Astronaut Jim Lovell, famed Apollo 13 commander, dies at 97

[conuly]

It really seems like the deaths are piling up lately.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Observer bias... or to put it another way, how many public figures of the generation younger than you can you name off the top of your head? People you know of tend to be older than you, and thus more likely to die as we get older. Which gives the impression of the deaths stacking up, when they're happening at more-or-less than same rate as usual. (ignoring blips like pandemics)

[conuly]

Yeah, well, I can name famous people older than I am that I would like to see drop dead and no luck yet. I just am annoyed.

[siliconshaman]

Valid point... there is definitely a bias in reality on that. The good truly do die young.

[conuly]

I guess 97 isn't all that young, but damn, can't $insertworldleader just die already? Painlessly, in his sleep, I'm not cruel, but c'mon!

[siliconshaman]

Ok, relativity young!

and yeah, off the top of my head I can think of at least four or five I'd like to see the obits of any day now.

[low_delta]

The more time passes, the more famous people there are. Remember when there were only three TV channels? Now there are hundreds, and there are more movies being made very year, and more and more bands every year.

On the other hand, there are still some anomalies, like 2016, when there seemed to be more stars dying than usual, and in hindsight there really was. So time will tell whether this is the latest version of normal.