The U-bend of life: Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older | Hacker News Reader

The U-bend of life: Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older

economist.com

43 pointsianrahman29 comments

Survivor bias, those who are happy enough not to off themselves in one given way or another will scew the statistics

It’s more a radius of curvature effect. People are born with sharp personalities and views on how the world should be.

Eventually, you run up against the weathering affects of reality, your sharp edges smooth to a gentler polish, and you become far more stable and content.

Actually people are born with no expectations.

They are raised to believe in "one right way".

Over time they learn it is just one of many, and much of the "value system" they were raised on is bullshit.

If they move past this, they can focus on enjoying the rest of their lives.

Citation needed

After raising all these kids, they seem to have high expectations shortly after they transition from having only needs to wants :)

Meh…. Idk babies, toddlers, children all have expectations, many of them unreasonable.

Not saying nurture doesn’t give them different ones or modify existing ones, but I find it highly suspect and in direct contradiction of my empirical experience to assert that children aren’t born with expectations.

> Actually people are born with no expectations.

You say this based on what? You sound like you don't have kids, correct?

Having three, I still think that the tabula rasa might be the proper was to look at it. The expectations of infants follow from their interactions with the world. And those are firstly the interactions with their parents and family. Outside of the very basic needs (food, drink, emotional comfort) you get the children you make. Not to say that all children react the same way to the same parenting, or have the same expectations. But you do mostly create their value system that governs their expectations.

The suicide rate is not that high. Fewer than 50k last year in the US, an all-time high, from a population of 330M.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-health/cdc-data-finds-...

I suggest you take a second look at that article you reference. They haven't calculated the rate for this year so you have no evidence for your claim.

Straight from the article:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year, but available data suggests suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II.

I suggest you take a second look at that article:

> Last year, according to the new data, the number jumped by more than 1,000, to 49,449 — about a 3% increase vs. the year before. The provisional data comes from U.S. death certificates and is considered almost complete, but it may change slightly as death information is reviewed in the months ahead.

The CDC hasn't calculated an exact final rate yet, but we already know the suicides are approximately 50k and that the US population is approximately 30M, so yes, I have a lot of evidence for my claim.

The data may change "slightly". You're making a mountain out of a molehill with the conceit that the rate may somehow magically become huge when the data is all counted.

He's right, include deaths of despair by overdoses and alcohol. It's way over the 'norm'.

68k in 1995. 158k in 2018.

Measuring a societies' success by the suicide rate has sent the wrong signal. Even the authority whispers disbelief in it's own populace into the headlines.

> He's right, include deaths of despair by overdoses and alcohol. It's way over the 'norm'.

> 68k in 1995. 158k in 2018.

Yet it's still not high enough to explain "Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older" or to support the claim "those who are happy enough not to off themselves in one given way or another will scew the statistics".

Some bad/rough maths:

50k / 330M * 70 = 0.01.

50k from 330M per year assuming a 70 year average lifespan would mean 1% of the population dies by suicide. Not insignificant.

Pretty insignificant when we're talking about survivorship bias, though.

Fair enough. I guess I was prompted to post a reply because of the claim that "the suicide rate is not that high". I had heard the 50k figure in another recent story and found it quite shocking.

The point was just that it's not high enough to explain "Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older" or to support the claim "those who are happy enough not to off themselves in one given way or another will scew the statistics".

Id like to specify that i never stated that people “off themselves” purely from suicide. Drugs, alocohol, suicide, social isolation are all fair gain when combating the strugles of humanity

You still don't have any stats to back this up.

Beither does OP

I'm not sure survivorship bias applies when the topic of discussion is, literally, all people who have survived beyond a certain age. How else are we to make age-based observations?

Since the vast majority of people don't "off themselves" at any given age, with being past middle age included, that's one hell of a broad survivor bias you're talking about. Even among the most absolutely suicide-prone age cohort in the U.S.A, (those 45 to 54) the rate is no higher than 20 per 100,000. Like I said, survivor bias where the survivors represent 99.995% of the group?

I would say a big reason for the U-bend in many cases is that as you get deeper into middle age you can actually see retirement on the horizon, and then eventually you get there and aren't shackled by a job.

In that later part of the curve, you've made your bed and now you lie in it. So relax - it's not going to fly you to the moon.

The curve starts to go up right around five years before retirement age.

If I knew that I wouldn’t go to work ever again in five years and I’d probably be pretty happy too.

I bet it’s nice to not have to think about the long term career implications of coasting at work. I think I could get away with quiet quitting for 5 years.

https://archive.is/KUano

I guess the posted HN title should include (2010), but the conclusions are timeless.

(2010)

#Menot

The raising idiocacy of the monkey horde bothers me more and more.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com