
Anthropology professor teaching college students to live like early humans - lifeisstillgood
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/professor-caveman/517815/?single_page=true
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RubenSandwich
If you want to see some of these ancient human skills in action I suggest
watching the Youtuber Primitive Technology:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA).

Also, make sure to read his descriptions where he talks in more detail about
these ancient techniques in tool building.

~~~
dEnigma
And you can activate subtitles, where he explains a lot of the things he's
doing while he is doing them. I have to admit that I only recently found out
about this, even though I have been watching Primitive Technology for a long
time.

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DennisP
I used to feel that I was missing something vital by not knowing how to make
fire from nothing but natural materials, or make stone tools. Things my
ancestors did for a million years. I finally took some primitive survival
courses, and ended up feeling like a more complete human being.

I also, like the student quoted at the end, gained a huge respect for the
skills of stone-age hunter-gatherers.

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fuzzfactor
While we're on the subject of survival activities, another worthwhile approach
might be to focus effort on more thorough adaptation to the conditions at hand
in ways that more primitive cultures had no other choice but to thrive under.

Hey how about living and working without air conditioning near the gulf coast
of Texas or someplace like that, rather than expending such significant energy
maintaining quite small enclosures in a state of foreign climate simulation?

Sessions of virtually zero energy consumption for other reasons can be
rewarding too if you wanted to go a step further.

A bit of that and you might be better prepared for some of the more realistic
threats such as hurricanes, floods, power interruption, or whatever there is
in the local environment that needs to be adapted to.

It's not that difficult especially when you realize locals lived better
adapted for centuries, but people are about as likely to practice applicable
survival skills as they are to be taking Neanderthal lessons.

If it gets real bad I expect we'll go downright medieval long before we reach
full cave man.

~~~
emodendroket
People in the past didn't work on regimented schedules or expect this or that
to be open at regular hours. What you're proposing is essentially undoing the
industrial revolution.

~~~
fuzzfactor
No, no, no, that was one of my favorite revolutions, I'm so industrial it
scares people.

Still I do remember a slower time when 7-11 was the only thing open on Sunday
or outside of 9-5 otherwise, naturally it was open from 7am to 11pm.

What I mean is when you see the way that thousands of people across multiple
disasters react to complete loss of power for an uncertain period, it depends
strongly on the confidence in abilities to survive without very much beyond
the bare necessities. Probably just as much as the actual abilities.

To me this makes post-industrial survival exercises as worthwhile as some of
the paleo enthusiasts have reported here about their experiences already.

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jeffdavis
A lot of technological innovation does not necessarily make individual lives
better, but it does allow more people to live.

~~~
dredmorbius
Is that, of itself, a good thing, or not?

Is the "of itself" qualification, of itself, a reasonable one?

~~~
tikhonj
Hah, I just read an article from the SEP related to that: "The Repugnant
Conclusion"[1]. I think it was actually on the front page of HN a few days
ago.

In essence, it's a tricky ethical question: is having more people with a lower
quality of life preferable to fewer people with a higher quality of life? Any
immediately intuitive answer to that question leads to some highly unintuitive
conclusions.

[1]: [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-
conclusion/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/)

~~~
dredmorbius
Related, the Malthusian trap, and the paradox of good and bad fortune (in a
system which can respond through population growth and decline, and per-capita
wealth and decline). As Gregory Clark puts it in _A Farewell to Alms_ : what's
virtue is vice, and vice virtue.

That is: increasing prosperity leads to larger populations and less to go
around (food, resources, etc.). Calamities such as famine, plague, wars, etc.,
reduce populations and spawn an increase in per-capita wealth.

This is generally, though not universally, seen to apply to pre-industrial
civilisations only.

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jeffdavis
I've often suspected that early people ate a lot of bugs, and we don't know
because it doesn't leave a lot of evidence.

Without domestication or preservation/storage, hunting and foraging may take a
while and be unreliable.

~~~
emodendroket
That is kind of contradicted by the guy in the article, who claims hunter-
gatherers kind of had things figured out and were able to get stuff at a
steady pace. Although if that's true you have to wonder why most decided to
become farmers instead.

~~~
kobeya
Agriculture was probably not done by choice. It is incredibly time intensive,
and early farming societies had severe problems of malnutrition. BUT it led to
population explosions, and was good for the elites, and agricultural societies
displaced hunter-gatherers as a result. I wouldn't say "most decided" to
become farmers though. More like "a few were forced to become farmers, and
their descendants out-numbered and out-competed those who did not adapt."

~~~
ideasarefun
I don't know whether this is a great source on this topic, but Jared Diamond
wrote an interesting article which expands on what you pointed out. "The Worst
Mistake in the History of the Human Race"
[http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-
in...](http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-
history-of-the-human-race)

~~~
emodendroket
Say what you will about modern life but I am in no hurry to go back to hunting
wild animals and foraging. There are factors to consider besides how healthy
the average person is (surely a skewed measure given the unlikelihood of your
surviving if you are sickly or weak).

That piece also seems to be somewhat unspecific on what exactly "limiting the
population" entails; after all, infanticide, a lack of medical care of any
kind, and outright murder are no less available to a farming society, if you
really are arguing for such a solution to inequality.

~~~
db48x
Yea, let's bring back that good old-time 15% homicide rate. That'll keep
everyone equal.

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emodendroket
Interesting, for sure, but I don't have any desire to follow in the man's
footsteps.

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partycoder
An aspect that is usually overlooked in history is waste management. In many
cases trash was just burned/incinerated until very recently (18th century).

~~~
baobrain
Even now in smaller Chinese towns/villages it is largely burned. In large
cities the practice is banned b/c pollution though.

~~~
dredmorbius
US military bases as well, which have "burn barrels", and seem to have
resulting health impacts as a consequence.

[https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/burnpits/index.asp](https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/burnpits/index.asp)

[https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/02/12/16751/us-
troops-b...](https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/02/12/16751/us-troops-
burned-waste-hazardous-open-pits-while-safer-incinerators-sat-idle)

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amelius
I prefer Bear Grylls.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37wZ2oIzuR4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37wZ2oIzuR4)

