782
Middle age rule (sh.itjust.works)
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] PunnyName@lemmy.world 57 points 10 months ago

I'm 42, overweight, and poor. I'm an elderly middle-aged person who's maybe got 20-25 years to go.

[-] FunkyMonk@kbin.social 23 points 10 months ago

41 but If I go another 20 with my stress ima be amazed.

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 10 points 10 months ago

The way you put it like that sounds so crass and soulless.

[-] Custoslibera@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

It’s true though.

[-] PunnyName@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] RBWells@lemmy.world 49 points 10 months ago

My kids say:

Birth to 30 is young.

31-60 is middle aged.

Over 60 is old.

Over 90 is fucking old.

People are aging more slowly than they did in the past, better information about health now. Look up 55 year old celebrities. These are certainly middle aged people, they aren't young, and most don't look old either. That is how I would define middle age and it's getting longer. You can't get old at 40, you will be old too long.

[-] hex@programming.dev 12 points 10 months ago

Celebrities pay a lot of money to stay looking the way they do, and most people who have to work labor and stuff dont have the privilege to look or feel that way

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

A lot of that has to do with smoking. Smoking adds wrinkles. It makes you look older. A lot of older celebrities smoked and a lot of younger ones don't.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

Celebrities also have the best health care, access to the best food, and personal trainers. There's a reason you only really see them either dying from freak accident, substance abuse, or random hard to beat cancer.

The rest of us do not get those allowances.

[-] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 6 points 10 months ago

You stfu, 30s is not middle aged

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] rbesfe@lemmy.ca 31 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Overall average lifespan is a misleading statistic because it includes people who die young (infant mortality for example really brings it down). As you get older, the average lifespan for someone of your specific age increases.

[-] ZOSTED@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago

does it... keep increasing?

[-] aberrate_junior_beatnik@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago

It does, because we're talking about the total lifespan instead of remaining lifespan. A person who is 120 may have a 10% chance of living another year; but a 50 year old probably has less than a 1% chance living 71 more years. Of course the 50 year old probably has more than a 99% chance of living another year. So the older you are, the older your expected total lifespan is, even if your expected remaining lifetime is shorter.

[-] InputZero@lemmy.ml 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You're absolutely right, stats are a very misunderstood subject. It's difficult to contextualize stats like this when the population is so large. My measurement for when I got old was when I started to meet old friends and at some point in the conversation we begin talking about other friends who we both knew who've passed away since the last time we've talked.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Sharpiemarker@startrek.website 8 points 10 months ago

Infinitely. The more you age, the older you get.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] qaz@lemmy.world 31 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

73 seems pretty low. It’s 77,28 years in the US and 81,41 here in the Netherlands.

Still, it’s weird people call 50 middle aged when it’s more like 40.

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Well but 50 makes sense though you are kinda useless in your first 20-25 years then you start working acquiring experience etc 25 years later you are in the middle then 25 years later you die

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] doingless@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago

I'm 50 and definitely working at least to 70. I can't afford life now, I can't afford to retire!

[-] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

That's how I feel. If I'm lucky, my retirement supports only me and partially my wife for like 10 years. My wife's retirement will stretch us to 15 years.

Society is looking grim.

[-] lseif@sopuli.xyz 21 points 10 months ago

i have always assumed 'middle aged' meant somewhere 35-40. tbf i dont use or hear the term often.

[-] lemmyviking@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago

Regardless of what the median life expectantly is, I don't care I'm living to 100 years old. Barring accident of course. But I'm just too curious what the next 45+ years will be in the world. What are the new discoveries? New shows? What happens to the political situation? Will we become a space faring race? Or will we have to solve the climate crisis first, and stop warring?

I want to know. So I'm working to make that a reality.

[-] jdf038@mander.xyz 10 points 10 months ago

Narrator: they didn't figure it out

(Joking OC, even if I think you are a bit too optimistic I do like the optimism)

[-] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

To be fair most people who live to the average life expectancy do live past it, the average gets skewed down by people dying in car accidents in their 20s and such like.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Eh demographics shows a grim tale. People start really dying around 65 and it accelerates pretty quickly into the next few decades. Very few people live to be 100. About half of an age cohort will make it to 75. A quarter will make it to 85. This is easily visible on demographic charts.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Napain@lemmy.ml 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

i think it makes more sense to split it into thirds: for example in germany, for biological men, its 78 year, meaning you enter your middle ages at 26 years old and your old age at 52 years old. For biological women, its 83 years of life expectancy, meaning you enter your middle ages at 27.6 years old and your old age at 55.3 years old

edit: didn't mean to cause a gender debate, i dont think the statistic acounts for trans people, which i don't agree with. i would be curious to see the life expectancy statistics of trans conpared to cis people. i would guess cis would have been a better way for me to say it because i would think official statistics would go with your "official" gender but idk

[-] DessertStorms@kbin.social 15 points 10 months ago

for biological men,... For biological women

For future reference, the word you're looking for is "cis"

[-] konki@lemmy.one 37 points 10 months ago

But isn't their point that the life expectancy of "biological men" also apply to trans women, and vice verca? That wouldn't be conveyed if they used the prefix cis.

This would of course only be relevant if life expectancy is a purely biological phenomenon, which I am not so sure it is.

[-] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

A fair bit of the difference in lifespan isn't genetic, it's social. Statistically, men and women don't do the same jobs, and some of those are much more dangerous than others. Men are also more likely to get into accidents and violence, leading to younger deaths.

None of that cares about your genetics and your reproductive organs and hormones are only peripherally involved in it.

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] DessertStorms@kbin.social 6 points 10 months ago

A fair point I hadn't considered, but in that case AFAB/AMAB is still better than "biological male/female", since that's not even something most people know (I don't know my chromosomal, hormonal, or DNA structures, do you?).

[-] EddoWagt@feddit.nl 13 points 10 months ago

AFAB/AMAB

And what does that mean? Biological male/female seems pretty clear to me, whatever you're born with between your legs indicates which of the 2 you are...

[-] Stovetop@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Well, if ACAB means All Cops Are Bad, then I'm guessing AFAB and AMAB must be All Females Are Bad and All Males Are Bad.

...Or maybe ACAB is supposed to mean Assigned Cop At Birth?

[-] BananaOnionJuice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 10 months ago

Both AMAB and ACAB are the same: Assigned Cock At Birth.

[-] DessertStorms@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Those mean Assigned Female/Male At Birth.

And they exist because despite it being assigned that way at birth, gender or sex aren't actually determined only by "what is between your legs", nor are there just two binary options, since both gender and sex are a spectrum, not simply xx= vagina=female or xy=penis=male.

Feel free to educate yourself

[-] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 9 points 10 months ago

not really relevant though, xx being biologically male/xy being biologically female are uncommon enough

[-] DessertStorms@kbin.social 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

And yet, they deserve to be included and considered. 🤯

(never mind that variation on the 3rd grade understanding of biology I described above are significantly more common than what I'm sure you're willing to acknowledge. Sex and gender are spectrums, no matter how uncomfortable that might make you or how hard you try to deny it)

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] subwoofer@lemmy.gockandgum.party 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

"biological" mf thinks trans people are not organic 😨🥲

[-] WhiteHawk@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

I only buy free-range trans people

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] radix@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago

I thought it's because it's the middle of your adult life. 50 is the midpoint between 20 and 80.

[-] aulin@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The definition for middle aged (edit: as I have heard it) has always been 40. Most people live until 80 or a little less, so it makes sense.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Yeah, 40 is the traditional 'over the hill' birthday.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] bstix@feddit.dk 15 points 10 months ago

If we look past the numbers and mathematical term for middle, the stages of life could be determined by how capable or productive a person is. In that way, 50 is still a bit high, but it's close to the peak of productivity almost regardless of the job at hand.

On a positive note, we should be happy if this "middle-age" increases, because it means that we're more healthy and capable for longer. This is also very visible. Just during my life (mid 40s) I can see that the people of today in their late 60s look and behave as the people in their 50s did in my youth. It's like the capable years have been extended by 10-15 years.

On a more depressing note, the expected lifespan hasn't increased that much in the meantime, so it's not exactly linear. It seems that the change from being capable to being incapable due to age is really sharp. People don't enjoy long retirements the same way as before.

You know how working 5 days a week to have a 2 days off is bullshit. You can never do all the things in the weekend that you dream about all week. Same thing about retirement. You'll never get to enjoy the carrot at the end of the stick.

If you want to do something, do it now. If you can't do it now because of obligations, you need to change your obligations. Seize the day.

[-] Donkter@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Could "middle aged" more be referring to the middle after you become a real adult? Like at 18

73-18=55

55/2 =27.5

27.5+18=45.5

So still less than 50 but a lot closer.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

I always figured it was older people trying to feel younger. But yeah I think it works this way too.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
782 points (100.0% liked)

196

16450 readers
1826 users here now

Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.

Rule: You must post before you leave.

^other^ ^rules^

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS