Everyone, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that you, me, and everyone else listening to the sound of my voice right now are mortal.

As of the recording of this episode, time is undefeated. But the good news is that there

has never been a better time to be alive and that historically speaking human life

expectancies are at an all-time high.

Learn more about life expectancies throughout human history

and the things that improve them on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. everywhere daily. Before I begin I should note the subtle yet important difference between the concepts of life

expectancy.

There are two very similar concepts, but they're very different.

Lifespan refers to how long the oldest members of a species can live. The maximum human lifespan appears to be

around 115 to 120 years. Depending on if you think Jean Clement actually lived to be

122, a subject that I covered in a previous episode.

Life expectancy is just the average length of life for a member of a species.

It is literally just the mean value for everyone in a population. Life expectancy, because it's an average, will always

be lower than the theoretical lifespan. So the discussion of human life expectancy has to start thousands of years ago in the Paleolithic age.

Genetically, someone who might have lived 20 or 30,000 years ago wasn't really that different than you or me.

However, their lives would have been totally different.

In the words of the philosopher Thomas Hobbs, their lives were probably poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Most of what we know for this period has to be cobbled together by archaeologists and from old human remains.

From what we can tell, the average life expectancy at birth for someone who lived in the Paleolithic era was about 25 years, maybe getting as high as 30.

When thinking about these ancient life expectancy, maybe getting as high as 30.

When thinking about these ancient life expectancies,

the difference between life expectancy and lifespan

...