[naasking]

> We work longer hours, have less nutritious and safe food, and have an epidemic of "mental illness" stemming from our lack of social bonds and community. But because we have medicine and electronic gadgets we declare ourselves to be much better off.

This smacks of rosy retrospective bias. Even if we have less nutritious food, which is debatable, we have an abundance of it, sufficient to feed us all and we don't suffer famines and shortages, or nutritional deficiencies.

We have an "epidemic" of mental illness because most of our day is no longer solely focused on scrounging for survival. Also, the mentally ill are no longer shunned as harshly and so they don't die of starvation. Perhaps community bonds have something to do with it, but that's also debatable.

[agsdfgsd]

>Even if we have less nutritious food, which is debatable

It really isn't, it has been measured. With increased atmospheric CO2, plants grow faster and end up with a much higher calorie:micronutrient ratio. We also consume vast quantities of industrial waste products now like "vegetable oil", HFCS and soybean by-products.

>we have an abundance of it, sufficient to feed us all and we don't suffer famines and shortages, or nutritional deficiencies.

Famine wasn't as common as you seem to think it was, unless you include impoverished states, in which case famine is killing more people now than it was back then. You can't just look at rich countries now compared to everyone centuries ago. You have to compare like to like. We suffer plenty of nutritional deficiencies, and we suffer huge amounts of diet caused diseases like "type 2 diabetes" and osteoporosis.

>We have an "epidemic" of mental illness because most of our day is no longer solely focused on scrounging for survival.

People were not scrounging for survival then either. They were producing significant surpluses of food, enough to feed massive armies. And while they worked hard in spring and fall, they essentially had summer and winter as vacation time. They had more holidays/vacation time than modern Americans do.

>Perhaps community bonds have something to do with it, but that's also debatable.

We literally have hundreds of thousands of people killing themselves entirely because they have no social bonds. Everything is debatable, but this debate in particular has overwhelming evidence in support of it being correct. As population density grows, social cohesion, trust and relationships all decline. We just didn't evolve to be friends with 5 million people.

[naasking]

> With increased atmospheric CO2, plants grow faster and end up with a much higher calorie:micronutrient ratio.

Citation please.

> We also consume vast quantities of industrial waste products now like "vegetable oil", HFCS and soybean by-products.

Naturalistic fallacy. "Industrial waste" isn't necessarily harmful.

> Famine wasn't as common as you seem to think it was, unless you include impoverished states, in which case famine is killing more people now than it was back then.

"More people" is an irrelevant metric, what matters is the percentage of people relative to the total. That's a meaningful measure of progress.

> We suffer plenty of nutritional deficiencies

Such as?

> and we suffer huge amounts of diet caused diseases like "type 2 diabetes" and osteoporosis.

The latter of which was either common back then also, or uncommon because they didn't live long enough to develop it. As for type II diabetes, it's a disease of abundance, which proves my point. You can't overeat if you don't have enough to eat.

> They were producing significant surpluses of food, enough to feed massive armies.

That often starved during campaigns.

> And while they worked hard in spring and fall, they essentially had summer and winter as vacation time. They had more holidays/vacation time than modern Americans do.

During which they had to ration food, developed nutritional deficiencies, and died of exposure. Some vacation. You're awfully selective about how you compare "like to like".

> We literally have hundreds of thousands of people killing themselves entirely because they have no social bonds.

Citation please.

Also, there is very little real data on historical suicide rates [1,2]. It consists mainly of conjecture from the writings of artists at the time, like Dante speaking about hell and suicide. So your claims that modern rates are higher are also pure conjecture.

[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-...

[2] http://psychiatry.queensu.ca/assets/Synergy/synergyfall12.pd...

[agsdfgsd]

>Citation please.

https://www.google.com/search?q=co2%20plant%20nutrition

>Naturalistic fallacy. "Industrial waste" isn't necessarily harmful.

It is not a naturalistic fallacy. The things I mentioned are harmful. Industrial waste may not be necessarily harmful, but it is also not necessarily food. We consume it because it is industrial waste, not because it is food. It is harmful, we consume it in vast quantities, it did not even exist before the early 1900s.

>"More people" is an irrelevant metric, what matters is the percentage of people relative to the total. That's a meaningful measure of progress.

It is more as a percentage.

>Such as?

Do you think nutritional deficiencies don't exist any more? Common deficiencies include iron, B12, D, calcium, A, iodine, magnesium, zinc and folate. People now eat fewer vegetables, which contain fewer micronutrients, and we have almost completely removed organ meat from our diets altogether.

>The latter of which was either common back then also, or uncommon because they didn't live long enough to develop it.

Those are conflicting explanations. You can't dismiss a problem by throwing out random conflicting excuses. No, osteoporosis was not common then. "Type 2 diabetes" and heart disease both didn't even exist, and now are so widespread that they are top killers.

>As for type II diabetes, it's a disease of abundance, which proves my point.

No, it is a disease of consumption of toxic omega 6 polyunsaturated fats. Fat people existed in medieval times. They did not get "type 2 diabetes". And it still would not prove your point, as overeating is not the same as healthy. I said people ate healthier. People eating high calorie low nutrient food and getting morbidly obese now supports my point, it does not contradict it.

>That often starved during campaigns.

Only if you have an unusual definition of "often". And those incidents were due to being cut off from supplies. Another army preventing your food from getting to you is not an indication that you are unable to grow enough food and thus "everyone is spending all day trying to stave off starvation".

>During which they had to ration food, developed nutritional deficiencies, and died of exposure

Except none of those things. Those are the times they spent feasting. We still have several of the same traditional feasts, just renamed to pretend they are christian.

>So your claims that modern rates are higher are also pure conjecture.

Modern rates are higher than any other point in recorded history. We have poorer data from ancient times, but we do still have data. You even linked to some. And it indicates that suicide was rare, and when it did happen it was mainly out of shame or a sense of honor having done something wrong. There is no reason to assume suicide rates were higher in medieval times just because you want to believe the iron age was some horrific time. Again, the people who still live in the stone age today and are healthier and happier than us right now, and have essentially no modern "mental illnesses" like depression or social anxiety and no modern dietary diseases like "type 2 diabetes", even the ones with BMI scores in the "morbidly obese" category. Because they do not possess the technology to create petrochemical solvents necessary to extract toxic seed oils. We are just supposed to ignore that because they inconveniently point to modern society being harmful?

[naasking]

> It is harmful, we consume it in vast quantities, it did not even exist before the early 1900s.

Many things didn't exist before the 1900s, that still doesn't entail they are harmful. Furthermore, harm is dose-dependent. Water is harmful if you ingest too much. There is little evidence that these are harmful in appropriate doses. Again, most of the harm stems from abundance.

> [Famine is killing] more [people] as a percentage.

Citation?

> Do you think nutritional deficiencies don't exist any more? Common deficiencies include iron, B12, D, calcium, A, iodine, magnesium, zinc and folate.

Now where's the evidence that these deficiencies were not prevalent or worse throughout history, which is what you're actually claiming.

> No, osteoporosis was not common then.

Wrong:

https://reliawire.com/history-osteoporosis/

Note they list "aging population" as the cause: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S875632820...

> You can't dismiss a problem by throwing out random conflicting excuses.

You mean like the baseless, uncited claims you're making? I've now provided far more citations demonstrating your claims are incorrect than you have. And the "excuses" aren't conflicting, they're exhaustive covering many possibilities, all of which undermine your narrative.

> "Type 2 diabetes" and heart disease both didn't even exist

Wrong: https://www.healthline.com/health/heart-disease/history#anci...

As for type 2 diabetes, you have literally no basis to make that claim. There is plenty of historical data confirming the existence of diabetes throughout history, but it's not possible to reliably distinguish them given the data: https://www.healthline.com/health/history-type-1-diabetes#4

> No, it is a disease of consumption of toxic omega 6 polyunsaturated fats.

Citation?

> Fat people existed in medieval times. They did not get "type 2 diabetes".

Citation?

> And those incidents were due to being cut off from supplies

And from food spoiling.

> Another army preventing your food from getting to you is not an indication that you are unable to grow enough food and thus "everyone is spending all day trying to stave off starvation"

Good thing I never said that.

> Except none of those things. [Winter] are the times they spent feasting. We still have several of the same traditional feasts, just renamed to pretend they are christian.

Wrong: "The winter solstice was immensely important because the people were economically dependent on monitoring the progress of the seasons. Starvation was common during the first months of the winter, January to April (northern hemisphere) or July to October (southern hemisphere), also known as "the famine months". In temperate climates, the midwinter festival was the last feast celebration, before deep winter began. Most cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed during the winter, so it was almost the only time of year when a plentiful supply of fresh meat was available.[5] The majority of wine and beer made during the year was finally fermented and ready for drinking at this time."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice#History_and_cu...

So basically the reason for the feasts is so they didn't have to waste precious food on keeping animals alive, because otherwise they'd all starve, like I said.

> Modern rates are higher than any other point in recorded history. We have poorer data from ancient times, but we do still have data. You even linked to some.

I linked to evidence that quite literally say we don't have enough historical data to infer the actual rates of suicide. So no, it doesn't at all indicate anything like what you claim.

> There is no reason to assume suicide rates were higher in medieval times just because you want to believe the iron age was some horrific time.

Except no one is making that claim. What I am saying is that your claim that modern rates are higher is baseless.

> Again, the people who still live in the stone age today and are healthier and happier than us right now and have essentially no modern "mental illnesses" like depression or social anxiety

Wrong:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/jo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_depression#Prehisto...

You've fallen into the common trap of romanticizing the past. Some aspects of older cultures indeed are healthier, but your apparent inclination to claim that rates of happiness and health are far worse today than they ever were is completely baseless.

[agsdfgsd]

>Many things didn't exist before the 1900s, that still doesn't entail they are harmful.

Stop trying to reverse my statement because you think that will allow you to dismiss it. I said they are harmful, and they did not exist before the 1900s. Not they are harmful because they didn't exist before the 1900s. Their harm is known by the negative health effects of their consumption. Those negative health effects did not exist for people before the 1900s.

>Now where's the evidence that these deficiencies were not prevalent or worse throughout history, which is what you're actually claiming.

I see a pattern here where you state that common scientific knowledge is wrong unless I provide citations for it, then when I do you just ignore those citations and the entire subject and proceed to call some other common scientific knowledge wrong. You can use google too.

>https://reliawire.com/history-osteoporosis/

I am well aware that people post common misconceptions on their blogs. If I link to a blog post about how the earth is really flat will that make it so?

>Citation?

Again, this is not wikipedia. If you want to call someone a liar, do so. If you want to find out information, do so. You don't get to delete opinions you don't like if you spam "citation needed" enough in a conversation. The history of type 2 diabetes is easy to learn about, it did not exist until the early 1900s.

>And from food spoiling.

Which is obviously caused by being unable to produce enough food and requiring all adults to spend their entire lives toiling in the fields to avoid starvation, thus supporting your belief.

>So basically the reason for the feasts is so they didn't have to waste precious food on keeping animals alive, because otherwise they'd all starve

They didn't waste food, therefore they were all starving. Brilliant logic.

>I linked to evidence that quite literally say we don't have enough historical data to infer the actual rates of suicide

You linked to poor evidence for suicide rates. That is not the same as no evidence. This kind of tactic is just silly. "Oh, well the evidence that shows their suicide rate was much lower has limited sample sizes, so we should just assume that in reality they had much higher suicide rates".

>What I am saying is that your claim that modern rates are higher is baseless.

And yet you provided evidence to contradict your claim.

>Wrong

Neither of your links are even related to my statement, so going "DURRRR RONG!!11" seems a little odd.

>You've fallen into the common trap of romanticizing the past

That's possible. Or perhaps you've fallen into the much more common trap of romanticizing the present.

>but your apparent inclination to claim that rates of happiness and health are far worse today than they ever were is completely baseless.

Again, there's a big difference between "the evidence is not strong enough to know that with 100% certainty" which is the case and "completely baseless" which is what you wish.

[naasking]

> Stop trying to reverse my statement because you think that will allow you to dismiss it. I said they are harmful

And yet, you have provided no evidence of such. The evidence of harm is far from conclusive, and given the replication crisis, your stating these claims as facts is completely unjustified.

> Not they are harmful because they didn't exist before the 1900s.

What do you think the non-existence of these things prior to the 1900s proves exactly, that you keep bringing it up as if it's a relevant point? My points about the 1900s appear to be just as relevant to the discussion as your points.

> I see a pattern here where you state that common scientific knowledge is wrong unless I provide citations for it

I see a pattern where you keep claiming something is "common scientific knowledge" without any providing evidence of such a consensus.

> then when I do you just ignore those citations and the entire subject and proceed to call some other common scientific knowledge wrong. You can use google too.

When you do? When was that exactly? You've provided a single link to some articles that talk about CO2's effects on plant growth, completely ignoring the fact that I had already acknowledged that even if nutritional density were decreasing, the abundance is sufficient to feed the growing population.

Further, I'm not the one making dozens of unsubstantiated claims, you are. The burden of proof is on you here, not me to prove or disprove your claims, and yet I've gone out of my way to correct your misconceptions about history.

> I am well aware that people post common misconceptions on their blogs. If I link to a blog post about how the earth is really flat will that make it so?

Convenient that you ignore the paper that mentions the prevalence of osteoporosis is due to the aging population. Here's another one for you to deny: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24087808

> The history of type 2 diabetes is easy to learn about, it did not exist until the early 1900s.

Oh, do you mean it did not exist as a diagnosis? Because that seems like a fairly trivial point. If you literally mean that humans from history did not suffer from maladies that are a result of our biology, then that's a much stronger claim, so prove it.

> They didn't waste food, therefore they were all starving. Brilliant logic.

Nice how you just skip all the mentions of how common starvation was, and the actual justification for feasting in early winter.

> You linked to poor evidence for suicide rates. That is not the same as no evidence.

I asked for evidence. You have not provided any. Numerous sources I found all discuss how no robust evidence exists. Thus far, there is literally no reason to believe your claims, and considerable reason to disbelieve them.

> Neither of your links are even related to my statement, so going "DURRRR RONG!!11" seems a little odd.

You claimed that stone age hunter/gatherer societies were healthier. The first link I provided definitively proves otherwise.

You claimed that stone age hunter/gatherer societies didn't suffer from mental illness like depression. Historical documents discussing depressive symptoms are common. Are we to take this as evidence of some depression-like condition that's not depression? Are you seriously claiming that that's more believable?

> That's possible. Or perhaps you've fallen into the much more common trap of romanticizing the present.

Except I haven't made any such claims. At best, I've implied that there is no reason to think historical humans were much different in the maladies they suffered, except modern circumstances and abundance have clearly led to significantly lower infant and adult mortality. Which is actually well documented, commonly known fact, and runs contrary to what you have claimed.

> Again, there's a big difference between "the evidence is not strong enough to know that with 100% certainty" which is the case and "completely baseless" which is what you wish.

Since you've provided no evidence at all, and the evidence I've cited so far actually runs counter to what you claim, "baseless" is pretty accurate.

[kortilla]

>Again, the people who still live in the stone age today and are healthier and happier than us right now,

That’s a senseless statement. Nobody lives in the Stone Age today. That’s a period of time.

If you’re referring to primitive tribes with no outside world contact, then you’ll need to provide evidence and definitions for healthier/happier. They have high infant mortality rates, they kill disabled children, they die from treatable illnesses, and they starve during bad years.

Of course they have mental illness, there is no evidence they are immune to Down syndrome, schizophrenia, or anything else. They are just much more likely to murder or ostracize people having too much difficulty fitting into the tribe.

>It is harmful, we consume it in vast quantities

Ugh, you accidentally forgot to provide any evidence of its harm again. You just preceded it with another naturalistic fallacy that implied that it must be harmful because it’s industrial.

[agsdfgsd]

>Nobody lives in the Stone Age today. That’s a period of time.

Yes they do. It is a period of technological development. There is no singular timespan that makes up the stone age or bronze age or iron age, those periods are different depending on the people.

>If you’re referring to primitive tribes with no outside world contact

They have outside world contact, they simply choose to continue living the way they prefer instead of adopting modernity.

>then you’ll need to provide evidence and definitions for healthier/happier

The dictionary already does.

>They have high infant mortality rates, they kill disabled children, they die from treatable illnesses, and they starve during bad years.

The first three things are not healthy, and the last thing is false.

>Of course they have mental illness, there is no evidence they are immune to Down syndrome, schizophrenia, or anything else.

Please attempt to read what is being said rather than intentionally taking an obviously contrary definition so you have something to argue about. I am talking about the modern "mental illnesses", note the quotes, like depression and social anxiety which are epidemic in modernity, and do not exist in primitive cultures.

>Ugh, you accidentally forgot to provide any evidence of its harm again

Almost as if this is a discussion and not me publishing a scientific paper. You are welcome to look up the data linking omega 6 polyunsaturated fats to the modern disease epidemic.

>You just preceded it with another naturalistic fallacy that implied that it must be harmful because it’s industrial.

Simply repeating the fallacy fallacy is not going to accomplish anything.

[kortilla]

Sorry mate, but your terminology doesn’t line up with other English speakers: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Age

The dictionary definition of happiness is not something that can be measured and compared between groups of people.

Schizophrenia is not a “modern mental illness”. It’s been around forever.

>Simply repeating the fallacy is not going to accomplish anything

Then why TF did you do it?

[kortilla]

>but this debate in particular has overwhelming evidence in support of it being correct.

Yet you provide none despite you making the extraordinary claims. Worrying about society overeating wasn’t even a thing in the US until the 50s.

[agsdfgsd]

I have not made any extraordinary claims, I have repeated the very standard scientific consensus, which is constantly repeated in the popular media. I do not presume that every piece of common knowledge is going to be considered an "extraordinary claim" by someone who hates search engines.

>Worrying about society overeating wasn’t even a thing in the US until the 50s.

So, our modern lifestyle is good because we've only been worried about it killing us since we've had it?

[kortilla]

It is not common knowledge that a hunter gatherer lifestyle without medicine/food science/etc is better. It is not reported in popular media and it’s not backed by scientific research. It is an extraordinary claim.

>our modern lifestyle is good because we've only been worried about it killing us since we've had it?

Nope. It’s good because it’s provided us with abundance to the point where we are no longer struggling just to feed ourselves.