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Comment by justinator | Hacker News Reader

Is there actually any evidence that ancient hunter gatherer groups didn't do what we now call "exercise" on a voluntary basis? Some ideas come to mind: dancing, walkabouts, spirit quests, right of passage rituals, ?ancient forms of martial arts? I am compelled to believe that early man did things merely to do them, including exercise.

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Interestingly, all of those activities you list seem to have an underlying purpose beyond merely "fitness for the sake of fitness" - exercise (and the fitness which follows) are incidental side-effects of completing those activites.

Not sure what you mean by "actual" evidence, but we know a lot of what we know from studies of modern-day hunter gatherer groups and it seems unlikely that the ancients would have significantly different behavior around needless calorie expenditure.

I'm not sure how much modern fitness would qualify for 'fitness for the sake of fitness'.

Seems more likely it's backed by wanting to have sex (or maybe I'm just projecting my own motivations).

Modern day hunter gatherers do not "play"?

"Play" isn't exercise for the sake of exercise.

Which leads us to the current situation of the only people who stuck to exercise long term are those for whom "exercise for the sake of exercise" is play.

None of those things you mentioned are exercise. They are physical activity yes, but productive (including mentally productive) physical activity.

Exercise is physical activity without being productive at all.

But that's false. While exercising, we socialize, we can explore our immediate surroundings as well as provide a useful function, like getting to work. Are you saying my commute by bike isn't exercise? Do you think dancing isn't now seen as a form of exercise?

You seem to be contradicting yourself, confusing "things which happen to be exercise" with "things which are intentionally exercise."

Your argument was originally that the ancients performed the latter, but you've supported yourself with examples of the former. Hunter-gatherer tribes certainly did and do activities which happen to be exercise all the time, and that (and other reasons) are why they didn't need to set aside time and energy for the express purpose of staying in shape.

I'm really not. What I'm disagreeing with is the idea that exercise is defined as physical activity without productive value. It certainly could be that but only because that's what we now frame it as, which itself is a purely contemporary idea. No wonder "exersice" today seems so pointless. Much of the modern world is without the ritual it once possessed. And then we defend our new ways as more pure. For me, it's a head scratcher.

Exercise is maintenance of the body. Maintenance of any machine is productive.

No it's not. Some machines are too far lost to put worthwhile effort into.

That's why we upgrade machines (either through pharmaceuticals, and soon, I suspect, gene therapy. Introduce the caloric restriction gene and suddenly the urge to eat uncontrollably goes away.)

Hell, most legal stimulants are appetite suppressants anyway. There are always options. Comparing humans to machines is probably one of the most bizarre expressions of materialism/physicalism I have ever seen on here. The analogy is also quite poor, the human body is far more complex than even our greatest machines.

> The analogy is also quite poor, the human body is far more complex than even our greatest machines.

For now at least. Progress is slow, but we work on making more complex machines all the time. Also, I have a nagging feeling that we tend to underestimate the quality/complexity of machines and overestimate that of our bodies, probably due to some "we must respect nature/evolution/god/.." beliefs. Human bodies are very lacking in some respects, and it shows.

Why on earth would he do this? Why would you be compelled to believe this?

you forgot sex :)

Nope, sex forgot me.

:-)

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