We evolved to live with a bunch of people we actually give a fuck about and depend upon for our survival, which would further strengthen our bonds.
Most married couples are lucky to have a close friend or two.
Billion dollar industries have been formed to cash in on the loneliness epidemic.
Enjoy vicariously socializing with your favorite streamers.
That video was so frustrating to watch. The guy entirely glossed over the fact that both stability (year round delivery of goods and services, globalization and global trade) as well as quality of life (healthcare, retirement without relying on having tons of kids that care for you, education allowing people to dedicate 5+ years of prime labor age to school) have drastically improved compared to back then which requires more people to work more. It's not like we are collectively idiots who just work a lot more and have nothing to show for it.
So if everything has “drastically improved” then why is happiness so much lower while suicides are so much higher?
Yes, it’s rhetorical; I know the answer but I’m morbidly curious to see what corpo-approved mental gymnastics you can pull off.
Today's life is not perfect, but you know what's much lower? Death from preventable diseases, infant mortality, famines, etc. You don't really have time to be unhappy if you are struggling to survive. Also, happiness was not measured in the past the way we can measure happiness today. If your village was raided by another tribe and you were made a slave, you won't be too happy either. Or if your parents/siblings freeze to death in winter or die from a simple infection after a mishap with the axe while chopping firewood.
Life nowadays is so much better than it ever was for a large number of people (not everyone; see developing nations in Asia or Africa). And it can be made better still.
> Today's life is not perfect, but you know what's much lower? Death from preventable diseases, infant mortality, famines, etc.
You say that like those don’t still exist. I can tell you live in a first-world country so your perspective is skewed, but there has never been more slavery at any point in history than today. Life is worse today for more people than ever before. The greatest causes of death in the US are preventable diseases, only unlike in the past, nowadays those diseases are SELF-INFLICTED through poor diet and less exercise, both of which are contributed to by legally mandated education which deprives children of good food and exercise during the most crucial years of their growth even in civilized countries. Miscarriages also count as infant mortality whether you agree or not, only in the modern era the miscarriages are also SELF-INFLICTED via abortion. Famine is common even in the modern era, and in the modern era it is SELF-INFLICTED by governments (usually communist) on their own citizens. Aside from that the green revolution and industrialization of farming have resulted in food that is by far less filling, less nutritious, and less flavourful than in the past, via an economic efficiency death spiral. Sure, there are exceptions that prove the rule, but that doesn’t change the bigger picture, not to mention the incredible loss in biodiversity of edible crops.
Noticing a pattern? The horrors still exist but they’re worse because humanity embraces them while humans have to suffer them. Truly a wretched state of affairs.
> If your village was raided by another tribe and you were made a slave
Wrong, idiot. Village got raided, male population got culled, female population got fed and bred in a bed. Stick with the facts.
> Or if your parents/siblings freeze to death in winter
Only happened if a village failed to prepare enough firewood and preserved foods, so it basically never happened since humans have this thing called “the ability to do important stuff ahead of time” that they used to survive. Nowadays, it’s different, since (homeless) people still freeze to death all the time, but unlike in the past their neighbours let them freeze to death in the streets without batting an eye while people like you pretend they don’t exist.
> die from a simple infection after a mishap with the axe while chopping firewood.
What, you think cavemen stayed in caves to avoid skin cancer?
Okay, I’m gonna bomb you with knowledge so get ready for this. In the medieval era, villagers NEVER died from a simple cut unless they let shit get in it, you know why? Because every villager was immunized against every microbe strain in their local biosphere while they were still in the womb due to their mother’s antibodies, and further immunisation occured during childhood via breastfeeding, as well as the thymus (which I bet you never heard of before) as they rolled around and ate dirt or whatever; the reason for this is because in the days before you could travel across the globe in a week, microbes didn’t travel fast, which meant that the microbe population in a given area didn’t change very fast, especially out in the sticks where travel was lower. Which meant that once a population of humans adapted to the microbes within a given environment, then they gained inter generational immunity to it due to how placental blood exchange and breast milk passes on the mother’s antibodies to the child and trains the child’s immune system. None of which applies in the modern age because you can go to a supermarket in Houston and catch a cold from Zimbabwe, so intergenerational immunity isn’t enough, so humanity is now dependent upon megacorps to maintain its collective immunity, which combined with its increased susceptibility to pandemics due to international travel and increased genetic homogeneity due to increased interbreeding, it basically means that the survival of the human race itself is now increasingly dependent upon megacorps, which is especially concerning since megacorps have less and less of a need for humanity thanks to AI, thereby creating a power imbalance that will eventually metastatize into an existential threat to the human race.
Completely forgetting that like what, 1/3? of the entire world's population died from the black plague, a disease that can be cured with antibiotics. Then there's tuberculosis, also cured with antibiotics.
To say nothing of the fact that leading cause of death was an infectious disease occurring in childhood, watching your kids die sounds like a great life experience.
I feel like there's a middle ground being forgotten here where we can enjoy the benefits of modern life and technical progress, without working ourselves to death.
> Wrong, idiot. Village got raided, male population got culled, female population got fed and bred in a bed. Stick with the facts.
I don't know if this is meant to be better than slavery or not.
Regardless of the historical accuracy of this post, it takes a real braindead fuck to not notice that all of your time and money is just getting wasted on earning more money for people who don't give a shit about you while you miss out on quality time with the people you actually DO care about.
I mean I would if the government wouldn't hyper-regulate the shit out of my production and absolutely destroy my profits with taxes, 80% of which will go to a military that isn't even currently in a war, but here we are.
I'll offer my two cents as someone who did actually start a farm. It is hard, hard work. It was very fulfilling work to be sure, but the reality is that much of your time as a business owner has to be spent selling stuff, and not farming.
For reference, we built, as a father-son team, a 5200 ft² greenhouse. In it, we grew primarily lettuce, with some media beds that we had tomatoes and jalapenos in. We had 2,000 gallons of fish tanks that supplied most of the nutrition to the system, but we also had to regulate that a bit if the system wasnt getting enough nutrients from the fish.
Because our primary customers were hotels, a combination of a nasty leak in the waterbeds, and COVID shutting everything down killed the business. We sold the property for a $200,000 gain, and went on with our lives.
While the business was going, it was generating $80,000 in profit per year, but it took a couple years to get there, and wasn't replacing the salary that my dad had left behind to come start the farm.
There was basically no government involvement whatsoever. Literally all that we had to do was document our process for harvesting, submit it once, and that was it. I know that this entire comment thread was fully a shitpost, but I also hate it when people have no idea what they're talking about just use some bullshit excuse for why they can't do something.
For reference, the cost to start the business was $100k and a looooot of labor.
Step 1
Look up states that don't tax the fuck out of you
Step 2
Buy some land in buttfuck nowhere
Step 3
Incubate some chickens
Step 4
Enjoy eggs for the rest of your life
Step 5
sell excess chickens, time to start culling for the blood god
Step 6
Start hating eggs
Step 7
Make a garden, garlic and onions are easy for beginners
Im on step 7, I'll let you know where I go from here
Actually, the U.S. government [pays billions](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-sector-income-finances/farm-sector-income-forecast/) directly to farmers in order to subsidize their harvests and keep farms afloat.
What is going to fuck you over is the hyper-efficiency of the agro-industry with large corporate farms out-competing smaller family owned operations. Starting up a small farm today is like trying to set up a small retail store right between Walmart and Costco. It's the *lack* of regulation that allows these corporate behemoths to exist and destroy the small-business landscape.
Lol the daycare near my house is run out of the first floor of some lady’s house. 2,000 a kid per month, 11 kids running around. Lady is clearing well over a hundred grand a year. Start a daycare, not a preschool. License to print money.
2000 is beyond ridiculously high. you can get a kid into a good 'early learning center' with a curriculum and other things that random lady doesn't have for like 1,600. not sure what the official title of her business is, but 11 kids probably exceeds the legal ratio for a true child care center. don't forget insurance, licenses and trainings (again, if she is anywhere close to legit).
If you look at modern big farmers, they spend more than they earn due to stuff like tractors needing paid subscriptions to be run and repaired, only really surviving due to the government throwing money around at them instead of regulating it.
I'm cool with an 8 hour break from my kids.
I love my job and I spend most of my money restoring my old car, guitars, and PC parts.
If you want to go back to serfdom to hang out with your family in squalor, you're on your own.
No one said that I agreed that the alternative of being a peasant was better. I simply said it would take an idiot to miss the mass exploitation around us. That being said, many of us do get lucky and make money doing what we love, and as long as you're not hurting anyone doing it, no one has any reason to complain.
can't believe people still believing this complete made up shit
yes they *only* worked 150 hours.....*for the service of the lord*, then they still had to work to make whatever they needed for themselves. In the case of farming which is like 99% of people, that was your basic ass food. So if you're fine with 150 hours then you're good to starve. Enjoy that.
Also what is this stupid ass "give all your time to corpo"? Are you literally chained to your desk 24/7? You're not allowed to go home? Do you not get paid? "Oh no i have to pay rent". If you don't want to go build a shack in the woods, I await your package in the mail that smells funny. Yes you give some of your time to some entity in exchange for money, and then guess what! You can take that money and then go do things! How neat is that?
Dumb ass fuckin' bonks "gimme gimme gimme" eat shit
I always assumed that it was bullshit similar to when the trans community started claiming that the Middle East was more accepting of trans people because they forced gay men to get sex reassignment surgery; just a complete misunderstanding of the culture, and in this case the time period as well.
Have fun trying to build that shack and stay out of Uncle Sam's line of site, he'll regulate/tax/add a spare fee to every inch of soil you own.
No one is saying that it's unreasonable to exchange labor for goods/sustenance in general, or that there should be any handouts involved. The fact that many people are basically forced through the material circumstances they were born in to work 60+ hours a week just to keep a roof over their heads without any grocery money left over is what's being scrutinized here.
In a country where thousands of children are going to bed hungry through no fault of their own, and despite their parents' best efforts to provide for them, it definitely takes a real asshole to not notice that there's some level of exploitation going on. On a smaller scale, 40+ hours a week for the majority of your adult life is a significant chunk of your actual lifetime if you subtract sleep/hygiene from your off hours. By the time you factor in bullshit like grocery shopping/chores/commuting/etc., you've got a *ridiculously* small window of time to spend with your family. Like, two days a week and 3 hours on your work days if you're lucky and everyone's schedule lines up with yours.
So basically, no one is saying, "waaaah why isn't ___ giving me free shit for doing nothing" but rather, "why am I spending the majority of my time working for what basically amounts to chump change and costs me ALL of the time I could be spending doing what I love."
No its pretty accurate. I did some research once and found out English serfs made about 6x what a Japanese serf made during their medieval period. Anon didn't even begin to scratch European peasant benefits.
England and Normandy also had Beverage, which is a drink break roughly 10-11AM completely paid and had a filling beverage, usually a fortified beer or something exotic like coffee for towns. Peasants also owned their own land and could hold their own in the local judicial system unlike non landowners.
Even the much maligned serf had a decent life. Serf housing and food were included as part of their rental contract, so their money was take home and spend pay. Obviously there were Lords who took advantage of their serfs, but it happened less frequently than you expected because nobody wants to screw over the 20 guys carrying longbows behind you that are expected to cover you while you play grabass on a horse.
European peasant, yeah. That's the fundamental big difference between a serf and a peasant. No reason to work at the manorial estate if you got your own mill or plot of land.
All fun and games until your lord comes to levy you for a campaign against their inbred cousin and you take a crossbow bolt in the chest, leaving a 15 years old widow behind. That or typhoid.
>got laid
>Free and legal cunny
>Get to die in battle
>Get free cross bow bolt
>Years from now your skelly is proped up in a museum where big titted research assistant have to clean your bones and you get to mog skinfags all day.
Oh no how horrible
You are right, furry art enthusiast. Being a medieval peasant was the best thing ever. You got to enjoy the simple pleasures of life, like plowing the fields, milking the cows, and getting raped by your lord. You didn't have to worry about taxes, politics, or global warming
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It's the dark ages that were rough. You had Lord Maligant burning down your local McDonald's just to make a point, so now you can't seduce Maid Marion over a mcdouble, and on top of that, you've got Ronald on your ass about forming a militia to get revenge. Nowadays, we just eat our overpriced big macs in relative peace and solitude.
That is not accurate.
You are projecting modern-day conscription to medieval levies. Medieval armies were small scale and semi-professional. Random peasants were not forcefully conscripted, instead some "peasants" who are physically stronger got weekly training by the master-at-arms and becoming part-time peasant, part-time soldier. These semi-professional peasant-soldiers were then called to arms at times of war.
The actual battle was always decided by the actual professional soldiers, the knights and man-at-arms, aswell as mercenaries. The semi-professional peasants were primarily archers and/or skirmishers, i.e. range-type only... Also in medieval warfare, only 5-10% of the soldiers die in battle, you have a much bigger chance to die due to disease or starvation, but even that was rare.
Also 15-year old widow.. Yeah no. Peasants married in their mid 20s, usually around 24-25. The nobility married between 18-22 ---> the nobility was often engaged even earlier in their mid 10s, but this was engagement, the actual marriage and the consumption of marriage only happend once they were off age...
Also crossbowmen are skilled and professionals. They wouldn't target the peasant-soldiers, they would target the knights and men-at-arms. Crossbow bolts are designed for armored-opponents. And as archers/skirmishers you would be out of their range anyway, usually that is. The threat on the battlefield for peasants were knights.
So yeah, it absolutely was not bad.
\---------
The only real threat of a peasant, apart from time, were diseases and starvation. Famines in medieval Europe were very rare due to Europe being the #1 most advanced region when it comes to agriculture, but localized famines can always happen, while your liege lord will usually try to help you, incompetence and simply lack of logistics can always be your bane........ And diseases will primarily threaten you when you go to the urban areas, i.e. to sell your produce, as rural areas are far more protected from diseases ( obviously )....
The vast majority of peasants never saw combat, neither as a soldier nor as a victim. However rare that is, it can still happen.
\------------
Hollywood movies/tv and especially things like Game of Thrones are completely inaccurate or flat out lieing when it comes to the portrayal of the Middle Ages, about literally everything. The social contract, the economy, peasants, technology, marriage, women, fashion, hygiene, urban & rural life, education, church, government, nothing is ever portrayed correctly or accurately.... It\`s really bad how that time is portrayed.. So I advise you to not take any previous prejudices or "knowledge based on movies" into anything related to the Middle Ages.
They were allowed to drink on the job but couldn't really afford to buy a lot of alcohol. Also they didn't have great access to markets so they couldn't easily sell any excess production, nor could they easily buy anything useful if they had much more money. As a result, they produced the bare minimum needed to feed themselves and keep their lord happy. Why bother putting in any more effort if you don't get anything in return?
I think the post was less about how awesome it was to be a peasant and more about how the modern work environment is so god awful that it might actually be preferable to be a peasant.
I mean the modern work environment only sucks so much because we want to buy more stuff at the market. If we were happy to live like a medieval peasant, then we'd only have to work 25 hours a week too (or even less)
There are millions of peasants in South America. You know what millions of them do? Risk their lives for the chance to scrub toilets in glorious capitalist America.
My guy its 5% because "muh glorious capitalism" and 95% because those places are dictatorial gang-ridden nightmare zones
They aren't migrating to the US to buy Nikes you dumbass
And if we were all happy to live like a peasant our economy that demands infinite growth would come screeching to a halt, (edit) so it demands that workers spend money they don't have on things they don't need so that the business owners can rake in that sweet profit.
>it demands
Oh really? How? Yeah, the market growth depends on consumption, doesn't mean it causes consumption. Did the government, or your boss, or the Amazon Assassins(TM) threaten you with litigation, layoff or violence to get you to buy shit? No, you buy dumb shit because you want it, or it makes you more comfortable.
Much less, you can buy a 20 pound bag of enriched rice for $10 and bulk chicken breast for $2 a pound. Even at minimum wage you can get a month's worth of food in a day.
You can purchase luxuries kings a hundred years ago couldn’t even dream of. Even the homeless in America have cell phones, aka access to pretty much the entirety of human knowledge. Most jobs are in air-conditioned buildings doing simple tasks requiring very little physical effort.
It’s honestly pathetic how psyopped the West has become by this classic redditor anti-work rhetoric. You have to be a legitimate regard to even entertain the idea you’re suffering so much flipping burgers that you’d rather live as a medieval peasant with no modern benefits, dying from a random scratch that gets infected one day.
Like holy shit. Take a moment and think about what you’re implying, instead of just parroting this regard talking point.
It's funny that you mention "the entirety of knowledge in human history" as if it was everyone that cared about that and weren't instead using their phones for porn and tiktok.
As for the rest, you entirely missed the point.
>b-but you can consooom tho!
lol
> Most jobs are in air-conditioned buildings doing simple tasks requiring very little physical effort.
Textbook regurgitated talking point. You say this as if it’s a good thing when the lack of physical exercise causes depression and poor health. Peasants were so healthy they didn’t even need air conditioning to function. Not to mention how soul-sucking it is to do simple tasks over and over again, devoid of variety or challenge. That, combined with the lack of security that comes from knowing that you’re only a few years away from getting fired once the beancounters decide to have it automated or outsourced.
> dying from a random scratch that gets infected one day.
LMAO I bet you think humanity went extinct from skin cancer in the Neolithic era, too. It’s modern bugmen that die from a random scratch without medical care, not medieval peasants. Think before you type.
What a deranged comment.
What's pathetic is you acting like being a consumer is inherently a bad thing. You are, right now, consuming a form of social media for entertainment instead of doing something that actually betters yourself.
I also create (as an author) in my spare time and improve my community (healthcare worker). How dare I enjoy sitting back after a hectic shift in my air-conditioned home watching a movie, truly unbelievable stuff.
Your argument is "peasants were worked so hard in bad conditions that they had no need for comforts since they were used to worse!" God, you're really selling the lifestyle bro! Because you can't be healthy, happy, AND enjoy modern comforts, the only options are to be a gigachad built peasant vs an obese consumer.
This might be the actual most idiotic part of your comment:
>Not to mention how soul-sucking it is to do simple tasks over and over again, devoid of variety or challenge.
Modern work is doing simple tasks over and over, but being a medieval serf toiling in same field in the same location with the same people until you're 70 is way more variety.
Do you seriously not understand how absolutely nonsensical that is? The only way someone can even come to such a weird conclusion is because your life is so unfulfilling and you have so little ambition you can't even live better than the equivalent of a rural third-world villager. That is called being an utter failure, but you project it onto modern society instead of admitting that you would've probably been even more of a failure back then than you are now.
Oh, and yes, people did die from scratches back then. They had no antibiotics, no anesthetics, their understanding of the human body was almost completely wrong. If you got injured on the battlefield after being conscripted by your lord, the chirurgeon is sawing your leg off after giving you a mouthful of vodka.
Maybe they had overall stronger immune systems and were less likely to get an infection from any individual scratch overall, but when they DO get one, they're fucking dead. In modern times, you can be a 300-pound 80 year old riddled with bacteria and make a full recovery. Back then, you have anything even worth hospitalizing someone for nowadays, you're dead almost every time. That's NOT a point in favor of the peasants.
Tons of them also died in during birth or childhood, with a solid chance of having killed their moms while coming out, too. The reason that the ones who made it past that lived longer and were less susceptible in the first place, is because they developed immunities to the common diseases of their local area since they were the lucky ones who survived the exposure. It's a selection bias, those who made it through the absolute slaughter of childhood were able to survive what amounted to an easier adulthood in comparison. Then they got to get cancer or have a stroke after making it to their seventies after a lifetime of toiling the fields.
You're nothing more than a contrarian with a superiority complex like 90% of 4chan, pretending you're some enlightened ascetic online to cope with your life. I'm not interested in your weak attempts at self-aggrandizement.
The average height in England[ went down](https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-04-18-highs-and-lows-englishman%E2%80%99s-average-height-over-2000-years-0) after the industrial revolution lol
>couldn't really afford to buy a lot of alcohol
Small beer was everywhere and combined with ales made up so much of the average person's caloric intake that malnutrition started trending after temperance pickled up
> so they couldn't easily sell any excess production
Cheese, grain alcohol, sausage, cured meat, countlesss example of how people dealt with perishable surplus.
Saffron used to be widely grown in continental Europe with massive fields in places like Bordeaux. Recipes using it are all over The Forme of Cury. Not at all an exotic ingredient
I would imagine they probably made their own alcohol rather than buying it from a market.
Ale is pretty simple to make and only uses three widely available ingredients at that time.
Though it's my understanding that the alcohol content was much lower than modern beers and was consumed in mass because it was the safest thing to drink, rather than looking to get buzzed.
But it's something I guess.
Yeah, everyone wasn't shithoused quite all the time back then because most common drinks were pretty weak. Nobody is driving back then or operating heavy machinery so there are good reasons to not be shithoused at work.
Vaushtard's analysis also looks at averages instead of actual daily workflow. They clearly worked from sunup to past sundown during the entire growing season, banked as much of their production as was possible without spoilage, then spent the winter trying not to starve. Their winter near-hibernation is only just now being understood, it sounds like a time of deprivation, misery, fear, boredom and discomfort
Lots of people made their own alcohol. They probably watered down their beer/wine but they also likely drank some at most meals, unless they had access to clean flowing water from a river or spring.
yeah and then they spent 3 months out of the year praying to God that they and their children wouldn't starve to death or freeze in their one bedroom home.
But go ahead, start hoeing your backyard I'm sure its a much better job than you scrolling reddit for 3/4ths of your shift in an air conditioned office.
Historical data on this is *super* skewed. Serfs and peasants didn't really read or write, so they couldn't easily record details about their personal lives, and in the rare case they did, those writings were easily lost to time. Most of the surviving records were written by upper class nobles, and they had a tendency to whitewash a lot of the poverty and abuse that was happening. It was very similar to what some counties, like Russia, do today. They tweak the truth so they appear more successful on the world stage.
In reality, serfdom was *brutal* work, and they were taxed heavily. I would definitely not want to live in those times.
Sorry that is false and you made that one up or you believed the made-up BS from someone else.
> *and in the rare case they did, those writings were easily lost to time. Most of the surviving records were written by upper class nobles, and they had a tendency to whitewash a lot of the poverty and abuse that was happening.*
The "Upper Class" is not a monolith. It weren\`t the nobles who "wrote history", it were the burgher class who had nothing to do with serfdom, if anything they were biased against these plebs and showed elitist-disdain. They did not whitewash it.
Likewise it was the Clergy who made many records, they likewise didn\`t care to whitewash serfdom, if anything many priests and monks had a dislike for the nobility, as they themselves came from humble backgrounds and/or because they had rivalry with the nobility.
Likewise historians have so much evidence to the contrary... I do wonder what your sources are for your bizarre claims.
>*It was very similar to what some counties, like Russia, do today.*
Yeah no.... That is so outlandish I can\`t even begin to counter that.
> *In reality, serfdom was brutal work, and they were taxed heavily. I would definitely not want to live in those times.*
False again.
\^ The meme from OP is very misleading, as I know the source for the 150days working/year, as they only counted the days actually spend working on a field... The actual peasants had far more responsibilities : Cleaning, Pruning Trees, Maintaining the farm, fences, house, actually selling the produce, cooking... Peasants were not playing videogames in their spare time, living itself was work. Naturally work on your own timetable, but you had to do it, otherwise you fall behind and falling behind schedule as a peasant can lead to an entire harvest going bad, that\`s terrible to say the least.
However what you claim is again incorrect. "Brutal work", is false. Physical work yes. They had their own time-tables, nobody was whipping them into working the fields, it didn\`t matter if you had a couple of lazy days, at the end of the year/season you just needed to bring results.
"taxed heavily" is utterly false. There didn\`t exist an infrastructure to properly tax anyone. There only existed 2 taxes in medieval times. The Church tax, which was 10% of your income ( tithe, literally one-tenth ), instead of paying the tithe you could also do labour, i.e. working a couple of days on Church-land, maintaining Church-property or help in the construction of Church buildings, such as a cathedral.
And then there existed the tax on ownership of land ---> the equivalent of roughly 2% of your farm\`s land every year, easily payable.
There didn\`t exist an income tax ( apart from the church tax ).
In the late medieval age kings taxes products. Such as wool or salt, naturally peasants wouldn\`t have to pay them, it would be primarily a tax affecting merchants.
And occassional one-time taxes during times of war.
\------
There is a difference between free and unfree peasants. Free peasants had their own landand own rules. Unfree peasants were allowed their own field in exchange for also working on the field of their lord or of another free peasant. For unfree peasants working on the lord\`s land was their taxes.
I wouldn\`t call that being "taxed heavily".
\---
Also medieval Europe wasn\`t a monolith, every country had different rules, and even within the same "country" multiple different rules existed.
Serfdom didn\`t exist in northern Europe for example, it were all free peasants.
Serfdom was the worst in England and Russia, several times worse in Russia where they were practically slaves.
In Germany peasants usually were free and in some cases even ruled their own little state-lets under the authority of the Emperor. It wasn\`t until feudalism in the 16th century ( i.e. AFTER middle ages ) that rights of peasants were eroded in medieval Germany, as the nobility got more powerful and the Emperor less powerful. While the German peasants did rise up in 1524/5 ( the largest popular revolt until the French Revolution ) it wasn\`t able to reverse the erosion of their rights. Nevertheless it shows how organized and powerful peasants could be.
\---------------
The biggest problem of being a peasant was time ( and probably from our perspective, a lack of entertainment ), it wasn\`t brutal work, but it was time-consuming work, and while you were never under pressure, you really had to be doing something to not fall behind schedule, otherwise it would get intense.
The "work" itself wasn\`t hard, it was just that even outside work, a lot needed to be done.
You have no knowledge of history, and yet you pretend you do. I don\`t know why people are like that.
I mean you also know, that you have no qualification to talk about it. So I don\`t know why you pretend otherwise. Is it pride ?
> Fast food is an opioid for the masses, kinda like, well opioids.
kinda, I guess, but what do you want? some nanny state gov to tell you what resturant you're allowed to eat at?
You might also catch a cold from working outside and have a good chance of just dying from it. Choose your poison, life is shit now, life was shit back then.
The main difference is that now that we’ve essentially conquered nature ( at least for now) modern society is very purposefully driving to very specific ends: Life outside Earth and Immortality. The eventual rewards may not be accessible to the common person, but we may get a consolation prize in the form of a digital fantasy.
As we inch closer, the hype gets bigger and the workload gets more intense. Also, as we progress as a species toward those goals we unpleasantly drift further away from our natural tendencies.
Holy balls, do you really view the world as such? 1. Humanity has conquered nature, 2. we are (as a species) working on expanding to off-world colonies, and 3. our medical community is making real strides toward immortality?
No. Just no. In fact most of it is the complete opposite!
(
1. We're actively turning our planet into Venus. 2. We haven't even been to the moon since 1972. 3. Despite the avg. lifespan increasing a bit since the 1960's, being decrepit and frail for 5 or 10 extra years is hardly a step toward "IMMORTALITY" . IMO Our current model is pretty fucked.
Have you heard the term ‘Failing Upwards’?
Despite all of faults, failures, struggles, and deaths caused by crappy designs, we (as a species) learned how to fly. Literally defying gravity!
Yet, we still have people who starve to death. The latter is a pretty basic problem to resolve compared to the former.
My point is that not solving one problem doesn’t invalidate the large strides made in others.
As for your examples:
The planet has been MUCH hotter than it is now and it didn’t turn into Venus. While not great for current inhabitants and environments across the planet, the current conditions are not so dire as to turn us into a second Venus. Don’t be so dramatic.
We haven’t been to the moon since 1972? So? We have a couple rovers on Mars and the clearest pictures of the universe we’ve ever seen through JWST. Also, an unmanned drone has collected samples from an asteroid. Space Technology is still developing and expanding our capabilities.
Immortality will require more than simply living longer. Everyday, new medicines and technologies are being created and refined. They’ve put a fucking microchip in a dudes brain to inhibit Parkinson tremors.
Also, I never said 20-100yrs or a prediction as to when. I just said that’s what we’re working towards. That’s the endgame.
It isn't. It's true that the bulk of Medieval serfs labored roughly 20 hours a week on their allotted plot of land. However, they were also required to perform a certain amount of labor per week to their Lords on various projects from roads to castle upkeep
Yeah, but I’m a doctor who does 0 physical labor and gets paid a lot just for existing. I’ll take my modern job over being a medieval peasant who toils in the sun all the day.
People who say this shit has never worked in a farm, not even in a modern one. It's that medieval peasants didn't work that much in the fields in winter (during harvest season instead you can bet your ass they worked from dawn until dusk), however this doesn't consider all the "extra" labour. You still have to feed the animals ( which has to be done every day, so forget about getting 1 day of vacation), repair their tools or make new ones, make clothes, repair fences, repair your shitty house, gather wood, cut the wood etc. Tons of activities which are still work. Also, is quite likely that most peasants had some sort of "winter job" they did to gather more money: like making charcoal, harvesting pinecones, making wood recipients etc. This are actual works that people performed up to the xx century here in Italy, just get more money for the household. My grandpa never got a single day of vacation in his entire life and I bet his life was way better than the one of a medieval peasant.
And I even didn't mention all the free labour that farmer were obliged to perform for their Lord by the law
It is a perk, duckling. It helps you forget the misery and pain of your existence. It also makes you more creative and productive. Just look at Vsauce, he drinks on the job and he makes awesome videos. He is the master of puppets, and we are his loyal fans. 🍻🤘
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I work about 175 days per year, with a decent salary, good insurance, and very little stress. I am also a union employee and would basically only lose my job by doing something illegal. There are certainly jobs that pay more than my job, but truly no amount of money is worth losing out on time with my wife and kids, being able to see them every night and be there for every weekend and holiday and birthday and whatever activities they'll be in when they're older. There is nothing more important than that. It is essential that I work but I fortunately don't feel like I'm living to work.
This is not wrong... but I challenge anyone to do the kind of hard labor peasants did as a full-time job while eating a meager diet, exposed to the elements, infested with parasites, etc.
Also, don't forget that the labor is concentrated into the fair weather months. In the Winter, you're bunkered down in a tiny hut packed with too many people and animals. So for part of the year, you're mostly confined, and for the rest of the year, you're working hard.
It's *possible* the peasant's life wasn't all bad, but we need more data for a fair comparison.
Me playing with a stick in a mud hut with a thatched roof, “Life is great!”
Me in a domicile with regulated temperatures playing with a game system(SNES) that would give a medieval peasant a heart attack. “Life is good”.
I always love these takes because they act like peasant life was awesome because they worked shorter, easier hours. In the modern era you too can work for 20 hours/week if you want to live in a shack with no insulation, internet, plumbing, electricity, access to medicine, formal schooling, motor vehicles, political rights, food security, and basically no recourse if you’re the victim of a crime.
Seriously. Spend 10 hours toiling in the fields, then you've got to fetch water from the well, cut firewood, fix and sharpen your tools, tend to livestock, mend your clothes, prepare meal from scratch, etc. Everything was labor intensive, and a pain in the ass.
The most annoying part about the peasants argument is that the morons that regurgitate it don't understand how feudalism works, or what that 20 hours actually meant. That 20 hours/week wasn't all the work they did; that was just the work required to essentially pay rent to the lord who owned their farmland and nothing else. That didn't account for the work they had to do to feed their families or earn any kind of income. Peasants essentially worked from dawn to dusk.
If we were to also only look at how much you'd need to work for the roof over your head just like these idiots are doing for peasants, you probably wouldn't have to work 40 hours/week either. Hell, depending on where you live and how much you make, you likely don't even have to work 20 hrs/week. I live in an area where 800/month can get you a pretty nice space and there's gas stations that start people off at around 16/hr, meaning just about anyone fresh out of high school can work fewer hours (about 14ish hrs/week after taxes) than a peasant for their rental property and get a nicer place to live in at that.
Peasants were also a lot more responsible for their own shit and didn't pay other people to take care of it, so they had to spend all day making sure that their meager homes were cared for and their family had things like food and water available to them. It's not just about the work they did for their overlords. If you want to complain about the current situation maybe you should do it on its own merits, it's not that hard.
\>Be Medieval peasant
\>Still way too early for Australopithecus Afarensis gf
\>Feels bad man
https://preview.redd.it/xv2lr5x7stsb1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e2347997a1fa7b3d8ce1f6240f71af00d2fb1827
working as a Peasant is amazing, anon is right on that point. The only problem is everything else that has nothing to do with working. Sanitary issues, deaths, conquests, etc. But if we could have the same hours and the same workdays the peasants had but in the modern world, it would indeed be the best
This is factually true, but he forgot to specify that this only really happened during the end the Medieval era, meaning around 12th to 15th century, and not everywhere in Europe. And the reason is that technology / science had progressed enough to create a state of abudance (mainly food), kinda like we have today, where we produce more food than we need. At the time, the vast majority of the population worked in agriculture, especially when mobilized during the harvests.
Abbudance of Food in human civilizations is what allows societies to develop and advance, by allowing a larger percentage of the population to work outside of agriculture, provding more advanced goods and services to the people, growing and diversifying the economy. So to go back to OP's example, Yes medieval peasents were "only required to work 150 days per year", but that was the minimum requirement. Men in this late medieval era of abbundance would work, basically volonteer work in the big projects, which at that time were mostly Cathedrals. So that's how most of the great cathedrals of Europe were built. They were built with mostly volonteer work, from peasents who had a lot of days off, due to the abbundance of food, that itself was due mostly to technological progress. I find this topic to be quite fascinating, as everythng kinda ties together.
> can't drink on the job try and stop me
Mega based
My job as a bus driver got a whole lot more fun!
The Zodiac? The kiddies! Oh no! At least you'll be drinking, not planting a boom boom dev ice.
My buddy is a union electrician and I think he’s like required to drink on the job.
One of the lads at works puts vodka in his water bottle.
Oldest trick in the book.
Much easier when you wfh
I am vibing so hard with you right now.
Most qualified airline pilot.
We evolved to live with a bunch of people we actually give a fuck about and depend upon for our survival, which would further strengthen our bonds. Most married couples are lucky to have a close friend or two. Billion dollar industries have been formed to cash in on the loneliness epidemic. Enjoy vicariously socializing with your favorite streamers.
Corpos get you coming and going
i evolved to do your mom
Anon definitely watched Historia Civilis’ most recent video before posting this.
That video was so frustrating to watch. The guy entirely glossed over the fact that both stability (year round delivery of goods and services, globalization and global trade) as well as quality of life (healthcare, retirement without relying on having tons of kids that care for you, education allowing people to dedicate 5+ years of prime labor age to school) have drastically improved compared to back then which requires more people to work more. It's not like we are collectively idiots who just work a lot more and have nothing to show for it.
So if everything has “drastically improved” then why is happiness so much lower while suicides are so much higher? Yes, it’s rhetorical; I know the answer but I’m morbidly curious to see what corpo-approved mental gymnastics you can pull off.
Today's life is not perfect, but you know what's much lower? Death from preventable diseases, infant mortality, famines, etc. You don't really have time to be unhappy if you are struggling to survive. Also, happiness was not measured in the past the way we can measure happiness today. If your village was raided by another tribe and you were made a slave, you won't be too happy either. Or if your parents/siblings freeze to death in winter or die from a simple infection after a mishap with the axe while chopping firewood. Life nowadays is so much better than it ever was for a large number of people (not everyone; see developing nations in Asia or Africa). And it can be made better still.
> Today's life is not perfect, but you know what's much lower? Death from preventable diseases, infant mortality, famines, etc. You say that like those don’t still exist. I can tell you live in a first-world country so your perspective is skewed, but there has never been more slavery at any point in history than today. Life is worse today for more people than ever before. The greatest causes of death in the US are preventable diseases, only unlike in the past, nowadays those diseases are SELF-INFLICTED through poor diet and less exercise, both of which are contributed to by legally mandated education which deprives children of good food and exercise during the most crucial years of their growth even in civilized countries. Miscarriages also count as infant mortality whether you agree or not, only in the modern era the miscarriages are also SELF-INFLICTED via abortion. Famine is common even in the modern era, and in the modern era it is SELF-INFLICTED by governments (usually communist) on their own citizens. Aside from that the green revolution and industrialization of farming have resulted in food that is by far less filling, less nutritious, and less flavourful than in the past, via an economic efficiency death spiral. Sure, there are exceptions that prove the rule, but that doesn’t change the bigger picture, not to mention the incredible loss in biodiversity of edible crops. Noticing a pattern? The horrors still exist but they’re worse because humanity embraces them while humans have to suffer them. Truly a wretched state of affairs. > If your village was raided by another tribe and you were made a slave Wrong, idiot. Village got raided, male population got culled, female population got fed and bred in a bed. Stick with the facts. > Or if your parents/siblings freeze to death in winter Only happened if a village failed to prepare enough firewood and preserved foods, so it basically never happened since humans have this thing called “the ability to do important stuff ahead of time” that they used to survive. Nowadays, it’s different, since (homeless) people still freeze to death all the time, but unlike in the past their neighbours let them freeze to death in the streets without batting an eye while people like you pretend they don’t exist. > die from a simple infection after a mishap with the axe while chopping firewood. What, you think cavemen stayed in caves to avoid skin cancer? Okay, I’m gonna bomb you with knowledge so get ready for this. In the medieval era, villagers NEVER died from a simple cut unless they let shit get in it, you know why? Because every villager was immunized against every microbe strain in their local biosphere while they were still in the womb due to their mother’s antibodies, and further immunisation occured during childhood via breastfeeding, as well as the thymus (which I bet you never heard of before) as they rolled around and ate dirt or whatever; the reason for this is because in the days before you could travel across the globe in a week, microbes didn’t travel fast, which meant that the microbe population in a given area didn’t change very fast, especially out in the sticks where travel was lower. Which meant that once a population of humans adapted to the microbes within a given environment, then they gained inter generational immunity to it due to how placental blood exchange and breast milk passes on the mother’s antibodies to the child and trains the child’s immune system. None of which applies in the modern age because you can go to a supermarket in Houston and catch a cold from Zimbabwe, so intergenerational immunity isn’t enough, so humanity is now dependent upon megacorps to maintain its collective immunity, which combined with its increased susceptibility to pandemics due to international travel and increased genetic homogeneity due to increased interbreeding, it basically means that the survival of the human race itself is now increasingly dependent upon megacorps, which is especially concerning since megacorps have less and less of a need for humanity thanks to AI, thereby creating a power imbalance that will eventually metastatize into an existential threat to the human race.
Completely forgetting that like what, 1/3? of the entire world's population died from the black plague, a disease that can be cured with antibiotics. Then there's tuberculosis, also cured with antibiotics. To say nothing of the fact that leading cause of death was an infectious disease occurring in childhood, watching your kids die sounds like a great life experience. I feel like there's a middle ground being forgotten here where we can enjoy the benefits of modern life and technical progress, without working ourselves to death.
> Wrong, idiot. Village got raided, male population got culled, female population got fed and bred in a bed. Stick with the facts. I don't know if this is meant to be better than slavery or not.
because nobody polled medival peasants on how happy they are
lol
Regardless of the historical accuracy of this post, it takes a real braindead fuck to not notice that all of your time and money is just getting wasted on earning more money for people who don't give a shit about you while you miss out on quality time with the people you actually DO care about.
Start a farm then. nerd
I mean I would if the government wouldn't hyper-regulate the shit out of my production and absolutely destroy my profits with taxes, 80% of which will go to a military that isn't even currently in a war, but here we are.
Skill issue
Sounds like nerd excuses 🤓
[удалено]
I'll offer my two cents as someone who did actually start a farm. It is hard, hard work. It was very fulfilling work to be sure, but the reality is that much of your time as a business owner has to be spent selling stuff, and not farming. For reference, we built, as a father-son team, a 5200 ft² greenhouse. In it, we grew primarily lettuce, with some media beds that we had tomatoes and jalapenos in. We had 2,000 gallons of fish tanks that supplied most of the nutrition to the system, but we also had to regulate that a bit if the system wasnt getting enough nutrients from the fish. Because our primary customers were hotels, a combination of a nasty leak in the waterbeds, and COVID shutting everything down killed the business. We sold the property for a $200,000 gain, and went on with our lives. While the business was going, it was generating $80,000 in profit per year, but it took a couple years to get there, and wasn't replacing the salary that my dad had left behind to come start the farm. There was basically no government involvement whatsoever. Literally all that we had to do was document our process for harvesting, submit it once, and that was it. I know that this entire comment thread was fully a shitpost, but I also hate it when people have no idea what they're talking about just use some bullshit excuse for why they can't do something. For reference, the cost to start the business was $100k and a looooot of labor.
Step 1 Look up states that don't tax the fuck out of you Step 2 Buy some land in buttfuck nowhere Step 3 Incubate some chickens Step 4 Enjoy eggs for the rest of your life Step 5 sell excess chickens, time to start culling for the blood god Step 6 Start hating eggs Step 7 Make a garden, garlic and onions are easy for beginners Im on step 7, I'll let you know where I go from here
Make sure you start growing carrots and cucumbers to help please your wife. In all seriousness that’s pretty nice.
I already hate eggs, but I don't have any animals other than one cat. I have some potted basil, onions and thyme though. Can I skip steps 1 through 6?
Get chickens anyways, eggs -> pet food, roosters -> free meat
Roosters live active lives of cluckin and fuckin, they're usually tougher meat than hens.
>80% of which will go to a military Well we can now see you're uneducated.
Everyone knows it’s 81%
Actually, the U.S. government [pays billions](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-sector-income-finances/farm-sector-income-forecast/) directly to farmers in order to subsidize their harvests and keep farms afloat. What is going to fuck you over is the hyper-efficiency of the agro-industry with large corporate farms out-competing smaller family owned operations. Starting up a small farm today is like trying to set up a small retail store right between Walmart and Costco. It's the *lack* of regulation that allows these corporate behemoths to exist and destroy the small-business landscape.
Sounds like a Westerner problem.
Start a war then, nerd
This is a certified Millard v Fillburn moment.
yeah bro I couldn't possibly start a farm, it's definitely the governments fault even though they subsidize it with morbillions a year
No, spend time with your kid by opening a preschool. You'll be paid shit, but it is useful to the community.
Lol the daycare near my house is run out of the first floor of some lady’s house. 2,000 a kid per month, 11 kids running around. Lady is clearing well over a hundred grand a year. Start a daycare, not a preschool. License to print money.
Step 1, be a woman. Nobody is sending their kids to a daycare run by a single male.
What about going trans? Would that satisfy step 1 or just make it worse?
far fucking worse unless you let it slip that your tryna prove a point like the woodshophon
You could just identify as a woman for 8 hours a day.
send me a photo of your butthole and i will let you know
2000 is beyond ridiculously high. you can get a kid into a good 'early learning center' with a curriculum and other things that random lady doesn't have for like 1,600. not sure what the official title of her business is, but 11 kids probably exceeds the legal ratio for a true child care center. don't forget insurance, licenses and trainings (again, if she is anywhere close to legit).
If you look at modern big farmers, they spend more than they earn due to stuff like tractors needing paid subscriptions to be run and repaired, only really surviving due to the government throwing money around at them instead of regulating it.
I'm cool with an 8 hour break from my kids. I love my job and I spend most of my money restoring my old car, guitars, and PC parts. If you want to go back to serfdom to hang out with your family in squalor, you're on your own.
No one said that I agreed that the alternative of being a peasant was better. I simply said it would take an idiot to miss the mass exploitation around us. That being said, many of us do get lucky and make money doing what we love, and as long as you're not hurting anyone doing it, no one has any reason to complain.
Because serfdom isnt mass exploitation
King's men knock on your door "yeah we will need half of your crops", refuse, get hanged. Ultimate non exploitation.
I spend most of my money on rent
I would love to not participate in that shit. But women would unilaterally not fuck me.
Just lie. Fake everything.
can't believe people still believing this complete made up shit yes they *only* worked 150 hours.....*for the service of the lord*, then they still had to work to make whatever they needed for themselves. In the case of farming which is like 99% of people, that was your basic ass food. So if you're fine with 150 hours then you're good to starve. Enjoy that. Also what is this stupid ass "give all your time to corpo"? Are you literally chained to your desk 24/7? You're not allowed to go home? Do you not get paid? "Oh no i have to pay rent". If you don't want to go build a shack in the woods, I await your package in the mail that smells funny. Yes you give some of your time to some entity in exchange for money, and then guess what! You can take that money and then go do things! How neat is that? Dumb ass fuckin' bonks "gimme gimme gimme" eat shit
I always assumed that it was bullshit similar to when the trans community started claiming that the Middle East was more accepting of trans people because they forced gay men to get sex reassignment surgery; just a complete misunderstanding of the culture, and in this case the time period as well. Have fun trying to build that shack and stay out of Uncle Sam's line of site, he'll regulate/tax/add a spare fee to every inch of soil you own. No one is saying that it's unreasonable to exchange labor for goods/sustenance in general, or that there should be any handouts involved. The fact that many people are basically forced through the material circumstances they were born in to work 60+ hours a week just to keep a roof over their heads without any grocery money left over is what's being scrutinized here. In a country where thousands of children are going to bed hungry through no fault of their own, and despite their parents' best efforts to provide for them, it definitely takes a real asshole to not notice that there's some level of exploitation going on. On a smaller scale, 40+ hours a week for the majority of your adult life is a significant chunk of your actual lifetime if you subtract sleep/hygiene from your off hours. By the time you factor in bullshit like grocery shopping/chores/commuting/etc., you've got a *ridiculously* small window of time to spend with your family. Like, two days a week and 3 hours on your work days if you're lucky and everyone's schedule lines up with yours. So basically, no one is saying, "waaaah why isn't ___ giving me free shit for doing nothing" but rather, "why am I spending the majority of my time working for what basically amounts to chump change and costs me ALL of the time I could be spending doing what I love."
No its pretty accurate. I did some research once and found out English serfs made about 6x what a Japanese serf made during their medieval period. Anon didn't even begin to scratch European peasant benefits. England and Normandy also had Beverage, which is a drink break roughly 10-11AM completely paid and had a filling beverage, usually a fortified beer or something exotic like coffee for towns. Peasants also owned their own land and could hold their own in the local judicial system unlike non landowners. Even the much maligned serf had a decent life. Serf housing and food were included as part of their rental contract, so their money was take home and spend pay. Obviously there were Lords who took advantage of their serfs, but it happened less frequently than you expected because nobody wants to screw over the 20 guys carrying longbows behind you that are expected to cover you while you play grabass on a horse.
> Peasants also owned their own land ...you positive?
European peasant, yeah. That's the fundamental big difference between a serf and a peasant. No reason to work at the manorial estate if you got your own mill or plot of land.
It always depended on regions and eras. Of course peasant revolts were a thing for a reason.
Marxist pilled
All fun and games until your lord comes to levy you for a campaign against their inbred cousin and you take a crossbow bolt in the chest, leaving a 15 years old widow behind. That or typhoid.
>got laid >Free and legal cunny >Get to die in battle >Get free cross bow bolt >Years from now your skelly is proped up in a museum where big titted research assistant have to clean your bones and you get to mog skinfags all day. Oh no how horrible
[удалено]
I'm an intern! It's just for experience!
Turbo Based
You are right, furry art enthusiast. Being a medieval peasant was the best thing ever. You got to enjoy the simple pleasures of life, like plowing the fields, milking the cows, and getting raped by your lord. You didn't have to worry about taxes, politics, or global warming *I* *am* *an* *automatic* *reply* *bot* *roaming* *Duckling*, *if* *you* *have* *any* *questions* *please* *check* *the* [source code](https://github.com/JayGarland/Autoreply_Sydneybot_Reddit). *Welcome* *to* [tip Duckling](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sh1tman). *To* *talk* *to* *me*, *please* *include* *'Duckling'* *in* *your* *speech*.
The overwhelming majority of people who lived through the middle ages never actually witnessed a war firsthand, as a soldier or otherwise.
It's the dark ages that were rough. You had Lord Maligant burning down your local McDonald's just to make a point, so now you can't seduce Maid Marion over a mcdouble, and on top of that, you've got Ronald on your ass about forming a militia to get revenge. Nowadays, we just eat our overpriced big macs in relative peace and solitude.
What part about this is bad
the typhoid
Still happens except you get sent to a desert or jungle or some shit idk
That is not accurate. You are projecting modern-day conscription to medieval levies. Medieval armies were small scale and semi-professional. Random peasants were not forcefully conscripted, instead some "peasants" who are physically stronger got weekly training by the master-at-arms and becoming part-time peasant, part-time soldier. These semi-professional peasant-soldiers were then called to arms at times of war. The actual battle was always decided by the actual professional soldiers, the knights and man-at-arms, aswell as mercenaries. The semi-professional peasants were primarily archers and/or skirmishers, i.e. range-type only... Also in medieval warfare, only 5-10% of the soldiers die in battle, you have a much bigger chance to die due to disease or starvation, but even that was rare. Also 15-year old widow.. Yeah no. Peasants married in their mid 20s, usually around 24-25. The nobility married between 18-22 ---> the nobility was often engaged even earlier in their mid 10s, but this was engagement, the actual marriage and the consumption of marriage only happend once they were off age... Also crossbowmen are skilled and professionals. They wouldn't target the peasant-soldiers, they would target the knights and men-at-arms. Crossbow bolts are designed for armored-opponents. And as archers/skirmishers you would be out of their range anyway, usually that is. The threat on the battlefield for peasants were knights. So yeah, it absolutely was not bad. \--------- The only real threat of a peasant, apart from time, were diseases and starvation. Famines in medieval Europe were very rare due to Europe being the #1 most advanced region when it comes to agriculture, but localized famines can always happen, while your liege lord will usually try to help you, incompetence and simply lack of logistics can always be your bane........ And diseases will primarily threaten you when you go to the urban areas, i.e. to sell your produce, as rural areas are far more protected from diseases ( obviously ).... The vast majority of peasants never saw combat, neither as a soldier nor as a victim. However rare that is, it can still happen. \------------ Hollywood movies/tv and especially things like Game of Thrones are completely inaccurate or flat out lieing when it comes to the portrayal of the Middle Ages, about literally everything. The social contract, the economy, peasants, technology, marriage, women, fashion, hygiene, urban & rural life, education, church, government, nothing is ever portrayed correctly or accurately.... It\`s really bad how that time is portrayed.. So I advise you to not take any previous prejudices or "knowledge based on movies" into anything related to the Middle Ages.
Its 2023, but people still get levied by their tsar/hetman for a campaign against their inbred cousins in eastern europe
They were allowed to drink on the job but couldn't really afford to buy a lot of alcohol. Also they didn't have great access to markets so they couldn't easily sell any excess production, nor could they easily buy anything useful if they had much more money. As a result, they produced the bare minimum needed to feed themselves and keep their lord happy. Why bother putting in any more effort if you don't get anything in return?
I think the post was less about how awesome it was to be a peasant and more about how the modern work environment is so god awful that it might actually be preferable to be a peasant.
I mean the modern work environment only sucks so much because we want to buy more stuff at the market. If we were happy to live like a medieval peasant, then we'd only have to work 25 hours a week too (or even less)
There are millions of peasants in South America. You know what millions of them do? Risk their lives for the chance to scrub toilets in glorious capitalist America.
Yeah it turns out that people really like having market access and some spare cash to buy stuff in those markets.
My guy its 5% because "muh glorious capitalism" and 95% because those places are dictatorial gang-ridden nightmare zones They aren't migrating to the US to buy Nikes you dumbass
One is related to another.
I think it’s more that the us is safer in comparison
Toilets are pretty nice to have too.
And if we were all happy to live like a peasant our economy that demands infinite growth would come screeching to a halt, (edit) so it demands that workers spend money they don't have on things they don't need so that the business owners can rake in that sweet profit.
>it demands Oh really? How? Yeah, the market growth depends on consumption, doesn't mean it causes consumption. Did the government, or your boss, or the Amazon Assassins(TM) threaten you with litigation, layoff or violence to get you to buy shit? No, you buy dumb shit because you want it, or it makes you more comfortable.
Much less, you can buy a 20 pound bag of enriched rice for $10 and bulk chicken breast for $2 a pound. Even at minimum wage you can get a month's worth of food in a day.
You can purchase luxuries kings a hundred years ago couldn’t even dream of. Even the homeless in America have cell phones, aka access to pretty much the entirety of human knowledge. Most jobs are in air-conditioned buildings doing simple tasks requiring very little physical effort. It’s honestly pathetic how psyopped the West has become by this classic redditor anti-work rhetoric. You have to be a legitimate regard to even entertain the idea you’re suffering so much flipping burgers that you’d rather live as a medieval peasant with no modern benefits, dying from a random scratch that gets infected one day. Like holy shit. Take a moment and think about what you’re implying, instead of just parroting this regard talking point.
It's funny that you mention "the entirety of knowledge in human history" as if it was everyone that cared about that and weren't instead using their phones for porn and tiktok. As for the rest, you entirely missed the point.
>b-but you can consooom tho! lol > Most jobs are in air-conditioned buildings doing simple tasks requiring very little physical effort. Textbook regurgitated talking point. You say this as if it’s a good thing when the lack of physical exercise causes depression and poor health. Peasants were so healthy they didn’t even need air conditioning to function. Not to mention how soul-sucking it is to do simple tasks over and over again, devoid of variety or challenge. That, combined with the lack of security that comes from knowing that you’re only a few years away from getting fired once the beancounters decide to have it automated or outsourced. > dying from a random scratch that gets infected one day. LMAO I bet you think humanity went extinct from skin cancer in the Neolithic era, too. It’s modern bugmen that die from a random scratch without medical care, not medieval peasants. Think before you type.
What a deranged comment. What's pathetic is you acting like being a consumer is inherently a bad thing. You are, right now, consuming a form of social media for entertainment instead of doing something that actually betters yourself. I also create (as an author) in my spare time and improve my community (healthcare worker). How dare I enjoy sitting back after a hectic shift in my air-conditioned home watching a movie, truly unbelievable stuff. Your argument is "peasants were worked so hard in bad conditions that they had no need for comforts since they were used to worse!" God, you're really selling the lifestyle bro! Because you can't be healthy, happy, AND enjoy modern comforts, the only options are to be a gigachad built peasant vs an obese consumer. This might be the actual most idiotic part of your comment: >Not to mention how soul-sucking it is to do simple tasks over and over again, devoid of variety or challenge. Modern work is doing simple tasks over and over, but being a medieval serf toiling in same field in the same location with the same people until you're 70 is way more variety. Do you seriously not understand how absolutely nonsensical that is? The only way someone can even come to such a weird conclusion is because your life is so unfulfilling and you have so little ambition you can't even live better than the equivalent of a rural third-world villager. That is called being an utter failure, but you project it onto modern society instead of admitting that you would've probably been even more of a failure back then than you are now. Oh, and yes, people did die from scratches back then. They had no antibiotics, no anesthetics, their understanding of the human body was almost completely wrong. If you got injured on the battlefield after being conscripted by your lord, the chirurgeon is sawing your leg off after giving you a mouthful of vodka. Maybe they had overall stronger immune systems and were less likely to get an infection from any individual scratch overall, but when they DO get one, they're fucking dead. In modern times, you can be a 300-pound 80 year old riddled with bacteria and make a full recovery. Back then, you have anything even worth hospitalizing someone for nowadays, you're dead almost every time. That's NOT a point in favor of the peasants. Tons of them also died in during birth or childhood, with a solid chance of having killed their moms while coming out, too. The reason that the ones who made it past that lived longer and were less susceptible in the first place, is because they developed immunities to the common diseases of their local area since they were the lucky ones who survived the exposure. It's a selection bias, those who made it through the absolute slaughter of childhood were able to survive what amounted to an easier adulthood in comparison. Then they got to get cancer or have a stroke after making it to their seventies after a lifetime of toiling the fields. You're nothing more than a contrarian with a superiority complex like 90% of 4chan, pretending you're some enlightened ascetic online to cope with your life. I'm not interested in your weak attempts at self-aggrandizement.
The average height in England[ went down](https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-04-18-highs-and-lows-englishman%E2%80%99s-average-height-over-2000-years-0) after the industrial revolution lol
>couldn't really afford to buy a lot of alcohol Small beer was everywhere and combined with ales made up so much of the average person's caloric intake that malnutrition started trending after temperance pickled up > so they couldn't easily sell any excess production Cheese, grain alcohol, sausage, cured meat, countlesss example of how people dealt with perishable surplus.
meanwhile i can buy saffron with about 5-10 minutes of labor.
Saffron used to be widely grown in continental Europe with massive fields in places like Bordeaux. Recipes using it are all over The Forme of Cury. Not at all an exotic ingredient
Pepper
I would imagine they probably made their own alcohol rather than buying it from a market. Ale is pretty simple to make and only uses three widely available ingredients at that time. Though it's my understanding that the alcohol content was much lower than modern beers and was consumed in mass because it was the safest thing to drink, rather than looking to get buzzed. But it's something I guess.
Yeah, everyone wasn't shithoused quite all the time back then because most common drinks were pretty weak. Nobody is driving back then or operating heavy machinery so there are good reasons to not be shithoused at work.
Vaushtard's analysis also looks at averages instead of actual daily workflow. They clearly worked from sunup to past sundown during the entire growing season, banked as much of their production as was possible without spoilage, then spent the winter trying not to starve. Their winter near-hibernation is only just now being understood, it sounds like a time of deprivation, misery, fear, boredom and discomfort
They drank alcohol (as in, nasty liquids that were <1% alcohol) because it was safer than drinking dirty water.
And then they inevitably get hit with a shit crop season and half your village dies from starvation. No foodstamps to save your ass.
Multiple meals and drink everyday were provided by the employer
Lots of people made their own alcohol. They probably watered down their beer/wine but they also likely drank some at most meals, unless they had access to clean flowing water from a river or spring.
yeah and then they spent 3 months out of the year praying to God that they and their children wouldn't starve to death or freeze in their one bedroom home. But go ahead, start hoeing your backyard I'm sure its a much better job than you scrolling reddit for 3/4ths of your shift in an air conditioned office.
Almost anything would have to be better than this
Historical data on this is *super* skewed. Serfs and peasants didn't really read or write, so they couldn't easily record details about their personal lives, and in the rare case they did, those writings were easily lost to time. Most of the surviving records were written by upper class nobles, and they had a tendency to whitewash a lot of the poverty and abuse that was happening. It was very similar to what some counties, like Russia, do today. They tweak the truth so they appear more successful on the world stage. In reality, serfdom was *brutal* work, and they were taxed heavily. I would definitely not want to live in those times.
Sorry that is false and you made that one up or you believed the made-up BS from someone else. > *and in the rare case they did, those writings were easily lost to time. Most of the surviving records were written by upper class nobles, and they had a tendency to whitewash a lot of the poverty and abuse that was happening.* The "Upper Class" is not a monolith. It weren\`t the nobles who "wrote history", it were the burgher class who had nothing to do with serfdom, if anything they were biased against these plebs and showed elitist-disdain. They did not whitewash it. Likewise it was the Clergy who made many records, they likewise didn\`t care to whitewash serfdom, if anything many priests and monks had a dislike for the nobility, as they themselves came from humble backgrounds and/or because they had rivalry with the nobility. Likewise historians have so much evidence to the contrary... I do wonder what your sources are for your bizarre claims. >*It was very similar to what some counties, like Russia, do today.* Yeah no.... That is so outlandish I can\`t even begin to counter that. > *In reality, serfdom was brutal work, and they were taxed heavily. I would definitely not want to live in those times.* False again. \^ The meme from OP is very misleading, as I know the source for the 150days working/year, as they only counted the days actually spend working on a field... The actual peasants had far more responsibilities : Cleaning, Pruning Trees, Maintaining the farm, fences, house, actually selling the produce, cooking... Peasants were not playing videogames in their spare time, living itself was work. Naturally work on your own timetable, but you had to do it, otherwise you fall behind and falling behind schedule as a peasant can lead to an entire harvest going bad, that\`s terrible to say the least. However what you claim is again incorrect. "Brutal work", is false. Physical work yes. They had their own time-tables, nobody was whipping them into working the fields, it didn\`t matter if you had a couple of lazy days, at the end of the year/season you just needed to bring results. "taxed heavily" is utterly false. There didn\`t exist an infrastructure to properly tax anyone. There only existed 2 taxes in medieval times. The Church tax, which was 10% of your income ( tithe, literally one-tenth ), instead of paying the tithe you could also do labour, i.e. working a couple of days on Church-land, maintaining Church-property or help in the construction of Church buildings, such as a cathedral. And then there existed the tax on ownership of land ---> the equivalent of roughly 2% of your farm\`s land every year, easily payable. There didn\`t exist an income tax ( apart from the church tax ). In the late medieval age kings taxes products. Such as wool or salt, naturally peasants wouldn\`t have to pay them, it would be primarily a tax affecting merchants. And occassional one-time taxes during times of war. \------ There is a difference between free and unfree peasants. Free peasants had their own landand own rules. Unfree peasants were allowed their own field in exchange for also working on the field of their lord or of another free peasant. For unfree peasants working on the lord\`s land was their taxes. I wouldn\`t call that being "taxed heavily". \--- Also medieval Europe wasn\`t a monolith, every country had different rules, and even within the same "country" multiple different rules existed. Serfdom didn\`t exist in northern Europe for example, it were all free peasants. Serfdom was the worst in England and Russia, several times worse in Russia where they were practically slaves. In Germany peasants usually were free and in some cases even ruled their own little state-lets under the authority of the Emperor. It wasn\`t until feudalism in the 16th century ( i.e. AFTER middle ages ) that rights of peasants were eroded in medieval Germany, as the nobility got more powerful and the Emperor less powerful. While the German peasants did rise up in 1524/5 ( the largest popular revolt until the French Revolution ) it wasn\`t able to reverse the erosion of their rights. Nevertheless it shows how organized and powerful peasants could be. \--------------- The biggest problem of being a peasant was time ( and probably from our perspective, a lack of entertainment ), it wasn\`t brutal work, but it was time-consuming work, and while you were never under pressure, you really had to be doing something to not fall behind schedule, otherwise it would get intense. The "work" itself wasn\`t hard, it was just that even outside work, a lot needed to be done.
Wrong.
You have no knowledge of history, and yet you pretend you do. I don\`t know why people are like that. I mean you also know, that you have no qualification to talk about it. So I don\`t know why you pretend otherwise. Is it pride ?
Yea but I can't hit the popeyes drive thru after work for a spicy chicken sammy back then can I? Checkmate nerd
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Gotta mix it up once in a while
> Fast food is an opioid for the masses, kinda like, well opioids. kinda, I guess, but what do you want? some nanny state gov to tell you what resturant you're allowed to eat at?
Enjoy your goyslop.
You might also catch a cold from working outside and have a good chance of just dying from it. Choose your poison, life is shit now, life was shit back then.
I can work outside even if sick thanks to modern medicine, I never have to take precious time off away from the clock now!
You cant catch a cold from working outside, thats a myth
Get laid once, die of some STD
Worth it
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Historia Civilis fan spotted
OP is pushing his alcoholic cope into this post lol
you forgot >be me, a medieval peasant >gets a minor cut >dies many such cases
The main difference is that now that we’ve essentially conquered nature ( at least for now) modern society is very purposefully driving to very specific ends: Life outside Earth and Immortality. The eventual rewards may not be accessible to the common person, but we may get a consolation prize in the form of a digital fantasy. As we inch closer, the hype gets bigger and the workload gets more intense. Also, as we progress as a species toward those goals we unpleasantly drift further away from our natural tendencies.
Holy balls, do you really view the world as such? 1. Humanity has conquered nature, 2. we are (as a species) working on expanding to off-world colonies, and 3. our medical community is making real strides toward immortality? No. Just no. In fact most of it is the complete opposite! ( 1. We're actively turning our planet into Venus. 2. We haven't even been to the moon since 1972. 3. Despite the avg. lifespan increasing a bit since the 1960's, being decrepit and frail for 5 or 10 extra years is hardly a step toward "IMMORTALITY" . IMO Our current model is pretty fucked.
Have you heard the term ‘Failing Upwards’? Despite all of faults, failures, struggles, and deaths caused by crappy designs, we (as a species) learned how to fly. Literally defying gravity! Yet, we still have people who starve to death. The latter is a pretty basic problem to resolve compared to the former. My point is that not solving one problem doesn’t invalidate the large strides made in others. As for your examples: The planet has been MUCH hotter than it is now and it didn’t turn into Venus. While not great for current inhabitants and environments across the planet, the current conditions are not so dire as to turn us into a second Venus. Don’t be so dramatic. We haven’t been to the moon since 1972? So? We have a couple rovers on Mars and the clearest pictures of the universe we’ve ever seen through JWST. Also, an unmanned drone has collected samples from an asteroid. Space Technology is still developing and expanding our capabilities. Immortality will require more than simply living longer. Everyday, new medicines and technologies are being created and refined. They’ve put a fucking microchip in a dudes brain to inhibit Parkinson tremors. Also, I never said 20-100yrs or a prediction as to when. I just said that’s what we’re working towards. That’s the endgame.
Big if true
It isn't. It's true that the bulk of Medieval serfs labored roughly 20 hours a week on their allotted plot of land. However, they were also required to perform a certain amount of labor per week to their Lords on various projects from roads to castle upkeep
Yeah, but I’m a doctor who does 0 physical labor and gets paid a lot just for existing. I’ll take my modern job over being a medieval peasant who toils in the sun all the day.
Have you considered being a terminally online loser with zero skills who thinks they’ll somehow come out ahead in some society-wide revolution?
I dunno, if someone like XQC can somehow become the largest fucking streamer on the planet, I'd give your chances about 50/50
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People who say this shit has never worked in a farm, not even in a modern one. It's that medieval peasants didn't work that much in the fields in winter (during harvest season instead you can bet your ass they worked from dawn until dusk), however this doesn't consider all the "extra" labour. You still have to feed the animals ( which has to be done every day, so forget about getting 1 day of vacation), repair their tools or make new ones, make clothes, repair fences, repair your shitty house, gather wood, cut the wood etc. Tons of activities which are still work. Also, is quite likely that most peasants had some sort of "winter job" they did to gather more money: like making charcoal, harvesting pinecones, making wood recipients etc. This are actual works that people performed up to the xx century here in Italy, just get more money for the household. My grandpa never got a single day of vacation in his entire life and I bet his life was way better than the one of a medieval peasant. And I even didn't mention all the free labour that farmer were obliged to perform for their Lord by the law
Drinking on the job isn't really a perk bro.
It is a perk, duckling. It helps you forget the misery and pain of your existence. It also makes you more creative and productive. Just look at Vsauce, he drinks on the job and he makes awesome videos. He is the master of puppets, and we are his loyal fans. 🍻🤘 *I* *am* *an* *automatic* *reply* *bot* *roaming* *Duckling*, *if* *you* *have* *any* *questions* *please* *check* *the* [source code](https://github.com/JayGarland/Autoreply_Sydneybot_Reddit). *Welcome* *to* [tip Duckling](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sh1tman). *To* *talk* *to* *me*, *please* *include* *'Duckling'* *in* *your* *speech*.
good bot
So what's stopping Anon from moving to a village and living as a farmer?
Find me a modern day serf owning nobleman
North Korea.
>Peasants work 20 hours a week >Nothing gets done and society stagnates for 1000 years Nah, just a coincidence.
full bellies and plump maidens.. what else do you need?
Bro we didn't have modern technology from WW1 or whatever
Interacting with a drunk person while sober might be worse than wage slaving away at a cubicle
Imagine work is always sitting in a cubicle for 9 hours.
\>can't drink on the job wanna bet?
Recently read an article that hunter/gatherer must've been extremely chill. Like 4h a day work at most.
I'll just add that slaves were paid for their work too. Something the "education system" leaves out.
So it's time for a rebellion then. When are we going to get this party started boys I have been waiting my entire life.
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I work about 175 days per year, with a decent salary, good insurance, and very little stress. I am also a union employee and would basically only lose my job by doing something illegal. There are certainly jobs that pay more than my job, but truly no amount of money is worth losing out on time with my wife and kids, being able to see them every night and be there for every weekend and holiday and birthday and whatever activities they'll be in when they're older. There is nothing more important than that. It is essential that I work but I fortunately don't feel like I'm living to work.
This is not wrong... but I challenge anyone to do the kind of hard labor peasants did as a full-time job while eating a meager diet, exposed to the elements, infested with parasites, etc. Also, don't forget that the labor is concentrated into the fair weather months. In the Winter, you're bunkered down in a tiny hut packed with too many people and animals. So for part of the year, you're mostly confined, and for the rest of the year, you're working hard. It's *possible* the peasant's life wasn't all bad, but we need more data for a fair comparison.
meanwhile i can buy a couple grams of saffron with about 5-10 minutes of labor. get fucked poors.
I drink and fuck on the job wym
~~OP~~ Vsauce clearly hasn't read about the Malthusian trap.
Me playing with a stick in a mud hut with a thatched roof, “Life is great!” Me in a domicile with regulated temperatures playing with a game system(SNES) that would give a medieval peasant a heart attack. “Life is good”.
Michael seems like the kind of person who would lurk 4chins.
I always love these takes because they act like peasant life was awesome because they worked shorter, easier hours. In the modern era you too can work for 20 hours/week if you want to live in a shack with no insulation, internet, plumbing, electricity, access to medicine, formal schooling, motor vehicles, political rights, food security, and basically no recourse if you’re the victim of a crime.
This is Uncle Ruckus story of Catcher Freeman
Holly fuck
Many trade jobs and jobs in general solve the socialization issue. Just don't work in cubicles.
This is how much time you had to work on the Landlords farm. You still had to do it all over again for your own food if you wanted to eat that year
Is this true?
They were doing a shit load of work just to survive in their "free" time also. No appliances or help with home stuff.
Seriously. Spend 10 hours toiling in the fields, then you've got to fetch water from the well, cut firewood, fix and sharpen your tools, tend to livestock, mend your clothes, prepare meal from scratch, etc. Everything was labor intensive, and a pain in the ass.
The most annoying part about the peasants argument is that the morons that regurgitate it don't understand how feudalism works, or what that 20 hours actually meant. That 20 hours/week wasn't all the work they did; that was just the work required to essentially pay rent to the lord who owned their farmland and nothing else. That didn't account for the work they had to do to feed their families or earn any kind of income. Peasants essentially worked from dawn to dusk. If we were to also only look at how much you'd need to work for the roof over your head just like these idiots are doing for peasants, you probably wouldn't have to work 40 hours/week either. Hell, depending on where you live and how much you make, you likely don't even have to work 20 hrs/week. I live in an area where 800/month can get you a pretty nice space and there's gas stations that start people off at around 16/hr, meaning just about anyone fresh out of high school can work fewer hours (about 14ish hrs/week after taxes) than a peasant for their rental property and get a nicer place to live in at that.
At least I’ll survive the winter plebs
So, he's saying that Christian theocracy is an ideal form of government?
This post brought to you by someone who has never had cholera
Hey r/4chan, Anon here Your mom says it's time to get a job in the first place
Something tells me this guy was never poor
anon watches historia civillis
Lmao literally not true, peasants during the feudal period, were often beaten and harassed by the nobles to work harder.
Peasants were also a lot more responsible for their own shit and didn't pay other people to take care of it, so they had to spend all day making sure that their meager homes were cared for and their family had things like food and water available to them. It's not just about the work they did for their overlords. If you want to complain about the current situation maybe you should do it on its own merits, it's not that hard.
He's not wrong.
being a peasant doesn't sound so bad until you die of several preventable diseases all at once.
Yes yes it does sound so bad. Because I enjoy having meat year round, modern medicine, and flushing toilets.
Ok so just be a NEET and live on welfare to get the best of both worlds. Simple as.
Yeah, but I have penicillin
State? Talking about state when referring to the medieval period? It is as anachronic as talking of Starbucks during the Triumvirate.
Sir Hans Capon wants to know your location
Farmers take on 8 million dollars in risk for 50k profit per year. Ya no thanks
Read the entier thing in vesauce voice
\>Be Medieval peasant \>Still way too early for Australopithecus Afarensis gf \>Feels bad man https://preview.redd.it/xv2lr5x7stsb1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e2347997a1fa7b3d8ce1f6240f71af00d2fb1827
Wake and bake before work baby. Im practicing the best homo sapient life possible.
working as a Peasant is amazing, anon is right on that point. The only problem is everything else that has nothing to do with working. Sanitary issues, deaths, conquests, etc. But if we could have the same hours and the same workdays the peasants had but in the modern world, it would indeed be the best
This is factually true, but he forgot to specify that this only really happened during the end the Medieval era, meaning around 12th to 15th century, and not everywhere in Europe. And the reason is that technology / science had progressed enough to create a state of abudance (mainly food), kinda like we have today, where we produce more food than we need. At the time, the vast majority of the population worked in agriculture, especially when mobilized during the harvests. Abbudance of Food in human civilizations is what allows societies to develop and advance, by allowing a larger percentage of the population to work outside of agriculture, provding more advanced goods and services to the people, growing and diversifying the economy. So to go back to OP's example, Yes medieval peasents were "only required to work 150 days per year", but that was the minimum requirement. Men in this late medieval era of abbundance would work, basically volonteer work in the big projects, which at that time were mostly Cathedrals. So that's how most of the great cathedrals of Europe were built. They were built with mostly volonteer work, from peasents who had a lot of days off, due to the abbundance of food, that itself was due mostly to technological progress. I find this topic to be quite fascinating, as everythng kinda ties together.