{"id":324,"date":"2010-12-13T18:45:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T18:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/12\/income-and-life-expectancy\/"},"modified":"2010-12-13T18:45:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T18:45:00","slug":"income-and-life-expectancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2010\/12\/income-and-life-expectancy.html","title":{"rendered":"Income and Life Expectancy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Here\u2019s a video from the BBC that\u2019s worth four minutes of your time. The introduction is a bit slow \u2013 bear with it through about 45 seconds and you\u2019ll be hooked. <\/div>\n
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It\u2019s a presentation on income levels and life expectancy by Hans Rosling, Professor of Global Health<\/a> at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. The presentation itself is a fascinating way to present data to make a point. It\u2019s a reminder that no matter how important your message is, the communication process first requires you to gain and hold someone\u2019s attention \u2013 otherwise you\u2019re just talking to dead air. <\/div>\n
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http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo?fs=1<\/a><\/div>\n
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I\u2019ve seen all kinds of interpretations floating around the internet \u2013 most of them heavily colored by political ideology, from the far right to the far left. I think that\u2019s a clear case of people seeing what they want to see \u2013 as fascinating as this presentation is, the data shown is simply too too generalized to draw detailed conclusions from it.<\/div>\n
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What we can say is the obvious \u2013 for all its ills, the modern Western world provides a significant improvement in life expectancy. And as other countries grow economically, their life expectancies also improve. This is a good thing.<\/div>\n
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But it is not an exclusively good thing. Industrialization and technological advances have made lives easier and longer, but they\u2019ve also caused us to become more isolated. Modern Paganism is in large part a reaction to that isolation \u2013 the connections to the natural world that used to occur by virtue of living close to the land now have to be formed and maintained through ritual and spiritual practice. <\/div>\n
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I\u2019ll take that tradeoff. My grandfather and two uncles died of heart attacks at ages 56, 44 and 49. My father survived a heart attack at 40, another at 48, and a third at 59 before finally dying of cancer at 71. The difference? He was born later \u2013 Western medicine had life-saving drugs and procedures that weren\u2019t available for his father and brothers. <\/div>\n
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On a less dramatic level, while I love Nature, I also love having seemingly infinite information at my fingertips, being able to travel quickly and safely, and not having to sweat 24 hours a day during the Texas summers!<\/div>\n
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The bottom line is this: let\u2019s not romanticize the preindustrial past. While there is much about modern Western society that is suboptimal, difficult, or just plain broken, we live much longer now, and much better. Let\u2019s fix what\u2019s broken, not trash the whole thing.<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a video from the BBC that\u2019s worth four minutes of your time. The introduction is a bit slow \u2013 bear with it through about 45 seconds and you\u2019ll be hooked. It\u2019s a presentation on income levels and life expectancy by Hans Rosling, Professor of Global Health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. The presentation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIncome and Life Expectancy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here\u2019s a video from the BBC that\u2019s worth four minutes of your time. 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