this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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More adults are alive now than adults who died.
Most of humanity didn't survive to adulthood.
Which is why the average life expectancy was in the 30s forever. If you made it past childhood you were likely to make it to old age, but the infant mortality rate was through the roof which brought the average down to less than half of what it is today. People regularly lived into their 70s-80s before, but the average of 30 years makes people think that's all the longer people normally lived.
Even if you look at monarchs (with relatively good living standards) who died of natural causes, those who make it to their 70s and certainly their 80s are pretty rare. Doesn’t mean the ‘everyone died in their 30s’ thing is true, but I’d say making it to your 50s and maybe 60s would be a more reasonable expectation
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/03/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013-1536x1022.png
Although your general sentiment is right, even adult life expectancy has gone up dramatically. For instance, for 20 year olds he life expectancy was about 60 in 1850, but now is around 82.