Yesterday I asked for everyone’s feedback regarding measures or indicators of human wellbeing. While it’s difficult to measure wellbeing directly, there are certainly some factors that correlate with it.
Once such factor mentioned, though admittedly somewhat of a crude one, is life expectancy.
As recently as 1760, life expectancy in even the wealthiest nations was less than 30 years (where scholars estimate it had remained for several hundred if not thousands of years previously). Presently it stands above 70 years for most of the world and above 80 in some places. The rapid improvement in life expectancy started just after The Enlightenment and continues to this day.
We currently add about a quarter year of life expectancy for every year lived, meaning that we are really only approaching death at about three quarters of the assumed rate. Some noted futurists, such as Ray Kurzweil, predict that, within the next few decades (and thanks to gene therapy, nanotechnology and other developing interventions), we’ll be adding MORE than a year of life expectancy for each year lived. At that point, barring accidents and murders, humans may be mostly immortal.
Life expectancy has improved both by adding years to the back end and saving years on the front end. At the time of the founding of the United States, only about 250 years ago, between three and four out of every ten children born died before their fifth year of life, and that’s in Sweden, one of the wealthiest and healthiest countries of the age. Anthropologists estimate that one in five children in the much romanticized hunter-gatherer cultures died within their FIRST year of life.
Then, starting in the late 1800s, infant mortality began to rapidly decline by more than 100 times and today stands at a fraction of a percentage point in developed countries.
As recently as the late 1800s, nearly 1 percent of European pregnant women died in childbirth. Today that percentage is 0.004 percent and falling.
(The statistics above are from Harvard Professor Steven Pinker’s tome “Enlightenment Now”, truly a “must read” for anyone looking for some perspective on the arch of human progress).
But I think they did not take into account nutrition. Old foods were chemical-free, unlike our time, food made from 60 to 80 percent of the chemicals in the per food, a factor that strongly affects the percentage I mentioned, as we know Chemical materials brought with them deadly types of epidemics and diseases such as cancer, which became the disease of the times.
Cancer is a disease of old age. Our ancestors never had the privilege of developing cancer because they died so young.
Now it is killing more children and women these are very important groups in the community, it is the groups responsible for birth control. Let us not forget that the average age of people in the world decreases day by day. It is now 67 years old.
Dying of cancer at age 70 vs dying during a hunt and getting killed by a lion at age 25.
Pick your poison.
I'd love to die at age 70 during a hunt. Death isn't as bad as it sounds. It makes life more precious.
Nice subject to write about...and life expectancy depends on living a healthy and good life and it of course depends onmoney nowadays. If you have enough money you can live your 80s and maybe more.
The world we live in today is as good as the best we have until now!
yes I am really curious about this book!
Thank you for the precious words you shared with us, Sean. Maybe I'll be glad if you browse my work :)
Greetings to your beautiful wife!
Is it safe to say that we have lower mortality rate now? One can only assume because we have improved medical and health care, improved security and many other goodies we can boast of. But how does that affect the diseases we have now. Many years back, qe knew nothing about cancer. We had the likes of malaria to contend with which have been solved now but how come we havnt been able to solve the cancer issue killing many at the moment.
I am not trying to fault his analysis but I think I we need to look deeper into those analysis.
I think life expectancy increase is due to advancement in science researches and technology improvement, they are now better drugs and health facilities to aid in the treatment of humans and also a more better living conditions
Hey me first upvoted you..
The reality is humans whatsoever,no matter how advanced can not be immortal..
Technological advancement has been one of the major break through in the increased in life expectancy... It has also led so many to their early grave
I think the question here regarding the future is - do we even want to live indefinitely? Part of what gives life meaning and beauty is the very finiteness of it.
Nice writing about this short trip...and you ask a question at the end of your writing,well,actually has been asked by the humans since the begining of humanity. So he answers were the food,health and a home for the old people.In fact answers are not chaged,still are the same but human changes. I mean the human-beings are greedy creatures because of their creation. They buy a house and they buy one more time and at same thing is for the cars and clothes and all the other things.
So i say for the answer people makes people happy. Because all the houses cars and the other things that we bought,buy and will buy are temporary. But friends are not temporary.
And one more thing from Aragorn's poem:
The beautiful things save the world // and everything that starts with loving a person
thank you for sharing and have a nice day my friend...
Life expectancy has increased for sure due to the technological progress that is taking place, but unfortunately there are much more cases of mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety, found nowadays, due to the abuse of internet, excessive social media consumption and continuous stress that we are facing comparing with the 80's or 90's.
My perfect scenario of wellbeing would to live as long as possible in a healthy way. For example my grand grand mother lived 92 years and the doctor visited her only in the last 7-8 years a few times. I guess she never knew what stress was. Nowadays, in my opinion, stress is the number one factor ruining our wellbeing.
The idea that there is much more mental illness today simply isn’t true. I will post about that at a later date.
Life expectancy has increased due to education and all around medical advancements, but are people truly happy living longer?
It's been a long time you visited my blog @sean-king my mentor.
@steemed-open has really been a great encouragement.
Please take a look at my countryside meal here.
https://steemit.com/food/@ambdavid/relishing-the-rich-cultures-and-food-here-in-the-city-of-calabar
Hello dear i draw this portrait for your friend @lukestokes and you are the next i will draw one for you. https://steemit.com/@soufianechakrouf/a-portrait-for-lukestokes And this is a special and humble portraits hope you accept it and like it. This is for you and your wife:
https://steemit.com/@soufianechakrouf/a-portrait-for-sean-king-and-steemed-open And this is for your wife:
https://steemit.com/@soufianechakrouf/yoga-moves-portrait-for-steemed-open