Meszaros, progress

[Brad De Long]

> > Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 13:59:02 -0700
> > From: Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU>
> > Subject: Re: Meszaros, progress
> <...>
> > 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.

Yep. If you make it to ten, you have a good chance of making it to 
50. Of course by then you've lost all your teeth...

I would quarrel with the "single-figure factoid": I still haven't 
figured out a better one number to start with than e(0).

Brad