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Comment by the_optimist | Hacker News Reader

He is not saying that elderly people aren’t dying. He’s saying elderly people are not in his sample set. In other words, you read this incorrectly. Also, you do not justify your claim of bias.

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>that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64”

"that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying"

Am I missing something? Is this not a comparison?

It's a literary construction, emphasizing that the 40% increase is not an observation about elderly people.

It's not intended to be taken alone as a statement about the elderly.

He is making a statement on his data and saying that elderly aren't dying at the same rate. How is it possible to take that any way besides literally?

I dunno what the disconnect is but you may be the only one struggling with the meaning behind the words. I don't see him referring to the death rate of people outside 18-64 at all.

You could say his information is biased because it is limited to folks that have insurance through his company, but he's up front about that.

>it’s not elderly people who are dying

Quoted verbatim from the source article. This is a plain statement on the death rate of that specific age group.

Do you think he's saying elderly people aren't dying? Because that's what those precise words would mean when you take them out of context. In context, it's clear that he's not talking about elderly people at all.

I've had to chop up the quote to point out the exact part I take issue with. The entire quote is a comparison of age groups, of which he does not appear to have data for.

Also as others have mentioned, this part may have been added by the reporter who definitely doesn't cite Amy source for the comparison. Either option equates to poor reporting.

As others point out here, this is a literary construction flagging that in his specific context, he is not referencing old people. He is making the very point that he is above accused of not making. Just as if I were to chop the quote in your sentence “this part may have been added by a reporter” (which is not a self-reference to your own quote possibly having been edited by a reporter), the context is important. The reporting here is causal but being able to interpret such statements is part of basic reading comprehension.

It is a literary construction that makes the sentence contain incorrect information. A correct statement would have not mentioned elderly people at all because they are not included in the data:

"There has been an increase in deaths of working age 18-64 year olds."

Full stop. No need to mention the elderly.

Sure. Is this true: (WHERE 18 <= age <= 64) is the same as (WHERE 18 <= age <= 64 AND NOT 64 < AGE) ? This is what he's saying. It's emphatic, not pedantic to make such a point.

Humans are not programs or computers and language is inherently fuzzy. Having the added statement about the elderly implies they are making a statement about elderly deaths. There is no reason to include the statement as it makes the reporting unclear. This is a problem with reporting on data and science, through the game of telephone things are added and removed and meaning is added or lost.

Simply stating that deaths are up for working age people is more than sufficient and avoids adding unclear information. There is no reason to make any statement about any group that is not included in the data.

If I have data on goose deaths in Florida, I wouldn't say "goose deaths are up in Florida, but not because they're dying in New Jersey!"

I simply cannot make a statement on New Jersey goose mortality because my data says nothing about New Jersey

No, he's making a statement saying that his data shows working age people dying at a higher rate. It says nothing about elderly people.

The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people.

...

Davison said the increase in deaths (that his company sees) represents “huge, huge numbers,” and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying (to account for this increase), but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica.

Plus, he actually could say "that elderly people aren't dying at the same rate" in his dataset and be technically correct. The elderly are not part of his dataset, so it's vacuously true.

Yes, he is making a comment on his data and as an insurer this data only includes working age people, not the elderly.

So of course he doesn't see elderly deaths because they aren't in his data set

But since his data set is limited, we just can't draw this conclusion

You are simply reading this wrong. If you want to prove that to yourself, call up this guy and talk to him. He will tell you you're stating something totally obvious and making a very silly distinction. You're agreeing with him violently. Come back in a couple of years and re-read this, you'll realize your interpretation is wrong.

Yes, you miss the context of the conversation. No, it is not a comparison.

If elderly people are not in the data set, why are they mentioned at all?

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