
Are Hunter-Gatherers The Happiest Humans To Inhabit Earth? - joeyespo
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/10/01/551018759/are-hunter-gatherers-the-happiest-humans-to-inhabit-earth
======
ivanhoe
I somehow think this is an idea popular mainly among people who never had to
live that way for real (and no, going for a weekend in woods for fun is not
comparable). Yes, they don't have our types of stress, but it's just not true
that this is stress free living. Their every single moment is fighting to
survive, to collect enough water, to hunt enough meat, not to get hurt, not to
get sick or injured. And they're used to that life, so superficially they
might look like doing much better than us, but life is still hard for them.
Walking for hours to collect water and then bringing it back every single day
is not something that people who had to do it remember fondly. Looking for
food can be fun when there is enough of it, but sometimes there isn't, and
they know very well that if they fail their family will be literally be left
hungry, their children might even die. I honestly doubt it's much less
stressful than worrying about mortgage. And all of that is in the normal
situations, until a drought or disease strikes, or until their best hunter
gets killed or injured, or neighboring tribe attacks and steals their women.
In such extreme times civilization is the safety net that saves your life, and
that's why we come up with it, in the first place. To make our life easier.
And it is. And if it's too stressful for you, is it really because of the
civilization, or because of your own choices and ambitions?

~~~
sek3
We don't have civilization today. We have a consumption machine that has gone
of the rails trapping everyone from CEOs, Generals, Judges, Politicians to
Janitors in mindless superficial activity. We have more in common with an ant
colony than whatever civilization ideal anyone ever imagined.

~~~
Radim
This is an interesting point.

I was born in East Europe "behind the iron curtain", but lived in the west for
a long time. And then East Asia for even longer. There are huge differences in
how people perceive "civilization" and how "trapped" they feel vs actually
are.

The west with its rigorous rules, both explicit and implicit. Regulation of
every facet of your life, to a degree you don't realize (it's so natural!
building permissions! driving permissions! marriage permissions! breath the
air permissions! otherwise the world collapses!) until you've lived somewhere
else.

South East Asia with its reckless freedom, or downright anarchy (Thailand).
The social pressure is applied more on the family level. There are few
explicit regulations, and even where they do exist, you're half expected to
ignore them.

All of this is changing of course. As Gibson said, "The future is already
here, it's just not evenly distributed". There is no doubt in which direction
the civilization is moving. Individual human ingenuity is an outstanding
achievement, but isn't evolution always oh-so-squinting toward larger, more
integrated, more efficient structures? The game of entropy.

The naive integration attempts in the 20th century didn't work out so well,
but the pressure is building again. Maybe this time.

~~~
tigershark
Honestly I will be extremely happy when people from south east Asia or from
Europe or from everywhere in the world will be banned from driving and self
driving cars can do it, wasting so much less lives. I have never been to
Thailand, but in the two times that I have been in Philippines I have seen two
corpses under a blanket because of two separate road accidents. Much, much,
better to limit the so called "freedom" of some people if it helps to save
innocent human lives.

~~~
racer-v
People who would trade freedom for safety deserve neither.

------
clumsysmurf
The only time I'm relaxed and feel happy is when I am out in untamed nature -
seeing and hearing nature. It doesn't matter if its just a hike or "working"
hard on trail maintenance. If this[1] is true, "Every 2.5 minutes, the
American West loses a football field worth of natural area to human
development."

Walking down the street among human development just doesn't do anything for
me, so I quit going outside. It seems like expulsion from the biosphere.

I wonder if other people feel this way, whether consciously or not.

[1] [https://www.disappearingwest.org/](https://www.disappearingwest.org/)

~~~
thescribe
I feel the opposite way. In my mind raw nature is chaos and unpredictability.
It's hard to relax when I'm not at least in medium sized town.

~~~
slededit
Its a giant gladiator ring with animals killing each other every minute. From
our perch at the top of the food chain we can call nature peaceful. I'm not
sure a rabbit would feel the same way.

~~~
emerged
Part of the calm relaxing feeling many of us get being out in nature may be
the comfort of knowing that we completely dominate the entire environment.

Contrast with the often hyper competitive social/city environment.

------
mjfl
Maybe they are, humans have never been rational. It is much more important to
have vaccines and antibiotics than to be happy. People reading this crap who
then get the urge to strip down to a loincloth and run into the woods should
be aware that these viewpoints always portray the best case scenario. Forget
germs, starvation, or exposure (which are enough to make you miserable / kill
you by themselves), what about other people? What if someone mugs you and
takes your stuff. What if another tribe comes in and says (understandably)
"look, food is scarce, we're claiming this herd of gazelle. If you hunt these
gazelle, we'll kill you." If you're a woman, what if you get raped? If you're
a man, what if your wife gets raped, are you gonna go kill the guy? You? What
if you get killed trying to do that, what happens to your wife?

No, living under modern society is much better, happy or not.

~~~
weirdstuff
I'm not sure you know enough to compare the two.

Disease, for example, is mostly a product of settled societies, not hunter-
gatherers. Crime was a different issue as well, when tribes knew all the
members. And sure, tribes had conflicts, but they were often not as violent as
the total wars of the last couple centuries.

I'm surprised so many people who know nothing except modern society are so
quick to make sweeping assumptions about a distant and unrecorded past.

~~~
3131s
They are also comparing it to the best outcomes for individuals in modern
society. It's not like people don't still get raped, killed over resources,
and finished off prematurely by disease and starvation. I'm not sure modern
civilization would look the same without a long and continuing history of
people sacrificed at the altar of progress.

~~~
mjfl
but at least in society in the worst case I have police, medicine, insurance..
__people working for money to help you __

~~~
racer-v
It's a common misconception that the job of police is to help people. Their
job is to apprehend and arrest people. Whether that actually helps anyone or
not is highly situational.

Same logic applies to medicine and insurance.

~~~
mjfl
Their job is to apprehend and arrest people who break laws. In a society
without them, there's no one to arrest those who assault you, rob from you,
rape you, or murder you. And if you don't think that's necessary you are
incredibly naive.

~~~
racer-v
The point is that they may be ncessary, but they're not sufficient.

------
eksemplar
I find articles like this ridiculous. Plenty of things in the modern world is
bad for your mental health. Social sites like Facebook, hacker news and so on
are constant reminders that you're missing out. You didn't go to a social
event last night and you still haven't picked up JavaScript, etc. On top of
that research show that people now read comments rather than articles...

It may just be me, but reading comments in general isn't a positive thing in
my life. I mean, I enjoy the discussions on HN and often I walk away informed,
but the time it takes could've been spent better. I've been here 30 minutes
today. That's about how long it takes me to read a scientific article on a
subject I'm interested in, and when I do that I typically walk away both
informed, inspired and with a few ideas of my own.

Which is the point I want to get to. Not everyone in the west is suffering.
There are people who apply their focus to meaningful subjects and have
interesting people to discuss them with. There are people who spend their
Saturday walking in the forest. There are people who have enough wealth to
live healthy lives with large degrees of individual freedom, and lastly there
are people who combine all those things and lead truely impactful lives.

I think those people are a lot more happy than hunter gatherers ever were,
while also enjoying the fruits of modern technology enabling them to live
beyond 35, not seeing half their children die, having easy access to a wealth
of knowledge and in generally enjoying unsurpassed freedom.

------
Top19
Look I hate Facebook, Google, the news, prefer physical books, like to
exercise, whatever but I always hate seeing this stuff.

In Western society there are always two lies operating at once. The first lie
is that technology will save us and fix everything and is the ultimate path,
the second lie is that throwing away all of our technology, being as close to
nature as possible, blah blah will also save us and fix everything.

One thing happier people do in fact have is a sense of historical perspective
and also future sacrifice. Knowing the sacrifice that 500 mothers and fathers
made before you to move the human race hopefully a little forward, and knowing
that you can help pass along their sacrifice, knowledge, and your own hard
work to your children, grandchildren, and subsequent generations.

~~~
3131s
One of the things that was pointed out last time this topic came up (only a
few weeks ago) is that most all of us who benefit from modern civilization
enough so to be commenting about it on HN are enabled by massive amounts of
cheap, wage-slave labor from the poorer half of the world.

So while the average 9-to-5 job, smartphone-browsing lifestyle is probably
preferable to the brutality of being a hunter-gatherer, if I were a garment
factory worker making 100$/month under terrible conditions and long hours,
then things might change -- I'd personally take my chances out in the
wilderness.

~~~
t1o5
Exactly my thoughts, when people say they have a great work life balance at
their enterprise IT company, it’s at the cost of some cheap labour outsourced
somewhere.

When you buy cheap cloths at Walmart or even at the brands, just have a look
at the tag. Your luxury is at the cost of cheap wage slave labour or a child
labour in a third world country.

The new trend is 100% US based customer support. These are the very companies
which cheaply outsourced customer support to start with.

~~~
jjeaff
That cheap labor is exactly what has brought countless people out of extreme
poverty in many countries that over the years have had the competitive
advantage of cheap labor. This is how Japan and south Korea started. You can
see it in process with China and many others.

I'm not sure how taking away what little industry they have by refusing to buy
their products helps these countries.

While I find it said that children are working in many countries today, I'm
also not glib enough to think that is those jobs are taken away, their parents
will just send them to school instead and they'll go on to live a happy life.

------
clord
Of course they are. They’re living closer to what our species evolved for.
Civilizational people are constantly having to check their preferred behavior
for the greater good. Sure there are perks to having a civilization but there
are costs, too.

------
klipt
Of course, farming didn't overtake hunter-gathering because farmers are
_happier_. It overtook because farming can feed massive armies capable of
conquering hunter-gatherer land by force.

Although I guess, in the end, not being conquered/enslaved/killed _might_ make
people happier.

~~~
agumonkey
Is it true or just extrapolated hint ?

I like to criticize "modern" societies, but some times I think that having
predictable source of food was an obvious goal for any human being.

~~~
tachyonbeam
> some times I think that having predictable source of food was an obvious
> goal for any human being.

I don't have the citation, but IIRC, monkeys get higher dopamine spikes when
success at a task is probable but not guaranteed. Having something that is
unpredictable but likely to yield a reward is what motivates effort. Having a
predictable supply of food is less stressful, but possibly, not as motivating.
Maybe not as satisfying as successfully hunting an animal.

Sidenote: it's also been theorized that browsing social media is addictive
because of the unpredictable aspect. You can keep scrolling, there is always
new content, and there is some chance that you might find something
interesting, but it's not guaranteed.

~~~
agumonkey
Sure, I believe so too. We like randomness but not too much.

About social media my pov is that it's also a very non expensive provider of
whatever hormone spike we crave. You move a finger, you get a bit of bias
reinforcement, repeat. Try to read a physics book, and enjoy the
unpredictability of the content.. yet less than 1% is addicted to libraries.

Maybe, maybe in the end monkeys ended up preferring teaming up (less
randomness), to do random-filled activities like war. Reminds me of the
article about war veteran not able to live in society after war, they craved
the tension and the simplicity. War "is good".

------
gt_
I love looking for things. I think a lot of us do. Web searches, thrift
stores, street photography, 3D models, Github projects. Momentary instances of
challenge keep it exciting. I do think most of us find comfort in the "hunting
and gathering"-like types of activities we indulge in. Our visual senses still
celebrate the red colors and glossy surfaces of apples and berries.

------
harry8
I'm going to write a new book that argues people who don't read this kind of
BS are happier than those that do. Could back that with stats too (just ignore
the correlation/causation thing...)

Watching your children die due to diseases that are totally trivial in our
non-hunter-gatherer society makes you happy. oooookaaaay... FFS

~~~
dpark
> _Watching your children die due to diseases that are totally trivial in our
> non-hunter-gatherer society makes you happy. oooookaaaay... FFS_

In fairness, people not packed into cities don’t have exactly the same issues
with childhood diseases.

I don’t disagree with your sentiment, by the way. I just don’t think it’s
directly comparable that way.

It’s also worth noting that many societies are not hunter gatherer and have
high child mortality rates. The road from “tribal” to “modern” is full of
dysentery.

~~~
austenallred
Regardless of how you look at the statistics, modern humans are healthier and
live longer on average by every measure

~~~
gyrgtyn
The 1st world at least

~~~
riffraff
no, even in the second (the ex-communist block) and the third (south america,
africa, and non aligned countries in general).

Just check one of the Hans Rosling videos on TED[0]: almost everywhere life
expectancy has increased, child mortality has dropped, education has risen.

[0]
[https://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling](https://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling)

------
tspike
It is interesting to me that this topic provokes angry responses. I find the
tenor of debate on this subject similar to what you'd find in reply to an
article about early retirement through discipline in savings.

------
protomyth
I guess it depends on your definition of happy for the dead and never born.
Hunter-Gathers couldn't specialize, and that has made all of the difference in
our lives. Without specialization a lot of the joyful activities that we
participate in would not be available and most of us wouldn't be here.

Yes, I get it. Some find joy in the primitive, the promise of stripping way
the complications of modern life, and feeling the raw world again. That's fine
for a weekend or a week, but understand what you give up.

Me, well, I like indoor plumbing, heat, and refrigeration.

------
riffraff
Jared Diamond's "The World Before Yesterday" touches on this wrt to the people
of Papua New Guinea.

These are people who basically lived in hunter-gatherer style until very
recently, and have recently started to adopt the "modern" lifestyle. According
to him, they do not regret it.

Also, the "happy savage" meme has been around for literally centuries, and
it's generally been propagated by rich, educated non-savages.

~~~
Santosh83
They will regret it some generations later as they swing to the other extreme.

The core point here is too much of anything leads to stress. Living totally
like a savage is indeed stressful. Also living a life totally immersed in
urban dystopia is equally stressful. A happy medium works, but so few can get
and remain there. Our economic systems encourage falling into extremes. They
don't encourage stability and moderation.

------
outworlder
Of course they are. Hunting for food has to be better than slaving away at a
corporate office. Which they can choose to do only when hungry. They were
likely more fit too.

So I buy that you can be happier like that. Until you or people around you
start dying of (nowadays) preventable diseases. Or because you ran into some
other group and they wanted your stuff - however little that is.

------
tonmoy
Why are we trying to optimize ourselves to maximize happiness? Of course the
hunter gatherers were happier, they evolved their happiness enducing brains
slowly in the span of hundreds of thousands of years. In contrast we are
living in a fast changing world. I think happiness can no longer keep up as
being the proper reward function for success.

~~~
jampekka
What should we optimize for then? Shareholder value?

~~~
tonmoy
I think it would be different for each person. Personally I try to optimize
for contributing to the collective human knowledge and enabling others to do
so

------
js2
For those not familiar, Ishmael is a philosophical take on the topic:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_\(novel\))

(It’s been mentioned on HN a few times which is how I think I became aware of
it.)

~~~
Shorel
Ishmael also deals with other issues. Important issues.

Right now I don't think any truly civilized society would actually generate
any garbage. When we solve that issue, we will look at the past (our present)
in shame.

------
aaron695
I find this idea horific. Rape and war are a normality in Hunter and Gather
societies.

I acknowledge they are fun and make us happy, in current society we farm these
out to other activities like sport and computer simulations but in pre
societies they are not so fun for the losers. It seems like survivor bias.

If they are talking getting the best of both worlds then perhaps it's possible
to move in that direction but the Earth won't support it in anything close to
the way the tribes currently live so it seems like a bad way to be looking at
it.

~~~
gyrgtyn
> Rape and war are a normality in Hunter and Gather societies.

no

------
WalterBright
The kid is wearing factory made shoes.

~~~
yorwba
Hunting and gathering with modern tools might be not that bad of a lifestyle
for idle humans in a world where robots can do everything better.

~~~
WalterBright
I do my hunting and gathering at the local supermarket. There I find my
favorite prey - the elusive coffee bean.

------
plafl
The main point of the article seems to be that living the present is better
than worrying about the future. For me it's just the opposite: I love to think
about the future, being better at some sports, learning new things, working on
more interesting things. I find the described "cyclical time" perception in
the article quite depressing, some kind of never-ending groundhog day.

~~~
sametmax
What you describe as not liking is not living in the present. It's
intellectualizing the present.

------
aryehof
Surely wealth or living in the "West" has no correlation to happiness, if
happiness is considered _freedom from worry_ , and freedom from a never
satiated desire for more things, experiences and status.

------
tootie
I guess when you're acclimated to extremely high infant mortality rates,
nothing else really bothers you too much.

------
Shorel
Also mentioned in 'Sapiens'.

~~~
joshgel
fascinating book! love the follow up too!

------
gyrgtyn
Lots of people are really misinformed about hunter-gatherer life. Why is that?

------
hanoz
They may be happier, but they are fewer. What good is mean happiness versus
sum happiness in the grand scheme of things?

~~~
marchenko
The _Repugnant Conclusion_ may be of interest:

“For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very
high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population
whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its
members have lives that are barely worth living” (Parfit 1984)

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

------
cerealbad
mercantile capitalism morphing into corporate feudalism; slavers need blinders
for human tack. the usual suspects: torah, mahabharata, dhammapada, i ching,
the communist manifesto, theosophy, neoplatonism, shamanism, utilitarianism,
etc.

no matter how far into primitivism we sink in the 21st and 22nd centuries,
civilisation will always reboot with access to: bible (war), euclid's elements
(mathematics), iliad (peace) and the right geographic start.

if all knowledge is lost, it will only take a few of hundred years this time
not tens or thousands. even completely demolished, cities are hard to hide.
the pyramids will still be there, restarting the loop.

