[stareatgoats]

> It's a pretty typical mistake.

It's an even more typical mistake to believe that our time is the pinnacle in all respects (because of all the cool gadgets that we have). But we are not the pinnacle in all respects; perhaps the largest danger is that we are delegating all multifaceted work (which ultimately is what produces skill) to automation and/or extreme specialists, so that we can push the enjoyment button (or take the enjoyment pill) in solitude without end.

We are on a path to an 'Idiocracy' type of society which would likely have been an abomination to generations past if they were to see it.

[rendall]

I disagree. As humans, we have a tendency to be pessimistic, but we are in aggregate enjoying unprecedented peace and prosperity, have done for an unprecedented length of time, and data point to that continuing. The leisure that many of us enjoy is a byproduct of that trend.

[bnegreve]

> As humans, we have a tendency to be pessimistic

Maybe, but it is not because we tend to be overly pessimistic in general, that serious problems cannot happen to us. Entire civilizations have diapered in the past, so we should remain vigilant.

After all, another bias that humans have, is a strong tendency to believe that what is true now, will remain true forever.

[rendall]

Very, very, very true. The light of civilization is a flickering candle in the darkness

I often think about the city-states along the Silk Road: healthy, peaceful, cultured, unprecedented prosperity for their time. All defeated when the hordes of Genghis Kahn rode by, many utterly destroyed

The Empire of Mali. The Kingdom of Lithuania. Macedon. Tyre. Babylon. Carthage. Samarkand. Assyria. All once mighty, all gone, perhaps a place-name remains, if that

[rendall]

>> The Kingdom of Lithuania

For anyone still paying attention, I should have written "The Grand Duchy of Lithuania", which was a powerful state for hundreds of years in the Middle Ages

The Kingdom of Lithuania, while also powerful, lasted about 2 years

[InitialLastName]

> The Empire of Mali. The Kingdom of Lithuania. Macedon. Tyre. Babylon. Carthage. Samarkand. Assyria. All once mighty, all gone, perhaps a place-name remains, if that

Aside from perhaps Macedon and Carthage (indirectly via Rome) most of those don't even warrant a mention in the high school history curriculum (in the US, at least).

[rmah]

I've seen the high school world history books of my nieces and nephews and all of those (except maybe lithuania), were at least mentioned in US schools. Other civilizations ranging from the maya to the khmer were also included. By necessity, none of them are examined in depth but they all got at least a few pages.

The simple fact is that pre-industrial history has had literally thousands of different thriving civilizations around the world. It's simply not possible to even briefly cover anything but a fraction of the more "important" in a non-university setting.

[nytgop77]

history starts at 1700 when columbus discovered indians?

[InitialLastName]

Not far off. IIRC, my freshman year history course (at a high-achieving school, no less) covered world history from the agricultural revolution until 1500 CE. That's ~14000 years (call it 4000 of knowable history). There's not a lot of time for anything other than "Don't forget, there were lots of other extraordinarily successful civilizations we know about that were less influential on our intellectual forebears".

[mensetmanusman]

Peace from violence between sons sent off to die for no reason. Sure.

Peace from violent thoughts leading to depression and anxiety which are at all time highs, no.

[inglor_cz]

Not to be negative, but 1871-1914 was fairly peaceful in Europe and North America as well.

There were Balkan wars and there were Indian wars, but the vast majority of Western population never served in combat.

And people started thinking that this is how it is going to be forever.

[rocketmaster1]

That period only seems peaceful because the French had just been massively humiliated in the Franco-Prussian War [1] in 1870 and the powder keg had just been reset. The people of France were itching to go to war with Prussia/Germany to reclaim Alsace and Lorraine. Which created a massive arms race till WW1. Also, while Japan isn't in Europe, the Russo-Japanese war did happen in 1904 in that period resulting in a major loss of trust in the Russian monarchy and the subsequent 1905 Russian Revolution. The Europeans were still sending troops to aid in the subjugation of Africa (Boer wars, Anglo-Zulu wars etc) even then.

However, I do agree with you that people then thought that world peace was achieved. The 1910 book "The Great Illusion" [2] ironically argued European war was unlikely to start due to the great economic costs of destroying trade between nations. It got the consequences right at least.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion

[jcranmer]

> The people of France were itching to go to war with Prussia/Germany to reclaim Alsace and Lorraine. Which created a massive arms race till WW1.

Eh... not really. Anger at the loss of Alsace-Lorraine peaked in the immediate aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, when France couldn't do anything, but by the 1880s and 1890s, France had resigned itself to the loss. The massive divisions in French society under the Third Republic meant that it was in no position to do anything to reclaim it. A parallel might well be drawn to Finland's position today over Karelia: they'd certainly like it back, but they're not about to fight for it. It wasn't until World War I broke out that restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to French rule really became feasible, and hence it became a major war aim, but it wasn't a factor until after war had already broken out.

The arms race in question is the naval arms race between Britain and Germany, which itself subsided in 1912 because Germany couldn't afford to keep up.

[andrepd]

Less work is a good thing.

[stareatgoats]

Less mindless and debilitating work is a good thing, but to replace work that challenges human capabilities in all its aspects with leisure and enjoyment is probably not a good thing.

If for example reasoning was automated (we're not there yet, but it is on the horizon) then human capacity for nuance would likely diminish further, to the extent where concepts and ideas might only placed in a 'good' or 'bad' category without capacity for further analysis ...

[Tokelin]

I would like to reply to just the first sentence of your post. While I agree that just being leisurely and seeking enjoyment rarely leads to long lasting meaningful experiences, I do not believe we humans are striving to replace all work with those activities. There are many examples of people who have the possibility to do nothing but enjoy themselves and they still push their capabilities and try to find new challenges. Leisure is nice, but only leisure gets boring.

[TeMPOraL]

The work is the problem, or should I say, jobs - not the activities. The problem is with people being forced to spend most of their lives fighting for survival. In the past it was toiling in the fields 3/4 of the year to have anything to eat. Today it's toiling in factories and offices to have money to pay for the house, food and medical care. The less time is spent on that, for the same level of quality-of-life, the better.

[lopmotr]

While I agree in principle, I don't think many humans are capable of what you want. Without a desperate need to work, most people don't seem to bother doing much even it that would give them great satisfaction. Just look at almost every unemployed person who has a place to live and food to eat but nothing to do all day. Why aren't they spending their plentiful time on high quality of life activities?

This might be hard to imagine if you're well educated, already working, and in your 20's and the world seems full of excitement and opportunity but you're held back by the annoying need to pay your bills. If you didn't have to work, you might start a business or spend all day on your side project or whatever. But most people aren't in that position. Often, their only sense of fulfillment comes from their work no matter how unpleasant it is, and they only work because they have to to survive.

[usgroup]

Certainly nothing a bit of extra theology and geometry won’t fix.