No, you've confused life expectancy at birth with average age of death; that is, males who are born today are, on average, expected to live to around 78; when Ed Lee was born, that number was a little over 65.
"Yeah, in 1950 you could die from polio. Half the male population smoked. No seatbelts in cars, ... No treatments for cancer, heart disease... There were a lot of factors. "
(It also doesn't make sense to use life expectancy at @current-age in the year they died, at least if you are trying to portray “premature” death as something other than a near universal norm.)
Who said you should use this as a gauge? That included lots of coal miners who were dying of black lung, etc.
One value isn't a very good indicator. By state and race varies greatly, for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_life_ex...
The current life expectancy of an Asian American in California is 86 years old.
Implicitly, all the people in this thread—including you—pointing to the current US male life expectancy at birth.
I just say that if you are going to use life expectancy at birth, at least use one applicable to the birth of the person in question.
Ideally, you’d apply a conditional probability.
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/768215/conditional-...
If you go to the Social Security site, for example, you can calculate your life expectancy.
https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/longevity.cgi
For a male born on Dec 1, 1952, your current life expectancy is 84 years old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_Douglas
The average age of death for a US male is 78, which isn't particularly old. Move to Canada and you get a few more years. :-)