Yes, I worked with programmers who were in the business 40years back. They all adapted from the punch hole days to assembler to modern day languages. It's part of the job, it's actually not that difficult imo as most of us spend too much of our spare time keeping up to date.
On topic:
What are peoples views on current taxation in regards to the funding health care? i.e. should we have higher taxes an increase to national insurance, etc?
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I think you have missed probably the biggest reason people in the UK are living longer on average, the decline of heavy industry i.e, mining, ship building, steelworks etc and moving in to a more stedatary work culture. These trades had a massive effect on the body and a lot of these men where simply worn out when retirement came so did not live long afterwards. Yes there have been advancements in the quality of food, medical care etc but those do not account for all the rise in the average age.
65 - 18 = 47 working years.
18 20 = 38 non working years
Some people can barley afford to pay their bills at the end of the month, how do you expect them to save to fund their old age?
We live longer because the recent advances in medical sciences has enabled us to.
Also, we are more aware of dangerous substances than in the past - asbestos, cigarette smoking, exhaust fumes, CO2, smog etc.
Also, most of us eat fresher and healthier food than in the past.
Nothing to do with decline of heavy industry, in fact quite the opposite - because of heavy industry people were slimmer and fitter than today. The only difference in heavy industry these days is that we have very strict health and safety rules and much less pollution than in the past.
There were was other factors that prevented people from living longer in the past... And wars didn't help either.
I am not sure that there is any evidence that life expectancy has increased between 1963 and 2015 due to the decline of heavy industry.
If that were the case then you would expect two observe a couple of aspects relating to the life expectancy figures.
Firstly, the life expectancy of men, who would have traditionally carried out such jobs, would have risen much faster than the life expectancy for women. That has not happened. The life expectancy for both men and women has increased at fairly similar rates since 1963.
Secondly, if working in manufacturing or agriculture significantly impacted lifespan then you would expect to see the increase in life expectancy to decline as the number of people working in those industries declined. In 1961 around 40% of the UK workforce was in manufacturing or agriculture. By 1981 that figure was only just above 20%. Now it is something like 10%. However, what we have seen is a fairly consistent rise in life expectancy over that period.
Medical advancement is not and never will be the only reason we are living longer.
Heavy industry took a toll on the manpower, what materials etc do you think where used in the heavy industries, ship building asbestos etc, mining black lung amongst others.
Manufacturing & agriculture are totally different from heavy industry.
Recommend you read posts before replying data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Ditto.
OK - I couldn't find any figures on numbers of people working in heavy industry.
However, I still don't see any evidence that the increase in longevity since 1963 is in any way related to the decline of heavy industry.
My point stands that if that were true then we would expect to see much larger increases in life expectancy for men than for women - and we don't so heavy industry cannot have been a significant factor. (At least not for this period.)
If you have any statistical evidence to the contrary then I would love to see it. (I mean that - I always try to base my opinions on factual evidence - sowhen I am curious about something I go and look for the evidence using sources such as the office for national statistics. My habit of doing this is probably based upon my economics/statistics background - even though i now work in IT.)
I see that @Sve has been suspended hopefully for just stating "facts" without anything to back them up . I find that worse than insulting other members or other infringements
Think it was for questioning a remainer, they don't like that. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7