Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!gwydir!gara!pmorriso
From: pmorriso@gara.une.oz.au (Perry Morrison MATH)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Future Work
Message-ID: <1480@gara.une.oz.au>
Date: 13 Apr 90 13:40:51 GMT
References: <9004121351.AA08723@lti2.lti.uucp>
Organization: University of New England, Armidale, Australia
Lines: 25

In article <9004121351.AA08723@lti2.lti.uucp>, reg@lti2.UUCP (Rick Genter x18) writes:
> >		Absolutely true. However, one has to question to what extent all of
> >	these benefit us. e.g. our "better food" and more comfort have led to a
> >	lifestyle that is distinctly unhealthy- witness the prominence of heart
> >	disease and stress symptoms that are incurred in earning these things.
> 
> The average life expectency during the time of the Roman Emperors was ~40 yrs.
> Today it's ~75 yrs.  Yet our lifestyle is distinctly unhealthy.  Go figure.
> 
> 					- reg
> ---
> Rick Genter					reg%lti.uucp@bu.edu
> Language Technology, Inc.

	Looks like I gotta say it again. We're effectively immune from measles,
cholera smallpox etc- the major killers of people in the Roman (and almost
any other era).
	Despite that, I contend that our lifestyle actually counteracts those
advantages.
	In addition, our infant mortality rates have been dramatically
reduced by sanitation etc. Your Roman mean would have been based on these
very high numbers of infant deaths.
	I think there is every chance we would live even longer but for the
kind of lifestyle that many of pursue.
	'Nuff said?