The idea that people before us lived worse lives is one often used to obscure the clinical nature of standards we attribute to quality of life such as lifespan, infant mortality, food security, and housing. This is because it allows corporations to trivialize the impact of doubling the workload by normalizing the 40 hour work week and housework and child care, what used to be two people’s worth of work, into one.
Are we living ‘better’ lives? On paper, sure. Are we living happier lives? That’s hard to say.
Most of the people worked 24/7 on their farm and had to give most of their crops to their feudal lord from which they were completely dependend for land and protection against bandits. And later people worked 7 days a week 10-12 hours in factories.
And alone the medical development clearly is a great improvement in happiness. Just imagine that newborns surviving until infancy was the exception rather than the norm. And women died regularly during childbirth. Tooth problems were causing tremendous chronic pain and often lead to death. Only cancer was a lesser problem because people simply didn’t live long enough for it to be very prevalent.
I am not saying things could be better now. But we don’t have to romanticize the past. For me it is rather motivating to see how far we have come already and that we also can overcome the challenges of our time.
People still work 10-12 hours a week except they still have to buy their own groceries, cook food, clean the house, take care of their kids, and every other logistic that goes into housework. The idea that people always worked more and had less leisurely time in the past is one often used to downplay the impact of unpaid female domestic labor in the past to justify to expecting it of every person in the present.
Moreover, preindustrial workers only worked 1440 hours annually compared to the modern standard of 2080 hours. And that does not even include unpaid domestic labor.
Yes, it’s great to have all the social advances and modern comforts that we do. But humans are not machines where by indefinitely increase our quality of life we can expect an indefinite increase in hours worked. Just because we have smartphones, AC, cars, and whatever modern luxury you want to include, it doesn’t mean that suddenly we can work 12 hours a day every day and mentally stay sane.
I dunno I prefer not being murdered for practicing (or even converting from) the wrong religion, dying of plague or famine, or being enslaved for economic convenience. But maybe that’s just me.
Yes but I’d much rather prefer wandering through a bountiful forest to a stream crammed with fish, build a lean-to from what’s around me, and sleep cozy and warm under pine boughs on a moss mattress.
And be always afraid of being killed by a tiger or other predators. Constantly worrying about not finding enough food. Having insects crawl all over and inside you while sleeping or a snake choking you to death.
Yeah I call bullshit. What’s stopping you from living your dream if it’s that great?
The idea that people before us lived worse lives is one often used to obscure the clinical nature of standards we attribute to quality of life such as lifespan, infant mortality, food security, and housing. This is because it allows corporations to trivialize the impact of doubling the workload by normalizing the 40 hour work week and housework and child care, what used to be two people’s worth of work, into one.
Are we living ‘better’ lives? On paper, sure. Are we living happier lives? That’s hard to say.
Most of the people worked 24/7 on their farm and had to give most of their crops to their feudal lord from which they were completely dependend for land and protection against bandits. And later people worked 7 days a week 10-12 hours in factories.
And alone the medical development clearly is a great improvement in happiness. Just imagine that newborns surviving until infancy was the exception rather than the norm. And women died regularly during childbirth. Tooth problems were causing tremendous chronic pain and often lead to death. Only cancer was a lesser problem because people simply didn’t live long enough for it to be very prevalent.
I am not saying things could be better now. But we don’t have to romanticize the past. For me it is rather motivating to see how far we have come already and that we also can overcome the challenges of our time.
We don’t have to romanticize the present either.
People still work 10-12 hours a week except they still have to buy their own groceries, cook food, clean the house, take care of their kids, and every other logistic that goes into housework. The idea that people always worked more and had less leisurely time in the past is one often used to downplay the impact of unpaid female domestic labor in the past to justify to expecting it of every person in the present.
Moreover, preindustrial workers only worked 1440 hours annually compared to the modern standard of 2080 hours. And that does not even include unpaid domestic labor.
Yes, it’s great to have all the social advances and modern comforts that we do. But humans are not machines where by indefinitely increase our quality of life we can expect an indefinite increase in hours worked. Just because we have smartphones, AC, cars, and whatever modern luxury you want to include, it doesn’t mean that suddenly we can work 12 hours a day every day and mentally stay sane.
I dunno I prefer not being murdered for practicing (or even converting from) the wrong religion, dying of plague or famine, or being enslaved for economic convenience. But maybe that’s just me.
That really doesn’t narrow it down, if we are talking about the past or present.
Yes but I’d much rather prefer wandering through a bountiful forest to a stream crammed with fish, build a lean-to from what’s around me, and sleep cozy and warm under pine boughs on a moss mattress.
Agriculture broke us.
And be always afraid of being killed by a tiger or other predators. Constantly worrying about not finding enough food. Having insects crawl all over and inside you while sleeping or a snake choking you to death.
Yeah I call bullshit. What’s stopping you from living your dream if it’s that great?
Private property laws and the collapse of the biosphere
R.I.P. saimen choked to death on a larger than a average black python one Saturday night in the truck stop.