Bushmen Philosophy
So here is a link to a New York Times article that says that the Bushmen had it right in that they didn't work more than 15 hours a week. Other studies seem to contradict this (but form other tribes like those in Paraguay so maybe not apples-to-apples) and say that though hunting is not 40 hours, the strategies, and maintenance, set-up, and movement of tribes is pretty time-intensive. Anyways, do you think this is over-idealizing Bushmen life, or do you think the author is on to something?
Further, the article connects the notion that we have learned the habit of working for an extensive amount of time at a specific institution as the norm. Would we ever break this cycle and be able to maximize leisure if we were afforded this opportunity?
Of course what the author forgot to mention was that civilization has brought us medicine, scientific methodology, and the far-ranging use of technological advancements to solve problems and create entertainment. Don't forget literature, different forms of art, and music. But maybe that is all a sham we bought into. We would be most content making our simple tools and laughing at some jokes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/opinion/the-bushmen-who-had-the-whole-work-life-thing-figured-out.html?ref=opinion
Further, the article connects the notion that we have learned the habit of working for an extensive amount of time at a specific institution as the norm. Would we ever break this cycle and be able to maximize leisure if we were afforded this opportunity?
Of course what the author forgot to mention was that civilization has brought us medicine, scientific methodology, and the far-ranging use of technological advancements to solve problems and create entertainment. Don't forget literature, different forms of art, and music. But maybe that is all a sham we bought into. We would be most content making our simple tools and laughing at some jokes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/opinion/the-bushmen-who-had-the-whole-work-life-thing-figured-out.html?ref=opinion
Comments (44)
"The bushmen’s diet and relaxed lifestyle have prevented most of the stress-related diseases of the western world. Bushmen health, in general, is not good though: 50% of children die before the age of 15; 20% die within their first year (mostly of gastrointestinal infections). Average life expectancy is about 45-50 years; respiratory infections and malaria are the major reasons for death in adults. Only 10% become older than 60 years."
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwjS4L6KpaLVAhUCPiYKHQefD3QQFggoMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kalahari-meerkats.com%2Ffileadmin%2Ffiles%2Fguides%2FBushmen_light.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGFCacDB8KshdirNU6bSduQDJ_k5Q
Word.
The challenge though is to escape the drudgery of capitalism, and you cannot do that by working for the behemoths of the economy (corporations). If someone were to call me and appoint me CEO of Microsoft, I would probably refuse for the simple reason that the work would be too much hassle, and I'd be forced to interact with some people in ways and manners that I wouldn't approve of, not to mention that the board of directors would rule over me with an iron fist, pretty much dictating what I do with my time.
But unfortunately, people do a lot of BS for social status. They are willing to undertake so much labour, and so much struggle, they will even sacrifice their own families, their own health, their own peace of mind, their own sleep - all for a little bit of ribbon, which will be forgotten as fast as it was given. At least if at the end of their struggle they attained the greatness that they hoped for! At least if someone who acted in this manner finished by becoming a colossus to be remembered for all of history - to have all men sing their praises! But this is not how they finish - they finish forgotten by all, for who remembers the bravest soldier who fought in Napoleon's army? :s
A life of leisure and little work is to be preferred over being a drone and a slave. Freedom is more important than mere money.
I think the concept of clinical depression is foreign to those whose focus is on survival. There are better ways to avoid first world problems than by moving to the third world where they have real problems.
Let me clarify that I would never suggest such a thing nor deny the negative aspects of primitive life. I prefer civilization and capitalism over and against their opposites.
You seem to describe corporatism, not capitalism.
Hmmm I will agree, because I think you're using capitalism to mean what capitalism used to be.
Which is what it is. Monopolistic corporate behemoths are antithetical to capitalism. Don't fall for the leftist equivocation on this word.
Maybe, although corporate behemoths identify themselves as capitalists ;)
>:O Certainly, but I don't quite believe it's the same thing. Corporate behemoths do actually control the allocation and distribution of large amounts of capital in order to generate new production, so they are capitalists in that sense, they're certainly not communists.
But they often do so through monopoly and government subsidy. No one is saying they're communists, but they're certainly not capitalists.
Your use of the word "corporate" is hopelessly vague, equivocal, and ambiguous. It's not all corporations that you don't like, just big ones, and it's not just big corporations you don't like, but just big businesses regardless of corporate status, and it's not all big business you don't like, just certain ones, namely the ones you don't like. It's also irrelevant to you whether the business is a monopoly. You don't like some even where there's competition.
That is, you doubtfully have any problem with the mom and pop restaurant down the street, despite that it's incorporated, although you might have a problem with the Dyson vacuum company and its $4.4 billion value, despite it being owned by single person, and you might dislike Wal-Mart, despite it not being a monopoly and having many competitors, and you might like your local power company, despite it being a monopoly and not having any competitors.
In short, what you don't like are those companies who do distasteful things, which has nothing to do with their corporate status and nothing to do with how many competitors it might have.
Boy, you sure claim to know an awful lot about me based on a few relatively casual comments I made on this topic above. This reads as a series of straw men, so let me disabuse you of your ignorance. There are plenty of large corporations I like and plenty of small ones I don't like, and vice-versa. Corporatism, in the sense I am using the term, can include entities that are not technically corporations, but the same logic applies to them: I have no personal preference for the size of a business or organization. I care about whether it conforms to what I take to be basic principles of capitalism, which I am generally in favor of.
Quoting Hanover
That depends on the restaurant.
Quoting Hanover
I have no opinion on it because I don't know anything about it.
Quoting Hanover
I like Wal-Mart and even shop there.
Quoting Hanover
My local power company is a cooperative owned by farmers, so this isn't really relevant.
Quoting Hanover
No one likes companies that do disgraceful things, myself included. It seems you're trying to be overly technical when reading the terms I have employed in order to accuse me of being "hopelessly vague, equivocal, and ambiguous," when I think it was obvious the sense in which I used them.
No, actually that's not true. I despise large corporations (>$10 billion revenue) because of the unfair financial strength that they wield. The rest of us cannot compete with them, because we don't have the financial strength to bully people, the way they do. And no law can prevent brute strength, we already know that.
Your objection was over the "leftist equivocation of the word," and it's clear that your use of the word includes even companies that aren't corporations and it doesn't exclude some companies that are corporations. My objection was over your equivocation, which it is. It's as I said it was: you don't like unscrupulous companies, large or small and regardless of corporate status. How is that at all an important claim? I don't like bad people either.
As a competitor you're unhappy, but since we're a consumer driven society, we care only about cheaper products, which is exactly what we get. It's not that Wal-Mart has bullied me into buying their products. I buy them because they are cheaper.
Yes exactly, I think that's a problem that we're a consumer driven society. It encourages desires to grow, expand and multiply among the people, which only leads to more unhappiness.
And for what it's worth, I absolutely don't see myself as a consumer.
You still miss the mark. My opposition to them rests not on my mere dislike of them but on account of their opposition to capitalist principles, which I already accept.
Why is monopoly anti-capitalist? Every business seeks a monopoly of one kind or another.
Because capitalism supports free markets and to have a monopoly is to prohibit others from entering the market.
Is the goal of the capitalist to maximise profits?
Right, so let's do some economics then.
What is this? This is the long-term graph illustrating the average total cost (ATC), average revenue (AR), marginal cost (MC), and marginal revenue (MR) for a firm operating in a PERFECTLY COMPETITIVE (FREE) MARKET.
Do you see how at the point of equilibrium profit (AR-ATC) is 0? (and not only that but if he's not operating at Pareto Optimality he will actually be LOSING money - ATC > AR)
This is the same graph for a MONOPOLY:
Seems like a capitalist will hate the free market, and love the monopoly. Thank God that the perfectly competitive market doesn't actually exist.
If you want an interesting read on this (and quite philosophical too), Peter Thiel's book, Zero To One is good. He is a philosophy graduate actually ;)
Sure. In a sense, some capitalists, as owners and investors of capital, are monopolists, but capitalism would prevent them from being so.
Absolutely not. It's like at a Poker table. When I end up holding, say 70% of the entire tables wealth, then the others cannot compete anymore, even if they're much better players than I am (I can bully them). Profits in the short-term (in a perfectly competitive market) will always tend to be transformed into a monopolistic advantage - thus perfectly competitive markets naturally decay.
Then I return to my original point! They decay into something other than capitalism.
How do you define capitalism? If you define capitalism as free trade, then free trade is an advantage to those who are already powerful, so long as they know how to play their cards right. They will set the terms of how things will be done. Markets don't exist, people do.
A large supermarket doesn't want to accept my product (the small producer). I have no access to distribution, whereas my competitors do. Through their power, they set the terms, and some people cannot meet those terms anymore.
The only way to overthrow a monopoly is by creating another monopoly in a smaller pond this time :P Or the old-fashioned legal way.
The education system would have to be dismantled and remade first. It's what sets us up to be unhappy workaholics.
If society was organized to produce necessities and not profits or luxuries such as 20,000 sq. ft. mansions for 2 or 3 people to live in, we would not have to work 40 hour weeks. Maybe 15 to 20 hours a week would be sufficient (but not all jobs work this way; strawberries have to be picked when they are ripe whether it takes sun up to sun down or not. Complicated surgery may take many hours. A broken pipe under the street has to be fix IMMEDIATELY, even if it takes all day and all night.
The "go to work" mentality does result in added stressors, but it also results in the very things we often take for granted, like medical care, roads, parks, and all sorts of other basic infrastructure. If we all limited our work to 15 hours a week, or even if we stopped incentivizing those folks who are incentivized by the acquisition of worldly goods, we would all have less. What we would have less of would not be limited to purely luxury items, but of many of the basic necessities and conveniences of modern life.
Like it or not, those folks out there killing themselves for riches are contributing to the public good through taxes at far greater rates than those who have taken a more relaxed approach to life. Your roads, your schools, you medical care, and much else is funded by those who lives you criticize.
And that was my point is pointing out the abject poverty that the bushmen live in, which is the result, in part, of their lack of work, and really, it's based upon a social structure that outlived its usefulness thousands of years ago.
Capitalism does lead to an increase in human rights, which is something the left does not generally want to accept. In fact, they incorrectly argue the opposite.
Your preoccupation with the gender dysphoric and to those with sexual appetites and norms varying from your own is odd and diverts otherwise meaningful conversations. Quoting AgustinoThat you don't see yourself as a consumer doesn't mean you're not. It just means you're dysphoric.
I don't see a link with human rights here at all.
Quoting Hanover
If capitalism leads to the production and sale of "goods" which are harmful, then I absolutely don't think that's good and admirable. Do you?
Quoting Hanover
It seems you're quite passionate about using this queer word, now could you actually get to the point where you explain what does not seeing myself as a consumer have to do with being dysphoric, which I'm probably not.
You hold so many assumptions of what useful is though. Of course, if you grow up with the "stuff" of the modern economy you are not going back. The Bushmen, however, grew up that way and when exposed to other ways, MOSTLY DON'T LIKE IT. See here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-24821867. You are talking to an antinatalist though. The easy way to solve the problem of work is to not create more workers. I do not live so that we have public goods so that I can have pleasurable experiences. You do not live for public goods so that you can have pleasurable experiences. He does not live for public goods to have pleasurable experiences. Those are all assumptions of what SHOULD happen for other people.
I will say, going to the bathroom in camping fashion for a whole lifetime seems dismal to me. Also, this probably contributes to gastrointestinal diseases. But again, if you GROW UP with the lifestyle and when exposed to others STILL want to live in the communal/DIY setting of the Bushmen, that may say something.
Tribe of "Bushmen" are in this movie. I think the English language would be more interesting if clucks and clicks were added as in the African speech. :D
Nah, I'm not.
(Y) From what I understand, even at the time the movie was made (1980), the San people were already being forced to live in settlements. So the tribal scenes are re-inactments in a way. This documentary about a African healer and the remaining San tribe is interesting:
Even when a tribe has a barter system or even a kind of money, it is used radically differently. It is as a placeholder for the materials of life, which are sacred. They are sacred in themselves because they were alive, or at least came from Mother Earth. And they are sacred because they sustain life among the tribe. There is a cohesion within the tribe which is almost an extended family. It has the quarrels and clashes of a family, but there is an deep connection. If one member of the tribe is in need, someone will pick them up. Even if they store up some extra food and possessions, it is in no way comparable to our system of inequality. Money not as food, clothing, shelter, art, medicine. Our way is money as leverage, as power. Someone could have 10 million dollars, and think that they need more to really do what they want, to really dominate the market, dominate everything.
Domination is the goal of our culture, written or unwritten. And to dominate others and gain status and goods, the most "successful" are generally those who dominate the living earth the most and turn it into "stuff", into consumables. And the primary product is food. Unlimited food to feed our population. The ever growing population needs ever growing food production. There is a close relationship to this. Notice how tribal cultures always seem to do two things very well? To not let their population grow out of control and to respect the earth, taking only what is needed. The two things are so close as to be one thing. And this is their law of life which has helped them thrive for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years.
Ok, cool. But what does this have to do with us? (One may ask). We are modern and civilized. The more humans on the planet, the less likely we are to becoming extinct, right? It shows that we are on the most successful path, the way of dominance. Right? We are a computerized and digital people. The only digits that a tribal person understands are on their hand. So what could these holdovers from prehistory possibly have to teach us? Not many things, really. Perhaps only one thing: How to avoid becoming extinct.