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Since this is the politics thread does anybody want to discuss Biden's cancer diagnosis?  Barely 4 months out of office and they're saying it could be terminal.

I don't think this is partisan nor does it only apply to Biden. 

One of the overlooked issues in our gerontocracy is that we should consider VP candidates MUCH more seriously than we ever did in the past and I don't think that we do. 

According to the Social Security Administration the chances of dying within one year for a man at ages as indicated are:

• 35 (minimum age to be POTUS per US Constitution):  0.003074
• 45:  0.004774
• 55:  0.009770
• 65:  0.019914
• 70 (age that Ronald Reagan turned shortly after his first inauguration - and this was considered REALLY old at the time):  0.027050
• 71 (age that Donald Trump turned shortly after his first inauguration):  0.028970
• 74 (age that Ronald Reagan turned shortly after his second inauguration):  0.036747
• 78 (age that Joe Biden turned shortly before his inauguration):  0.053229
• 79 (age that Donald Trump will turn in June):  0.058778

I think these are easier to think of as ratios so here those are, roughly:

• 35:  3 in 1,000
• 45:  5 in 1,000
• 55:  1 in 100
• 65:  2 in 100
• 70:  3 in 100
• 71:  3 in 100
• 74:  4 in 100
• 78:  1 in 20
• 79:  1 in 17

These numbers steadily climb as you age but they really start to soar in the late 70's.  I think it is because you don't recover as well and also because many issues may come to a head at once at that point.  Ie, in your late 70's and after you are more likely to get multiple serious conditions either all at the same time or sequentially. 

Viewed another way, Trump's chance of dying within this term (without taking assassination risk into account):
This is my math, if anyone else feels like I've done this wrong, feel free to correct me:

• 0.053229 chance at 78 /2 =0.0266145
• 0.058778 chance at 79
• 0.064617 chance at 80
• 0.070947 chance at 81
• 0.077834 chance at 82 / 2 =0.038917
• 0.259874 chance of dying in office. 

That is one in four.  Now to be fair, Trump personally probably has a little better odds simply by virtue of having been healthy enough to run in 2024 but still it has to be around one in five or so. 

FWIW, milestones in mortality:

• 85 is the first age at which you have a 1 in 10 chance of dying within a year. 
• 92 is the first age at which it rises to 1 in 5
• 94 it hits 1 in 4
• 99 it hits 1 in 3
• 107 it is a coin-toss

Our neighbor who is 74 mentioned a few months back he had prostate cancer.  About two months ago he told us it was spreading faster than the doctors expected.  They checked further and determined it had not spread further. He's undergoing proton and hormone therapy currently with pretty good odds.

Now, he's a "regular guy".  (Well, he had a PhD in physics from Harvard, so there is that.)  He's on Medicare of course, and said the proton therapy was incredibly pricey, but Medicare covers it.  I would suppose he gets a rather cursory physical every year, and probably his PSA numbers were up, so they did a biopsy and caught the cancer.

It seems quite strange that this wouldn't have been caught much earlier in a President of the US.  Now, maybe it is very late arriving and unusually virulent, but that as I say is unusual.

Our neighbor who is 74 mentioned a few months back he had prostate cancer.  About two months ago he told us it was spreading faster than the doctors expected.  They checked further and determined it had not spread further. He's undergoing proton and hormone therapy currently with pretty good odds.

Now, he's a "regular guy".  (Well, he had a PhD in physics from Harvard, so there is that.)  He's on Medicare of course, and said the proton therapy was incredibly pricey, but Medicare covers it.  I would suppose he gets a rather cursory physical every year, and probably his PSA numbers were up, so they did a biopsy and caught the cancer.

It seems quite strange that this wouldn't have been caught much earlier in a President of the US.  Now, maybe it is very late arriving and unusually virulent, but that as I say is unusual.

I think I read it was a fast spreading sort, and it’s tracked less closely after 70. 

Pretty much.

They didn't change anything about their life when they hit the jackpot.  However, that family had quite a bit of land and I wondered if they already had more $ than you'd suspect on account of that.  Their kids built some new businesses in the area, one built a big truck stop, one built a restaurant that was pretty good, some other stuff I think.  The kids were grown, probably in their 50's, had their own land and oil money as well, though iirc not nearly as much.  Dunno if they borrowed from their parents or not.  The old couple didn't so much as buy new vehicles.  Couple of old Ford trucks, iirc. 

Forrest Gump nailed it pretty good.  "Mama says a person only needs so much money and the rest is just for show".  He's not wrong there.  

Sorry to hear that, I've been a Scott Adams fan since the very beginning of Dilbert.

Sucks for both Biden and Adams.  

TO REITERATE:  Please do your annual checkups, folks, and make sure they're doing annual labs and other exams appropriate for your age.  In many cases, a PSA test can uncover prostate cancer in time to do something about it. 

So you might say this is a PSA to do your PSA.