[ellyagg]

Let me put it another way:

1. Benjamin Franklin wrote that when colonial era children were taken by Indian tribes and were later found again, they usually didn't want to come back. Their lives were too easy and carefree now.

2. Egyptian society didn't change for thousands of years. The weather was mild and the Nile would flood every year, providing them plenty of easy food. There was no need to strive for anything.

If happiness is the most important virtue to optimize in society, then I'm forced to believe that pre-colonial American Indian society and ancient Egyptian society were far better than modern societies. But I don't believe that.

Believing in happiness as supreme is a first principle. You can't prove it, you have to accept it as a given and the rest of your philosophy descends from that. Personally, I don't accept this assumption. I think happiness is important, but I think other things like beauty and truth are just as important.

[apsec112]

Egyptians and Native Americans certainly had happy times, but I don't think anyone then or now would trade that life for ours. If you lived more than a few hundred years ago, your life would be, in all probability:

- If you are male, your main job is to do hard, backbreaking labor, six or seven days out of the week, all day long, from sunup to sundown. If you're sick and can't work, you might be able to call on a relative or friend to help, otherwise you're screwed; there's no medical care, no life insurance, no disability insurance and no paid vacation. Every so often, someone will come along, hand you a sword, and tell you to go die for the Emperor; if you aren't killed in battle, it's quite likely that you'll die of disease or starvation hundreds of miles from home.

- If you are female, you basically have no rights; you are legally the property of your husband, who may have three or ten or twenty wives, and are required to do whatever he says. Your main job is to take care of your children; since there is no birth control, you will probably have ten or more, of whom a good percentage will die before their first birthday due to the sky-high infant mortality rates.

- And, of course, in any case, there is no electricity, no telephones, no televisions, no air conditioning, and no computers. Running water and books are, with a few exceptions like imperial Rome, luxuries available only to the rich and privileged. Depending on where/when you are, you might have decent sanitation, or your streets might be literally overflowing with sewage.

- If you want to live like this, for whatever reason, you still can. Go out into the middle of nowhere and purchase a plot of land (such land is generally worthless). Build a house on it, farm it for food and make all your tools yourself. Strangely enough, most people who talk about the virtues of the simple life never do this (although a few do, and I admire them for their non-hypocrisy).

[philwelch]

"Every so often, someone will come along, hand you a sword, and tell you to go die for the Emperor; if you aren't killed in battle, it's quite likely that you'll die of disease or starvation hundreds of miles from home."

But less likely than dying at home on the farm, at least in Rome.

"your husband, who may have three or ten or twenty wives"

In which case your husband is probably rich, powerful, and influential, and you share a measure of luxury. Most men in polygamous cultures only have/had one wife because they can only afford to support one wife.

"If you want to live like this, for whatever reason, you still can. Go out into the middle of nowhere and purchase a plot of land (such land is generally worthless). Build a house on it, farm it for food and make all your tools yourself."

There's a marked difference between living in a primitive community and living as a primitivist hermit.

[ellyagg]

No, I wasn't suggesting people from today would rather live in those societies. Part of peoples' sense of well-being comes from a comparison of their quality of life relative to what they believe is possible. American Indians did not know of modern health care, so they were not depressed they didn't have it.

As for your first two bullets, I specifically called out two societies. I don't believe, as you suggest, that all societies more than a few hundred years ago were organized the same. At any rate, I suppose it's possible that Franklin was wrong or American Indian children had it great, but their lives turned into a living hell upon maturity, but I'd have to see more evidence of that.

[HSO]

"The weather was mild and the Nile would flood every year, providing them plenty of easy food. There was no need to strive for anything."

I don't know anything about the Indian tribes but I know that slavery, serfdom, superstition, and tyranny were integral parts of ancient Egyptian society.

[zackattack]

Superstition is an integral part of American society.