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What we want is a hunter gatherer lifestyle with space age tools (2022)

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31–40 of 80 posts

Re: What we want is a hunter gatherer lifestyle with space age tools (2022)

#32
post #25
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure sign of llm free writing, baffling sentence construction.

I dunno, claude generates pure linguistic puzzles in javadoc.

Funnily enough, the underlying signal is what’s nonsensical; the individual sentences are always well structured

Re: What we want is a hunter gatherer lifestyle with space age tools (2022)

#33

I always feel so disconnected to my fellow humans when I hear people longing for "simpler times" where they are just out in nature with no technology or modern tools. I would be miserable living simply like that. I don't like spending too much time in nature, I get hot and sweaty and itchy and bothered by bugs. I am always wishing to be building something with electronics, or playing a game, or watching a show or mov…

I get the nature thing, but people just don’t ‘play the tape until the end’. It’s all nice until you get a minor cut and die from a simple infection.

The "cut and die" part is happening rather quickly, and you're done with it. But you might be hungry for weeks and have to watch your crops grow. Probably really boring and uncomfortable.

Re: What we want is a hunter gatherer lifestyle with space age tools (2022)

#34

I always feel so disconnected to my fellow humans when I hear people longing for "simpler times" where they are just out in nature with no technology or modern tools. I would be miserable living simply like that. I don't like spending too much time in nature, I get hot and sweaty and itchy and bothered by bugs. I am always wishing to be building something with electronics, or playing a game, or watching a show or mov…

Try traveling to countries and cities where you can live with all modern comforts in your hotel/Airbnb room and still be close to nature.

Green mountains, fresh air, and still get 5G and order food or taxi to wherever you are.

Re: What we want is a hunter gatherer lifestyle with space age tools (2022)

#35

Humans weren't built to live in massive societies with 100s of millions of people. No wonder we love minecraft and Satisfactory and playing murder-hobos in ttrpgs. I would be in favor of restructuring society to be in smaller units, communities where people know and understand eachother, but nobody has that power. One thing I disagree with "We won’t live in small villages with cobbled streets en masse anymore because…

> Humans weren't built to live in massive societies with 100s of millions of people. Humans were built to socialize and live in societies though. It's part of our own nature to group up and form communities.

Yes, but the size of community matters. In a 100 people tribe everybody knows everyone else. In 1M city most people are strangers, a.k.a. competitors, enemies even.

Re: What we want is a hunter gatherer lifestyle with space age tools (2022)

#36

I always feel so disconnected to my fellow humans when I hear people longing for "simpler times" where they are just out in nature with no technology or modern tools. I would be miserable living simply like that. I don't like spending too much time in nature, I get hot and sweaty and itchy and bothered by bugs. I am always wishing to be building something with electronics, or playing a game, or watching a show or mov…

> I get hot and sweaty and itchy and bothered by bugs

Maybe go somewhere colder, or in a different season.

Re: What we want is a hunter gatherer lifestyle with space age tools (2022)

#39
Title is unrelated to content.

If you want "a hunter gatherer lifestyle with space age tools" read "Walkaway", by Cory Doctorow. This is the 3D printer fantasy future, where everything can be made easily with small and easily available high-tech equipment. It sort of works in the story. But in reality, 3D printers aren't that good. Somewhere, you need aluminum smelters, steel mills, and copper mines. Those don't scale down well to desktop size.

What this article is talking about is the classic pastoral dream, along the lines of Thoreau's "Walden". Walden is a bogus hermit life. Thoreau had income from a publisher in New York and well-off friends nearby he could and would visit for dinner. Or perhaps the hippie / Whole Earth Catalog dream. We know that doesn't work all that well.

Arguably, we've achieved pastoral life at scale. It's called suburbia. All the pastoral elements are there, in miniature. For a lot of people, that's good enough. If you scale up your own space beyond that, the maintenance gets out of hand. I have a friend who has ten acres and horses, and she's always painting or hauling hay or dealing with some water or power problem. If you farm, it's even harder.

How does the author propose that this work?

Re: What we want is a hunter gatherer lifestyle with space age tools (2022)

#40
Makes me think of the short story "With friends like these..." by Alan Dean Foster, in which one aspect of the story has people on a future Earth living what appears externally to be a very simple (maybe hunter-gatherer) lifestyle, while still having (hidden) powerful tech
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