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JollyJoker
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posted March 16, 2021 10:07 PM |
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It's pretty silly to call something a disease that every living being, no matter the species, has to go through. Makes no sense. A disease is per definition an ABNORMAL condition. Aging is normal, though. Even if it was fact that we wouldn't have to age (provided we would meddle with a couple of genes), it doesn't make aging a disease.
For the species, aging would seem to be a good thing (individually it sucks, obviously).
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artu
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posted March 16, 2021 10:49 PM |
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Edited by artu at 22:50, 16 Mar 2021.
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The years we consider real “aging” seldomly existed in our natural state anyway. Even 150 years ago, most people didnt even hit 60. And before we settled to agriculture, hunting and gathering in migratory state, the disadvantages of losing youth was obviously much more drastic.
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blizzardboy
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posted March 16, 2021 11:32 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
It's pretty silly to call something a disease that every living being, no matter the species, has to go through.
Not necessarily every living thing, but most everything.
So if there was a genetic condition that caused people to suffer a slow and painful and sometimes excruciating death - and a death that can in fact be more painful than many other ways to die - it wouldn't be a disease because if it affects 100% of the population? What do numbers or percentages have to do with it? I'm just curious why you think of it that way.
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husham123
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Yes
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posted March 16, 2021 11:43 PM |
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blizzardboy said:
Not necessarily every living thing, but most everything.
So if there was a genetic condition that caused people to suffer a slow and painful and sometimes excruciating death - and a death that can in fact be more painful than many other ways to die - it wouldn't be a disease because if it affects 100% of the population? What do numbers or percentages have to do with it? I'm just curious why you think of it that way.
'Death' is simply the end of life, or in other words, the inaction of being alive. There are four types of disease: infectious, deficiency, hereditary and psychological. Death doesn't fall into any of these categories. Death itself cannot be spread, it is not caused by a deficiency in anything (i.e. oxygen, water etc), instead a deficiency in vital resources leading to hypoxia, dehydration etc (the disease itself), it is certainly not hereditary, because every organism we have discovered 'dies', or more specifically is 'reborn'. Without such process they would cease to exist, so we do not inherit 'death'. Lastly, it cannot cause any psychological harm, because it's either a 'big sleep', or the Afterlife, where, until God judges us and sends us our merry way, it would not be a cause for dismay.
Death is not a disease. It's antithetic to the definition.
____________
What the darn-diddily-doodily did you just say about me, you little witcharooney? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class at Springfield Bible College, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret
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Lith-Maethor
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posted March 17, 2021 12:47 AM |
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Yes
OhforfSake said:
artu said:
Even 150 years ago, most people didnt even hit 60.
Isn't that a misconception?
It very much is. Sure, life was much harder back then, and you had a much greater chance of dying from accidents like falling down a flight of punches, but many could and did live well into their 80s and 90s.
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blizzardboy
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posted March 17, 2021 01:46 AM |
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You guys are putting words in his mouth (one of HC's favorite pastimes, I have noticed). All he said is that most people didn't hit 60.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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Corribus
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posted March 17, 2021 04:26 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 05:45, 17 Mar 2021.
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Here's an observation. We (scientists) have peer review for a reason. It's not a perfect system (god knows) but by and large it does mostly accomplish its goal, which is to serve as a check on outlandish claims that would otherwise mislead, by design or by accident, other scientists and, certainly, the public at large. It also implicitly mitigates the effects of conflicts of interest, both because most journals require that you divulge obvious (financial) ones and because the system makes it hard to put forward exaggerated conclusions that aren't directly supported by evidence - which would usually be made in the service of the aggrandizement of one's ego, career, or financial prospects. The process also teases out deliberate fraud, although more and more frequently that happens after publication by astute people who make a hobby out of sniffing out manipulated images and data.
Books, on the other hand, are the wild west. Scientists can say practically anything they want in books. Not only do books have no checks against conflicts of interest, in fact books are by definition based on conflicts of interest, because the goal of books (and their authors) is ultimately to sell books. Insofar as controversial positions or miraculous cure-alls for life's various ills are more likely to get people to buy books, the potential for abuse and conflicts of interest would seem to be self-evident. Which is not to say that books written by scientists about scientific topics don't have value. Books are good for stimulating discussion and disseminating ideas to the public, but they most certainly aren't the scientific record. Books don't set scientific policy and they don't constitute evidence in virtually any circumstances. For good reason. Books aren't examined before publication by qualified and neutral experts in the field. Good ones will cite primary literature, but even then I'd take it with a grain of salt that the citation is faithfully represented.
I am particularly wary about books that make vague, wide-ranging health promises. Many are written by high-standing scientists and physicians and often are probably, way deep down, based on some real research findings, but those findings have then been extrapolated to conclusions or recommendations that would never be accepted in the peer-reviewed literature based on the available scientific evidence*. The best case is that such books are honest attempts to put forward new or untested ideas that would find a hard time gaining acceptance in the mainstream scientific community. Or maybe they are trying to distil complicated scientific findings down into easily-digested cotton-candy to make it easily consumed by the public, written by brilliant scientists who are just not very good at it. (Note, I don't mean they're not good at writing. I mean they aren't good at communicating difficult scientific ideas accurately and in plain language, particularly the crucial part about acknowledging limitations. It's harder than you might think and intelligence has nothing to do with it.) On the other extreme there are books that are just snake-oil sold in paperback, peddled by charlatans hiding under Ivy League Credentials. Legit scientists once who got hooked on the narcotic scent of fame and fortune. I'm sure you can think of a notable example of one of those without thinking too hard. A third, particularly cynical speculation is that penning high profile books erupting with gilded promises are a round-about way of motivating public support for a self-serving policy initiative, e.g., to motivate Congress to allocate resources to fund a particular type of research from which the author or his/her parent organization will disproportionately benefit. Or maybe that's just a happy bonus to the royalty checks.
No matter the cause, such literature can be profoundly misleading to laypeople who don't have the experience to distinguish substantiated science from well-disguised speculation or outright fraud and are lulled in by top tier pedigrees and attractive promises. Good to get you thinking, maybe entertaining, but I wouldn't base any life decisions off it. The best advice to laypersons I could give is, if you want to base health and lifestyle advice on scientific advances, use accredited sources that have some kind of reasonable content oversight: peer-reviewed publications if you have access and technical experience sufficient to understand them, nonprofit science-based organizations and their publications, science-based government agencies and their print and online content, and even popular science magazines like Scientific American that are staffed by professional scientists and, while not peer-reviewed, do tend to at least try to put forward balanced accounts of the latest advances in science and technology.
There's a final recourse you may consider, should you read something in a book that sounds like an interesting idea but, if you're being honest with yourself, is beyond your technical experience to judge the veracity of: if you happen to have the luxury of having a professional scientist as an acquaintance, particularly one with no competing interests and a reputation for sticking to the straight and narrow because he believes strongly in the ethical conduct or research, you may lay it out to this person and ask his opinion. And even if you should volunteer the information and he should give his opinion to you unsolicited, you may still consider at least listening to what he has to tell you without becoming defensive, because his viewpoint may have value, at least as a counterpoint, and certainly won't hurt to hear. The best thing you can do is discuss things with people who disagree with you. It's the only way you test your beliefs and find flaws in them. Moreover, if he asks you difficult questions, remember that he's not trying to be a dick. He's probably just trying to find out exactly what your argument is so he can provide a good assessment of it. Besides, he is really just doing what he's trained to do: A capable scientist with a strong sense of ethics is, after all, basically an expert bullsnow detector.
*Although the commonly held view that scientists are quick to reject ideas that go against established orthodoxy is, based on my personal experience, a myth probably grounded in the era preceding modern professional science. Yes, biases exist and scientists do practice a healthy skeptical conservatism, but generally they follow where the evidence leads, even if ground-breaking findings may require a slightly higher standard than your run-of-the-mill study.
____________
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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artu
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posted March 17, 2021 06:48 AM |
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Edited by artu at 07:01, 17 Mar 2021.
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Lith-Maethor said:
OhforfSake said:
artu said:
Even 150 years ago, most people didnt even hit 60.
Isn't that a misconception?
It very much is. Sure, life was much harder back then, and you had a much greater chance of dying from accidents like falling down a flight of punches, but many could and did live well into their 80s and 90s.
No, it isnt. Yes, people had many kids and baby deaths were much more common but that’s not the only reason the average life span is down. A very simple way to observe this is, when you’re in an old cemetery, check birth and death dates, you’ll see that even in the 1930’s, 1940s, people who died young by our standards were much more common than people who got old. (Although, regarding early 20th century, results in, say, England and Turkey might be different.)
Also, keep in mind that the historical persons you think of, who lived long are mostly high-class and that means they lived in completely different standards than the general public. Most people in the past didnt even have access to clean water and decent nutrition.
Here is 20th century, where you have vaccines, antibiotics, public hospitals and this is U.S.A, not Africa: Link
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artu
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posted March 17, 2021 07:22 AM |
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Edited by artu at 07:24, 17 Mar 2021.
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Here’s another source:
Longevity has increased steadily through history. Life expectancy at birth was a brief 25 years during the Roman Empire, it reached 33 years by the Middle Ages and raised up to 55 years in the early 1900s. In the Middle Ages, the average life span of males born in landholding families in England was 31.3 years and the biggest danger was surviving childhood. Once children reached the age of 10, their life expectancy was 32.2 years, and for those who survived to 25, the remaining life expectancy was 23.3 years. Such estimates reflected the life expectancy of adult males from the higher ranks of English society in the Middle Ages and were similar to that computed for monks of the Christ Church in Canterbury during the 15th century. Link
And I wasnt basically talking about the medieval times but even before that, natural state would refer to before Neolithic age, before settlers.
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JollyJoker
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posted March 17, 2021 09:14 AM |
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blizzardboy said:
JollyJoker said:
It's pretty silly to call something a disease that every living being, no matter the species, has to go through.
Not necessarily every living thing, but most everything.
So if there was a genetic condition that caused people to suffer a slow and painful and sometimes excruciating death - and a death that can in fact be more painful than many other ways to die - it wouldn't be a disease because if it affects 100% of the population? What do numbers or percentages have to do with it? I'm just curious why you think of it that way.
By definition, a disease is an abnormal condition. For example, that you lose all your teeth in younger years and then get ONE set, and ONLY one set isn't a disease - but YOU could call it this way with YOUR definition, claiming that if you can ONCE replace a tooth - what's wrong with doing it a second time (naturally)?
A condition 100% of the people face who are not struck by death in younger years or die from a real disease, isn't a disease, but the way things are. And because we are humans and have certain abilities we don't like what we see and may try to change that.
I've read an article a couple of weeks ago that said, the diseases that come with aging aren't the DIRECT consequence of aging, but a consequence of the fact, that the immune system is aging as well and doesn't eliminate the so-called senescent cells completely (and later not at all). Senescent cells are cells that don't part anymore, and they are the guys that release the substances which lead to the development of "aging diseases" like diabetes, cancer and kidney failure.
So basically AGING is normal (and makes sense from a different than an individual pov), but developing diseases because of aging is something else.
Philosophicaly spoken, if the individual doesn't age and die (or age and die only after hundreds or thousands of years), individual life gets too valuable, the species won't develop anymore (conserving the status quo) and would probably lose the interest to multiply completely). Limiting the life span makes sense for the species (especially considering where we come from - imagine some people would have been 250 years old while the majority would die with 30).
I also agree completely with Corribus about "popular science books". We already have people becoming 200 years old in our imagination, just because an idea worked on a couple of mice.
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Neraus
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posted March 17, 2021 09:42 AM |
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I'd like to add that if you consider current world event, there has been a massive surge of scientists writing books, as well as non scientists (e.g. our minister of health), these same personalities also get lavish compensation for going in TV shows to essentially say the same things over and over.
What's weird is that these big names have said some outlandish claims half of which even came true, the other half of total idiocy however never gets disputed, because big name. It's basically what I've come to call the Fauci effect.
Which actually is even partially related to the topic, I have seen no big name actually explaining what is currently happening with AstraZeneca except: correlation is not causation the UK has done millions of vaccines and nothing happened and vaccines are safe.
Now, being in the field, I would at the very least list what could have happened, explaining why it may just be a coincidence or even then, just outright telling people this is a normal thing that happens in the initial rollout of any drug. Heck, my no name pharmaceutical technology professor gave out a more informative opinion than big names imo.
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ANTUDO
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blizzardboy
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posted March 17, 2021 12:06 PM |
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@Corribus:
I trust science but I don't (necessarily) trust scientists because in my experience they tend to have thick skulls when it comes to new ideas. They are taught something in university or early in their career and then they treat it as if it were something sacred and protect it like a mother bear. There's even been case studies about this.
The author doesn't make any promises about biological immortality, other than saying that it is not impossible - there is no ceiling on a creature's lifespan - and that medicine and specifically genetics is going to drastically improve in the near future. A person doesn't need to be an expert in a subject in order to connect the dots and decide if what they are reading is crazy talk or not. I have enough of an understanding about biology to follow what he is saying without being confused. As far as aging being a disease: right now the world of funding in medicine is very much flawed. We are investing huge amounts of money in things that offer relatively little in return (i.e. advanced Alzheimer's: if a total cure rolled out tomorrow it would barely affect overall lifespans) while other far more important things are neglected because they don't have the attention of Congress or other institutions. The exact definition of disease is something that has changed over time and not set in stone. Anorexia wasn't a disease 100 years ago and now it is. People never considered aging a disease in the past because there wasn't anything you could do about it. If that changes, then so might the definition of disease.
An example of pop science would be like how companies continue to obsessively market about antioxidants even though research has determined that their role in anti-aging was previously overstated. This isn't just with laypeople. It's common with professionals (including medical doctors) as well because once they get their degree and a position they often don't adopt an attitude of lifelong learning or even enjoy learning. They did it because they had to, and then they just fizzle out into mediocrity until they eventually retire, often give outdated or even outright bad advice to their clientele because of something they were taught 30 years ago that is cemented into the skull. Once the snowball starts rolling it can take on a life of its own in the marketing world. In other marketing circles, celery juice or beet juice is treated like a panacea, etc.
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blizzardboy
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posted March 17, 2021 12:28 PM |
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OhforfSake said:
I am not aware of any data on maximum life span through time, hence I assumed he wrote it because he had looked at average life span through time and made an incorrect conclusion.
An average lifespan adds up the total years of a population and divides it by the number of the population. A high infant mortality rate, among other things, gives underdeveloped countries a low life expectancy, but individuals in those places can still live into their 100s. In the past, life expectancy was very low compared to today. Under 60.
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blizzardboy
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posted March 17, 2021 01:58 PM |
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Which is what he said to begin with. Average life expectancy was comparatively very low.
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artu
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posted March 17, 2021 02:00 PM |
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And not only because infant mortality rate pulled it down.
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JollyJoker
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posted March 17, 2021 03:32 PM |
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However, the increase of average life expectation in the sense that people get older now than 100+ years ago isn't mainly down to "medical science". It's down to the fact that people have enough to eat, have easier jobs and work less, get paid vacations and sick leave and pensions when they are done working, are working less and less with hazardous materials, have less stress (like taking unwillingly part in a war), have safer workplaces and machine support and so on.
Life has been harder in the past - a lot harder.
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Corribus
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posted March 17, 2021 04:39 PM |
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@Blizz
Quote:
I trust science but I don't (necessarily) trust scientists because in my experience they tend to have thick skulls when it comes to new ideas. They are taught something in university or early in their career and then they treat it as if it were something sacred and protect it like a mother bear. There's even been case studies about this.
Let's examine this deeply for a moment, because it belies a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. It's a fairly pervasive viewpoint - obviously, since I preemptively addressed in the footnote of my previous post.
A few points:
1. Conceptually, the position that scientists are resistant to new ideas is contradicted by the fact that science is moved forward by new ideas. And what would science be without scientists? If scientists were resistant to new ideas, science would never work. When we peer-review articles prior to publication (and I do mean "we" here - I personally review several a month), one of the things we're asked to do is render an evaluation of a study's novelty - that is, does it bring something new to the table? A new view, a new approach, or a new conclusion. Professional journals aren't interested in trodden ground.* They WANT new ideas, and to succeed, scientists have to provide them. For that matter, so do funding agencies. Indeed, there are categories of grants by NIH that are specifically designed to fund high risk proposals - i.e., those that are based on especially forward thinking ideas with very little preliminary evidence to demonstrate their feasibility.
2. I suppose what you mean to say here is that "in my experience, [scientists] tend to have thick skulls when it comes to *radically* new ideas." (Side note: I'd like to know exactly what is "[your] experience" here. Is this personal anecdote, television, what?) There's an essence of truth here beneath the warped presentation of it, although I don't particularly like the idea of "thick skulls", because it trivializes (indeed, criminalizes) the fundamental requirement that science needs to be guided by parsimony. Which is to say, we don't** accept convoluted arguments for things that can be described by simpler ones unless there is good reason to do so. "Reason to do so being a substitute for the word "evidence". The fact is that scientists are trained to be skeptical of new ideas. If that's hard-headedness, OK, acknowledged, but you can't simultaneously reject scientists for skepticism and yet say you trust science. It's a self-contradictory position because skepticism is a fundamental part of science. Skepticism means a conclusion or theory is not acceptable until there is evidence to support its veracity, enough evidence to convince the scientific community, mind you (science is a team sport). Rejection is the default stance, a conjecture wrong until proven right based on evidence. How do we get evidence? Experiment. So, to sum, science thrives on new ideas to move knowledge and technology forward, but it requires experimentally-acquired data in order for new ideas to be acceptable. There's definitely a correlation of some kind between how radical an idea is and how much data scientists will require before they accept it, but I would challenge you to argue that escalating skepticism is a knock against science or scientists - if it wasn't a part of the process, science would be chaos, evidentiary standards would be nonexistent, and technology would get nowhere.
3. My anecdotal experience based on knowing dozens and dozens of scientists personally is that most scientists actually end up far away from where they started in terms of what they've learned. Scientists generally don't stop learning after their formal training is completed. Particularly so for research/academic scientists, it's practically a requirement, because methods evolve rapidly and the frontier is constantly shifting outward. Aside from being wrong and showing that you really don't know a lot about scientists, your "mother bear" caricature is snarky, ignorant, and disrespectful to the scientific community.
4. Based on my observation of your posts over the last few pages, it seems to me that you believe the opposite of what you've said here. You have put your trust in a book written by a scientist, a book that is not part of the science process. Nothing wrong with that, except that the process is one you claim you trust more than scientists. You say you trust science, but you criticize one of its fundamental principles. Maybe you think you trust science, but you don't seem to understand it, so what exactly is it you trust? My perception is that you have found an attractive high level idea, written by a scientist you trust (probably by credentials, since you went out of your way to say he was from Harvard) and then you have fallen back on a variety of heuristic arguments to convince yourself and the rest of us that the idea is true and that arguments to the contrary are a symptom of an untrustworthy system, a pure process (science) corrupted by people (scientists, except, presumably, the one who wrote the book) because of their personal failings.
None of this, by the way, means that the conclusions offered in the book are wrong. I haven't even been given a chance to properly consider its merits on technical grounds. But the stance that your analysis is a scientific one is kind of ludicrous. Why don't you just be honest? You read something, you liked the idea, don't know if it's right or not, but you decided to try out what he suggested and see what happens. End of story. Just don't try to convince me that it's the product of a rigorous scientific process.
Quote:
The author doesn't make any promises about biological immortality, other than saying that it is not impossible - there is no ceiling on a creature's lifespan - and that medicine and specifically genetics is going to drastically improve in the near future.
Saying something isn't impossible is not a scientific statement, because it violates the principle of falsifiability: you can't prove it to be wrong. It isn't impossible that I could wake up tomorrow as a unicorn. How can I prove this is wrong? So, speculation, fine, but not much use to me. From a logical standpoint, I suppose you could say, if nothing else kills you, then by definition you would live forever. Which is dumb, because some day the world will end, whatever. Ultimately, it's kind of a circular or self-evident argument, though, isn't it? If nobody eats the cake, we will have cake forever! Until it rots, anyway.
Even so, as long as we are clear this isn't science, there's an interesting thought experiment: if we define aging as the progressive decline in biological function due to progressive chemical deterioration of structures (I'm open to alternative definitions), can aging be prevented, or slowed, or stopped by perfect maintenance and repair? My inclination would be to think of this from a strictly chemical point of view. Prevention first. Can you prevent a process defined by downward trajectory of chemical reactions? No, you cannot change thermodynamics, but you can influence kinetics. Just so, if you fall out of a plane, you cannot remove the influence of gravity, but you can slow your fall. Fine. So you can use chemical treatments to slow the chemical reactions that result in aging? Probably, although my notion of it is vague. High level ideas are great but devil's in the details. Anyway, prevention of aging, probably not. Slow aging? Yeah I'll buy that. But slowing aging isn't enough: you have to be able to reverse it as well (repair), because oxygen and light both are basically toxic substances as far as organic molecules go. Repair is probably more difficult, but let's suppose it's possible and sticky issues like equity of technology distribution don't muck things up. Will the process of slowing and repair work forever? Maybe, but to what end? Forever is a long time. Accidents happen. And would you even want to? Would it be good for the world? Philosophical debate.
So, what I'm seeing now is a far-flung conjecture that's by definition impossible to prove. Alluring to people who are afraid of aging and death, but with no obvious avenue to realistic therapeutic interventions as far as I can see. Call for more research into methods to prevent or repair genetic damage. No objections from me, although there's already a lot of it going on. Surely that's not all there is to the book. Wouldn't seem to be a hot seller. Am I on the right track?
Quote:
We are investing huge amounts of money in things that offer relatively little in return (i.e. advanced Alzheimer's: if a total cure rolled out tomorrow it would barely affect overall lifespans) while other far more important things are neglected because they don't have the attention of Congress or other institutions.
I don't know that I agree with "relatively little in return". If a cure for Alzheimer's was rolled out tomorrow, as you say, how do you establish that it would barely affect overall (average?) lifespans? More to the point, it would certainly affect the lifespans and wellbeing of the people who have Alzheimer's, or do they not count? You imply they don't, since you have offered a value statement against research that would help them, specifically. Although I can't imagine you would actually hold that position, so I guess I'm a little unclear here.
And as I mentioned in an earlier post, there is, on the contrary, quite a bit of funding for aging research. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. So, I'm not sure what the point is. That ALL money should go toward aging research? Well spoken, by a scientist who stands to benefit personally from an increase in the proportion of federal dollars allocated to aging research.
Quote:
The exact definition of disease is something that has changed over time and not set in stone. Anorexia wasn't a disease 100 years ago and now it is. People never considered aging a disease in the past because there wasn't anything you could do about it. If that changes, then so might the definition of disease.
Anorexia isn't a great example, but the point is valid. We can define things as we please, although definitions do matter. You still haven't offered a definition of disease or aging that I can see, so it's hard to know where you're going with this.
Quote:
An example of pop science would be like how companies continue to obsessively market about antioxidants even though research has determined that their role in anti-aging was previously overstated. This isn't just with laypeople. It's common with professionals (including medical doctors) as well because once they get their degree and a position they often don't adopt an attitude of lifelong learning or even enjoy learning. They did it because they had to, and then they just fizzle out into mediocrity until they eventually retire, often give outdated or even outright bad advice to their clientele because of something they were taught 30 years ago that is cemented into the skull. Once the snowball starts rolling it can take on a life of its own in the marketing world. In other marketing circles, celery juice or beet juice is treated like a panacea, etc.
Not sure where you're going with this, but well done painting medical and scientific professionals with a contempt-bristled brush as broad as the Potomac.
*Interestingly, there's a new movement among some journals to require that reviewers NOT include a novelty evaluation in their assessment, the argument being that much good science is ignored because it isn't perceived to be ground-breaking enough. The requirement of novelty is thought to lead to sloppy science because scientists spend so much time trying to conjure up the next big thing (necessary, as they see it, to inflate their h-factors, get tenure, and funding) rather than taking more reasonable incremental steps forward. It's still a bit of a minority view in the publishing community, but it seems to be gaining traction. Still, the idea that we actually need to reign scientists in because their focus on chasing flashy "high impact" results is leaving higher value but possibly less newsworthy science behind is completely at odds with the viewpoint in your opening paragraph.
**Well.. "aren't supposed to" would be a better way to put it. A scientist might, if he's guided by a conflicting interest, such as, say, selling a book rather than sticking to the pure essence of the scientific process.
____________
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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blizzardboy
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posted March 17, 2021 07:13 PM |
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JollyJoker said:
However, the increase of average life expectation in the sense that people get older now than 100+ years ago isn't mainly down to "medical science". It's down to the fact that people have enough to eat, have easier jobs and work less, get paid vacations and sick leave and pensions when they are done working, are working less and less with hazardous materials, have less stress (like taking unwillingly part in a war), have safer workplaces and machine support and so on.
Life has been harder in the past - a lot harder.
In most ways, yes. Mandatory retirement has actually been an adverse factor in both lifespan and healthspan, excluding if it's a job with a lot of physical labor. If a person retires at 65ish (which is common even though these days people in their 70s can often be as healthy as people once were in their 50s) and if they don't really have a purpose for existing after that point, their condition can decline pretty rapidly, both with physical and mental/emotional health. Another surprising one is foot injuries. Foot injuries are a major contributor to an early death because when a person becomes mostly immobile everything starts going downhill fast. An immobile lifestyle is argued to be more adverse to healthspan and lifespan than smoking.
Remember that things like social security came about many decades ago, and lifespans have already changed quite a bit since then. So it's another situation where politics is medieval compared to what we can do with current medicine.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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blizzardboy
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Nerf Herder
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posted March 17, 2021 07:19 PM |
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OhforfSake said:
No he said it was rare for people to reach 60, but that requires insight in more than just the average.
He said 'most people', as in more than 50%. I don't know about 'rare' but before the waves of vaccinations in the 19th/20th century, a large chunk of the population went belly up before they ever hit puberty, and that still leaves several decades before they hit 60.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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JollyJoker
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posted March 17, 2021 07:43 PM |
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blizzardboy said:
Remember that things like social security came about many decades ago, and lifespans have already changed quite a bit since then. So it's another situation where politics is medieval compared to what we can do with current medicine.
No, not at all. Current medicine isn't doing much, except in case of "accidents", which is where "medicine" can shine (provided they don't make any mistakes). The rest? There isn't really that much medicine can do, and what it does comes with a high price often enough, and I don't mean money.
You are still young. You believe all kind of myths about what medicine can do - but just think about the following: if current medicine is so great - why this big market for "ALTERNATIVE medicine"?
"Medicine" is just a business - actually the biggest business in the world with the most money involved - and the most fraud.
That said, yes, we are better off now than we were - but mostly because of the things I mentioned plus the fact that there IS a doctor available for everyone AND MOST people are used to go seeing them when they have a problem, which helps with many things, like teeth.
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This thread is pages long: 
