2 ms·
Mean _is_ average. You perhaps mean median? Even then though, in e.g. Victorian times, the median (50th percentile) gets skewed by horrendously high infant mor
by Earw0rm 2y ago
Mean _is_ average. You perhaps mean median?
Even then though, in e.g. Victorian times, the median (50th percentile) gets skewed by horrendously high infant mortality.
Looking at the 75th or 80th percentile, or the life expectancy for an 18 year old, is a better measure. High scores for the 75th can mask deaths due to inequality to some extent, but because wealth distributions are _so_ skewed at the top, the 75th percentile typically looks more like an average/poor person than a rich person.
- askonomm 2y agoI did mean median yes, my bad. Alright, that makes sense indeed.
- somenameforme 2y agoYeah, even the median life expectancy in the past would be getting awful close to something like 2 years old. [1] Again running with the Founding Fathers as an interesting example, Sam Adams lived until he was 82 and was one of 12 children. Yet of all those brothers/sisters, only 3 lived past the age of 3. It's this context that I think explains things like infant 'exposure' in various cultures over time that we can't even imagine today - parents simply leaving their child out to the wilds, essentially to die - while retaining that cognitive dissonance that perhaps he might be found and raised by somebody, as was a frequent component in the hero legends, such as with Theseus and Perseus. [1] - https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past