I know this is going to be an “actually…” post, but I just find it too damn interesting and politically relevant. So, actually stone age tribes got by with 3 around hours of work every day on average.
So why do we have to work so much today to survive? …yeah, because we’re being fucking cheated.
came to see what the comments were as the same thing was going through my head.
Yeah, a lot of capitalist realism, the way we do things now is the best possible way we could be doing them bullshit. No vision whatsoever.
Lol we decided plumbing and electricity were cool, and that shit takes work
Yeah, but if people only worked essential jobs, and not in stupid competitive ways that only make the owners of some of those companies rich, you could get by with much less work. Think about how wasteful industrial production is, and how many office building skyscrapers and malls are being built just for investors’ sakes that are not needed, and often lay empty.
If people only built what is actually needed for good lives, and not for greed, so much manpower would be freed up. Especially if they did it in sustainable ways that wouldn’t require everything being torn down or renewed again really soon.
Also, imagine crypto shitcoin peddlers being forced to do useful work like plumbing. There are so many people just getting paid for downright evil or at least useless shit.
Yeah generally.
But if folks are unmotivated for the work they are forced to do, then you get shit work.
If people.just chase profit, you get what we have now.
There’s no way we are maintaining the standards of modernity on 3h a day where folks are dictated by some outside force into what labor is most needed
Well… that and there are far too many people on the planet to be supported through a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Even when you get into the millions, you need agriculture and animal husbandry. And farming and herding is a lot more work.
Also, people tend not to die from infections anymore, or starvation (usually). One bad famine doesn’t wipe out everyone you know. The vast majority of babies survive to old age and only extremely rarely does a mother die in childbirth.
And the entire population of earth doesn’t live around areas where you can forage anymore.
Little things like that
Oh yeah? Industrial farming gives less food per hour of work than collecting wild nuts? Are you sure about that?
Please do show me the data that 8 billion people can survive on hunting and gathering.
Okay, so how about medieval peasants also working 7-8 hour days, ~150 days per year?
https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html
Eh, they didn’t have clothes, microwave food, video games, air conditioning, cars, air travel, days off, or healthcare though. No ty
A lot of those are out of reach for many as well still due to cost, or non existent (healthcare). I’m in a pretty stable point in my life and even I get scared by the electric bills related to heating and cooling. Growing up I recall the only option was to go to the mall since we could not afford AC.
That’s not what we would have to give up, what we would have to give up is a small portion of the population globe-trotting 24/7 on private jets and buying yachts for their yachts.
You’re fellating robber-barons and buying into the bullshit propaganda that without our hugely unequal economic system you wouldn’t be allowed to have a computer.
The numbers don’t add up. There are 2781 billionaires in the world with a combined net worth of $14.2 trillion. If you wiped them all out and spread that wealth evenly across the world’s 8.2 billion people that’s only $1731 per person.
Sure, that’s going to help immensely for people in very low CoL countries but it’s basically nothing for an average American.
Ancient humans likely worked significantly less than modern humans to meet their basic needs. Studies of hunter-gatherer societies suggest that our ancestors spent around 15-20 hours per week (or about 3 hours per day) on work related to survival[1][3].
The Jo/'hoansi people of the Kalahari Desert, for example, spent only about 15 hours a week acquiring food and resources[3]. This left them with ample time for leisure activities like socializing, storytelling, and artistic pursuits.
This pattern of limited work hours appears to have been common for most of human history. For about 95% of our species’ existence, humans likely worked these shorter hours[2][4]. The shift to longer work weeks came much later with the agricultural and industrial revolutions.
Anthropologist James Suzman argues that hunter-gatherer societies were generally well-fed and content, with longer life expectancies than many early agricultural societies[4]. The abundance of free time allowed for rich cultural and social lives.
It’s important to note that while daily work hours were limited, life wasn’t always easy. Infant mortality was high, and people faced other challenges. However, in terms of work-life balance, our ancestors may have had an advantage over many modern humans[3][4].
This historical perspective raises questions about our current work culture and whether we could benefit from reconsidering our relationship with work and leisure in the modern world.
Citations: [1] Humans once worked just 3 hours a day. Now we’re … - Big Think https://bigthink.com/big-think-books/vicki-robin-joe-dominguez-your-money-or-your-life/ [2] For 95 Percent of Human History, People Worked 15 hours a Week … https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/qbgihm/for_95_percent_of_human_history_people_worked_15/ [3] Our ancestors worked less and had better lives. What are we doing … https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/our-ancestors-worked-less-and-had-better-lives-what-are-we-doing-wrong/ [4] For 95 Percent of Human History, People Worked 15 Hours a Week … https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/for-95-percent-of-human-history-people-worked-15-hours-a-week-could-we-do-it-again.html [5] Customary naps, more holidays, less work pressure: Did our … https://www.tbsnews.net/thoughts/customary-naps-more-holidays-less-work-pressure-did-our-ancestors-have-better-work-weeks
The feeling when somebody asks you for the source of your data and somebody else provides it.
I think I remember reading that early agrarians probably worked about 20 hours a week
This is probably a misleading average. Outside of sowing and reaping, farms need pretty much no work
But when they need it, they need A LOT of it
Anthropologists at Harvard did an extensive multi-year study of the !Kung San people in southern Africa who still lived by hunting and gathering in the '60s and '70s. Despite living in near-desert conditions, they spent an average of about 17 hours a week in food-related activities. Granted, this yielded a diet of around 1200 calories a day, but they were relatively very small people and this amount was adequate. Mongongo nuts FTW. Whether this lifestyle (and that of other studied modern hunter/gatherers) is generally representative of pre-historic and pre-agricultural humans is an open question, but it’s hard to imagine that hunting and gathering in less marginal environments would have required more time and effort - especially when there were a bunch of big hairy elephants you could run off cliffs walking around.
Early agrarians, however, probably had to bust much more ass to make a living, as the farmer’s toolkits of domesticated species were not as well-developed as today.
who still lived by hunting and gathering in the '60s and '70s.
But they still do?
Early agrarians also likely would not have planted the monoculture fields we plant today. They would likely have worked with nature to encourage growth in an easier, more sustainable way. We do things the hard way because we grow with the intention to harvest a specific crop, not just to ensure there’s adequate food in your local surroundings.
Please always provide sources with such information. Otherwise such interesting content is quite useless and you have to just skip whole chain