[extropy-chat] Extinctions

[Damien Sullivan]

On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 09:54:15PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:

> > Other countries have poor people and immigrants as well...Looking
> > at ethnic group and SES may matter for evaluating one's own personal
> > risks; not so much in evaluating a system as a whole, unless you
> > think some people don't count.
> 
> Of course I didn't mean that!  I mean that you cannot compare
> Luxembourg and Brazil, nor, really the U.S. and Europe. Too 
> much lumping!  The "U.S." and "Europe" are each just too
> diverse internally.

The US comes out unfavorably in comparison with almost every other First
World country.  And we have no monopoly on diversity; Canada has plenty
of immigrants, various European countries have more and more.

> > Even in the US, black women live longer than white men.  It's
> > black men who really suffer.
> 
> on how black women have better hearing than anyone. For
> reasons just having to do with race, blacks don't live as
> long as whites even after you correct (as you must!) for
> SES and other environmental differences. It is not God-given

The numbers I recall are that black women in the US live only 6 months
less than white women -- and that's raw data, without SES adjustment.
It's black males who lose several years -- I'd guess because of crime
and AIDS.  I've seen tables of top causes of death for black and whites
in the US, they were shockingly different, but SES seemed quite
blameable.  (These were numbers a friend in publich health grad school
showed me.)  I know African-Americans are prone to some problems, like
hypertension, but "blacks dont' live as long" seems unlikely.  It's not
even clear whether the hypertension is due to genetics (selection on the
slave ships), diet, or stress from being black in the US -- and I think
chronic stress has been getting more and more data as a general killer.

Anyway, I believe that even if you compare white Americans to white
Europeans or Canadians we still die sooner while spending twice as much
more money.

-xx- Damien X-)