Average Lifespan question

[Good Friar]

Presume that medical can halt aging and cure any disease, as well as rectify most injuries ( presuming they are not so catastrophic as to induce death before medical attention can be obtained) What would the average lifespan be? Put another way, if we could not succumb to age or disease, how long would it be on average before we were killed by a tragic accident ( lightening, mudslide, flash flood, or you can include manmade things like car/plane accidents, murder, etc.)?

[hmkpoker]

The ugly way to do it would be to use the number of accidental deaths per year and the population size and use them to calculate the mean expectancy of how long someone is likely to go without snuffing it, a stat which I assume will be accompanied by a surprisingly large standard deviation.

Hopefully some math geek will be able to do it better than me.

[_Z_]

I remember reading that 3000 people per month die in traffic accidents in the US. 300 million people in the US. 1/100,000 chance of dieing every month this way. 1/8000 per year. So if it were only traffic accidents that could kill you, on average, you'd live 8,000 years. This assumes accidents are as deadly as they are in actuality.

Maybe half of all murder/accidental deaths are traffic accidents? That would mean average lifespan would be 4,000 years.

Z

[LadyWrestler]

Under those circumstances, I think a person could expect to live about 5000 years.

Have a great day! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Nut4Dawgs]

[ QUOTE ]
Hopefully some math geek will be able to do it better than me.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think an actuary could make a good guess.

[BrickTamlin]

Unlimited lifespan would mean most of us die in global wars. Hard to put back the pieces after a nuke.

[BrickTamlin]

[ QUOTE ]
Under those circumstances, I think a person could expect to live about 5000 years.

Have a great day! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]


lol

[BrickTamlin]

[ QUOTE ]
The ugly way to do it would be to use the number of accidental deaths per year and the population size and use them to calculate the mean expectancy of how long someone is likely to go without snuffing it, a stat which I assume will be accompanied by a surprisingly large standard deviation.

Hopefully some math geek will be able to do it better than me.

[/ QUOTE ]

You don't think those accident / murder / death rates arfe still valid in this scenario? I think not. A city full of millions of 1000 year old blue hairs behind the wheel will likely increase traffic accidents just a tad.

[hmkpoker]

I took this to assume that aging would also be remedied. Otherwise we have an eternity in Depends to look forward to?

[BrickTamlin]

[ QUOTE ]
I took this to assume that aging would also be remedied. Otherwise we have an eternity in Depends to look forward to?

[/ QUOTE ]

I was joshing a bit about the blue hairs -- good catch. But the point is that any statistics from today's world would be invalid in this utterly different reality. I hear that car accident rates were pretty low in 1850. And few Americans were murdered in 1623 compared to now.

[ThinkQuick]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I took this to assume that aging would also be remedied. Otherwise we have an eternity in Depends to look forward to?

[/ QUOTE ]

I was joshing a bit about the blue hairs -- good catch. But the point is that any statistics from today's world would be invalid in this utterly different reality. I hear that car accident rates were pretty low in 1850. And few Americans were murdered in 1623 compared to now.

[/ QUOTE ]

The amazing explosion in population would definitely increase the rates of all kinds of traumatic deaths

[morphball]

In addition, because people are living longer, the population would become much denser. That will increase the frequency of collisions.

[tolbiny]

The real question is at what age would the suicide rate suddenly spike at? At 200-300 years old perhaps the prospect of living as a 45 yr old till your 5,000 might be a crushing realization for a lot of people.

[AvivaSimplex]

fwiw, healthy young people today have a death rate of 1 per 1,000. So the simple answer is, on average, 1000 years.