4 ms·
Not better for your or me, just that it's better or comparable to the most of the world who lives in poverty and squalor. As far as measuring happiness, one me
by lawpoop 10y ago
Not better for your or me, just that it's better or comparable to the most of the world who lives in poverty and squalor.
As far as measuring happiness, one method would be levels of stress hormones in the blood.
- openasocket 10y agoThe global average life expectancy is still much better today than in a hunter-gatherer society, as is infant mortality, prevalence of infectious diseases, etc.
- yaks_hairbrush 10y agoLife expectancy is better today, but life expectancy as a hunter-gatherer was probably better than you think. [0] suggests a modal adult age of 68-78 years for hunter-gatherers. Infant mortality is indeed way down, and that's a big point in our favor (and the biggest driver of the life expectancy difference). Infectious diseases, though, are very much a product of agricultural society, as is starvation/famine. We might be living through the century (or possibly, have just lived through the century) where our technology finally enables us to fix these two problems caused by our ancestors' conversion to agriculture. [0] http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2...