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Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

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Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#41

Post by spenczar5 »

reasonattlm wrote: post #33
peteretep wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

An industry that will be destroyed or bailed out when there is a large upward discontinuity in life expectancy trends thanks to advances in medicine. There is a very big change going on in medical research at the moment, shifting from not trying to treat aging as a medical condition to actually treating aging and its causes. The difference in outcomes will be night and day; some relevant technologies are transferring…

You undermine the force of your argument by saying "when" and "will be" instead of "if" and "could be". All predictions are probabilistic, after all!

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#42

Post by mej10 »

lordnacho wrote: post #23

The nature of the curve, with virtually no chance of death until about 65, with a strong dropoff after, should give rise to a fair bit of reflection. I'm the same as the author, a 34 year old male. For me, chances are pretty concentrated on me living a good few decades more. Which is ok, I can plan for that. I'll need a house to live in for the next 30 years, changing careers could be done, etc. I'm pretty unlikely t…

Annuities.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#43

Post by lordnacho »

jbapple wrote: post #39
lordnacho wrote: post #23

The nature of the curve, with virtually no chance of death until about 65, with a strong dropoff after, should give rise to a fair bit of reflection. I'm the same as the author, a 34 year old male. For me, chances are pretty concentrated on me living a good few decades more. Which is ok, I can plan for that. I'll need a house to live in for the next 30 years, changing careers could be done, etc. I'm pretty unlikely t…

> There's a 1/3 chance of not making it to 81. But then there's also a 20% chance of making it past 91. What do you do about that? You can't spend all your money now. But you can't not spend it, either. Pensions and annuities, unlike private retirement savings in stocks and bonds, spread this risk out among many people. Your father could get about $650 per month guaranteed for life for every $100,000 he puts in an an…

That insures you against the long tail of living too long, yes. But if you knew you had exactly 5 years with 99% probability, you wouldn't do that, right?

Also plenty of things are not purely financial. How will you know if this is the last opportunity to see an old friend? As a 34 year old there are plenty of friends I put off catching up with because it will happen someday. As a 71 year old?

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#44

Post by reasonattlm »

netcan wrote: post #18
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…

Sign up with Alcor with payment via life insuance. Or donate to the SENS Research Foundation, which is spinning off and seed funding relevant biotech startups these days.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#45

Post by msabalau »

hydrogen18 wrote: post #30
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…

This notion seems to be as old as humanity. It's built on some inner hope that mortality can be outsmarted and escaped. Back in the real world, we can't even agree as a society what level of healthcare should be afforded to all members vs. what level you have to earn. The greatest advancements in life extension in recent years have only added more years of horribly low quality life. I don't want to die, but I am goin…

Generally speaking, we are actually reducing the amount of time people spend suffering, while at the same time extending peoples lives. From the 2013 NBER working paper "Evidence for Significant Compression of Morbidity In the Elderly U.S. Population":

"For a typical person aged 65, life expectancy increased by 0.7 years between 1992 and 2005. Disability-free life expectancy increased by 1.6 years; disabled life expectancy fell by 0.9 years.

"The reduction in disabled life expectancy and increase in disability-free life expectancy is true for both genders and for non-whites as well as whites. Hence, morbidity is being compressed into the period just before death."

And, given that part of the low quality of life at end of life comes from two thirds of people not thinking through and documenting their wishes for care, one can improve one's personal odds by creating and advanced health care directive. And of course, many of the things that we dislike about old age result from chronic conditions that can be addressed through good nutrition and exercise.

So, good news, end of life isn't as bad as you fear!

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#46

Post by JoeAltmaier »

msabalau wrote: post #45
hydrogen18 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This notion seems to be as old as humanity. It's built on some inner hope that mortality can be outsmarted and escaped. Back in the real world, we can't even agree as a society what level of healthcare should be afforded to all members vs. what level you have to earn. The greatest advancements in life extension in recent years have only added more years of horribly low quality life. I don't want to die, but I am goin…

Generally speaking, we are actually reducing the amount of time people spend suffering, while at the same time extending peoples lives. From the 2013 NBER working paper "Evidence for Significant Compression of Morbidity In the Elderly U.S. Population": "For a typical person aged 65, life expectancy increased by 0.7 years between 1992 and 2005. Disability-free life expectancy increased by 1.6 years; disabled life expe…

Still, my 90-year-old friend Betty used to say "Old age is not for the timid"

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#47

Post by adevine »

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%.

I think more important than this is the fact that there are WIDE variations in the stats based on just a few important factors like smoking status, race and income - these can actually have a bigger impact than sex. If you are a non-smoking Asian programmer in Silicon Valley your curve is going to be significantly shifted to the right compared to the average presented here.

Overall, great visualization, though. Really like how it highlights the concept of chance and the range of outcomes beyond a single average number.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#48

Post by ben010783 »

cm2012 wrote: post #34

I'm 24, and I recently bought $2 million of life insurance for $80 a month that's good for the next 10 years. I figure that's a pretty good deal. If I die young, I want my wife to not have to worry about money.

I don't think that's a good fit for a person in your situation. It's so unlikely that you'll die in that period. I don't know about if you have kids, a house, or your work situations, but I would consider lowering the the payout and investing the rest in a retirement account. If you dropped it down to $500,000, your wife would still be fine for years after you died. If that freed up $40 that you could invest every month, it would result in over $50,000 that you would have at retirement.

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#49

Post by madelfio »

If I have no known health problems, how does that change the distribution? Are there richer datasets that include that type of breakdown?

From a different angle, if 15% of males my age will die in the next 30 years, how many of those are foreseeable due to current circumstances vs accidents that could happen to anyone?

Re: Years You Have Left to Live, Probably

#50

Post by PhasmaFelis »

simonh wrote: post #15

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

I'm 36, and there's a spike at 37, which immediately drops down to the expected tail-end of a bell curve at 38. There seems to be something in the algorithm that disproportionately weights "next year."
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