It’s pop-science, which I explicitly mentioned.
I’ve read the study your article is based on. It doesn’t really state it in the way your article does in the title.
We found that, since 1990, improvements overall in life expectancy have decelerated. Our analysis also revealed that resistance to improvements in life expectancy increased while lifespan inequality declined and mortality compression occurred. Our analysis suggests that survival to age 100 years is unlikely to exceed 15% for females and 5% for males, altogether suggesting that, unless the processes of biological aging can be markedly slowed, radical human life extension is implausible in this century
Here you’ll have to note that societal issues like income inequality have increased massively. Expected lifespan is still continuing to grow, despite the growth having slowed some. Medical technology and the growth of technology and novel medical technologies keep growing at an ever growing rate, really. Well, the speed of growth of technology in general is exponential. Perhaps it’s not in the area of medicine, because there might be diminishing returns.
My point is that I’m definitely not arguing that someone from the 1900’s will be alive in 2123, I’m just saying that for the first time in history, entertaining the idea that it might be possible for a person who has already been born to live practically as long as they want isn’t totally ridiculous. That’s all.
It’s most definitely an argument that actual scientists on the subject will debate over, and have differing opinions. Remember that like in the 70’s, a few people in the lead in computer engineering made comments like “there’s never going to be a time in history where people would want personal computers. where would you put it anyway, you’d have to have a whole room” or the like.
grue@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The increase in average lifespan in the modern era has come almost entirely from a reduction of people dying during child birth and childhood. The life expectancy for people who’ve already reached adulthood (and for women, who’ve stopped having children) hasn’t really changed much since prehistory. Maybe we are “on the cusp” of that changing, but it hasn’t actually done so yet.
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
No, yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying for a few comments now. That maybe it is so. I’m not saying it is so. I’m saying it’s a possibility.
Like I don’t believe I can read minds, but if I asked you to think of a number between one and ten and just guessed, I’d still have ~10% hitrate if we did it long enough. Perhaps even more.
Had you been a doctor in the 1920’s and talked about people some day perhaps living forever, you’d have been ridiculed in any decent science circles. Now it’s a novel thought that might even become reality. Might
You’re referring to the “two score ten” and yeah, if you reached adulthood, you’d probably make it well into your fifties, with high probability that you’d actually manage to around 70.
My dad made it to 70. Insanely bad living habits. Like genuinely can’t remember when he ever did a single thing like taking a walk or eating moderately or not drinking and smoking while doing that all. His mom (my grandmother) is now 93. She too has lived an exceedingly sedentary life and is obese.
If someone actually lives healthily, cares for themselves and has access to healthcare, 70 is extremely low for a life-expectancy. More like 100 for people who are now 30-40, and that’s just a guess because I used to drive a taxi and would see a lot of very healthy 90-year olds. Like not even health-nut healthy, just “do my own chores and don’t smoke and drink only rarely”.
I think the biggest problem is solving things like dementia more than keeping people physically alive.
I imagine a more realistic compromise here would be to assume that when my gen is at the very end of it’s life, it’s gonna be closer to 130-150 years. Am I being overly optimistic? Probably. Can we know before we get there? Not really. Is there any point in arguing what will happen? No, I don’t think so. Were I doing that? I was not. Was I pointing out that it’s not totally insane to suggest that one perhaps remote possibility is that we might actually develop crazy medicine. However we’d also need radical social reform to get that to everyone prolly but still.