People were happier in the stone age than they are in first world countries today.
Our brains did not evolve for the lifestyle we’re living today.
I sure as fuck would be happier out hunting, gathering and making handcrafted tools during the day, then telling stories by the campfire wrapped in a fur at night.
Even if there’s no toilet paper, I could get mauled by a bear every day, and if not, the tribe will leave me behind on the next migration when I’m too old and weak to keep up.
I’d rather live 30-60 years like that than edit another Excel sheet. Sadly, our “civilization” made that way of life completely impossible.
These are just a handful of these types of stories, there’s loads more if you want to search for them. But the upshot is: your family or tribe would have taken care of you to the best of their ability, for as long as they could, and you would have been given a decent burial when you died.
Yeah, I kinda agree with this. The usual argument against this is usually something along the lines of “but you’d probably die of dysentery by the age of 40”. But I think I’d be okay with that. Better to have lived a short life outside an office than to live to be a 100 spending 45 years in an office.
To be fair, stone age life has some drawbacks too. Few would want to potentially die to a failing tooth, die to any kind of disease or starve to death if winter is harsher than expected.
I think of something like a compound bone fracture. Today, with modern medicine, that’s a routine and easily treatable injury. But at any point up til just a few centuries ago, a compound fracture was a death sentence. A clean single break could be reset, but multiple pieces require surgical intervention and alignment. And that just couldn’t be done safely. The physicians then just didn’t know how to prevent infections enough to make that surgery survivable. Plus they didn’t have x-rays to guide them, etc.
One day and you take a fall. Nothing extraordinary. You don’t fall off a giant cliff hundreds of feet to your death. You fall off a small 4’ high ledge. You land wrong, and you break your leg in a compound fracture. And that’s it. You’re now a dead man crawling. There’s nothing anyone on Earth can do to help you.
People were happier in the stone age than they are in first world countries today.
Our brains did not evolve for the lifestyle we’re living today.
I sure as fuck would be happier out hunting, gathering and making handcrafted tools during the day, then telling stories by the campfire wrapped in a fur at night.
Even if there’s no toilet paper, I could get mauled by a bear every day, and if not, the tribe will leave me behind on the next migration when I’m too old and weak to keep up.
I’d rather live 30-60 years like that than edit another Excel sheet. Sadly, our “civilization” made that way of life completely impossible.
FWIW, this part is almost certainly not true.
https://www.sciencenewstoday.org/these-4000-year-old-bones-reveal-a-shocking-secret-about-humanitys-earliest-caregivers
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/17/878896381/ancient-bones-offer-clues-to-how-long-ago-humans-cared-for-the-vulnerable
https://news.usask.ca/articles/research/2017/ancient-spinal-injury-a-story-of-survival.php
These are just a handful of these types of stories, there’s loads more if you want to search for them. But the upshot is: your family or tribe would have taken care of you to the best of their ability, for as long as they could, and you would have been given a decent burial when you died.
it’s the ‘noble savage’ myth.
which is really a play on the ‘ignorance is bliss’. as if babies are ‘happier’ than adults or something.
Relevant
Yeah, I kinda agree with this. The usual argument against this is usually something along the lines of “but you’d probably die of dysentery by the age of 40”. But I think I’d be okay with that. Better to have lived a short life outside an office than to live to be a 100 spending 45 years in an office.
To be fair, stone age life has some drawbacks too. Few would want to potentially die to a failing tooth, die to any kind of disease or starve to death if winter is harsher than expected.
I think of something like a compound bone fracture. Today, with modern medicine, that’s a routine and easily treatable injury. But at any point up til just a few centuries ago, a compound fracture was a death sentence. A clean single break could be reset, but multiple pieces require surgical intervention and alignment. And that just couldn’t be done safely. The physicians then just didn’t know how to prevent infections enough to make that surgery survivable. Plus they didn’t have x-rays to guide them, etc.
One day and you take a fall. Nothing extraordinary. You don’t fall off a giant cliff hundreds of feet to your death. You fall off a small 4’ high ledge. You land wrong, and you break your leg in a compound fracture. And that’s it. You’re now a dead man crawling. There’s nothing anyone on Earth can do to help you.
I agree that few would choose that life.
I still believe those who were forced to live that life led happier (if shorter) lives.