<...>
> That's why life expectancy at birth in hunter-gatherer societies is
> on the order of 25 years...
unless of course you live past age 25, in which case it shoots up more than a single-figure factoid would lead the unwary to expect. put simply: your chances of living to be 100 increase dramatically after you live to be 1.
there's no question whatsoever that technical advances have led to vast increases in life expectancy for many people (though i'd hesitate to say 'for the many'). and while i fully support that as an excellent thing, i'll still point out that it's a rather self-justifying metric. there are large parts of the world that are most definitely affected by technical advance but have yet to see this translated into increased life expectancy: somalia, say, and yes you should include war casualties, since those guns are indeed technically advanced. so: how often is somalia cited as an example of the life-prolonging wonders of modern techno- logy? it doesn't mean much to point at monaco if you're going to ignore that.
cheers, t