Life expectancy in India goes up by 5 years in a decade • Hacker News Board

Re: Life expectancy in India goes up by 5 years in a decade

#41

Post by serge2k » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 7:06 PM UTC

benched wrote: post #3

tokenadult wrote: post #2

This is good news. The worldwide trend for more than a century is that the countries that are now developed countries have been gaining about 2.5 years of life expectancy each decade (sometimes expressed as "six hours each day").[0] Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human…

Are longer lifespans better by definition? I realize fully I'm in the minority on this, and y'all can feel free to live forever, for all I care, but I wish that my personal life expectancy was about 40 years shorter than it is. That would have felt about right to me. Complete, and without too much decline. I mean, is everybody's desired lifespan just "as long as possible?"

That would put you what, late mid 30's? early 40's at most.

So you might get to see your kids graduate high school, if you have them young enough. Very high chance their kids never meet grandma/grandpa, and they almost certainly won't be old enough to remember.

Re: Life expectancy in India goes up by 5 years in a decade

#42

Post by eli_gottlieb » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 8:32 PM UTC

MarkTee wrote: post #36

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you honestly claiming an unsuccessful suicide attempt is an example of wanting to live ? That's getting near "revealed rational preferences" in its level of sheer bullshit.

Nice strawman. But yes, if somebody makes a failed suicide attempt, and doesn't follow up on that, I'd say that they wish to live (except for those who are left physically incapacitated due to their attempt, obviously).

Look, I apologize for the curseword, but you have to admit, in suicide as in all other actions, there are a million things that come between people's real intentions and their realized actions.

Re: Life expectancy in India goes up by 5 years in a decade

#43

Post by mapt » Wed, Jan 29, 2014, 11:21 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #20

bruceb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be one of those things that people say but when the reaper is close then they usually want to push him off a little longer and have more life. Much like money maybe.

Based on my relatively limited second-hand experience, it depends a lot on health and relationships. Some of my elderly relatives would have loved to live another 10 years, others would've been happy to have died quietly in their sleep 10 years earlier. My grandfather in particular lived to be in his mid 90s, and did not enjoy the last 10 years: outlived all his friends and his wife, couldn't really hear or see well…

They wouldn't have been happy to die in their sleep 10 years earlier, they would have been dead. [grammar distinction].

Whether they would have prospectively desired at the time to die in their sleep 10 years earlier, on the other hand, is something we can objectively measure... because suicide is a thing that exists. Did they?

Signs point to no.

Re: Life expectancy in India goes up by 5 years in a decade

#44

Post by _delirium » Thu, Jan 30, 2014, 12:15 AM UTC

mapt wrote: post #43

_delirium wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on my relatively limited second-hand experience, it depends a lot on health and relationships. Some of my elderly relatives would have loved to live another 10 years, others would've been happy to have died quietly in their sleep 10 years earlier. My grandfather in particular lived to be in his mid 90s, and did not enjoy the last 10 years: outlived all his friends and his wife, couldn't really hear or see well…

They wouldn't have been happy to die in their sleep 10 years earlier, they would have been dead. [grammar distinction]. Whether they would have prospectively desired at the time to die in their sleep 10 years earlier, on the other hand, is something we can objectively measure... because suicide is a thing that exists. Did they? Signs point to no.

Suicide sort of occupies a different space with a strong stigma (and in many jurisdictions, legal barriers that can go as far as involuntarily committing someone to forcibly prevent them from committing suicide). Though that's culturally variable. There are many people who would not lift a finger to avoid a heart attack if they had the ability to do so, but who still would not actively kill themselves. A fairly common in-between is elderly people who choose to stay at home rather than go to the hospital, even if what they have is potentially treatable (they sometimes also have do-not-resuscitate and no-life-support orders entered, just in case someone takes them there).