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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

> And while none of these estimates is meant to suggest a single cause of mortality, such as a gunshot wound or a dose of poison in your morning tea, the calculus for air pollution is the same as for obesity or smoking: take the problem away, and the number of premature deaths will fall by many millions.

They mean that if air pollution was not there throughout our lifetimes up until now, we would have 10M fewer deaths per year. Longer lives translates into fewer deaths per year.

When diseases like COPD and lung cancer are extremely prevalent, we may not notice the deaths as caused by air pollution, but they are. Everybody should get rid of their gas stoves, but we instead have full on sale pr campaigns for them.

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> Everybody should get rid of their gas stoves, but we instead have full on sale pr campaigns for them.

Huge +1 to this btw. If you are in the position of owning a gas stove, make sure to always run the range hood vent whenever using the stove.

In California, at least, an evacuation hood is not required by law, even for a gas stove.

How does longer lives translate into fewer deaths per year? I understand how extending everyone’s life say 1 year starting tomorrow means fewer deaths (i.e. zero) next year, but after that it’s back to the same rate in deaths per year.

Understand that I’m in favor of people living long and healthy lives, but even if everyone maxed out at 120 years of lifespan the deaths per year will be equal to the number of people reaching 120 years old, and that is determined by how many people were born 120 years before.

> I understand how extending everyone’s life say 1 year starting tomorrow means fewer deaths (i.e. zero) next year, but after that it’s back to the same rate in deaths per year.

This is precisely what is meant by fewer deaths per year, it's now zero instead of the normal rate.

Similarly, if everybody's life is shortened by 1 year by something, there is an increase in death rate followed by a return.

I'm not sure why this concept elicited so many contrary comments. You already understand the concept, clearly, but I'm not 100% clear on what you are objecting to with your comment, or what meaning you are trying to communicate with this:

> but even if everyone maxed out at 120 years of lifespan the deaths per year will be equal to the number of people reaching 120 years old, and that is determined by how many people were born 120 years before.

Everybody still dies, but we only lived to 120 seems like a good outcome. But right. Effort that you said you are in favor of people living to 120, so what is the purpose of the rest of the paragraph?

Trying to correct the autocorrect in the last paragraph:

Everybody still dies, but we lived to 120 seems like a good outcome. But even you said you are in favor of people living to 120, so what is the purpose of the rest of the paragraph?

> Longer lives translates into fewer deaths per year.

Are you sure about that?

When the population is growing, yes. A bit of hand-wavy calculation to illustrate the phenomenon: if people die at 80, then people dying today are those born in 1931, if they died at 85 it would be people born in 1926, which were less numerous => less death. (Of course, not every one die at the same age and all, but you get the idea)

All else being equal, then very clearly yes. You could perhaps try to incorporate predictions of more indirect effects of longer lives (like increased reproduction rates and population) to argue that it could somehow cancel out, but that would take a lot of work to be convincing.

I think their point was that if everyone lives to 150, the rate of deaths per year will eventually converge to the same as if they live to 50. Lengthening the pipe doesn’t mean more water flows through it per minute.

Not true.

If there are 9 billion people (just to keep the numbers round), and they all live to 50, then every year 9 billion / 50 = 180 million people die (and the same number are born). But if they all live to 150, then every year 9 billion / 150 = 60 million people die (and the same number are born).

Only if the birth rate proportionally drops, which seems unlikely.

On the other hand, if the birth rate remains steady then the percentage of people alive that die in a given year decreases, which is maybe the more relevant metric as it seems like there’s less death around.

>just to keep the numbers round

That's not "just keeping the numbers round", that's putting a huge assumption on a complex system (births = deaths, no change in overall population over time).

The 9 billion was just to keep the numbers round. 8 billion would be a more accurate number, but it's not divisible by 3, and therefore not divisible by 150.

What you seem to be quibbling with is the assumption that the population was steady. That's an assumption that could be argued with, but it's not the "keeping the numbers round" part.

Fair enough

I mean your technically right to question because the only thing which can increase deaths are births ultimately as everything else 'just' moves them forward, but I think it was quiet clear what they meant.

Think of how many lives we could save if we could just reduce births!

> Longer lives translates into fewer deaths per year.

Of course that's not true. Everyone dies, regardless of individual lifespans.

We are not talking about steady state dynamics, we are talking about specific numbers of births each year in the past, and an intervention that would shift the distribution of life spans.

The way it was stated in the article was correct.

My paragraph of text was also correct, but your response to me was incorrect.

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