Keep in mind lifetime risk includes the risk of getting it in old age, where it might be a case of if you didn't die of cancer, you'd just die of some other ailment (heart attack, dementia, etc) instead.

Evolution only optimized our parts to last for so long, and once you get past that age, everything kind of starts failing simultaneously.

This is in part because too long life may in fact hurt the group. Of course we don’t want to look at that because we are so hell bent on extending life, even talk about immortality.

You're talking about an optimization strategy that's a few hundred thousand years old though. (And might not even be an optimization strategy at all) Its applicability to modern life seems highly dubious considering the massive cultural changes we have been going through.

Evolution works on the genetic level, not the population level. While some altruistic strategies might be selected for (e.g. kin selection), in general evolution doesn't care if something "hurts the group."

In nature, dying of old age is incredibly rare as you are much more likely to die from predation or injury. Even if you suffered no ill effects from aging, ie you were biologically immortal, passing on your genes successfully would still require you to have offspring reasonably early in life. There is only selection pressure on your genes up to the point where you have successfully passed on your genes. It makes sense for evolution to keep you alive while raising your kids, and even while helping your offspring raise their kids (see the Grandmother Effect [0]), but eventually the marginal utility of your support drops so low, and the odds you're already dead rises so high, that there is simply no selective pressure. As an illustrative example, you could have a gene that makes you twice as strong as you were at 25, but if it only activates after you're 150, you and evolution would never know.

On top of this, many genes have tradeoffs. If there is any mutation that gives benefits early in life but is harmful later in life, evolution will tend to select for it, especially versus the reverse. Similarly, traits that only provide a benefit for a finite period which is nevertheless long compared to natural lifespan can be favored over traits that work indefinitely (eg many mammals are born with a few sets of teeth and have no way of repairing them). This leads into more general accumulation-of-damage theories of aging.

We see many species in nature, particularly those unlikely to undergo predation and at low risk of injury, with substantially longer or even indefinite lifespans. In the lab, we can also breed organisms like fruit flies to have substantially longer than natural lifespans.

There is no evidence that living longer is harmful to others in hunter gatherer societies of the sort we evolved to live in, and certainly no evidence that such harm would still be present in modern, industrial societies.

[0] https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/22/grandmother-effect-helps...

This is quite shortsighted of you to say. If your group is less likely to survive, you as a part of it are also less likely to survive and vice versa. Genetics are not isolated from you, or your group, or your environment, they’re not isolated from anything. Evolution is a function of the totality of the system in which you exist. And to prove my point, genetics clearly work on the level of an organism, which is nothing but a group of cells holding the genes you’re talking about. Why are genetics working on the level of the organism, a group of cells, not just on the level of the cells? It makes no sense to have it both ways and claim the evolution of genes goes beyond cells but stops at the surface of your skin. Why did we evolve empathy, cooperation, language? Because we survive better as a group when we can synchronize together in advanced ways. You think none of this requires genetic alteration to exist? Why not teach your cat to talk then?

You've put it clearly and simply better than I managed in my reply. The data is just too noisy we will need extraordinary large datasets to even beging to make comments.

Damn that's almost a coin flip chance, what a fucking world man.

Heads says heart disease, tails says cancer.

Edge gets both.

Edge gets to die of old age.

The real question is when you get it. Having a slow growing cancer when you're 86 is pretty typical and often not even treated.

Having breast cancer in your mid-30s, like a couple of my late dear friends did right after they had their children... often a death sentence...

The word you're looking for is "QALY".

Note: that is about chances of getting cancer, not dying from cancer. Many people beat cancer. Many cancer types have good survival rates. Thyroid cancer (Chernobyl had much of these) sucks, but many people who got it had their thyroid removed and had to rely on drugs for the rest of their life ... this is obviously not ideal but much better than dying I guess?

This happened to me at 18 and my cat when he was 16. Now he's turning 19 and I'm turning 43. He and I can confirm it is much better than dying. Mine was sliced and diced and I'm stuck taking a pill every day. For his they used a radioactive pellet to kill the extra tissue and he doesn't need to take anything.

This is happening much vastly more frequently with cats and some folks suspect a now banned chemical is to blame.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/magazine/the-mystery-of-t...

If this happens to your cat there are 3 choices.

- Die soon

- Take Methimazole. It will partially control thyroid levels but not well so your cat still dies but later than option one.

- A vet implants a small radioactive pellet destroying the problematic tissue. Most cats will live as long as they otherwise would have and few have to take thyroid hormone.