https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Villages,_Florida
I can't imagine. The last thing I want to do is retire to where I'm surrounded by old farts.
]]>There will obviously be a high rate of "unfortunate suit accidents" in the near-elderly, most of which will be exactly what they seem to be (and others will be disguised suicide). But convincing the population that that's true? That might be hard.
]]>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senicide
When I was in Ilulissat in 2019, a young woman told a story she heard from her grandmother, about a cliff where old people would jump from when food was short. Hearsay story, told to tourists, so no idea how much truth it contained. The cliff was only 4-5 m high, so it didn't look immediately fatal (ie. a painful way to go).
https://nowheremag.com/2015/04/growing-old-with-the-inuit-3/
]]>TLDR: Problems highlighted in 2003 weren't fixed. For-profit homes still killing residents through neglect (before Covid). And the government has recently released them from civil liability unless gross negligence can be proven — so no real consequences for making money off substandard care.
]]>When the state pension was first introduced in the UK in 1908 it was a means-tested benefit available to over-70s. As mean life expectancy at adulthood was in the 60s back then, very few people actually claimed it, and those who did didn't live on it for very long. On the other hand, there was no argument over whether or not they needed it: poor healthcare and less automation meant most were worn out well before that age and physically unproductive.
My guess is that Mars won't have retirement as a thing, for the first 50-100 years. Instead it'll have end-of-life subsistence, so that folks with a diagnosed terminal illness or disability (including dementia) won't be expected to work. In other words, you work until you can work no more, and then your end of life will be managed (hopefully without any need to walk out onto an ice floe and freeze yourself).
Certainly the boomer default expectation of retiring at 60-65 and living another 20-odd years simply won't be manageable on the surplus productivity of an early (and growing) colony.
]]>More or less, yes. Except it would be most likely determined by the person's physical condition rather than age.
]]>This is one of those "nobody talks about" issues. What do you do with 70 year olds who can't live on Earth due to acclimation to Mars gravity.
When the state pension was first introduced in the UK in 1908 it was a means-tested benefit available to over-70s. As mean life expectancy at adulthood was in the 60s back then, very few people actually claimed it, and those who did didn't live on it for very long. On the other hand, there was no argument over whether or not they needed it: poor healthcare and less automation meant most were worn out well before that age and physically unproductive.
My guess is that Mars won't have retirement as a thing, for the first 50-100 years. Instead it'll have end-of-life subsistence, so that folks with a diagnosed terminal illness or disability (including dementia) won't be expected to work. In other words, you work until you can work no more, and then your end of life will be managed (hopefully without any need to walk out onto an ice floe and freeze yourself).
Certainly the boomer default expectation of retiring at 60-65 and living another 20-odd years simply won't be manageable on the surplus productivity of an early (and growing) colony.
In 1935, when FDR signed the Social Security Act which set the retirement age at 65, average life expectancy was 60.7 years (that's why they chose 65, because most working people wouldn't live long enough to collect).
Average life expectancy didn't get above 65 until 1938 (for women) and 1949 (for men). In some ways it's the old age & survivor's benefits that increased life expectancy in the US because before that old people were a burden on a family and were usually neglected to death even if they weren't deliberately exposed on an ice floe.
Without Social Security (and Medicare) the Boomers wouldn't have any life expectancy beyond retirement.
]]>I'm guessing this is not a reference to the 1945 Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II Broadway musical?
]]>That's not how life expectancy works, exactly. Lower values of life expectancy are associated with mortality at both ends of the age distribution. So high levels of child mortality pull the expected value downwards. Once a person survives childhood their life expectancy is now more than the average for the population because they did not die at childbirth, or at age 2, etc.
Today the life expectancy for a newborn in the US is 78.54 years. It was lower when I was born in 1959. However, since I've survived to age 61, according to the US Social Security Administration's Life Expectancy calculator, I should anticipate living to age 83.3
]]>The film isn't bad, the books are better.
]]>"In 1935, when FDR signed the Social Security Act which set the retirement age at 65, average life expectancy was 60.7 years (that's why they chose 65, because most working people wouldn't live long enough to collect)."
That's not how life expectancy works, exactly. Lower values of life expectancy are associated with mortality at both ends of the age distribution. So high levels of child mortality pull the expected value downwards. Once a person survives childhood their life expectancy is now more than the average for the population because they did not die at childbirth, or at age 2, etc.
Today the life expectancy for a newborn in the US is 78.54 years. It was lower when I was born in 1959. However, since I've survived to age 61, according to the US Social Security Administration's Life Expectancy calculator, I should anticipate living to age 83.3
It may not be the way Life Expectancy works, but it IS the way Congress works.
]]>This is not about "long Covid". In typical long Covid, an acute SARS-Cov2 infection ends fairly quickly, but produces damage that has long-term consequences, causing chronic disease. Rather, in this immunocompromised patient an active SARS-Cov2 infection persisted for five months (then he died). He remained infectious throughout that time.
What's remarkable about this case is that the doctors took samples throughout the course of the disease. And they saw the virus evolve in real time.
This patient suggests the problematic variants we're all worried about now may not be the result of a totally natural viral disease progression. A century or so ago there would not have been so many immunocompromised persons around as there are now -- they would have been killed by common infections. Also, a SARS-Cov2 infection would not last five months in such a patient. He would die much sooner than that.
So, in Covid-19 we may be dealing in part with an iatrogenic (caused by doctors) disease.
The only viable solution, I think, is to vaccinate everyone fast. The anti-vaxers may yet kill us all.
]]>