shouldn’t we have extended the life expectancy to at least 90-100 years with all the advancements we have in medicine now?
In: Biology
Ageing causes disease. We can cure one or more diseases, but if we don’t cure ageing, whatever we cure will just be replaced by something else. If we cure cancer, you could increase the average human lifespan by a few years and everyone would die of heart disease or kidney failiur or whatever.
Ageing is a clusterfuck, and unless asked to i’m not going to rant abou the details (though i’d love to), suificed to say, DNA gets all fucked untill it kills you somehow.
Another factor that has driven a significant increase in life expectancy in the past 150 years is not necessarily people living older (which they are) but also significantly lower infant mortality. With more babies living to adulthood, that avg age goes up.
Just because you maybe could live longer, doesn’t mean everyone would want to anyway. So if your will isn’t there, no amount of advancement in technology will change that.
I have older people in my life, getting to 80, but it feels like hard work. I would hope in my lifetime we could plan and just have a comfortable checkout time, like a nice hotel. You’ve arrived, had a good time, and now you’re ready to leave.
It is not just the tech we have, but how we use it.
The average is pushed down by too many people not being able to afford everything that could extend their life.
There is also the issue of diminishing returns.
If you don’t die of one thing you will die of another.
The more diseases we cure and treatments we create, the more people end up dying a few years later of cancer.
Life expectancy is still going up around the world, but most of that is poor people getting access to the care rich people can have.
The advances for those who are already rich enough to get the best care are more incremental.
An important point to note here is that even if life expectancy stays the same, the number of [healthy life years](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Life_Years)may have increased, meaning you are essentially gaining a longer time of active living.
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