michael_nielsen

When I start telling people my opinions about things like this they back away and unfollow me. :-}

Are you referring to the RAND healthcare study? Note, by the way, the comments about changing demographics other commenters have made, which likely invalidate my point (b).

I don't think changes in the birth rate could cause that graph to look anything like the graph that people _want_ to exist, in which modern medicine is dramatically better than 100-years-ago medicine.

Modern medicine _is_ a lot better, if in no other way than essentially wiping out infectious diseases (which is enormous). Infant mortality statistics is another huge win. Both are only partially medical, also due to, e.g., better plumbing etc.

Maybe modern medicine is a red queen

Tell that to the ppl who missed out on smallpox. From 50 million cases per year (not all lethal) in the 1950s to... 0. That's not running in place. Or tell it to a parent whose child didn't die. Infant mortality was nearly 40% in 1900, AKA most parents had a child who died.

I'm definitely not arguing against medecine! Infant mortality and infectious disease gains huge! I was making opposite push, maybe the reason (those two excluded) we see no mortality improvement in this chart is because we need to keep innovating in medicine to keep place with

Negative factors getting stronger too. Also I don't particularly hold this view just trying to parse this chart and come up with all possible explanations for it. Especially those that map to my prior of all medicine improving significantly still