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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

#31

Post by convolvatron »

Ekaros wrote: post #29
irrational wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of a guy who put out a video saying that anyone that cooks or bakes is a loser since they could spend that time making money and just buy food from stores/restaurants.

Hmm, now I think about it. Can't say about baking, but with cooking is there some sub-section of food that might actually be more cost effective to cook yourself? Let's say good quality steak. The markups in restaurants are substantial and time commitment for cooking might not be too big...

or I might actually enjoy learning and doing things for myself - to such an extent that I actually might not count every penny involved

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

#32

Post by vilhelm_s »

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 have no energy for leisure activities. The closest thing to an objective they have is keeping out of the sun, so they slowly move around the alleys to stay in the shade. Their highlight in a day might be some sort of public commotion, like a thief being caught, which will cause an enormous crowd to swell and watch the proceedings. [...]

> Kapuscinski constantly describes much of Africa’s baseline climate as so hot, humid/dry, bug-filled, and generally insufferable that even passive existence is too taxing to be productive. Ie. the people of Abdallah Wallo can’t work hard because it is literally dangerous to do so.

Doing nothing is the most common activity, but not exactly by choice.

[0]https://mattlakeman.org/2021/07/27/shadow-of-the-sun/

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

#33

Post by imtringued »

irrational wrote: post #21
derevaunseraun wrote: post #12

Who do they think they are? Time is money, they might as well be lighting dollar bills on fire

Reminds me of a guy who put out a video saying that anyone that cooks or bakes is a loser since they could spend that time making money and just buy food from stores/restaurants.

Yeah even the food industry agrees. Just throw some powders together and call it food.

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

#34

Post by GrumpyNl »

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.

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

#35

Post by ZephyrBlu »

pdimitar wrote: post #16
tinalumfoil wrote: post #8

Isn't this study just comparing Apples to Oranges? Doing nothing isn't doing nothing. If you're doing a manually intensive task and and sit down and do nothing you might be (1) resting or (2) thinking about how to proceed. > random individuals or groups of age 15 y and above were selected for observation at random times in the day using tables of random numbers. The anthropologist located the relevant individual and…

> If you're doing a manually intensive task and and sit down and do nothing you might be (1) resting or (2) thinking about how to proceed. No on your point 2. Anxiety about the future isn't a downtime, this has been all but proven with many modern studies. Stress kills, I don't think this is debatable nowadays. "Doing nothing" is a stress free time, whatever it is that your physical body is doing during the time e.g.…

Since when does planning ahead have anything to do with anxiety???

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

#36

Post by api »

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 off on its endless hedonic treadmill ride to the stars not because we were dissatisfied with the median of the status quo but because we were dissatisfied with the edge cases.

Today's technophilia is framed as a run toward a glittering future, but I think we started this journey by running away from random misfortune and cruel circumstances. The whole idea of running toward anything is fairly recent vintage, probably enlightenment era onward, though it has some antecedent in Christian eschatology with the idea of salvation being a novelty or in the future vs being in the past.

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

#37

Post by pdimitar »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #35
pdimitar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're doing a manually intensive task and and sit down and do nothing you might be (1) resting or (2) thinking about how to proceed. No on your point 2. Anxiety about the future isn't a downtime, this has been all but proven with many modern studies. Stress kills, I don't think this is debatable nowadays. "Doing nothing" is a stress free time, whatever it is that your physical body is doing during the time e.g.…

Since when does planning ahead have anything to do with anxiety???

Do enough of it every day, multiple times a day, for 10+ years, and you'll see. :)

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

#38

Post by throwawayboise »

Ekaros wrote: post #28
wodenokoto wrote: post #24

I've spend most of my day today napping and watching youtube and a bit of doom scrolling. With less technology, that would be categorized as mostly nothing.

I feel that what technology has changed is that we have something to do that is in actuality nothing. Watching Youtube, browsing news or reading HN and posting some comments really are for me doing nothing... Not that you couldn't do something in there, but I think many of the ways we spend time is doing nothing. We just have something to do while we do nothing. Back in time we did not.

> We just have something to do while we do nothing. Back in time we did not.

I think we did. We could read a book, do puzzles, draw/doodle, carve a chunk of wood, watch the clouds, etc. That's about the same level of exertion as watching videos or posting on HN.

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

#39

Post by recuter »

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.

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

#40

Post by pydry »

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 were, if anything, healthier and almost certainly happier than their agricultural counterparts but the latter outcompeted them due to their greater ability to wage war.
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