From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Sun Feb 27 2000 - 20:04:38 MST
> Spike Jones, <spike66@ibm.net>, writes:
>
> > ...expectation of ones remaining life stops decreasing? That
> > point I suspect is 20-30 yrs away.
> Hal Finney wrote:
> That's a good question. Maybe you could call it the "longevity
> break-even point"...official life expectancies are calculated by
> taking the death rate at each age TODAY, and combining them. This tells
> you how long person born today would live if, as he aged, he had the same
> probability of death at each age that a person of that age does today.
Hal! Your post led me to a most wonderful insight: the life expectancy
tables that most people take for granted and use plan their own lives are
based on propaganda by the one industry that profits from our collective
pessimism: the insurance company!
If State Farm can convince you that you will probably kick it around
75, you are far more likely to pay their rates for life insurance! And
keep paying, as 75 comes and goes.
Think about this: if currently healthy people assume their own lives
will be the same length as those who perish today, then one is using a
model wherein technology stops somehow. This is unimaginably absurd!
However, Insurance Incorporated has managed to sell the notion
to a gullible public. No wonder people are resistant to our extropian
life-extension memes. They have been quietly sold a meme package to
the contrary by an industry that stands to lose billions, should it
become obvious that most of us who purchase life insurance will
pay and pay and pay now for a reward that is likely so distant, its
current value is a round off error. spike
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