100 is a fancy number. Human beings are supposed to live for hundred years.
Let us assume that the current average life expectency for the entire world population is X. X’s value must have been much less during the early years of civilization and as human beings learnt to fight against diseases and illnesses, its value must have gone up, and I guess it still is going up, although rather slowly. So a function of X vs. time should ideally be an increasing function.
Statistics supports this argument. Current value of global life expectency is 67 years while it is estimated at just 30 years two centuries ago[1]. What can be concluded from such a trend is that, in general, human beings have been putting in their best effort to push up the value of X. In general, every human being wants to live as long as he/she can. 100 is the emprically established standard target. But is such a personal desire, really desirable from the point of view of society as a whole? Does the society benefit if more and more people strive to living longer?
A rich person will usually have a higher life expectency. So will a rich country. In other words there should be a positive correlation between a country’s GDP per capita and life expectency. This relationship can be exploited to state that, society does benefit, if on an average, people live longer. But frankly speaking, it’s increasing wealth that leads to longer life. It is quite possible to be rich even with a lower life expectency.
I think it is time we stop thinking beyond 100 and figure out, how long we really need to live. Is it possible to make the world more productive by changing the trend of X externally? If I were to play God and decide how long a human being should live, what number would I pick?
References:
1. James C. Riley, Rising Life Expectancy: A Global History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001 (link)
10 replies on “How long should a life be?”
42 🙂
I never expected this from you vatsa… yes i m talking about the strategic post day before election… you are such an ass vatsa ! Shame !!
can I borrow your face for a few days while my ass is on vacation ?
Sure man, go ahead. And hope your ass is having a nice time.
LOL!
zindagi badi honi chahiye lambi nahin… babu moshay 😎
Hey I saw in one of these discovery or Nat Geo that all organisms have approx 1 billion heart beats to live, and even humans were following that rule as cavemen. Medical science is supposed to have given us our longer lives where we now have our hearts beat about 3 billion times.
I would pick somewhere around 40-45 myself if i have to.
Bilkul sahi farmaaya bandhu! 🙂
Thanks for that bit of info.
i donno how much would me or anyone would actually wish to live…but I would like to ponder over the point the point that does it really matter to us whether we live ten years or hundred???
As already said by in one of the above comments,zindgi badi honi chahiye…lambi nahi…..
“you can some time live in five minutes on a bike more than what you can in your life time.”
(this one I just picked up from the movie World’s fastest Indian)
Liked that line. 🙂 I had seen the movie long time back but never noticed this line.