ABC News Quote " "
The Sierra Club — the environmental group that blew the whistle on FEMA when Hurricane Katrina victims were given toxic RV trailers to live in — has warned that some mobile homes en route to victims ...
Forum Discussion
RayJayco wrote:toedtoes wrote:RayJayco wrote:
I am just wondering how our ancestors made it living in cold, damp caves and how poor people in 3rd world countries live in houses made with sticks and mud with dirt floors. Log cabins. Drinking from streams and rivers. Homeless living in cardboard.
I am surprised that any of us are alive!
Our ancestors had an average lifespan of less than 40 years. Many of these 3rd world countries have a population that suffers and die from diseases that are easily prevented with proper sanitation.
I think we go overboard on the "dirt is deadly must sanitize everything" bandwagon, but basic sanitary improvements can save many many many many lives.
That can be very controversial and greatly depends upon many things... Ancient Greeks and Egyptians have documentation of living into their 70's, even 90's, regularly. Of course for commoners, not many records exist.
Scientists seem to agree that leaving the nomad life of hunters and gatherers for sedentism gave the potential for better food as they added farming. Warring was a major cause of death as well.
Of course when viewing life expectancy statistics, infant mortality must be taken into consideration, often skewing the results.
I agree that sanitation and medical developments have been huge contributors to lifespan, however even today, not many make it past 100. Is that our biological limit as humans?
We really do not have a lot of records besides the skeletons that are happened upon, to get any idea of maximum lifespan of hundreds or thousands of years ago.
One can safely say that harnessing fire to cook meat making it much easier digestion, definitely impacted life expectancy, although that was thousands of years ago, according to cave drawings anyway...
I actually lived in third world before (1997 to ~2002) and saw sanitation and medical causing more problems than the houses they lived in. Lack of food played a large part as well as did gangs and murders.
Statistics is a tricky thing, often bias, depending upon the quality and disclosure of the information that is used to determine the results.
Well, I guess the question is are those 3rd world houses being lived in built the same way as these mass-produced assembly line mobile homes? I suspect most are not.
Again, my take on all this is that it doesn't hurt to be informed and it just may help.
