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Comment by DebtDeflation | Hacker News Reader

People forget that in the long history of human civilization, the idea of working as an employee of a big company only goes back about 150 years, the idea of white collar office work in that context only goes back about 75 years, and the idea of a "career" (as opposed to just doing the same job forever) is even newer.

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People who point this out tend to forget that's because for most of that long history the alternative options were pretty much: 1. be born to the right parents, 2. peasant farm laborer. We're not going back to that, so might as well forget it for purposes of analysis.

Aside: Bret Devereaux has a series on the remarkably similar lives of a peasant farm laborers throughout time and space here:

https://acoup.blog/2025/07/11/collections-life-work-death-an...

TLDR: Holy shit, so much infant mortality, penicillin and vaccination are god-sends, holy shit. Also, your fields were all over the place and everything extra gets eaten up by taxes from Big Man.

Things really went downhill when people started farming. Wars, disease, hard labor, etc.

Probably not?

I can't find the link, but I think Bret also had an article on how nomadic cultures had generally worse lives than settled ones, from what little we can know. If I recall correctly, it's hard to tell, as nomadic cultures don't really record things. But from the burial sites and little other evidence we have, it seems (again via mostly their bones) that their lives were much harder, shorter, more disease ridden, and more violent than what we see in agricultural remains. But also, trying to say for certain that any one set of bones was from a nomad, a settler, or something of a mix, was very difficult. Like, such categories aren't really all that 'real' when you have to sit down and fit a particular femur into a category.

But, again, I want to stress that I'm trying to recall something here, and that the thing I'm recalling also stressed that the physical evidence is quite scant as is and very hard to discern when you have it.

Sounds like you've been reading stuff that has the opposite views on this than what I have. I thought about linking book and journal article sources but i'm sure you can look up the scientific consensus yourself and it'll be more credible that way.

I long for the romantic life of rolling into town, offering fair work for fair wages, having a fling with one or two maidens, and then moving on

It might have only been possible for a small handful of people who were, unlike me, strapping, young, men, and fictional

I don’t know, kinda feel like this is the modern digital nomad life.

> We're not going back to that

I think future holds couple of surprises for you.

In the 1920s poem, Desiderata, I was always surprised that Max makes a reference to career:

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;

it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs;

for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals;

and everywhere life is full of heroism.

You need to read Samuel Pepys. In 1662 he definitely had a white collar job. He describes his office politics and his accumulation of wealth and his working his way up the organisation.

Don’t forget Thursday 28 September 1665

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1665/09/28/

Shhh, or you are going to ruin some lives of folks who have excellent corporate careers in some lets say questionable companies, and very little achievement to show in their actual lives.

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