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>The current western world order is still much more fair to the common folk than feudalism. That's the common perception, but there's little evidence that it i

>The current western world order is still much more fair to the common folk than feudalism. That's the common perception, but there's little evidence that it is true. Modern peons have no more ability to control their governments than medieval peons did, we just have the illusion presented to us to keep us complacent. We work longer hours, have less nutritious and safe food, and have an epidemic of "mental illness" stemming from our lack of social bonds and community. But because we have medicine and electronic gadgets we declare ourselves to be much better off. >The education aspect was not as much about how much more educated the aristocracy was Well really that is exactly what aristocracy was, as originally conceived. Some places ended up with a corrupt form where it was rule by birth rather than rule by excellence (the literal definition of aristocracy), but mostly people just mistakenly refer to monarchies as aristocracies. >but it's way easier with our figment of a fair society, rather than if we believed social status was a fixed quantity given by the creator of the universe. Why? The modern myth that nobility was defined purely by birth is just that, a myth. If you believe that excellence is given by god, it does not also follow that you must believe god only gives excellence to the offspring of others he gave excellence. In reality it was seen as no different than with livestock. If a good specimen is born you make it part of your breeding stock, even if its parents were not.

naasking 8y ago
> We work longer hours, have less nutritious and safe food, and have an epidemic of "mental illness" stemming from our lack of social bonds and community. But because we have medicine and electronic gadgets we declare ourselves to be much better off. This smacks of rosy retrospective bias. Even if we have less nutritious food, which is debatable, we have an abundance of it, sufficient to feed us all and we don't suffer famines and shortages, or nutritional deficiencies. We have an "epidemic" of mental illness because most of our day is no longer solely focused on scrounging for survival. Also, the mentally ill are no longer shunned as harshly and so they don't die of starvation. Perhaps community bonds have something to do with it, but that's also debatable.
- agsdfgsd 8y ago
  >Even if we have less nutritious food, which is debatable It really isn't, it has been measured. With increased atmospheric CO2, plants grow faster and end up with a much higher calorie:micronutrient ratio. We also consume vast quantities of industrial waste products now like "vegetable oil", HFCS and soybean by-products. >we have an abundance of it, sufficient to feed us all and we don't suffer famines and shortages, or nutritional deficiencies. Famine wasn't as common as you seem to think it was, unless you include impoverished states, in which case famine is killing more people now than it was back then. You can't just look at rich countries now compared to everyone centuries ago. You have to compare like to like. We suffer plenty of nutritional deficiencies, and we suffer huge amounts of diet caused diseases like "type 2 diabetes" and osteoporosis. >We have an "epidemic" of mental illness because most of our day is no longer solely focused on scrounging for survival. People were not scrounging for survival then either. They were producing significant surpluses of food, enough to feed massive armies. And while they worked hard in spring and fall, they essentially had summer and winter as vacation time. They had more holidays/vacation time than modern Americans do. >Perhaps community bonds have something to do with it, but that's also debatable. We literally have hundreds of thousands of people killing themselves entirely because they have no social bonds. Everything is debatable, but this debate in particular has overwhelming evidence in support of it being correct. As population density grows, social cohesion, trust and relationships all decline. We just didn't evolve to be friends with 5 million people.
  - naasking 8y ago
    > With increased atmospheric CO2, plants grow faster and end up with a much higher calorie:micronutrient ratio. Citation please. > We also consume vast quantities of industrial waste products now like "vegetable oil", HFCS and soybean by-products. Naturalistic fallacy. "Industrial waste" isn't necessarily harmful. > Famine wasn't as common as you seem to think it was, unless you include impoverished states, in which case famine is killing more people now than it was back then. "More people" is an irrelevant metric, what matters is the percentage of people relative to the total. That's a meaningful measure of progress. > We suffer plenty of nutritional deficiencies Such as? > and we suffer huge amounts of diet caused diseases like "type 2 diabetes" and osteoporosis. The latter of which was either common back then also, or uncommon because they didn't live long enough to develop it. As for type II diabetes, it's a disease of abundance, which proves my point. You can't overeat if you don't have enough to eat. > They were producing significant surpluses of food, enough to feed massive armies. That often starved during campaigns. > And while they worked hard in spring and fall, they essentially had summer and winter as vacation time. They had more holidays/vacation time than modern Americans do. During which they had to ration food, developed nutritional deficiencies, and died of exposure. Some vacation. You're awfully selective about how you compare "like to like". > We literally have hundreds of thousands of people killing themselves entirely because they have no social bonds. Citation please. Also, there is very little real data on historical suicide rates [1,2]. It consists mainly of conjecture from the writings of artists at the time, like Dante speaking about hell and suicide. So your claims that modern rates are higher are also pure conjecture. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/suicide-or-accident-selfkilling-in-medieval-england/66195F6D981CEE48B35C155E6F7A948F https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-... [2] http://psychiatry.queensu.ca/assets/Synergy/synergyfall12.pdf http://psychiatry.queensu.ca/assets/Synergy/synergyfall12.pd...
JoeAltmaier 8y ago
We have orders of magnitude safer food, fewer mentally ill than feudal folk. And we have medicine that works. Its disingenuous and incorrect to dismiss it so glibly.
- agsdfgsd 8y ago
  I am not dismissing medicine. But the existence of medicine now does not mean life centuries ago was a horrifying existence struggling to survive as popular culture suggests. There are still primitive people now, whose existence is far closer to that subsistence stereotype than medieval Europeans were. They are overwhelmingly happy and healthy. They eat better than we do, are healthier than we are, and work less than we do. If they had modern medicine, it is hard to argue they wouldn't be better off than us in every way.
  - kortilla 8y ago
    But they don’t have modern medicine, and they don’t have the means to deal with droughts, or other natural disasters. Indigenous tribes who have contact with society are overwhelmingly unhappy with some of the highest suicide rates in the world. The ones who don’t have contact don’t have their happiness measured in any meaningful or comparable way... because they don’t have contact. Additionally, if they are in any kind of environment where they have to do manual labor for food, they work way more than most Americans do. Standing around for 40 hours a week making coffees for people is a walk in the park compared to tilling a field with a hoe.
    - agsdfgsd 8y ago
      >But they don’t have modern medicine Yes, we've covered that haven't we? In the very post you just replied to, in order to add absolutely nothing to the discussion? >Indigenous tribes who have contact with society are overwhelmingly unhappy with some of the highest suicide rates in the world. No, indigenous tribes who have been forced into adopting modern lifestyles are: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-018-1115-6 https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291... People like the indigenous Kitava have no such problems. Because they are not living as an underclass minority in another culture. They have contact with modern people, but they choose to live traditionally. >Additionally, if they are in any kind of environment where they have to do manual labor for food That would be every kind of environment... >they work way more than most Americans do. They do not. Again, see the Kitava. They barely have a concept of work. >Standing around for 40 hours a week making coffees for people is a walk in the park compared to tilling a field with a hoe Tilling a field with a hoe is a completely unnecessary act. Your cultural bias makes you assume this is some universal penance that must be paid in order to extract food from the soil. It is not.

naasking 8y ago

> We work longer hours, have less nutritious and safe food, and have an epidemic of "mental illness" stemming from our lack of social bonds and community. But because we have medicine and electronic gadgets we declare ourselves to be much better off. This smacks of rosy retrospective bias. Even if we have less nutritious food, which is debatable, we have an abundance of it, sufficient to feed us all and we don't suffer famines and shortages, or nutritional deficiencies. We have an "epidemic" of mental illness because most of our day is no longer solely focused on scrounging for survival. Also, the mentally ill are no longer shunned as harshly and so they don't die of starvation. Perhaps community bonds have something to do with it, but that's also debatable.

agsdfgsd 8y ago
>Even if we have less nutritious food, which is debatable It really isn't, it has been measured. With increased atmospheric CO2, plants grow faster and end up with a much higher calorie:micronutrient ratio. We also consume vast quantities of industrial waste products now like "vegetable oil", HFCS and soybean by-products. >we have an abundance of it, sufficient to feed us all and we don't suffer famines and shortages, or nutritional deficiencies. Famine wasn't as common as you seem to think it was, unless you include impoverished states, in which case famine is killing more people now than it was back then. You can't just look at rich countries now compared to everyone centuries ago. You have to compare like to like. We suffer plenty of nutritional deficiencies, and we suffer huge amounts of diet caused diseases like "type 2 diabetes" and osteoporosis. >We have an "epidemic" of mental illness because most of our day is no longer solely focused on scrounging for survival. People were not scrounging for survival then either. They were producing significant surpluses of food, enough to feed massive armies. And while they worked hard in spring and fall, they essentially had summer and winter as vacation time. They had more holidays/vacation time than modern Americans do. >Perhaps community bonds have something to do with it, but that's also debatable. We literally have hundreds of thousands of people killing themselves entirely because they have no social bonds. Everything is debatable, but this debate in particular has overwhelming evidence in support of it being correct. As population density grows, social cohesion, trust and relationships all decline. We just didn't evolve to be friends with 5 million people.
- naasking 8y ago
  > With increased atmospheric CO2, plants grow faster and end up with a much higher calorie:micronutrient ratio. Citation please. > We also consume vast quantities of industrial waste products now like "vegetable oil", HFCS and soybean by-products. Naturalistic fallacy. "Industrial waste" isn't necessarily harmful. > Famine wasn't as common as you seem to think it was, unless you include impoverished states, in which case famine is killing more people now than it was back then. "More people" is an irrelevant metric, what matters is the percentage of people relative to the total. That's a meaningful measure of progress. > We suffer plenty of nutritional deficiencies Such as? > and we suffer huge amounts of diet caused diseases like "type 2 diabetes" and osteoporosis. The latter of which was either common back then also, or uncommon because they didn't live long enough to develop it. As for type II diabetes, it's a disease of abundance, which proves my point. You can't overeat if you don't have enough to eat. > They were producing significant surpluses of food, enough to feed massive armies. That often starved during campaigns. > And while they worked hard in spring and fall, they essentially had summer and winter as vacation time. They had more holidays/vacation time than modern Americans do. During which they had to ration food, developed nutritional deficiencies, and died of exposure. Some vacation. You're awfully selective about how you compare "like to like". > We literally have hundreds of thousands of people killing themselves entirely because they have no social bonds. Citation please. Also, there is very little real data on historical suicide rates [1,2]. It consists mainly of conjecture from the writings of artists at the time, like Dante speaking about hell and suicide. So your claims that modern rates are higher are also pure conjecture. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/suicide-or-accident-selfkilling-in-medieval-england/66195F6D981CEE48B35C155E6F7A948F https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-... [2] http://psychiatry.queensu.ca/assets/Synergy/synergyfall12.pdf http://psychiatry.queensu.ca/assets/Synergy/synergyfall12.pd...

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

We have orders of magnitude safer food, fewer mentally ill than feudal folk. And we have medicine that works. Its disingenuous and incorrect to dismiss it so glibly.

agsdfgsd 8y ago
I am not dismissing medicine. But the existence of medicine now does not mean life centuries ago was a horrifying existence struggling to survive as popular culture suggests. There are still primitive people now, whose existence is far closer to that subsistence stereotype than medieval Europeans were. They are overwhelmingly happy and healthy. They eat better than we do, are healthier than we are, and work less than we do. If they had modern medicine, it is hard to argue they wouldn't be better off than us in every way.
- kortilla 8y ago
  But they don’t have modern medicine, and they don’t have the means to deal with droughts, or other natural disasters. Indigenous tribes who have contact with society are overwhelmingly unhappy with some of the highest suicide rates in the world. The ones who don’t have contact don’t have their happiness measured in any meaningful or comparable way... because they don’t have contact. Additionally, if they are in any kind of environment where they have to do manual labor for food, they work way more than most Americans do. Standing around for 40 hours a week making coffees for people is a walk in the park compared to tilling a field with a hoe.
  - agsdfgsd 8y ago
    >But they don’t have modern medicine Yes, we've covered that haven't we? In the very post you just replied to, in order to add absolutely nothing to the discussion? >Indigenous tribes who have contact with society are overwhelmingly unhappy with some of the highest suicide rates in the world. No, indigenous tribes who have been forced into adopting modern lifestyles are: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-018-1115-6 https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291... People like the indigenous Kitava have no such problems. Because they are not living as an underclass minority in another culture. They have contact with modern people, but they choose to live traditionally. >Additionally, if they are in any kind of environment where they have to do manual labor for food That would be every kind of environment... >they work way more than most Americans do. They do not. Again, see the Kitava. They barely have a concept of work. >Standing around for 40 hours a week making coffees for people is a walk in the park compared to tilling a field with a hoe Tilling a field with a hoe is a completely unnecessary act. Your cultural bias makes you assume this is some universal penance that must be paid in order to extract food from the soil. It is not.