Civilized to Death
The New York Times best selling co-author of Sex at Dawn explores the ways in which 'progress' has perverted the way we live: how people eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
6mentions
4people
2020–2024years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Steven Pinker's work is disingenuous and riddled with inaccuracies.
I suggest reading Chris Ryan's Civilized to Death to correct the intellectual damage inflicted by Pinker.
- >> people will believe whatever they want to first.
Including Harari. There's more wrong in that book than there is right, aside from basic facts that people should already know.
Chriatopher Ryan (Civilized to Death & Sex at Dawn) explores the few compelling points made by Sapiens in depth and without all of the disingenuity and naive philosphy present in Sapiens.
- Sex at Dawn and Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan
- In two books I've read recently (Conquistador about Hernan Cortes, and Civilized to Death which contrasts the lives of modern humans with ancient ones) the authors mention how fat was often poached from the dead -- animals and people alike. It was used like a grease for all sorts of things, including filling wounds to prevent infection. Pretty interesting stuff.
- I've recently finished reading "Civilized to Death"[0] and I can't help feel there's some truth to some of the ideas.
One idea that stuck with me is that shit zoos have concrete cages for the monkeys, and they're miserable in them, showing similar signs to modern humans (depression, addition, anger), whereas nice zoos try to keep the monkeys in similar environments to those that they evolved for, where the monkeys are pretty much chill. The author argues that we're constructing concrete zoos for ourselves and in the process making ourselves miserable. We're so far detached from what our bodies and minds evolved for, that it's an alien environment for our species.
If this holds truth, it's really no wonder that the more we pile on and the further we stray from our true species' preferences, the more horrible we will feel, and this hikikomori is a fine illustration of that.
As some comments pointed out 'what about the great depression', 'what about 'nuclear war', "don't you like your electricity"? These are all human patches for human made problems. I don't think the correlation between progress and wellbeing is as clear cut as some would like to see it.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Civilized-Death-What-Lost-Modernity/d...
- It's hard to assess, especially from our position, which set of challenges the human soul prefers. But there's an interesting point to be made, touched in both "Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress"[0] as well as "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity"[1] that no 'savage' has been interested in non-coercively joining an 'advanced' society, whereas there are plenty of examples of 'civilized' people choosing the 'savage' life. I don't think the choice is as clear cut as it would superficially seem.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Civilized-Death-What-Lost-Modernity/d... [1] https://www.amazon.com/-/en/David-Graeber/dp/0374157359
