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I had to continue: > Work before farming resembles what the rich do on holiday today. The rich spend their holidays intimidating lions of their own kill http
by lotu 11y ago
I had to continue:
> Work before farming resembles what the rich do on holiday today.
The rich spend their holidays intimidating lions of their own kill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBpu4DAvwI8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBpu4DAvwI8 or running for 8 hours to drive a Kudo to having a heart attack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o
>Subsistence farmers worked far longer hours than their ancestors. They died younger and lived more miserable lives. The sole upside was that farming allowed the same plot of land to feed many more people.
The author misses the upside of not worrying about getting eaten by a lion or trampled by a wildebeest.
- noelwelsh 11y agoAs far as I am aware, by every measure hunter-gatherers had better lives than the vast majority of farmers until very recently. They had better nutrition, as evidenced by being taller. They had more equal societies. They worked very little. Contemporary hunter-gatherers generally live only on very marginal land, as more organised societies have taken over the rest, and their lifestyle is not a good reflection of what life was like before civilisation. A few links to explore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Hunter-gatherer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Hunter-gatherer
- richmarr 11y agoIf you believe Steven Pinker (and IIRC Jared Diamond) then hunter gatherers had a much higher chance of being brutally murdered. That'd probably be a down-side.