Life Expectancy And Progress

It is commonly believed that we've drastically improved life-expectancy...well, that is partially true. We are often told life expectancy used to be 40...and now it's 80...WOW GERM THEORY...right? The anecdotal data that tells us that life expectancy for certain areas/times were 30-40...weren't exactly true. Many times they were highly transitional periods like the Industrial Revolution, where a combination of slave-like working conditions, poisonous pollution, and high density/low hygiene practices were the norm...or Medieval periods where plague and inequality destroyed longevity. If we look at history holistically, we find plenty of healthy communities (even ancient ones) where life expectancy was very close to modern, post-industrial societies.

That said, Germ Theory is true, working/living conditions do matter...we have been able to stretch life expectancy to close to maximum...until now. We are forgetting the past; we are treating COVID-19 as if it doesn't exist; we are treating pollution and climate change as if they don't exist...and we WILL return to low life expectancy if we recreate the conditions that we've seen in the past where we accepted death and didn't proactively try to prevent it. We CANNOT keep delusionally pretending that uncomfortable things don't exist...we must accept reality, we must confront our challenges with courage and intelligence, we can't let 40 become the new 80 again.