3 ms·

Most of us died before the age of 30 during that period of time

by dymk 4y ago

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Low life expectancy at birth due to humans dying during infant/child years due to disease and other causes is not indicative of effects of living in huts around campfires.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  My ancestors lived in thatched roof cottages with open fires and livestock. Soot and smoke was one of many hazards.
FiberBundle 4y ago
Average life expectancy for hunter gatherers was low due to infant mortality. If people didn't die as an infant their life expectancy was actually fairly high (~70 years).
- gruez 4y ago
  While you're right in principle, the life expectancy after childhood is nowhere as high as you claim. From wikipedia >Based on the data from modern hunter-gatherer populations, it is estimated that at 15, life expectancy was an additional 39 years (total 54), with a 60% probability of reaching 15.
VoodooJuJu 4y ago
I have an obligation to deboonk this meme wherever I see it. I apologize for my self-righteous zealotry, but I have no choice. When we hear about average life expectancies of the days of yore, infant mortality is almost always factored into this calculation. The truth is, if a human made it past infancy, their life expectancy approached 65+. So, when speaking of cavemen or Ancient Egyptians or whatever, when we hear "average life expectancy of ~30", or "most of us died before 30", it's technically and semantically correct when including all those babes that died in their first year or two of life, but it's misleading and thus not very useful. I don't know if it's historians and anthropologists trying to be cute or pedantic or what, but I wish this meme would just die, because it paints a deceptive portrait of the past.
- jacobsimon 4y ago
  This is a great breakdown of stats on life expectancy over time including child mortality: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy Life expectancy has improved a lot in general, but less dramatically at old ages.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  > ...because it paints a deceptive portrait of the past. I assume this is at least partly deliberate, because it's a major part of what has been termed the "Religion of Progress," in which the history of humanity, when you squint hard enough and ignore most of the actual history, is a "rising line from the caves to the stars." Life in the past must be worse than life today in every reasonable way you can describe it, and life in the future must be better than today, because this is what's demanded by the current myths. The problem, of course, is that any moderately in depth study of the history of humanity demonstrates that this absolutely hasn't been the case, outside the effects of the industrial revolution from the past 250 years or so - which, as is now becoming rather obvious, has some serious downsides as well as the assorted miracles it's produced. And the focus of some of the (if not brightest, at least best paid) members of society on tricking other people into staring at a bunch of tiny flickering dots for as long as they possibly (while the world is literally burning around them) can doesn't seem like the sort of thing that's going to be considered particularly well in the future. Not that we should be praising it right now. JM Greer has done some solid writing on the "Religion of Progress" concept, and it's just depressing how often you see life and history crammed into that mold, because it's the way we've been trained to think of the world. It's also going to be responsible (or is being responsible) for a lot of mental anguish when reality refuses to deliver what we think the future ought to be. Humans won't go to the stars. We probably won't ever have flying cars, Jetsons-style. Etc.
  - trgn 4y ago
    I hope we never have flying cars. Regulars cars are already crap technology that degraded our cities and countryside, spewing noise and exhaust everywhere. Flying cars is just doubling down on that. Crap technology to paper over the limitations of another crap technology.

Most of us died before the age of 30 during that period of time

by dymk 4y ago

Most of us died before the age of 30 during that period of time

Low life expectancy at birth due to humans dying during infant/child years due to disease and other causes is not indicative of effects of living in huts around campfires.

Spooky23 4y ago
My ancestors lived in thatched roof cottages with open fires and livestock. Soot and smoke was one of many hazards.

FiberBundle 4y ago

Average life expectancy for hunter gatherers was low due to infant mortality. If people didn't die as an infant their life expectancy was actually fairly high (~70 years).

gruez 4y ago
While you're right in principle, the life expectancy after childhood is nowhere as high as you claim. From wikipedia >Based on the data from modern hunter-gatherer populations, it is estimated that at 15, life expectancy was an additional 39 years (total 54), with a 60% probability of reaching 15.

VoodooJuJu 4y ago

I have an obligation to deboonk this meme wherever I see it. I apologize for my self-righteous zealotry, but I have no choice. When we hear about average life expectancies of the days of yore, infant mortality is almost always factored into this calculation. The truth is, if a human made it past infancy, their life expectancy approached 65+. So, when speaking of cavemen or Ancient Egyptians or whatever, when we hear "average life expectancy of ~30", or "most of us died before 30", it's technically and semantically correct when including all those babes that died in their first year or two of life, but it's misleading and thus not very useful. I don't know if it's historians and anthropologists trying to be cute or pedantic or what, but I wish this meme would just die, because it paints a deceptive portrait of the past.

jacobsimon 4y ago
This is a great breakdown of stats on life expectancy over time including child mortality: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy Life expectancy has improved a lot in general, but less dramatically at old ages.
Syonyk 4y ago
> ...because it paints a deceptive portrait of the past. I assume this is at least partly deliberate, because it's a major part of what has been termed the "Religion of Progress," in which the history of humanity, when you squint hard enough and ignore most of the actual history, is a "rising line from the caves to the stars." Life in the past must be worse than life today in every reasonable way you can describe it, and life in the future must be better than today, because this is what's demanded by the current myths. The problem, of course, is that any moderately in depth study of the history of humanity demonstrates that this absolutely hasn't been the case, outside the effects of the industrial revolution from the past 250 years or so - which, as is now becoming rather obvious, has some serious downsides as well as the assorted miracles it's produced. And the focus of some of the (if not brightest, at least best paid) members of society on tricking other people into staring at a bunch of tiny flickering dots for as long as they possibly (while the world is literally burning around them) can doesn't seem like the sort of thing that's going to be considered particularly well in the future. Not that we should be praising it right now. JM Greer has done some solid writing on the "Religion of Progress" concept, and it's just depressing how often you see life and history crammed into that mold, because it's the way we've been trained to think of the world. It's also going to be responsible (or is being responsible) for a lot of mental anguish when reality refuses to deliver what we think the future ought to be. Humans won't go to the stars. We probably won't ever have flying cars, Jetsons-style. Etc.
- trgn 4y ago
  I hope we never have flying cars. Regulars cars are already crap technology that degraded our cities and countryside, spewing noise and exhaust everywhere. Flying cars is just doubling down on that. Crap technology to paper over the limitations of another crap technology.