It has been about 10-20,000 years that we as a species have been farming, yet we still haven't full evolved to take this into consideration. For instance, we still crave sugar like we have always done, mostly to our detriment as a society. We evolve much more slowly physically and mentally, than we would like to believe we do, but we have also developed a culture that is rapidly changing.
For instance, we are now talking about "digital natives" of the young - people who have grown up with a screen in their hands since they were born. And, because they have grown up like this, we make it seem like they are innately skilled at handling the detrimental sides of it, as if they have evolved to automatically deal with the shift. It is nonsense. Cultural change might happen rapidly, but this doesn't mean that the generations that have been born steeped in a particular form are better suited to deal than the generation preceding them.
Using the farming change in culture as a reference, it was the first time we were able to not have to worry about where our next meal was coming from and, it affected other parts of our culture. Rather than having to shift with the seasons and animal migrations, we could stay in one location and survive, even thrive. Because of this change in culture, we have been able to radically populate at a speed that would be impossible for nomadic tribes.
But, this has brought in more changes also, because we were able to store food, specialize our efforts and then trade for other specializations. It brought in new innovations in tooling, but also new jobs to manage resources in ways that we didn't have earlier. And, as we progressed, we also faced health challenges that we didn't earlier, and as a result, we innovated medicine, hygiene and other factors.
It wasn't until relatively recently that the childhood mortality plummeted from 50% of children dying to the current 96% surviving. And in places like Finland, it is 99.7% surviving. Italian renaissance artists (privileged) lived on average to about 62 years of age. But the actual average, was about 50. Even in 1901, the average life expectancy was only 62.
Have you ever thought how this affects us?
Just think, there was essentially no elderly diseases, almost zero Alzheimer's or dementia. Even if they could do the surgery, no one needed a hip replacement. But, have we evolved to factor in other considerations?
Last night with my friend we were talking about retirement plans and I brought this up. We aren't designed to consider the future, because through nearly the entirety of our evolution, we didn't have to think very much past our next meal. And until the last couple hundred years, we didn't have to think about what we would do when we retired, when we couldn't work any more - because we were physically and mentally capable. We didn't retire, we died working.
But, once we were able to store value and innovate our health, we started to live past our useful use-by date and had to start considering what we are going to do. Most of our approach relied on family connections to care for us, but at least in the western world, this has shifted. But, whatever approach we take, we have to think about it decades before we need it, and we haven't evolved to do this.
Look at how most people live, knowing that they have to prepare for their non-working future, but struggling to do so. Most of us live largely hand to mouth, spending what we get, whether we get paid weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. We can look and prepare far enough into the future to buy groceries and pay our rent, but most struggle to save for anything that might be "just" a year away, like a holiday. So we go into debt instead. Even though we have been storing value for 20,000 years, we haven't mentally or emotionally evolved innate strategies to put this into consideration for our own future wellbeing.
For example, if a person earns 1000 and is meant to save 10%, how easy is it? The challenge is that the other 900 goes on immediate needs, food and rent, but that last 100, the much smaller portion, isn't going to make an impact on wellbeing for decades. This makes it nearly impossible for most of us to consistently save (or invest) because it just isn't in our nature to look that long. So, governments dictate retirement plans, even though they are inefficient and less impactful than other methods.
Some people try to get around our inability to prepare long by making that 10% (or whatever they choose) an automatic payment, so then it becomes like rent, something immediate. Others handle it like their groceries, making investing a process, a consumable activity. But, most of us, fail to do anything and as a result, most of us struggle in the future, never fully preparing for living past our value-adding use-by.
We haven't evolved fast enough to live as long as do. We haven't evolved for our bodies to naturally handle food availability. And we definitely haven't evolved fast enough to mitigate the risks of digital culture, where we are disconnected from each other, no longer having children to care for us in the future, or building the relationships that matter, that make us feel important, to bring purpose and like life is worth living. We see the affects of our inability to evolve to the changing conditions daily, yet we aren't evolved enough to adjust our behaviors for what we experience.
The fact is, most of us are living longer, but we aren't necessarily living a better life, because we haven't been able to shift for the changes in our culture and personal habits. We keep trying to "get back" to different times and "live in the moment" without considering that the culture we live in daily, has shifted and that kind of behavior is no longer suitable for the lifestyles we have, nor the length of time we will live. It might lead to momentary wellbeing, but leave us stranded for what might be the majority of our lives.
It is no wonder so many people are struggling in this life, depressed, lonely, in debt, unhappy with their conditions, disconnected, listless, disinterested, unmotivated and purposeless - because we are acting in ways that are not suited to the culture we have created, because we haven't evolved to do so. Maybe in another 10 or 20 thousand years we might have started to catch today, but we are unlikely to make it. Because, what we are doing to the environment is likely to make the conditions unsurvivable, but because it takes long-term investment to affect, we aren't likely to do enough to repair or prepare for the outcomes.
We just don't think long enough. But perhaps, it is because we just can't.
No matter how long we live.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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In the West we are approaching some asymptotes- fertility rate is below replacement level in the United States, adolescents are displaying increasing rates of disease connected with sedentary behavior, young adults appear to have greater rates of mental illness and depression, and older adults are living longer with more illness.
Under current models who will do the hard things and care for these younger generations when they themselves begin to age?
It may be that automation, Robotics, and AI will create another significant paradigm shift like agriculture but what does mankind look like on the other side of that? What will our purpose be other than passive consumption?
The Amish and Mennonites perhaps have already figured it out embracing physical labor, rigorous traditions, and large families and communities.
On a personal level I feel happier and a higher level of relaxed focus when I spend several hours working in my gardens.
I suspect nobody. I think it becomes very "soylent green" in approach.
These are the questions I have. Right now, we are consumer cows that are no longer interested in building strong relationships - so what do we turn to? Even if we become creators, what are we creating? When most songs in history are about love and loss of love, what happens when we are never in love?
Perhaps, but does this scale for 8B people?
I've always kind of like the jar method or the envelope method where you take that $100 or whatever and you split it up into different pots. It's just a good physical way of reminding yourself where your money is going. I wish that banks would allow you to do that as well. For instance, set up sub accounts inside your main savings account. Then you could say, this is for our trip and it gets $10 per month and everything else goes in the main account. Something like that anyway.
I agree. I don't understand why it isn't possible to have "sift accounts" under the main that are self-managed.
That would be so cool. I mean technically you could do it on paper just as long as you track it, but there is something about physically (or virtually online) moving the money that makes it more real to me. It's like a mental trigger or something.
People have been farming for 12,000 years and it was only with the advent of machines that we reached a new level. Yesterday I listened to the audiobook “Hunger” by the Norwegian writer (Nobel Prize winner) Knut Hamsun. And I realized that humanity has come a long way since the 1890s. There are fewer and fewer starving people on the planet. A piece of bread is now much more affordable than 200 years ago.
It depends on what you consider farming. Supposedly, the earliest forms are 20K, but it was rudimentary. But, it doesn't really matter on the timeline anyway :)
Percentage wise perhaps! Would be interesting to see it adjusted for population growth. My question always is however, is surviving living?
It is very sad that when you open social networks, you'd realize that so many people are unhappy
Do many people are depressed and I wonder why it happens that way
Why are we sad? What's the problem
I keep asking but realized that there is no one answer to it
There are plenty of answers, depending on how you want to evaluate it. However, it is an amalgamation of many reasons. I believe at the individual level, people would be happier if they had stronger relationships.
I believe that this digital world is full of so much information that it saturates us, we are not prepared to filter so much information and above all to differentiate truth from lies. The purpose of life is that we learn spiritually and that we open our eyes to the real world, and that we find the true meaning of life in the good moments and in the bad moments.
No we are not, which is the trick of the trade. inundate people, flood their minds and bodies, so their attention is spent consuming, rather than creating.
Mans classical problem is thinking big and aiming amiss. Totally focussing on externalities and the expense of self.
Then spending all he has made and archived to manage the damage. Brought on self due to reckless behaviors and interests.
I bet prevention is better than cure is still a mystery for mankind.
Yet, we keep smoking and drinking and eating what is bad for us, expecting a doctor to fix the damage we have done.
Life goes much faster now. Cycles are shorter, ppl do not last 30 years in the same company anymore. Humans hate change in general, and change is what happens to our life everyday so if you do not step back every once in a while to take the big picture and decide with perspective (and have the capacity to do so), you just live the present.
I feel like the "speed of life" is an excuse of sorts, where we feel that we are so busy, that we can't take a step back. But it is a catch-22 isn't it? Because we don't take a step back, we end up not having the right tools to deal with the speed of life.
Some were saying that depression, loneliness, and having anxiety attacks were first world sickness. There was some truth to it, because initially, those were only seen in well off countries. But I think it also has something to do with the environment. People in the first world countries tend to have easier lives compared to those in third world countries. They have better healthcare, government support, facilities, etc. Those in third world countries are having too much trouble trying to survive to have other thoughts like existential crisis, or mid life crisis. They are thinking of how to get food on the table for their next meal.
But lately, even third world countries are experiencing these mental problems. They still have survivability issues so not much has changed there. I think it is the slow creeping dread that has blanketed the world. The pandemic took a lot of people from us. People lost their jobs, businesses, and it is now more difficult to survive than before. And then we see the rich becoming much richer, and big corporations with record breaking profits, and yet tech corporations are having mass layoffs.
I think it will only get better once the rich realizes that this downward spiral can't continue forever. Something's got to change and improve. With AI, more people are going to lose jobs, and more people will suffer. The way people work and earn money should also evolve.
I agree with how you describe it in the first paragraph. Depression is a complaint of privilege. But like you said, it is changing.
The pandemic was just a catalyst that sped up the process by a few years. I think that for the most part, we were well on the way already. It was like a nail in the coffin for many.
They realized long ago - they know that As long as they can survive, it is fine.
So true. This is one of the reasons I feel pandemic has saved many lives from dying miserably. They kind of reduced the probability of more suffering as the population growth could destroy more dreams and bring depression and diabetes as a result. I feel sometimes some bad things solve more social themes.
Yet, in total, not many people actually died directly from covid, did they? The vast majority who died, were close to death already. Yet, the amount of people who are affected for decades to come, are relatively healthy so will have to face the fallout.
I can say that as the technology evolves, we retrogress in familial and social fields.
I don't feel we are better off for moving away from each other. I think it is leading to many more problems that will increase the disconnection.
No one bears another.
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It's not a surprise that people aren't that happy. I find that most of us just rely on the technology given to us and we don't really strive for much outside of that. I don't really go out that much and I don't like going out to social interactions much because I feel that the computer has everything I need with the internet. It makes me wonder if VR will change this but I guess we might be interacting with machines instead though because we can't tell what is a person or a bot.
I liked this post so I shared it with my partner who likes to listen to the AI reader. I totally agree that just because Gen Z has grown up with technology all their lives doesn't mean that they know how to deal with the negatives it leaves in its wake. In fact, I think they are likely more blind/unaware of it until it is too late.
I never considered much how we as humans struggle to consider the future. I know I do. I've always been focused on the present and having as much fun as I can, while I can. I am definitely giving up some future security buy hoarding my enjoyment up front!