On Feb 5, 2014 3:09 AM, "Charles Haynes" <charles.hay...@gmail.com> wrote: > > "A look at population numbers would say yes. But then quality of life > indicators - and not just material quality, but indicators that take > into account mental illness, loneliness, depression and so on give a > very mixed reading." > > By most metrics, hunter-gatherers are the happiest. > > So I blame farmers for all the troubles of the world.
I know of a few anthropology professors who say the same. My speculation is that's not true. If they were truly happy they would not have sought to mix up their lot with farming. It was all good to be a h&g if you were fit and young. Too bad if you broke your leg or worse. It had no security for the weak. Besides, I think all culture - viz music, cave paintings, religion initially developed as contributions by the physically weaker lot to the welfare of the tribe. If they couldn't use their muscles they used their brain, ergo farming. Now while this is all interesting speculation, it's also at some level all meaningless rubbish. The truth is we are here, and we are unhappy. Chasing more money, power and material isn't going to fix it. So humanity is very much in need of a deep look inside their inner self to see what's missing. This can only be done by most in a culture that promotes looking deeply inside. Not in a culture that lives on entertainment and distraction. If you believed the sci-fi of the past, by 2014 we should have had access to endless idle time for contemplation with machines doing all the work. It could have been true, but we were too greedy. We indulge in sense pleasures way more than fifty or hundred years ago. We aren't all wearing the same drab uniform or toga like in the sci-fi novels, we want fashion. We want entertainment. We want huge mansions and fancy cars. This then is why we don't have the endless leisure to look deep inside. We keep shifting the goal posts. Most educated people today earn enough by 35 to live simple but comfortable rural lives for the rest of their lives. Not a lifestyle unlike what their ancestors lived three generations ago. I think people should grow the habit of taking years off from professions to explore their inner selves. Most can afford it. So simple, yet not so easy.
