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The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

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Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#41

"1 in 25 Americans being born will not make it to their 40th birthday." Wow. Actually impressed with the analysis backing this up. If you read the entire thread, he actually covers nearly every correlating factor I could think of. And it's pretty clearly drugs, guns, suicide, and cars. (The cardio health one doesn't seem as strong). The one that is crazy to me is the uptick in driving fatalities. Cars are an order of…

> the uptick in driving fatalities [...] An entire generation has to be that much more reckless

Smartphones.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#42
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All the guns also cause a bunch of small kids to kill their siblings every year. No they don't, unless you're going to quibble about what a bunch is. Numbers that seem to show lots of deaths to "kids" pretty much always include age ranges old enough to include gang members.

I’ll admit I didn’t look up those numbers but I read about these things way too regularly. But that’s of course not the main thing about guns and kids in the US like everyone knows.

You'll read about those but not suicides and that is a greater problem.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#43
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are getting so big that people can’t drive them. An indescribably sad statistic: In the US, a parent drives over and kills their kid in the driveway every other day [1]. All the guns also cause -a bunch of— some small kids to kill their siblings every year. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna52109

>All the guns also cause a bunch of small kids to kill their siblings every year. No they don't, unless you're going to quibble about what a bunch is. Numbers that seem to show lots of deaths to "kids" pretty much always include age ranges old enough to include gang members.

Numbers that seem to show lots of deaths to "kids" pretty much always include age ranges old enough to include gang members.

So what if they were? It's pretty damn sad for a person young enough to be considered a child to die from gun violence regardless of who they were! A sad societal failure on top of our failure to set them up with life circumstances that made them unlikely to fall in with a gang.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#44
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven’t understood the article. The decline in life expectancy in the US is not being driven by more rapid decline in the aging population but by young people dying earlier exerting influence over the entire curve. I can assure you that the burden of age related conditions will continue to grow but that again is because the largest generation humans have ever produced is aging out. And on the most part they’re mo…

I don't think you understand the comment. If the life expectancy drops, there are fewer elderly to care for. If people don't make it to 70, you don't have to care for 70+ year Olds. It is a fair thought experiment to explore. Depending on what your priorities are, it could be optimal for everyone to die before retirement age.

its not like people are just healthy and then when they hit 70, poof!

obese people will have health issues from early adulthood onward

healthcare isn't the answer - the doctor says "lose weight", and people ignore it or make excuses and are even more obese at their next checkup

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#45
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All the guns also cause a bunch of small kids to kill their siblings every year. No they don't, unless you're going to quibble about what a bunch is. Numbers that seem to show lots of deaths to "kids" pretty much always include age ranges old enough to include gang members.

Numbers that seem to show lots of deaths to "kids" pretty much always include age ranges old enough to include gang members. So what if they were? It's pretty damn sad for a person young enough to be considered a child to die from gun violence regardless of who they were! A sad societal failure on top of our failure to set them up with life circumstances that made them unlikely to fall in with a gang.

It matters because it’s ineffective to pursue the wrong root causes.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#46
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven’t understood the article. The decline in life expectancy in the US is not being driven by more rapid decline in the aging population but by young people dying earlier exerting influence over the entire curve. I can assure you that the burden of age related conditions will continue to grow but that again is because the largest generation humans have ever produced is aging out. And on the most part they’re mo…

I don't think you understand the comment. If the life expectancy drops, there are fewer elderly to care for. If people don't make it to 70, you don't have to care for 70+ year Olds. It is a fair thought experiment to explore. Depending on what your priorities are, it could be optimal for everyone to die before retirement age.

Sure, but the problem is that there is not enough of a young population to support the older population. So if the life expectancy drops because younger people are dying more, that just makes the inbalance even worse, with the population being even more top heavy.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are getting so big that people can’t drive them. An indescribably sad statistic: In the US, a parent drives over and kills their kid in the driveway every other day [1]. All the guns also cause -a bunch of— some small kids to kill their siblings every year. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna52109

> Cars are getting so big that people can’t drive them. While controversial because car companies in the US intentionally chose to market large SUVs to the public, there is some evidence that smaller vehicles are safer and that auto manufacturers have doubled down on unsafe vehicles. Why this is the case, isn’t exactly known, but one of the theories is that bad drivers will get behind bigger cars and take more risks.…

> I’ve driven both large SUVs and smaller subcompacts, and I can talk at length on the pros and cons.

One thing I find genuinely surprising is that the Renault Zoes we have as pool cars at work have got far bigger blind spots and far worse visibility than my 25-year-old Range Rover.

And, in turn, although that Range Rover is described as an SUV (it's not especially sporty, it's a top-heavy three tonne army truck with nicer seats), it's the same length and width as most "normal" family saloons. It's got a much smaller footprint on the road than some large 5-seaters like a Tesla Model S.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#50

"1 in 25 Americans being born will not make it to their 40th birthday." Wow. Actually impressed with the analysis backing this up. If you read the entire thread, he actually covers nearly every correlating factor I could think of. And it's pretty clearly drugs, guns, suicide, and cars. (The cardio health one doesn't seem as strong). The one that is crazy to me is the uptick in driving fatalities. Cars are an order of…

In the US cars likely kill more people through lack of exercise than through accidents. The UK has small compact towns and cities with street layouts designed in the horse and buggy days that force people to get out of their car and walk around the shops - there are very very few if any drive-thru businesses and only the big newer supermarkets have dedicated parking lots.
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