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Apparently people don't see the implications of the fact that Trump is quite old. For a 78 yo american, there's 5.32 % chance to die from old age next year. There's a bit less time, Trump is a bit older than 78 (78.62). Let's say 0.93*(5.32*0.38+5.88*0.62)=5.27 % . He can afford better treatment than your average american, but he also has other risks to end his presidency.
@79db Whenever this topic comes up on manifold there seems to be a deep misunderstanding about what the “typical X year old who passes away” looks like in these actuarial tables.
It is not a uniform 5% of all 78 year olds who die each year. Many elderly people are quite obviously infirm. The ones who pass away are heavily concentrated in that same group who, at the start of the year, would have been very obviously sick/infirm.
Trump’s world-class medical care barely matters compared to this much more important factor. Trump is much much much much healthier than the typical 78 year old who passes away (it does not require him to be even healthier than the typical 78 year old—the "typical" 78 year old also has very little chance of dying within a year!). He maintains a high activity schedule, with a high pressure job. He golfs. People might think “sure but he’s not the healthiest 78 year old I’ve seen” but that’s irrelevant. The bottom 10% of 78 year olds are obviously infirm. Go to any local hospital and you will see what that looks like.
This is trivial to confirm—apply these actuarial tables to “members of Congress” over the past few decades. Naively applying actuarial tables to the members of Congress would cause you to massively overpredict the rates at which they pass away. And that's before applying any sort of common sense, case-by-case check (since some members of Congress are obviously visibly infirm, and those are the ones who typically pass away!).
I dunno how these numbers keep getting applied to politicians when even just like, intuitively, do you think 5-10% of the oldest members of Congress die each year? Would you apply these tables to your own healthy grandparent?
@Ziddletwix That makes sense, thank you. I actually did think it was reasonable to apply them to my own healthy grandparents and it's nice to know it isn't. (I barely know any congress members to have intuition for the rate at which they die)
@79db (totally fair & i probs worded this too strongly, since it's a super common topic that comes up, & it's not like i know of a quick/easy source for good base rates, i.e. "actuarial tables conditioned on people not already receiving substantial medical attention", it's tricky!)
@Ziddletwix "And quartz, of course" © I probably am not aware about many super common topics here since I only use manifold occasionally