Venting thread

[Ares Land]

I wish you luck too!

[Travis B.]

Thirded!

[Vardelm]

Fourthed!

[malloc]

My workplace gives monthly bonuses of $100 for perfect attendance. Unfortunately they count taking allowed vacation days as absences, which effectively makes them unpaid. Also just depressed to consider how weak and sickly I am, especially compared to my brother. It pains me to remember that unlike him, I would not survive in prehistoric times. (Incidentally that is my biggest gripe with the Middle East Construction Kit. Zompist all but says that civilization was a mistake, yet I would have starved to death as a hunter because I can't see well enough to hunt.)

[bradrn]

It pains me to remember that unlike him, I would not survive in prehistoric times.

But, at the risk of stating the obvious, this is not prehistoric times. So why worry about it? The great miracle of modern civilisation is that it allows those of us who once would have been lion food to live full, productive lives. (And I fully include myself in the ‘lion food’ count. I am a weakling.)

[malloc]

But, at the risk of stating the obvious, this is not prehistoric times. So why worry about it? The great miracle of modern civilisation is that it allows those of us who once would have been lion food to live full, productive lives. (And I fully include myself in the ‘lion food’ count. I am a weakling.)

I realize it's irrational and even unleftist to feel this way, but I have always felt guilty for being a net drain on society. I want to be the reason that society continues to survive, not the one who depends on its generosity.

[bradrn]

But, at the risk of stating the obvious, this is not prehistoric times. So why worry about it? The great miracle of modern civilisation is that it allows those of us who once would have been lion food to live full, productive lives. (And I fully include myself in the ‘lion food’ count. I am a weakling.)

I realize it's irrational and even unleftist to feel this way, but I have always felt guilty for being a net drain on society. I want to be the reason that society continues to survive, not the one who depends on its generosity.

Why not both? Everyone depends on the generosity of society to some extent — that’s what it’s there for, in the leftist conception. And as for contributing to its survival… well, IIRC you work to make silicon wafers, right? I find it hard to think of a more important job for today’s society (excepting farming and other essential industries). No-one can take that away from you, that you have already helped in making the foundational components for our industry.

[Emily]

it turns out i don't get sick pay at my work :)))) i work in a public facing public health job :))))))))))))))

[Raphael]

it turns out i don't get sick pay at my work :)))) i work in a public facing public health job :))))))))))))))

That's extremely messed up. Commiserations.

[Ares Land]

My workplace gives monthly bonuses of $100 for perfect attendance. Unfortunately they count taking allowed vacation days as absences, which effectively makes them unpaid.

They count what? What a bunch of assholes!

it turns out i don't get sick pay at my work :)))) i work in a public facing public health job :))))))))))))))

That's completely fucked up.

Also just depressed to consider how weak and sickly I am, especially compared to my brother. It pains me to remember that unlike him, I would not survive in prehistoric times. (Incidentally that is my biggest gripe with the Middle East Construction Kit. Zompist all but says that civilization was a mistake, yet I would have starved to death as a hunter because I can't see well enough to hunt.)

Prehistoric man cared for the sick. We find evidence for early Sapiens and Neandertal caring for the disabled. Including people with extremely severe congenital defects.
I heard a paleontologist say that when we begin to see evidence of the wounded being cared for, then we can talk about human beings. It's the major milestone that defines us a species.

Caring for each other is in fact what allowed us to exist as human beings. As hunter gatherers we're very efficient big game hunters because we hunt cooperatively and because we care for the sick and wounded.
In practical terms, this means getting injured while hunting did not mean an immediate death sentence. It's the entire reason we were able to tackle megafauna in the first place. (If nobody will set a broken bone, you won't go hunting mammoths -- paleolithic hunter-gatherers got a lot of traumatic injuries.)
It also means groups took care of the elderly, which meant the elderly in turn could look after the young -- an essential function, because raising a human being to be an effective hunter-gatherer is a lot of work.

I don't think vision problems was that much of a problem in the paleolithic anyway. You could still sew, make tools, gather plants, or set up traps.

Our current obsession with physical fitness is a very modern, sick, eugenist fantasy.

[malloc]

I don't think vision problems was that much of a problem in the paleolithic anyway. You could still sew, make tools, gather plants, or set up traps.

But weren't sewing and gathering plants considered specifically women's jobs in hunter-gatherer societies?

[linguistcat]

I don't think vision problems was that much of a problem in the paleolithic anyway. You could still sew, make tools, gather plants, or set up traps.

But weren't sewing and gathering plants considered specifically women's jobs in hunter-gatherer societies?

In which hunter-gatherer societies? They might have been a lot more similar for various reasons than modern cultures in terms of material culture and maybe even ritual. But the assumption that ALL hunter-gatherer societies saw these things as gendered, and that ALL of them would gender them the same way deserves some skepticism. And even if they were, there were other jobs that would have been certainly seen as masculine that didn't require good eye sight. Not to mention that there is some evidence that a lot of our eye sight problems are a result of our current lifestyle. Neolithic!you might not have had vision issues at all.

[zompist]

(Incidentally that is my biggest gripe with the Middle East Construction Kit. Zompist all but says that civilization was a mistake, yet I would have starved to death as a hunter because I can't see well enough to hunt.)

1. Thanks for the sale!
2. I also say that agriculture has a ratchet effect. We can't go back to foraging. Oops!
3. You should be skeptical about claims made about progress, but not hopeless. We live in a little bubble of general prosperity. The solution to current crises isn't to go back to foraging, but to rebalance industrial society to benefit everyone and save our ecosphere.

[zompist]

But weren't sewing and gathering plants considered specifically women's jobs in hunter-gatherer societies?

In which hunter-gatherer societies? They might have been a lot more similar for various reasons than modern cultures in terms of material culture and maybe even ritual. But the assumption that ALL hunter-gatherer societies saw these things as gendered, and that ALL of them would gender them the same way deserves some skepticism.

Well put. We just don't know a lot about the hundreds and thousands of years when all societies were hunter-gatherers. But there were undoubtedly a lot of variants, because that's what humans do. (And the environments were extremely varied as well: humans lived in savannahs, rain forests, temperate forests, grasslands, semideserts, etc.)

Just as one thing to think about: if you were a Quechua man, even today, it would be your domain to knit your own hat, and your son's at least.

[malloc]

3. You should be skeptical about claims made about progress, but not hopeless. We live in a little bubble of general prosperity. The solution to current crises isn't to go back to foraging, but to rebalance industrial society to benefit everyone and save our ecosphere.

Sure, but I feel like I don't have the luxury of feeling skeptical about progress. The past would be demonstrably worse for me, if not quickly fatal, given my health issues and disabilities. I understand the arguments against civilization on an intellectual level, but they come up short against the practical reality that I would be dead otherwise. (Even apart from that, life without the intellectual stimulation that modernity provides sounds kind of boring.)

[zompist]

Sure, but I feel like I don't have the luxury of feeling skeptical about progress. The past would be demonstrably worse for me, if not quickly fatal, given my health issues and disabilities. I understand the arguments against civilization on an intellectual level, but they come up short against the practical reality that I would be dead otherwise. (Even apart from that, life without the intellectual stimulation that modernity provides sounds kind of boring.)

Since my book is involved here somewhere, let me just point out that the comparison applies to a time 8000 years ago, not to present-day Missouri. You are not going to be a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer. You are also, fortunately, not going to be an Egyptian peasant.

[Ares Land]

The question isn't really about who has the ideal lifestyle. (Personally, I'm betting on our descendant life in the far-future Dyson swarm.)

The interesting part is how it questions our assumption: we assumed progress was linear and switching to a farming lifestyle was a step up, but it looks like farmers really had it worse in terms of living standards.

It's not even the only example. For a recent example, switching from a rural, farming lifestyle to a urban, factory working life could be quite a step down too (notably in terms of health.)

We're still a lot more prosperous than a paleolithic hunter gatherer or a 19th century farmer.


(I'd add that no one alive now would survive the paleolithic. Hunting and gathering can't support anything like the present population. None of us has been making flint tools or following game animals since infancy either.)

[Man in Space]

I am applying to jobs I’m qualified for but, despite nearly five years of experience in the field I keep getting rejections. I’d love to change careers but nobody is willing to give experience. I can’t do, say, fast food or similar jobs because of my disability. I WANT OUT.

EDIT: And I get a rejection letter at 7:00 PM after applying at 6:30. I was qualified. I had the ~experience~ they oh so desired. And I get rejected, probably by an automated system.

[Emily]

got back my positive covid test results and within 8 hours managed to spill soup into my keyboard. here's to two weeks of not working and not getting paid, and also not having a functioning keyboard

[Raphael]

got back my positive covid test results and within 8 hours managed to spill soup into my keyboard. here's to two weeks of not working and not getting paid, and also not having a functioning keyboard

The extreme messed-up-ness keeps being extremely messed up. Sorry to hear that.