Life Expectancy In A Post-Industrial World
After a string of “helpfully pessimistic” articles explaining why all attempts to sustain industrial civilization violate the laws of physics—and therefore are in vain—I believe it’s time to give some thought to the other effects of leaving industrialism behind. This time, though, the topic has nothing to do with technology, but all the more with meaning, physical activity, spending time outdoors, and staying healthier, longer.
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I planned to write a longer article on the topic, but life intervened… So, instead of giving you a fully detailed view on longevity (a huge topic!) allow me to highlight two interesting aspects of it: life expectancy at birth and occupational choice. The rest, I’m afraid will have to wait... With that said, these two topics alone can give us tremendous insight into the future, and might help us think differently about life after collapse. And while the process of political, economical, financial simplification, taken together with rising temperatures, resource and energy scarcity will be nothing short of painful and brutal (potentially taking many-many lives), once the rubble stops bouncing we will be looking at a completely different world, with completely different expectations. So, even as we lose technology, healthcare and many comforts, future generations could still find their lives enjoyable and worth living… And much to our surprise they might live nearly as long as we do—once they grow up.
The statistician and the river
There is an anecdote in academia of a statistician who needs to cross a river. After checking all available data, he finds that the average depth is 1 meter (or 3 feet) at the point of his planned river-crossing. Confident that this is shallow enough to walk across, he then enters the water. After fording knee-deep water for a minute he suddenly falls into a deep hole and drowns, because while the average depth was 1m, the actual depth varied greatly.
Life expectancy at birth is a similarly misleading metric. It reduces all the complexities of human health and well being into a single, abstract figure—leading people to draw all the wrong conclusions, just like the proverbial statistician did. When most of us in the West hear a number, say 35, when talking about longevity in a given country, we tend to think of people living short, nasty and brutish lives there. As if the average citizen in that given nation would die at a ripe old age of 35, and as if there were barely any old folks to be found. This misconception is then reinforced by footage seen from such places: lots of kids running around, with the rest of the folks looking like to be under 30.
What’s left out of that picture, and rarely gets a mention, though, is that life expectancy is the average time someone is expected to live. And that average includes an infants succumbing to a disease at age 1, just like old pensioners passing away right after their 99th birthday. This is why longevity ends up so brutally low in underdeveloped countries: high child mortality distorts this metric to a far greater degree than most of us would think. Just take a look at this data, from France, going way back to the 1800’s, well before the time of modern healthcare:
Up until vaccinations became a thing, life expectancy at birth hovered around 40 years in early 19th century France. Did that mean, that people died at forty in a pre-healthcare world? Absolutely not. In fact, if you had lived in France then and survived your childhood and adolescence, you would have a pretty good chance of seeing your grandchildren growing up, then pass away at an average age of 63. Now, if you also happened to survive giving birth to all those kids as a women, or successfully avoided being enlisted and killed in a war as a man, your chances grew even larger. As an average 45 year old citizen of 19th century France your chances of reaching 70 would have been pretty good, and if you were still healthy at 65, you would still have 11 more years ahead of you. Not bad from a country where medical practices were limited to bloodletting, blistering, and heavy purging with mercury.
The picture has changed radically only after World War II, primarily due to the introduction of antibiotics as well as to improvements to surgical techniques and diagnostics.1 Life expectancy across all age groups (not just infants) began to rise significantly the first time in recorded history, but only at the cost of having to deal with chronic illnesses, increasing cancer rates and losing mobility at an old age. But how does our sedentary, modern lifestyle affect our health? And how could the slow disappearance of industrial (managerial, economic, law, tech. etc) lines of work and a return to a more agrarian lifestyle affect our future prospects?
This line of work is not for you…
A study, titled Longevity and Occupational Choice, examined just that. According to the data there are significant implications of occupational choice for individual health outcomes, which are not explained by race, location, income and wealth. Using administrative vital records for 15 percent of the U.S. population, the authors found substantial differences in lifespan—comparable to the longevity gap between men and women. After reviewing the study a few interesting points immediately stood out. I have listed those below, and also added a + / - scale (converted to months) for an expected increase or decrease in life expectancy for each occupational factor. (Once again, these figures are stripped of any other socioeconomic determinants, and thus affect all individuals.)
Spending time indoors (+6 / -12 months). This is by far the most influential factor: life expectancy decreases as the percentage of time spent indoors in an occupation increases. The difference between the top 10% of the population sampled (who spend the most time indoors while at work) and the bottom 10% (who work mostly outdoors) is a whopping 1.5 years.
Sitting (+6 / -2 months). Standing up often and moving around as part of your job can make you live 6 months longer than the average. What’s really interesting here is that while your chances for a long life increase almost exponentially with sitting less, people spending almost their entire working life in a chair are not worse off than the average. Sitting as a factor alone, it seems, does not reduce your life expectancy that much (0-2 months), but being physically active most of the time does significantly improve your chances of living longer. (Since the ratio of Americans living an active lifestyle is around 30%, there is clearly room for improvement here.)
Interactions with people (+1 / -10 months). While having significantly more on-the-job social interactions than the average increases life expectancy by only as little as one month, working in total isolation can shave 10 months off of your life. (I wonder if that includes high-functioning autistic people, most of whom are not officially diagnosed with ASD, but for whom frequent social interactions and interruptions are a constant source of stress and anxiety… For these people working alone for hours on end feels like a blessing, not a curse.)
Stress (+4 / -4 months). Perhaps unsurprisingly job stress has a significant impact on longevity, with as much as 8 months difference between the least and most stressful occupations. (See the previous point for shy and introverted types…)
Meaning (+3 / -8 months). While finding more meaning than the average individual does in their job can add 3 months in life expectancy, having to do totally meaningless work can make one’s life 8 months shorter.
So, based solely on the above, how does industrialism “help” us reach a longer life? Well, not by giving us meaningless, high stress, sedentary, indoor jobs, with no human interactions, which could shave off nearly five years (4 years and 8 months) of our expected lifespan—that is for sure. Compare that to a highly meaningful, low stress, outdoor job with lot’s of human interactions and physical activity. (Ahem, that sounds a lot like a hunter-gatherer lifestyle—just saying…) Of course, none of the occupations listed in the study share all of those negative / positive traits, but let the following chart speak for itself:
Farming, fishing and forestry—stripped from socioeconomic factors—clearly stand out, offering the longest lifespans across all occupations. Given all the stress which comes from dealing with Big Ag, low wholesale prices, climate change and ever increasing input costs, this result is nothing short of remarkable.2 In a post-collapse world where most of us could work in bio-regional, regenerative farming or tool making and building stuff (repurposing all those industrial machinery and the gazillion of products left behind by this wasteful civilization)—as opposed to having to deal with meaningless, sedentary bullshit jobs—we could build a much healthier, longer lived society than any other time in human history.
I mean everyone knows, almost instinctively, that a healthy, low stress, unpolluted environment holds almost all of the keys to a long and happy life. Most of us, however, have traded a slow, rural life to a rat race taking place in a polluted, urban jungle… Not necessarily by choice, per se, but mostly due to economic factors and a lack of jobs and opportunities in rural communities. The effects of industrialization and urbanization is now made at least a hundred times worse by corporations and investment funds buying up all the best farmland to produce unhealthy, chemical laden but dirt cheap food there, and cranking up input costs to unbearable levels… (Needless to say, this has only made the “choice” between a self-reliant, independent, but hard rural life and a completely supermarket-dependent wage-slavery all the more easier.)
Our small farm future
During our short, bruising experience with high-tech modernity we have amassed an immense body of knowledge on the living world and what makes it, and in it us, healthy and productive. One of the least recognized inventions of the 20th and 21st centuries was the development of regenerative farming practices. Armed with that knowledge, and equipped with a still functioning (but slowly failing) world economy we could—in theory at least—transition to a truly renewable and sustainable future. By stopping wars on each other and Nature itself, by cleaning up at least some of the mess (nuclear and chemical waste) we have created, rewilding / reforesting unused agricultural, mining and industrial land, breaking up large corporations, and retraining the workforce to be farmers once again, we could slowly end our dependency on fossil fuels and mined minerals.
We could—in theory at least—live healthier, longer and more fulfilling lives, knowing that what we do today would help future generations to live healthier, longer and more fulfilling lives. But would any of us give up any of our conveniences—including but not limited to supermarkets, long distance transportation, the internet, electricity etc.—even if we all realized that none of these services are sustainable and will, as a result, stop one day?3 Or will we, out of choice or necessity, continue to limp along, trying to prop up a slowly failing economic system predestined to be ruined by entropy? Will we be able to end all the perverse incentives keeping us on track towards collapse? Will we, for example, continue to “elect” leaders who want nothing but more war and even more concentration of wealth and power, even if they know that none of this is sustainable and will, as a result, stop one day?
I guess, most of us know the answers. The trajectory this civilization is on, only leads to ruin. However, if you have the knowledge, tools, time and resources, it might worth invest it in improving not only your health, but that of those living around you, including the more than human world. And if you have the medical knowledge on top, using it to develop nature-based, low-tech medicine (antibiotics, vaccines, painkillers etc.) which then could be produced without six continent supply chains, your work could benefit many-many generations ahead.
Until next time,
B
Thank you for reading The Honest Sorcerer. If you value this article or any others please share and consider a subscription, or perhaps buying a virtual coffee. At the same time allow me to express my eternal gratitude to those who already support my work — without you this site could not exist.
Notice how high infant mortality began to slowly disappear after the 1880’s due to the mass production of vaccinations. In fact, if I had to name only three medical technologies, which we somehow would need to make available in a post industrial world, it would be vaccines, antibiotics and pain killers.
With that said income does have a major impact on longevity. Not being able to afford better food and healthcare means a 1-2 year shorter lifespan, at least—even in otherwise healthy occupations. Meanwhile access to those can increase life expectancy by as much as 6 months, even in stressful, managerial jobs.
I know that healthcare was one of the greatest contributors to longer life spans. However, I also know, that healthcare (as it’s known today) is totally unsustainable and will, as a result, stop working entirely one day. Modern medicine and hospitals depend on fossil fuels, six continent supply chains, metals, plastic etc. — all of which were one-time boons received during the carbon pulse. In other words, we will lose healthcare (as it’s known today), no matter what. However, we would be much better off putting all our knowledge into developing more sustainable, nature based medicine as long as we have access to labs and bio-technology. Yes, I know, that even with using the best of our, and of indigenous people’s knowledge, we won’t likely be able to cure most diseases, or even perform a simple surgery safely once modernity is gone. I know, that as a result, life expectancy will most likely converge with historic averages. This is exactly why we should prioritize research in this area while trying to preserve the services we have today as long as its possible—even if that means that we would have to stop manufacturing other goods for our convenience. One last thing. What’s better: knowing that you will die in cancer, but having a chance of living few years longer by undergoing treatment (and live in the constant presence of death), or not knowing what hit you and die in a month (even if it means you lived a 3 years shorter life)?
Hungary has good potent poppy seeds also Slovakia. I try to stockpile good pharma seeds but the costs and quality here in Austria are a pain in the ass. Post Peak medicine is a taboo for 99% of all MDs but I try my best to educate at least my spouse.
Comments are missing the point that this is in the context of the de-industrialization that we expect.
I think we need to revisit what's happening in rural communities. Commercial farming practices have caused major pollution of soil and water, and therefore of our food supply. People are developing cancers and other chronic diseases due to exposure. We need to see if we can find statistics over time for rural/outdoor occupations' lifespans. I expect they have gone down in the past 10 years.
It's interesting, previous rural generations who didn't have problems from chemical exposure usually ended up with musculoskeletal issues due to the heavy lifting and repetitive stress. People might be mostly healthy, but physically crippled. Labor saving devices have helped some, but is still see a lot of musculoskeletal issues and toxic chemical exposures chronic illnesses.
Also, rural people, even farmers, often have little access to healthy (non-chemically contaminated) local food due to cost and lack of convenient availability. Indeed in Iowa farming country, a common source of "food" (if you can call the processed garbage food) is local Dollar Stores.
Raising your own healthy food is very hard work and eats up lots of time. It's not easy for the elderly or unhealthy, although for sure outdoor activity will keep us healthier - IF we're not contaminated by toxic chemicals from nearby factory farms.
The impact of healthy food, healthy lifestyle and healthy work on lifespan and quality of life is a complicated web. Americans are suffering a death of 1000 cuts from all the exposure to toxic chemicals, over processed food and toxic, stressful workplaces.