this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
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If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
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Life expectancy tended to be a lot lower, too. Once you lost your teeth, it was only matter of time. With no antibiotics, any injury that broke skin could be a death sentance, and over 30, 40 years, the odds stack up.
Childbirth was a pretty dangerous thing for women, too.
That's a bit of a misconception. Life expectancy doesn't measure the age at which most people die, but the average life expectancy.
That means, a bunch of different values contribute to the life expectancy and they do so to a wildly different degree.
Let's say that without any adverse effects everyone dies of old age at around age 90.
Someone dieing of pulmonia at age 80 only scratches off 10 years, but someone dieing at age 0 due some childhood illness, bad hygiene, malnutrition or other complications scratches off 90 years.
In fact, by far the strongest contributor to the average life expectancy is child mortality. In 1800 in the USA, child mortality was at 46.2%.
If you discount child mortality, most people actually died aged 65-90.
Yea human lifespan hasn't really changed over time but as you say infant mortality, pandemics, war and a complete lack of industrial safety for over a century have skewed the average over the years.