logoalt Hacker News

roncesvallestoday at 4:27 AM1 replyview on HN

The current pace of technological progress means that you cannot just sit and wait for the crops to grow. You need to constantly be learning a new skill on the side, diversifying your income streams, thinking and researching about how to optimize your costs and yields for the following year, etc.

This is because there is no guarantee that you can keep living the same routine till the day you die.

Also, humans are builders. Doing nothing and waiting for the seasons to change like cows in a field might not be in our DNA. Restlessness is our natural state, that's why we have all this stuff.


Replies

2b3a51today at 8:18 AM

Interesting comment, but I'm thinking of the time scales involved. Farming 6 to 8 thousand years ago, simultaneous development in several areas. Before that millennia of hunter-gatherers (with technologies thrown in like stone shaping and metals?). Before that it is millions of years after chimps/bonobos/us diverged.

Something accelerated the restlessness, perhaps language?