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What's an unscientific opinion that you firmly hold? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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[–] 22 points 8 months ago (6 children)

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.

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  • [–] 17 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    the tribe will leave me behind on the next migration when I'm too old and weak to keep up.

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Better to have lived a short life outside an office than to live to be a 100 spending 45 years in an office.

    That's a choice you can still make today. What's keeping you from doing so?

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 8 months ago

    Because I've made choices like having a spouse who would rather live a long life, and kids that I didn't have at the age of 18. I'd like to be there for them. I get what you're saying though.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    The level of violence was fantastically high like worse than a war torn country all the time for everyone. Along with all the starvation and disease which nobody could do anything about because even washing hands or what a disease is is completely unknown.

    Starving by age 5, getting your head bashed in by 20 or a really ugly disease death before 30. Also you spent all your time struggling to have enough to eat continually.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    I think we all feel that way from time to time, but the way I know it isn't true is that the closer you actually are to losing civilization and the comforts it provides the less you want it. Freezing your ass off in the rain? Nobody craves the stone age then.

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