Materially, our ancestors would murder to have days off every week and limited work hours in exchange for sufficient food and nutrition, and they did so in constant, careful, worried concert with their entire community.
It’s not a fair comparison cause you’re not going back far enough. There is not much debate comparing being poor today to being poor during the Middle Ages.
If you compare modern life to pre agricultural times, then it gets tricky, they worked a lot less and weren’t constantly starving. They were athletes by today’s standards, with their own challenges and hardships. Life was harder but it matched the human needs/desires better than modern life. Hopefully we can reach a society that is better than all of history, not just cherry picked bad parts.
To add to your point, in those times nature was seen as equal to humanity and sustainability was therefore paramount. This is very different from our modern worldview of sustainability, which has us currently marching towards our own extinction.
To add to your point, in those times nature was seen as equal to humanity and sustainability was therefore paramount.
You’re kidding, right? Hunter-gatherer societies regularly radically altered the environment and drove native species to extinction through overhunting. This idea of an ideological proto-environmentalist view is largely constructed in response to hunter-gatherers being pushed off of land by more efficiently unsustainable societies; not because hunter-gatherers have an inherent ideological or spiritual disinclination towards altering the environment.
It’s not a fair comparison cause you’re not going back far enough. There is not much debate comparing being poor today to being poor during the Middle Ages.
Unfortunately there are a great many people who will argue just that, including many leftists.
If you compare modern life to pre agricultural times, then it gets tricky, they worked a lot less and weren’t constantly starving. They were athletes by today’s standards, with their own challenges and hardships. Life was harder but it matched the human needs/desires better than modern life. Hopefully we can reach a society that is better than all of history, not just cherry picked bad parts.
The ‘original affluent society’ argument is a relict of the 70s that desperately needs to die.
It’s not a fair comparison cause you’re not going back far enough. There is not much debate comparing being poor today to being poor during the Middle Ages.
If you compare modern life to pre agricultural times, then it gets tricky, they worked a lot less and weren’t constantly starving. They were athletes by today’s standards, with their own challenges and hardships. Life was harder but it matched the human needs/desires better than modern life. Hopefully we can reach a society that is better than all of history, not just cherry picked bad parts.
To add to your point, in those times nature was seen as equal to humanity and sustainability was therefore paramount. This is very different from our modern worldview of sustainability, which has us currently marching towards our own extinction.
You’re kidding, right? Hunter-gatherer societies regularly radically altered the environment and drove native species to extinction through overhunting. This idea of an ideological proto-environmentalist view is largely constructed in response to hunter-gatherers being pushed off of land by more efficiently unsustainable societies; not because hunter-gatherers have an inherent ideological or spiritual disinclination towards altering the environment.
Unfortunately there are a great many people who will argue just that, including many leftists.
The ‘original affluent society’ argument is a relict of the 70s that desperately needs to die.