do you mean fruits of Industrial Revolution?
this is not political post btw
you simply say that before IR people had to be more self reliant? at least I think so.
do you mean fruits of Industrial Revolution?
Well this makes me feel old. A generation is about 25-35 years, so four generations would be 100-140 years. This would work out to be 1880-1920. The industrial revolution began later in the USA relative to Europe or especially Great Britain. 1880 would be the approximate start point in the USA.Optimal_Solution wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 1:59 am@Stahlmann
4 generations brings us back to about WWII. The industrial revolution was long before WWII.
I think you have it backwards. Hunting and/or gathering while simultaneously being on the lookout for predatory or poisonous species and other tribes of humans is almost by definition the opposite of routine monotony. In fact, almost every activity we engage in to entertain ourselves (other than variations on the themes of sex and gossip) when not immersed in dull routine is meant to mimic these behaviors in order to get the same squirt of intermittent reward happy brain juice reinforcement.Campitor wrote:But you also need to bring a little perspective into your world view in regards to evolutionary behavioral psychology. For most of human existence, people lived pretty regular lives: sleep, eat, sex, hunt, avoid death - rinse and repeat. What type of evolutionary success would there be without those humans who were capable of enduring a cycle of monotony? The success of our progenitors depended on the consistent execution of vital behaviors and routines.
Hunting in prehistoric times, like anything else, was subject to hedonic adaption. I imagine it was 99% boredom and 1% heart pounding action. There's a reason why humans are among the mammalian elites of long distance running - our prey was faster but we had more endurance - we had the non-stop task of running and running and running to get some meat. I imagine this became a teeth grinding exercise in frustration, especially when most species are migratory and constantly being pushed on by the other super predators we had to compete with.7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 6:48 amI think you have it backwards. Hunting and/or gathering while simultaneously being on the lookout for predatory or poisonous species and other tribes of humans is almost by definition the opposite of routine monotony. In fact, almost every activity we engage in to entertain ourselves (other than variations on the themes of sex and gossip) when not immersed in dull routine is meant to mimic these behaviors in order to get the same squirt of intermittent reward happy brain juice reinforcement.
Either conditions would have made humans super adaptable to the 9 to 5 grind. Fighting off Mongolian hordes at the great wall, sitting in front of the cave while praying to the great animal spirits and hoping you survive winter or famine, or sitting in an office - which one would be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy to humans? How would the former help us endure the latter?
Boredom counteracts repetition, and it appears to be non-uniformly distributed (power law?). Some people want to do what everyone else is not. Replace "humans" with "enough humans", then we can agree that usually a enough humans are plugged into the matrix [of era X] to keep it running.
In ancient history, when day to day survival depended on executing a particular pattern consistently (hunting, forced migration to follow herd animals and plants in bloom, etc) boredom would be irrelevant and pattern execution prioritized as an essential survival mechanism. Hunt, sex, move, repeat. Doesn't matter if you hated hunting, moving, or got bored having sex with the miniscule pool of partners available in ancient history - you stopped any of those behaviors and your gene pool died out.