Well sure, but there’s no way these articles are GOOD for you :)
In all seriousness, yes, I’m thinking through that in Part II. There is certainly some evidence that better technology leads to more productivity leads to more leisure. But, in my opinion, not nearly as much leisure as you’d expect. For example, people in the U.S. are working just about as much as they were 100 years ago, despite manyfold increases in productivity. So that's what I'm trying to figure out. If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them.
This is an interesting article, but your assumption that technology and material standard of living does not lead to increased life satisfaction is clearly incorrect. There is an enormous amount of research on the subject that shows otherwise.
I would recommend that you question your assumptions:
So does the evidence in the linked articles change your mind that technology and increased material standard of living does not lead to increased life satisfaction?
If not, why?
I ask because it seems to be a key assumption in your series of articles on technology and psychology.
Panksepp and Biven in "The Archeology of Mind" identify seven basic emotions shared by all mammals. PL:AY, CARE and SEEKING are the "positive" ones. All of these three are given accelerating depth and scope by the advance of technology. Learning to celebrate the exercise of that part of human nature and the grasp of nature unique to humans might help humans enjoy madernity and the enormous gift of rationality that facilitates the exercise those emotions.
“the net result of technology might be that it improves many outcomes, such as lengthened lifespans and shortened travel time, at the cost of the kind of experience our brains were designed to process and make use of. But this may be happening in ways so subtle, and yet pervasive, that we haven’t quite noticed.”
Agreed. We live twice as long and much healthier with less drudgery, more leisure, more freedom and opportunity. Our outcomes are incomparably (even unimaginably) better than our ancestors, even if we just take it for granted.
I'm not saying that exactly. I agree with you that we live longer and healthier lives than pretty much all of our ancestors, and we certainly have less drudgery and more leisure than someone living through the Industrial Revolution. But I'm not convinced the modern person has less drudgery or more leisure than the average hunter-gatherer. So that's something I'll try to explore later in the series. If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them - and thanks for reading and commenting.
I would recommend checking the methodology of the studies that claim the abundance of leisure time for Hunter gatherers. Much of what they call “leisure time” is actually work in a group setting where people can chat while working. That is not really leisure time.
The leisure time is also heavily dependent on the abundance of natural food in their local region compared to the population density.
I agree that foragers had a lot of leisure (and much better lives than their eventual agricultural descendants). If given the choice of a modern first world life, or a hunter gatherer, I can imagine at least some people would willingly choose the latter. Of course, the world can only sustain about 1% or less of the current population with this lifestyle.
The 1% number I suggest above is based on the estimates of human population prior to the advent of agriculture, which are in the neighborhood of 10 million or so. Despite this low number, these foragers managed to drive a significant proportion of megafauna (such as mastodons and cave bears) extinct - that is, they had a very large long term negative effect on the environment. Agriculture was able to increase the population 100 fold to around one billion by the time of Christ.
At a population of 8 billion on the way up to ten billion, even if we assume we could somehow get a hundred million people to survive as foragers (ten times the estimates that actually thrived), we would need to do something about the other 99% of people.
Hasn't technology given us leisure to read your fascinating posts which I couldn't have done if I were scrubbing the laundry?
Well sure, but there’s no way these articles are GOOD for you :)
In all seriousness, yes, I’m thinking through that in Part II. There is certainly some evidence that better technology leads to more productivity leads to more leisure. But, in my opinion, not nearly as much leisure as you’d expect. For example, people in the U.S. are working just about as much as they were 100 years ago, despite manyfold increases in productivity. So that's what I'm trying to figure out. If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them.
This is an interesting article, but your assumption that technology and material standard of living does not lead to increased life satisfaction is clearly incorrect. There is an enormous amount of research on the subject that shows otherwise.
I would recommend that you question your assumptions:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/does-material-progress-lead-to-happiness
https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction
Ok I'll check these sources out as well as the methodologies for leisure-time studies, thanks for sharing.
So does the evidence in the linked articles change your mind that technology and increased material standard of living does not lead to increased life satisfaction?
If not, why?
I ask because it seems to be a key assumption in your series of articles on technology and psychology.
I haven't gotten to them yet, but I will soon and will respond then. Appreciate the follow-up!
Panksepp and Biven in "The Archeology of Mind" identify seven basic emotions shared by all mammals. PL:AY, CARE and SEEKING are the "positive" ones. All of these three are given accelerating depth and scope by the advance of technology. Learning to celebrate the exercise of that part of human nature and the grasp of nature unique to humans might help humans enjoy madernity and the enormous gift of rationality that facilitates the exercise those emotions.
I will have to check out Panksepp and Biven's work, thanks for bringing that up.
“the net result of technology might be that it improves many outcomes, such as lengthened lifespans and shortened travel time, at the cost of the kind of experience our brains were designed to process and make use of. But this may be happening in ways so subtle, and yet pervasive, that we haven’t quite noticed.”
Agreed. We live twice as long and much healthier with less drudgery, more leisure, more freedom and opportunity. Our outcomes are incomparably (even unimaginably) better than our ancestors, even if we just take it for granted.
I'm not saying that exactly. I agree with you that we live longer and healthier lives than pretty much all of our ancestors, and we certainly have less drudgery and more leisure than someone living through the Industrial Revolution. But I'm not convinced the modern person has less drudgery or more leisure than the average hunter-gatherer. So that's something I'll try to explore later in the series. If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them - and thanks for reading and commenting.
I would recommend checking the methodology of the studies that claim the abundance of leisure time for Hunter gatherers. Much of what they call “leisure time” is actually work in a group setting where people can chat while working. That is not really leisure time.
The leisure time is also heavily dependent on the abundance of natural food in their local region compared to the population density.
I agree that foragers had a lot of leisure (and much better lives than their eventual agricultural descendants). If given the choice of a modern first world life, or a hunter gatherer, I can imagine at least some people would willingly choose the latter. Of course, the world can only sustain about 1% or less of the current population with this lifestyle.
The 1% number I suggest above is based on the estimates of human population prior to the advent of agriculture, which are in the neighborhood of 10 million or so. Despite this low number, these foragers managed to drive a significant proportion of megafauna (such as mastodons and cave bears) extinct - that is, they had a very large long term negative effect on the environment. Agriculture was able to increase the population 100 fold to around one billion by the time of Christ.
At a population of 8 billion on the way up to ten billion, even if we assume we could somehow get a hundred million people to survive as foragers (ten times the estimates that actually thrived), we would need to do something about the other 99% of people.
Gotcha. So it looks like we won't be returning to a foraging lifestyle anytime soon :)
I'll definitely take this life over hunting and gathering!