That one scholar that published an article claiming that medieval peasants worked less than the average modern worker did so much damage
(in fairness, that scholar did subsequently repudiate their own work, IIRC)
(in fairness, that scholar did subsequently repudiate their own work, IIRC)
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Though to be fair, he also never published the original paper. Which is why the earliest source for the claim is a '90s pop non-fiction book where the author happened to know of the unpublished paper. (And all the works that cite the original paper are really citing that.)
And added on top of that, the author of that source has since come out & said his original calculations were incorrect & medieval peasants did work more than modern people.
Lotta individual modern things I value above not working at all
It never passed the sniff test, but I figured there was some ideal 'population density to arable land' ratio.
It can attract sociopaths—who must be curbed—but it has led to delightful things: like this laptop I write from. /EORant
also, like, roofs need to be thatched, fences need to be fixed, firewood needs to be chopped, on and on, an endless number of things to do to simply not starve or freeze to death
Spend an hour a month repairing the fence, and two hours a day patrolling it to find the problems.
For me that just seems like a basic principle of life, sometimes you have to do a hard thing to survive, no choice. But many don't grok that.
Shit you could be shanghaied into a government construction gang in much of the world too.
People didn't uproot their lives to move to cities to work in factories because it was shittier.
Yes some also migrated for work, but they were being pushed as well as pulled.
Cows and chickens don't go in hibernation on weekends or during your vacation...