High childhood mortality, and adult life expectancy until the 40s doesn't necessarily have to be characterized as nasty or brutish. It was the norm for most of human existence, until the new stone age (When the undergraduate simplification "old people live until 70, and life expectancy is really about child mortality" kicks in.)

Perhaps unexpectedly, anthropologists visiting such societies often perceive them as remarkably vibrant and healthy, because so much of the population is in their teens and twenties.

“Were they beautiful? We were all beautiful. We were in our twenties.” ― Steve Martin

> High childhood mortality, and adult life expectancy until the 40s doesn't necessarily have to be characterized as nasty or brutish.

> It was the norm for most of human existence

The second statement isn't an argument against the first. In fact the original 'nasty, brutish, and short' quote, I think by Winston Churchill, stated that it was the norm. Slavery and monarchy, not freedom and democracy, was the norm for most of human history. Epidemics and famine, not the CDC and obesity, used to be the norm.

The quote is from 17th-century British philosopher, Thomas Hobbes who argued that in the state of nature, life was a matter of:

“continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.

He proposed that the solution was the voluntary creation by means of a 'social contract' of an absolute state ruled by a monarch who was above the law.

http://www.historyinanhour.com/2013/04/05/thomas-hobbes-summ...

True, but that quote is often used by all who oppose the anarchists; all who believe that in order to have civilization, we have to give up some rights.

I have noticed an uptick in the number of ideological anarchists lately, though, both right and left, within my social sphere. I do think that is one of those interesting "horeshoe" situations in politics; the right anarchists and the left anarchists, in many ways are the extremes of the right and the left, but they have so much in common; they both believe that people can function without being forced to give up any of their own rights (though they deeply disagree as to what rights a person has.)

Most people, I think, agree that that part of Hobbes' argument is not weakened by the fact that Hobbes wasn't able to see (or that the political realities of his situation made it difficult to write about[1]) political systems other than absolute rule.

[1]A contemporary, the incredible poet John Milton, actually wrote a paean to regicide. "On the tenure of kings and magistrates" or something like that, which I read as "Please don't kill me, see? I'm on your side" - existing as an intellectual during times of revolution can be a tricky thing. I personally think "Paradise lost" is a better introduction to Milton, but the point remains.

That horseshoe effect you mention just goes to show how limited the bipolar-spectrum representation of political stances really is. Anarchism can be implemented all sorts of ways, and can easily be considered orthogonal to the conservatism-liberalism axis, in the cosmopolitan as well as the American-appropriated senses. s/anarchism/{communism, socialism, authoritarianism, fascism, *ism} and you have an equally valid statement.

ok, sure. My point was that right-anarchists and left-anarchists are very different people with very different views of fundamental rights, but from an outside perspective, they look very similar in some ways.

I think, from your statement, that you agree with the above, and you say this is evidence that the right-left axis is not useful. I personally think it might have to do with anarchism making fundamentally different assumptions about humanity and human nature, assumptions that are so out of phase with my understanding of humanity that I... just don't see it in the ways that I can understand a marxist or a libertarian. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing, it is like we have had completely different experiences of humanity and completely different readings of history.

Absolutely, lived experiences shape our expectations about how the world- and society-at-large treats people, and how they ought to be (re)organized to maximize benefits.

You point to fundamentally different assumptions, and as a whole I agree with that too. I think that anarchists put less emphasis on human nature per se than they do on ethical organization practices--they preach a scheme of purely voluntary self-organization mostly from an ethical standpoint, and this stance implies that they view human agency as the most important ethical question, rather than meeting basic needs (communism) or castrating exploitative practices in labor (socialism/Marxism). Libertarians seem to be whistling another tune, more along the lines of anarchism but by also tying capitalist success to a person's ability to steer their path in life. Anarchists think that free association will provide for those who need by virtue of a sense of humanistic camaraderie.

I'm not arguing for or against anything here or anything you've said, and I'm not sure I'm doing much at all except a fun exercise to clarify the varying motivations of people in their quest to restructure economies and societies. But it is interesting to consider and feels good to put to words.

But slavery and monarchy are only the norm of recorded history, not most of humanity's actual history, since most of it predates civilization, and thus the impetus for such institutions.

It is not unusual to go to a hunter-gatherer group and see quite a few gray hairs.

The average life expectancy in Thomas Hobbes' days was even less, generally estimated between 35-40.

When historians claim that hunter-gatherers generally had a better life than farmers, they don't have modern urban middle classes typing on their PC in mind as the archetype of hard-up farmers.

It's also worth saying that the Kalahari San probably don't represent a good archetype for hunter-gatherers. They live in a semi-arid savannah, while prehistorical hunter-gatherers generally lived in more abundant areas.

Either you live in an environment that can hardly support human life, in which case the enemy you contend with is nature itself, or you live in an environment which can support abundant human life, in which case the enemy you contend with is other humans.

All life expands to fit its ecological niche. For this reason, the only time when life hasn’t been fraught with peril is now; this ephemeral moment in our history when our ability to produce food has exploded at the same time that our fertility rates have collapsed.

It important to remember though that the reason average life was 45-50 was because of all the people who died early in life. If you actually managed to hit 30 there was a good chance you would make it up in your 60-70ies.

Those are current stats, only 10% of bushmen live past 60.

most bushmen aren't healthy hunter-gatherers any more.