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One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

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Re: One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

#41

Post by whatshisface »

api wrote: post #36
UglyToad wrote: post #30

As appears in Debt by David Graeber [0]: Missionary: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that. Samoan: Why? What do you think I should be doing? Missionary: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it? Samoan: And why would I want to do that? Missionary: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine,…

This line of reasoning is the same as the line of reasoning behind the idea that hunter-gatherers had it better than we do. It works until: - Your kid breaks their leg. - A natural disaster destroys your home. - You get cancer. - Psychopathic marauders sack your town and rape and kill everyone. - A draught causes a famine. - Your baby is born with a birth defect. ... and so on. I strongly suspect that humanity set of…

There is a lot to learn from the history of technology, but I think the real explanations are:

- People working across thousands of years for independent and poorly understood reasons, that set up combinations of circumstances that suddenly clicked in to place. (Initial breeding of animals and plants for agriculture, mathematicians unknowingly laying the groundwork for mathematical sciences.)

- People working to further their own immediate interests. (Every industrial development.)

Re: One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

#42

Post by vkou »

GrumpyNl wrote: post #34
UglyToad wrote: post #30

As appears in Debt by David Graeber [0]: Missionary: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that. Samoan: Why? What do you think I should be doing? Missionary: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it? Samoan: And why would I want to do that? Missionary: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine,…

That's a nice write up, bookmarked to share, thank you.

It's missing the second part of the story, where a more pliable Samoan is identified, the missionary enters into a capital-business-acumen partnership, the two bribe the government to take control of all of the productive coconut-growing land, and the first Samoan gets to enjoy the rest of his life as a wage laborer. He will do backbreaking labour for 70 hours a week, until he dies at ~55.

Idleness is all well and good, until someone with guns decides that they'd rather have you spend those hours earning a profit for them, instead of lazying around.

Re: One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

#43

Post by AtlasBarfed »

api wrote: post #36
UglyToad wrote: post #30

As appears in Debt by David Graeber [0]: Missionary: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that. Samoan: Why? What do you think I should be doing? Missionary: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it? Samoan: And why would I want to do that? Missionary: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine,…

This line of reasoning is the same as the line of reasoning behind the idea that hunter-gatherers had it better than we do. It works until: - Your kid breaks their leg. - A natural disaster destroys your home. - You get cancer. - Psychopathic marauders sack your town and rape and kill everyone. - A draught causes a famine. - Your baby is born with a birth defect. ... and so on. I strongly suspect that humanity set of…

Haha, joke is on us, masters of the world:

Those listed "edge cases" are just as dangerous to even Americans in the land of for-profit health care and psychotic housing values.

So back to the Samoans, you are now working near-slave-labor to be exposed to the same effective dangers, abstracted via financialized debt.

Re: One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

#44

Post by [deleted] »

recuter wrote: post #39
UglyToad wrote: post #30

As appears in Debt by David Graeber [0]: Missionary: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that. Samoan: Why? What do you think I should be doing? Missionary: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it? Samoan: And why would I want to do that? Missionary: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine,…

I'll do you one better, worth a read: https://www.ninalp.com/ART/Papers/How_Much_Land_Does_A_Man_N... Of course, the author started out wealthy. Incidentally doing nothing occasionally adds up to something, where-as doing something often amounts to nothing. Most of you are reading this at work after all. Maybe there is something to how we define terms and measure things.

[deleted]

Re: One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

#45

Post by Aunche »

UglyToad wrote: post #30

As appears in Debt by David Graeber [0]: Missionary: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that. Samoan: Why? What do you think I should be doing? Missionary: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it? Samoan: And why would I want to do that? Missionary: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine,…

Doing nothing and relaxing in a tropical paradise sounds great until everyone else gets the same idea and wants to do the same and moves there. Then, your island is no longer self sufficient, and the only jobs locals are qualified for are low-skill services for foreign tourists.

Re: One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

#46

Post by oh_sigh »

vilhelm_s wrote: post #32

Is this because doing nothing is "popular", or because non-industrial societies don't produce enough calories to do more? There's an interesting blogpost[0] about extreme poverty in 20th-century Africa: > He describes the narrow alleys of his neighborhood being packed with bayayes who just sit and stand around all day. Like, for the entire day. They have no jobs, no money, no goals, and they eat so little that they h…

Thanks for the link - that's a very interesting read. Though, it looks like things have gotten a little more fun in Abdallah Wallo in the past 70 years!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1gNEG0OdNo

Re: One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

#47

Post by slothtrop »

UglyToad wrote: post #30

As appears in Debt by David Graeber [0]: Missionary: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that. Samoan: Why? What do you think I should be doing? Missionary: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it? Samoan: And why would I want to do that? Missionary: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine,…

The other side to this is that the aforementioned lifestyle is usually described as impoverished (and a product of injustice, not choice). It cannot be the case that living by meager means is at once virtuous/satisfying, and terrible. I vaguely detect a kind of cognitive dissonance about this.

And to be clear, extreme poverty has its own clear definition by the UN, which does not apply here. Poverty is simply: the state of having few material possessions or little income. Presumably, like this Samoan.

Does the romanticization go any further than poverty tourism? This reminds me that Thoreau is popularly denigrated today for being hypocritical, but no one seems to make the connection that it's for (more or less) the same thing. If someone is very well shielded from possible deleterious effects of the state of poverty (not including food and shelter), they're still benefiting from wealth directly or indirectly.

Re: One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

#48

Post by rhn_mk1 »

pdimitar wrote: post #19
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the definition, it's about the methodology of collecting the data.

What about it? It's hard to gather 100% accurate data on an entire tribe of people. What are your reservations against the tweets?

The parent points out that the methodology is flawed: while you're right that sitting down may still be work, the way of recording activities does not take this into account.

Re: One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

#49

Post by bmitc »

api wrote: post #36
UglyToad wrote: post #30

As appears in Debt by David Graeber [0]: Missionary: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that. Samoan: Why? What do you think I should be doing? Missionary: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it? Samoan: And why would I want to do that? Missionary: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine,…

This line of reasoning is the same as the line of reasoning behind the idea that hunter-gatherers had it better than we do. It works until: - Your kid breaks their leg. - A natural disaster destroys your home. - You get cancer. - Psychopathic marauders sack your town and rape and kill everyone. - A draught causes a famine. - Your baby is born with a birth defect. ... and so on. I strongly suspect that humanity set of…

Hunter gatherers did have it better than the early agricultural societies. They worked much less during any given day, lived longer, and were healthier. Hunter gatherer societies can live as long as people in modern, developed societies.

You're ignoring the amount of stress and mental disorders skyrocketing in modern societies. With those, it makes a human life almost a tragedy, stretched out due to modern medicine and protocols keeping people alive.

Re: One of the most popular activities in non-industrial societies: doing nothing

#50

Post by noodles_nomore »

api wrote: post #36
UglyToad wrote: post #30

As appears in Debt by David Graeber [0]: Missionary: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that. Samoan: Why? What do you think I should be doing? Missionary: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it? Samoan: And why would I want to do that? Missionary: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine,…

This line of reasoning is the same as the line of reasoning behind the idea that hunter-gatherers had it better than we do. It works until: - Your kid breaks their leg. - A natural disaster destroys your home. - You get cancer. - Psychopathic marauders sack your town and rape and kill everyone. - A draught causes a famine. - Your baby is born with a birth defect. ... and so on. I strongly suspect that humanity set of…

So that in the first place, I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. And the cause of this, is not alwayes that a man hopes for a more intensive delight, than he has already attained to; or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. -- Hobbes
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