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Yeah, the thing that kinda annoyed me about the article is that it even acknowledges this fact ("even though life expectancy at birth as I’ve used here isn’t th
by hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Yeah, the thing that kinda annoyed me about the article is that it even acknowledges this fact ("even though life expectancy at birth as I’ve used here isn’t the best proxy for this"), but then for some reason refuses to make the next rational leap that there were plenty of great grandmothers in previous generations, totally invalidating the article's main thesis.
Obviously there have been huge changes in family size, parental age at first birth, etc. over the last few decades. I'd argue the lack of great-grandmothers is going to be the least consequential of these changes.
- kevinpet 3y agoGood on you for giving us the update that he does acknowledge it. I confess I stopped reading as soon as that stat was given.
- kristopolous 3y agoPersonally when people make mistakes like that I stop reading. Not even the next word. I'm gone.
- burnished 3y agoThat is exactly what I did. I want to read things from people who have thought more about a topic than I have, not less.
- lamontcg 3y agoYeah that article was really thin, and at a guess I'd say that the age of great-grandparents has probably been declining since at least around the 50s or 60s and we're certainly not at peak-great-grandparent. This article reads like a young Millennial thinking they're the first one in the world to not know their great grandparents.
- nicolas_t 3y agoI’ve also adopted that policy after getting really annoyed that 90% of the time when someone mentions historical life expectancy, they make that exact same mistake and completely ignore infantile mortality.