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When Will You Die?

2017-06-16 · explainer · Hank · 3:58 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature · mode: Explainer · tags: self promotion

Hank explains that life expectancy, a snapshot of current death rates at every age, rises for each person every day they live (the average 76-year-old dies at 86), is not a forecast of when you will die, and that falling death rates lengthen lives; he then plugs a Dear Hank and John animation, Patreon's studio video, P4A grant payouts and VidCon.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Life expectancy: what it measures, why it rises for you every hour you live, the 114-year threshold, and why it is not a forecast

  • ★★ Hank says life expectancy, an imperfect surrogate for a population's overall health, is simply the average age at which a person in our country will die. (hedged) — 00:00:07
  • ★★★ Hank says life expectancy has gone up a lot over the last 200 years, but it has also gone up for each viewer, and goes up every day, for an unexpected reason. — 00:00:16
  • ★★★ Hank says the life expectancy of the average man in the US is 76, but his own is 78. — 00:00:30 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says the average person dies at 76, but the average 76-year-old dies at 86, and the average 86-year-old at 91. — 00:00:46
  • ★★ Hank says Thomas Frank of College Info Geek, 26, has a life expectancy of 77 against Hank's 78, because some people die between 26 and 37 and Hank, at 37, no longer can. — 00:00:56
  • ★★★ Hank says every hour you live your life expectancy goes up: you get closer to death, but by less than one hour per hour, a small comfort. — 00:01:26
  • ★ Hank recalls his dumb idea as a youngster that once you reached the life expectancy of 78 you could die at any moment. (playful) — 00:01:48
  • ★★★ Hank says not until age 114 do you have a better than average chance of dying in the next 365 days, though earlier years carry such odds over a thousand days, so most never reach 114. — 00:01:57
  • ★★ Hank says statistically everybody can expect at least one more year, but at 114 you have a more than 50% chance of not reaching 115. — 00:02:15
  • ★★★ Hank says life expectancy is a snapshot of current death rates at every age, not a measure of when you will die, because death rates change over time. — 00:02:27
  • ★★ Hank hopes that, barring something like a catastrophic solar-flare apocalypse, death rates will continue to go down. (hedged) — 00:02:39
  • ★★ Hank says life expectancy for a 25-year-old in 1960 was about 70, but that population of 25-year-olds ended up dying on average significantly after 70. — 00:02:44

00:03:05 — Plugs: Dear Hank and John animation, Patreon's studio video, P4A grants and perks, VidCon next week, seeing John in Los Angeles

  • ★★ Hank shares an animation someone made of a Dear Hank and John segment about bizarre pizza deliveries, which he liked. — 00:03:08 · Dear Hank and John
  • ★★ Hank shares Patreon's video about the brothers' production studio in Missoula, which he calls fantastic. — 00:03:17 · Missoula, Montana
  • ★★★ Hank says that, after some delay, all Project for Awesome grant recipients have now been sent their checks. — 00:03:25 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ Hank says most but not all P4A perks have been sent; he has been working hard on his own and apologizes. — 00:03:37 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ Hank says he is going to VidCon next week (week of 19 June 2017) and tickets are still available. — 00:03:41 · VidCon
  • ★ Hank expects to see John next in person in Los Angeles before their next video. (hedged) — 00:03:50 · Los Angeles

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description admits Hank applied population statistics to individuals, which one shouldn't do, for fun. — video description
  • ★★ The description notes that many factors, such as income, location, race and medical history, likely affect age of death as much as or more than current age. (hedged) — video description
  • ★★★ Hank says average life expectancy tells you little about when an individual will die: a change in child mortality moves it far more than a change in elderly mortality. — video description · child mortality
  • ★★ Hank says a past life expectancy of 35 doesn't mean people died around 35: deaths of children and babies pulled the average down, and 80-year-olds in the Middle Ages were no mythical creatures. (playful) — video description · child mortality
  • ★★ Hank says life expectancy isn't a very useful statistic for the length of life to expect, nor that good at telling us about public health. — video description
  • ★★★ Hank says that since people are supposed to die, a better measure, which Australia uses, is Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL). — video description · Australia
  • ★★★ Hank says the US has a surprisingly bad YPLL because of suicides, drug overdoses, homicide and car accidents. — video description · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says YPLL shows whether a disease kills people near the end of life or people who might live long: dementia kills mostly the very old, suicide and accidents the young, and those deaths shouldn't weigh the same. — video description
  • ★★ Hank suggests googling the Global Burden of Disease, which measures beyond years of life lost into their quality, counting chronic pain and disability as well as death. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: life expectancy

Also: Dear Hank and John · Los Angeles · Missoula, Montana · Patreon · Project for Awesome · Thomas Frank · United States · VidCon

Only in the description or credits: Australia · child mortality · chronic pain · Disability · Drug overdose · Global Burden of Disease · homicide · suicide · Traffic collision · years of potential life lost

Also centred on life expectancy: Your Neighborhood, Your Life Expectancy · Seven Maps to Better Understand the World · Most People Have Never Been 20 · The Life Expectancy Lies That Won't Die

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