Quote:
Originally Posted by Nutterbug
It wasn't an issue until humans started messing with nature and directed medical science toward staving off death and keeping people alive forever in every way possible, even when every part of their body is falling apart.
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Expanding lifespans have been largely overstated by the media. While the mean lifespan has risen dramatically over the last couple centuries, the median lifespan has edged up by a few years. Consider how many fewer children are expected to die of disease or young adults are expected to be fatally injured on the job. These common occurrences drove the mean lifespan down substantially; but if people had survived early accident and disease back in the day, an individual could still be expected to reach 70 years old with adequate nutrition.
Moreover, as we move towards intellectual and service industries, the productivity of the elderly has generally outpaced the difference in lifespan (of course, most people feel entitled to retire at the arbitrary age of 65, but that's an entirely different matter).