
The Last of a Class - cmstoken
https://medium.com/stanford-select/the-last-of-a-class-f847328cd549
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tomjen3
That is how I want to get old. Still working part time at 102, still fresh in
the head, still passionate about what I love to do.

He certainly had an interesting life, but with all the new technologies:
drones, phones faster than a desktop was ten years ago, self driving cars,
planned human settlements on Mars, etc I think we to will see a world so very
very differently from the one we grew up in 100 years from now.

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exratione
Absent progress in medical science, your odds of achieving that end are very
remote. 75% of everyone, including most of those with the best diet and
lifestyle choices behind them, are dead by 90 at the present time. The
winnowing is precipitous over the next ten years following that: 1% make it to
100. Few of those lack serious health issues that greatly impact their ability
to enjoy life.

Unless something changes these odds are improving only very slowly, with less
than a year added to life expectancy at 60 every decade. This is an incidental
trend, brought about despite the fact that no-one has really tried to
seriously address the root causes of aging and age-related disease in the
past.

If you really want to live to be old, and do so in good health, then the way
to increase the odds is to get out there and make a difference: contribute to
research funds, advocate for more longevity science, ways to treat the root
causes of aging rather than patching over the late stage consequences. The
whole field of medicine as it pertains to aging and age-related frailty and
disease must be disrupted and change greatly from where it stands today.

~~~
tomjen3
I don't really have the kind of money it takes to move research like that, but
I don't look at it as negatively as you do. At 27 there is a long time for me
to grow old, and predicting the future over that kind of timeline is darn near
impossible.

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w4
Every young person thinks science will solve mortality before they grow old;
thus far, every young person has been wrong.

(I'm 27 and pulling for science as well, but let's not delude ourselves either
here.)

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tarr11
Life expectancy has increased from 59.7 in 1930 to 78.7 in 2010 in the US.

No one is solving mortality, but it certainly will continue to get delayed!

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slavik81
Most of the increases in life expectancy came from getting more people who
might have otherwise died young to live full lives. It's worth looking at life
expectancy charts for your age, rather than the ones for newborns. They'll
give you a more realistic view of what you can expect.

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bubblicious
I enjoyed the article. I really like the passage where it said:

"The Stanford Illustrated Review, a precursor of Stanford magazine, appealed
to alumni for help in employing recent graduates. “These men and women . . .
face a far harder and down-at-heel world than that which welcomed you.”"

While we can complain for years about the heritage our parent generation have
left us - education cost, housing prices, healthcare, or a struggling economy
- without seeing things change, we are responsible to pave the way and make it
better for the generation to come.

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Bahamut
I feel like anyone who genuinely cares about those who face hardships and put
in a full effort in changing their life for the better deserves whatever help
we can give them. I'm sure many people's lives of those who read HN are
littered with examples of people giving them an edge that helped contribute to
their success.

Me personally, I have much to be thankful for with friends taking me in when
homeless and people giving me a shot at a career without much experience. I
try to help those I see make good efforts at starting a career, and for those
who want to enter the world of software engineering, I tutor them for free and
point them to resources that would assist in their independent study.

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kevinwang
Great article

