3 ms·

it seems to me that for people in modernised industries, the disconnect is related to the fact that we work in non-natural environments. We evolved to live in n

it seems to me that for people in modernised industries, the disconnect is related to the fact that we work in non-natural environments. We evolved to live in nature and now we sit in artificially lit offices pressing plastic buttons to make electronic circuits fire the way we want them to. We have to be missing quite a few innate requirements that we get from wandering through fields and forests.

icantdrive55 9y ago
My dad was an Electrician. He always used to say the perfect job would be arriving to a warm office, and sit in a chair for two hours doing work. Then spend the next five hours working with your hands, and body. (His union got seven hour days, and Electrical work is still very physical.) I bet there will be an outdoor office, and it will be featured here on HN. At the end of the day, people will most likely find something to complain about? I don't think I've ever been to a beach/outdoors with anyone who didn't have at least one gripe--eventually? Especially camping. Actually, I take that back, I once down the Rogue River, with two friends, whom were on acid the whole time, and I don't remember them complaining about anything. One almost died though.
ekianjo 9y ago
Im not sure what your point is but if we follow your line of thought then we live in artificial environments as well. We use toilets too, and we dont gather food by ourselves for 95 % of us at least. Humans certainly did not evolve to live in nature but to model it to their liking.
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  we certainly didn't evolve to model nature to our liking - that seems to have been an emergent property of a number of traits that we evolved such as tool use, opposable thumbs, higher level reasoning and so on. Our evolutionary baggage goes back throughout Earth's history and is mostly animal. We don't live in the environment we evolved for, like a dolphin living in an aquarium. Now that's fine, we obviously have the capacity to live in modern environments, but a certain amount of exposure to nature does us a lot of good.

icantdrive55 9y ago

My dad was an Electrician. He always used to say the perfect job would be arriving to a warm office, and sit in a chair for two hours doing work. Then spend the next five hours working with your hands, and body. (His union got seven hour days, and Electrical work is still very physical.) I bet there will be an outdoor office, and it will be featured here on HN. At the end of the day, people will most likely find something to complain about? I don't think I've ever been to a beach/outdoors with anyone who didn't have at least one gripe--eventually? Especially camping. Actually, I take that back, I once down the Rogue River, with two friends, whom were on acid the whole time, and I don't remember them complaining about anything. One almost died though.

ekianjo 9y ago

Im not sure what your point is but if we follow your line of thought then we live in artificial environments as well. We use toilets too, and we dont gather food by ourselves for 95 % of us at least. Humans certainly did not evolve to live in nature but to model it to their liking.

beaconstudios 9y ago
we certainly didn't evolve to model nature to our liking - that seems to have been an emergent property of a number of traits that we evolved such as tool use, opposable thumbs, higher level reasoning and so on. Our evolutionary baggage goes back throughout Earth's history and is mostly animal. We don't live in the environment we evolved for, like a dolphin living in an aquarium. Now that's fine, we obviously have the capacity to live in modern environments, but a certain amount of exposure to nature does us a lot of good.