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Like x000 years ago when war and famine were always looming threats? Or further back when predators and inclement weather were? I can't imagine life in the dis

Like x000 years ago when war and famine were always looming threats? Or further back when predators and inclement weather were? I can't imagine life in the distant past being less stressful.

lloydatkinson 5y ago
That's an oversimplification. The threat of war was not an everyday occurrence and really only became a thing when tribes evolved into nations and countries. Burnout is an example of the types of stress that are not like anything experienced in those thousands of years prior.
- csee 5y ago
  The threat of violence in the form of intra-tribal and inter-tribal violence was commonplace, even though nation states weren't a thing. I can't imagine that being less stressful than today where we have very close to zero chance of being murdered.
- phonypc 5y ago
  Hence the "predators and inclement weather". You can't imagine experiencing "burnout" with regards to incessant cold and rain preventing your tribe from effectively hunting/foraging? Or a pack of starving wolves harassing your camp at night for weeks?
jerf 5y ago
A lot of the bad aspects of the stress response come from prolonged periods of not being able to do anything about it. If your village is raided, and you escape unharmed, you will be very stressed for a short period of time, but generally return to your baseline quickly after that. That's normal. That's what "stress" is for. The modern world has the ability to stress you out over things you can do nothing about (or at least, not very directly and quickly), for long periods of time. Sit down and watch three hours a day for a week of whichever news channel pisses you off the most if you want to see. Some of you reading this already do that, so you may not even notice how pointlessly stressed that makes you because that's how you live. It also has a bunch of other humans who find it advantageous to stress you out that way and bend a lot of time and effort to the task of continually stressing you out, because they prefer that you not be able to carefully think about things but that you react less thoughtfully. You spend more money that way, among other effects. Past life would spike the stress levels more often, sure, but it generally lacks the low-grade continual stress you can't do anything about. The exceptions that leap to mind (sieges! famine!) would generally be exactly that, exceptions. And in those cases... I'm sure the continual stress of sieges and famines wouldn't be good for them, either!
- phonypc 5y ago
  You don't actually have to be in conditions of siege or famine for them to be stressful. They merely have to be a threat. And what would a common person (i.e. peasant) have been able to do about that threat? If your village is raided and you escape harm (quite the assumption), why would you generally return to "baseline"? What if the raiders took all your food and you can't feed your family? What if your family was murdered or raped? What if your village was destroyed and you're now a vagrant?
  - jerf 5y ago
    You are making the cognitive mistake of seeing the exceptions as the default, because the exceptions are what come to mind. As I said, when constant persistent stress was occurring, I'm sure it wasn't any better for them than for us. But those were the exceptions. History writes about the famines and the sieges precisely because they're the interesting exceptions. Most people, most of the time, were not in a siege or a famine or under any particular threat from a neighbor. Today, millions upon millions experience this mid-level persistent stress all the time, for decades. In the 21st century first world, it is the norm, rather than the exception. I don't think that's how it used to be. It especially didn't used to be that way when the danger of famine or siege is as low as it is now, making the stress response even more mal-adaptive.
    - phonypc 5y ago
      I guess we just have different reads on history. I don't think it's a mistake to view hard times as the default for most of history in most places. They were of course not constant and there are accounts of exceptionally hard times. But I think the background level of hardship for the common person throughout the world >1000 years ago would probably drive most people currently living in the modern first-world to catatonia or suicide.
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      I’ve once stayed on a farm that was away from everything, no phones, no TV, electricity barely. It was a great summer, can confirm.

Like x000 years ago when war and famine were always looming threats? Or further back when predators and inclement weather were? I can't imagine life in the distant past being less stressful.

lloydatkinson 5y ago

That's an oversimplification. The threat of war was not an everyday occurrence and really only became a thing when tribes evolved into nations and countries. Burnout is an example of the types of stress that are not like anything experienced in those thousands of years prior.

csee 5y ago
The threat of violence in the form of intra-tribal and inter-tribal violence was commonplace, even though nation states weren't a thing. I can't imagine that being less stressful than today where we have very close to zero chance of being murdered.
phonypc 5y ago
Hence the "predators and inclement weather". You can't imagine experiencing "burnout" with regards to incessant cold and rain preventing your tribe from effectively hunting/foraging? Or a pack of starving wolves harassing your camp at night for weeks?

jerf 5y ago

A lot of the bad aspects of the stress response come from prolonged periods of not being able to do anything about it. If your village is raided, and you escape unharmed, you will be very stressed for a short period of time, but generally return to your baseline quickly after that. That's normal. That's what "stress" is for. The modern world has the ability to stress you out over things you can do nothing about (or at least, not very directly and quickly), for long periods of time. Sit down and watch three hours a day for a week of whichever news channel pisses you off the most if you want to see. Some of you reading this already do that, so you may not even notice how pointlessly stressed that makes you because that's how you live. It also has a bunch of other humans who find it advantageous to stress you out that way and bend a lot of time and effort to the task of continually stressing you out, because they prefer that you not be able to carefully think about things but that you react less thoughtfully. You spend more money that way, among other effects. Past life would spike the stress levels more often, sure, but it generally lacks the low-grade continual stress you can't do anything about. The exceptions that leap to mind (sieges! famine!) would generally be exactly that, exceptions. And in those cases... I'm sure the continual stress of sieges and famines wouldn't be good for them, either!

phonypc 5y ago
You don't actually have to be in conditions of siege or famine for them to be stressful. They merely have to be a threat. And what would a common person (i.e. peasant) have been able to do about that threat? If your village is raided and you escape harm (quite the assumption), why would you generally return to "baseline"? What if the raiders took all your food and you can't feed your family? What if your family was murdered or raped? What if your village was destroyed and you're now a vagrant?
- jerf 5y ago
  You are making the cognitive mistake of seeing the exceptions as the default, because the exceptions are what come to mind. As I said, when constant persistent stress was occurring, I'm sure it wasn't any better for them than for us. But those were the exceptions. History writes about the famines and the sieges precisely because they're the interesting exceptions. Most people, most of the time, were not in a siege or a famine or under any particular threat from a neighbor. Today, millions upon millions experience this mid-level persistent stress all the time, for decades. In the 21st century first world, it is the norm, rather than the exception. I don't think that's how it used to be. It especially didn't used to be that way when the danger of famine or siege is as low as it is now, making the stress response even more mal-adaptive.
  - phonypc 5y ago
    I guess we just have different reads on history. I don't think it's a mistake to view hard times as the default for most of history in most places. They were of course not constant and there are accounts of exceptionally hard times. But I think the background level of hardship for the common person throughout the world >1000 years ago would probably drive most people currently living in the modern first-world to catatonia or suicide.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    I’ve once stayed on a farm that was away from everything, no phones, no TV, electricity barely. It was a great summer, can confirm.