Tom here again: Science and good civil engineering have removed most of the hurdles to achieving the Biblical three score and ten: infant mortality, death in childbirth, infectious disease.
"Census Bureau's Summary of the Statistics for the Registration Area in 1914. Washington, D. C., January 16, 1916. According to a preliminary announcement with reference to mortality in 1914, issued by Director Sam. L. Rogers, of the Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce, and compiled by Mr. Richard C. Lappin, chief statistician for vital statistics, more than 30 per cent of the 898,059 deaths reported for that year in the "registration area," which contained about two-thirds of the population of the entire United States, were due to three causes-heart diseases, tuberculosis, and pneumonia-and more than 60 per cent to eleven causes-the three just named, together with Bright's disease and nephritis, cancer, diarrhea and enteritis, apoplexy, arterial diseases, diphtheria, diabetes, and typhoid fever." Typhoid fever. Diptheria. I don't even really now what apoplexy is.
Good civil society and improvements in defense equipment have led to fewer deaths in war and fewer deaths by natural disaster.
So we are now free to concentrate on improving that three score and ten--I don't think we have quite set our sights on Methuselah's 969, but in the industrialised world today, nobody is surprised any longer when people reach ages between 85 and 105 without much of a fuss. In fact, as many Americans die after reaching the age of 80 as die before that age.
Getting to 85 seems very much to be about making good personal decisions regarding alcohol, tobacco and firearms--er, diet. And it would also appear that good decisions are the primary causes of making it from 85 to 105--keeping active, connected and a healthy sense of optimistic perspective.
These are all personal lifestyle choices--so what does technology have to do with it? Well, quite a lot, really. To move the median age of death up by a decade requires that the personal choices people make are supported. By good networks that help families stay connected. By providing technologies that help people stay active and live independently.
But perhaps most importantly, it will be science and technology that eventually overcome the remaining hurdles to 100--or 105, 110 or whatever the new 'limit' becomes. Cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's--these are diseases of age. These diseases afflict those who have made perfect life choices as well as those of us who are trying to improve. So in my next post I will start introducing the technologies that will make life more 'forgiving' for all of us--technologies that will make it easier to get where we want to be.
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