What Did Ancient Humans Do When They Got Old?

 

Alan Archibald

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This is an interesting, pertinent video clip - about ageing in its evolutionary context, and what ageing means now.

I have written considerably about “the three generation family,” and how Cowboy Capitalism’s explosion/destruction/atomization of the three person family into the nuclear family - and increasingly into the “single person household” - is the most radical psychosocial (and economic) experiment humankind has ever undertaken.

Here we are in the midst of that experiment, not knowing that it’s taking place.

There are brief sections of the following video where I can quibble.

For example…

Setting aside the fact that until 1750 half of humankind died well before reaching puberty does not alter the “fact” (as I see it) that prior to the industrial revolution most people died before 60. (In other words, the "mean age" of dying was much lower than it is now, even taking into account the huge die-off of children as a result of childhood diseases before the great boon of preventive vaccination ended the great die-off of youngsters.)

Generally, I think the video expose’ below is accurate and revelatory.

In closing, I will mention that, although there are plenty of psychosocial reasons for the many quandaries in which we find ourselves, Cowboy (i.e., unregulated) Capitalism (i.e., "putting profits ahead of people") is the core culprit.

Cowboy/Yahoo Capitalism teaches us to replace the primacy of need with the velleity of want; to replace the importance of wisdom (and the ability to tell rich, meaningful stories from personal experience) with the meaningless silence of “warehousing” our elders; and to replace our shared life, embedded in social and political structures focused on The Common Good (and living together in rich proliferative communities held together by the centrality of the three-generation family), with the endlessly isolating and profoundly stupefying quest for baubles, gizmos and gadgets.

To understand the depth of our stupefaction at the hands of Cowboy Capitalism, consider that - as a people - we have elected Donald Trump.

Twice!

Twice!!!

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Franz Explainer·

What Did Ancient Humans Do When They Got Old? …

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Lacking love, Trump and his followers are meaningless.

Lacking meaning, Trump and his followers are angry.

Being angry, Trump and his followers are vengeful and cruel.