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Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
51–60 of 136 posts
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#52For 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.)
It's a book you can read every few years and get something more from it. Quinn's work is one of my favorites.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#53I find this idea horific. Rape and war are a normality in Hunter and Gather societies.
I acknowledge they are fun and make us happy, in current society we farm these out to other activities like sport and computer simulations but in pre societies they are not so fun for the losers. It seems like survivor bias.
If they are talking getting the best of both worlds then perhaps it's possible to move in that direction but the Earth won't support it in anything close to the way the tribes currently live so it seems like a bad way to be looking at it.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#54Why are we trying to optimize ourselves to maximize happiness? Of course the hunter gatherers were happier, they evolved their happiness enducing brains slowly in the span of hundreds of thousands of years. In contrast we are living in a fast changing world. I think happiness can no longer keep up as being the proper reward function for success.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#55Look 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…
Farmers and other poor from China's interior make a different calculus.
Many move to the eastern parts of the country to work in those factories because they are a better alternative to what they have back home.
It's not all that different from kids in Podunk USA moving to bigger cities for better opportunities despite "the rat race" in cities.
If north America and Europe had not essentially outsourced their labor to China and India, we'd have two billion more people living in extreme poverty, burning wood stoves, etc.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#56Look 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…
This misses the whole point of the article, and injects a political agenda into a conversation about how wealth in the west isn't helping happiness.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#57Look 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…
Exactly my thoughts, when people say they have a great work life balance at their enterprise IT company, it’s at the cost of some cheap labour outsourced somewhere.
When you buy cheap cloths at Walmart or even at the brands, just have a look at the tag. Your luxury is at the cost of cheap wage slave labour or a child labour in a third world country.
The new trend is 100% US based customer support. These are the very companies which cheaply outsourced customer support to start with.
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#58Why are we trying to optimize ourselves to maximize happiness? Of course the hunter gatherers were happier, they evolved their happiness enducing brains slowly in the span of hundreds of thousands of years. In contrast we are living in a fast changing world. I think happiness can no longer keep up as being the proper reward function for success.
What should we optimize for then? Shareholder value?
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#59Look 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…
The disease burden of mental health is higher in the United States or France than in Somalia or D.R. Congo. There's a huge apparent paradox here - there's almost no correlation between economic development and mental wellbeing. Wartorn countries with no functioning health system have lower rates of suffering due to mental illness than some of the most prosperous countries on earth. Our society is geared around the assumption that development will make us healthier and happier, but that assumption isn't really supported by the data. However you slice it, our model is badly broken.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...
Re: Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth?
#60Of 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.
Who says hunter gatherers didn’t conquer and enslave?
Anthropologists?