Let's compare human happiness of hunter gatherers VS modern people

badabing106

Humans are physically designed to move, hunt and gather. They were designed to live in communal tribes where everything was shared, even the raring of other people's children

There was no anxiety over property, or money. They shared the physical exiliration of hunting together, the communal joy of providing and sharing food which was either hunted or gathered. The lived continously in the now and in one with nature. They were physically in the peak condition they were designed to be in. Ten times more capable and resilient than modern folk

They had everything that they needed to be content, food, shelter, sexy relations in abundance, sleep, community


The most popular sports today are hunting and gathering a ball, it's in our DNA, like it or not

We are hunter gatherers. We are not happy in modern times. Get on a bus or a train and you will only see sad faces

somefeen

I don't think this is totally true.
All groups of animals require various different personality types to survive.
I guarantee within this utopia there was lad sick to death of hanging around with the same people all day long. He probably ****ed off and started trading with other tribes to survive, happy out wandering from one place to the other on his.

Or some fella who enjoyed painting pictures of the hunting more than the hunting.

At some point someone must have gotten fed up with hunting and being a nomad and invented farming.

_Brian

Think they had a life Expectancy of about 25-28, probably die horrific painful death from some sort of infection from a thorn or mauled by a wolf.

Modern life expectancy must be 75, in general we suffer very little, very few of us get eaten when on our daily commute and if you ignore the moaning pansies we have quite a cushie lifestyle.

Graces7

badabing106 wrote: »

Humans are physically designed to move, hunt and gather. They were designed to live in communal tribes where everything was shared, even the raring of other people's children

There was no anxiety over property, or money. They shared the physical exiliration of hunting together, the communal joy of providing and sharing food which was either hunted or gathered. The lived continously in the now and in one with nature. They were physically in the peak condition they were designed to be in. Ten times more capable and resilient than modern folk

They had everything that they needed to be content, food, shelter, sexy relations in abundance, sleep, community


We are hunter gatherers. We are not happy in modern times. Get on a bus or a train and you will only see sad faces

Rose-coloured glasses much? Put any group of humans together and there will be conflict, personality clashes, rivalries, crimes.

People in public are not like they are at home... Oh and try smiling sometimes. Works wonders...

Grayson

There was anxiety. It was just directed at every rustling bush.

part of the reason we get anxiety today is because we are designed to be afraid. It's a survival mechanism. However we don't have anything to be afraid of nowadays. So this turns into weird fears. people think crime is rampant when it's not. People are scared of someone abducting their child even though it pretty much never happens. Compared to the world our ancestors lived in where the life expectancy was 30 and there were any number of diseases and predators that could kill you, we are in a fecking utopia. Yet we're still afraid.

And for some people that expresses as clinical anxiety. Thousands of years ago they might have been the best survivors since they were highly strung. Now their bodies react to the lack of threat by creating stuff to be afraid of.

Graces7

Fourier wrote: »

At a basic level we see even from the modern era why the Hunter Gatherer life was most likely abandoned by large portions of humanity. Infant and child mortality is very high in hunter gatherer societies and that is provided as one of the main reasons for leaving it by most tribes in modern times that have done so.

They got out as soon as they were able. Same as we did here from that soooooo-romantic bog-dwelling life

Read please a novel called Ayla? (Cannot remember the author)

the_syco

badabing106 wrote: »

Get on a bus or a train and you will only see sad faces

Because they're bus ****.

Get a car. Be happy.

gw80

somefeen wrote: »

I don't think this is totally true.
All groups of animals require various different personality types to survive.
I guarantee within this utopia there was lad sick to death of hanging around with the same people all day long. He probably ****ed off and started trading with other tribes to survive, happy out wandering from one place to the other on his.

Or some fella who enjoyed painting pictures of the hunting more than the hunting.

At some point someone must have gotten fed up with hunting and being a nomad and invented farming.

I doubt it was as care free utopia you make it sound like,
What you have to remember is although there was no money troubles or the likes, they were very exposed to the elements and the environment, even in ireland they would of had to deal with wolves and bears.
A bad winter would probably kill off a good few of you're tribe, every day would have been a struggle to feed you're family.
But i would agree modern technology is making us useless as a species as we get more and more technology to do things for us.

badabing106

badabing106 wrote: »

Humans are physically designed to move, hunt and gather. They were designed to live in communal tribes where everything was shared, even the raring of other people's children

There was no anxiety over property, or money. They shared the physical exiliration of hunting together, the communal joy of providing and sharing food which was either hunted or gathered. The lived continously in the now and in one with nature. They were physically in the peak condition they were designed to be in. Ten times more capable and resilient than modern folk

They had everything that they needed to be content, food, shelter, sexy relations in abundance, sleep, community


The most popular sports today are hunting and gathering a ball, it's in our DNA, like it or not

We are hunter gatherers. We are not happy in modern times. Get on a bus or a train and you will only see sad faces

There are a lot of assumptions there and they all tend to the positive.
Surely there was anxiety about will we starve today, will I get injured today, will this bush try to kill me, will the neighbouring tribe take our hunting grounds..

People can't have changed that much in any community there would have been lazy, greedy, useless hunters - did they all just shrug and get along or did the strong push they out to the margins?

Physically in peak condition - maybe but also possibly hungry, maimed, dead.

Why do you assume that they had food shelter and sex?

dartboardio

Completely agree. We’re meant to talk, share, laugh, cry together. Now we look at someone weird if they speak to us on the bus. Categorize people into weirdos that are deemed outside the artificial social norm. Quiet sad when you see an old person trying to make conversation cause that was normal and just seeing everyone glued to their phones on public transport (guilty of this myself, wish this wasn’t my reality but it is)

super_furry

Living in a ditch, subsisting on a diet of twigs and berries, dying of old age at 35 if you don’t die of a septic thumb when you cut it on a rock.

Think I’m alright as I am right now thanks.

Speedsie

Graces7 wrote: »

Read please a novel called Ayla? (Cannot remember the author)

Pretty sure the author is Jean M Auell, 'Clan of the Cave Bear' was the first in the series I think.

Temptamperu

_Brian wrote: »

Think they had a life Expectancy of about 25-28, probably die horrific painful death from some sort of infection from a thorn or mauled by a wolf.

Modern life expectancy must be 75, in general we suffer very little, very few of us get eaten when on our daily commute and if you ignore the moaning pansies we have quite a cushie lifestyle.

The life expectancy was so low due to infant/child mortality. While some died of tooth infection at 30 others could live to the 70s even 80s.
We are the exact same humans that hunted and gathered.

riffmongous

Someone send out the Wibbs-signal..

Until then the Pintupi Nine is a fascinating story of real life hunter gatherers coming discovering modern society https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30500591

Aongus Von Bismarck

To be honest I have to agree somewhat with the OP.


After I became a bit clinically fed up a couple of years ago I undertook building a log cabin in the woods in the wilderness in Canada. I have to say it was one of the most zen periods of my extremely successful life. Mother earth provided me with sustenance aplenty and my dedication to a strict mindfulness regime nourished my soul. Highly recommended.


Well I'd recommend it for someone who was physically very fit, quite handy, used to the outdoors and with a mature sense of awareness; which rules out most of you to be fair.

Ipso

Would vegans just be gatherers?

Fakediamond

Graces7 wrote: »

They got out as soon as they were able. Same as we did here from that soooooo-romantic bog-dwelling life

Read please a novel called Ayla? (Cannot remember the author)

Jean M Auel: Clan of the Cave Bear

Franz Von Peppercorn

It was great until you broke a leg, got attacked by an animal, your tribe was decimated by tribal enemies, or you got a toothache.

There’s some truth to us being divorced from our nature in cities or on public transport. The solution is to hunt. Pokemon for instance.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Temptamperu wrote: »

The life expectancy was so low due to infant/child mortality. While some died of tooth infection at 30 others could live to the 70s even 80s.
We are the exact same humans that hunted and gathered.

We would have to know the life expectancy of people who survived to 18. I doubt if very many made 70. Some might, but it would be in fairly peaceful times.

Reati

Ipso wrote: »

Would vegans just be gatherers?

There was none. They all died first.

Twenty Grand

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

We would have to know the life expectancy of people who survived to 18. I doubt if very many made 70. Some might, but it would be in fairly peaceful times.

Nah, even in the last 300 years, youd be very old at 50, never mind 75. Its only in the last 150 years that life expectancy has shot up. Sure people died of shaving cuts not too long ago. Life expectancy in Ireland tlhas gone from 71 to 81 in the last 50 years alone.

We as a species haven't had it better.

World poverty is at an all time low. More people sleep in a warm bed with a full belly than ever before.
We have widespread vaccination against most common viruses and treatments for nearly every illness you can think of. It's rare that someone dies naturally under the age of 60.

We've never been more technologically advanced, knowledgeable, educated and capable.
If you want to go back to eating nettles and digging in the much for grubs then be my guest, but you're s.eriously wrong if you think times are worse now than 5000 years ago.

Electric Sheep

I imagine that the food insecurity that accompanies the hunter gatherer lifestyle must have been as stressful as anything in modern life.

Overheal

badabing106 wrote: »

Humans are physically designed to move, hunt and gather. They were designed to live in communal tribes where everything was shared, even the raring of other people's children

There was no anxiety over property, or money. They shared the physical exiliration of hunting together, the communal joy of providing and sharing food which was either hunted or gathered. The lived continously in the now and in one with nature. They were physically in the peak condition they were designed to be in. Ten times more capable and resilient than modern folk

They had everything that they needed to be content, food, shelter, sexy relations in abundance, sleep, community


The most popular sports today are hunting and gathering a ball, it's in our DNA, like it or not

We are hunter gatherers. We are not happy in modern times. Get on a bus or a train and you will only see sad faces

There’s three seasons of Live Free or Die you should go ahead and watch to scratch that itch. You’re welcome.

Kevhog1988

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

To be honest I have to agree somewhat with the OP.


After I became a bit clinically fed up a couple of years ago I undertook building a log cabin in the woods in the wilderness in Canada. I have to say it was one of the most zen periods of my extremely successful life. Mother earth provided me with sustenance aplenty and my dedication to a strict mindfulness regime nourished my soul. Highly recommended.


Well I'd recommend it for someone who was physically very fit, quite handy, used to the outdoors and with a mature sense of awareness; which rules out most of you to be fair.

What part of canada, i would absolutely love to do something similar.

Twenty Grand

Electric Sheep wrote: »

I imagine that the food insecurity that accompanies the hunter gatherer lifestyle must have been as stressful as anything in modern life.

I would imagine the insecurities of watching half your kids die before the age of two would be worse.
Or having your tribe killed because you spoke a different language to the lads who lived over the mountain.
Or an auld bit of polio or flu.
Or getting septecemia for literally any cut.

8valve

We have evolved into a sedentary lifestyle, where we are slowly poisoning ourselves with processed foods, dependent on quick-fix modern medicine to patch us up when we break, perpetuated by globalisation where our diverse ethnicities are being homogenised into subservient worker ants to make the fat cats even fatter, living the illusion that we are free and well informed (by the news headlines we are allowed to see) and live exciting lifestyles (at the weekend), driving around in our mass produced soccer-mom jeeps with the kayak on the roof or the mountain bikes lashed to the tailgate...

tin foil hat off now....

zapitastas

_Brian wrote: »

Think they had a life Expectancy of about 25-28, probably die horrific painful death from some sort of infection from a thorn or mauled by a wolf.

Modern life expectancy must be 75, in general we suffer very little, very few of us get eaten when on our daily commute and if you ignore the moaning pansies we have quite a cushie lifestyle.

I think people could live until 70 or 80 if they hadnt had some accident. It was when people started living in bigger groups that illness became rife

Temptamperu

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

We would have to know the life expectancy of people who survived to 18. I doubt if very many made 70. Some might, but it would be in fairly peaceful times.

According to Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens, war was very controlled and very few died. Most lived peacefully and lived similar to "native tribes" now like the american nations (Pre white devil) and the tribes of the Amazon.

Its a good book about the subject.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Twenty Grand wrote: »

Nah, even in the last 300 years, youd be very old at 50, never mind 75. Its only in the last 150 years that life expectancy has shot up. Sure people died of shaving cuts not too long ago. Life expectancy in Ireland tlhas gone from 71 to 81 in the last 50 years alone.

We as a species haven't had it better.

World poverty is at an all time low. More people sleep in a warm bed with a full belly than ever before.
We have widespread vaccination against most common viruses and treatments for nearly every illness you can think of. It's rare that someone dies naturally under the age of 60.

We've never been more technologically advanced, knowledgeable, educated and capable.
If you want to go back to eating nettles and digging in the much for grubs then be my guest, but you're s.eriously wrong if you think times are worse now than 5000 years ago.

People didn’t see 50 year olds as very old 150 years ago.

You have to control for child mortality as a previous poster said. Jefferson and Adams survived to be 80+

Even the bible suggests 70 years as our time on earth.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Temptamperu wrote: »

According to Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens, war was very controlled and very few died. Most lived peacefully and lived similar to "native tribes" now like the american nations (Pre white devil) and the tribes of the Amazon.

Its a good book about the subject.

I’ve read plenty of counter arguments to that. Pinker etc.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Vandersail wrote: »

They wouldn't exactly be munching on snickers and drinking coca cola, if I recall correctly hunter gatherers had very good teeth health.

The did, but it doesn’t stop toothache.

yesto24

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

To be honest I have to agree somewhat with the OP.


After I became a bit clinically fed up a couple of years ago I undertook building a log cabin in the woods in the wilderness in Canada. I have to say it was one of the most zen periods of my extremely successful life. Mother earth provided me with sustenance aplenty and my dedication to a strict mindfulness regime nourished my soul. Highly recommended.


Well I'd recommend it for someone who was physically very fit, quite handy, used to the outdoors and with a mature sense of awareness; which rules out most of you to be fair.

While this might have been a fulfilling adventure for you.
I would give a guess you didn't do it in Canada's winter and it was all set up for you.
You didn't do it naked, you had a few sets of modern durable clothing and waterproof boots.
You didn't make your tools they were provided.
You were never in any danger, either from wild animals or starvation, you were never going to die on this trip. It would have been bad for future sales.
Don't fool yourself, it might have been a taste of "wilderness living" but it was the Disney version.
Not a bad thing, you seem to have got something out of it, but no where near what you think you experienced.
And a million miles from the scenario the OP is talking about.

And on that, I remember watching on TV where they showed what food was available to such hunter gatherers in the north of England during winter. It wasn't much and it didn't look good.
If I recall correctly it was a drink made from the only available berries at that time of year. And there wasn't many of them around.
Thinking about this you can see why the seasons, day length and the celebrations we have with them came about. And it is no bad thing to remember them it gives an insight as to how our culture arose.
Our evolution has almost certainly been overtaken by technology but there is no way it would have been easier mentally and physically then compared to now

Sunny Disposition

We are way happier now. Debating the merits of Louise O’Neill’s articles in AH, putting up smart comments on Twitter, posting photos of ourselves that people are obliged to praise on Facebook, these are all things hunter gatherers could not do.

Cupcake_Crisis

They had no WiFi. They must have been miserable

Twenty Grand

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

People didn’t see 50 year olds as very old 150 years ago.

You have to control for child mortality as a previous poster said. Jefferson and Adams survived to be 80+

Even the bible suggests 70 years as our time on earth.

Jefferson and Adams were rich and famous. As we're many other people who you hear living to a ripe old age.
The Bible isn't an accurate source.
Sure, maybe people could live to 70. If they didn't die of injury, disease, childbirth or any one of the million other ways to die. Many people live to well over 100 today, but 70 year olds are still considered elderly today regardless.

Hammer89

_Brian wrote: »

Think they had a life Expectancy of about 25-28, probably die horrific painful death from some sort of infection from a thorn or mauled by a wolf.

Modern life expectancy must be 75, in general we suffer very little, very few of us get eaten when on our daily commute and if you ignore the moaning pansies we have quite a cushie lifestyle.

So cushy that most of us probably take it for granted. If life expectancy was that low back in the day then perhaps there would've been a greater appreciation for their own existence because, as you say, there's constant danger where it could be taken away from them suddenly.

Twenty Grand

Hammer89 wrote: »

So cushy that most of us probably take it for granted. If life expectancy was that low back in the day then perhaps there would've been a greater appreciation for their own existence because, as you say, there's constant danger where it could be taken away from them suddenly.

Id say there were so busy working to lengthen their existence, they didn't have time to appreciate it.

Or maybe it's all relative. If 100 years from now, the life expectancy is 500, will people then say the same of us now?

dartboardio

super_furry wrote: »

Living in a ditch, subsisting on a diet of twigs and berries, dying of old age at 35 if you don’t die of a septic thumb when you cut it on a rock.

Think I’m alright as I am right now thanks.

And there you have it, septic thumb. We’ve turned into weak people! I’d almost rather being able to communicate properly as humans than the modern world

Lirange

If human DNA is anything to go by then the Hunter Gatherer societies were far from the idyllic alternative to modern human life that the OP suggests. Humans experienced several genetic bottlenecks during the Hunter Gatherer era. When you have small or isolated populations it causes genetic drift...accelerated mutation at the cellular level. This phenomena is one of nature's survival tools. Human populations experienced severe attrition that you just don't see today...not even the great plagues of the middle ages ushered in such levels of widespread attenuation.

_Kaiser_

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

To be honest I have to agree somewhat with the OP.


After I became a bit clinically fed up a couple of years ago I undertook building a log cabin in the woods in the wilderness in Canada. I have to say it was one of the most zen periods of my extremely successful life.......

theemigrant wrote: »

What part of canada, i would absolutely love to do something similar.

yesto24 wrote: »

While this might have been a fulfilling adventure for you.
I would give a guess you didn't do it in Canada's winter and it was all set up for you.....

He's not serious guys.. it's a "comedy" routine about how successful his life is etc that shows up in AH every so often.

Are Am Eye

From a biological or neurological point of view you can only be so happy anyway. Or so unhappy. It's broadly ups and downs within a range - leaving pathologies aside. You could transplant somebody into a very different environment and circumstances and they would still experience the same range and variations of emotions and ups and downs. Only maybe over different things.

Donald Trump

_Brian wrote: »

Think they had a life Expectancy of about 25-28, probably die horrific painful death from some sort of infection from a thorn or mauled by a wolf.

Modern life expectancy must be 75, in general we suffer very little, very few of us get eaten when on our daily commute and if you ignore the moaning pansies we have quite a cushie lifestyle.

Well apart from the poor divils who are unfortunate enough to break down while driving through Leitrim and are happened across by some of the cannibalistic local tribes

yesto24

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

He's not serious guys.. it's a "comedy" routine about how successful his life is etc that shows up in AH every so often.

Oh I know that.
Just pointing out a few things so he can up his game.

Anyone else think aongus and Johnnyflash are the same?

somefeen

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

He's not serious guys.. it's a "comedy" routine about how successful his life is etc that shows up in AH every so often.

You're just jealous of Mr Bismarck's success.

Andrea B.

badabing106 wrote: »

Humans are physically designed to move, hunt and gather. They were designed to live in communal tribes where everything was shared, even the raring of other people's children

There was no anxiety over property, or money. They shared the physical exiliration of hunting together, the communal joy of providing and sharing food which was either hunted or gathered. The lived continously in the now and in one with nature. They were physically in the peak condition they were designed to be in. Ten times more capable and resilient than modern folk

They had everything that they needed to be content, food, shelter, sexy relations in abundance, sleep, community


The most popular sports today are hunting and gathering a ball, it's in our DNA, like it or not

We are hunter gatherers. We are not happy in modern times. Get on a bus or a train and you will only see sad faces

You have read Sapiens then? This topic makes up a large portion of the book. Excellent read.

Your Face

The evidence from archaeology would suggest that the OPs notions are very wrong.

odyssey06

I think humans are better disposed to handle the stresses of hunter gatherer life, its challenges are what we were built for.
There are many problems in modern life due to this mis-match between our hunter gatherer blueprint and the reality of life today.
But in terms of happiness, I think modern people are ahead, both at the individual level and the fact that modern life affords to opportunity for far more humans to pursue their happiness.

Plus, if everything was hunky dory in hunter gatherer land why aren't we still doing that?

I would probably prefer to be a hunter gatherer over a medieval peasant, but modern life wins out overall.

odyssey06

The peak population for hunter gatherers appears to have been 10 - 20 million humans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates

I don't like those odds.

fyfe79

odyssey06 wrote: »

I think humans are better disposed to handle the stresses of hunter gatherer life, its challenges are what we were built for.
There are many problems in modern life due to this mis-match between our hunter gatherer blueprint and the reality of life today.
But in terms of happiness, I think modern people are ahead, both at the individual level and the fact that modern life affords to opportunity for far more humans to pursue their happiness.

Plus, if everything was hunky dory in hunter gatherer land why aren't we still doing that?

I would probably prefer to be a hunter gatherer over a medieval peasant, but modern life wins out overall.

Genuine question, does anyone know if there is any evidence of depression/suicide in hunter-gatherers?

If capitalism or social conventualism has led to this mis-match, then maybe there's some truth so the notion that we're not living our lives correctly at all - we're all going against our very instinct and some hit the self-destruct button as a release.

briany

odyssey06 wrote: »

I think humans are better disposed to handle the stresses of hunter gatherer life, its challenges are what we were built for.
There are many problems in modern life due to this mis-match between our hunter gatherer blueprint and the reality of life today.
But in terms of happiness, I think modern people are ahead, both at the individual level and the fact that modern life affords to opportunity for far more humans to pursue their happiness.

Plus, if everything was hunky dory in hunter gatherer land why aren't we still doing that?

I would probably prefer to be a hunter gatherer over a medieval peasant, but modern life wins out overall.

I think humans will, broadly speaking, strive to make life easier for themselves. If you could reboot humanity back to a geographically diverse set of tribes, living a simple hunter gatherer lifestyle, I think it would develop pretty much the same way up to what we have now over a roughly similar amount of time.

Werner Herzog did a short documentary on hitherto uncontacted tribes in the Amazon. He found that within a generation of contact being made, their young folk were off to live in the cities, and were sort of embarrassed about their people who'd stayed behind.

RobbingBandit

Bop life partner on the head and carry them away ah those nobel savages sure we're crafty.