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Actually, studies have shown that hunter-gatherer societies spent much less than 40h/week "working" and had more leisure time than we do. It's just recent histo
by lutorm 9y ago
Actually, studies have shown that hunter-gatherer societies spent much less than 40h/week "working" and had more leisure time than we do. It's just recent history that's an anomaly...
- ksk 9y agoWhy is it important that studies have shown a particular result?
- bluGill 9y agoBecause only well designed studies can show a truth. It is obviously the case that when you drop a big rock and a little rock at the same time the big rock will hit the ground first. Because we have a study we know this to be false even though it is obvious.
- Cyph0n 9y agoWell, that particular scenario is false only when there is no air resistance (nowhere on this planet?). More importantly, it wasn't just a "study" that figured out the law of gravitation.
- dctoedt 9y ago> no air resistance (nowhere on this planet?) In 1971, Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott repeated the experiment on the lunar surface with a hammer and a feather. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_P... (includes a link to a video clip; jump to about 0:35).
- Cyph0n 9y agoI am aware of that famous experiment on the moon. However, my point was that the law of gravitation was developed centuries before such an experiment could possibly be performed.
- ksk 9y agoI understand the thrust of your comment and generally agree with your broad sentiment. But, most scientific studies present a model that fits data. While you are right that they can show a truth, that is not their aim, and often they are contradicted with newer data and models. Studies are only valuable when they form a scientific consensus over repeated experiments or provide some predictive power that can be confirmed through other experiments. To use a studies as a prescriptive guide to base your life on, or change of habits is an error IMHO, and ironically, quite unscientific. I guess you could say its a pet peeve of mine. 9 times out of 10 when I investigate a "studies have shown" comment, it turns out to be half-true or based on weak science, or too new to be replicated by other scientists, or sometimes the context is completely different from its use in an argument.
- eeereerews 9y agoThere was no such study. Galileo showed this was false with the following famous thought experiment: Suppose it were true. Join a heavy rock and a light rock by a cord and drop them from a tower. If the light rock falls slower, eventually the cord will be pulled taut and retard the fall of the heavier, so this system falls more slowly than the heavy rock alone. But the system is heavier than the heavy rock alone, so it should fall faster, a contradiction.
- Thiez 9y agoAnd yet a human with a parachute falls more slowly than a human with a parachute. I remain unconvinced of this thought experiment...
- vkou 9y agoWe don't strap parachutes to people because we think that heavier objects fall faster then lighter ones.
- bluGill 9y agoMaybe Galileo did not, but others have. The gold standard is a model that explains that behavior, and experimental studies that work as the model predicts. The model that big ricks fall faster makes sense, but it isn't backed by experiences. Many studies have seemed to show something but in fact the authors just didn't realize they had to control for something important (sometimes an accident, sometimes outright scientific fraud)
- dctoedt 9y ago> Maybe Galileo did not, but others have. "The experiment did take place in Delft in 16th century the Netherlands, when the mathematician and physicist Simon Stevin and Jan Cornets de Groot (the father of Hugo de Groot) conducted the experiment from the top of the Nieuwe Kerk." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_P...
- njarboe 9y agoSome people feel that humans have evolved over millions of years to do well in hunter-gatherer tribes and we have not genetically adapted yet in 6,000? years of civilization. If we think returning some habits of hunter-gatherer tribes would be beneficial, then we need to know what they are/were and not just wild-ass guess based on the Nobel Savage myth.
- ksk 9y agoRight, its good to present a model of what their habits were, if that was your area of interest. To use them as a prescriptive guide to base your habits on, requires further explanation and reasoning.
- ams6110 9y agoMany of the habits of hunter-gatherers would likely be absolutely unacceptable in today's culture. They were likely violently clannish/racist, completely male-dominated, hierarchical based on physical strength and appearance, and believed in gods/supernatural phenomenon.
- bjshepard 9y agoWhat evidence is there to suggest that this is the case? It seems, instead, that those behaviors arose at a later point -- you need a certain level of captivity to have institutions like the patriarchy, bands can't enforce coercive structures....
- ambentzen 9y agoSo basically they where American? You're right, absolutely unacceptable by modern standards. BTW, the first sentence is about 50% a joke.
- gyrgtyn 9y agoYou assumptions are completely backwards.
- irrational 9y agoWait... violently clannish? So... Democrats vs Republicans? Violently racist? I think I remember something about that from the recent news. Completely male-dominated. Lets see, how many politicians, movie directors, CEOs, etc. are filled by males? Hmmm. Hierarchical based of physical appearance? Um... calling all pop stars and Kardashians. Believe in God. Something like 80+% of Americans. I'm super confused on what part of this is supposed to be absolutely unacceptable in today's culture. You have some serious blinders on or an unbelievable amount of naivete if you believe that.
- wmil 9y agoNot only that, but the 40h/week ignores commutes. For some people that's an additional 15h/week. Also hunger-gatherers lived right beside the people they knew. They just had to step outside to meet up with friends to socialize.
- mietek 9y ago> Also hunger-gatherers lived right beside the people they knew. They just had to step outside to meet up with friends to socialize. Outside of what, the ministry of hunting and gathering?
- coldtea 9y agoOutside of their tents/caves/etc homes.
- smallnamespace 9y ago> with friends to socialize Or, sometimes, rival tribes to fight with and kill -- not everything is (necessarily) hunky-dory in every tribal society.
- jahaja 9y agoWell, the history of killing each other (and others!) in western civilization is nothing to brag about.
- jff 9y agoIf you think it's just western civilization, you haven't spent much time looking at non-western civilizations.
- jasonmp85 9y agoI have little knowledge about the truth here but I'd heard that this sort of warring stuff only ramped up after agriculture became common, no? Why kill other tribes' members unless they have a hoard of food? I suppose "to reduce competition" is one answer, but if everyone can hunt/gather for enough food, the motivation seems reduced. OTOH if I can ignore preparation for winter and just raid your village for grain stores, the calculus changes.
- ztjio 9y agoStudies on same people suggest 6-6.5 hours of sleep per day was the norm, though. It questions the recent claims that adults "need" more.
- freehunter 9y agoFor long periods of time humans were malnourished, didn't wear proper shoes, didn't have proper beds, and didn't bathe properly. Just because it was done in the past and people survived doesn't mean it's necessarily the best way to go about things.
- jhgjklj 9y agoAs the technology advances we should be working less but its the opposite. Here's an essay by Bertrand Russel http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
- skinnymuch 9y agoGreat essay. Bertrand Russel never ceases to amaze. For others, the essay is titled In Praise of Idleness, but is about using your idle (non-working time) for pursuits. Not to turn this into something else, but pursuing things during "idle" time is another reason why if reasonably possible, basic income could be great alongside more advancements like automation occurring.
- wolfram74 9y agoI think the people GP was referring to were early industrial age folks before labor unions pushed for humane working conditions.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y agoWhat studies? This is the internet, use that fancy hypertext. I'm not very familiar with this particular area, but I do know from books like The Better Angles Of Our Nature (and criticisms thereof) that this is a contentious statement. There are many myths about ancient humans, some that overly indulge in 'savagery' and others that are too idyllic. The evidence for either interpretation is fairly fraught and I'm deeply skeptical of any affirmative claims one way or another.
- ianai 9y agoI've heard it elsewhere in books. Forgetting where exactly.
- kixiQu 9y agoLater, in 1996, Ross Sackett performed two distinct meta-analyses to empirically test Sahlin's view. The first of these studies looked at 102 time-allocation studies, and the second one analyzed 207 energy-expenditure studies. Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average, about 6.5 hours a day, where as people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer#Common_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer#Common_charact...) Sackett, R. 1996. "Time, energy, and the indolent savage. A quantitative cross-cultural test of the primitive affluence hypothesis". Ph.D. diss., University of California, Angles.
- skinnymuch 9y agoThanks. Not about humans of the past, but still a relevant study.
- skinnymuch 9y agoYeah getting some studies and info on this would be great.
- GhostVII 9y agoHunter gatherer societies also weren't paying for cell phones, and internet, and mortgages/rent. I'm sure you could get by working part time for 15 hours a week if you gave up all of your modern conveniences and lived outdoors in a tent, but it wouldn't be very enjoyable.
- fish_fan 9y ago> I'm sure you could get by working part time for 15 hours a week if you gave up all of your modern conveniences and lived outdoors in a tent, but it wouldn't be very enjoyable. It’s interesting you’d say that. I agree on average, but the enjoyment in that lifestyle would be hard to imagine in ours. I don’t think it’s hard to see our perception of pleasurable things is different from frequency. Frankly I think there are only small, incremental improvements to happiness possible after modern healthcare and plumbing. Which are, granted, still extremely expensive where I live.
- skinnymuch 9y agoCan you explain what you mean by "is different from frequency"?
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoI would love to work, say, 20-30 hours a week for 50%-75% of my base salary. Buy stuff on sale, cook for myself instead of eating out, I think I could live quite happily that way. But unless you're good enough (and social enough) to find work as a consultant, there aren't many skilled jobs that will let you do that. If you're not willing to work at least 40 hours a week, they're not interested.
- taneq 9y agoYeah, their leisure time sucked pretty badly though. And they lived a precarious existence with none of the nice things we take for granted. I wouldn't swap.
- kamaal 9y ago>>hunter-gatherer societies spent much less than 40h/week "working" Looking at it purely in terms for food and survival requires very little energy to get by life. But that comes with its own problems. Actually Hellenistic period in many ways was a far better time to live in than now.