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I don't think this type of thinking is very productive - it's a romanticization of an ancestral past. The ancestral environment is useful for context for why th
by Afforess 9y ago
I don't think this type of thinking is very productive - it's a romanticization of an ancestral past. The ancestral environment is useful for context for why things are the way they are, but it tells us nothing about the future. We can point back to the habits and lifestyles of the past and imagine cargo-culting their behavior will grant us the outcomes we prefer, but there's no understanding in it. Various communities even implement this, with varying success - see the Amish or Mormons.
As an aside, drug use was extremely common among indigenous peoples all across the world. I don't even think this naturalism fallacy supports these particular claims.
- Bartweiss 9y agoI think it depends on exactly how the question is framed, yes. It's very useful to recognize when we aren't 'made' for something, because it implies we can get benefits from either avoiding it or supplementing our performance at the task. When we are "made for" a task, like walking for long periods or throwing objects with good aim, it's tough to improve on human baseline. (At least, not without serious side effects. There's a reason drugs to boost strength and physical endurance tend to be risky.) But that distinction has to be kept separate from a values judgement. As I mentioned in another comment, "reading a good book" is something I'm not evolved to do. That might mean I should be prepared for challenges with the task (e.g. back pain if I sit for too long), but it's unrelated to whether I want to keep doing it. The 'ancestral environment' stuff is likely to be easy or optimized-for, but that's not the same as being a better way to live.