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For hunter-gatherers, chiefs and shamans could, and did, moonlight as foragers and hunters. Overlapping duties preserved a strong sense of community, reinforced by customs and religions that obscured individual differences in strength, skill, and ambition. Shared labor meant shared values.But in industrial economies, lawyers don’t tag in for brain ... See more

The Atlantic • How Civilization Broke Our Brains

Whenever I get caught up in my ego battles, I just think of entire civilizations that have come and gone. For example, take the Sumerians. I’m sure they were important people and did great things, but go ahead and name me a single Sumerian. Tell me anything interesting or important Sumerians did that lasted. Nothing.

Tim Ferriss • The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

In any case, we should be very cautious—if not cynical—about boyish dreams of trying to engineer a new civilization— knowing the human propensity for war, corruption, and the omnicidal (rather than omni-win/win) behavior that is our speciality.

Andrew Sweeny • GAME B

we have no more leisure than did hunter-gatherers, Neolithic villagers, or Medieval peasants.

Charles Eisenstein • Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition

For 95 percent of our 300,000-year history, human beings have lived as hunter-gatherers on diets consisting of fruits, vegetables, nuts, insects, fish, and game. Ever since Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, it has largely been taken for granted that staying alive was an all-consuming activity for our ancestors, as well as for the ... See more

Aaron Benanav • Do We Need to Work?

Twenty-one things to enjoy today – reviving and old series of recommendations — lauracsc

lauracsc article.app

Message d’Homère pour les temps actuels : la civilisation, c’est quand on a tout à perdre ; la barbarie, c’est quand ils ont tout à gagner. Toujours se souvenir d’Homère à la lecture du journal, le matin.

Sylvain Tesson • Un été avec Homère (French Edition)

Man has achieved his present position by being the most aggressive and enterprising creature on earth. And now he has created a comfortable civilization, he faces an unexpected problem... The comfortable life lowers man's resistance, so that he sinks into an unheroic sloth... The comfortable life causes spiritual decay.

Poetic Outlaws • The Comfortable Life Is Killing You

Philosophers, priests and poets have brooded over the nature of happiness for millennia, and many have concluded that social, ethical and spiritual factors have as great an impact on our happiness as material conditions. Perhaps people in modern affluent societies suffer greatly from alienation and meaninglessness despite their prosperity. And perh