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New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

(lafollette.wisc.edu)
215 points XzetaU8 | 2 comments | 30 Aug 25 16:15 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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lemoncookiechip ◴[31 Aug 25 13:49 UTC] No.45083139[source]▶
I find it a tough sell to add another 20 years to life expectancy, considering that by the time you reach 70, most people are already in decline (some worse than others), and the drop from 70 to 80 tends to be steep for many. Those who make it past 80 into their 90s or even 100s often aren’t living particularly fulfilling lives, if you can even call it living at that point.

Losing your vision, your hearing, your mobility, and worst of all, your mind, doesn’t sound very appealing to me.

So unless we find a way to both live longer and to decliner slower, I just don't see the point for the majority of people who will unfortunately live lonely worse lives.

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melling ◴[31 Aug 25 14:19 UTC] No.45083330[source]▶
The president of the United States is almost 80. Bernie Sanders is 83. The Stones are still touring, …

Ed Thorpe is well into his 90s. Here’s an interview with him at 89. Seems quite healthy: https://youtu.be/CNvz91Jyzbg?si=VNj61A256ZOBM977

This 10 minutes deals directly with fitness and longevity: https://youtu.be/dzCpUbkC1dg?si=LqV-tUFyxyYMW0qC

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abricot ◴[31 Aug 25 14:31 UTC] No.45083413[source]▶
Mentioning the president is a bit like saying the pope is old. They are both selected/elected old.
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1. garciasn ◴[31 Aug 25 14:59 UTC] No.45083669[source]▶
I don’t care at all about the pope; they’re meaningless entities.

The President, however, especially when Congress is forced to toe their line, is. No president should be permitted to be more than 20 years older than the median age of the general population when they’re done leading the country. In this case, they shouldn’t be more than 58y old when their 8y term is up. This way, they and their progeny need to live with the decisions made for at least ~20y after they’re out of office.

There’s a reason there is forced retirement in some industries and government groups. Why the fuck we don’t enforce similar rules on the president I’ll never know.

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2. FireBeyond ◴[01 Sep 25 20:21 UTC] No.45096287[source]▶
> There’s a reason there is forced retirement in some industries and government groups. Why the fuck we don’t enforce similar rules on the president I’ll never know.

Yep, I am not a big fan of our military policy, but I have a friend who recently retired as an Army LTC.

At his level there are standard procedures - at each rank you have a timeframe, and the rule is "promote or retire". Precisely to ensure you don't break the assembly line.

Even in software. "We don't hire mid level/junior/associate engineers, only senior/staff". No pipeline can hurt. Yeah, you can hire for all that, but there's value of having junior staff within, when you promote those staff level folks to EMs and Directors.