Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNorm
So, which projections do you recommend? A link would be nice. Preferably one related to this thread.
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http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct...p_AZ1g&cad=rja
The above link is to an American based pdf document outlining my personal belief that human life is self limiting on the basis organic deterioration and breakdown which I firmly believe is tied to the ageing process whereby each cycle of body part regeneration and rebuilding sees the inefficiency of using DNA strings in the process which are invariably slightly corrupted models of the one from which were previously copied.
The damage done to DNA is a lifelong process which occurs via free radical damage plus disease loads and such accumulated damage leads to faulty ongoing regeneration and eventually precipitates failure.
I also believe that the highly praiseworthy efforts to date have IMO lifted humans out of premature demise via environmental, health and nutritional factors but that factor is governed by the availability of a general distribution of wealth to increase living standards.
There is a strong school of opinion which believes that that the impact of wealth has had a strong effect in not only improving general health\longevity but the large sums allocated to sustaining life at any cost for those afflicted with life curtailing problems is dependent on ongoing possibly unsustainable funds being indefinitely available.
It is my argument that the era of unlimited money growth may well be over and if as appears the longevity benefits were seen dramatically during that period then less money and declining living standards may see that straight line projections for longevity have biological limitations as well as financial factors.
Many of the factors that saw poverty and disease related life limitations in the pre-war era will almost certainly never return. The eradicated killer diseases will not return. However the stresses of lifestyle constraints from economic factors where "heat or eat" is raising its head plus as I saw recently financial factors within the hospital service are posing questions of sustainability of specialist wards at the cost of tens of thousands per day per person, often for very long stay treatment.
Other factors involving finance include a long known fact which is the scourge of the USA and that is that generally it is accepted that the last five years of life incur 95% of a lifetimes health care costs. For many that causes bankruptcy which is not a problem in the UK unless the government decides to be cost effective.
The cohort responsible for the extension of the upper age group were constrained in eating habits by war and post war rationing followed with a long period of social requirement to maintain a healthy (thin) body. The freedom exercised for eating indulgence by the upcoming generation is virtually certain to reverse that trend. Without radical change in the abuse of alcohol, overweight\obese\morbidly obese and the uptake of sports I feel sure that the straight line longevity predictions will display a cyclical move downwards just like every other chart worthy of examination.
These rubbish projections are no better than the infamous Brown's "we have abolished boom and bust" which was dis-proven in short order when cycles took over. These current projections will be disproved after I have become a statistic but I strongly suspect that once people have been coerced into working into their 70's and getting a pension just large enough to feed a hamster, this type of discussion will be history as the mission will be complete.
If you want more contrarian links I am sure that I or Google can find hundreds but if you are truly interested you can find them yourself.