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My archaeology professor: "Paleolithic peoples 'worked' roughly 15 hours a week, are we really so advanced now?"
by jrlocke 10y ago
My archaeology professor: "Paleolithic peoples 'worked' roughly 15 hours a week, are we really so advanced now?"
- maxerickson 10y agoI had a surgery 20 years ago that probably saved my life (I say probably because I never tried surviving without it). I'm pretty down with all the complications we've layered over the paleolithic lifestyle.
- jrlocke 10y agoI'm a t1 diabetic; I of course share your feelings on progress. That said, I'm unconvinced that technological progress is necessarily dependent on long work weeks (to start, most people working long weeks are totally uninvolved with this sort of innovation).
- maxerickson 10y agoSure, but at least over medium to long periods of recent history there is a pretty direct relationship between work and economic productivity (productivity which is required to have the resources to do things like training doctors and building hospitals). It's also not true that labor is uninvolved with technology. If people are busy with the hum drum details of survival they have less time to try new ideas and the like.
- DickingAround 10y agoYea. For example median lifespan, childbirth, rule of law, the potential to expand to new galaxies. And the simple fact that if we chose to stay in the stone age some more advanced predator would kill us like we've been killing all other advanced predators. Nature tolerates no mediocrity.
- cableshaft 10y agoIs it possible that our modern lifestyles are at least partially to blame for getting these diseases that need medical treatment in the first place? I.e. sitting in front of a computer for 8+ hours a day might lead to us developing these medical conditions that we must then spend thousands of dollars "fixing" (i.e. often treating the symptoms or temporarily improvement) these things that our work environment caused in the first place? Granted, yes, some things existed before this became the norm, like plagues and whatnot, but I think part of the reason we all need to be treated for medical problems is because of the nature of modern work being incompatible with human biology.
- thehardsphere 10y agoPaleolithic people also did a lot more physical labor than we do now. It's a bit more than a stretch to try to equate hunting/gathering for food for 15 hours a week and sitting in a chair in an office for 40.
- amelius 10y ago> My archaeology professor: "Paleolithic peoples 'worked' roughly 15 hours a week, are we really so advanced now?" Indeed, if those paleolithic people worked 40+ hours a week, perhaps we would be really advanced by now :)
- sotojuan 10y agoTheir "job" was to hunt/gather, make primitive tools, and build shelter. You're welcome to go into the forest and do that (well, you'd be arrested!).
- acuozzo 10y ago> You're welcome to go into the forest and do that (well, you'd be arrested!). Should this be the case? Should we permit society to expand to a point in which it's impossible for people to opt-out? I'm not comfortable with requiring all humans to be a part of society, but at the same time I'm not sure if there's a solution given the fact that resources are finite.
- trakout 10y agoGenuine question, what would an individual doing such a thing be arrested for?
- sotojuan 10y agoNot sure. I just hear that you can't go live in the woods for too long without getting into legal trouble. Maybe I'm wrong?