Who wants to live forever?

vinc said:
'Eighty-five percent of cenenarians are women and 15% are men. Among supercentenarians, the female prevalence may increase to about 90%.'
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Genetically women are not more prone to longer life than men. The reasons why there are more women among the elderly are:

- men generally live more dangerous lives, hold more dangerous jobs and they die sooner because of this
- men tend to not go to the doctor as often as women, they care less about their health
- in wars men die in much higher %
- men are smokers, drinkers, drug users, etc. in much higher %
- men are 3 times more likely to die of suicide than women
- etc. etc.
 
I suppose from a practical standpoint it makes it important to focus on being in a positive state of mind as much as possible...

avoid toxic foods, people.... do things that make one happy

re mortality my college girlfriend said something that I find provides a bit of solace, which I've remembered, which is "at least you won't know it" once you're gone. Big picture, mortality sucks. I'm going to play sax today, write an article and prep for next week's trades.
 
Pekelo said:
How about looking at these in the 3rd world? You know, the people not living on fast food and sugary soda.

Also one of the longest living group in the USA is the Mormons. Simply don't smoke, drink (excessively), and live a life of moderation in everything and you will be living into a fairly nice 80+ age.

"Mormons tend to live longer, with a life expectancy of more than 86 years for women and 84 years for men in one long-term study — compared to life expectancies in the early 80s for women and mid-70s for men who were not Mormons."
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That article he posted noted that pretty much all Americans have the genetic capability to live into their mid 80's, citing lifestyle as the detractor.

But the article also says...

However, we have learned from our studies of the siblings of centenarians and of supercentenarians that excepional longevity runs very strongly in families. Also, a Danish study of nonagenarians and centenarians has noted that the power of an exceptional longevity (EL) study to discover genetic factors associated with EL increases with the age of the subjects. These and other study results strongly suggest that the genetic component of exceptional longevity gets larger and larger with increasing age and is especially high for those age 106 years and older.


And this:

At least 50% of centenarians have first-degree relatives and/or grandparents who also achieve very old age, and many have exceptionally old siblings. Male siblings of centenarians have an 17 times greater chance than other men born around the same time of reaching age 100 years and female siblings have an 8½ greater chance than other females also born around the same time of achieving age 100.7

And this:

Many of the children of centenarians (age range of 65 to 82 years) appear to be following in their parents’ footsteps with marked delays in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and overall mortality.8

And this:

Some families demonstrate incredible clustering for exceptional longevity that cannot be due to chance and must be due to familial factors that members of these families have in common.

Sure sounds like genetics to me.
But whatever.
 
I have always been torn on the subject of living an exceptionally long life. On the one hand, it would be great to live to 100 but on the other hand, is that something I really want to do if I ended up disabled in some way and confined to a bed or wheelchair for the last 15 to 20 years?

My grandmother just turned 94 and when I talked to her last year about her life, she said she wished she would have just died at 82 because the last twelve years have been miserable. She lost her husband, her eyesight is almost completely done, she has fallen twice, each time resulting in surgeries to repair badly broken bones, and she is barely able to get herself from one side of the room to the other at this point without assistance.

So a fear of mortality is probably greater when you're younger and healthier and you love life. But I guess if your health is screwed up enough by the time you get to a certain old age, the fear of death goes out the window because you'd rather be dead than be in constant pain.
 
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Let's say you are a very healthy 90 year old. (Like the Japanese lady in the Life after 50 thread) But that doesn't mean people in your family will have the same luck, so your wife could have died 5 years ago and you are looking at those hot chicks of 70s. Or what about visiting your children in their late 60s in the hospital because they didn't take care of themselves?

Late in life it is very hard to make friendships and older people are not very flexible. (aka bitchy)
So you would like to go on adventures but most 80+ year old will talk about nothing but their illnesses or their grandchildren or the good old times back in the 70s. Middle age people probably don't really want to hang out with a 9 decades old. Unless of course you are very wealthy, but then they don't like you for your personality. :(

If you guys don't remember the movie Highlander, go ahead and watch the music video I posted earlier. Who wants to live forever, if everyone else whom you love dies?(much earlier)

That is why I said, quality over quantity, instead of stretching your life length, why don't you use it wiser and in a more effective manner? There is the FIRE movement (Financially Independent Retiring Early) who just have exactly this goal. If you can sell your business in your early 50s why don't you retire and kick ass for the next 25 years? Can you do it even earlier in your 40s? There you go, you may have 3+ decades of active and healthy retirement.

It is the attitude and grabbing opportunities, not the number of houses and cars you own that counts. Carpe diem, because Lamda is coming and nothing is guaranteed in the future.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fire/
 
Baron said:
I have always been torn on the subject of living an exceptionally long life. On the one hand, it would be great to live to 100 but on the other hand, is that something I really want to do if I ended up disabled in some way and confined to a bed or wheelchair for the last 15 to 20 years?

My grandmother just turned 94 and when I talked to her last year about her life, she said she wished she would have just died at 82 because the last twelve years have been miserable. She lost her husband, her eyesight is almost completely done, she has fallen twice, each time resulting in surgeries to repair badly broken bones, and she is barely able to get herself from one side of the room to the other at this point without assistance.

So a fear of mortality is probably greater when you're younger and healthier and you love life. But I guess if your health is screwed up enough by the time you get to a certain old age, the fear of death goes out the window because you'd rather be dead than be in constant pain.
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Yeah, we probably move along a continuum over time about the way we feel about our mortality.

Squaring the aging curve, and having a social network likely slows down our move towards ambivalence. The problem is that most people don’t take care of themselves, and also tend to become more isolated as they get older. I have seen it happen to people I know a generation older than me. It’s sad. I remember how they used to be, and the contrast can be stark.
 
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