4 ms·

Yes it's so good. An amazing way to give a new perspective on life and death as we know it _today_ imho. Strong emphasis on _today_ because life expectancy, h

by sirobg 3y ago

Yes it's so good. An amazing way to give a new perspective on life and death as we know it _today_ imho. Strong emphasis on _today_ because life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and death are already really different from some time ago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

somenameforme 3y ago
There's a quite common misconception around life expectancy. We aren't living all that much longer than in the past. The main thing bringing up life expectancy number is that childhood mortality dramatically declined. [1] If one person lives to 80, but another dies in infancy, then you have a life expectancy of 40 years old. Rather than living longer, more people are able to reach the ages that we all start dying around, and have been for millennia. So for instance in modern history, of the 15 key Founding Fathers, 7 lived to at least 80 years old: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Samuel Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, John Jay. John Adams himself lived to 90. The youngest to die were Hamilton who died in a duel, and John Hancock who died of gout of an undocumented cause - it can be caused by excessive alcohol consumption. All the others lived into their 60s and 70s. It's the same as you go back further into history. Look up basically any Ancient Greek you're familiar with, and you'll see most lived to about the same amount of time we do now a days, sometimes quite a bit longer. For instance Hippocrates, of the Hippocratic Oath, lived to 90 back in the 4th century BC. The common claim there is a survivorship bias, but that's not really true - because most of these individuals made their mark on history decades before they finally died. In other words had e.g. Plato died when he was 50 instead of 80, he still would be known today. [1] - https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality (terrible layout but the site has many interesting graphs on this topic)
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  I believe what you're saying is correct, but the OP is also correct in pointing out that those who lived prior to antibiotics or other modern inventions probably died a lot more often of things we can prevent now. Not to mention all the routine surgeries that save lives. The massively declining child mortality is the big disruptor here, but there's more going on in the data. More recently, we might be reversing the positive trends with our extremely unhealthy diets that have led to other issues such as heart disease and diabetes.

by sirobg 3y ago

somenameforme 3y ago

There's a quite common misconception around life expectancy. We aren't living all that much longer than in the past. The main thing bringing up life expectancy number is that childhood mortality dramatically declined. [1] If one person lives to 80, but another dies in infancy, then you have a life expectancy of 40 years old. Rather than living longer, more people are able to reach the ages that we all start dying around, and have been for millennia. So for instance in modern history, of the 15 key Founding Fathers, 7 lived to at least 80 years old: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Samuel Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, John Jay. John Adams himself lived to 90. The youngest to die were Hamilton who died in a duel, and John Hancock who died of gout of an undocumented cause - it can be caused by excessive alcohol consumption. All the others lived into their 60s and 70s. It's the same as you go back further into history. Look up basically any Ancient Greek you're familiar with, and you'll see most lived to about the same amount of time we do now a days, sometimes quite a bit longer. For instance Hippocrates, of the Hippocratic Oath, lived to 90 back in the 4th century BC. The common claim there is a survivorship bias, but that's not really true - because most of these individuals made their mark on history decades before they finally died. In other words had e.g. Plato died when he was 50 instead of 80, he still would be known today. [1] - https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality (terrible layout but the site has many interesting graphs on this topic)

7thaccount 3y ago
I believe what you're saying is correct, but the OP is also correct in pointing out that those who lived prior to antibiotics or other modern inventions probably died a lot more often of things we can prevent now. Not to mention all the routine surgeries that save lives. The massively declining child mortality is the big disruptor here, but there's more going on in the data. More recently, we might be reversing the positive trends with our extremely unhealthy diets that have led to other issues such as heart disease and diabetes.