http://www.nature.co...pdf/7400354.pdf
ER: You believe there would be much less violence and more risk aversion in a population with greater life expectancy. What do you base this on?
AD: It’s the extrapolation of what we see at the moment at a global or national level. Where there is a low life expectancy, people tend to engage in more life-threatening activities. In Europe it’s more pronounced than in the USA. We’ve got rid of the death penalty in the past 50 years. We don’t even extradite people to places where they might be subject to capital punishment. Why did this happen? Because we have a greater value for life now. Similarly, we’ve had no war between western European nations for the past 60 years. That hasn’t happened since Roman times. It bodes well.
