Conservatives are dying at higher rates than liberals

ceejayoz 12 points 14 comments June 22, 2026
www.fastcompany.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (3 comments)

delichon

The dying gap doesn't have much effect at child bearing ages. The fertility gap is between between ~2.1 for conservatives (roughly replacement) and ~1.5 for liberals. To maintain political equilibrium liberals have to outpace conservatives in conversions or immigrants, or make more babies.

asmodeuslucifer

By 2016, the gap had begun to appear in biomarker measures. By 2020, it was showing up in deaths from causes such as heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Since then, the gap has only widened. Between 2020 and 2022, only 0.2% of “very liberal” respondents died of internal causes, compared with 1.34% of “very conservative” respondents.

solid_fuel

That's what happens when knee-jerk opposition to any form of expertise becomes a core tenant of a political philosophy. Conservatives in America have largely rejected the idea that reality is objective and knowable through applied observation and logic. Instead they choose to live in bubbles, believing known falsehoods like the idea that the Covid vaccine is worse than covid, or that vegetables are for pussies and real men only eat red meat.

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