cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/35676477
this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2025
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Can we get a % through the typical expected lifespan for comparison
Life expectancy is largely a measure of infant and juvenile mortality.
The founding fathers for example:
John Adams - 90
Samuel Adams - 81
Ben Franklin - 84
Alexander Hamilton - 49
John Hancock - 56
Patrick Henry - 63
John Jay - 83
Thomas Jefferson - 83
Richard Henry Lee - 62
Robert Livingston - 66
James Madison - 85
George Mason - 66
Robert Morris - 72
Peyton Randolph - 54
Roger Sherman - 72
George Washington - 67
James Wilson - 55
If you picked a random group of well off Americans today I don't think the ages when they died would look much dissimilar to this.
That's pretty good, they did far better than I expected
If you survived childhood, there was a decent chance you’d live to your 60s, IIRC. Obviously disease and injury were more dangerous, but childhood killed off those most likely to succumb to disease.
Yup. Infant mortality was such a large problem before modern medicine and vaccine science that the sheer number of deaths before the age of 5 reduced the mean average live expectancy by half of the mode average.
And this, children, is why learning how to properly interpret math and statistics is important. Numbers can, in fact, lie unless you know exactly what those numbers represent.
i wonder if someone calculated life expectancy without including infant mortality.
Eh, not really but kinda. The available recorded data for that information is scarce and not a complete picture. Some studies were done but they are centered on things like "expectancy of tenants/landowners" for example, not the overall picture. It's a complicated topic and I don't fully understand it myself.
Though, what I do know, is that through other methods of anthropological and archeological research methods, like examining bones, we are able to prove that people generally lived into their 50s-60s.
That is very interesting. Thank you for the info.
Why? It's not like you get smarter in your 20s if you have a higher life expectancy. Potentially living to 85 doesn't give you more expirence. Im your 20s you have about 20-29 years of life expirence and knowledge regardless of how old you live.
How does that matter when talking about being fit for government?
Well because the age of your death determines your mental fitness throughout you whole life so if you can do stocks by age 3 you're gonna die before 20 obviously.
Makes total sense, poor genius kids.
God forbid someone take interest in a topic