The worst mistake in human history was me reading this terrible article. The author doesn't think hierarchical societies are possible in hunter/gatherer societies?
"Hunter-gatherers practiced the most successful and longest-lasting life style in human history."
And since then, all we've managed to do is construct the entirety of human knowledge. Atoms, DNA, trips to space.. I mean I'm sitting in air-conditioning write this over the Internet. On a mid-tier laptop that exceeds every scientific capability that hunter gatherer societies ever had.
But, the author makes a fair point that
"Gorillas have had ample free time to build their own Parthenon, had they wanted to."
And yes, hunter gathers did make scrimshaw and paint ochre on rocks.
This article is like a hookworm in my brain. I wish I could un-read it. So awful in so many ways.
Come now, you can provide a better analysis than this.
>And since then, all we've managed to do is construct the entirety of human knowledge. Atoms, DNA, trips to space..
What does that really do for any individual person. Does simply knowing about atoms, DNA, space make your average happiness strictly greater than that of a hunter-gatherer? Of course not. Unless you can show that technology strictly makes the average happiness for humans greater, it is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
What your post comes down to is: "I have all this cool stuff, so clearly we're better off now". How self-centered of you.
Why would I need to provide a better analysis than this? The benefits of scientific advancement to the individual are so numerous and ubiquitous that only an idiot would dismiss them.
The article was essentially asking is quality of life after agriculture better than that of hunter-gatherers. Scientific advancements themselves aren't an answer to that question. At the end of the day, the same things that mattered then matter now: health, companionship, relationships, social status. Technology does not across the board enhance these things (and in many ways it reduces the baseline of these properties). So if you want to make an argument that technology makes us strictly happier than our ancestors you're going to have to provide some kind of reasoning. Isn't that what's expected around here?
