Are humans getting more pathetic in the western world?

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Yeah I agree. The elite only keep us if they need us. Soon they won't, and I think this recession will cause them to go elsewhere (Brazil and China) where they can more easily exploit and keep themselves comfortable.

Maybe, maybe not. Definately when people intentionally live tough and live in parallel to people living soft they look down on the soft life as decadent and the people as weak. Spartans thought it about Athenians. Survivalist Americans think it about 9-5 suburban Americans. But that happens when the two groups are living in parallel and the ones who live tough have made a conscious choice to do so in order to preserve toughness.

But when people have had the tough life imposed on them by circumstance and it hurts, they tend to be more welcome to the possibility of an easier life. Rappers don't stay in the Section 8 housing if they make it big. People in 3rd world countries who see job opposrtunities in 1st world countries will move if they can.

In the case of the time travelling Paleo man, there is no reference point for all this luxury. It wouldn't have the giant social context that it does for somebody like the American Survivalist. You percieve the social context because you grew up surrounded by it. Everybody on this planet (except for that rare hunter-gatherer tribe Tally Man spoke of who somehow managed to get Nike hats anyway) grew up affected by this context and absorbing it. But the timer travelling Paleo man has none of that background. Once he gets past the technology (and like ruyven I don't think he ever would), there is no reason for him to equate large quantities of food or central heating with "gone soft". In his world prior to time travel, food and heat (fire) were something you worked hard to get and a cause for celebration when you were succesful. He wouldn't have a concept of "gone soft" because it wasn't possible in his time. All he would see would be the jubilant bounty.

You see the drawbacks, you see the "gone soft" aspect because you grew up surrounded by this. But somebody who had no concept of "gone soft" because such a thing wasn't physically possible in his time would have no such concept.

In a war we would beat the primitives inside of a week. If our civilization collapses most of us would die but the survivors would be as tough as the ancients. The battle for survival will determine who is fit.

ruveyn

I think the paleo time traveler would compare us to himself, that would be his reference point. I take what you mean in your post, and that he may be overwhelmed by the ease we can generate heat and produce food, but he will still have his instinct of working hard to get what he needs, rather than doing very little to get the things he only wants rather than needs (which is the way most of us in the west live).

The made it big rappers may move to nicer neighborhoods but that won't mean they have more respect for their new neighbors than they did for the old ones.

I think the time traveling paleo man will see a people who have lost their ability to survive in what he will see as the real world. The same way big time rappers will know their new neighbors would never survive in their old neighborhoods.

With our modern technology we would beat them within seconds. But without it they would beat us.

That's it. And even assuming the 'welfare state' is gradually withdrawn (as I believe it must be, for the solvency and sanity of us all), the lack of a direct link between the actions involved in what passes for work these days -along with the intangibility of most of those actions (for example a salesman who wakes up and remains depressed will typically earn less £/$)- leaves everyone prone to appearing unable to do valuable work.

Let's not forget that work means different things to different people. For example, what a typical 'aspie' feels to be hard work (networking for example) can be, as we say in England, a piece of pi%$ for NTs with the right upbringing, despite what I said earlier about superhuman accomplishments {It's more asif the work has already done within the fabric of such ppl's being, and merely needs to be constantly re-activated.} Conversely, the same aspie is unlikely to feel a sense of work while 'pursuing his special interests' - As far as I'm concerned, I'm not working at this exact moment, though many would view what I'm doing as essay-writing, inclusive of all that term's connotations.

Let's also acknowledge the level of toughness -or atleast resilience- that it takes to be an adult aspie. It may not be toughness in the traditional sense if (like me) we feel a 'normal' range of emotions and remain unable to screen them out, but if we feel them and deal with them well enough to fight (i.e work) another day by whatever means, that has to make one inwardly hard in some sense.

Last edited by undefineable on 28 Sep 2012, 9:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

you are actually talking as if hunter gatherers were a single concept and people, which of course is just as ridicoulous as it is to say that they would inherently see us as anything.

we have no idea how their conceptual knowledge was at that time and it might very well stop at food, shelter, heat.

There's a difference between speculation (as to a likely scenario) and statements of supposed fact; this doesn't always transmit well in written words.

Our superiority over the ancients is exactly the technology we possess and they do not. The brain is mightier than the club.

ruveyn

what would this theoretical catalcysm where technology doesnt work even be?

anything that wouldnt instantly kill everything on the planet is temporary, even the worst solar storm wont kill the best shielded systems.

Civilizations can decompose over extended periods of time. The collapse of the Roman Empire for example, was not immediate. It took centuries. Likewise the collapse of ancient Athenian culture was gradual and there was a significant loss of philosophical and scientific knowledge in Europe as a result. Some of it was restored because some Greek work was retained in the Muslim principalities and later re-exported to Europe.

That is why we have about 20 percent of what Aristotle wrote.

ruveyn

true but then we arent really talking about a sudden change where our existing condition has much bearing on who survies, it will be those who adapt that do.

we are not even talking about a situation where all technology disapears since that which is usefull and usable will be used thus ensuring its own "survival", sort of like evolution in itself.

if we are talking in the sense of preventing it happening then we should be discussing a way to do that and not why and if the current lot is pathetic(the very statement seems ridicoulous to em since pathetic is one of the most subjkective words of all and wuite without context)

There is enough evidence to show that humanity living up to 100,000 years ago had just as much conceptual thought as we do today. The image that they were unthinking people is very dated. The "great leap forward" has been challenged by discoveries of earlier human sites.

The term "paleo time traveler" was started by another poster, I used it in reply to them. But my OP is asking those who wish to take part to contemplate how earlier living humans would regard us now in the west. I am not necessarily talking of hunter gatherers.

they were more advanced than simply food and shelter granted, but they were more removed from our mindset than that one,
this has nothing to do with any actual capacity of conceptual thinking but the total cultural and conceptual value of their society as a whole and where that then puts their conceptual horizon.

they might easily contemplate space travel if explained as a bird flying to the stars but they wouldnt actually understand what that entails in the real world.

but again the whole concept here is that they would actually look down on anyone from the west today, something i find ridicoulous to be honest, far more likely that they would be overwhelmed and that they couldnt move past that, as ruveyn already argued.

I fully believe that people 100,000 years ago had as much conceptual thought as we do. They were fully modern humans. But conceptual thought and conceptual knowledge are two different things. What you hold in your head as concepts are framed by your experience. This is why I don't think the paleo people would have the concept of "gone soft". Since they grew up in a world where going soft wasn't physically possible, they wouldn't necessarily recognize it when they see it. We have all sorts of concepts in our heads which are cultural (and not neurologically inevitable) but are still so pervasive that we can't think outside them. I have read that thinking of time as linear is an example. I can't conceive of time as being anything but linear. Yet I have read that there have been cultures where it is thought of as circular. If I was plunked down in some parallel universe where time was not linear, I doubt I could see beyond my conviction that it is because that is how experience has shaped my brain.


If you are not talking of hunter-gatherers, you are talking of post-agricultural people. I think they would be as thrilled as the hunter-gatherers to see all the food. Unlike the hunter-gatherers, they would have a concept of agriculture and would recognize our endless fields of grain for exactly what they are....endless fields of domesticated grain. Just like their own 3,000 B.C.E. fields of grain but so much bigger and harvested with...ohmigod what are those gigantic carts with no oxen drawing them?!?! The neolithic farmers would know agriculture when they saw it (unlike the hunter-gatherers who could walk right up to a filed of wheat and think it a bizarre but natural configuration) but I think they would be too thrilled by the bounty to have "these people are soft" thoughts.

They would see western obesity but not necessarily percieve it in the negative way we do. After all, back in that day, obesity was only a possibility for royalty. Cultural signifiers change over time. We associate obesity with poverty (see the "why are poor people fat?" thread in the health subforum) but it used to be associated with wealth. That's another example of what I mean by experience framing concepts. Once you have it ingrained in you to see something a certain way, it's hard if not impossible to reframe it to something entirely different.

What about Spartans? They really did have a culture set up where they prized living tough and consciously differentiated themselves from those who didn't (the Athenians). So I think that once they got past the technological differences, they would perceive many westerners (except professional athletes and other intentionally tough people) as soft. But they already would come into our time with a concept of "gone soft" and so they would slot people into that category when they encountered them.

My point is, I think people need to have grown up with the concept of "soft people in a decadent society" in order to concieve of those they meet that way. We are so immersed in that concept that it's easy and natural to think that way. But people who aren't probably wouldn't.

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