>The world also tended to be far more violent in the past than it is now.
Do you think people just dropped dead? Humans are not that fragile. The reason the average Roman age was relatively low is because of high mortality at childbirth. If you got to 20, chances were in your favor that you'd get to at least 60. This applies to non-roman, pre-vaccine societies too.
>Basically everyone suffered trauma we'd call fairly extreme, these days.
Eh, maybe. But at the same time, I don't agree that they would be "traumatized."
Heck, I bet if you could place a modern human who has lived his entire life in a developed Western country even a couple of thousand years back, I think he'd get pretty acquainted with that way of life in no time. If there's one thing we're good at it's probably adapting to our environment.
Life is a collection of habits. If you're used to death and destruction (though I am not saying that death and destruction were as common as you make it out to be), it won't phase you. Montaigne talks about this when comparing European society and moral norms to New World (Indian) societies and moral norms.
>The world also tended to be far more violent in the past than it is now.
No data proving this to be true, whatsoever.
Plus it's a vast overgeneralization. More violent where? In what today we would call France? China? Canada? Turkey? Chad? Argentina? Was there even a single event nearly as violent as World War 2 pre-vaccines, which happened 80 years ago? Your postulation is on very shaky legs, at best.
If I recall correctly from the last time I read Stephen Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature the murder rate in pre-Industrialized Northern Europe is estimated to be between 50 and 500 per 100K which is anywhere from 10 to 100x as violent as the global rate today. And that's not including inter state or inter tribal warfare.
And the following is from Pinker himself(https://web.archive.org/web/20201026010157/https://stevenpin...):
"The upshot is that each of the following two
assertions can be true: (1) the chances of war are lower than they were before, and (2) the damage
caused by the most severe imaginable war is greater than it was before. That makes it meaningless—an
issue of semantics—to speculate about whether the world is “safer” overall; in one sense it may be
safer, in another sense, less safe. That is exactly why Better Angels does not claim, contra Taleb, that the
world is “safer” across the board"
I think it’s impossible to live in the perspective of a person living in a place 300 years ago.
But I take the position that people are people, and tend to behave the same over time to similar stimuli.
My ancestors in 17th century Northern Ireland would be well acquainted with violence as Cromwell ravaged through and tried to cleanse them. I would imagine that familiarity would drive defensive behaviors - hoarding food, knowing when to run, being vigilant. That affects you.
If you’re a typical urban or suburban professional, you live a life free of strife or serious concern for bodily harm. That’s not the case for people who live a few miles from you, and certainly not the case for most people in the US even 100 years ago.
>Cromwell ravaged through and tried to cleanse them
I don't think you realize just how weak central states were back in the day. To even call them states in the same vein as how we would today call a state a state is a bit of a misnomer
Cromwell lived in the 17th century, a time when there was no instant access to information between large (or small) spans of geography. A time when commands couldn't be given and executed right away
>you live a life free of strife or serious concern for bodily harm
Like in Cromwell's time, for the majority of even his opponents. Good luck finding your enemy who has no phone or any other device that emits signals. And if you do find him, good luck getting that information to your superiors before he can escape again
And to go a bit off-topic:
I don't understand why there is a tendency here where people think we live in these semi-perfect, vaguely utopian Times where life is so much better in every way compared to even 100, or god forbid, 500 years or more; and that these Times will only get better and better as the clock keeps spinning
People lived and flourished and did just fine back in the day. People weren't breaking down every day because they had no electricity, vaccines (im not anti vax before someone accuses me of being one), or any other things we have today that they didn't have back then
Sure, maybe life was shorter on average (mainly thanks to things like stillbirth), but I think we should question if our comparatively longer lives today (propped up artificially for the vast majority) are any more meaningful or better in quality just because they're quantitatively bigger
- just think of how many people rely on things like blood pressure medication to squeeze out another day instead of making meaningful changes to their lives (and most people could; exceptions exist, though very few) which would actually make their lives much better and more enjoyable
>in the year 1200 the average person would likely not have considered the people living 800 years before them to be all that different from them
How do you know this?
And does the average person today really think someone living in the year 1200 to be all that different from them living in 2025? If so, in what way does this person think people 800 years ago are different from us? (I'm asking because I don't share your assumptions if this hypothetical person were to think on this matter for more than 5 seconds)
The overwhelming majority of "knowledge produced"* is nothing more than noise. Do not for a second think you're missing out on anything valuable or substantial. Do not be (or, remain) just a consumer, thinking he's accomplishing something by slurping up the newest, coolest, dandiest "thing"
* - especially things like: "newsletters, podcasts, Youtube videos, (tech) news, articles, and (of course) books"
I think you will enjoy reading about mediocristan and extremistan, mentioned in the Black Swan by Taleb. Great book all around really (as well as the entire book series too)
For what it's worth: Wearing hand me down clothes has been the norm throughout most of modern human history. To the point that it's been a major influence on fashion. For example, a lot of the ribbons and trim on Victorian clothing was a way to cover up where the clothing had been altered or repaired after being handed down (often from an employer to their servants).
I don't say that to be critical if wearing previously worn clothing bothers you. I just bring it up because sometimes things stop bothering me once I realize that they are fairly common experiences.
I know that wearing hand me downs was common in history. I've worn plenty of hand me down clothes when I was a baby/growing up. But currently, where circumstances aren't pressing, I refuse to wear clothes worn by somebody else. I can be a bit of a germaphobe, so that probably explains most of it
>it should be taught in reverse chronology. Basically here's what's happening now, and that's due to what happened last year, which is due to what happened last decade, etc
Boy, oh boy, you will hate Karl Popper if you ever decide to read him lol
I've read some of his work (only a little bit), but I can't figure out what you're referring to. Is it just that we can't properly know what causes what? For the purposes of childhood education that does not matter too much :)
Do you think people just dropped dead? Humans are not that fragile. The reason the average Roman age was relatively low is because of high mortality at childbirth. If you got to 20, chances were in your favor that you'd get to at least 60. This applies to non-roman, pre-vaccine societies too.
>Basically everyone suffered trauma we'd call fairly extreme, these days.
Eh, maybe. But at the same time, I don't agree that they would be "traumatized."
Heck, I bet if you could place a modern human who has lived his entire life in a developed Western country even a couple of thousand years back, I think he'd get pretty acquainted with that way of life in no time. If there's one thing we're good at it's probably adapting to our environment.
Life is a collection of habits. If you're used to death and destruction (though I am not saying that death and destruction were as common as you make it out to be), it won't phase you. Montaigne talks about this when comparing European society and moral norms to New World (Indian) societies and moral norms.
>The world also tended to be far more violent in the past than it is now.
No data proving this to be true, whatsoever.
Plus it's a vast overgeneralization. More violent where? In what today we would call France? China? Canada? Turkey? Chad? Argentina? Was there even a single event nearly as violent as World War 2 pre-vaccines, which happened 80 years ago? Your postulation is on very shaky legs, at best.
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