6 ms·

If anything, human life got remarkably longer in the last century. Any feeling that it is "too short" is not an objective reality (compared to what?) but indica

If anything, human life got remarkably longer in the last century. Any feeling that it is "too short" is not an objective reality (compared to what?) but indicates the failure of collective societal mechanisms to put the individual at emotional ease with reality and their existence and role in it. Eliminating all existential angst of the human animal is likely impossible as various absurd religious constructs (after life, reincarnation etc) testify. But modern society performs significantly below par by failing in more basic ways. Excessive individualism, disconnecting and disregarding those living next to us, before us and those living in our future hence not living also through them is the main cause.

ElFitz 4y ago
> If anything, human life got remarkably longer in the last century. Well, yes and no. That we live longer than our ancestors seems obvious and is a very common belief. And average life expectancy has indeed increased. But it really isn’t that clear cut. For example: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-anc...
- jaakl 4y ago
  The only thing what has changed is childhood mortality. If you take statistical lifetime of most animals (say frogs) and count in all offspring with hope to describe their average life duration then it would be low number of seconds. Human as such seems to have always same lifespan programmed in, just natural early mortality has been taken away. Basic statistical bias. Does almost removed early mortality really make our species stronger/better is another question. Removal of one natural survival test may have its own consequences.
  - okaram 4y ago
    Definitely not the only thing. Maternal mortality is another big thing. War, famine, malnutrition.... Although the max age hasn't increased, the proportion of people who reach it has.
    - jaakl 4y ago
      There are other factors too, sure. But I’d like to remind here that wars killing people too soon are still a thing, now even in the Global North. If you have any means to help to bring end closer to these current issues, please do so. We have tech community (some of them YC alumni) delivering essential equipment (trucks, generators) to the chrisis zone for example. Today west seems to be already tired of the news and this is exactly what the conflict starter counts on.
  - watwut 4y ago
    This is not true. Humans died on injuries and sickness that are easily treatable now. They used to be more frequent and deadly. Humans got frequently born with disabilities because malnutrition in pregnancy (like a lack of iodine) that just don't happen anymore in West. There were whole classes of these issues that killed people and just don't exist anymore.
    - jaakl 4y ago
      In the other hand they were not dying from technology induced accidents, like traffic :) Sure it is simplification, but the point is that statistical average life duration and total lifespan of adult person have quite weak correlations. Actually even now these early years are most risky ones, just the scale is different. Now I have witnesses bias here also - in my 40ies I can expect to live 50 years more, very different from a newborn with immediate terminal condition. So lifespan does have different meaning for us.
      - watwut 4y ago
        It does not cancels out. It is not just simplification, you have to grossly overestimate traffic deaths now and underestimate accidental deaths in the past. (Basically regardless of when and where you place "the past".) > Actually even now these early years are most risky ones, just the scale is different. Babies mortality used to be huge too. And maternal mortality used to be huge by our standards too.
      - dorfsmay 4y ago
        People used to die from transportation, drowning when crossing rivers, accidents around horses, etc... were very frequent. Safety codes are fairly modern.
- 10x_contrarian 4y ago
  I feel it's destructive for people to hold this incorrect belief. People living into their 60s and 70s was very common for all of recorded history. By ignoring this, modern people are less incentivized to criticize and challenge their modern lives and the societies we live within.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Average person lives longer new. Literally deadly diseases are non-issues now. Whole classes of malnutrition related disabilities that used to be frequent basically don't exist anymore, to the point where many people don't even know it existed.
  - stavros 4y ago
    Nobody says no people lived to their 70s. Just like the fact that people live to their 100s now doesn't mean that it doesn't matter if most people live to their 100s. Then again, I'd rather be young for 50 years than old for 70.
- keewee7 4y ago
  Everytime someone posts the correct fact that average lifespan has drastically increased in the past century someone will wrongly claim that it is only because we got better at lowering child morbidity. They might even link to the garbage BBC article that only looks at data for rich privileged people who did indeed live long lives centuries ago. However the rich and privileged of old times were not representative of the general population. Why do people so aggressively deny that things have been getting better in the past 100 years?
  - ElFitz 4y ago
    Please do enlighten me as to how and where I aggressively stated anything here. In the meantime, I will gladly point out that anyone who actually read said garbage article couldn’t have helped but notice how the author, very quickly establishes the difference between life expectancy and lifespan, before also pointing out how the data presents multiple huge biases.
thewakalix 4y ago
I wouldn’t want to die tomorrow. Is that desire “objective reality” or not? If it is, how is that different from not wanting to die a century from now?
- verzeichnis 4y ago
  The other comment was about disregarding reality, not about wanting to die. Most people don’t want to die tomorrow, at the same time we need to come to terms with the fact that we age and that our time is ultimately limited. Which is an objective reality. As I grow older, I am discovering that life has different chapters. Each with their benefits and challenges. The other comment is talking about us as a society failing to integrate and value each chapter and instead focusing on youth and youth alone. There is nothing desirable in age for western societies (probably others too, I just don’t know enough).
  - thewakalix 4y ago
    “Life is too short” isn’t disregarding reality, it’s just having an opinion about it.
irl_chad 4y ago
I don’t understand how anyone can call “various religious constructs” absurd. It’s a very “Reddit moment” thing to do. Religion has existed since the dawn of man. The internal feeling that there is something more out there - something that created us, is something almost all of us have. As for the feeling that life is too short; I’ll offer a comparison to the early biblical figures: Adam and his sons lived almost a thousand years. Noah the same. Isaac lived almost 200 years. Compared to biblical figures, we live very short lifespans.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  That’s why he said “religious constructs” and not “religions”. I believe religious systems are useful, but I agree with the parent that concepts like the afterlife are absurd concepts used to alleviate existential dread. Maybe this utility means it isn’t absurd, but I would say that many religions don’t have the concept of an afterlife, so other less-absurd concepts may provide the same functionality without the same cognitive distortions.
  - thinkingemote 4y ago
    Some might view something as a mystery that another views as an absurdity. I think a mystery is more interesting and less ... (Edits: hmm I don't know what the word is.)
    - brutusborn 4y ago
      In this case I think that the mystery of life requires something to avoid existential angst, and some people use the afterlife as that something. Other religions (like Buddhism) might view the entire question of “what is this?” as absurd, and so use methods like meditation to help alleviate the angst, thus avoiding absurd beliefs. TLDR: the mystery isn’t the absurdity but our reaction to it might be absurd.
      - feanaro 4y ago
        Buddhism has plenty of "absurd" beliefs of this sort. If anything, the delineation of "absurd" is anything but simple.
AussieWog93 4y ago
"Life is short" isn't meant to be a philosophically rigorous, consistent logical statement. It's just a common saying that's meant to remind us that we have a tendency to spend huge amounts of time and emergy on things that ultimately don't matter, and hopefully sometimes short-circuit the thought process that causes us to do this.
- the_af 4y ago
  PG seems to be putting it in very concrete terms. For example, he mentions spending only 8 Christmas with a young kid who feels it's "magical". 8, he argues, is an objectively small number for lots of human experiences, like "8 books" or "8 times I dined my favorite meal".

ElFitz 4y ago

> If anything, human life got remarkably longer in the last century. Well, yes and no. That we live longer than our ancestors seems obvious and is a very common belief. And average life expectancy has indeed increased. But it really isn’t that clear cut. For example: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-anc...

jaakl 4y ago
The only thing what has changed is childhood mortality. If you take statistical lifetime of most animals (say frogs) and count in all offspring with hope to describe their average life duration then it would be low number of seconds. Human as such seems to have always same lifespan programmed in, just natural early mortality has been taken away. Basic statistical bias. Does almost removed early mortality really make our species stronger/better is another question. Removal of one natural survival test may have its own consequences.
- okaram 4y ago
  Definitely not the only thing. Maternal mortality is another big thing. War, famine, malnutrition.... Although the max age hasn't increased, the proportion of people who reach it has.
  - jaakl 4y ago
    There are other factors too, sure. But I’d like to remind here that wars killing people too soon are still a thing, now even in the Global North. If you have any means to help to bring end closer to these current issues, please do so. We have tech community (some of them YC alumni) delivering essential equipment (trucks, generators) to the chrisis zone for example. Today west seems to be already tired of the news and this is exactly what the conflict starter counts on.
- watwut 4y ago
  This is not true. Humans died on injuries and sickness that are easily treatable now. They used to be more frequent and deadly. Humans got frequently born with disabilities because malnutrition in pregnancy (like a lack of iodine) that just don't happen anymore in West. There were whole classes of these issues that killed people and just don't exist anymore.
  - jaakl 4y ago
    In the other hand they were not dying from technology induced accidents, like traffic :) Sure it is simplification, but the point is that statistical average life duration and total lifespan of adult person have quite weak correlations. Actually even now these early years are most risky ones, just the scale is different. Now I have witnesses bias here also - in my 40ies I can expect to live 50 years more, very different from a newborn with immediate terminal condition. So lifespan does have different meaning for us.
    - watwut 4y ago
      It does not cancels out. It is not just simplification, you have to grossly overestimate traffic deaths now and underestimate accidental deaths in the past. (Basically regardless of when and where you place "the past".) > Actually even now these early years are most risky ones, just the scale is different. Babies mortality used to be huge too. And maternal mortality used to be huge by our standards too.
    - dorfsmay 4y ago
      People used to die from transportation, drowning when crossing rivers, accidents around horses, etc... were very frequent. Safety codes are fairly modern.
10x_contrarian 4y ago
I feel it's destructive for people to hold this incorrect belief. People living into their 60s and 70s was very common for all of recorded history. By ignoring this, modern people are less incentivized to criticize and challenge their modern lives and the societies we live within.
- watwut 4y ago
  Average person lives longer new. Literally deadly diseases are non-issues now. Whole classes of malnutrition related disabilities that used to be frequent basically don't exist anymore, to the point where many people don't even know it existed.
- stavros 4y ago
  Nobody says no people lived to their 70s. Just like the fact that people live to their 100s now doesn't mean that it doesn't matter if most people live to their 100s. Then again, I'd rather be young for 50 years than old for 70.
keewee7 4y ago
Everytime someone posts the correct fact that average lifespan has drastically increased in the past century someone will wrongly claim that it is only because we got better at lowering child morbidity. They might even link to the garbage BBC article that only looks at data for rich privileged people who did indeed live long lives centuries ago. However the rich and privileged of old times were not representative of the general population. Why do people so aggressively deny that things have been getting better in the past 100 years?
- ElFitz 4y ago
  Please do enlighten me as to how and where I aggressively stated anything here. In the meantime, I will gladly point out that anyone who actually read said garbage article couldn’t have helped but notice how the author, very quickly establishes the difference between life expectancy and lifespan, before also pointing out how the data presents multiple huge biases.

thewakalix 4y ago

I wouldn’t want to die tomorrow. Is that desire “objective reality” or not? If it is, how is that different from not wanting to die a century from now?

verzeichnis 4y ago
The other comment was about disregarding reality, not about wanting to die. Most people don’t want to die tomorrow, at the same time we need to come to terms with the fact that we age and that our time is ultimately limited. Which is an objective reality. As I grow older, I am discovering that life has different chapters. Each with their benefits and challenges. The other comment is talking about us as a society failing to integrate and value each chapter and instead focusing on youth and youth alone. There is nothing desirable in age for western societies (probably others too, I just don’t know enough).
- thewakalix 4y ago
  “Life is too short” isn’t disregarding reality, it’s just having an opinion about it.

irl_chad 4y ago

I don’t understand how anyone can call “various religious constructs” absurd. It’s a very “Reddit moment” thing to do. Religion has existed since the dawn of man. The internal feeling that there is something more out there - something that created us, is something almost all of us have. As for the feeling that life is too short; I’ll offer a comparison to the early biblical figures: Adam and his sons lived almost a thousand years. Noah the same. Isaac lived almost 200 years. Compared to biblical figures, we live very short lifespans.

brutusborn 4y ago
That’s why he said “religious constructs” and not “religions”. I believe religious systems are useful, but I agree with the parent that concepts like the afterlife are absurd concepts used to alleviate existential dread. Maybe this utility means it isn’t absurd, but I would say that many religions don’t have the concept of an afterlife, so other less-absurd concepts may provide the same functionality without the same cognitive distortions.
- thinkingemote 4y ago
  Some might view something as a mystery that another views as an absurdity. I think a mystery is more interesting and less ... (Edits: hmm I don't know what the word is.)
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    In this case I think that the mystery of life requires something to avoid existential angst, and some people use the afterlife as that something. Other religions (like Buddhism) might view the entire question of “what is this?” as absurd, and so use methods like meditation to help alleviate the angst, thus avoiding absurd beliefs. TLDR: the mystery isn’t the absurdity but our reaction to it might be absurd.
    - feanaro 4y ago
      Buddhism has plenty of "absurd" beliefs of this sort. If anything, the delineation of "absurd" is anything but simple.

AussieWog93 4y ago

"Life is short" isn't meant to be a philosophically rigorous, consistent logical statement. It's just a common saying that's meant to remind us that we have a tendency to spend huge amounts of time and emergy on things that ultimately don't matter, and hopefully sometimes short-circuit the thought process that causes us to do this.

the_af 4y ago
PG seems to be putting it in very concrete terms. For example, he mentions spending only 8 Christmas with a young kid who feels it's "magical". 8, he argues, is an objectively small number for lots of human experiences, like "8 books" or "8 times I dined my favorite meal".