[mandmandam]

Look man if you want to write a refutation of Marshall Sahlins' work, go ahead. I might even read it. But I'm not going to just take the word of a random commentator - are you even in anthropology?

Like, this is a broad consensus thing. There's not really much debate; ethnographic studies have backed it up. Where are you getting your info from?

[Avshalom]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society#Crit...

[mandmandam]

There seem to be two main points of critique there:

1. That there was war and war sucked; disease; and also infant mortality was high - therefore life sucked back then. None of that really factors in to the debate of how much free time people had; and those thing are all still very much with us (especially in America).

2. That food prep and gathering firewood takes time. Well, gathering firewood is also known as 'going for a walk in nature', and it's actually good for you. You can chat with your friends while you do it. It's not like your average job. It might not be technically 'idle', but it's a lot closer to 'idle' than flipping burgers in a sweatbox.

Same with food prep - picking through some dried beans, or stirring a pot every 30 mins and making sure it doesn't boil over, while you tell stories around the table just isn't comparable to working in an Amazon warehouse pissing into plastic bottles.

It's critique, and you can buy it if you want; but there's nothing there I would call substantial.

[Avshalom]

1. how many hours a day would you work if it meant not watching 6 of your 7 children die.

2. How'd you get those dried beans out of their pods? Where'd you get that pot? Where'd you get the water?

3. You didn't actually read the critique did you, you the wikipedia paragraph characterizing the critiques.

[mandmandam]

1. The choice isn't between having free time and having modern maternity care. And it's not what was being debated. Like, yeah, antibiotics and anesthetic are great to have, but working 40+ hours a week isn't a prerequisite for them to exist so I have no idea why you're bringing it up.

2. Sitting around the table, singing songs, telling stories, or quietly reflecting; all working at my own pace, in the comfort of a home that's been owned outright for generations, surrounded by organic soil free from pesticides and plastic.

3. I read your link, not every cited article. I've personally lived that way, and I know what I'm talking about. There's a big difference between shucking corn with your family or stacking logs, and shuffling numbers at a bullshit job which exists to make two or three incredibly rich people thousands of miles away a tiny bit wealthier. That said, if there's something more you'd like to bring to the discussion, bring it.

[kulahan]

You’re not really responding to what he’s saying. You’re sitting at the middle of the story, where the family is no longer surviving, but rather thriving. It’s probably possible to do this, but it’s a difficult stage to reach, and maintaining it requires a LOT of resources.

And anyways, if you’re a hunter-gatherer, you’re following your prey, not sitting around growing corn to be shucked while you sing songs or whatever.

By the way, my buddies and I tell each other stories at work all the time? You can do this at work too, you know. What you seem to be doing is imagining a world where you’ve outsourced all your labor to “it’ll get done” land, then combined hunter-gatherer lifestyles with agrarian lifestyles

[Avshalom]

Where'd the corn come from? hunter gatherers had teosint. How'd you turn a tree into logs? Where'd the house come from, where'd the table come from?

[fc417fc802]

You've taken the position that there's some issue with original affluent society but none of the points you're raising run counter either to it or to the adjacent observation that modern quality of life almost certainly doesn't require anywhere near the hours worked at present. Unless you consider economic inequality to be a prerequisite for it anyway.