[Kosh]

The worst part of living in a preindustrial society would really be the boredom. Imagine living like you are now, in a mud hut or whatever, just without a computer.

One time I watched a documentary on family life in the 19th century. You had to gather up like a ****ton of wood every time you wanted a warm shower. The entire family seemed bored out of their skulls the whole time. The highlight of the father's day was shaving. What do you think people did before internet and TV?

There's always been TV, now it just has more channels and stuff.

[General Battuta]

I honestly don't understand this whole idea or tribalism and cliques and whatnot at schools. All the way from primary school to high school (four schools in my case, though the first one was only until half way through year 2) stuff like that just never happened for me. I mean, yes, there were groups of friends who hung out together, but there was no strong antagonism between the groups, and they were very fluid - you could move between groups more or less at will, without getting shunned or whatever.

I reckon your school was not like 70 kids in the middle of the woods with practically no supervision, though.

[redsniper]

What do you think people did before internet and TV?

Well, people had a lot more kids back then....

[Dilmah G]

I honestly don't understand this whole idea or tribalism and cliques and whatnot at schools. All the way from primary school to high school (four schools in my case, though the first one was only until half way through year 2) stuff like that just never happened for me. I mean, yes, there were groups of friends who hung out together, but there was no strong antagonism between the groups, and they were very fluid - you could move between groups more or less at will, without getting shunned or whatever.

I reckon your school was not like 70 kids in the middle of the woods with practically no supervision, though.

Yeah, my first primary school had an absolutely crap teacher to student ratio, but the second primary school I went to was starting to have a gender divide as boys liked girls and vice versa, resulting in us getting all territorial which is where the tribal stuff stemmed from. That and the fact that there weren't many teachers where we hung out.

But in high school most of the 'clique' stuff was mostly washover from graffiti crews having their own beef between each other and their beef with the crews/gangs that tried to dismantle them and the other guys and girls they hung out with being affected. The rest was just a case of one group of guys preferring to talk about Xbox, Warhammer, and Star Wars all recess as opposed to the guys who preferred to talk about Music, and Riding. Then as we got older we tended to find common ground in music and girls.

[Mika]

We have about the easiest lives humans have ever led. (possibly beaten by those damn Scandinavians)

Quite so, quite so.

I'm a little bit curious that if you lived in a small village with a low overall education level, didn't the rest of the kids reflect the opinions of their parents towards your own parents?

I found out that the average crowd tends to suspect that the smarter people cheat them somehow. While I somewhat understand this, it occasionally ends up in a hen and an egg problem in a way that it makes it morally easier for smarter people to use them as pawns to whatever purpose they see fit later in their lives.

It makes it occasionally funny though, when somebody comes to ask my opinion about something and I realize that he has already made up his mind and is only looking for additional justifications. I usually say that I'd do it differently, but he might do so as he sees fit. There's no point in arguing about that as long as trying whatever he wanted to do doesn't ruin his life or kill him - then I find a way to intervene. It is a rather primitive teaching model that we call "Siberia teaches", but it usually works well that the person who asked something in the first place might listen the next time. People just don't like to be told what to do.

Oh yeah, UT, please don't ruin your chances of getting education in US. You could do the stuff what you have done here and you'd be forgiven quite a lot, but in the US it isn't so (a term in the University is about 140 € here, but not in the US). I now hop in the band wagon and say that it is necessary to understand the behavior of the people before trying to introduce anything new to them, especially when considering social reforms. Social reforms just happen slowly, and there's a reason for it too!

[Mika]

One more thing that warranted another post since an edit on the earlier would likely make it confusing.

My personal understanding of the layman saying "Things were better before" is said from his own perspective, while the critique against it (usually coming from Social Sciences) uses statistics and is detached from the values of this particular layman. This has its good and bad sides. Had I been born in a city, it wouldn't matter to me as much when the neighbors aren't actually doing much with each other. This wouldn't do in a small village, and since I grew up there it partially feels I'm more of an alien in my own surroundings. The other side is that finding out the moral values of the person who says something like that could be a rather scary experience: things used to be better in the 1960s in US - hey, at least you had a better chance of finding work there back then from what I have heard - but the good stuff might also have been that "You could beat niggers at will".

It isn't necessarily wrong to say things were better before, as they might as well have been. Depends on your point of view, and that's why I usually ask what did they find better earlier.

Oh yeah, men used to be stronger before.

[The E]

On a strictly personal level, the statement can be true, no doubt about it.

However, once you move beyond your own personal experience and into more generalized areas, it quickly becomes easily falsifiable.

[Mika]

On a strictly personal level, the statement can be true, no doubt about it.

However, once you move beyond your own personal experience and into more generalized areas, it quickly becomes easily falsifiable.

The statement can also be true locally. If traveling and getting news was harder earlier, it's pretty hard to get a gist of what's happening elsewhere.

Also, I note that your average person doesn't use "in my opinion" in spoken language statements very often, the reason is likely that it doesn't need a lot of repetition in short time until it starts to sound silly and becomes omitted. This might be something to consider in the Internet too.

[Unknown Target]

On a strictly personal level, the statement can be true, no doubt about it.
Also, I note that your average person doesn't use "in my opinion" in spoken language statements very often, the reason is likely that it doesn't need a lot of repetition in short time until it starts to sound silly and becomes omitted. This might be something to consider in the Internet too.

That's an excellent observation IMO.