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If you look at the lifespan of ancient Greek philosophers, playwrights, poets and politicians, they seem to live till around age 80, like we do.
Of course the aforementioned professions were mostly made up of members of the upper classes, who had a higher standard of living than their poor.
However, the average ancient Greek male married at 30.
If they were marrying so late, they must've been dying late too.

I don't think modern medicine and such has improved our life expectancy and health nearly as much as we suppose, perhaps conditions now are better than they were in the middle ages, but it doesn't appear they were that much better, if at all than ancient Greece and Rome, despite the modern, mainstream medical world harping on and on about the benefits of their antibiotics, drugs, vaccines and so on.

And some controversial scientists like Weston Price studied hunterer-gatherer and agrarian socieites with zero access to modern food and medicine, and found them to be in excellent shape and condition, as far as he could ascertain, superior condition to ours in many cases and respects, and so perhaps even the medieval peasant, was living far longer than modern science supposes.
Maybe we haven't come half as far as we think we have.

Probably so but nobody wants to talk about stuff like that because it doesn't fit with the big con of technological progressivism.

Gloominary wrote:If you look at the lifespan of ancient Greek philosophers, playwrights, poets and politicians, they seem to live till around age 80, like we do.

Yes, if you survived childhood, wars, and the church, you could expect a long life.

I don't think modern medicine and such has improved our life expectancy and health nearly as much as we suppose,

We survive in spite of medicine, but modern dentistry, ophthalmology and antibiotics help more people survive.

And some controversial scientists like Weston Price studied hunterer-gatherer and agrarian socieites with zero access to modern food and medicine, and found them to be in excellent shape and condition,

Yes because the weak ones died.

Zero_Sum wrote:Probably so but nobody wants to talk about stuff like that because it doesn't fit with the big con of technological progressivism.

Right, that's what I meant before about being anti-scientism, sometimes science is good, right, true, but sometimes it isn't, people have a lot of undue faith in it and scientists.
Scientists make a lot of mistakes, or invent things we come to misuse and abuse.
And of course they can be easily corrupted whenever money is involved, especially big money.
Atheists who believe in science harp on and on about how religion is the greatest evil in the world, but as bad as religion can be, at least it doesn't have the capacity to exterminate humanity and life as we know it, like modern scientific inventions and experiments may.
Perhaps humanity would be better off if we were superstitious and 'backward'.

Gloominary wrote:

Zero_Sum wrote:Probably so but nobody wants to talk about stuff like that because it doesn't fit with the big con of technological progressivism.

Right, that's what I meant before about being anti-scientism, sometimes science is good, right, true, but sometimes it isn't, people have a lot of undue faith in it and scientists.
Scientists make a lot of mistakes, or invent things we come to misuse and abuse.
And of course they can be easily corrupted whenever money is involved, especially big money.
Atheists who believe in science harp on and on about how religion is the greatest evil in the world, but as bad as religion can be, at least it doesn't have the capacity to exterminate humanity and life as we know it, like modern scientific inventions and experiments may.
Perhaps humanity would be better off if we were superstitious and 'backward'.

I'm an atheist but also a skeptic, with that been said there are a lot of different kinds of atheists out there but unfortunately a majority of them fall under the atheistic humanism or transhumanism crowd which is filled up with many kinds of delusional people. With the rest of what you said we're in agreement.

Zero_Sum wrote:

Gloominary wrote:

Zero_Sum wrote:Probably so but nobody wants to talk about stuff like that because it doesn't fit with the big con of technological progressivism.

Right, that's what I meant before about being anti-scientism, sometimes science is good, right, true, but sometimes it isn't, people have a lot of undue faith in it and scientists.
Scientists make a lot of mistakes, or invent things we come to misuse and abuse.
And of course they can be easily corrupted whenever money is involved, especially big money.
Atheists who believe in science harp on and on about how religion is the greatest evil in the world, but as bad as religion can be, at least it doesn't have the capacity to exterminate humanity and life as we know it, like modern scientific inventions and experiments may.
Perhaps humanity would be better off if we were superstitious and 'backward'.

I'm an atheist but also a skeptic, with that been said there are a lot of different kinds of atheists out there but unfortunately a majority of them fall under the atheistic humanism or transhumanism crowd which is filled up with many kinds of delusional people. With the rest of what you said we're in agreement.

I'm also an atheist, but open to spiritual and supernatural phenomenon, I just haven't seen much evidence for them so far, and even if spiritual and supernatural realms exist, doesn't mean what this or that religion says about them is right, they may be partly or wholly beyond human comprehension, or they may require much more study, before we can begin to grasp them.

Ultimately, I'm the sole arbiter regarding what I believe or don't.
I rely on my own experience and rational/intuitive interpretation of scientific research more than I do scientific research for what's real/not, and more than anything else for that matter.
I question science, and if something doesn't add up, I suspend judgment, or believe the contrary.
I also critically consider alt science, and anecdotes.

I'm against scientific authoritarianism, science should either be separated from state, like church is, and kids can just learn English, math, philosophy and social studies (and alt social studies) in primary and secondary school, or alt science should be taught in schools alongside it, or at least parents should have the option to send their kids to schools specializing in alt science over mainstream science.
This is a democracy, or ought to be, not a scientific dictatorship, I say let the public decide what's true/not for themselves, individually and/or collectively, not mainline science or government, and if people are putting their money into alt science, and they are, billions of dollars annually, than public education should reflect that.

There's a clear downward trend in my family. My ancestors were centenarians; their descendants not so much. I can't tell if it's mixing that's ruining the average or the environment.

Our ancestors worked for everything they had where our modern world revolves around a more sedentary lifestyle. Exercise becomes a hobby instead of a necessity concerning survival.