Hacker News Reader

Comment by KraftKacke | Hacker News Reader

I recently learned, people worked less when we were hunter/gatherer, had more leisure time.

I don't want to skip on modern medicine and shit, but it does make you think...

[*] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yocja_N5s1I

Most hunting species are only active a few hours, because most prey species are only active a few hours a day, because there isn't exactly an excess of food or personal security in nature.

Gathering also doesn't make sense as a full time occupation, as most plant species only fruit / produce edibles infrequently, and even then you are competing with wild animals (birds eat far more from the local wild raspberry plants than I do, even when i think to try picking some).

Farmers, conversely, often work from before sunup to after sunset. Whether it is sowing, harvesting, animal husbandry, or maintenance of buildings, fences, equipment, there is no shortage to be done.

All this is to say, hunter / gatherers didn't have some secret to a life of leisure, they minimized energy output to deal with food insecurity and general difficulty actually hunting amd gathering.

The guy in the video says people played, made art and fucked. Humans are not predators, we're opportunists by evolutionary trait turning hunters rather recently.

And you too can go live in the bush and do all those things until you get a toothache, parasites and lose a few kids to infant mortality.

Depending upon where one is in the world, even in large wilderness areas, the volume of game has decreased significantly from the pre-agricultural era. Still wouldn't trade a more-abundant bush with modernity, but it is interesting to consider the relative conditions that would make it easier historically.

It's true, hunter gatherer societies have a way of getting out competed.

I imagine the quality of the leisure time as hunter/gatherer was much lower than what you have now. What are you going to do with your leisure time? Count how many of your children have survived winter?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com