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Can we get a citation for these claims? Otherwise it feels a lot like something one says while rocking themselves to sleep at night. The whole thesis of "Sapien

Can we get a citation for these claims? Otherwise it feels a lot like something one says while rocking themselves to sleep at night. The whole thesis of "Sapiens" is exactly the opposite of this, that "progress" has been mainly a way of making life harder. The idea rural farming is somehow more dangerous than moving to a city and working long hours in a factory seems worthy of some numbers. If you basically learn, "Don't stick your face in the thresher" I feel like farming would be fairly low danger.

mlazos 9y ago
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/the-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america-000395 https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/the-most-dange... This cites some numbers from the CDC, looks like in America farms are dangerous, can’t imagine what it’s like in China. It says farmers are 2x as likely as police and 5x as likely as firefighters to die on the job. My intuition is formed from knowing that logging is one of the most dangerous jobs in America, I kind of assumed farming wasn’t so far off.
Spooky23 9y ago
I’d suggest that you perform even the most cursory level of research via Google. In the United States, agriculture is one of the most dangerous occupational categories. Fatality rate is 7x higher than all workers in private industry, and injury rate is 40% higher than all workers. Additionally, exposure to farm chemicals results in long term health effects. In China, safety standards are poor in agriculture and often unregulated, so no reliable statistics exist. That said, with reduced mechanization and poor working standards, injuries and deaths are likely far higher.
- gowld 9y ago
  In China, safety standards are poor in factories also and often unregulated, so no reliable statistics exist. Factories also have dangerous chemicals. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/inside-chinese-factories/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/inside-chinese-factories/
perl4ever 9y ago
People did learn "don't stick your face in the thresher" and that's exactly why across cultures and in different time periods since the industrial revolution they migrated to the cities, because even the sweatshops we consider barbaric were better. In school, we learn about how terrible child labor was when it was unregulated, and how children were maimed and died in factories. But child labor was taken for granted on the farm, so of course it wasn't questioned when industrialization came at first. I have a picture of my mom as a little girl on a huge tractor in the 1940s. I didn't grow up on a farm, but her attitude towards power equipment when I was a kid was to tell me to read the manual, whether it was a power mower or a chainsaw or whatever.

mlazos 9y ago

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/the-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america-000395 https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/the-most-dange... This cites some numbers from the CDC, looks like in America farms are dangerous, can’t imagine what it’s like in China. It says farmers are 2x as likely as police and 5x as likely as firefighters to die on the job. My intuition is formed from knowing that logging is one of the most dangerous jobs in America, I kind of assumed farming wasn’t so far off.

Spooky23 9y ago

I’d suggest that you perform even the most cursory level of research via Google. In the United States, agriculture is one of the most dangerous occupational categories. Fatality rate is 7x higher than all workers in private industry, and injury rate is 40% higher than all workers. Additionally, exposure to farm chemicals results in long term health effects. In China, safety standards are poor in agriculture and often unregulated, so no reliable statistics exist. That said, with reduced mechanization and poor working standards, injuries and deaths are likely far higher.

gowld 9y ago
In China, safety standards are poor in factories also and often unregulated, so no reliable statistics exist. Factories also have dangerous chemicals. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/inside-chinese-factories/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/inside-chinese-factories/

perl4ever 9y ago

People did learn "don't stick your face in the thresher" and that's exactly why across cultures and in different time periods since the industrial revolution they migrated to the cities, because even the sweatshops we consider barbaric were better. In school, we learn about how terrible child labor was when it was unregulated, and how children were maimed and died in factories. But child labor was taken for granted on the farm, so of course it wasn't questioned when industrialization came at first. I have a picture of my mom as a little girl on a huge tractor in the 1940s. I didn't grow up on a farm, but her attitude towards power equipment when I was a kid was to tell me to read the manual, whether it was a power mower or a chainsaw or whatever.