(edit note: life expectancy matches “what the average human can expect to live to” now somewhat, but if you have a double hump of death at infancy/childhood and then old age, you can have a life expectancy of 30 but a life expectancy of 15 year olds of 60, in which case the average human can expect to live to 1 or 60 (this is very different from “can’t expect to live to >30″) . or just “can expect to live to 60” if you too don’t count infants as really human)
in http://intelligenceexplosion.com/2012/engineering-utopia/ you say “There was once a time when the average human couldn’t expect to live much past age thirty.”
this is false, right?
(edit note: life expectancy matches “what the average human can expect to live to” now somewhat, but if you have a double hump of death at infancy/childhood and then old age, you can have a life expectancy of 30 but a life expectancy of 15 year olds of 60, in which case the average human can expect to live to 1 or 60 (this is very different from “can’t expect to live to >30″) . or just “can expect to live to 60” if you too don’t count infants as really human)
Life expectancy used to be very low, but it was driven by child and infant mortality more than later pestilence and the like.
have edited original comment to address this.
(thought it was obvious)
No (it was still in the 30′s in some parts of the world as recently as the 20th century).
have edited original comment . does it address this?
No. Still throughout most history it was the exception to live much longer than child bearing age (14-30).
i can find many sources claiming the opposite (for example, http://books.google.com/books?id=EFI7tr9XK6EC&pg=PA62&dq=life+expectancy+ancient+rome+infant+mortality&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zniRUKH5Ae--2AW6sIDICQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=life%20expectancy%20ancient%20rome%20infant%20mortality&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=zlsaLgBdLF8C&pg=PA44&dq=ancient+world+life+expectancy+compared&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JhyEUaKhEqmiiQKZ0YCoBQ&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ancient%20world%20life%20expectancy%20compared&f=false ) and few agreeing with you
cite?