How work has shaped society | James Suzman

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From hunter-gatherers to the American Dream: How humanity’s definition of “work” has developed over time.
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Humans used to hunt and gather. Now, we have 9-to-5 jobs. Anthropologist James Suzman joins us to talk about the historical roots of our desk jobs and how they all connect back to the agricultural revolution.
The definition of work is ever-evolving, with each new era posing unique challenges. In this interview, Suzman explains how each era has actively contributed to humanity and how we can use this knowledge to help us prepare for (and even reconsider) our future.
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About James Suzman:
Dr. James Suzman a PhD an anthropologist specializing in the Khoisan peoples of southern Africa. A former Smuts Fellow in African Studies at the University of Cambridge, he is now the director of Anthropos Ltd., a think-tank that applies anthropological methods to solving contemporary social and economic problems. Dr. Suzman's latest book is Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots.

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14 май 2024

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Комментарии : 126

@indigowendigo8464 3 месяца назад

Every since my kid grew up I just live in a camper and cook all my food from scratch. Shop in thrift stores. Ride a bike a lot. Solar power and a small wood stove. My budget is crazy low now. I live far below the so-called poverty line quite comfortably and I barely work. I love it

@danieldanton1129 3 месяца назад

If my wife ever leaves me that's what I would end up doing. Fingers crossed then... 😮😂😉 Hopefully we'll end our days together together in a nice little van. Travelling where the land needs working/fields need picking

@kingjsolomon 3 месяца назад

I’m 25 and I’m striving for the same lifestyle, simplify!

@danieldanton1129 3 месяца назад

@@kingjsolomon You can do it friend. I have belief in you. You are very driven. It's so telling that this dream is spread evenly throughout the generations. In my experience anyway.

@Eclectic8 3 месяца назад

When not in a relationship and before tons of stuff was left in this house from when my Mom lived here with my daughter and I, I'd always lived with a few boxes of things, no car and a camping mat for a bed. Now that daughter's been in college for a bit, I'm feeling freer with each piece of furniture I sell and box of stuff I shed in my prep to move overseas (I've lived abroad before.) and create a "new" minimalist life. Interesting how danieldanton1129 seemed to assume that IndigoWendigo8464 is a guy. One of my greatest satisfactions is seeing how my daughter has adopted less materialistic patterns than her peers, e.g. often shopping 2nd hand, choosing to start at a community college, sticking by a blue-collar (firefighter) boyfriend (5 years).

@indigowendigo8464 3 месяца назад

@@kingjsolomon it's great. I have time to play guitar and make things. I recommend a cheap old vehicle that's simple enough to work on yourself. There's millions of acres of free public land to live on out west. I tell people to just throw a mattress in the back of a minivan and go for it. Most of our ancestors lived before recorded history and they were nomads with few possessions. It will feel natural to live this way. Just get a good night's sleep every night and eat real food and avoid addictive substances and life is like a paradise

@michelsindaha 3 месяца назад

I just bought your book ‘Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time’ yesterday; and against my intention I’m already half-way through. I’m enjoying it a lot, the perspectives you bring to human work are captivating.

@isaachaslam6029 3 месяца назад

Caloric surplus was a proposed theory of why farming started... another theory we farmed is because we'd have more material to ferment into alcohol and types of beers. I'll take the second option haha

@nickb220 3 месяца назад

what if it's just "look at these things that grow in the ground from nothing to a big plant. what if we put plants in the dirt too?"

@Ben-id3op 3 месяца назад

That's why i moved to the coast and started the great simplification. The earth gives you back what you put in when that relationship is right.

@dontewaddy8921 3 месяца назад

Agreed! Too much individualism and competition. Everything in today society should be reevaluated for better improvement and purpose.

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

We need a new social organisation, e-democracy for example

@nerd26373 3 месяца назад

Work has drastically changed over the decades. It kinda puts economy to perspective. The way we look at finances and just the socioeconomic aspect alone gives us a bigger picture overall.

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

This is a 10,000 year blip on a 200,000 year timeline

@ziedhosni7655 3 месяца назад

the background music is amazing

@oui2611 3 месяца назад

@abraham-2023 9 дней назад

The video was fascinatingly informative, posing perspectives from history, evolutionary agricultural frames and the interwined connection between the past and the future. Lovely to watch such a great masterpiece! Thanks for spreading up such educational material!

@danieldanton1129 3 месяца назад

I've been thinking this for a long time now. It's all so unnecessary, this 'modern' life we work for. We'd be much happier all pulling together for a common purpose, even if we would be 'poor' by any 'standard' at least we'd have a laugh while we worked

@thenathanimal2909 3 месяца назад

I've had plenty of jobs where I had plenty of fun, even ones that included heavy manual labor in the heat

@danieldanton1129 3 месяца назад

@@thenathanimal2909Oh yes me too. Ask the majority of workers though and I'm sure they would say they wished that kind of atmosphere existed in their office/workplace. Hard labour is physically rewarding and so it releases happy chemicals in our brain. Same with the heat. I was a chef for many years, working long and hard in intensive heat really helped the team bond and have a laugh we all pulled together. Then I moved to post office work and it couldn't have been more different. No-one worked together, everyone only cared about their own work. We had fun sometimes but it wasn't the same.

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

We need a new social organisation, e-democracy for example

@93Centinela 3 месяца назад

His book Work is phenomenal. Got it on the top shelf of my book case.

@joewauters9065 3 месяца назад

Amazing content, thank you

@pitot1988 3 месяца назад

Like many of your videos, the background music is too loud and obscures what the speakers have to say. Can you change this, seriously?

@drJoep043 3 месяца назад

hunter gatherers did in fact not make a sudden transition to agriculture source: Dawn of everything, D. graeber & D. Wengrow

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

In the scale of human history it was sudden, but nothing compared to the last 200 years

@lilith7ful Месяц назад

I replied the same, read the book, it was an amazing read...

@God7OD 3 месяца назад

Working hard for the sake of working hard is beyond smooth brained. The money is the ultimate goal not the amount of effort put into extracting the money. Bills have no emotional capacity. Income generation shall be the same. Cold and hartless straight to the point. I undetstand that people are trained to vaule hard work. That is a belief and nothing more. Hard work is glorified. Easy work is the goal. Efficiency

@zenstiller8938 3 месяца назад

wrong

@angelsabillon93 3 месяца назад

the end is the most important part of this video

@nofeezahtladejobi2929 3 месяца назад

and a lot of people seem to be missing it

@briancolwill3071 3 месяца назад

"...sudden transition to agriculture...". It wasn't sudden, it happened slowly over a long time then gathered momentum

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

In the scale of human history it was sudden, but nothing compared to the last 200 years

@phaedrussmith1949 3 месяца назад

Anthropologists so often conflate "work" with "job," and then are puzzled at what happened to the humans. Then, when anthropologists talk to us mere mortals and do so, we begin to conflate work with job because we have been trained to be obedient to those we have been taught are our superiors.

@youngloenoe 3 месяца назад

It's very hard to pay attention to what he is saying when the image changes every 2 seconds. What's up with that?

@PSVidiya 3 месяца назад

While critiquing the industrial revolution, we need to clearly understand how production of food is the important period of human transition to whatever stages evolved later and how our work and the relations of work shaped our world. The need to reorganize the way we work, is the most interesting and essential transition we need today.

@garretthogan 3 месяца назад

I agree that there are a lot of problems with the way we presently organize ourselves. However, I’m puzzled by the idealism and romanticism of a time where every human being was concerned about where their next meal would come from. We can get a glimpse into the psyche of that experience by examining the experience of homeless addicts in modern society. It seems like a dreadful and stressful existence. I’d take my basement and my bong and my full time job over being a hunter gatherer any day.

@lilith7ful Месяц назад

It wasn't a sudden transition to agriculture, according to David Graeber

@CM-dh8py 2 месяца назад

This video ends just as he really gets going! Time for a James Suzman deep dive, it seems.

@DWJT_Music 3 месяца назад

In the landscape of scientific hunter/gatherer models, with their narrative of millions of years and monkey ancestry, Goliath looms large. However, akin to David's stone meeting Goliath's forehead, Christian faith, anchored in the stories of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, hurls a potent challenge. It asserts a divine creation, laden with sacrificial meaning and spiritual significance, countering the reductionist portrayal of human origins and underscoring the moral depth and purpose woven into biblical narratives.

@timmy-wj2hc 3 месяца назад

I am glad that he tied it at the end with class consciousness. He missed the fact that the Bourgeoisie have all the power in the world, they have all the wealth, land the banks, corporations, armies, governments, institutions. Meabwhile the 99% of humanity is slaving away.

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

He does mention it, he just doesn't bang on about it

@JeffToff 3 месяца назад

That "something" that happened was a change in the DNA of the crop. Or perhaps an invasive species? The change was the discovery/evolution of a plant that had characteristics amenable to noob farmers.

@MAGA_Extreamist 3 месяца назад

This was very good

@FilipinaVegana 3 месяца назад

Good and bad are RELATIVE. 😉 Incidentally, are you VEGAN? 🌱

@MAGA_Extreamist 3 месяца назад

@@FilipinaVegana no ma'am

@MAGA_Extreamist 3 месяца назад

@@FilipinaVegana My other comment was. Things got better but worse at the same time.

@joanarosa507 3 месяца назад

"The Dawn of Everything" from David Graeber and David Wengrow offers a far more intricate view on human culture and particulary the transition from hunter-gatherer societies than this. This sounds like a very narrow narrative compared with the complexity that the ancient sites reveal to us. I would recomend further reading.

@CelticAfricanus 3 месяца назад

Fire happened with Homo erectus around 1 million years ago in South Africa. As to why our ancient Homo sapiens hunter-gatherers settled down into an agricultural society in the year of light (Anno Lucis) which started us on the path to destroying the earth, I suggest thinking about paleo-contact, especially after you've reviewed Paul Wallis' 5th Kind channel, about the evidence starting at us in the face from the bible. It's also interesting that very suddenly a whole range of cultivated crops first arrived in the Karaca Dag mountains in Southeastern Turkey, including wheat, barley, peas, lentils, broad beans, chickpeas, grapes, olives, flax etc. Close by was evidence of the earliest domestication of sheep, pigs, goats and cattle. Since most of these crops require some form of secondary processing, they would never have been cultivated by hunter gatherers in the first place i.e. who told them to grow them because they could be beneficiated? P.S. Capital only creates capital now because we have devised a false economy with interest, which is essentially the devil's spawn.

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

Good technology spreads fast

@CelticAfricanus 3 месяца назад

@@crappymeal Nowadays yes. But in the distant past, one expects things to have taken a lot longer. Alarm bells should ring when things suddenly just "turn up" without any explanation whatsoever. Unless someone has a better explanation for the sudden appearance of these life-changing crops.

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

@@CelticAfricanus how sudden are you taking about here?

@DWJT_Music 3 месяца назад

Joseph's wisdom in storing grain, ensuring long shelf-life food during times of plenty, anticipating and preparing for future times of scarcity or famine resonates deeply with biblical principles of stewardship and foresight. It contrasts starkly with modern agricultural practices that often exploit the land, deplete resources, and genetically modify organisms towards corruption, neglecting the natural rhythms ordained by God. Biblical wisdom emphasizes working the land diligently while allowing it periods of rest and rejuvenation, a concept embodied in the Sabbath and the Jubilee years. In contrast, contemporary methods often prioritize short-term gains over long-term sustainability, leading to environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity. Given these contrasting approaches, one might ponder: Where is humanity headed? Will we continue down a path of exploitation and short-sightedness, or will we heed the wisdom of the ages, embracing stewardship, sustainability, and reverence for God's creation?

@CelticAfricanus 3 месяца назад

@@DWJT_Music Indeed, although anyone who believes that "capital creates capital" has clearly lost all interest in the ancient wisdom of the earth. For usury is the surest path to misery and the empty path to hell, for borrower and lender alike.

@volkoff6357 3 месяца назад

“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” UNCLE TED WAS RIGHT!

@ManokrantiAman 3 месяца назад

❤❤❤❤ great

@sakondo789 3 месяца назад

They wanted what they needed near themselves, live collectively and grow their own food, one of their most basic needs! That was the biggest technology of the Neolithic period, farming!

@beerman204 3 месяца назад

We went from our own farms to the factories. Now time to let the robots run the factories and get back to our own farms and life ....

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

To do this we need a new social organisation, e-democracy for example

@JimmyClabots 3 месяца назад

Fire became the first stomach to predigest food so denser calories could grow bigger brains

@FilipinaVegana 3 месяца назад

You are urged to become VEGAN, since carnism (the destructive ideology that supports the use and consumption of animal products, especially for “food”) is arguably the foremost existential crisis.🌱

@floehouse 3 месяца назад

Wait what!!!!!!!!

@SIZModig 3 месяца назад

Very low-key criticism of capitalism there, but I can spot it, and I salute you for it

@samshepperrd 3 месяца назад

What mystery? Hunter gatherers settled in the "fertile crescent" when the climate was ideal. they saw grain seed turn to grain grass. Their discovery spread.

@invox9490 3 месяца назад

This was a pretty bad talk. First of all, we became farmers because moving around as hunter-gatherers had lots of problems and uncertainty, and if you encounter another different tribe, you ended up with war or just basically robbed. Agriculture meant dealing away a lot of that uncertainty, control over an area, its fauna and flora, and also control of the population: the young and elderly needs, diseases, etc. Second, the effort-reward dinamic was already, and even more prevasive, as hunter-gatherers. If you did not hunt or forage, every single day, you would die pretty easelly. Third, cities where NOT a "revolution" the governing parties provided protection to the farmers and with such they retained most of the assets. The arts where just a natural evolution for leasure purposes since the weathy did nada when they weren't warrioring. The REAL revolution (the 3rd one?) was the Industrial Revolution and here's where we hit a snag: on the one hand we can produce anything that much faster. But on the other we are left without what to do and TO DO became serving the machine. Something that doesn't need sleep, food, higiene, family, love, etc. The latest "machine" we cretated was the stock market and its mechanism are beyond most average human comprehension to the point that effort-reward lost all meaning, and even value-price is tottaly decoupled. THIS is what making humans lose all faith in "work", and it is not just about changing the economy (altough it would be a good start), it's about changing a mindset that is not in touch with the natural laws of world. Cuz right now, the Machine has already won.

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

We need a new social organisation, e-democracy for example

@DWJT_Music 3 месяца назад

Not to mention often times tribes of old would assign roles within the greater family tree, the people's who were inclined to seek space for agriculture also became strong warriors, for their work required them to protect their livelihood as the requirements for optimal yield was wide open space with plenty of grass land. While other distinctive tribal groups favoured educational/teaching pursuits leading to greater culminating of knowledge, or trade and commerce becoming experts at long distance travel by land or by sea, as examples. I find history fascinating these days, when I was younger I thought little of it, now that we have Political Correctness, stripping everyone of intrinsic meaning in favour of the majority. History definitely repeats itself, or at least it foreshadows what is to come, with different flavour text to suit the times.

@soonny002 3 месяца назад

Hunter-Gatherer: .... Hm... I'm bored. *(Starts farming)*

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

50% of human effort nowadays is wasted on making useless junk, instead of putting our feet up

@thinkIndependent2024 3 месяца назад

30 Thousand Years back for Africa according to the latest Archeology

@weiyuan5007 2 месяца назад

This was great until the social commentary at the end 😂 they always can’t resist doing so.

@gregorynuttall 3 месяца назад

So can we just get to Star Trek already. Let's hurry up people. No more unnecessary rich dragons or meaningless jobs.

@MAGA_Extreamist 3 месяца назад

Everything became better but worse at the same time

@Meow3431 3 месяца назад

yeah? I think so too.. even though I can not compare I feel like it's just different not necessarily better...

@ai172 3 месяца назад

I think our lives may have become easier(with advancement in technology, healthcare, information etc) but not necessarily happier.

@crappymeal 3 месяца назад

Depends on your use of the advancements, you can live off grid more comfortably than any hunter gatherer could have whilst retaining modern technology and comforts if you really wanted to

@simplysunmoon 3 месяца назад

❤️☀️🌙

@theManuScript 3 месяца назад

yeah work sucks

@FilipinaVegana 3 месяца назад

Because?

@switzjon8405 3 месяца назад

8:35 So I'm assuming Socialism will be the answer because that's being pushed more and more.

@anlazyshoe 3 месяца назад

Teen world has such linear thinking .

@user-qo7qt3wq7h 3 месяца назад

Sounds likes James C Scott bullshit

@nickguitarsweden3215 3 месяца назад

Lose the pointless mindless background ‘music’ . Just so annoying and dilutes the power of your speech :)Give us space and pause to absorb what you’re saying instead of that continual distraction .

@MAGA_Extreamist 3 месяца назад

The Anunnaki have entered the chat

@tashhashimi9483 2 месяца назад

This guy is just lazy and doesn’t want to work and he is trying to convince others as well 😂😂

@samp2651 3 месяца назад

Fake cringe bs. Blind guides

@brianferris1 3 месяца назад

Talks about the advancements of human beings going 12,000+ years ago, but its "No longer possible" achieve the American wealth creation on your own? That is asinine. Most millionaires are self made. It's possible. I hate when other disciplines try to lecture about economics. If you want to preach about economics, learn about economics, first.