When it comes right down to it, we were better off before, it’s just before there could be rampant wealth inequality, there had to be agriculture. And lots of people really really want wealth inequality when they believe they’ll be on top.
But anyways, organized sports likely came thousands of years before agriculture. Play is natural and especially for a hunting society teamwork is important.
Kids learned hunting tactics, teamwork, and built conditioning by chasing each other around playing organized games.
We can’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear something that could qualify as an organized team sport existed before human language.
I beg your pardon, it seems I expressed myself rather poorly and inaccurately. We had the free time, we lived in cities and we were relatively peaceful. It’s hard for nomadic tribes to have inter-tribe sports competitions but cities that are at peace with each ither can manage. Also, agriculture means that there can be people wholly dedicated to sportsmanship (those indidivuals have no need to hunt or gather - regardless of the average free time a person has, these people can have more than anyone before). Just like there can be people wholly dedicated to the arts, or lawmaking, or other activities that only flourished as “professions” after we settled down.
I hope this is clearer. Please do correct me if I’m wrong but at least this time you’ll ve correcting what I actually meant rather than what I mis-said.
My point was, if two groups of hunters go off in opposite directions, and the one who comes back with the most food is celebrated…
That meets every definition of an organized team sport.
But also, there’s evidence that sport was used in pre-agarian societies as a replacement for all out warfare.
The broader most important point:
Agriculture wasn’t a good deal for the vast majority of humanity. We think it was, because the people who benefited from it are the ones who left records about how great it was. Feudal kings and organized clergy are always going to say the reason they’re in power is a great reason.
Hell, the prevailing theory on why people fell for it, was year round acces to alcohol rather than just lucking into it showing up naturally. That’s what it took for people to stop chilling in the forest, year round access to getting shitfaced. So when people talk about what created modern society, alcoholism is a better answer than agriculture.
What do you call the people celebrating the group who brought most back if not spectators?
Doesn’t it sound logical to you that at first there was a reason others were invested and built the culture phenoma which continues long after it stopped being required?
What I’m saying isn’t exactly a stretch, and the method is foundational to the vast majority of cultural traditions…
That would be one of the main complaints of spectators “I can’t spectate” which is why simulated reproductions of actual hunts/raids/wars were done in a central location with high visibility…
I’m talking about an abstract idea, which we created a label for much much later that reflected the reality of that time. Which should have been obvious when I said it’s older than language…
You’re talking about a word that represents that idea, and insisting we can’t use the word as a representation of that abstract idea before the word was coined.
Just like the first organized sport was almost assuredly not called an “organized sport” at the time and would barely qualify as “organized” by a modern definition.
Like, you know one of the oldest still played sports is two town trying to get a ball into a goal?
That’s pretty much the entire rule set… There’s no cap to players and while being a gun might break laws, it doesn’t break any rules of the game.
That’s not “organized” by today’s standards, but it’s technically organized.
Your first link is an argument by literally one guy that hunter-gatherer societies had more time because they ‘desired less’. Which is obvious nonsense - of course a society can spend less time to make less! He makes no attempt to compare the efficiency of work - how much is gained per hour of work. He also counted ONLY time spent gathering food as ‘work’, completely omitting everything else like food prep, gathering firewood, making clothes, etc. This directly contradicts what he was attempting to argue in the first place.
There is also the giant bugbear in the room- Mr White Man is suggesting that poor health, high infant mortality, lack of protection from extreme weather, etc, are acceptable for Those People to endure if they technically work less. Something I find to be morally abhorent. Frankly, I would argue that just existing in such a society would count as work compared to the quality of life most of us enjoy.
Your second link is about a study of a single tiny ethnic group of 359 people. It is suggestive, but not enough to draw broad conclusions from. They, again, make no attempt to compare quality of life or measure how much is actually gained per hour of work.
There has been plenty of good research over the past couple decades that has cast new light on hunter-gatherer and nomadic groups, including the realization that the line between ‘agricultural’ and ‘non-agricultural’ is practically non-existent. There is a wealth of material out there to explore. I would personally suggest (youtube warning) Ancient Americas, Milo Rossi, and Stefan Milo. Please do not engage in crank science, even if you have the perception that it is anti-status quo.
Mr White Man is suggesting that poor health, high infant mortality, lack of protection from extreme weather, etc, are acceptable for Those People to endure if they technically work less
What?!
The harsh reality is the weak would die off and humans would maintain a much smaller population that the rest of the environment could actually support
I have zero idea why you’re bringing race into this or acting like any hypothetical return wouldn’t be an all or nothing thing…
But by and large, white people would probably have the least to gain. Someone in the Nordic countries have a pretty great life now and it would be a downgrade. Someone in India who just by breathing is equivalently smoking a pack or two a day would see a drastic health improvement.
You’re very upset, but you don’t seem to understand the topic…
including the realization that the line between ‘agricultural’ and ‘non-agricultural’ is practically non-existent.
It’s literally not…
Either you raise plants for food or not…
It’s a very hard line, which is why humans created it as a boundary. Anyone (including YouTubers) who pretends it’s not is just making up controversy for views/engagement.
If you want to learn, stop watching and start reading
The harsh reality is the weak would die off and humans would maintain a much smaller population that the rest of the environment could actually support
Wow, so you’re just an eco-facist huh. Feel free to tell everyone with chronic health conditions that they should die so you can live in some imagined paradise.
I don’t know that there’s a lot to be gained from further interaction, but I’ll clarify what I meant about agricultural vs non-agricultural societies:
The traditional view is that societies are either sedentary agricultural societies or nomadic hunter-gatherer ones. And to be fair the majority of societies we’ve discovered fall largely into one or the other category.
The problem is that they don’t fall fully into one or the other category, and we keep finding evidence of societies that break that understanding entirely.
Firstly, many hunter-gatherer groups engaged in wide-scale wildlife management techniques, such as setting fires to remove old growth vegetation and encourage new growth. They also engaged in wild planting, such as the planting of berry bushes and oak trees, in order to harvest their fruit at a later date.
This quite naturally segued into classical agriculture over many generations. There is a lot of evidence of nomadic groups moving between planted fields during one part of the year and hunting grounds during another.
Secondly, we’ve found settled societies that appear to depend entirely on hunting and gathering. One example is Poverty Point in Lousiana, with another being Gobekli Tepe in Turkey (I’ve linked print sources this time since you don’t watch videos). These sites appear to be settled gathering sites with some permanent populations and some temporary, all depending entirely (as far as we can tell) on gathered food, not agriculture.
It definitely appears that there is more of a spectrum of activity, not the clean break that is the traditional view.
I will reiterate that there is plenty of information out there for you to learn. You seem to have embraced a dangerous ideology based on an incomplete understanding of these topics. If you think I’m incorrect, please, by all means, do your own research.
Uh bro…
We had waaaaaaay more free time before agriculture.
It was a pretty well known theory even back in the 60’s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society
But we’ve found archeological evidence backing it up, and have compared isolated groups who don’t use agriculture still.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/farmers-have-less-leisure-time-than-hunter-gatherers-study-suggests
When it comes right down to it, we were better off before, it’s just before there could be rampant wealth inequality, there had to be agriculture. And lots of people really really want wealth inequality when they believe they’ll be on top.
But anyways, organized sports likely came thousands of years before agriculture. Play is natural and especially for a hunting society teamwork is important.
Kids learned hunting tactics, teamwork, and built conditioning by chasing each other around playing organized games.
We can’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear something that could qualify as an organized team sport existed before human language.
I beg your pardon, it seems I expressed myself rather poorly and inaccurately. We had the free time, we lived in cities and we were relatively peaceful. It’s hard for nomadic tribes to have inter-tribe sports competitions but cities that are at peace with each ither can manage. Also, agriculture means that there can be people wholly dedicated to sportsmanship (those indidivuals have no need to hunt or gather - regardless of the average free time a person has, these people can have more than anyone before). Just like there can be people wholly dedicated to the arts, or lawmaking, or other activities that only flourished as “professions” after we settled down.
I hope this is clearer. Please do correct me if I’m wrong but at least this time you’ll ve correcting what I actually meant rather than what I mis-said.
My point was, if two groups of hunters go off in opposite directions, and the one who comes back with the most food is celebrated…
That meets every definition of an organized team sport.
But also, there’s evidence that sport was used in pre-agarian societies as a replacement for all out warfare.
The broader most important point:
Agriculture wasn’t a good deal for the vast majority of humanity. We think it was, because the people who benefited from it are the ones who left records about how great it was. Feudal kings and organized clergy are always going to say the reason they’re in power is a great reason.
Hell, the prevailing theory on why people fell for it, was year round acces to alcohol rather than just lucking into it showing up naturally. That’s what it took for people to stop chilling in the forest, year round access to getting shitfaced. So when people talk about what created modern society, alcoholism is a better answer than agriculture.
You’re probably right, but wasn’t OP referribg specifically to spectator sports?
What do you call the people celebrating the group who brought most back if not spectators?
Doesn’t it sound logical to you that at first there was a reason others were invested and built the culture phenoma which continues long after it stopped being required?
What I’m saying isn’t exactly a stretch, and the method is foundational to the vast majority of cultural traditions…
This isn’t obvious?
To me a spectator sport is one that people watch happen. “Spectate”, if you will. Not one where they just watch the score be tallied.
Yep.
That would be one of the main complaints of spectators “I can’t spectate” which is why simulated reproductions of actual hunts/raids/wars were done in a central location with high visibility…
I’m talking about an abstract idea, which we created a label for much much later that reflected the reality of that time. Which should have been obvious when I said it’s older than language…
You’re talking about a word that represents that idea, and insisting we can’t use the word as a representation of that abstract idea before the word was coined.
Just like the first organized sport was almost assuredly not called an “organized sport” at the time and would barely qualify as “organized” by a modern definition.
Like, you know one of the oldest still played sports is two town trying to get a ball into a goal?
That’s pretty much the entire rule set… There’s no cap to players and while being a gun might break laws, it doesn’t break any rules of the game.
That’s not “organized” by today’s standards, but it’s technically organized.
You’re probably right, but wasn’t OP referring specifically to spectator sports?
Your first link is an argument by literally one guy that hunter-gatherer societies had more time because they ‘desired less’. Which is obvious nonsense - of course a society can spend less time to make less! He makes no attempt to compare the efficiency of work - how much is gained per hour of work. He also counted ONLY time spent gathering food as ‘work’, completely omitting everything else like food prep, gathering firewood, making clothes, etc. This directly contradicts what he was attempting to argue in the first place.
There is also the giant bugbear in the room- Mr White Man is suggesting that poor health, high infant mortality, lack of protection from extreme weather, etc, are acceptable for Those People to endure if they technically work less. Something I find to be morally abhorent. Frankly, I would argue that just existing in such a society would count as work compared to the quality of life most of us enjoy.
Your second link is about a study of a single tiny ethnic group of 359 people. It is suggestive, but not enough to draw broad conclusions from. They, again, make no attempt to compare quality of life or measure how much is actually gained per hour of work.
There has been plenty of good research over the past couple decades that has cast new light on hunter-gatherer and nomadic groups, including the realization that the line between ‘agricultural’ and ‘non-agricultural’ is practically non-existent. There is a wealth of material out there to explore. I would personally suggest (youtube warning) Ancient Americas, Milo Rossi, and Stefan Milo. Please do not engage in crank science, even if you have the perception that it is anti-status quo.
What?!
The harsh reality is the weak would die off and humans would maintain a much smaller population that the rest of the environment could actually support
I have zero idea why you’re bringing race into this or acting like any hypothetical return wouldn’t be an all or nothing thing…
But by and large, white people would probably have the least to gain. Someone in the Nordic countries have a pretty great life now and it would be a downgrade. Someone in India who just by breathing is equivalently smoking a pack or two a day would see a drastic health improvement.
You’re very upset, but you don’t seem to understand the topic…
It’s literally not…
Either you raise plants for food or not…
It’s a very hard line, which is why humans created it as a boundary. Anyone (including YouTubers) who pretends it’s not is just making up controversy for views/engagement.
If you want to learn, stop watching and start reading
Wow, so you’re just an eco-facist huh. Feel free to tell everyone with chronic health conditions that they should die so you can live in some imagined paradise.
I don’t know that there’s a lot to be gained from further interaction, but I’ll clarify what I meant about agricultural vs non-agricultural societies:
The traditional view is that societies are either sedentary agricultural societies or nomadic hunter-gatherer ones. And to be fair the majority of societies we’ve discovered fall largely into one or the other category.
The problem is that they don’t fall fully into one or the other category, and we keep finding evidence of societies that break that understanding entirely.
Firstly, many hunter-gatherer groups engaged in wide-scale wildlife management techniques, such as setting fires to remove old growth vegetation and encourage new growth. They also engaged in wild planting, such as the planting of berry bushes and oak trees, in order to harvest their fruit at a later date.
This quite naturally segued into classical agriculture over many generations. There is a lot of evidence of nomadic groups moving between planted fields during one part of the year and hunting grounds during another.
Secondly, we’ve found settled societies that appear to depend entirely on hunting and gathering. One example is Poverty Point in Lousiana, with another being Gobekli Tepe in Turkey (I’ve linked print sources this time since you don’t watch videos). These sites appear to be settled gathering sites with some permanent populations and some temporary, all depending entirely (as far as we can tell) on gathered food, not agriculture.
It definitely appears that there is more of a spectrum of activity, not the clean break that is the traditional view.
I will reiterate that there is plenty of information out there for you to learn. You seem to have embraced a dangerous ideology based on an incomplete understanding of these topics. If you think I’m incorrect, please, by all means, do your own research.
Where am I advocating for anything?
You’re having a fight against you’re own shadow, no one has the opposite side here.