For those not familiar, Ishmael is a philosophical take on the topic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)
(It’s been mentioned on HN a few times which is how I think I became aware of it.)
Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
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Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are a large percentage of people in our technological society actualized in that way? Do people that take a 2nd job to put food on the table for their kids see that as progress for the human race?
Would you rather take a 2nd job or run around naked looking for an animal you can kill? Everyone realizes the progress humanity has made. It is disrespectful to the people taking second jobs to insinuate that they'd be better off living ten thousand years ago. What does that say about how you view their life?
False choice.
The current level of economic struggle in the US is both unacceptable and unnecessary.
I might take the hunt, and or form community with other peers who have had quite enough.
Together, it's not a bad equation.
I lived that kind of way for a time having delivered from the wilderness to food on the plate before age 16.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#43Of course, farming didn't overtake hunter-gathering because farmers are happier . It overtook because farming can feed massive armies capable of conquering hunter-gatherer land by force. Although I guess, in the end, not being conquered/enslaved/killed might make people happier.
Is it true or just extrapolated hint ? I like to criticize "modern" societies, but some times I think that having predictable source of food was an obvious goal for any human being.
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Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#44Look I hate Facebook, Google, the news, prefer physical books, like to exercise, whatever but I always hate seeing this stuff. In Western society there are always two lies operating at once. The first lie is that technology will save us and fix everything and is the ultimate path, the second lie is that throwing away all of our technology, being as close to nature as possible, blah blah will also save us and fix ever…
One of the things that was pointed out last time this topic came up (only a few weeks ago) is that most all of us who benefit from modern civilization enough so to be commenting about it on HN are enabled by massive amounts of cheap, wage-slave labor from the poorer half of the world.
So while the average 9-to-5 job, smartphone-browsing lifestyle is probably preferable to the brutality of being a hunter-gatherer, if I were a garment factory worker making 100$/month under terrible conditions and long hours, then things might change -- I'd personally take my chances out in the wilderness.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are a large percentage of people in our technological society actualized in that way? Do people that take a 2nd job to put food on the table for their kids see that as progress for the human race?
Would you rather take a 2nd job or run around naked looking for an animal you can kill? Everyone realizes the progress humanity has made. It is disrespectful to the people taking second jobs to insinuate that they'd be better off living ten thousand years ago. What does that say about how you view their life?
On the subject of disrespect: characterizing the entirety of the vast diversity and prehistory of hunter-gatherer society as "running around naked looking for an animal to kill."
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#46Maybe they are, humans have never been rational. It is much more important to have vaccines and antibiotics than to be happy. People reading this crap who then get the urge to strip down to a loincloth and run into the woods should be aware that these viewpoints always portray the best case scenario. Forget germs, starvation, or exposure (which are enough to make you miserable / kill you by themselves), what about ot…
I think that part of the argument is about happiness -- not about death.
I ran around in the woods with a (figurative) loincloth for many years and there is something to it. :)
I'm not arguing that you are completely wrong, but you're also talking about a best case scenario in modern society. Spending time with people further towards the bottom of modern society will give a less positive outlook on modern happiness.
This excerpt is interesting:
"The colonials occasionally tried to welcome Native American children into their midst, but they couldn’t persuade them to stay. Benjamin Franklin observed the phenomenon in 1753, writing, “When an Indian child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return.”
During the wars with the Indians, many European settlers were taken prisoner and held within Indian tribes. After a while, they had plenty of chances to escape and return, and yet they did not. In fact, when they were “rescued,” they fled and hid from their rescuers."
Sometimes the Indians tried to forcibly return the colonials in a prisoner swap, and still the colonials refused to go. In one case, the Shawanese Indians were compelled to tie up some European women in order to ship them back. After they were returned, the women escaped the colonial towns and ran back to the Indians.
Even as late as 1782, the pattern was still going strong. Hector de Crèvecoeur wrote, "Thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those aborigines having from choice become European."
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/opinion/the-great-affluen...
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#47It is interesting to me that this topic provokes angry responses. I find the tenor of debate on this subject similar to what you'd find in reply to an article about early retirement through discipline in savings.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#48Maybe they are, humans have never been rational. It is much more important to have vaccines and antibiotics than to be happy. People reading this crap who then get the urge to strip down to a loincloth and run into the woods should be aware that these viewpoints always portray the best case scenario. Forget germs, starvation, or exposure (which are enough to make you miserable / kill you by themselves), what about ot…
I'm not sure you know enough to compare the two. Disease, for example, is mostly a product of settled societies, not hunter-gatherers. Crime was a different issue as well, when tribes knew all the members. And sure, tribes had conflicts, but they were often not as violent as the total wars of the last couple centuries. I'm surprised so many people who know nothing except modern society are so quick to make sweeping a…
They are also comparing it to the best outcomes for individuals in modern society. It's not like people don't still get raped, killed over resources, and finished off prematurely by disease and starvation. I'm not sure modern civilization would look the same without a long and continuing history of people sacrificed at the altar of progress.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#49mercantile capitalism morphing into corporate feudalism; slavers need blinders for human tack. the usual suspects: torah, mahabharata, dhammapada, i ching, the communist manifesto, theosophy, neoplatonism, shamanism, utilitarianism, etc.
no matter how far into primitivism we sink in the 21st and 22nd centuries, civilisation will always reboot with access to: bible (war), euclid's elements (mathematics), iliad (peace) and the right geographic start.
if all knowledge is lost, it will only take a few of hundred years this time not tens or thousands. even completely demolished, cities are hard to hide. the pyramids will still be there, restarting the loop.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#50The kid is wearing factory made shoes.
Hunting and gathering with modern tools might be not that bad of a lifestyle for idle humans in a world where robots can do everything better.
I do my hunting and gathering at the local supermarket. There I find my favorite prey - the elusive coffee bean.