IMTU: Aging in Traveller
IMTU: Aging in Traveller In 1700AD average human lifespan was about 33 years. Human lifespan has, on average, increased to 80 years. So that means in the last 325 years human lifespan has increased by 57 years. Simple math shows that as 0.17 years for every year but this is deceiving. More than half that increase has taken place since 1900. Which means on the last 125 years the increase has averaged of almost double that rate or 0.33 years per year. Even at a much slower rate, with increases in medical technology, average human lifespan could easily be twice that number even if progression shrunk to almost nothing. As I write this the oldest documented living person is 116 years of age, or almost half again as old as the average. So in my Traveller universe average human lifespan is approximately 160 years, with the oldest human being approximately 240 years of age. Sociologically, IMTU I would posit that as human lifespan became longer what society might think of anyone in a certain a...