The Wall Street Protests

Quote from: CoconutKid link=topic=2556. msg27479#msg27479 date=1318268001

After spending 2. 6 times your years observing much the same things, I can only suggest that one should not consult only income side of the ledger. In order to predict the future, one has to draw a balance between the assets and liabilities which time has conjured for us.

Since you were watching, what do you expect to be the result of onset of obesity which became a general condition during the last 30 years as the obese generations pass through life-stages?

So you're saying I'm overly optimistic :) I'll take that as a complement just as much as I think you'll take being called overly pessimistic a complement.

You are looking at just one side of the balance sheet as well. You bring up the rise of obesity in the past 30 years. OK, I'll grant you that this trend has occurred. But you must then also try and figure out why over the past 30 years the average life expectancy in the US has gone from 73. 7 years to 78. 7 years. Making a rash (and overly optimistic) conclusion could lead someone to even determine that obesity leads to a longer life based on these two pieces of data. Another conclusion that one could draw is that the fact that obesity is becoming such a problem it actually masks just how fast our medical technology is improving. We may have only increased the lifespan of the overweight population by 6. 7% in the past 30 years but if we factor out the obese we may find that we actually had a much larger gain.

hcgb: www. google. com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=us+life+expectancy

I don't have a chart specifically for the life expectancy of people who have normal BMIs, are non-smokers, non-drinkers, and non-drug users throughout their entire lives so I can only speculate that lifespans for these types of people are increasing faster than what the overall lifespan increase would suggest. I am fortunately among the previously mentioned group and am willing to pin some hope to the ever improving medical field to find a way to help me live a very long and healthy life as long as I do my part to stay healthy as well. Maybe one day I'll be lucky enough to see a time where death is overcome but if not I think the data suggests that at the very least I can expect to see my anticipated lifespan to lengthen rather than stay stable or contract as the years go by. Pessimistically though you could also conclude the advancement of technology will lead to some sort of unanticipated disaster that will significantly shorten my life. I'm an optimist at heart so you know where I stand :)