What did we lose that you think would make us happier? I can only think of things certain people lost that would make them happier at the expense of making others as miserable as possible.
At a personal level, tools/equipment that is self serviceable and can be maintained for a long life span. While some of this is still around, it is much more difficult to find.
At a moderate level. More time for family and community, unfortunately this one area that looking back we have slid backwards in. We are definitely better than the open century of industrialism but before that, hours were much more moderate, you also mostly worked near or at where you live.
At a wide lens angle. A vast majority of our technique is now having the blow back of ecological destruction/instability and a long period of climatic instability. The kind of thing that makes planning 7 generations ahead near impossible except on the grandest and somewhat vaguest terms.
Today you can still buy simple tools and equipment that are very long lasting, or you can choose modern conveniences. Either way, you actually have that choice, and buying either won't cost you a huge percentage of your wages as was the case in preindustrial times in which any manufactured or produced goods were enormously expensive by tendency.
People in modern times have more time for community and family than at any other point in history. This applies especially if they don't pursue the kind of material hamster wheel that many do. Almost anyone wanting to live at the subsistence levels of preindustrial societies could do so today with far less work than the people at that time endured to achieve the same. I think you're grossly understating how hard and long the work hours just to feed a family and literally keep it from death were prior to (at the most) 200 years ago.
As for your last point, the science on climate change doesn't predict the end of the world at all. Go read the IPCC's own worst case scenarios. They certainly don't predict our extinction. What's more, do you really think people in the 17th century felt any ability to plan 7 generations ahead, or easily avoided living in grimly filthy conditions at a level that was superior to today?
I think the angle you have is one of assuming I am advocating that "things used to be better!". I am not, I am saying it is possible to pick parts of the past that worked, figure out a way past the unintended issues of today and combine them into something better. This is essentially the entire idea of the Solar Punk movement.
Also I wasn't talking about the work hours 200 years ago, more like 1,000 years ago. Typical work days were about 4 hours a day in most societies. There are stories from France about 500 years ago about just how much spare time people used to have, it was kind of wild. Boring yes, but it was also because you can only grow so much food. The issue is that that kind of economy that is outside of the monetary system cannot be charted and graded accurately. There are lot so people in southern India that on paper are incredibly poor but in reality are very self reliant.
And yes I have read large parts of various IPCC reports. No, we are not going extinct. I didn't say anything about extinction. But a sizable fall is still a big wallop to industrial civilization even if it isn't a fatal blow. While folks may not be directly planning 7 generations, things were more stable from an environmental sense that many could assume things like food supply (on average) would be fine. The big issues then were much more political.
That lifestyle still exists in many parts of the world, but there is a reason why most of these substinence farmers encourage their kids to get an education and move out. Those poor farmers in India or China would pick the ticket out if they could. Just like how most farmers left to work in factories during the industrial revolution.
You can read some more critical analysis by historians or just work in a farm yourself, it's hard, long , backbreaking work. It's not something most humans would be will ing to return to.
To encourage people to self reflect on their needs and wants. To see that maybe they don't need so much stuff while keeping the meaningful advancements of our culture. The first act of revolution is contemplation.
Hypothetically, what if we lived with per capita the material demands of say 1920's with the health and food advancements of today. The social gains we have made still in place. All of a sudden a 20 hour week would be in sight. But that would mean folks have to go against the hedonistic treadmill and live with less. To use less energy, stuff and stimulation.
A night sky without light pollution and darker nights from a sleep perspective.
Large families and extended families. Your great grandparents likely had 5+ siblings.
100ppm lower CO2 levels had a meaningful impact on cognitive and physical performance.
Less intrusive advertising such as pumping gas without videos popping up.
Natural sounds and smells in a world without massive pollution.
Edit: It’s easy to say the modern world is better based on metrics which exclude meaningful downsides. Job security doesn’t get tracked the way unemployment rate does.
In 1790 individual members in the House of Representatives represented 39,000 people (though a low percentage of that could actually vote), today it’s closer to 800,000. But nobody is saying your voice is less important every year.
When I was spending my vacations with my grandparents as a child, they had a huge garden with an astonishing number of different kinds of fruits. They were planned in such a way that most of the year, from early spring until the beginning of the winter there was at least one kind of fruit that became ready for harvest every week.
Those fruits had flavors that cannot be matched in any way by those that can be bought from a supermarket, which are selected to look beautiful and to have a long shelf life. Not even at the local markets where farmers sell their products can I find anything as good as the fruit cultivars of my grandparents.
Similarly for meat. The meat of the truly free-range chicken or of the suckling pigs that I could eat at my grandparents was unbelievably more tasty than of the industrially-grown animals.
The vast majority of the people living today, who live in cities and eat only what can be bought there, have never tasted anything so good and they cannot imagine such tastes. Even when I have traveled through rural zones, I have never seen again any garden remotely similar to what my grandparents had a half of century ago or any similar fruit varieties.
I would certainly be happier if I could ever eat again such food. Except for food, I agree that everything else is much more comfortable today and I prefer it over what was available a half of century earlier.
I'm not even going to go down the route that most people in the world didn't have grandparents with a huge garden - let's accept as a baseline that maybe there was a time in human history when every human had access to something like this.
Before the modern world, a single frost, blight, or death in the family, could have wiped out an entire harvest and everyone in a community would starve.
That's less likely today.
Result: Probably a net benefit for humanity overall. Worth it? Highly subjective but as a humnist, i think I have to say yes.
My grandparents grew up on farms similar to what was described above (in the early 20th century). They did not have access to all these delicious fresh fruits year-round, only during the summer. However they did have access to a crazy number of delicious preserves which they dutifully made when the fruit was at peak ripeness. These they were then able to enjoy throughout the winter months.
I also strongly feel the need to bring population growth and the Repugnant Conclusion [1] into the picture. World population was less than two billion when my grandparents were born [2] and less than one billion a century before that. I believe you are correct that more total people (than ever before) have access to nutritious and delicious fruits year round, despite the fruits having less flavour and likely lower nutritional value overall.
However, if the world population were smaller (down to one billion, for example) an even greater proportion of the population could have access to delicious fruits year-round. Then it must be said that what we have gained from technological progress has been offset to some degree by population growth. We of course can expect world population to level off as access to reproductive technologies and education becomes universal. What I am skeptical about is whether we will ever have the technology to give the entire world population a standard of living comparable to an average American today, never mind someone from a century ago (or a person lucky enough to own a homestead today).
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/
Are we as a global society just spending big on the credit card of energy surplus disregarding the payback, or is this a genuine long term gain?
I guess we will have to wait until the year 2300 to have that answer.
I strongly suspect any example I provide will be attacked, so I recommend to use your imagination. I think you can do better than this.
If you really want an example I recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's Shaman, who can write better than I can, who is thoughtful in his choice in how he uses research versus poetic license, who has already responded to critique on the novel. There's plenty worth critiquing but it's better than assuming the absolute lack of any loss. And I'd like to emphasize I don't believe in past utopia (I think anarcho-primitivism is equally lacking in imagination, perhaps even more so)—just that the idea of one-dimensional progress is moronic.
EDIT: To add on to this, Graeber points out that there's a wide span of time in between the invention of agriculture (~12kya) and the beginning of what we collectively agree is civilization (~8kya). Why this delay, if sedentary farming and market-oriented distribution offers such obvious benefits?
EDIT2: spelling
EDIT3: KSR context
Edit: It's also bad form to edit your comment after it's been replied to without indicating you edited it.
yea my bad, I didn't expect you to reply so quickly.
https://www.un.org/en/delegate/50-million-people-modern-slav...
Depending on if you are going by total numbers or a percentage of the population can sway the messaging on this wildly.
I think (certain important portions of) modern day Human's curiosity/imagination capabilities have atrophied, since we know everything. Or maybe more accurately, they've been concentrated in a narrow, specialized range: knowing everything.
I spent about a year raising two hogs, babying them when compared to how almost anyone raises pigs. They loved their lives, I know exactly what they ate, and I know exactly what their last moments were. I just started curing another round of bacon a couple days ago, and when I get to enjoy it I know exactly how much work and love went into it.
I don't think this process made anyone as miserable as possible, and it makes me much happier than when I didn't k ow where my food came from, how it was raised, or how it was processed.
To ensure that the creatures they shepherd have as few bad moments as possible. To have hogs and to know they will only have one bad day.
Sure, it’s a trade off, but it’s ridiculous to pretend we haven’t lost anything. We pay for our high standard of living with anxiety and neuroses.
And if you gather food like berries and fruits - you (at least sometimes) get to eat foods ripened that day in the field. How many today get that luxury?
And if one of the things that provides joy to humans is to prepare their family’s food - many folks today would be disqualified.
Especially true of software engineers. Take a mediocre paying remote job at a mediocre non-tech firm, work 2 hours a day as the work is easy, and spend the rest on yourself.
But I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.