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You should probably revisit your assumption that life in paleolithic times was necessarily so terrible. I believed this by default as well before actually readi

You should probably revisit your assumption that life in paleolithic times was necessarily so terrible. I believed this by default as well before actually reading up on the topic. Let's start with the data we have: 1. From bones, we know that the average height decreased as people started farming. Bones became more fragile, teeth less healthy etc. This was probably caused by a worse diet and more disease. 2. By studying hunter gatheres in today's Africa, we know they spend less than 5 hours a day hunting and gathering. They spend much more time than us relaxing and socializing. 3. From bones we know that hunter gatherers very rarely showed signs of violent deaths (counter to the stereotype). I'm sure there is conflicting research about this, but it's clearly not as cut and dry as you make it seem. So if life in paleolithic times was actually pretty decent, why did people start doing agriculture you might ask? Because hunter gatherers would inevitably be conquered by those who did, because farming can support more people, leave a surplus than can feed armies, and give the opportunity to invent new technology. Hunting and gathering never produces such a surplus, and wild resources are only enough for smaller tribes. That's not to say we'd be better off living like hunter gatherers today, but we should probably keep an open mind. Maybe we can learn something about how to best live our lives.

wyager 11y ago
By "relaxing and socializing", what exactly do you mean? Do you think they opened a good book and a bottle of Bordeaux? Leisure time isn't valuable unless you have something to fill it with. Plus, most of those statistics about historically higher "leisure time" are misleading, because anything that wasn't professional work was probably personal work; mending clothes, performing the brutal labor associated with pre-industrial cooking, etc. I'm also skeptical of any such claims directed at pre-civilization humans, because it's not like they could do a very good job of writing down what they did that day.
- inanutshellus 11y ago
  > Leisure time isn't valuable unless you have something to fill it with. Soylent gree^W^W Socializing is people!
- jasonpeacock 11y ago
  Exactly that - they talked with each other, told stories, passed on oral histories, and created very high quality crafts. There was labor, but it was not "brutal". Food preparation, tool/clothing repair, etc took up a lot of time but it was not difficult and could be done while socializing. In the earliest journals of scholars who visited early Native American cultures, the scholars actually complained about being bored due to actual lack of work that needed to be done. Everyone really was just chilling.
  - CuriouslyC 11y ago
    A lot of work today can be done while socializing as well; it isn't really balanced to discount extra non-hunting/gathering work time because it wasn't their primary role. I think we can all come together behind the idea that being isolated inside in a cube farm for >8 hours a day with minimal social interaction or variety of stimulus is unhealthy.
  - wyager 11y ago
    Which very high quality crafts are you referring to? Every pre-agriculture artifact I've seen looks to have been made by a modern three year old. The only impressive thing I've seen come from pre-agriculture society is agriculture. Have you ever done long-distance backpacking or similar outdoorsmanship? Even with modern outdoors tech, conditions are often really rough. Pre-agriculture people were even worse off. It was very much brutal. They also had to contend with unchecked disease, malnutrition, and lethal weather. Does a life of "just chilling" sound tolerable to you? These people had no intellectual pursuits, nothing to strive for. If certain parts of humanity hadn't developed agriculture and eventually industry, humans would just keep rolling around in the dirt and dying at 50 until an asteroid took us out of our misery.

wyager 11y ago

By "relaxing and socializing", what exactly do you mean? Do you think they opened a good book and a bottle of Bordeaux? Leisure time isn't valuable unless you have something to fill it with. Plus, most of those statistics about historically higher "leisure time" are misleading, because anything that wasn't professional work was probably personal work; mending clothes, performing the brutal labor associated with pre-industrial cooking, etc. I'm also skeptical of any such claims directed at pre-civilization humans, because it's not like they could do a very good job of writing down what they did that day.

inanutshellus 11y ago
> Leisure time isn't valuable unless you have something to fill it with. Soylent gree^W^W Socializing is people!
jasonpeacock 11y ago
Exactly that - they talked with each other, told stories, passed on oral histories, and created very high quality crafts. There was labor, but it was not "brutal". Food preparation, tool/clothing repair, etc took up a lot of time but it was not difficult and could be done while socializing. In the earliest journals of scholars who visited early Native American cultures, the scholars actually complained about being bored due to actual lack of work that needed to be done. Everyone really was just chilling.
- CuriouslyC 11y ago
  A lot of work today can be done while socializing as well; it isn't really balanced to discount extra non-hunting/gathering work time because it wasn't their primary role. I think we can all come together behind the idea that being isolated inside in a cube farm for >8 hours a day with minimal social interaction or variety of stimulus is unhealthy.
- wyager 11y ago
  Which very high quality crafts are you referring to? Every pre-agriculture artifact I've seen looks to have been made by a modern three year old. The only impressive thing I've seen come from pre-agriculture society is agriculture. Have you ever done long-distance backpacking or similar outdoorsmanship? Even with modern outdoors tech, conditions are often really rough. Pre-agriculture people were even worse off. It was very much brutal. They also had to contend with unchecked disease, malnutrition, and lethal weather. Does a life of "just chilling" sound tolerable to you? These people had no intellectual pursuits, nothing to strive for. If certain parts of humanity hadn't developed agriculture and eventually industry, humans would just keep rolling around in the dirt and dying at 50 until an asteroid took us out of our misery.