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Some positivity for your day!
(lemmy.world)
Things have gotten better and progress has been made from times past, it just seems worse now because we have more access to information. We've come far, and have further to go!
The average American didn't die at age 51. And, while the average life expectancy might have been 51 years, that's a Spiders Georg moment.
The life expectancy was thrown off by all the child mortality. If you lived past 10 years, you were likely to live to 70.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/
Yep, and now there's not a deluge of dead children dragging the average down, which is objectively pretty great
Look, I feel like "children dead before 10" is a pretty upsetting and relevant statistic.
Don't worry the Anti-Vax movement is looking to bring back those numbers!
Hooray! :(
Yeah if I had to choose how to bump up the life expectancy, reducing child mortality would definitely be my first choice.
Sure, but it's not the same as 25 years old being mid-life.
I feel like you're just excited to share a fact about a common misconception rather than actually paying attention to what's being said. Infant mortality is still a bad thing. While it's true folks lived about as long less infant mortality is still a net improvement.
I'm paying attention. I feel like you just want to point out that it's a common misconception rather than engage with the fact that dying at 51 is very different from child mortality.
Correct; "average" and average can be different things.
Yeah, in particular the "average age of death" might be 51 if the average includes a lot of people who died as children. OTOH, the average person dying at 51 is fundamentally different in how you think of it.
Life expectancy at, is used by academics when relevant. Average at birth, adulthood and even once they're over the hill have utility. Like identifying outliers.
Regardless, the average person is going to use average as a nebulas concept occasionally informed by science but hearsay and superstition on an average day.
*nebulous