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An individual human of times past might have been able to capture his meat, [get the females in his village to] forage for his vegetables, make his own shelter

by dsrguru 15y ago

An individual human of times past might have been able to capture his meat, [get the females in his village to] forage for his vegetables, make his own shelter and clothes, etc., but he also probably died around the age of 30. Specialization is one of the reasons people have the time to devote years of their lives to the research that gives us things like medical knowledge, the computer that the above essay was typed on, and the vast majority of the knowledge the author wants to attain.

tomp 15y ago
Not really. The low expected life expectancy of the past times is significantly skewed by the extremely high infant mortality (and high death rate of women following childbirth as well). If you survived until you were, say, 15 years old, you could expect to live a pretty long life (unless you were a woman that would give birth to many children).
simplefish 15y ago
A common mistake is to conflate hunter gatherer societies with the primitive agricultural societies that came after them. Hunter gatherers were happy, healthy, and relatively long lived[1]. Unfortunately, they faced very sharp resource constraints - if you travel around gathering nuts and berries you need a lot of land for a pretty small tribe. Still, it wasn't a bad life. But for whatever reason, some hunter gatherers developed the secret of agriculture. This changed everything - it was so phenomenally productive that for the first time there was a surplus. One person could produce enough food for himself and have some left over. This allowed the creation of an elite (priests, beauracrats, soldiers, scientists) who were not engaged in food production. Unfortunately, it came at a cost: A vastly shortly and unhappier life for pretty much everyone, but especially the non-elite. Let me reiterate: Being a peasant is just about the worst possible existence we have managed to come up with. Modern society has, more or less, only brought adult mortality back up to hunter gatherer levels. (Of course, it's done wonders for child mortality, which was pretty terrible under both hunter gatherer and primitive agriculture.) What the original post is pining for is a return to the hunter gatherer societies, without any specialization. Life expectancy would be MUCH higher than 30 in that scenario. Of course, there's probably only room on this planet for about 0.2% of the current population. Something tells me the 99.8% wouldn't be too happy about any attempts in that direction. :) [1]: Life expectancy data is hard to come by for obvious reasons, but it's seems that for modern hunter gatherers you're looking about 50 years. That's a little misleading, because only about 2/3rds of children made it to 15; of the 15 year olds about 4/5ths made it to 45; of the 45 year olds, mean remaining lifespan was around 20 years. In other words, if you survive childhood, you're likely to see, at least, your 60s, and you've got a decent chance of seeing 80. That's radically different than what we think primitive life was like, because we're thinking of privative agriculture, which was entirely different.
- SatvikBeri 15y ago
  Can you provide a source for the claim that hunter gatherers were much happier?

by dsrguru 15y ago

tomp 15y ago

Not really. The low expected life expectancy of the past times is significantly skewed by the extremely high infant mortality (and high death rate of women following childbirth as well). If you survived until you were, say, 15 years old, you could expect to live a pretty long life (unless you were a woman that would give birth to many children).

simplefish 15y ago

A common mistake is to conflate hunter gatherer societies with the primitive agricultural societies that came after them. Hunter gatherers were happy, healthy, and relatively long lived[1]. Unfortunately, they faced very sharp resource constraints - if you travel around gathering nuts and berries you need a lot of land for a pretty small tribe. Still, it wasn't a bad life. But for whatever reason, some hunter gatherers developed the secret of agriculture. This changed everything - it was so phenomenally productive that for the first time there was a surplus. One person could produce enough food for himself and have some left over. This allowed the creation of an elite (priests, beauracrats, soldiers, scientists) who were not engaged in food production. Unfortunately, it came at a cost: A vastly shortly and unhappier life for pretty much everyone, but especially the non-elite. Let me reiterate: Being a peasant is just about the worst possible existence we have managed to come up with. Modern society has, more or less, only brought adult mortality back up to hunter gatherer levels. (Of course, it's done wonders for child mortality, which was pretty terrible under both hunter gatherer and primitive agriculture.) What the original post is pining for is a return to the hunter gatherer societies, without any specialization. Life expectancy would be MUCH higher than 30 in that scenario. Of course, there's probably only room on this planet for about 0.2% of the current population. Something tells me the 99.8% wouldn't be too happy about any attempts in that direction. :) [1]: Life expectancy data is hard to come by for obvious reasons, but it's seems that for modern hunter gatherers you're looking about 50 years. That's a little misleading, because only about 2/3rds of children made it to 15; of the 15 year olds about 4/5ths made it to 45; of the 45 year olds, mean remaining lifespan was around 20 years. In other words, if you survive childhood, you're likely to see, at least, your 60s, and you've got a decent chance of seeing 80. That's radically different than what we think primitive life was like, because we're thinking of privative agriculture, which was entirely different.

SatvikBeri 15y ago
Can you provide a source for the claim that hunter gatherers were much happier?