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When lifespan were shorter, people can use their time, energy and resources to have and raising children instead of spending it all for taking care of our parents. That way we can have demographic dividen


Even when some choose not to have any children, they will not burdening society for too long. Infections tend to end lives faster than degenerative diseases.


Well maybe there are some benefits in long living, but long dying is definitely a curse.

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The problem would be to know when to pull the plug, wouldn't it? Should it be at 65? 75? 85? My family has always been long lived, my genetic blessing/curse.
Nowadays my great grandfather would be airlifted to the trauma unit after the tree he was cutting down fell on him instead of lingering on for a day or two, was it better that he left this earth when he did? My mom's little brother would have never died from pneumonia before his 2nd birthday, a complication of one of those childhood diseases we routinely vaccinate for today. The modern conundrum, of course, is dealing with those with profound mental or bodily disabilities who linger on for years and decades. The answer, I think, is for society to find ways to share the burden, although admittedly right now that seems a utopian dream.
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I don't think the OP was suggesting that we issue an expiration date rather just lamenting a time when nature took its course without interference from all of these life lengthening measures. Someone on the boards here once said something to the effect of it isn't supposed to be that our bodies are outliving our minds.
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I was being facetious with the expiration date, but there is a kernel of truth there. The roots of my mom's dementia go back to her hear disease and bypass surgery when she was in her 50's, was it wrong to intervene then? Dementia crept in slowly as we battled her sudden, inexplicable physical decline somewhere in her early 90's. Her own father was an old man at 70, lived for many years as an invalid and died confused in his early 80's, the only difference is a decade or more.
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What worries me is that longer lifespan comes with a cost. Huge cost. Even catastrophic. (I just read that longer lifespan in human probably link with the extinction of some endangered species.) And more often than not, the next generation are the ones who must pay the price. In many cases, when someone lives longer but unable to take care of herself, someone else must sacrifice her life to sustain that person's life. It's like for every day added to their life, the same number of days are subtracted from the caregiver's life.

In my opinion, medical treatment should use to restore health, not merely to keep the heart beating and the lungs breathing.
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I predict in the next two decades, there will be something like "Death Panels" (I know, the hot topic from years ago brought up by Sarah Palin) where a group of healthcare executives that will be made up doctors, research scientists, insurance acutaries, and the such will set-up a limit on the type of treatments covered by insurance - based on the fitness of the patient at the time of the diagnosis; i.e. a type-2 diabetic just recently diagnosed with cancer: insurance company will pay for only surgery of the tumor(s) but not pay for chemo and radiation because how these treatments will cause more medical complications because the patient already has a serious pre-existing medical illness. This patient can still receive chemo and/or radiation - but it'll be out of pocket. With the aging population, the healthcare system simply can't sustain itself while keeping people doped up long-term on drugs and other treatments - just to keep these people alive to only suffer more ongoing problems, requiring even more medical care/costs. I predict we're moving towards a cash-pay healthcare system; you got money, then you can afford whatever treatment insurance companies deny, even if it means you don't receive a good outcome and you're just existing in a shell of a body.
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careisgiving, I also think there will be death panels. I think today's millennials will be overwhelmed when the Baby Boomers are all old and requiring so many services. Medicare reserves will be rapidly depleted. The milennials will institute death panels.
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Last month, I heard on the news that after the insurance changes go into full effect, the changes the new Congress and President want to implement, which, of course, will take a few years, at least, then there will be a push for consumers to receive a discount on their insurance based on their health/labs/tests, etc; Low cholesterol equals a discount on premiums; Ideal body weight = discount on premiums.
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I am knee deep into Ancestry . com doing research on my family. I was surprised how many infants and toddlers had died. There were some really big families back then. Two great-great uncles had 23 children between the 2 of them, a few infant deaths in each household. The next generation scaled down to 6 or 7 children each.

I wasn't surprised seeing relatives going back to the late 1700's had passed at 60-70, but was surprised how many lived into their 80's and 90's.
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FF I always roll my eyes when people talk about how the average life expectancy used to be 60 or 70, I'm pretty sure those numbers are skewed by the high rates of death in infancy and childhood, as well as people in adulthood dying in childbirth and from accidents and disease. In my own family tree I see that those lucky enough to live into their 60's often had another 20 years or more ahead of them.

And I doubt my grandmother was the only one nursing her loved one through a decade of physical and mental decline back in the 1960's. (Although as a young child I was, of course, oblivious to it)
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I get what you're saying. My dad died from heart disease when he was 73. Just fell asleep in his wheelchair while at the doctor's office for a regular checkup. My mom is 86 and is physically healthy. But she has dementia. And her side of the family has people living into their late 90s. So I'm in for the long haul with her I'm sure. I'm so stressed, I'm sure I'll either have a massive heart attack in my 50s or dementia will kick off then.
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I would be fine with living to 100 if it could be active, healthy, doing what I enjoy, and most of all, mentally competent. If I had some horrible condition like early onset Alzheimer's, I would kill myself before 60. So it's not so much age to me as quality of life. My plan is actually to go to Dignitas when I feel the time is right (a group in Switzerland that offers assisted suicide) but I respect the choices of those who want to go on to the bitter end. I know that can lead to the proverbial slippery slope, but please let me out of this body rather than exist in a nursing home longing for death. Maybe it will become more of an option. And even more than longer lifespans, smaller and more geographically dispersed families have changed a lot. When you have five siblings in one town, caregiving is different than for a sole caregiver. But we can't keep breeding like that... there are already enough humans on the planet. Japan is developing robot caregivers... who knows.
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My employer has 3 tiers of pricing for the same health insurance. What one pays is based on yearly BMI, b.p., HDL, LDL, AC1 and nicotine stats. If you don't do the tests, you're automatically in the most expensive tier. If you smoke, you're automatically in the most expensive tier.

And the young (millenials) don't necessarily have the advantage. The younger generation is, on the whole, more overweight than my generation was at that age.

Is this good, bad or big brother? All of the above. I'm genetically blessed and proactive enough to usually deliver decent numbers. It's nice -- if that's the right word -- to know my basic stats once a year. And...I'm not so keen on my employer having direct access to my medical info.

A week or two ago, I read in national news that some employers collect data on their employees via "corporate wellness programs." My first (and last) reaction was DUH. This is news??? Seems pretty obvious to me.
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