So, I completely discount all the AGI stuff that so many here hang their hats on.
I similarly am pretty damn sure that there will be no silver bullet magic anti-aging in our future.
I am not involved in aging research so take this as the words of a vaguely interested amateur.
That being said, I noticed something interesting when I was playing with actuarial data a few years ago. I downloaded a dataset of life expectancy at every age for every year since 1950 in the United States. I was playing with it, looking for patterns, and I decided to plot life remaining at every age in 1970 versus life remaining at every age in 2000, and a striking pattern emerged.
It was a remarkably straight line with a slope that was not one. Life expectancy at every age had gone up, but it had gone up more at younger age than older age in a very consistent pattern. I played with the data on more axes and the line crossed the 1:1 line of life expectancy equal to current age at approximately age 95, indicating relative lack of improvement above that age. (I realize this description is a bit roundabout and hard to visualize and weird, but it is how I noticed the relationship. I should really dig up these graphs again...)
I repeated this with other pairs of years. Every time I did this with two years after ~1950, it produced a similar straight line, passing through the 1:1 line at age 95, only varying in the slope.
As the years have gone on, life expectancy at younger ages than 95 has continued to increase (at an ever slowing rate!), but life expectancy at older ages has not kept pace with those at younger, and the pattern is very consistent.
I don’t have the graphs or spreadsheet or equations I did available right now, but what I ended up interpreting this as indicating is a progressive rectangularization of the mortality curve. Rather than people dropping off at all ages over time, more and more of the mortality is being concentrated in a particular age band in a very consistent way for the past seventy years. If the pattern were taken to its extreme conclusion, it would mean everyone having a life expectancy of reaching age 95 at all ages, and dropping off right then pretty reliably.
Basically yes. Though I suspect the ultimate form would probably be more like ‘completely flat until 90ish then just kicking in with a consistent half life from then onwards’.
So, I completely discount all the AGI stuff that so many here hang their hats on.
I similarly am pretty damn sure that there will be no silver bullet magic anti-aging in our future.
I am not involved in aging research so take this as the words of a vaguely interested amateur.
That being said, I noticed something interesting when I was playing with actuarial data a few years ago. I downloaded a dataset of life expectancy at every age for every year since 1950 in the United States. I was playing with it, looking for patterns, and I decided to plot life remaining at every age in 1970 versus life remaining at every age in 2000, and a striking pattern emerged.
It was a remarkably straight line with a slope that was not one. Life expectancy at every age had gone up, but it had gone up more at younger age than older age in a very consistent pattern. I played with the data on more axes and the line crossed the 1:1 line of life expectancy equal to current age at approximately age 95, indicating relative lack of improvement above that age. (I realize this description is a bit roundabout and hard to visualize and weird, but it is how I noticed the relationship. I should really dig up these graphs again...)
I repeated this with other pairs of years. Every time I did this with two years after ~1950, it produced a similar straight line, passing through the 1:1 line at age 95, only varying in the slope.
As the years have gone on, life expectancy at younger ages than 95 has continued to increase (at an ever slowing rate!), but life expectancy at older ages has not kept pace with those at younger, and the pattern is very consistent.
I don’t have the graphs or spreadsheet or equations I did available right now, but what I ended up interpreting this as indicating is a progressive rectangularization of the mortality curve. Rather than people dropping off at all ages over time, more and more of the mortality is being concentrated in a particular age band in a very consistent way for the past seventy years. If the pattern were taken to its extreme conclusion, it would mean everyone having a life expectancy of reaching age 95 at all ages, and dropping off right then pretty reliably.
I think I get what you mean and I think I have seen graphs like that (except for the linear thingy). One quick example here:
https://sorrytoconfuseyou.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/what-does-life-expectancy-represent/
If I get you right you mean that it tends to this:
Basically yes. Though I suspect the ultimate form would probably be more like ‘completely flat until 90ish then just kicking in with a consistent half life from then onwards’.