Cheer the frack up already....

This may apply to the general theme of the thread---whatever that is exactly.

My wife is super anti-corporate. "Corporations Suck" should be her twitter handle. So, knowing that, I like to **** with her now and then.

A month ago we traveled down to Florida. On the way, we need to overnight in Georgia. So, I pull into a place just South of Dalton with a sign that says Motel. As soon as we enter the drive, her nose crinkles up, and she goes, "What the hell is this place?"

I look at her and say, "A motel." She looks around and makes more funny faces. I reply with, "It's probably not bad. They have a pool, and the cars in the lot look newer."

She wasn't buying. Mumbled something about bedbugs and crack whores. Needless to say, five minutes later we were checking in at a Holiday Inn Express.

Sweden said:

I agree - up to a point. But much of that only applies to the time after some fool invented agriculture. Before that my ancestors did almost no work beyond a little light stone knapping and arrow making. Instead the men spent their days hunting. Which they liked very much as that was what they (and we) had evolved to do. The women spent their time berry and mushroom picking which they loved as do my Swedish female kin to this very day. They had plenty of tie left over to admire each others garments - and to discuss and practise child care which they were very good at which is why we are still around.

OK so the hunter gatherer life, which we humans followed for about 95% of the time we have existed was not perfect. But it certainly beat slaving away in some bloody field - and provided a more balanced diet too.

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Well, sorta. I don't really subscribe to the notion that H-G was idyllic and where we fracked up was inventing agriculture.

Granted, I'd rather spend the day hunting than hoeing, and I've done both.

But agriculture allowed for enough of a food surplus that some could specialize in various trades. While, in the "short term" this lead to hierarchy and serfdom and nation-scale war, in the long term it also led to modern technology and an age where, in developed countries, "poor" doesn't mean starving it means "doesn't have high speed internet".


Anthropological studies of pre-Columbian native tribes revealed that tribes with only one or two subsistence strategies were more vulnerable to starvation than tribes that used a broader range of subsistence strategies. IE strictly H-G tribes didn't do as well as tribes that added in slash-and-burn agriculture and fishing or herding.

So, I am unconvinced that H-G was as idyllic as some modern theorists make it out to be.

radcen said:

I'm sure, but it's only in relatively recent history that we even had toilet paper, and for that I am eternally grateful.

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The Romans used sponges, just saying. :2razz:

PoS said:

The Romans used sponges, just saying. :2razz:

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Who would want to clean the sponges?

Cephus said:

Who would want to clean the sponges?

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I think they just scraped them off on something then swirled them around in a bucket of water for the next guy, which doesn't sound so sanitary.

Cephus said:

Who would want to clean the sponges?

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They were attached to sticks and they would just dip them in buckets of water.

There were public toilets and private ones, the latter were usually in the kitchen, right by the oven. :2razz:

RAMOSS said:

Leviticus 23:22

And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the LORD your God.

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I love that. It reminded me of a friend who once ran a restaurant. He was not allowed by law--at that time anyway--to give leftover food to the homeless. But when he put it out, it would be carefully in foil and would be placed carefully on a piece of cardboard on top of the other stuff in the dumpster. It would be gone the next morning.

AlbqOwl said:

I love that. It reminded me of a friend who once ran a restaurant. He was not allowed by law--at that time anyway--to give leftover food to the homeless. But when he put it out, it would be carefully in foil and would be placed carefully on a piece of cardboard on top of the other stuff in the dumpster. It would be gone the next morning.

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The key is to make sure people do not go hungry. Modern society has gotten too far into Milton Friedman's concept of 'profit is all'. What got loss is empathy and compassion.

PoS said:

They were attached to sticks and they would just dip them in buckets of water.

There were public toilets and private ones, the latter were usually in the kitchen, right by the oven. :2razz:

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Still not the most sanitary of methods. Would you want to use a sponge someone else had used before you?

Cephus said:

Still not the most sanitary of methods. Would you want to use a sponge someone else had used before you?

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You can always buy your own personal sponge and carry it around with you.

RAMOSS said:

The key is to make sure people do not go hungry. Modern society has gotten too far into Milton Friedman's concept of 'profit is all'. What got loss is empathy and compassion.

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You know, I think I have to disagree with that. What happened was more and more government programs to deal with the poor that made private charity look like a pittance in comparison. Our $10 or $100 to the Salvation Army or World Vision doesn't seem to make any difference when the government shovels out millions to deal with disasters.

And the culture changed from when the hobos, the homeless of their day, had a code of honor and did chores around a home or business in return for what they received--we did not fear the hobos. It is more dicey with many of the homeless now, hooked on booze or drugs, and not adverse to hurting somebody to feed their addictions. I myself have been threatened more than once. And in this insane leftist mentality that would shame people for actually asking or allowing the poor folks to work for what they receive, we have stripped so many of any sense personal responsibility. In the case of a business, it is even illegal to allow somebody to sweep the floor or scrub the trash receptacles in return for a meal.

And all the mountains of government rules and regulations reaching even into the potluck dinner at church and rigidly regulating the more formal soup kitchen are making it more and more difficult for even the churches in being proactive in helping the poor.

But the compassionate heart is still there. Thank God for organizations like the Salvation Army that are there for folks who fall between the cracks. And the church still rallies around the individual or family in trouble. Volunteerism is still alive and well and people who once were generous with charity still are.

It would be nice, however, to go back to a society where it is less likely to run afoul of the law when you try to help somebody.

RAMOSS said:

The key is to make sure people do not go hungry. Modern society has gotten too far into Milton Friedman's concept of 'profit is all'. What got loss is empathy and compassion.

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Many of the ways society has come up with helping each other government regulations came alone and made illegal. What is even more annoying than that is watching liberals come along and say to the community that they don't care about each other and they need government to help them instead. If the government would just butt out then maybe the communities efforts would be more effective, but no, liberals can't have that.

Goshin said:

Your ancestors lived in tiny thatched huts with no amenities, did backbreaking labor from before dawn to after sunset every day, ate turnip soup five days a week, lived in constant and rational fear that any time an army or bandit gang might ride through and kill, steal or rape everything in sight, and died of a gazillion diseases we can now cure without ever taking a vacation or traveling more than 30 miles from where they were born.

So cheer the frack up already, things aren't that bad.

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https://www.gatesnotes.com/2017-Annual-Letter#ALChapter1