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A Disease of Prosperity
zamphir66
Posts: 582 Member
in Debate Club
I've been thinking lately about how so many of our poor lifestyle choices -- and the chronic conditions that stem from them -- are made possible in large part by the immense luxury we enjoy in the developed world.
I'm thinking of:
* routinely eating 500+ more calories than your body needs
* alcoholism, substance abuse
* extremely sedentary lifestyles
* creature comforts that would boggle the mind of someone in, say, sub-saharan Africa
My question is: are we in the developed world becoming "soft"? What would happen if there were a large meteor impact, or a volcanic eruption that dwarfed anything in living memory? In other words, could most of us get by if we were suddenly plunged back into the middle ages?
Is this "softness" a threat to the long-term health of humans as a species? Can we do anything about it?
Are we destined to end up like the movie Wall-E?
Just some showerthoughts.
I'm thinking of:
* routinely eating 500+ more calories than your body needs
* alcoholism, substance abuse
* extremely sedentary lifestyles
* creature comforts that would boggle the mind of someone in, say, sub-saharan Africa
My question is: are we in the developed world becoming "soft"? What would happen if there were a large meteor impact, or a volcanic eruption that dwarfed anything in living memory? In other words, could most of us get by if we were suddenly plunged back into the middle ages?
Is this "softness" a threat to the long-term health of humans as a species? Can we do anything about it?
Are we destined to end up like the movie Wall-E?
Just some showerthoughts.
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Replies
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You're not wrong
It's even infected our legal system. Remember "Afluenza" ? 
Pretty sad state of affairs imo. 4 -
Oh, we're definitely screwed if modern society suddenly collapses back a few centuries. The funny thing is, even the most active of us aren't ready for something like that.2
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My dad and I had this discussion not too long ago. As he said, when he was young, people ate at home unless it was a special occasion. They simply couldn't afford to eat out and there weren't many options to begin with. Dad said desserts were a rare treat.
And if you think about it, people were more active in their daily tasks as well. My grandmother hung laundry out to dry, washed dishes by hand, cultivated her own garden, canned food from the garden, and the list goes on and on. Movement was a part of life. And now we sit. And sit and sit!6 -
Absolutely; there are indications this also impacts our psychological conditions due to the fact many people aren't challenging their brain or body in the ways we were evolved to, due to the fact that we just have it way too easy now-a-days.
Supermarkets, Refrigeration, Combustion Engines, Electricity, Structured Healthcare, Advanced Agriculture (owing to combustion + electricity) are all recent advancements if you think about it.
Population has boomed since the early 1900s and ultimately, much smaller percentage of roles entail physical work these days.
Food is one aspect of it, but it's a whole bunch of thing.0 -
Bikes are one of the few things humans have invented for convenience, that make us healthier the more we use them.1
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Could we grow enough of our own food in our backyards with a few chickens to subsist? Could we heat our homes without electricity or gas delivered effortlessly to us? Could we provide ourselves with drinkable water? Interesting to think that moving even in small steps toward these could make us more fit and able to self-rely.
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I've been thinking lately about how so many of our poor lifestyle choices -- and the chronic conditions that stem from them -- are made possible in large part by the immense luxury we enjoy in the developed world.
I'm thinking of:
* routinely eating 500+ more calories than your body needs
* alcoholism, substance abuse
* extremely sedentary lifestyles
* creature comforts that would boggle the mind of someone in, say, sub-saharan Africa
My question is: are we in the developed world becoming "soft"? What would happen if there were a large meteor impact, or a volcanic eruption that dwarfed anything in living memory? In other words, could most of us get by if we were suddenly plunged back into the middle ages?
Is this "softness" a threat to the long-term health of humans as a species? Can we do anything about it?
Are we destined to end up like the movie Wall-E?
Just some showerthoughts.
If we were suddenly plunged back by a cataclysm, we would have trouble achieving even a medieval level of society. Crude as it seems to us, the Middle Ages were a time of marvelous technological advances brought about by a robust, moral, interconnected, civilized, hardworking, sustainable society where the majority if people were experts at producing food, in addition to other extremely challenging skills that required a vast foundation of practical knowledge. Few people today could even properly construct a stone wall to protect a town.
On the bright side, we would all become a lot fitter and leaner in a hurry. I have 25 plus years of gardening experience, and despite my skills it is hard to grow enough to supply 100% of my calories just for the gardening seasons, let alone a surplus to carry my family through winter. A ten hour day of solid work is 3000 calories on top of my base calories...that is a crapload of parsnips and cabbage, which can't be harvested for 100 or so days after sowing.
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I've been thinking lately about how so many of our poor lifestyle choices -- and the chronic conditions that stem from them -- are made possible in large part by the immense luxury we enjoy in the developed world.
I'm thinking of:
* routinely eating 500+ more calories than your body needs
* alcoholism, substance abuse
* extremely sedentary lifestyles
* creature comforts that would boggle the mind of someone in, say, sub-saharan Africa
My question is: are we in the developed world becoming "soft"? What would happen if there were a large meteor impact, or a volcanic eruption that dwarfed anything in living memory? In other words, could most of us get by if we were suddenly plunged back into the middle ages?
Is this "softness" a threat to the long-term health of humans as a species? Can we do anything about it?
Are we destined to end up like the movie Wall-E?
Just some showerthoughts.
Not becoming soft, already are.5 -
I read a lot of post-apocalypse fiction and yeah we're doomed
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cdavison2014 wrote: »Could we grow enough of our own food in our backyards with a few chickens to subsist? Could we heat our homes without electricity or gas delivered effortlessly to us? Could we provide ourselves with drinkable water? Interesting to think that moving even in small steps toward these could make us more fit and able to self-rely.
In situations like pp mentioned we'd be raiding and fighting to the death for necessities like food and weapons. Having chickens and a garden would paint a big bullseye on you
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What I fnd really strange in our luxury world of today is the unhappiness and depression everywhere. Everytime I go home to the States more and more people among family and friends are depressed. It's an epidemic. It always leaves me puzzled. People that have much more than I had as a kid and it doesn't make them happy or serene. Very sad. For the OP--what are people that can hardly walk goning to do if catastrofie hits? Not a pretty picture.3
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I personally believe that man is a survivor. There would probably be a few bumps along the way, but mankind in our first world bubble would overcome.1
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I've been thinking lately about how so many of our poor lifestyle choices -- and the chronic conditions that stem from them -- are made possible in large part by the immense luxury we enjoy in the developed world.
I'm thinking of:
* routinely eating 500+ more calories than your body needs
* alcoholism, substance abuse
* extremely sedentary lifestyles
* creature comforts that would boggle the mind of someone in, say, sub-saharan Africa
My question is: are we in the developed world becoming "soft"? What would happen if there were a large meteor impact, or a volcanic eruption that dwarfed anything in living memory? In other words, could most of us get by if we were suddenly plunged back into the middle ages?
Is this "softness" a threat to the long-term health of humans as a species? Can we do anything about it?
Are we destined to end up like the movie Wall-E?
Just some showerthoughts.
I live in Sub-Saharan Africa and we have all of the problems you mention. While there is poverty and malnutrition it is a gross generalization to think it is the standard state of affairs.5 -
I lived in two different small towns in Italy, one a mountain town on the east and earthquaky side of the Appenines, another in the south near the Adriatic sea in Calabria. Both towns were organized in such a way that the majority of houses had access to large areas of land which were planted with grapes, nut or fruit trees, gardens and stone sheds for chickens and goats. The women were out everyday, managing the garden, hqnging the daily wash out, and tending milking etc the animals, rain, snow or sun. Their houses, even in winter had the windows and shutters open to the air a good part of the day amd smoke coming out of the chimneys. So my take away to you is, move to a small medieval town in modern Italy? No, no, I left. Too backward, there is a lot of superstition and strangeness that goes with that way of life which, trust me, none of us would be prepared for either that goes right along with not being physically tough enough to endure that life. I don't have the solution to centralization of food products, long distance shipping of food products, mechanization of everything, and the delocalization of products, or that families no longer take care of one another and neither do governments care. Sorry to end this on a dark note.
edited with an apology.2 -
My thoughts:
YesMy question is: are we in the developed world becoming "soft"?
No, I don't believe most of us could or would.What would happen if there were a large meteor impact, or a volcanic eruption that dwarfed anything in living memory? In other words, could most of us get by if we were suddenly plunged back into the middle ages?
Maybe. Definitely a threat to most, but I think some humans would survive.Is this "softness" a threat to the long-term health of humans as a species?
Yes, but I'm not sure we will.Can we do anything about it?
I don't know. Perhaps.Are we destined to end up like the movie Wall-E?0 -
cdavison2014 wrote: »Could we grow enough of our own food in our backyards with a few chickens to subsist? Could we heat our homes without electricity or gas delivered effortlessly to us? Could we provide ourselves with drinkable water? Interesting to think that moving even in small steps toward these could make us more fit and able to self-rely.
With so much of our population living in cities growing food and chickens would not be feasible without a mass migration. How much food do you think could be produced within say 50 miles of Manhattan? No where near enough to feed the population of the area.2 -
I personally believe that man is a survivor. There would probably be a few bumps along the way, but mankind in our first world bubble would overcome.
Here's the issue with that. Mankind *might* survive, but would you want to live in that world? Here's where I draw that outlook from.
I've been extremely fortunate in that I've traveled a good deal and lived in places an awful lot of Americans only read about.
I have, in civilized countries mind you,
-been offered sex by a woman who had to be in her 80s, in exchange for a loaf of bread to feed the 8 people living in her single room, unheated home with no running water (Ciudad Acuna, Mexico)
- Seen starvation in the middle of a reasonably well to do metropolitan city while people walk by in their 3 piece suits (Kunsan, SK)
- 2 older women (Mid 70s?) literally trying to gouge each others eyes out over a few yuan, again Kunsan SK)
- Worked with (and still do) children who have been repeatedly raped and beaten by their own fathers/brothers/mothers (Good old US of A)
I could continue this citing both personal experiences as well as far too many vetted news stories of mankind's atrocities committed against mankind to C&P here....
Keep in mind this happened and is happening in an age where technological and medical and psychological knowledge, and in some areas quality of life, is at a fairly high point in our relatively short history.
With the above in mind, with so much available to humans today in terms of welfare/jobs/food/shelter (inclusive of gov't assistance and all) with all this available - What will this world look like if society devolves to a "Survival of the fittest" type model?
Mankind can overcome any obstacle in the world but for our own propensity for self destruction.
edited for corrections5 -
Just here to point out that back many generations when managing a household and feeding your family was an all-day affair of physical work, people died earlier and suffered more with illness. Obesity was a sideshow act back then, but the general population wasn't living longer.3
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fittocycle wrote: »My dad and I had this discussion not too long ago. As he said, when he was young, people ate at home unless it was a special occasion. They simply couldn't afford to eat out and there weren't many options to begin with. Dad said desserts were a rare treat.
And if you think about it, people were more active in their daily tasks as well. My grandmother hung laundry out to dry, washed dishes by hand, cultivated her own garden, canned food from the garden, and the list goes on and on. Movement was a part of life. And now we sit. And sit and sit!
Some of us grew up this way...many people even in the western world still live this way. There are pockets of people all across the US that don't have automatic dishwashers...still grow their own food...and still hang their clothes out.
I grew up in an area where 95% of the people lived the way that you described. I can remember my mother owning a washing machine that you had to turn the handle to wring the clothes out. We gardened, canned, froze almost everything that we ate. Raised our own chickens...had cows and pigs. Our sitting down time was usually to shuck corn or snap beans.
Regardless of this way of life...there were still many over weight and obese people. We worked hard...we ate hard. Sometimes that was our only form of pleasure. Food tasted really good after a long hard day. There was a lot of fat...in everything!4 -
That can be said for just about any exercise equipment though including running shoes. The issue is not the technology here, but the lack of usage.NorthCascades wrote: »Bikes are one of the few things humans have invented for convenience, that make us healthier the more we use them.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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It wouldn't even need to be anything cataclysmic. Power going off for a few hours drives people into madness and desperation.
If it happened, then the old addage "The strongest will survive" will again be the reality. I'd be looking to hook up with Bear Grylls.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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There are many things you lose when you advance technologically, and we're in an era of rapid technological advancement. Populations are pushed to focus all their energy to continue to advance (focus on STEM education instead of arts/humanities/skilled labor, for instance) - we don't have to work as hard or remember as much "old/survival" knowledge because technology does that for us. (Calculators, industrial machinery, hot water heaters, GPS, the list is endless) We're also not used to discomfort - temperature extremes, minor aches and pains, hunger - because unless you're very poor, you can spend a minute or two fixing the discomfort without having to work for it. (In the US, obviously some of this is very different in other parts of the world.)
Hell, I'm in my early thirties and still have all my teeth and have spare time in my day to let myself drive a car to a gym and run on a treadmill going nowhere for 45 minutes, then feel inconvenienced because I had to spend 8 minutes in the store buying a whole pound of butter on my way home. That is mystifying and incredible, and I would be completely screwed if I had to survive in a catastrophic situation.
Technology, as a whole, is created and advanced to make life easier and more efficient. But we didn't really have time to map out the ways an easier and more efficient life might impact our bodies, minds, health, and happiness overall. Yes, we're soft. Prosperity and technology did a great deal to make us that way, and we're becoming dependent on it for overall survival. Only time will tell if it's a good thing or a bad one.3 -
Humans are unbelievably resilient, more resilient than you would think. Syria had all the luxuries someone in the first world has. People were generally living comfortable lives. Now, a war torn country where food is scarce and healthcare is nearly nonexistent, people are who haven't been killed have adapted to survival. If anything happens, of course some will not survive it, just like any disaster, but you would be surprised how tough some seemingly "soft" people are.5
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I've been thinking lately about how so many of our poor lifestyle choices -- and the chronic conditions that stem from them -- are made possible in large part by the immense luxury we enjoy in the developed world.
I'm thinking of:
* routinely eating 500+ more calories than your body needs
* alcoholism, substance abuse
* extremely sedentary lifestyles
* creature comforts that would boggle the mind of someone in, say, sub-saharan Africa
My question is: are we in the developed world becoming "soft"? What would happen if there were a large meteor impact, or a volcanic eruption that dwarfed anything in living memory? In other words, could most of us get by if we were suddenly plunged back into the middle ages?
Is this "softness" a threat to the long-term health of humans as a species? Can we do anything about it?
Are we destined to end up like the movie Wall-E?
Just some showerthoughts.
I work in gastroenterology and I see this on a daily basis. GERD, diarrhea, constipation, cancer...most all can be related to diet or poor lifestyle choices. I try to advocate dietary modification, but am routinely hit with resistance because of various reasons. We live in a fast paced society that wants everything now. People don't cook and let alone eat at home any more. I hear too often its too expensive to cook at home, but if you break it down it is way more expensive to eat out. I can do wonders with $20 at the grocery store vs paying that to a fast food restaurant for one meal per person. I like to think of food as medicine. Put the good in and you get a good return on your investment. Put in crap...and you get just that. Not saying I don't enjoy a meal out or dessert, but not for routine daily consumption. If you want to improve society make HomeEc mandatory in schools. I don't think that's even offered any more.11 -
It's not just our fitness. We have no idea how to do anything without the Internet anymore. We'd be relearning survival from square one.snowflake954 wrote: »What I fnd really strange in our luxury world of today is the unhappiness and depression everywhere. Everytime I go home to the States more and more people among family and friends are depressed. It's an epidemic. It always leaves me puzzled. People that have much more than I had as a kid and it doesn't make them happy or serene. Very sad. For the OP--what are people that can hardly walk goning to do if catastrofie hits? Not a pretty picture.
I've wondered often if the depression epidemic is related to our sedentary lifestyles, and to some degree, not fulfilling our evolutionary "purpose." Are our bodies bored? Are our minds bored by getting most of our stimulation from screens, only using our senses of sight and hearing? I think if we were suddenly out in "the wild" day in and day out, it would be a huge shock to our system, not just from our new levels of physical activity, but how our minds are stimulated and how we perceive the world around us. Also, I wonder if we live too long. Many now live several decades longer than they would have 100 years ago, but very few have the quality of life to truly enjoy their additional years.
A few reasons why I'd die off almost immediately:
-I'm a slow runner with overly tight hip flexors from constantly sitting.
-I sleep on a cushy mattress on my side. I wouldn't get any sleep for a while because I'd be so uncomfortable on the ground, so I'd be exhausted.
-I know absolutely nothing about how to forage for food, and Siri wouldn't be available to tell me if that berry is poisonous or not.
-While I'm a decent engineer and could probably design a shelter, I don't think I have the strength or the skills to gather materials and assemble it.
-I've never tried to start a fire of any kind. Ever. Not in a fireplace, not on a grill. Fire scares the crap out of me. And now I have to do it by making sparks instead of using a match or lighter? Pardon me while I freeze to death over here.
-Me going hunting (with a spear??)? Lol. Maybe fishing. I could probably fish, but with my luck, we're in the middle of some nuclear apocalypse and all the fish are radioactive.4 -
crzycatlady1 wrote: »cdavison2014 wrote: »Could we grow enough of our own food in our backyards with a few chickens to subsist? Could we heat our homes without electricity or gas delivered effortlessly to us? Could we provide ourselves with drinkable water? Interesting to think that moving even in small steps toward these could make us more fit and able to self-rely.
In situations like pp mentioned we'd be raiding and fighting to the death for necessities like food and weapons. Having chickens and a garden would paint a big bullseye on you
I have to agree.
There is a huge Amish population in my area, and a huge Amish population outside of Philly...once those cities empty out of people who think they can find all the food they need in the country, the Amish--the people best positioned to survive a cataclysm, and share their knowledge with the rest of us--would be absolutely overrun, their traction animals and production animals slaughtered, their seed corn devoured, and I don't even want to think about what would happen to their wives and children at the hands of a mob. It would be the same situation for any farmer, although the non-pacifist ones would go down with perhaps a brisker fight.
And it would be extremely difficult to hide the copious amounts of food and production infrastructure required to keep a family alive.
Assuming I need 3500 calories to maintain in "peasant" mode (which is an underestimation...just going off what I burn today during garden playtime) I would need 50 eggs a day to meet my calorie needs. So that would probably require 60 or 70 chickens, JUST for me, not for my husband or my two children, and that is assuming summertime production--many hens stop laying in the winter time.
Or 14 lbs apples (from established trees at least several years old).
Or 10 lbs potatoes (I hand-planted and dug 50 lbs of potatoes this past year....hard work for fancy little gourmet fingerlings. I probably spent more calories than I produced. Actually, I punched in some numbers and I might have produced a 14,000 calorie surplus).
Or 1.5 gallons whole milk (just raising show rabbits requires significant infrastructure, investment and knowledge...I cannot even imagine with a cow).
Or 17 lbs of dandelion greens (a little less than a bushel).
Every day.
Ideally it would be some combination thereof, but this illustrates the huge amount of food needed to meet the requirements of just a smallish laborer. Fats and sugars, two of our biggest bugbears today, would be items of extreme desperation and desire. There is apparently a thing called "rabbit starvation" where you are attempting to subsist off of meats that are too lean.2 -
chocolate_owl wrote: »It's not just our fitness. We have no idea how to do anything without the Internet anymore. We'd be relearning survival from square one.snowflake954 wrote: »What I fnd really strange in our luxury world of today is the unhappiness and depression everywhere. Everytime I go home to the States more and more people among family and friends are depressed. It's an epidemic. It always leaves me puzzled. People that have much more than I had as a kid and it doesn't make them happy or serene. Very sad. For the OP--what are people that can hardly walk goning to do if catastrofie hits? Not a pretty picture.
I've wondered often if the depression epidemic is related to our sedentary lifestyles, and to some degree, not fulfilling our evolutionary "purpose." Are our bodies bored? Are our minds bored by getting most of our stimulation from screens, only using our senses of sight and hearing? I think if we were suddenly out in "the wild" day in and day out, it would be a huge shock to our system, not just from our new levels of physical activity, but how our minds are stimulated and how we perceive the world around us. Also, I wonder if we live too long. Many now live several decades longer than they would have 100 years ago, but very few have the quality of life to truly enjoy their additional years.
A few reasons why I'd die off almost immediately:
-I'm a slow runner with overly tight hip flexors from constantly sitting.
-I sleep on a cushy mattress on my side. I wouldn't get any sleep for a while because I'd be so uncomfortable on the ground, so I'd be exhausted.
-I know absolutely nothing about how to forage for food, and Siri wouldn't be available to tell me if that berry is poisonous or not.
-While I'm a decent engineer and could probably design a shelter, I don't think I have the strength or the skills to gather materials and assemble it.
-I've never tried to start a fire of any kind. Ever. Not in a fireplace, not on a grill. Fire scares the crap out of me. And now I have to do it by making sparks instead of using a match or lighter? Pardon me while I freeze to death over here.
-Me going hunting (with a spear??)? Lol. Maybe fishing. I could probably fish, but with my luck, we're in the middle of some nuclear apocalypse and all the fish are radioactive.
We've actually had pretty in-depth discussions with some family members about a catastrophic disaster situation and one of the biggest problems initially we think would be water quality. My husband has done work on our local water treatment plant and the backup system will work for one week, before it totally goes off line. My mother-in-law actually wants to stock up on chlorine tablets but so far we've talked her out of it lol.
But, in these types of situations you'd most likely be breaking into other houses to forage/sleep (so not building shelters or sleeping on the ground), you'd spend most of your time hiding (so not a lot of running), you wouldn't be building a lot of fires because they attract attention, and I don't know that a whole lot of traditional hunting would be taking place-you'd most likely be taking canned/boxed goods from houses and any stores that haven't already been thoroughly looted.
We actually have a semi-serious plan in place where if something big happened and we survived the initial disaster we'd head to the lake (we live 45 minutes away from one of the Great Lakes by car, a couple hours by kayak if we took the nearby river that feeds into it), and commandeer a sail boat (ours is at a marina on the lake but not by where the river dumps into). Getting away from people is probably going to help your chances of survival quite a bit
Note to self: stop reading Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic books.... 3 -
chocolate_owl wrote: »It's not just our fitness. We have no idea how to do anything without the Internet anymore. We'd be relearning survival from square one.snowflake954 wrote: »What I fnd really strange in our luxury world of today is the unhappiness and depression everywhere. Everytime I go home to the States more and more people among family and friends are depressed. It's an epidemic. It always leaves me puzzled. People that have much more than I had as a kid and it doesn't make them happy or serene. Very sad. For the OP--what are people that can hardly walk goning to do if catastrofie hits? Not a pretty picture.
I've wondered often if the depression epidemic is related to our sedentary lifestyles, and to some degree, not fulfilling our evolutionary "purpose." Are our bodies bored? Are our minds bored by getting most of our stimulation from screens, only using our senses of sight and hearing? I think if we were suddenly out in "the wild" day in and day out, it would be a huge shock to our system, not just from our new levels of physical activity, but how our minds are stimulated and how we perceive the world around us. Also, I wonder if we live too long. Many now live several decades longer than they would have 100 years ago, but very few have the quality of life to truly enjoy their additional years.
A few reasons why I'd die off almost immediately:
-I'm a slow runner with overly tight hip flexors from constantly sitting.
-I sleep on a cushy mattress on my side. I wouldn't get any sleep for a while because I'd be so uncomfortable on the ground, so I'd be exhausted.
-I know absolutely nothing about how to forage for food, and Siri wouldn't be available to tell me if that berry is poisonous or not.
-While I'm a decent engineer and could probably design a shelter, I don't think I have the strength or the skills to gather materials and assemble it.
-I've never tried to start a fire of any kind. Ever. Not in a fireplace, not on a grill. Fire scares the crap out of me. And now I have to do it by making sparks instead of using a match or lighter? Pardon me while I freeze to death over here.
-Me going hunting (with a spear??)? Lol. Maybe fishing. I could probably fish, but with my luck, we're in the middle of some nuclear apocalypse and all the fish are radioactive.
Well aren't you just a ray of confident sunshine!
j/k Just teasing...
My wife and I are not survivalists by any stretch of the imagination, but we do spend an awful lot of time doing things the old fashioned way, on purpose. Reading real books, carpentry with only basic hand tools, cooking and grilling over an open fire we started, when able to safely do so.
We both also "Unplug" quite a bit during the warmer months.
Survival with only the basics can be grueling. Survival during a worst case scenario, think WW3, would likely limit an awful lot of lives to hours or days, much less weeks/months/years.
That said, I strongly encourage people to learn the basics. How to start a fire in the wild, build shelters, trap and hunt, clean and cook fresh kills. That may not sound very appealing to some people, but if theories about the age of the earth and the advent of civilization are even close to being accurate, then we are not that far removed from those roots to begin with.
Couple that with the thought that civilization is, as some people believe, quite fragile. We in the west are quite sheltered these days. That may not last.
/gets off his little soapbox lol0 -
chocolate_owl wrote: »It's not just our fitness. We have no idea how to do anything without the Internet anymore. We'd be relearning survival from square one.snowflake954 wrote: »What I fnd really strange in our luxury world of today is the unhappiness and depression everywhere. Everytime I go home to the States more and more people among family and friends are depressed. It's an epidemic. It always leaves me puzzled. People that have much more than I had as a kid and it doesn't make them happy or serene. Very sad. For the OP--what are people that can hardly walk goning to do if catastrofie hits? Not a pretty picture.
I've wondered often if the depression epidemic is related to our sedentary lifestyles, and to some degree, not fulfilling our evolutionary "purpose." Are our bodies bored? Are our minds bored by getting most of our stimulation from screens, only using our senses of sight and hearing? I think if we were suddenly out in "the wild" day in and day out, it would be a huge shock to our system, not just from our new levels of physical activity, but how our minds are stimulated and how we perceive the world around us. Also, I wonder if we live too long. Many now live several decades longer than they would have 100 years ago, but very few have the quality of life to truly enjoy their additional years.
A few reasons why I'd die off almost immediately:
-I'm a slow runner with overly tight hip flexors from constantly sitting.
-I sleep on a cushy mattress on my side. I wouldn't get any sleep for a while because I'd be so uncomfortable on the ground, so I'd be exhausted.
-I know absolutely nothing about how to forage for food, and Siri wouldn't be available to tell me if that berry is poisonous or not.
-While I'm a decent engineer and could probably design a shelter, I don't think I have the strength or the skills to gather materials and assemble it.
-I've never tried to start a fire of any kind. Ever. Not in a fireplace, not on a grill. Fire scares the crap out of me. And now I have to do it by making sparks instead of using a match or lighter? Pardon me while I freeze to death over here.
-Me going hunting (with a spear??)? Lol. Maybe fishing. I could probably fish, but with my luck, we're in the middle of some nuclear apocalypse and all the fish are radioactive.
Well aren't you just a ray of confident sunshine!
j/k Just teasing...
My wife and I are not survivalists by any stretch of the imagination, but we do spend an awful lot of time doing things the old fashioned way, on purpose. Reading real books, carpentry with only basic hand tools, cooking and grilling over an open fire we started, when able to safely do so.
We both also "Unplug" quite a bit during the warmer months.
Survival with only the basics can be grueling. Survival during a worst case scenario, think WW3, would likely limit an awful lot of lives to hours or days, much less weeks/months/years.
That said, I strongly encourage people to learn the basics. How to start a fire in the wild, build shelters, trap and hunt, clean and cook fresh kills. That may not sound very appealing to some people, but if theories about the age of the earth and the advent of civilization are even close to being accurate, then we are not that far removed from those roots to begin with.
Couple that with the thought that civilization is, as some people believe, quite fragile. We in the west are quite sheltered these days. That may not last.
/gets off his little soapbox lol
This. Millions would die within a few days/weeks just from of lack of medical care and access to prescriptions. I'm sure we all know people who take prescription drugs to function. Or have family/friends who are in cancer treatments, use dialysis, etc etc. If those things were suddenly no longer available a lot of people would die very quickly. Not to mention those in nursing homes etc. One of the ways we're 'soft' now is that we have access to medical care that allows otherwise sick/infirmed people to live. Take that away and yeah-not a pretty picture.1 -
Just a thought. The thread is titled "Disease of Prosperity."
If it's a disease, what's the cure?
Not sure I'd want to be part of any control group used to research that....nope.1
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