5 ms·

"The point of this is that if we provided these Ancient Greeks with nothing but urgent life-saving emergency care from modern technology, it's highly likely tha

"The point of this is that if we provided these Ancient Greeks with nothing but urgent life-saving emergency care from modern technology, it's highly likely that their life expectancy would dwarf ours of today." This is something you can't possibly determine. Ancient Greeks famous enough to have their own Wikipedia pages may not have had penicillin but on balance they certainly would have lived easier lives than peasants who worked years of hard labour just to survive, and would have lived longer because of it. It is also, quite literally, survivorship bias - people who lived to be older had more time to achieve things and become notable enough to make Wikipedia. The thing with getting old, as noted in the article, is that past a certain age if one thing doesn't get ya, another thing probably will. Modern medicine is not a buff which will add +X years to all humans regardless of circumstance, it is just about staving off the first few things which try and kill you - and that's why, by all accounts (including this article), life expectancy is longer now than it was in the past. And for the record boiling water works just fine at killing bacteria living in it. It's not magic and if your water is still full of arsenic you'll still die, but it's much better than nothing.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Right, I am not talking about the peasants of the time. 'We', as in the masses, more readily associate with the peasants than the aristocracy but in reality the average person today lives a life that's certainly more luxurious, in terms of things, than the aristocracy of the time. In terms of objective luxuries, people today have vastly more: reliable indoor plumbing, easy and rapid transportation, consistent and practically unlimited running water, air conditioning, practically unlimited access to whatever sorts of food (even exotic) you care to purchase, and much more. So entitled have we become that it feels kind of silly to call those things luxuries! The life of the luxurious Ancient Greek would have likely been more interesting due to power and prestige, but they did not have objectively better lives in terms of 'things' than even an average individual today. And now a days I think it goes without saying that the average person exerts substantially less energy per day than even our luxurious Ancient Greeks did. Lives are much easier. Another interesting thing is also not all of the Ancient Greeks you know were living lives of luxury, even by standards of their time. Socrates was born to a stonemason, served in the military, and lived his later life in voluntary poverty - offering up 100 drachmae as a punishment for the allegations that would lead to his execution. 100 drachmae was 1/5th of his entire life's wealth. For some scale, an unskilled worker would earn around 1 drachma a day, a skilled worker would earn around 5 drachma a day. He was executed at age 71, still in extremely good health. --- And yeah, on the boiling - I was stating that they did on occasion genuinely purify their water. However, the sniff/taste test was the norm with boiling the occasional exception.
- watwut 8y ago
  Socrates was poor compared to other citizens - peers and local elite. He was unlikely to be poor compared to non-citizens, slaves etc. Most people were non-citizens (slaves, immigrants and women) and poorer then citizens with less rights. He spent most of his time discussing philosophy (unclear whether he was paid), he was not worker who struggles to get by. Some say Socrates supported himself via few slaves who would run small farm or something of the sort. I don't know if it is true
- lylecubed 8y ago
  > And now a days I think it goes without saying that the average person exerts substantially less energy per day than even our luxurious Ancient Greeks did. Lives are much easier. That right there could be your reason. The human body was not designed to be stagnant. I read recently that the whole reason for the evolutionary development of brains in both animals and humans is to facilitate complex movement. Several studies done throughout the decades show a correlation between greater physical activity and better academic/learning results. The ancient greeks also believed there was a connection between improving the body and improving the mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVzKCk066g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVzKCk066g

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

Right, I am not talking about the peasants of the time. 'We', as in the masses, more readily associate with the peasants than the aristocracy but in reality the average person today lives a life that's certainly more luxurious, in terms of things, than the aristocracy of the time. In terms of objective luxuries, people today have vastly more: reliable indoor plumbing, easy and rapid transportation, consistent and practically unlimited running water, air conditioning, practically unlimited access to whatever sorts of food (even exotic) you care to purchase, and much more. So entitled have we become that it feels kind of silly to call those things luxuries! The life of the luxurious Ancient Greek would have likely been more interesting due to power and prestige, but they did not have objectively better lives in terms of 'things' than even an average individual today. And now a days I think it goes without saying that the average person exerts substantially less energy per day than even our luxurious Ancient Greeks did. Lives are much easier. Another interesting thing is also not all of the Ancient Greeks you know were living lives of luxury, even by standards of their time. Socrates was born to a stonemason, served in the military, and lived his later life in voluntary poverty - offering up 100 drachmae as a punishment for the allegations that would lead to his execution. 100 drachmae was 1/5th of his entire life's wealth. For some scale, an unskilled worker would earn around 1 drachma a day, a skilled worker would earn around 5 drachma a day. He was executed at age 71, still in extremely good health. --- And yeah, on the boiling - I was stating that they did on occasion genuinely purify their water. However, the sniff/taste test was the norm with boiling the occasional exception.

watwut 8y ago
Socrates was poor compared to other citizens - peers and local elite. He was unlikely to be poor compared to non-citizens, slaves etc. Most people were non-citizens (slaves, immigrants and women) and poorer then citizens with less rights. He spent most of his time discussing philosophy (unclear whether he was paid), he was not worker who struggles to get by. Some say Socrates supported himself via few slaves who would run small farm or something of the sort. I don't know if it is true
lylecubed 8y ago
> And now a days I think it goes without saying that the average person exerts substantially less energy per day than even our luxurious Ancient Greeks did. Lives are much easier. That right there could be your reason. The human body was not designed to be stagnant. I read recently that the whole reason for the evolutionary development of brains in both animals and humans is to facilitate complex movement. Several studies done throughout the decades show a correlation between greater physical activity and better academic/learning results. The ancient greeks also believed there was a connection between improving the body and improving the mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVzKCk066g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVzKCk066g