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430 points mhb | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.326s | source
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PeterHolzwarth ◴[] No.46179223[source]
"A woman's work is never done."

In our agrarian past, the cultural division of labor at the time said that men worked the field, women ran the home. And that later job was brutal, never-ending, and consumed all waking hours until the day she died.

Men broke their backs in the field, women consumed their lives doing the ceaseless work that never ended, every waking moment. (And occasionally helped out in the field, too).

Running a family was a brutal two-person job -- and the kids had to dive in to help out the second they could lift something heavier than a couple pounds.

We forget so easily that for the entire history of our species - up until just recently - simply staying alive and somewhat warm and minimally fed was a hundred-hour-a-week job for mom and dad.

There are important downsides, but the Green Revolution - and dare I say it, the industrial revolution - was truly transformative for our species.

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nowittyusername ◴[] No.46179422[source]
When humans domesticated animals and started tending to the fields is when IMO it all went down hill. That change brought in modern civilization with all its advantages but moreeso its disadvantages and maladaptive behaviors of the human mind. We shoulda stayed hunter gatherers, I am almost certain we would have been happier.
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PeterHolzwarth ◴[] No.46179444[source]
You first.

And no cheating by bringing antibiotics with you.

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palmotea ◴[] No.46180009[source]
> You first.

He wasn't talking about going back, he was talking about staying.

> And no cheating by bringing antibiotics with you.

I don't recall where I read this, but (probably hundreds of years ago) some explorer in Africa was on a boat with some hunter-gatherers. A bloated, rotting dead rat floated by, they picked it up, said "yum" and dug in. They didn't get sick. I've also read some speculation that (initially) fire wasn't needed so much for cooking meat, because hunter-gatherers can (and did) accomplish the same effect by letting meat rot a little. Fire was more useful for vegetables.

So actual hunter gatherers probably had less need for antibiotics than a modern person thrust into a similar situation.

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1. tumult ◴[] No.46180062[source]
That's from Arnold Henry Savage Landor and I suspect it was fabricated or exaggerated, like many Victorian era British tales of savages abroad.