The Official Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon/Tue drunk/drugs/sad sex thread

[Ram27]

if billy corgan had to farm all day we wouldn't have this forum

but then again i'd probably/maybe be happier harvesting wheat and earning an honest living than pretending to go to school

[vixnix]

It depends where in the world you live, and what you grow.

I think many cultures had free time, just not a lot to do. I think the current thoughts about traditional Polynesian life for instance, is that the bulk of the horticultural work could be completed during the cooler hours of the early morning, after which time there would be a large meal and then time to sit and weave mats, carve, fish, etc.

They were subsistence farmers, but still had time to cultivate a fairly complex culture of speech making, singing, dancing, rituals of feasting, myth-creating, etc. ...

Speaking as somebody with limited experience of farming and growing my own food, from what I understand, it doesn't literally take all day - even if it takes a lot of the day. I guess the key is how well you can work cooperatively with other people.

Maybe the average netphorian should be glad we're not subsistence farmers lol

[redbreegull]

the past was brutal and horrible compared to how most of us live today, no thank you

[vixnix]

other stuff would be terrible though - not having a full array of modern medical treatment, etc.

we'd be happier and healthier until we got sick, and then we'd be in considerably more head splitting pain and would die sooner.

I shouldn't be flippant about it. I'm not, really.

[buzzard]

Things must have been cruisy enough for the first few weeks after harvest festival.

[teh b0lly!!1]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

the past was brutal and horrible compared to how most of us live today, no thank you

depending how far back in history you choose to go, of course, this assumption may be much more inaccurate than one might think, imho

[Ram27]

i want to be a phoenician sailor

[buzzard]

Wouldn't you get sick of reading all those letters from the apostles?

[Disco King]

Seeing somebody else for the first time tomorrow. Have to see them early because I work in the evening. I am not an early person.

And by "early," I mean 11:00 am.

Seeing as there's nothing I can do (short of dying and being reincarnated as somebody with a personality) to prevent this person from also not being interested in me, I'm contemplating just sleeping in tomorrow and then watching YouTube until it's time for work. Skip straight to the inevitable part.

[yo soy el mejor]

so you're going to stand them up?

[Disco King]

I'd never stand somebody up. If I decided not to show, I'd cancel in advance. Like, wake up a few hours early to cancel, then go back to bed (and hopefully die in my sleep).

But I'll probably go anyway. I greatly increase my chances of dying if I leave the house, anyway.

[Ram27]

Originally Posted by Disco King

Seeing as there's nothing I can do (short of dying and being reincarnated as somebody with a personality) to prevent this person from also not being interested in me

wait a sec are you me?

my naive advice is to try to go anyway, maybe lightning will strike and she'll be into you, despite being sleep deprived

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by teh b0lly!!1

depending how far back in history you choose to go, of course, this assumption may be much more inaccurate than one might think, imho

well you could argue people might have been "happier" or "better off," which I think is what vix was saying, but those things are kind of hard to judge if for no other reason because nearly all recorded history until a few hundred years ago focuses exclusively on the rich and powerful and is dismissive of how all regular folks lived. But we can actually tell a lot about the physical factors people were exposed to from skeletal remains, and it's pretty safe to say that in general terms, the past was a lot more physically brutal.

Changes in labor organization, medicine, and nutrition have completely altered the physical hardships we are exposed to, especially in rich countries

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by Ram27

wait a sec are you me?

my naive advice is to try to go anyway, maybe lightning will strike and she'll be into you, despite being sleep deprived

I might be you. It depends. Are you me?

Anyway, despite the fact that I've tried to make an effort to be as unambiguous about dates as possible now, I neglected to do that this time, and she's already involved. Which is honestly fine, I don't think was in the headspace for a date anyway, and I also don't think she was my type. However, we had a great conversation and both wanna be friends. She's kinda new to the city and wants to check out more of the arts and culture, and also we like picking each other's brains.

[Ram27]

Originally Posted by Disco King

I might be you. It depends. Are you me?

Anyway, despite the fact that I've tried to make an effort to be as unambiguous about dates as possible now, I neglected to do that this time, and she's already involved. Which is honestly fine, I don't think was in the headspace for a date anyway, and I also don't think she was my type. However, we had a great conversation and both wanna be friends. She's kinda new to the city and wants to check out more of the arts and culture, and also we like picking each other's brains.

at least you have a friend! (tone: genuine)

Originally Posted by redbreegull

well you could argue people might have been "happier" or "better off," which I think is what vix was saying, but those things are kind of hard to judge if for no other reason because nearly all recorded history until a few hundred years ago focuses exclusively on the rich and powerful and is dismissive of how all regular folks lived. But we can actually tell a lot about the physical factors people were exposed to from skeletal remains, and it's pretty safe to say that in general terms, the past was a lot more physically brutal.

Changes in labor organization, medicine, and nutrition have completely altered the physical hardships we are exposed to, especially in rich countries

I'm sure the past was more physically brutal, but the present is more mentally brutal

Now that we have all our basic needs sorted, we take them for granted and get stuck in our heads, overthinking our other problems

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by Ram27

I'm sure the past was more physically brutal, but the present is more mentally brutal

do we actually know this though, or is this an assumption made because the factors which drive us crazy were not present in the past therefore we assume people just didn't have those kinds of issues?

[reprise85]

obviously it's impossible to tell, but those with serious psychotic mental illness probably died early from misadventure or suicide or execution (assuming that's how tribes dealt with criminals/people that made them vulnerable to other groups etc). those with extreme depression likewise died early. but the main non-biochemical source of mental anguish - namely, other people - presumably hasn't changed

[pavementtune]

what past was supposedly less straining mentally?

when you died at 50, when 7 of your 9 children died under the age of 10, wars all over the place, when you had cholera, pest and famine, when sciences were in babyshoes and even minor illnesses or an infected scratch were a death sentence - that past?

you probably did indeed not have the time nor energy to declare your life as ruined over shitty dates, no. (sorry if that sounds shitty, but I cannot hear this "they had it so much better in the past" romanticizing bullcrap of first world citizens who go mental when facebook is down for 30 minutes)

[FoolofaTook]

the main non-biochemical source of anguish is god

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by reprise85

obviously it's impossible to tell, but those with serious psychotic mental illness probably died early from misadventure or suicide or execution (assuming that's how tribes dealt with criminals/people that made them vulnerable to other groups etc). those with extreme depression likewise died early. but the main non-biochemical source of mental anguish - namely, other people - presumably hasn't changed

I think it also depends on the culture of the society.

I remember reading about how some places in the developing world have higher rates of remission for schizophrenia than we've got here in the West. Despite the fact that their understanding of the condition is less advanced, and they attribute it to daemonic possession or something rather than having the idea that it has to do with issues in the brain.

Their higher rate of success with the illness isn't evidence of their explanation for it being closer to the truth than our's. Rather, it was how they deal with the condition. Instead of isolating those affected like we tend to do here, the community makes an effort to keep the afflicted person integrated in society, keep them working in manageable jobs so they still feel useful to society, give them lots of support, etc. They likely do this in hopes that the person will be able to exorcise those daemons, but the result ends up being that whatever negative environmental factors that aggravate psychosis are diminished.

Assuming that some developing societies are closer to pre-industrial societies than ours is, this could be how some societies back then also dealt with mental illness. But of course, it's documented that many of them thought the ill as dangerous and executed or shunned them.

As the world is homogenizing through globalisation, there was probably more variation in how communities dealt with anything in the past than there is now. Which makes it that much harder to make general comparisons between the present and the past.

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

do we actually know this though, or is this an assumption made because the factors which drive us crazy were not present in the past therefore we assume people just didn't have those kinds of issues?

My hunch is that there isn't as much evolution of the human spirit as we think there has been. When you read old books, even if the societal context, knowledge, and technology is different, nearly all of the motivations, thoughts, behaviours, and conflicts seem recognisable and familiar. The past is not an alien planet.

I think there were probably tonne of navel-gazers in Ancient Mesopotamia who would have fit right in on Netphoria.

In the social sciences, we had a theory of "post-materialism" that the generations that didn't have to deal as much with material insecurity or war had politics less interested in securing basic needs (jobs, the economy, safety, etc), and politics more about personal expression and fulfillment.

I don't know the specifics, but I believe this theory has been widely rejected. People are always concerned about their identities, expression, and fulfillment, and it's not just something that arises after basic needs— like food, shelter, and security— are met.

[reprise85]

good posts DK.

[Disco King]

Thanks!

Thinking about the theory of post-materialism, it almost seems like a society-level version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You probably know more about this than I do, but my understanding is that psychologists don't find a lot of empirical support for the idea that humans pursue goals according to Maslow's ranking, correct?

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by Disco King

I think there were probably tonne of navel-gazers in Ancient Mesopotamia who would have fit right in on Netphoria.

do you think there was Mesopotamian shoegaze?

[redbreegull]

my bloody epic of gilgamesh

[Ram27]

oh shit i need to start a band called mesopotamian shoegaze

_________________

those are great points everlasting gaze. I guess all the sad shit gets abstracted out over time. I think with the internet now it's easier to share feelings, so we type more in the moment. In the past, paper/stone/etc was very valuable, and people didn't acquire a tablet just to say they felt shitty on april 25th

i guess we're just over-evolved primates

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Disco King

Thanks!

Thinking about the theory of post-materialism, it almost seems like a society-level version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You probably know more about this than I do, but my understanding is that psychologists don't find a lot of empirical support for the idea that humans pursue goals according to Maslow's ranking, correct?

no, none of those theories have a lot of empirical support. really they are ways to frame life in general, in the aggregate. i'm very much into the ways humans are the same more than how they are different (as is evo psych's wont), and I think some personality theories or theories of development (such as piaget with sensory/pre-operational etc) have some measure of truth to them but everyone is just too different - or perhaps, everyone's circumstances are just too different

for example some people will thrive artistically or spiritually in in the worst situations, in that way they may reach self-actualization without even having their basic physiological needs met. for example on a religious-based hunger strike, or in a concentration camp, etc. and plenty of people have relatedness needs met without being financially secure. but i do think, as a general guideline, it has worth

[myosis]

let's be careful when trying to conceptualize the past in terms of our modern liberalist standards. community life was quite different and nobody was longing for something that they could never dream of experiencing.

[ilikeplanets]

this has been a good read

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by myosis

let's be careful when trying to conceptualize the past in terms of our modern liberalist standards. community life was quite different and nobody was longing for something that they could never dream of experiencing.

this in itself is guilty of what you are warning against though. we don't really have any conception of the "happiness" or "fulfillment" of common people through most of history simply because they had no medium to record their experiences. How can we know they didn't long for "something that they could never dream of experiencing?"