[mnemonicsloth]

It's a bad idea to romanticize the lives of paleolithic peoples. They may have had cozy beds, but it's likely these people were:

- thirsty (no tech for carrying water)

- hot (no air conditioning)

- hungry (hunter gatherers don't eat every day)

- practicing "open defecation"

- covered with insect bites

- riddled with intestinal parasites

- frequently sick (no vaccines/antibiotics)

- one compound fracture away from death by sepsis

and liable to be murdered by humans from other tribes or, according to some studies, possibly from your own if you ever stop pulling your weight.

[sjtindell]

Anthropologists before and in our lifetimes have gone and lived with tribes of hunter gatherers. We don’t need to romanticize or use cliches. Lots of them weren’t living as you describe. In fact their eyesight, teeth/gums, mental health, general physical health, sex lives, and life satisfaction seemed pretty great sometimes, and there’s interesting points to be made about why modernity might not have all the answers.

Let’s take your poop example. The average American, depressed and overweight according to the stats (both conditions rarely recorded in interactions with tribal hunter gatherers), poops in a toilet, they don’t “practice open defecation” (what funny phrasing). And that’s bad for you. We know now that if you don’t squat, it makes you strain (people literally die on toilets straining to poop) and you can’t get it all out. So we’ve invented poop stools. You should get one, it’s fantastic by the way, you’ll never poop the same again. This is just one of the many ways supposedly superior modern living has essentially played us, and our inventions solve problems that progress creates in the first place!

You’re right in some ways. I’m not a believer in “noble savages“. Modern sanitation is responsible probably more than anything for humanities success so far. But it’s a subtle topic.

[andrei_says_]

Thumbs up for poop stools :)

[jessaustin]

Even worse, they only worked a couple of hours a day, and goofed off the rest of the time. So unproductive!

One of the nice things for me about living on a large ranch is that it's no problem to "practice open defecation" on a regular basis. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

[jiofih]

Only works for extremely low density living (which is really only practical with the help of modern amenities). Doesn’t work that well for places like India.

[IdiocyInAction]

Don't forget about a lot of women dying during childbirth. I also wonder about attitudes about stuff like child (sexual) abuse and rape (it seems that the literature is contentious about this stuff).

[trianglem]

That sounds right. Except if you see encounters with the aboriginals of Australia, they looked in great health and had remedies for a lot of the problems above. Wet mud on the skin for insect bites, slippers made out of leaves etc.