8 ms·

Until 10000 years ago, there was no such thing as intergenerational wealth or surplus, everyone was a migratory hunter gatherer before that owning what they car

Until 10000 years ago, there was no such thing as intergenerational wealth or surplus, everyone was a migratory hunter gatherer before that owning what they carried. Some people in the Amazon still live like this. So the notion that massive intergenerational wealth is innate to humans and natural is absurd. Or if it is innate and natural, then the lack of that is innate and natural as well. Most of behavioral modernity had none of this at all, it is a relatively new phenomenon, not "innately human".

dwaltrip 5y ago
Pre-agricultural tribes could have had forms of wealth — an ornate spear or knife, a prized shawl, a special ceremonial bowl, etc — that they passed down. It seems quite likely to me that as soon as we started crafting and carrying things around, we developed complex behaviors around who gets which things.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Frequently those things were buried with the people who made them.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    It is not really possible to determine who made the grave goods found next to a skeleton (or urn). Some specialization of work is seen in hunters and gatherers already. Not everyone makes their own spearheads or cotton strings etc.
germandiago 5y ago
There is one thing that is innate. I can tell you. I saw it from my nephews recently. One was building a castle, like five floors high with some stuff. The younger kid comes and destroys it. His brother gets deeply annoyed and started to cry. Why? Because he spent time building it. They are three and one years old. Do you think anyone taught them to get annoyed when the castle is destroyed? No, it is innate: what takes effort has a value for humans. We did not have the level of wealth of today before, but every single human that puts time somewhere wants to be the ruler of that effort. That is innate I think. I saw it clearly with my nephew's reaction. Noone taught him that. Looks like a good experiment to me.
- ntSean 5y ago
  Your experiment speaks to how we interpret transgressions, and for that, it is true- taxes are seen as robbery. Does your nephew now own the sand he used to build that castle? I would hope not, as I think we’d agree, many kids would suffer! And likewise, many people believe so strongly in their ownership of money, that they don’t mind if others suffer.
  - germandiago 5y ago
    > taxes are seen as robbery Taxes are robbery. If you did the same to your neighbor under threat, you would end up in jail. If a mafia does that, they go to jail. If the government does it, they do not. And they did not ask you to adhere to a contract. It works with reversed logic from what we do in real life with others. There is no single logical justification to say it is not robbery. That is independent of whether what they do with that money is good or bad. A different discussion. > And likewise, many people believe so strongly in their ownership of money. Which represents just that you offered something worth that money to others, in the absense of threat or violence. So yes, now it belongs to them because of an exchange. > that they don’t mind if others suffer. Or even worse, some people subtract that money from us by providing no value, unlike the average of humans who at least sells something or provides a service and pretends that the people providing services or products are worse than the person subtracting in exchange of nothing under the threat of prison. Also, it seems that to you the person being subtracted the money they earned and spent time to get it(could be money or anything else, I am talking about effort) do not suffer. I guess they do not have a soul or feelings or do not deserve the same respect as the others.
    - ntSean 5y ago
      > There is no single logical justification to say it is not robbery It is the cost to you living in society; a society which provides infrastructure such as roads, education, sanitation, and food. A society which provides customers and a marketplace to trade in. The roller coaster of watching you add and edit this comment was truly an experience. Have a great day.
sokoloff 5y ago
I suspect that whatever wealth they did have was carefully passed to the next generation and, further, that people who didn’t do that were less likely to have their DNA represented in the modern human pool.

dwaltrip 5y ago

Pre-agricultural tribes could have had forms of wealth — an ornate spear or knife, a prized shawl, a special ceremonial bowl, etc — that they passed down. It seems quite likely to me that as soon as we started crafting and carrying things around, we developed complex behaviors around who gets which things.

HWR_14 5y ago
Frequently those things were buried with the people who made them.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  It is not really possible to determine who made the grave goods found next to a skeleton (or urn). Some specialization of work is seen in hunters and gatherers already. Not everyone makes their own spearheads or cotton strings etc.

germandiago 5y ago

There is one thing that is innate. I can tell you. I saw it from my nephews recently. One was building a castle, like five floors high with some stuff. The younger kid comes and destroys it. His brother gets deeply annoyed and started to cry. Why? Because he spent time building it. They are three and one years old. Do you think anyone taught them to get annoyed when the castle is destroyed? No, it is innate: what takes effort has a value for humans. We did not have the level of wealth of today before, but every single human that puts time somewhere wants to be the ruler of that effort. That is innate I think. I saw it clearly with my nephew's reaction. Noone taught him that. Looks like a good experiment to me.

ntSean 5y ago
Your experiment speaks to how we interpret transgressions, and for that, it is true- taxes are seen as robbery. Does your nephew now own the sand he used to build that castle? I would hope not, as I think we’d agree, many kids would suffer! And likewise, many people believe so strongly in their ownership of money, that they don’t mind if others suffer.
- germandiago 5y ago
  > taxes are seen as robbery Taxes are robbery. If you did the same to your neighbor under threat, you would end up in jail. If a mafia does that, they go to jail. If the government does it, they do not. And they did not ask you to adhere to a contract. It works with reversed logic from what we do in real life with others. There is no single logical justification to say it is not robbery. That is independent of whether what they do with that money is good or bad. A different discussion. > And likewise, many people believe so strongly in their ownership of money. Which represents just that you offered something worth that money to others, in the absense of threat or violence. So yes, now it belongs to them because of an exchange. > that they don’t mind if others suffer. Or even worse, some people subtract that money from us by providing no value, unlike the average of humans who at least sells something or provides a service and pretends that the people providing services or products are worse than the person subtracting in exchange of nothing under the threat of prison. Also, it seems that to you the person being subtracted the money they earned and spent time to get it(could be money or anything else, I am talking about effort) do not suffer. I guess they do not have a soul or feelings or do not deserve the same respect as the others.
  - ntSean 5y ago
    > There is no single logical justification to say it is not robbery It is the cost to you living in society; a society which provides infrastructure such as roads, education, sanitation, and food. A society which provides customers and a marketplace to trade in. The roller coaster of watching you add and edit this comment was truly an experience. Have a great day.

sokoloff 5y ago

I suspect that whatever wealth they did have was carefully passed to the next generation and, further, that people who didn’t do that were less likely to have their DNA represented in the modern human pool.