pull down to refresh
145 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury 28 Jan \ on: Dan Martin Human: DIY, self-sufficiency, and off grid living youtube channel DIY
Thoughts on what we'd lose or gain?
You devil. I didn't answer that for good reason.
Short answer: We'd lose 4D happenstance with anons and non-kin, many forms of work specialization and products and services that benefit from work specialization, and 4D crowds that share our niche interests. We'd gain an environment we're more biologically prepared for, more family and close friend time (if you can manage to colocate), and less narrow expertise.
Do your thoughts differ?
reply
I think the answer to the question you literally asked ("if we all lived like this") is apocalyptic (e.g., mass starvation, global collapse, weird chimp-like tribal wars), but a proximate question ("what if some people lived like this") is pretty interesting, and I can't find anything to disagree with in your take.
It's crazy the hunger that rises up at the prospect of something like this, at least in my own heart. Some huge yearning gets tapped into, that reveals an important truth, I think. Something about disconnection, about wanting to feel part of something, embedded in something. Having your own people around you and pulling toward something, together.
I remember reading about some white people who would go to live among the Indians in the 1800s or something, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes because they were captured / kidnapped; and vice-versa, some Indians taken to live amongst white people. The white people never wanted to return to civilization, once freed of their "captors" but the reverse was true of the Indians.
I just tried to look up a source for this and came up with nothing quite like I remember, so maybe it's bullshit. But I think of that a lot, how we've got something deeply wrong in some important ways.
reply
I wasn't even taking me literally. I wonder how many of us could live like this without mass starvation and war.
Someone thoughtful that I occasionally get the chance to talk with describes their big city fixation as not wanting to be on the outside of important human events. I don't readily identify with that. It might have something to do with me not being very outgoing. If I'm not in-it, I feel like I might as well be a sheep farmer watching SpaceX launches from a home I've carved into a hillside.
reply