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This is a wildly romantic and patronizing view of our ancestors. Our ancestors had FAR harder lives with more complex responsibilities than anything you have t

This is a wildly romantic and patronizing view of our ancestors. Our ancestors had FAR harder lives with more complex responsibilities than anything you have today. It's just so ludicrous to sit on your couch, eating takeout food, paid for either by social welfare or white-collar work (also done from your couch) and spitball "oh, our lives are just so complicated and hard now". No, your life is stupidly easy now. That's probably a source of problems in-and-of itself, but that's another issue. You aren't worrying about starving to death, tracking prey through the forest, gathering enough roots to survive the winter, your children being eaten by wild predators, or jesus, the other thousand things your ancestors had to worry about on a day-to-day basis just to stay alive.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
I'm fairly certain you're confusing easy (less death, more ability) with simple (the actual hours that go into an 'easy' life).
bserge 5y ago
Modern life is far more mentally taxing and stressful, so we want to go back to the "good old days". Pre-industrial (and pre-agricultural) life was more physically taxing and stressful, so they wanted to move on to something better and easier. At least today you can just save up, move to the middle of nowhere and live exactly like they did 500+ years ago, but with much better safety. You can even add some modern tools without much expense. But it probably gets boring real fast.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  > At least today you can just save up, Fortunate people can.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  > Modern life is far more mentally taxing and stressful No, I'm not conceding this point. It ignores that our ancestors evolved large brains (note, before agriculture, _they were even larger_) to deal with a wildly complex natural environment. Knowing the details of the dozens of food sources necessary to survive. How to deal with different seasons. Which of hundreds of animals were edible, which would eat you, and which were fine to ignore. Life was, in every single way, harder and more complex before technology. Trying to equate our comfortable and materially opulent existence with theirs is wrong.
a9h74j 5y ago
To paraphrase what the Saudis are said to say about oil wealth: things are easy enough now to insure that the grandchildren will experience problems that used to be.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

I'm fairly certain you're confusing easy (less death, more ability) with simple (the actual hours that go into an 'easy' life).

bserge 5y ago

Modern life is far more mentally taxing and stressful, so we want to go back to the "good old days". Pre-industrial (and pre-agricultural) life was more physically taxing and stressful, so they wanted to move on to something better and easier. At least today you can just save up, move to the middle of nowhere and live exactly like they did 500+ years ago, but with much better safety. You can even add some modern tools without much expense. But it probably gets boring real fast.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
> At least today you can just save up, Fortunate people can.
bpodgursky 5y ago
> Modern life is far more mentally taxing and stressful No, I'm not conceding this point. It ignores that our ancestors evolved large brains (note, before agriculture, _they were even larger_) to deal with a wildly complex natural environment. Knowing the details of the dozens of food sources necessary to survive. How to deal with different seasons. Which of hundreds of animals were edible, which would eat you, and which were fine to ignore. Life was, in every single way, harder and more complex before technology. Trying to equate our comfortable and materially opulent existence with theirs is wrong.

a9h74j 5y ago

To paraphrase what the Saudis are said to say about oil wealth: things are easy enough now to insure that the grandchildren will experience problems that used to be.