Countdown to Death

I recently stumbled upon (yes! stumbleupon.com!) a site on the internet called the "Death Clock". (http://www.deathclock.com/)

    Apparently, according to this site's calculations, my day of death will be Tuesday, January 27, 2071.  As this window (seen above) pops up, the seconds begin to count down....

http://www.deathclock.com/

    This idea that you can somehow calculate the day you will die, down to the second, got me thinking; unfortunately thinking some morbid thoughts, so warning in advance!  I'm not generally a morbid or pessimistic person, I tend to lean towards the optimistic side of things, a healthy trait in my opinion.  But this site does make me wonder, who got the idea for this site, giving people "the" day that they will die?  why would they want to do this? 

    Clearly, I'm not the only one fascinated by this, as when "death clock" is googled...

I found seven different sites, just on the first page, with more on the following pages!

    I believe that people in our culture, just like me, are inherently fascinated by death; everything from why, how to slow it, how to prevent it, the afterlife, the remains, and anything else related.  We humans are naturally curious, its what got us to where we are today, and so something that still remains unknown today is something that I believe people will always be trying to explain.

   But I did decide to take a little gander at the other sites, and here is what I found...

Most sites just looked at BMI and age, then determined a random (I'm assuming) date within a certain range:

http://www.death-clock.org/

Another site had me fill out a long questionnaire (giving it a more legitimate feel I think), asking about everything from flossing habits to diet to environment:

  My age at death varied quite a bit, again leading me away from lending too much credibility to these sites.  I believe they use a date generator, taking into account my sex and current age, to generate my day of death based on current average life spans.

    I read somewhere that my generation is so unhealthy and so unconcerned with health that we will be the first generation to have shorter life spans than our parents' generation - a terrifying thought.  Humans have come so far, medically and technologically, and it scares me that we could possibly be undoing all the advancements and advantages our ancestors worked so hard to achieve for us.

    I seriously doubt that many, if any, people will take these clocks too seriously, but it does make me, at least, pause and think for a minute.  Not that I believe it can tell me when I'm going to die, because I have decided I'm going to live to be at least 102 (I want my 100th birthday letter from the queen!).