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World's Oldest Person Dies at Age 124 (cnnphilippines.com) 58

Posted by EditorDavid from the lived-long-and-prospered dept.
Slashdot reader ellithligraw brings the news that the oldest person on earth has died in the Philippines this week at age 124.

CNN Philippines reports: Susano was born on Sept. 11, 1897, which was before the country became independent from Spanish rule. As of September this year, Guinness World Records was still verifying the documents needed for her to be officially declared as the world's oldest living person.
NextShark calls Susano "the last surviving person born in the 19th century." And they add that, according to Manila Bulletin, "Susano has 14 children. One of them is considered a centenarian at the age of 101."
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World's Oldest Person Dies at Age 124 More

World's Oldest Person Dies at Age 124

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  • Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)

    by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Sunday November 28, 2021 @10:36AM (#62027673)
    Philippines, you say? [biorxiv.org]

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)

      by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Sunday November 28, 2021 @11:28AM (#62027745) Homepage
      Yeah, I was going to post that, but you beat me to it. The point that supercentenarians are concentrated in areas with poor record keeping really does suggest that a lot of them are due to errors in records or just people lying about their age. A connected issue also that doesn't get as much appreciation as it should is that this should maybe also make us suspect that the increase in life-expectancy over time is underestimated, since these people will be incorrectly bringing up the mean and medians both. Similarly, there's some evidence that in countries with poor recording keeping many infants that die soon after birth are just not recorded, which has a similar (and probably larger) impact.
      • Pension fraud. People declare that they are older in order to get old age pension, or they take over their parents identity when they die for the same reason. Peasants who smoke drink and work outside look older than they are so can get away with the fraud.

        • Re: Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Sunday November 28, 2021 @11:49AM (#62027803) Homepage
          Although, in terms of pension fraud, you also have in developed countries, a few cases where a family member has died, and the family doesn't let anyone know so they can keep collecting. Sogen Kato is a famous example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogen_Kato [wikipedia.org] but there are a few other documented cases. That said, my guess is that this is rare enough to not be statistically significant at all.

          • Re: Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)

            by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday November 28, 2021 @12:17PM (#62027875)

            That said, my guess is that this is rare enough to not be statistically significant at all.

            Depends on your definition of statistically significant. A quick search turned up this one [seattletimes.com], this one [nydailynews.com], this one [cnn.com], this one [nypost.com], this one [mcall.com], this one [inquirer.com], and this one [abc13.com].

            And these are only the ones I found in two minutes and/or were reported. Who knows how many others have been done and/or are continuing to be done.

            • Hmm, that's a good point. It may be more common than I'm estimating.

              • Hmm, that's a good point. It may be more common than I'm estimating.

                And it's probably even more common among those claiming to be over 100 years old, such as the whole Jeanne Calment story.

            • Depends on your definition of statistically significant. A quick search turned up...

              First of all, we need a statistical sample. [wikipedia.org] That requires a sample to be free from documented sampling bias. [wikipedia.org] Unfortunately, news media suffers from a well documented negativity bias. [latimes.com] Therefore, I don't think any respectable scientist would call this a statistical sample.

              The best way to get statistically significant data on the subject is to randomly select people collecting Social Security, and audit them. I suspect the Social Security Administration conducts such audits. However, I can't find it amo

          • Many of the long lifespans in the Caucasus Mountains were due to men lying about their age to avoid being conscripted into the Russian Army. The local churches helped them to falsify baptismal records.

        • Not always of malice though. I think there was an Indonesian guy that is also claimed to be near 130 in the past but never verified, as it was highly suspected that he just took over his Dad's ID card when he went to look for work in Jakarta. Re-using relatives' IDs are not unheard of in bygone era, as they want to save money and not pay for charges (and transport fares) to governmental bureaus get Documentations done.

          The old man in question never agreed or denied the claim of being the oldest man alive,

      • However... "Susano has 14 children. One of them is considered a centenarian at the age of 101."

        That will make it harder to to say that it was due to invalid records.

  • This is what the oldest person in the world does.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Midnight_Falcon ( 2432802 ) on Sunday November 28, 2021 @10:46AM (#62027683)
    Usually, all we hear about the oldest person in the world is when they die and run an obituary. I, for one, enjoyed Henry Allingham [independent.co.uk], who credited his long life to cigarettes, wild women and whiskey.

    Long live the new oldest person in the world!

  • No no no no... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Sunday November 28, 2021 @10:47AM (#62027689)

    'which was before the country became independent from Spanish rule'

    Err - before the year that the country came under the rule of the Empire of the USA...

    The phrase suggests they got independence after the Spanish - USA war; in fact they merely swopped one imperial master for another.

    • Re:No no no no... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Sunday November 28, 2021 @11:08AM (#62027717)

      Which was granted independence in 1946. The US also paid $20M to Spain in the treaty of Paris in 1898 [socratic.org]

      The Spanish-American war is a great reminder about how the press can influence the public and how "yellow journalism" [history.com] whipped up an anti-Spanish fervor in the country prior to the incident of the USS Maine which was then fed upon by the press as an act of war.

    • The linked Yahoo News had it worded even more oddly: According to CNN, the Filipina was born on Sept. 11, 1897, which was the year before the Philippines broke free from Spanish colonization.

      Somewhere, someone must have pointed out that in 1897 The Philippines was a Spanish colony. Then someone else decided to editorialize to say something bad about colonization. To be fair, in the middle of the short Spanish-American War the Philippines did declare itself independent from Spain.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 )
      The Americans uplifted the Philippines and gave them independence when they were ready. They fought hard to defend Filipinos from the Japanese in WWII. When defeated, they swore to return, and return they did. After the war the Philippines received their independence. Fun fact: the Americans had intended to make the Philippines independent years before, but the war got in the way. Even today the countries are friends.

      • Re:No no no no... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Sunday November 28, 2021 @03:17PM (#62028213) Homepage
        This really isn't accurate. The main reason that the people of the Philippines remember the US well is because Japan's atrocities were much, much worse. Between 1899 and 1913, there was what amounted to an undeclared war for Philippine independence which the US fought against. Over 4000 American soldiers died, over 20,000 died on the other side, and hundreds of thousands of civilians died. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/ [state.gov] During this time, there was a vocal movement in the US to directly annex the country. The US did in 1916 pass a law about eventually giving independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_Law_(Philippines) [wikipedia.org], but then proceeded to find multiple excuses to delay it, first the first world war and only then the second one. There's a 15 year or so period in between where they don't get it. As for the idea of it being "when they were ready"- that's itself an excuse. At no point did the people of the Philippines think they needed to be "ready"- the US could have given them independence at any time. But it was not politically or economically advantageous to the US to do so. It is true that the US did eventually settle on a 10 year transition period which was interrupted by World War II, but that was for the US's only purposes and not what the people of the Philippines largely wanted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tydings%E2%80%93McDuffie_Act [wikipedia.org]. Indeed, the fact that the US gave the country independence so quickly after World War II, when the US was functionally exhausted and tired of having large colonial possessions, shows how most US politicians cared for the stability or prosperity of the new country.

  • Not recognized by the Gerontology Research Group (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I find it strange that this person never is not in the list recognized by scientific group in charge of making a list. Also, since 124 breaks the absolute longevity record, this extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence, and I don't feel like Guiness as a popular science publication has enough credit for suddenly adding someone at #1 position that we never could see climbing in the top 100.

    Lists at Wikipedia:
    List of oldest verified people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    List by country: https:// [wikipedia.org]

  • I'd be impressed. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jd ( 1658 )

    Current evidence suggests unaided human longevity maxes out at 120. To live longer would require a stem cell transplant at the very least.

    • Jeanne Calment lived to 121 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment [wikipedia.org] and she's very well documented, so there's nothing special about 120. It is for reasons discussed in other comments above, unlikely that this individual actually did live to be 124, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. We're still figuring out a lot of biology. 120 years ago or so, people died of "old age". Now, every time someone dies we're able to say what the specific cause of death was. As we get better at dealing with them, we g

      • She lived to 122, not 121. And there is skepticism [wikipedia.org] over whether she actually lived that long (some think she died and her daughter pretended to be her in order to avoid paying inheritance taxes).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dargaud ( 518470 )
          They suggested that with no proof whatsoever, so it's merely an 'idea'.

        • When Calment died, there were numerous old people
          (90+ years) who lived in the same town and
          had known her their whole lives. Many of them
          were students of hers when she taught elementary school
          in the 1890's.

      • Jeanne Calment lived to 121 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org] and she's very well documented, so there's nothing special about 120.

        That is not true; Jeanne Calment was statistically unlikely by any measure. The page you linked literally says that "demographers have highlighted that Calment's age is an outlier, her lifespan being several years longer than the next oldest people ever documented (where the differences are usually by months or even weeks)". Did you choose to ignore that part?

        • Of course she's exceptional. But the point is that there isn't a maximum at 120. That's demonstrably false.
          • If you have an asymptotically exponential distribution, like you have with ages, theoretical maximum is infinite but any practical sample will fall far away from that.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Just for fun: from the data (list of old people by age), the population in the 100+ y.o. classes decreases by 50% each additional year, very steadily, until the number of people in the class drops below 1, which happens to be at 120 y.o., so this age limit could be just a feature of limited statistics. If we could, by improving living conditions, bring the entire 3.5 billion female population to 100 y.o. initially, and assuming the deaths from that point occur at random and 50% per year, the oldest could (s

    • Current evidence suggests unaided human longevity maxes out at 120.

      Clearly, current evidence does not suggest that unless you believe that the records in her case are wrong.

  • And in breaking news (Score:5, Funny)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Sunday November 28, 2021 @12:41PM (#62027909)

    The worlds youngest person was just born.

    • "The world's youngest sucker is born every minute", or something like that?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      You jinxed him (xor her). Already lost the title.

      Actually the joke I was looking for was something witty based on the fatal jinx of being called the "world's oldest person". So far it's killed every title holder!

      Though I lack the wit to do the joke well, I'd still enjoy the laugh if someone else did.

  • Jeanne Calment was asked what she thought of the amazing changes over her lifetime.

    Freely translated, her reply amounted to "Meh. People are the same."

    • Heh. Apparently she actually met Vincent van Gogh. Now this may be apocryphal, but allegedly she contested that "he looked ugly, didn’t smell good, and was rude". Might explain why his works only ever made it into the limelight after his death.
  • There is no credible evidence that she was that old.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dissy ( 172727 )

        We could saw her in half and count the rings?

        Or extract the carbon from her body and then take it to dinner and a movie.
        It may end up with more of a mess, but some say that is the spice of life.

  • One of them is considered a centenarian at the age of 101

    I though being 100-or-more years old was the very definition of "centenarian" - no "consideration" necessary.

  • Or stuff that matters?

  • Why not just say "One of them is a centenarian..."

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