Anyone else ever thought if life was still like it was in hunter-gatherer societies they wouldn't necessarily want to ctb?

[canaryblue]

Okay, hear me out please.

I know this doesn't apply to everyone, some people have physical conditions that make life hard to bear. I wouldn't know because I'm one of those who are young, able-bodied and still feel like major fuck-ups who just can't do anything right in todays society. I just feel so out of place. Like, everyone around me "gets" it and knows how to maneuver their way around modern society, how to form relationships, how to go to work every day, how to live life like an adult. I can't do any of these things and it's a big part of what makes it so hard for me to keep on going.

Like, in theory I have all this freedom to become whoever I want as they say but at the same time it comes with the hefty price of being all alone with your choices in life, like no one really cares because everyone is to busy to keep that carousel going. This tremendous loneliness, feeling so seperate from everything and everyone, it really freaks me out.

Sometimes it just gets me thinking that if life was simpler like during ancient times I wouldn't have to worry about such things. I would have my place, I would have my tribe, and most of all, I wouldn't have much time having these thoughts because I would be to busy securing survival for me and my people. I would be valuable bc people would need to rely on me for support, they had to because back then, everyone needed to stick close together.

With modern society, the need to fight for your literal survival is gone and with it the tightly-knit communities and comradry. Like, evolution formed us like this, to be social creatures living in small to medium sized groups, just look at our closest living relatives. And with modern civilization, I just can't, it's just overwhelming, so complicated and crowded. And most of all, so isolating.

Am I crazy for thinking this, or does anyone else have similar thoughts sometimes?

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Human beings live on earth since more than 1 million years only in the last 10000 years we started to settle in places and stay there, only in the last 2000 years bigger cities formed, and only in the last 100 years world changed more than in the last 2000 years. Human beings are not made for the life we have to live in cities, staring on mobile phones, hardly any interactions among us, no nature around us, pressure to be better fast and better .... this is not what human beings used to do on earth for millions of years.

We are victims of our own evolution.

Life in ancient times was not easier, but life was like the life of "animals". Eating / hunting - Sleeping - Eating / Hunting what all other creatures in nature are still doing.

 

[Darkover]

find your tribe, it would be nice to be part of a tribe that believes as i do, but i wouldn't want to live in the forest, i like the internet to much and technology to much


"Find the Others" (Terence Mckenna)

 

[The anhedonic one]

I have thought about this a lot in the past.
Thousands of years ago you could live wherever you wanted.
You could just move anywhere, build your own log cabin etc, grow your own food, hunt etc.
In other words you didn't have to be a pathetic wage slave, and pay for things THAT SHOULD BE FREE.

People would also have been significantly healthier in those days. Very physically fit, and clean food and water free from chemicals.

People are weak and sick everywhere you look today because of this very unatural man-made shitshow we are existing in.

find your tribe, it would be nice to be part of a tribe that believes as i do, but i wouldn't want to live in the forest, i like the internet to much and technology to much


"Find the Others" (Terence Mckenna)

Terence McKenna has been to some very interesting places in his head. Very interesting guy.
I like Alan Watts too.

 

[canaryblue]

Human beings live on earth since more than 1 million years only in the last 10000 years we started to settle in places and stay there, only in the last 2000 years bigger cities formed, and only in the last 100 years world changed more than in the last 2000 years. Human beings are not made for the life we have to live in cities, staring on mobile phones, hardly any interactions among us, no nature around us, pressure to be better fast and better .... this is not what human beings used to do on earth for millions of years.

We are victims of our own evolution.

Life in ancient times was not simpler, but life was like the loife of "animals". Eating / hunting - Sleeping - Eating / Hunting

That's exactly what I mean. Like, we can barely keep up with the speed of our technological development and some people, like me, don't seem like they can do it at all. Thank you!

find your tribe, it would be nice to be part of a tribe that believes as i do, but i wouldn't want to live in the forest, i like the internet to much and technology to much

If only it was that easy. :( I did have a look into it, but nothing seems to promising. Like, in existing communities, you'd always be the outsider, there is no guarantee anyone will truly accept you. You'd need to be born into it. Besides that, I'm just really exhausted mentally, to tired to keep on looking.

I have thought about this a lot in the past.
Thousands of years ago you could live wherever you wanted.
You could just move anywhere, build your own log cabin etc, grow your own food, hunt etc.
In other words you didn't have to be a pathetic wage slave, and pay for things THAT SHOULD BE FREE.

People would also have been significantly healthier in those days. Very physically fit, and clean food and water free from chemicals.

People are weak and sick everywhere you look today because of this very unatural man-made shitshow we are existing in.

Very well put. I don't like the system, how it abuses and exploits people and only rewards a select few. I feel so powerless in the face of it. Back then, the playing field seemed to be leveled more evenly. I'm not saying that it was fair, ever, we don't live in that kind of world, but back then you had a chance, at least. People worked less too, apparently (if you can call it "working", i would just call it living and surviving). Ever since the agricultural revolution we've become bound more and more to *stuff* and it was only downhill from there xD.

 

[NearlyIrrelevantCake]

I would've been dead long before adulthood but that in itself would make me want to go back to then. An easier way out to die as a child.

 

[captive]

yeah, living today means involuntarily participating in this stupid rat race

 

[canaryblue]

I would've been dead long before adulthood but that in itself would make me want to go back to then. An easier way out to die as a child.

Sorry to hear that! Yeah that's what I meant in the beginning that not everyone would be able to agree with that sentiment. Like, from your perspective, it might even sound very inconsiderate on my part (not saying that you specifically are feeling like that).

Then again, I had a medical problem that needed an op when I was only a few months old, I probably wouldn't have survived back then either. Child mortality was really high back then, over 50 per cent didn't reach the age of 15 if I remember correctly from Wikipedia.

 

[Linda]

Oddly enough, I was thinking something very similar myself earlier today. We evolved to function in those kinds of societies, and we are not well adapted to the modern world.

 

[cgrtt.brns]

fucking THIS exactly. ive felt this way for so long but never knew how to put it into words, thank you. i wish i could just live in a small community, an actual community that cares for eachother and relies on eachother. the way we live now is so isolating, even if you live in a busy city surrounded by people, you're alone. i would immediately take having to be physically fit enough to hunt, gather and build with the help of my community with the risk of being eaten by bears over being depressed and weak living pay check to pay check, spending the majority of my "money" on necessities so that those who profit off of me can live in lavish mansions and drive annoyingly loud and polluting cars and jets. we are not living, we're simply working ourselves to death for no reason, while destroying the place we live in, and everyone seems to just be okay with it? that is just pure brain washing. humans arent meant to be cogs in a machine, we are animals and we need our planet to live.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Yeah- I definitely have had those thoughts in the past. I remember watching a documentary on Ghana and they were all making these mud huts as a community and I thought it looked so appealing. Of course- I'm sure it's unrealistic though... I'm not afraid of hard work but it would be laughable seeing me try to survive in a more wild setting. Reckon I'd be dead within a week- or- I'd be trying to find my way to a supermarket!

 

[Kerock]

I did. But then I realize we wouldn't have pleasures such as easy sex, drugs, food, video games, anime etc etc. Because at the end of the day your gonna die. Just depends on how your gonna go out. And its helluva lot more fun and pleasurable to go out today in these modern times rather than die of some horrible disease or starvation as a hunter gatherer.

 

[Homo erectus]

Farming is probably the worst invention of all. It creates numerous concentration camps around the world called cities. Most human activities in cities are about regulating how other people should behave. That is infighting. Farming also absorbs solar energy. The energy is not stored up as trees but released into atmosphere through working, which modern humans like very much. Then they create machines called power plants to release more energy from fossil fuels. Farming sets the stage for global warming.
The current round of civilization is said to have begun around the end of last ice age. Maybe humans in the last 12k or so years have actually been programmed by some masters to warm up the Earth because the masters felt too cold.

 

[Ambivalent1]

Modern life is an aberration

 

[OceanBlue]

Hard pass, it was much worse before, I would have been even more of an animal than I am now. The strong do what they want to you, no safety, no amenities, no medication. Some other tribe would decide to take our territory, kill all men, take women as slaves, sacrifice our babies to their gods.

Life is never worth starting, but we live in the best time in history, if we could just end industrial animal farming and breed less humans, that would make a huge difference.

 

[Hollowman]

You're not crazy for thinking like that at all. I wish I would've been born back then.

 

[Ontwon]

Depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation just weren't things that existed back then. Our world is very different and the mis-match between our Paleolithic brains and how we live is a big reason this kind of suffering exists at all.

Last year I went down to Ecuador for a few weeks for a stay at an Ayahuasca sanctuary and the depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts were entirely gone after being there for 5 or 6 days. Obviously the medicine had something to do with it but it wasn't that alone at all. It was that I was living with people with a common goal, we would clean the dishes after meals together (which we ate together), we would have ceremony together, be outside 90% of our waking hours, go on hikes and swim. We ate very healthy foods and drank a lot of clean water. We respected the land and each other. And just like that most of my suffering was gone. Came back home and within a couple weeks I felt sick again…

Not to say life has ever been easy (or maybe even "good") and there were other challenges and no pain meds. If you got an infection you were basically screwed. But yea I think I'd prefer a short, physically harder life then whatever the hell we have going on here. Although preferably no life at all

 

[OceanBlue]

Be very suspicious of anything that makes you more accepting of this hell. Being more of an animal means to reproduce, progress is trying to be less of that. We have more time to think now, we understand where we are better, of course that will bring anxiety and depression - it should teach us that we live in a bad place and shouldn't procreate.

"I feel bad" well why would you ever expect to feel good when living in hell? Most of our ancestors just had no time or couldn't think.

 

[Ontwon]

Be very suspicious of anything that makes you more accepting of this hell. Being more of an animal means to reproduce, progress is trying to be less of that. We have more time to think now, we understand where we are better, of course that will bring anxiety and depression - it should teach us that we live in a bad place and shouldn't procreate.

"I feel bad" well why would you ever expect to feel good when living in hell? Most of our ancestors just had no time or couldn't think.

I completely understand where you're coming from on this. I have often held similar views on life and the world, I got voluntarily sterilized last year because I believed it to be immoral for me to bring children here. However when I got all of my needs met, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually along with healing from previous wounds in all those areas I actually was grateful to be alive. It was amazing that I was actually able to get to a place where I understood why people thought life was a good thing, why they would have children. However life does not solve any problems that it itself doesn't create and to sustainably hit the markers required for a happy and meaningful life is extremely difficult. It seems the cards are stacked unfairly and towards suffering. But at least it is possible for some. Not all of us are doomed to hell

 

[OceanBlue]

Not all of us are doomed to hell

Depends on luck and nothing can justify what happens to those who get the short end of the stick.
If communal living brings you relief, that's great for you, better than pills, doesn't change anything about this world.

Thank you for not bringing others into existence.

 

[Ontwon]

Depends on luck and nothing can justify what happens to those who get the short end of the stick.
If communal living brings you relief, that's great for you, better than pills, doesn't change anything about this world.

Thank you for not bringing others into existence.

Yeah I agree, doesn't justify the world.

Thank you for appreciating what I did. It felt like the least I could do honestly, something I felt I had the moral obligation to as someone who felt a small fraction of the suffering possible on this planet.

Although if I was serious about decreasing suffering for others I'd go vegan, adopt children that are already here and suffering, and get politically active to advocate for euthanasia. Probably just going to end up ctbing tho :/

 

[OceanBlue]

Although if I was serious about decreasing suffering for others I'd go vegan, adopt children that are already here and suffering, and get politically active to advocate for euthanasia. Probably just going to end up ctbing tho :/

Even so, if you decide to ctb, you can be at peace knowing you've achieved the most important thing in this world. In that sense, you got lucky with your brain.

 

[unsaiddes]

I get this tbh. The thought of just existing and making your way through life with fundamentally simpler social and societal structures is intriguing. That's part of why I love reading about pre-historic humans, homo erectus, and the earliest communities archaeologists have found proof of.

Somewhat related; but I always thought I'd be pretty susceptible to those anti-technology, anti new-age cults that remove themselves from the outside world. I know that's stupid to say and I'm definitely too self-aware for that, but there's something appealing about the idea of having fewer things expected of you, being told what is right and wrong and how to just be a person with no surprises in store. Paying no mind to phone screens and job interviews and debt and such. It would tackle the issues of having too much freedom and too many complexities of existence and not enough connections.

 

[CTB Dream]

This v awfl past, human now ok adv posbl solve many prblm ,but human ape species alws greed force sffr no care no effct brcrt etc, have Sci imprv all now posbl euthanas posbl do many thing rest etc enjoy now also ai adv make new. Ppl bfr awfl bio sffr nobod care no cmnc now me talk forum try do any ,if befr me vege potat sffr more. Prblm core human awfl ,adv no prblm

 

[Aisley]

This v awfl past, human now ok adv posbl solve many prblm ,but human ape species alws greed force sffr no care no effct brcrt etc, have Sci imprv all now posbl euthanas posbl do many thing rest etc enjoy now also ai adv make new. Ppl bfr awfl bio sffr nobod care no cmnc now me talk forum try do any ,if befr me vege potat sffr more. Prblm core human awfl ,adv no prblm

i don't think many people here understand what a luxury it is just to be able to flush a toilet, never mind absolutely everything else. I've had an out-house- it wasn't pretty, and newspaper hurts. :-)

 

[leloyon]

Not necessarily, though I feel like the fact that property was less of a thing in those times might help me a little. I could just build my own hut in some part of the forest no one's claimed and be left alone, rather than nowadays where all the land is owned by someone and even if you spend a couple dozen thousand dollars on some land then you need to get planning permission to build on your own property.

 

[Twistedliesinside]

Modern society has corrupted what it means to be human. People aren't valued. Those in control have carefully designed how to take everything from the majority of the population in service of themselves over generations. It would have been nice to live in a time where everyone needed one another and relied on each other. I have fantasised that during the end of the world people may join together to support each other, but judging by how covid affected the world over the last few years takes some hope away.

 

[SomethingsOff]

Oh absolutely. Like- you're telling me we just had to hunt game and collect fruit and then someone invented capitalism? While I can appreciate technology and modernization I still hate that we have to work for our whole lives to survive, paying for necessities when billions of years ago they just… did what they wanted. Went where they wanted. I can admire that.