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Are we better off than the prehistoric man?

Oh, I'm quite attached to my own life, and wouldn't want to have seen it end at age 25. Yes, I believe that is natural. Without a will to live, it is likely that species homo sapiens would have become extinct by now.

I guess I could then say, that this will-to-live seems an externally imposed program inside us, but then I would sound stupid. Probably the better analysis of this is that our attachment to our lives is simply fear, the fear of the unknown, I speculate.
 
Keep in mind that there wasn't a state or social structure - to prevent these crimes - as developed as our current one. I'm really doubting the level of gang violence was much lower at all.

I guess you may have a point here, a lot of it may have been like a military exercise, your family/clan put you and a few of your brothers in rotating duty of guarding and fighting-off.
 
Prehistoric people weren't really tribal and had no government, so I'm not sure how you're making the comparison there.

I was thinking that what the prehistoric hordes shared between themselves, such as food, is in a way the same philosophy as government benefit programs trying to share with tax money.
 
I guess you may have a point here, a lot of it may have been like a military exercise, your family/clan put you and a few of your brothers in rotating duty of guarding and fighting-off.



Look up the Yanomamo, also called the Yanomami. Primitive tribes in SAm jungles. Lots of warfare, feuds, murder, rapes, etc.


Primitive does not equal virtuous.
 
Sure, there are problems with our culture, but that's no reason to go back to hunting lions and buffalo with a pointy stick!

I agree, but my understanding of the op (and I could be wrong) is the question of whether or not we're better off mentally, psychologically, physically, etc. I personally think we're worse off in most aspects, because we have become good enough at problem-solving the big stuff, that we are collectively bored and neurotic. We don't have the things to keep our minds and bodies occupied that we once had, and there's a trade-off. I don't want to kill animals with wood sticks, but I think it's psycholocially healthy to kill our food with guns or fish hooks, and grow our vegetable and fruit intake. It keeps you more in touch with the real value of living and who you really are (not you personally, but you all-of-us:)).
 
Silly question, of course we're better off. While the cave man may have eaten healthier foods and lived in a cleaner environment; life was short, when he shared the planet with the likes of the Saber Toothed Tiger, etc.
 
I agree, but my understanding of the op (and I could be wrong) is the question of whether or not we're better off mentally, psychologically, physically, etc. I personally think we're worse off in most aspects, because we have become good enough at problem-solving the big stuff, that we are collectively bored and neurotic. We don't have the things to keep our minds and bodies occupied that we once had, and there's a trade-off. I don't want to kill animals with wood sticks, but I think it's psycholocially healthy to kill our food with guns or fish hooks, and grow our vegetable and fruit intake. It keeps you more in touch with the real value of living and who you really are (not you personally, but you all-of-us:)).


Well, you probably have a point there. My son and I hunt and fish, and I used to keep a bit of a garden and some livestock. I've always thought that was important, having that connection to the land... but then again, I'm a country boy so we tend to take that stuff kinda for granted. I have to actually stop and THINK to remember that there are city and suburban dwellers who have never baited a hook or butchered a deer or a chicken and cleaned and cooked and ate same....for whom the notion that the New York Strip they bought in the clean plastic-wrapped package once mooed and ate grass and shat on the same grass would be a revelation. :lamo


IMHO there are far easier ways to get in touch with the land than to go all the way back to Stone Age hunter-gatherers though. ;)
 
Since our whole economy is built on people spending more than they earn, we aren't better off than many generations before us. I agree with much of what you've said.

I helped people buy homes 50 miles from work because that's where they could afford their first home -- a McMansion. That they couldn't afford to furnish. Single couples buying homes in the sticks for bragging rights. Driving 2-1/2 hours to/from work every day. Bought 'em w/no money down because they wanted instant gratification. "I want to live in a better home than my parents," they said. If one of them lost their job? They were on the verge of being homeless...first paycheck missed.

Have kids?? Yep. And thirty days later, mom's back at work leaving their child in the hands of strangers so she can get right back on the job to try to save "the wonderful lifestyle" they've created for themselves.

I've watched couples get married with a combined student loan debt of $40,000. Nice way to start out a marriage, yes? Both of them with car payments. And the McMansion besides.

We've been sold a bill of goods about what constitutes happiness in this country, and I'm afraid there's no going back.

You are absolutely right, I'm afraid. I think the scariest part is the no-going-back and the bragging-rights. This proves that money is as effective of a mind control as religions. I wonder, that after what you have seen, is that a reasonable speculation, that all those people who are the "victims" of these situations, made themselves into victims by thinking that they would never be able to earn enough to match their parents' lifestyle, so they opted for the short-term flash of it to get one day of show-off before they return to their steady declines?
 
Holy cow this thread is based on a premise that is laughable. Alright, pre-history refers to a time before the written record, and coincidentally, free from all of the things that would make the author feel comfortable. Let's see how our OP likes to die off from something we can put an end to right now, free from the ability to find food so easily, to feel warm almost whenever he wants to, finding a means to get cool when it is scathing hot, and so on and so forth.

So how many minutes of peace of mind buys a minute of air-conditioned dining?
 
So how many minutes of peace of mind buys a minute of air-conditioned dining?

This almost sounds like I'm listening to Christopher McCandless talk to me about Thoreau. Our 20th-21st century lives come at a cost, but there's very little to romanticize about ancient life or even pre-modern life. There was no such thing as "peace of mind" like you think of it. You're looking at your modern life as a burden, without any of the realities involved in a historically isolated period of time. You look at it like a vacation, but it's not. It had its own struggles, and most of those struggles are unbelievably harsher in comparison to our own.
 
Look up the Yanomamo, also called the Yanomami. Primitive tribes in SAm jungles. Lots of warfare, feuds, murder, rapes, etc.


Primitive does not equal virtuous.

But, isn't that still unchanged in modern society, where most are one paycheque away from homelessness, and then some street gang can rape them anyways? Civilization has not purchased our freedom from those primitive deeds.
 
You are absolutely right, I'm afraid. I think the scariest part is the no-going-back and the bragging-rights. This proves that money is as effective of a mind control as religions. I wonder, that after what you have seen, is that a reasonable speculation, that all those people who are the "victims" of these situations, made themselves into victims by thinking that they would never be able to earn enough to match their parents' lifestyle, so they opted for the short-term flash of it to get one day of show-off before they return to their steady declines?

I don't know that I'd agree with that. I think it comes from wanting to live the good life at all costs. I'll never forget the first time I went into a Starbuck's with clients like these. It cost $10 for the three of us. I was appropriately (or not) shocked at the cost of "coffee." Ha! Anyhow, these two bought Starbucks every single morning on the way to work. That's like $150 a month for freakin' coffee! Beautiful mani's/pedi's. Salon every three weeks. Where my generation lived frugally for 3-4 years after marriage, young people today (at least the ones I served) don't know the meaning of the word frugal. I feel/felt very sorry for them. I'll wager that 50% of those kids lost their homes. And you couldn't steer them away. Some of them put their homes up for sale a year or two after they bought them. 'Cause they found out they had no one to show their trophy homes to -- their friends wouldn't drive out that far. Sad.
 
Silly question, of course we're better off. While the cave man may have eaten healthier foods and lived in a cleaner environment; life was short, when he shared the planet with the likes of the Saber Toothed Tiger, etc.

What if we hypothesize that dying in an animal attack is less stressful than dying after knowing that the other street gang had the price on our heads for a few months. And what is the benefit of a long life, more geriatric pain and more lost competition? It would be interesting to understand what keeps people going despite aging. This was naturally taken care of in prehistoric times when you stopped being a fast enough runner to escape up the nearest tree. Today, do we just have to battle with our own fears? If yes, then today is more scary, I propose.
 
But, isn't that still unchanged in modern society, where most are one paycheque away from homelessness, and then some street gang can rape them anyways? Civilization has not purchased our freedom from those primitive deeds.


But most people are NOT homeless, and most people have NOT been raped by a streetgang. Perhaps you are spending too much time fretting over things that are really rather unlikely?



Men have not magically become angels, no. However, to pretend that nothing has changed for the better is nonsense.

Do some research into the Rennaisance. We have no conception of the daily threat of violence many people lived under in those days: vicious crime, oppressive rulers who could have you tortured on a whim, marauding bandits and mercenaries, the threat of war hanging over them every day, the perils of being conquered (pillage, rape and plunder were once great sports for the military), the joys of annual plagues and so on.

In my studies about Elizabethan London, I learned that it was considered a mortal peril to try to travel in London much after dark. Persons of property who did so, did it with armed servants holding lit-match Arquebuses and lanterns on poles, and kept their swords and bucklers handy. Some scholars believe that many Rennaisance-era cities had more street crime and violence than any modern megapolis.


I think you need to study a bit about primitive tribes from a more neutral and scholarly source. As I've said they were not, for the most part, angelic innocents. I'm part Native American and in the time I spent studying that part of my cultural heritage it became clear that "the Noble Savage" was largely myth. Further studies about Amazon and African tribes confirmed this thesis.
 
Well, you probably have a point there. My son and I hunt and fish, and I used to keep a bit of a garden and some livestock. I've always thought that was important, having that connection to the land... but then again, I'm a country boy so we tend to take that stuff kinda for granted. I have to actually stop and THINK to remember that there are city and suburban dwellers who have never baited a hook or butchered a deer or a chicken and cleaned and cooked and ate same....for whom the notion that the New York Strip they bought in the clean plastic-wrapped package once mooed and ate grass and shat on the same grass would be a revelation. :lamo


IMHO there are far easier ways to get in touch with the land than to go all the way back to Stone Age hunter-gatherers though. ;)

But you ignore the social aspects of it.
 
What if we hypothesize that dying in an animal attack is less stressful than dying after knowing that the other street gang had the price on our heads for a few months. And what is the benefit of a long life, more geriatric pain and more lost competition? It would be interesting to understand what keeps people going despite aging. This was naturally taken care of in prehistoric times when you stopped being a fast enough runner to escape up the nearest tree. Today, do we just have to battle with our own fears? If yes, then today is more scary, I propose.



Do you know many people who have ACTUALLY had a street gang put a price on their head? I doubt it... so why carry on about it so much?



This isn't a huge worry where I live, because we tend to shoot people who act like that around here. :mrgreen:
 
This almost sounds like I'm listening to Christopher McCandless talk to me about Thoreau. Our 20th-21st century lives come at a cost, but there's very little to romanticize about ancient life or even pre-modern life. There was no such thing as "peace of mind" like you think of it. You're looking at your modern life as a burden, without any of the realities involved in a historically isolated period of time. You look at it like a vacation, but it's not. It had its own struggles, and most of those struggles are unbelievably harsher in comparison to our own.

I think that this logic works if we expect that today's social norms apply to the prehistoric life. For example, short life is not acceptable today, like long work hours would have been prohibitively exhausting in prehistoric days.
 
I don't know that I'd agree with that. I think it comes from wanting to live the good life at all costs. I'll never forget the first time I went into a Starbuck's with clients like these. It cost $10 for the three of us. I was appropriately (or not) shocked at the cost of "coffee." Ha! Anyhow, these two bought Starbucks every single morning on the way to work. That's like $150 a month for freakin' coffee! Beautiful mani's/pedi's. Salon every three weeks. Where my generation lived frugally for 3-4 years after marriage, young people today (at least the ones I served) don't know the meaning of the word frugal. I feel/felt very sorry for them. I'll wager that 50% of those kids lost their homes. And you couldn't steer them away. Some of them put their homes up for sale a year or two after they bought them. 'Cause they found out they had no one to show their trophy homes to -- their friends wouldn't drive out that far. Sad.

Wow. Now this is sooo informative. I think then that we live in an extreme status-call environment. I dare to speculate, that in the modern world, the "free" credit manipulations, thanks to globalization, have for the first time generated enough false opportunities that we see such level of mass stupidity. Can it be that even if I am frugal, I still must fall into this trap, because my social status would decrease my otherwise regular opportunities if I don't. Can we call this a social status inflation?
 
I keep seeing this pop up, but why the assumption that in prehistoric time they worked short hours? What are we defining work as? Only the time spent hunting/gathering? All else is leisure?

I would imagine most of the evening were spent doing activities such as knapping a spear point, or weaving baskets, cooking food, making clothes. Would this not count as part of their work load? What about going out on a hunt and staying out for days at a time?

Choosing to work a full work week so that one can afford cable TV and go out to the movies, and take an occasional vacation and so on is a bit different than HAVING to work for you and your clans very survival. What we define as "work" for most people is easy-peasy compared to subsistence living.

Now if it were a 40+ hour work week digging a ditch, or doing construction, or other hard labor something, then I might be more apt to say its a viable comparison, but a "laborious" week of sitting in front of a computer and talking on a phone? that's no worse then having to spend every evening whittling spear shafts and knapping stones for your next hunt.. with the added bonus of not having a hunt that you must go on.
 
I'm 41...my wife is 27 (nearly 28).

Theory shot down.



There are exceptions to every rule. ;)

A few years ago I let a 22yo convince me to go out with her. Didn't last long, she was unsurprisingly rather shallow.
 
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