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Comment by nlstitch | Hacker News Reader

These articles always frustrate the crap out of me as "life expectancy" isn't the right metric; While living longer we tend to be sick (both physical and mental) longer. Just think of the fact that we've seen an increase in the amount of "confused people" and even hotlines to report those;

Getting overstimulated by shocking videos/news outlets on our phones, feeling ousted/depressed by seeing other people pretend to have happy lives on social media or seeing marketing from websites pretending its perfectly normal to play with each others feelings by having affairs.

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I'll take it.

I'm female. I happily have zero children at age 40. I'm able to be as open about my bisexuality and my atheism as I chose. In my life, I've had 2 fairly superficial cuts get infected - one was about 3 weeks ago, and accompanied a fall down the stairs. I also got a broken arm (elbow) out of the deal. The other was years ago, and had red streaks going up my thumb.

These infections alone could have killed me. I probably could not have chosen to marry my spouse. I probably could not have chosen to be atheist and could not have openly been attracted to women as well as men. I'd have been expected to do womanly things and not rightfully been able to do things like rent an apartment, work and expect to keep my earnings as my own, and other such things. In many places, I could not vote either.

My ex husband wound up being severely mentally ill. He would have gotten treated horribly if not experimented on. Mental hospitals can be horrible places now, yet they were houses of horrors back in the day.

It is really difficult to compare being older yet sicker to days of the past as well, since some things would have simply killed you instead of being something you live with as a chronic disease. Type 1 diabetes - the sort that affects young folks - killed more often. Type 2 could easily do so as well. Heart attack? No treatments available, though you might be lucky enough to live through it. Stroke? Same thing, and then you are at the mercy of your children and family to take care of you (sometimes it is that way now, depending on where in the world you live).

Meh. I'll take now, thank you very much.

>These infections alone could have killed me.

I am a bit bothered by such statements. Bodies actually can go a long long way before dying.

Broken bones can heal on their own for most simple fractures. It wouldve taken months, would've hurt more, might not have been be perfectly aligned, you might limp your whole life, but it works. (And more complex ones can also be difficult or impossible to heal even with modern help.)

As for infections, even though it can go both ways, we can actually heal or at least fight them quite efficiently (if in sufficient health). Abscess, fistula, we have many ways of fighting back or curb infections. It's way more comfortable to skip a week of fever or annoying swelling though, with the perk of approximately guaranteed survival. (Also amputation is a rather ancient technique and can help a lot.)

Even in this day many people can't or don't afford surgery or medication and still manage to survive wounds.

The most recent one was more superficial, and likely would have been fine. I have a fairly conservative doctor who doesn't tend to prescribe anything if a bit of time will work. The thumb, though: It needed antibiotics on top of being lanced (I wound up at urgent care) as the worry was that it was entering the bloodstream - the red streaks were a warning sign. That one was more likely to have killed me at some point. Folks died quite often from infection. An infected tooth can kill: Same for infection after childbirth. Sure, they can go both ways and the body takes care of things until it doesn't.

My broken bone would have been fine, but folks died of this stuff as well. They would list cause of death as the accident rather than the infection due to lack of knowledge. Compound fractures were more likely to kill.

Even in this day many people can't or don't afford surgery or medication and still manage to survive wounds.

This is true, but people will do some self-care for wounds. Can't afford stitches, but can clean the wound well and use the bandage strips on it and continue to keep it clean. People didn't always do these things and some of the things we did were just wrong, simply for not understanding microbiology.

I think her point was a lot of things could kill you but are rather trivial to deal with now with medical care. Not that every sort of infection or illness is a death sentence without modern medicine.

>I am a bit bothered by such statements. Bodies actually can go a long long way before dying.

Yeah, they can. And yet at the same time life is fragile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage survived a railroad spike in the head at a time where that pretty much would have killed 999 out of 1,000 people.

And perfectly healthy people died by the truckload from the Spanish flu, and influenzas that hit healthy people the hardest because of cytokine storms.

People survived horrific illnesses and injuries throughout the ages and soldiered on. And plenty of people died along the way from those same hardships.

Your comment is the perfect illustration of exactly the issues that you complain about. You make sweeping claims without citations that are meant to invoke a deep sense that despite data showing otherwise that life is getting worse. Consider that you are part of the problem.

Ouch man; no need to make this personal. Thanks for agreeing with me though. Here you go;

14% increase of confused people (dutch) ; https://demonitor.kro-ncrv.nl/onderzoeken/verwarde-mensen

Living longer but sick longer; https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/life-expectancy-a...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/prepare-for-a-sick-old-age...

TED talk about children getting overstimulated by Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9EKV2nSU8w

fwiw “confused” isn’t an appropriate word for mentally ill in english.

I had some doubts about using that word but people don't necessarily need to be "ill"; Your average Joe is able to "snap" (let alone be confused about life or have a momentary mental breakdown) too. Being mentally ill on the other hand is stating its there for a longer period. (e.g days/months/lifetime).

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