Death

kidmugsy

“The 2015 version of the Continuous Mortality Investigation model (CMI2015) produces life expectancies that are lower than the 2014 version.“

- The Pensions Regulator May 2016

It wasn't long ago that people were telling me on this very forum that a reduction in life expectancy was utterly out of the question. I'm afraid that falls into the category of 'Dear God, can't people be stupid'. Myself, I think life expectancies can fall, and they can rise. After all, they are just guesses about the future.

AnotherJoe

Not only that KM but if you look at the changing lifestyles over the past 20 years with the rise of fast food, the Internet and computer gaming meaning that less exercise is happening, and the rise in obesity, it seems fairly obvious that this could offset other reasons for LE to increase.

Of course these lifestyle changes are offset by better medical treatments but I agree it's never been a slam dunk that life expectancy will keep rising.

Linton

One year's death figures are about as useful for prediction purposes as one year's investment return. It would be surprising if life expectancy didnt continue to rise for a while until those who are going to die early because of smoking and unhealthy work regimes actually do so.

System

I think the most likely scenario is that life expectancies will diverge amongs the population.

The better off, the educated, the intelligent, and the health-conscious will continue to see rising life expectancies, while the fat, stupid, ignorant fag smokers will mercifully die younger.

Kendall80

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

I think the most likely scenario is that life expectancies will diverge amongs the population.

The better off, the educated, the intelligent, and the health-conscious will continue to see rising life expectancies, while the fat, stupid, ignorant fag smokers will mercifully die younger.

In my experience the reverse appears to be true. The latter appear to go on well into their 80's/90's.

System

Kendall80 wrote: »

In my experience the reverse appears to be true. The latter appear to go on well into their 80's/90's.

Perhaps they just look older, and are more visible?

Malthusian

A year-to-year change means nothing.

It is a logical impossibility for people to die sooner of voluntary causes than involuntary ones. More people are dying from obesity and fags in their 50s and 60s because they aren't being killed off earlier by childhood diseases, cancer, industrial accidents or war. Life expectancy will continue to increase for as long as our scientific knowledge continues to improve and for as long as we prefer living to dying. Anyone who believes otherwise is either deluding themselves as to how long their savings need to last, or indulging the rabbinic belief that every generation is worse than the previous one.

AnotherJoe

Kendall80 wrote: »

In my experience the reverse appears to be true. The latter appear to go on well into their 80's/90's.

That is just selective evidence, you are only seeing the survivors. Its like those people who say "oh they built houses much better in the 1600's look at all these tudor houses" but you arent see the majority that fell down

AnotherJoe

Malthusian wrote: »

A year-to-year change means nothing.

It is a logical impossibility for people to die sooner of voluntary causes than involuntary ones.

Of course its not. Smokers, the obese, people who hang glide and tombstone from piers, rock climbers, horse riders these are all voluntary lifestyle choices that will statistically lead to an earlier death than "old age"

Malthusian

Smokers, the obese, people who hang glide and tombstone from piers, rock climbers, horse riders these are all voluntary lifestyle choices that will statistically lead to an earlier death than "old age"

I assumed it was obvious that by "people" I meant the average of the population, not individuals.

People have always ridden horses, climbed mountains and overate. What has changed is that people used to die (in larger numbers) from industrial accidents, tuberculosis, cervical cancer and the like before they had the chance to die from obesity or falling off a horse. So some people that would previously have died at 40 or 45 instead survive and go on to die of obesity-related causes at 50 or 60. Hence obesity-related deaths go up. But this does not mean that life expectancy goes down.

An individual may of course get killed by tombstoning before they get the chance to die of cancer, but this is a very unusual choice and in a population of millions it evens out.

The only way life expectancy would go down is if people were enjoying life less and were more inclined to kill themselves, and this would be an extraordinary claim for which there is no evidence.

AnotherJoe

On average across the population, its quite possible for people to take up lifestyles that can be regarded as voluntary that lead to an early death.
Stuffing your face and decreased exercise would be the two major obvious ones (and smoking was but that is decreasing and as it does the effect on increasing life expectancy will also decrease. It would be interesting to know how much of the rise in life expectancy over the past 20 years has been due solely to people giving up smoking (and not starting), that cant continue indefinitely).

Overeating and under exercise due to affluence and our changing lifestyles are massively increased compared to where people used to be. Those two factors alone might well outweigh advances in medical technology.

The evidence for people being more inclined to kill themselves (statistically as you required, you cant have it both ways ) is plain, its obesity and lack of exercise. Nothing extraordinary about it at all.