5 ms·

>In reality the modal life expectancy of adults (most common age of death other than 0) has been pretty stable in the 70s-80s range for most of human history- t

>In reality the modal life expectancy of adults (most common age of death other than 0) has been pretty stable in the 70s-80s range for most of human history- the low average was almost entirely due to infant mortality. This is even wronger than what you critique. For every period in history that we have good data for people had a half-life - a period in which you'd expect half of all people to die: https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2011/07/medieval-population-pyramid.html https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2011/07/medieval-populati... For example in medieval Germany it looked something like: | Age | Half-life | | 0-10 | 10 | | 10-20 | 40 | | 20-40 | 20 | | 40-80 | 10 | It's called a population pyramid not a population column for a reason. The exact age varies by location, but even if we ignore everyone under 10, half of all people left would still die before they are 40.

SkyBelow 2y ago
Is there an issue with how the data is grouped? At 19.9, you have a 50% chance of living to 59.9. But less than a season later at 20.1, you now only have a 50% chance o living to 40.1. How can the former be right if the latter is right? The growth in life expectancy from surviving early childhood makes sense, but the decline in life expectancy for crossing 20 feels too sharp.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> if we ignore everyone under 10, half of all people left would still die before they are 40 Wouldn't it be 50 since the half-life is an interval?
- llm_trw 2y ago
  No, the half life for age 10-20 is much higher than that for 20-40 and the exponential function is non-linear.
_yb2s 2y ago
What you said in no way conflicts with what I said. For example, if people have dangerous lives in a way that is unconnected to age they will tend to not live long, yet the modal life expectancy due to the additional mortality of actual old age can still be quite old. What I was saying is in reference to this study I read long ago, which suggests a modal life span of about 72 years of age in the paleolithic: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007.00171.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007...
- llm_trw 2y ago
  >What you said in no way conflicts with what I said. Neither would a world with 88 people with the following death schedule. | Age | Deaths/Year | |---------+-------------| | 0 to 5 | 2 | | 5 to 70 | 1 | | 70 | 3 | I'm sure that the 3 people who make it to 70 are very happy they are in the highest mode of the distribution. The 85 who did not may have something to say about how meaningful using the mode of a distribution is.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    It’s the right thing to use in this specific context not because it is explaining the full picture better than the average, but because it distorts the picture in a different way: the modal age being high is incompatible with the incorrect assumption people are making when seeing a low average life span- that people in ancient times basically never made it to an old age in their 70s or older. People then jump from that to the idea that people were dying of old age much younger, which isn’t accurate… they were mostly dying of things unrelated to aging, and few were making it to old age- but healthy active people in their 80s and older did exist even in ancient times, and are mostly more common now because our lives are safer. Deeper than that, I think there is a modern tendency to want to believe false claims about how awful life was in the past, and how much better we have it now… so there are a large number of such myths that are nearly ubiquitous but not accurate. Not to say that many aren’t also accurate, just that the inaccurate ones go largely unquestioned. Modern times are very different from most of human history- better in many ways and worse in many others. If we romanticize how perfect the present is, we then lose the ability to make things still better.
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      >because it distorts the picture in a different way: the modal age being high is incompatible with the incorrect assumption people are making when seeing a low average life span- that people in ancient times basically never made it to an old age in their 70s or older. I literally proved by demonstration why having a distribution with an absolute mode in the extreme most value means that 97% of people still died younger than that. There is nothing wrong with the assumption that basically no one made it to 70 because less than 0.5% of people actually did for any period where we have records. >Deeper than that, I think there is a modern tendency to want to believe false claims about how awful life was in the past, and how much better we have it now… so there are a large number of such myths that are nearly ubiquitous but not accurate. Not to say that many aren’t also accurate, just that the inaccurate ones go largely unquestioned. Again, you're wronger than the people who hold that view. I'm not sure what you're arguing against at this point other than sophistry.
wodenokoto 2y ago
Parent is talking about mode, so the most common number. Let’s build a distribution that satisfy both. Oldest age is set 80, mode is set to 75. We start by distribution one percentage point to each age. Then add an extra to the mode and all the remaining to zero. We now have a distribution where the most common age of death, other than zero be in 70-80, and more than half the population die before they reach 40.

SkyBelow 2y ago

Is there an issue with how the data is grouped? At 19.9, you have a 50% chance of living to 59.9. But less than a season later at 20.1, you now only have a 50% chance o living to 40.1. How can the former be right if the latter is right? The growth in life expectancy from surviving early childhood makes sense, but the decline in life expectancy for crossing 20 feels too sharp.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> if we ignore everyone under 10, half of all people left would still die before they are 40 Wouldn't it be 50 since the half-life is an interval?

llm_trw 2y ago
No, the half life for age 10-20 is much higher than that for 20-40 and the exponential function is non-linear.

_yb2s 2y ago

What you said in no way conflicts with what I said. For example, if people have dangerous lives in a way that is unconnected to age they will tend to not live long, yet the modal life expectancy due to the additional mortality of actual old age can still be quite old. What I was saying is in reference to this study I read long ago, which suggests a modal life span of about 72 years of age in the paleolithic: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007.00171.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007...

llm_trw 2y ago
>What you said in no way conflicts with what I said. Neither would a world with 88 people with the following death schedule. | Age | Deaths/Year | |---------+-------------| | 0 to 5 | 2 | | 5 to 70 | 1 | | 70 | 3 | I'm sure that the 3 people who make it to 70 are very happy they are in the highest mode of the distribution. The 85 who did not may have something to say about how meaningful using the mode of a distribution is.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  It’s the right thing to use in this specific context not because it is explaining the full picture better than the average, but because it distorts the picture in a different way: the modal age being high is incompatible with the incorrect assumption people are making when seeing a low average life span- that people in ancient times basically never made it to an old age in their 70s or older. People then jump from that to the idea that people were dying of old age much younger, which isn’t accurate… they were mostly dying of things unrelated to aging, and few were making it to old age- but healthy active people in their 80s and older did exist even in ancient times, and are mostly more common now because our lives are safer. Deeper than that, I think there is a modern tendency to want to believe false claims about how awful life was in the past, and how much better we have it now… so there are a large number of such myths that are nearly ubiquitous but not accurate. Not to say that many aren’t also accurate, just that the inaccurate ones go largely unquestioned. Modern times are very different from most of human history- better in many ways and worse in many others. If we romanticize how perfect the present is, we then lose the ability to make things still better.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    >because it distorts the picture in a different way: the modal age being high is incompatible with the incorrect assumption people are making when seeing a low average life span- that people in ancient times basically never made it to an old age in their 70s or older. I literally proved by demonstration why having a distribution with an absolute mode in the extreme most value means that 97% of people still died younger than that. There is nothing wrong with the assumption that basically no one made it to 70 because less than 0.5% of people actually did for any period where we have records. >Deeper than that, I think there is a modern tendency to want to believe false claims about how awful life was in the past, and how much better we have it now… so there are a large number of such myths that are nearly ubiquitous but not accurate. Not to say that many aren’t also accurate, just that the inaccurate ones go largely unquestioned. Again, you're wronger than the people who hold that view. I'm not sure what you're arguing against at this point other than sophistry.

wodenokoto 2y ago

Parent is talking about mode, so the most common number. Let’s build a distribution that satisfy both. Oldest age is set 80, mode is set to 75. We start by distribution one percentage point to each age. Then add an extra to the mode and all the remaining to zero. We now have a distribution where the most common age of death, other than zero be in 70-80, and more than half the population die before they reach 40.