Modern Man is a Wimp (article)

[why]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that a roman legionaire is anyway differnt biologically from a modern man.

Delving into a wide range of source material McAllister finds evidence he believes proves that modern man is inferior to his predecessors in, among other fields, the basic Olympic athletics disciplines of running and jumping.

Roman legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day carrying more than half their body weight in equipment.

Silly.

 

[JLibourel]

I call bullshit on the anthropologist's claims! How the hell can he know a lot of that stuff? I have written a major scholarly article on Athenian naval history, and I have no idea whether the Athenian rowers could outperform the best modern athletes. As to the Roman legionaries, bear in mind they spent much of the time sitting on their asses in garrison duty, winter quarters, etc.

Family lore had it that we were descended from Peter Francisco, variously known as the "Virginia Giant" or the "Virginia Hercules." He was 6'6" and 260 pounds. It is claimed that during one battle he removed an 1,100 pound cannon from its carriage, heaved it over his shoulder and carried it off the battlefield. There was even a U.S. postage stamp showing him performing this feat. A lot of you know a fair bit about weightlifting and powerlifting. I leave you to judge how plausible this feat was! Humans always have a tendency to exaggerate the feats of old-timers. Homer would have his heroes picking up stones that "three of today's men couldn't lift," and so it goes. For the record, I once helped to move a cannon--it was a bloody awkward thing, even with several guys handling it, and I don't think it was close to 1,100 pounds.

 

[Ge Fuzz]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/S...itemNo=893560#

 

[Tangfastic]

Originally Posted by JLibourel

Homer would have his heroes picking up stones that "three of today's men couldn't lift,"
Yes, it is human nature to exaggerate the deeds of our youth and to pay respect to our elders. It did seem that Nestor was a match for most of the young 'uns at Troy though so there might be something to it.

 

[tagutcow]

Originally Posted by waldenbags

We have a much longer lifespan now, but we're not even cognizant of an even longer lifespan that may be possible in the future, yet we don't feel that our lifespan is deficient. The same with people hundreds of years ago. Their lifespan was their lifespan. The question is did they fill their lifespan with more meaning than we do today.

I wonder if life hundreds of years ago wasn't quite as nasty, brutish and short as Hobbes believed. That remote tribe in Papua New Guinea have a life expectancy of 70 years, and even the OT talks about or "threescore and ten". If anything, I think the horrid medical and sanitary practices of the European Middle Ages represented a regression in life expectancy.

Hmmm... this wikipedia article puts it at 20-30 for most of human history (How did Plato live to 80?), but that's factoring in infant mortality, so it's likely people lived much longer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

Their lifespan was their lifespan. The question is did they fill their lifespan with more meaning than we do today.

The belief that life in a comfortable, technologically advanced society is necessarily more fulfilling is a distressingly common one. I don't have a problem with technolocial society in itself, but people's attitudes towards it can be disappointly arrogant.

I often wonder, if taken on the whole, if the technological changes that have taken place since the dawn of the industrial revolution (some call this progress) are signs of human progress or human decay. All organisms have a finite existence. Are humans still on the upswing, or on the downswing? Like bacteria in a petri dish that will eventually die amid their own waste, so are we humans in our own petri dish of sorts. Do we have more or less than 300,000 years left in us?

Eh.... my fears for the future tend to be more Mantonian.

 

[Tangfastic]

Originally Posted by tagutcow

I wonder if life hundreds of years ago wasn't quite as nasty, brutish and short as Hobbes believed. That remote tribe in Papua New Guinea have a life expectancy of 70 years, and even the OT talks about or "threescore and ten". If anything, I think the horrid medical and sanitary practices of the European Middle Ages represented a regression in life expectancy.
There are periods in prehistory where it appears life expectancy was higher (nearer 40 than the general 30). In the Mesolithic in Britain there was an abundance of large and not insanely dangerous game, a small human population (so no violent competition over territory), a warmer climate than today and plentiful fruit and nuts for foraging. I often imagine a very pleasant lifestyle of lounging around and occasionally going on a mammoth hunt with the chaps. A golden age if ever there was one. Modern Humans (as in from the last 200k years or however far back we can be traced) are always going to live to around 85 with good diet and the luck or lifestyle to avoid a violent or disease hastened end. In much of modern western civilisation we don't have compulsory military service or rampaging bandits and do have widely available good healthcare, so more of us have the opportunity to reach the age where we simply wear out.

 

[Ahab]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that a roman legionaire is anyway differnt biologically from a modern man. but think about it, these are men who would spend their whole lives walking, wouild probrably spend the first 13-15 years of their lives workng on farms with no machinary, and then spend the next 20 years walking huge distances, digging ditches and fighting. they were fit in a way that is hard to imagine today.

but I think about someone like my dad - at teh very end of the greatest generation. he grew up on a farm, working the farm, and walking to pretty much anywhere he needed to go. you don't have kids hitting their teens like that in the US very much anymore.
The problem is while they were not very different they were a lot shorter on average. I believe the Romans were also generally shorter than the northern Europeans. I've pretty much read that the Romans were superior do to training, doctrine and equipment. They had the advantage of having a full-time uniformed professional army. That is a huge advantage many of their enemies did not have. When you said earlier that "pre-muskets, combatants would work for years to build up the strength needed to operate weapons. a knight could start out as a kid working on his strength, and then spend years working with the weapons to build up skills." really did not address the vast majority of combatants. I remember reading about the Japanese system. The premise was that the higher up the Samurai was the better fighter he was likely to be because he would have more time to train. He should have also been better fed and better rested. This is an interesting premise to me.

 

[JLibourel]

Interestingly, in the Book of Genesis, it says something to the effect that no-one lives longer than 120 years. It's noteworthy that that was the upper limit of human longevity 3,000 years ago, and it still stands today! I think the oldest person in the world at the moment is 114 or 115.

 

[mr.loverman]

Weaklings were definitely selected against when men had to win mates by showing their prowess at working the land or in hand to hand combat. Now that men can earn a living by the sole use of their brain in most first world countries they can reproduce despite obvious physical deficits. Extreme physical aggression manifested in the form of ****/pillage/conquer has largely been selected against in modern society due to the creation of justice, however slightly less overt examples are ominpresent in politics, industry and sports and are very well rewarded. Hell in Africa its pretty much they've pretty much traded spears for AK47's and continue to ****/pillage at will in many places and strongmen/dictators bed whom they chose.

 

[Zintintin]

Originally Posted by JLibourel

Interestingly, in the Book of Genesis, it says something to the effect that no-one lives longer than 120 years. It's noteworthy that that was the upper limit of human longevity 3,000 years ago, and it still stands today! I think the oldest person in the world at the moment is 114 or 115.
Jeanne Calment lived to 122 years. We also better stop those lifespan researchers before they do something unholy.

 

[Nereis]

This is no news. A farmhand will always be more physically fit than an accountant. What the man doesn't take into account however is that ancient man was often undernourished. I find it hard to believe that in a time when the average adult was all of 1.6m and 130lbs soaking wet that they would be superior to say... Mike Tyson.

 

[Ge Fuzz]

real anthropologists (read: not manthropologists), have found that IIRC cro magnon suffer many wounds that have healed over, including major skull fractures concluding that they lived a very rough and tumble life. So yeah if you go around hunting big game with sticks and rocks you will be a badass or die trying.

 

[Hombre Secreto]

Modern Man for the most part has evolved to work more with his brain rather then his brawn. In todays times brains take you MUCH farther then brawn. 1000 years from now all men are going to look like Kate Moss. True story.

 

[Zintintin]

Originally Posted by Nereis

This is no news. A farmhand will always be more physically fit than an accountant. What the man doesn't take into account however is that ancient man was often undernourished. I find it hard to believe that in a time when the average adult was all of 1.6m and 130lbs soaking wet that they would be superior to say... Mike Tyson.

I would find it easy to believe. Look at an orangutan. Much smaller than us and physically defeats us in every single way.

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by why

Silly.

does that prove that the author is suggesting that modern man is genetically different from roman legionaires? he is suggesting that modern man is less fit.