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Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

economist.com

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Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

#171

Post by ianai »

maroonblazer wrote: post #169
devmunchies wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everything I've been reading Sounds like you only prefer to read stuff that is pro-Keto. Saturated fat and cholesterol are the cause of many western diseases. Cholesterol-deniers are setting people up to get fatty streaks in their artieries. A low fat/cholesterol diet (especially plant based) is the only one that has been proven to reverse heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Many diets are good for losing weight, bu…

> Sounds like you only prefer to read stuff that is pro-Keto. Sounds like you need to check your assumptions as you have no way of knowing what I prefer to read. Others have already provided studies to refute your claim, but here's one more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071648

From what I’ve learned, diet is both highly individualistic and best based on whole foods. Highly processed and refined foods confuse the statistics.

It’s also a highly “incentivized” industry. There’s a lot of misinformation or noise out there, as evidenced in the above.

Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

#172

Post by forapurpose »

thablackbull wrote: post #141
forapurpose wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems the Chinese have a viable solution Viable to whom? And who gets to decide? If the Chinese solution is so popular, why don't they hold an election? There is no legitimate government without democracy, without the people deciding who should govern them and how.

So serious question, do you consider Trump as a legitimate government? As I understand it (non-American here), Trump won through the electoral college and most Americans do not support him.

> do you consider Trump as a legitimate government?

Yes, absolutely, and I loathe him. Democracy isn't simply majority rule (which is mob rule, not really democracy). While I have mixed feelings about the Electoral College, it's the law made by the American citizens and their representatives; he is President.

Also, the U.S. is a republic, not a direct democracy. For very good reasons, elected representatives don't need day-to-day majority approval; that would get bad results.

The only exception is if the actual vote was altered in his favor, such as if someone hacked election machines or vote counts, or if voters were substantially denied their voting rights. I know of no evidence of hacking - and I'm someone who is very skeptical of election systems security. The latter there is some evidence of, but it's hard to define the line between difficulty and denial of rights, and the net impact on results of everyone of any party who had a problem voting.

Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

#173

Post by forapurpose »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #49
forapurpose wrote: post #27

Other measures of human welfare that are declining in the U.S.: * "This year, the number of domestic undergraduate students dropped 224,000" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/us/international-enrollme... * If nothing is done, the number of Americans with health insurance is expected to decline by millions this year (due to the repeal of the health care tax (I forget the term they used) in the new tax law). * With CH…

> If nothing is done, the number of Americans with health insurance is expected to decline by millions this year (due to the repeal of the health care tax (I forget the term they used) in the new tax law). This is a bad metric. We should be worried about healthcare costs, not insurance coverage. You can have "universal coverage" and still be wrong, because people are paying $5000+/year in insurance premiums they can'…

> This is a bad metric. We should be worried about healthcare costs, not insurance coverage.

I agree with your general point. However, I'll add that some people will be too poor to pay for health care, no matter what it costs, and they may be the people who need it most (the indigent).

Addressing the more specific issues of metric, I think the best metric is QALY (qualty-adjusted life years) lost due to lack of health care delivery.

But my strong impression is that insurance availability correlates strongly with lost QALY.

Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

#174

Post by forapurpose »

jdavis703 wrote: post #155
forapurpose wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GOP has refused to increase spending and has tried to cut it on principle, and in some places has cut it dramatically (e.g., Kansas). Most importantly, the Budget Control Act of 2011 (the "Sequester") was designed to set spending so low that both parties would be forced to compromise on regular-order spending bills in order to fund what was important to them (generally seen as defense for the GOP, domestic welfar…

How is the military being crippled? What non-civilian military programs need more funding and why?

> How is the military being crippled? What non-civilian military programs need more funding and why?

Speaking generally: Readiness is very low; large amounts of equipment is out of service do to lack of parts, and training is severely cut back, meaning the personnel are not ready to perform their jobs - a major issue when they may die and national security may be harmed; AFAIK training is what has long given the U.S. military its edge. There are not enough personnel, forcing the current ones to work exceptionally long and hard, which is also affecting morale. One recent example are the collisions of navy ships in the Pacific; basic navigation and seamanship training was cut for the officers, they were constantly deployed and exhausted, and they worked 100+ hour weeks. Here's a recent article I saw from a respected defense publication:

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/01/2018-forecast-can-the-na...

Also, the military cannot afford weapons programs it needs to compete with 'near-peer' threats such as China and Russia. Generals/Admirals and Secretaries of Defense, for multiple administrations, have been warning Congress for years that they are unable to fulfill their missions with current funding.

That's all off the top of my head; there certainly are more problems I'm not thinking of. Also, I don't understand what you mean by "non-civilian" programs.

If you want to keep up on these issues, I'd try these publications; budget is only one issue they cover, but they cover it well and seriously, without much political spin:

https://www.defenseone.com/

https://breakingdefense.com/

https://www.defensenews.com/

Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

#175

Post by curun1r »

forapurpose wrote: post #174
jdavis703 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the military being crippled? What non-civilian military programs need more funding and why?

> How is the military being crippled? What non-civilian military programs need more funding and why? Speaking generally: Readiness is very low; large amounts of equipment is out of service do to lack of parts, and training is severely cut back, meaning the personnel are not ready to perform their jobs - a major issue when they may die and national security may be harmed; AFAIK training is what has long given the U.S.…

> Also, the military cannot afford weapons programs it needs to compete with 'near-peer' threats such as China and Russia.

Defense spending by country (from Google):

Russia: $84.9 billion

China: $171.4 billion

US: $618.7 billion

If we can't compete with militaries that spend a fraction of what we spend, the problem isn't lack of funding, it's the people spending it. The military has an efficiency problem, not a funding problem.

Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

#176

Post by volgo »

decebalus1 wrote: post #62
matte_black wrote: post #9

Is there a way to measure “Life expectancy of people most similar to you”? Seems like that would be a more meaningful metric for an individual, rather than lumping them in with every drug addict.

> Is there a way to measure “Life expectancy of people most similar to you”? Wow.. whenever someone asks me why the US doesn't have humane social services and still regards drug addiction as a crime in need of punishment, I'll point them to this comment.

Welcome to America. This is the typical rhetoric going around in the Bay Area

Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

#177

Post by curun1r »

myaso wrote: post #93
majormajor wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? America can be economically ascendant - we have a LOT of businesses doing quite well with massive profits and cash holdings, tax rates completely aside - without being dominant in every single industry. Regional drug addiction trends are NOT national economic issues (the national economy has been going up at the same time as the opiod abuse!), but plainly regional ones. What specific parts of the opiod issue do…

The thing that I don't get about this opioid crisis is I keep hearing about it but I have never really seen the corresponding human misery being captured in photography or film -- I see and hear words but I can't gauge the magnitude of the problem. Is this mainly prescription opiates? That's an issue with with the ethics of medical professionals more than anything else -- if you have a low threshold to prescribe this…

If you've got Netflix, check out "Dope." Episode 2 is most applicable to the opioid crisis, but the other episodes are all worth a watch too.

Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

#178

Post by curun1r »

majormajor wrote: post #95
hfourm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is more nuance for you: A) Americans need to be more health centric. Half the problem is that a minority of chronic patients account for 50% of the costs. Drive through rural America, fast food is the only option. Grocery shopping at Dollar stores and gas stations. Solving Americas obesity epidemic is step one in fixing US healthcare. B) Big pharma regulations. I like the idea of importing drugs and creating mor…

These are very good and fair points that I was ignoring so far. Personally, to avoid being someone just criticizing but not offering my own ideas, here's my initial recipe at the moment based on what I've learned so far is (subject to change from new information, of course :) ). It actually includes all three: * Government-mandated health insurance coverage at a certain useful minimum level. Insurance companies allow…

> Employer-sponsered plans are banned

No need to ban them, which would likely be challenged successfully in court. But removing the tax deduction would come pretty close to ending the practice. If you look at why employers started offering sponsored health insurance, it all came down to tax incentives that, if they were forced to offer equivalent pay, would be subject to payroll taxes.

Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

#179

Post by forapurpose »

rayiner wrote: post #147
forapurpose wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The underlying problem is that college is the wrong thing. College focuses on capital-E “Education.” Book learning, “big ideas,” and “learning to think.” What we need is training—teaching people the concrete skills they need for a job. Can you back this up? It's a big statement. Even if it's commonplace, I don't think it's well thought through. Education is for far more than jobs: People have to be citizens, commun…

The job of educating people to be citizens is what the K-12 system is meant for. We spend almost $700 billion a year on that endeavor. If that isn’t doing the job, then we need to rethink it. Not waste even more money on education. The point about climate change shows why more education isn’t what we need: https://www.russellsage.org/sites/default/files/Fig10_Compar... . Countries like Germany are willing to pay twic…

> The job of educating people to be citizens is what the K-12 system is meant for

What basis is there for this statement? Why can't they learn far more in college? What is magical about 12th grade that makes it the perfect end to education? Why wouldn't we want everyone to learn far more?

I went to a good high school, but I learned much more in college that has been extremely valuable to my life.

A major point of college is not to personally perform climate change science, but to develop the skills to understand complex information (not something reasonably possible in 12th grade), to learn complex skills, and to be able to think critically about and evaluate information, such as what the experts, politicians and people on HN say about climate change. I spent years in college studying the best thinkers in history; IME it's given me a huge advantage over people who spent that time in vocational school or working.

I'll add that it's mostly the wealthy and college educated who say college isn't needed, and yet their kids always go to college. What they mean is, 'college isn't for the other kids, the poor ones'. And today, the biggest predictor of college education is parental wealth.

Re: Life expectancy in America has declined for two years in a row

#180

Post by forapurpose »

qball wrote: post #132
forapurpose wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The underlying problem is that college is the wrong thing. College focuses on capital-E “Education.” Book learning, “big ideas,” and “learning to think.” What we need is training—teaching people the concrete skills they need for a job. Can you back this up? It's a big statement. Even if it's commonplace, I don't think it's well thought through. Education is for far more than jobs: People have to be citizens, commun…

>they need to be able to understand and reason critically about the world. The problem with that, however, is that there's a large proportion of the population that quite simply isn't capable of doing that (or who are located where those skills are irrelevant). They're just usually hidden from the sight of people that are , in the exact same ways and for the exact same reasons that people of different political leani…

There are many false underlying assumptions in these questions.

> "just get An Education and it'll magically make things better" is not helping the people who plain aren't smart enough to get a good job any more.

Do you have any evidence that it's an issue of smarts or natural ability? In fact, the best predictor of educational level is parental wealth. I believe almost anyone can achieve if they work hard, and that the goal of society is to give opportunity to all, including college.

The big and evil presumption here is that economic class is fixed. There's nothing about children of the wealthy that makes them any better than children of the working class. The latter have every talent and deserve every opportunity. Let people achieve whatever they can; that is freedom and the American Dream; telling them at birth that they aren't worthy of college is just lazy oppression.

Social mobility used to be much higher in the U.S., and it remains higher in other developed countries. One reason is that college tuition was lower.

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