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by iarejenius 3819 days ago
Some argue our hunter-gatherer ancestors had far more leisure time than us. Check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society
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There is an insidious survivorship bias here: all that leisure time was only enjoyed by the ones who survived.

A society where the mean lifetime is 35 that works 20 hours per week gives people significantly less total leisure time than a society where the mean lifetime is 85 that works 50 hours per week.

Or in other words: all those dead infants got no leisure time at all.