Years You Have Left to Live, Probably • Hacker News Board

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#11

Post by jtemplin » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 9:33 AM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #9

pedalpete wrote: post #3

Nice UX, but the probability is probably wrong. I am in my 40s, so I'll give the current life expectancy stats about a 50% chance of being valid by the time I reach the age to die. But somebody who is 10 today, will likely have a life expectancy much longer than the 80 yeas. The entire curve will be pushed out. So for that person, I'd guess the probability of this being correct is closer to 10%.

> But somebody who is 10 today, will likely have a life > expectancy much longer than the 80 years Turns out there's a _highly_ developed and mature prediction market for this called life insurance, and they disagree with your assessment.

You're saying we have access to the premiums on a 70+ year life insurance policy for a 10-year-old, or at least a reliable proxy?

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#12

Post by vortico » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 9:35 AM UTC

I like this way of visualizing probability as a series of random variates of the distribution in a timed sequence. After watching for a while, your mind can get an intuitive notion of the probability without having to parse numbers and functions.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#13

Post by robzyb » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 9:39 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #3

Nice UX, but the probability is probably wrong. I am in my 40s, so I'll give the current life expectancy stats about a 50% chance of being valid by the time I reach the age to die. But somebody who is 10 today, will likely have a life expectancy much longer than the 80 yeas. The entire curve will be pushed out. So for that person, I'd guess the probability of this being correct is closer to 10%.

Actuarial student here.

Mortality improvements are important, but immaterial in this context ;)

I think that this should be taken as more of a qualitative illustration of the uncertainty of life, as opposed to a quantitative measurement.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#14

Post by Zirro » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 9:39 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #10

Zirro wrote: post #4

I believe that we will see significant advances in lifespan-increasing research over the next hundred years, barring any major disasters affecting humanity. Old models and expectations for calculating death can no longer be relied upon. Most of the people alive today will probably (unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your world view) be among the last generations to die from what we currently consider natural…

That may be true, but I'm skeptical. Most of the advances we make are in causes of death that would lead you to die before you're at an advanced age - extending someone's life from 45 to 90 is a matter of stopping them dying from a disease or a cancer. Extending life from 90 to 100 is a matter of mitigating ageing processes where your body literally can't support itself any more. The two things (curing disease versus…

I believe you misunderstood the last sentence of my post, since we seem to be in agreement. I also say that most people alive today will probably not benefit from the advances.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#15

Post by simonh » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 10:00 AM UTC

I'm turning 49 on Saturday. The number of balls I see dropping just past 50 is a little worrying.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#16

Post by kitd » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 10:01 AM UTC

A bit OT, but when I was programming actuarial software, with access to the mortality tables, I was interested to learn that most people need to get to the age of 105 or so before the chance of them making their next birthday is less than 50/50.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#17

Post by netcan » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 10:07 AM UTC

robzyb wrote: post #13

pedalpete wrote: post #3

Nice UX, but the probability is probably wrong. I am in my 40s, so I'll give the current life expectancy stats about a 50% chance of being valid by the time I reach the age to die. But somebody who is 10 today, will likely have a life expectancy much longer than the 80 yeas. The entire curve will be pushed out. So for that person, I'd guess the probability of this being correct is closer to 10%.

Actuarial student here. Mortality improvements are important, but immaterial in this context ;) I think that this should be taken as more of a qualitative illustration of the uncertainty of life, as opposed to a quantitative measurement.

Can you elaborate?

Are you saying the assumption that the curve will change significantly is questionable or that the effects of the assumed change in the curve change are immaterial?

IE, if we accept an assumption that the curve will shift such that average life expectancy at birth is 110 50 years from today, how is this immaterial for a 30 year old today? My common sense understanding is that their chance of kicking it in the 30-35 age bracket is locked in, but once they get to 65, the curve will have shifted enough that their chance of kicking it between 65-70 (a more substantial risk) have meaningfully decreased.

Take this extreme scenario.. say we accept Aubrey De Grey's most optimistic (and probably misquoted) prediction that "the first person to live to 1,000 will be born in the next two decades," then that seems to obviously affect people alive today materially, especially if they are young.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#18

Post by netcan » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 10:17 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #15

I'm turning 49 on Saturday. The number of balls I see dropping just past 50 is a little worrying.

Did you set age to 49? If you've made it this far (well done, BTW) you're chances of still ticking for log enough to worry about your 60s are pretty god, >90%.

Still, the possibility of not making it another 10 years is quite a bit higher than I am personally comfortable with, at pretty much any age. If someone has an idea for an immortality startup, I would definitely be willing to pay the $29 subscription. I would even seriously consider the $79 pro tier.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#19

Post by netcan » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 10:21 AM UTC

vortico wrote: post #12

I like this way of visualizing probability as a series of random variates of the distribution in a timed sequence. After watching for a while, your mind can get an intuitive notion of the probability without having to parse numbers and functions.

It's actually a nice example of places where technology plays a real role, especially as we accumulate a lot of these little tools. This would be a handy little widget to have in a high school textbook.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#20

Post by cosmorocket » Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 10:31 AM UTC

Last autumn I was involved in working on a similar web app [1] for WorldBank which consumed its data sources.

I think it should be more accurate as they at WorldBank collect the data from multiple sources and process it in a scientifically precise manner. You can enter country you live in, which can make a dramatic difference.

[1] http://population.io