 12y ago

The rebuttal to this is life-extension, but I have to say that's not something I'm looking forward to. First, a future with people living dramatically longer is going to be one with fewer kids, at least at equilibrium population levels. Second, it will slow-down social change and innovation. Even if scientific advancements can help people retain their creativity, anyone at 80 is going to be burdened by decades of assumptions. Imagine if the generation that stood behind George Wallace when he said, in his inauguration speech, "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," were still the core of our body politic. There is no higher social benefit to life extension, at least none that I can see. It's a uniquely individualist/selfish technology.

bryanlarsen 12y ago
Life extension has very little impact on population levels. Population is an exponential equation, with the average number of children in the exponent. Life length is a simple constant.
- rayiner 12y ago
  In equilibrium: death rate = 1 / (life expectancy at birth) = birth rate. The number of kids per couple may stay the same, but the number of kids born per year decreases as the inverse of the life expectency, and the percentage of the population that is kids goes down.
_random_ 12y ago
Please don't be offended, but your vision is very limited. Like early sci-fi limited. If everything goes well you might end up being a distributed mind having multiple avatars across different planets. Your kids could be not just randomly generated gene sequences, but something better. If that fish crawled out of the water, we can overcome life-extension consequences.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- 12y ago

xlm1717 12y ago

I think what this boils down to is an unwillingness to deal with hardship. It feels more and more like Americans are starting to avoid pain at all costs.

nine_k 12y ago
Not only personal hardship: feeling that you are a burden to your relatives sucks, and it sucks for the relatives, too.

Red_Tarsius 12y ago

I don't. I want to live for as long as I can, feeling constant pain, seeing new technology unfold and be extremely grumpy. I want to be there and help out my grandchildren with the wisdom of a lifetime. I want my grandchildren to take care of me and learn to be grateful for their youth. 75 is not that old, both of my grandmas are around/past that age and they are strong and clever as ever.

DanBC 12y ago
> feeling constant pain Do you currently live with pain?
- tdfx 12y ago
  I was going to point this out, as well. There is a certain level of physical pain where your ability to focus on anything external to the pain is severely diminished. Having recently spent time with people in end of life situations, I have to say that the urge to "fight on" is definitely championed more often by those who are far removed from the day-to-day details.

cpursley 12y ago

As someone who's job involved visiting nursing homes in a past life, I don't understand the desire for general life extension. Most of these elderly folks were full of tubes and pills (at the cost to taxpayers of $7k per month). This is no way to live. We as a society should focus less on "life extension" and more on living healthy lives and curing disease in general. Old age is not a disease. What's wrong with living and dying with dignity?

dragonwriter 12y ago
> As someone who's job involved visiting nursing homes in a past life, I don't understand the desire for general life extension. Most of these elderly folks were full of tubes and pills (at the cost to taxpayers of $7k per month). "Elderly folks in nursing homes" are not a representative sample of people in their age range. There is a pretty significant selection bias there. > We as a society should focus less on "life extension" and more on living healthy lives and curing disease in general. Most focus on "life extension" is on curing diseases of aging and repairing or presenting progressive damage that results in decreased quality of life and, ultimately, death, so I don't think the goals you prefer are actually much different than what focus on "life extension" already means in practice. > What's wrong with living and dying with dignity? Nothing. Lots of us would just prefer more of the former, and doing the latter later.

nine_k 12y ago

This guy for some reason posits that by 75, meaningful life is over. He says: > living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. This makes sense, but I don't see why 75 is the age. One can become the described above shadow of oneself earlier, or can still be interested in life and actively contributing past this age. It would be best to say "I plan to die when I feel old, decrepit, and useless, or right before it". Well, so do I. But I also hope that both medicine and my actions will keep pushing the age when this is going to happen.

guessbest 12y ago
Age doesn't determine anything. It is just a number. Health is what determines longevity and that is what everyone wants in abundance. Otherwise, I'm with you. I want to keep using this mind and body as long as modern science will let me.

drygh 12y ago

> By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life. The author seems to reach this by asserting that the things he currently values will not be possible when his health declines. How does he know that these values won't change by the time he's 70? The things we value constantly change. As kids, we value playing games, eating candy, making friends, etc. These values change as we become young adults, and seem to change throughout different stages of life. The things the author seems to currently value can be found here: > It (old age) robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. Not all people value creativity, and ability to contribute to society equally though. The author seems to be defined by his work and ability to keep up the image as a highly-functional, productive, independent member of society. If this is how you define yourself, then of course old age looks like a loss. > Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible. People do this to live a higher quality life too, and the benefits are short-term. Ironically, not doing these things can arguably "rob us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world", something the author seems to value more than anything else.

jqm 12y ago

eh... I'll be impressed when he writes the same article at age 74.