One mans solution to lift heavy objects

[Glenn]

 

 

 

Gravity always has the right of way.

What ever you do, be careful. Any weight at any distance in the air can be extremely unstable and dangerous is it were to shift or fall.

[Anachronist58]

Oh to be Retired!

[Kozzy]

One historical thing that gets poorly translated due to today's standards is work.  For much of the world living a subsistence lifestyle in history, it only took about 3 man-hours of labor a day to feed, house, and clothe a family.  That actually left a lot of "spare" time to put into other things---like moving blocks inches at a time or the stone fit-ups which people see today as "amazing".  Media often plays this up as somehow a magical mystery but it's nothing but having the time to do the work....deadline free.

In the modern world, we've been tainted by the notion that it takes 8 to 16 daily man-hours for a family just to get by.  Well, depends on the lifestyle you "need", of course but much of that comes from the thought process of modern industrialization---including the fact that most people working are actually contributing about half the "added value" of their output to the  company.   In the USA, if compensation gains had matched productivity gains from just the 60's to today, the average work week would be about 8 hours.  It'd be a bit like being able to semi-retire at 25 years old.

I'm just tossing this out as a thought exercise and not some political rant:  What amazing things would you be able to accomplish if it only took 3 man hours a day in your household to take care of the essentials?  What skills would you have time to master?  What would that extra 5 (or more if you include a spouse) work-hours of freedom a day allow you to do?

In some ways we have gone backwards from those living happily in grass huts.

[ThomasPowers]

When was that possible?   My not too distant kinfolks were rather subsistence farmers in the hills of Arkansas and they sure worked more than 3 hours a day!  Remember the old definition of an acre was what one man could plow in 1 day?   Now if you look at medieval times and how much labour was "owned" by your lord, they were managing to survive on a more restricted work schedule on their own farms.

[SLAG]

I. F. I., Citizens,

A while ago (that means years) I read about an historic study that calculated the actual total work days per year of long ago..

This was in mediaeval England. It turns out that the total was significantly less than these days.

I was very surprised.

It does appear odd, but it is not so when we calculate the number of days devoted to religious services, fast days, and non work days, back then.

I am sorry that I do not remember the total amount.

Mr. Powers, can you help me out here?

Regards to all,

SLAG.

[ThomasPowers]

I remember reading a study like that referring to the guilds.   However it sounds like city folk; cows have to be milked, sheep pastured, etc whether it's St Dunstan's day or not. The Adam Smith Institute comes out against that on their web site.  May come down to the observational bias of the person writing.

My wife was once the vacation milker for a small goat dairy in the Arkansas hills so her friends could leave the farm at times; only about 32 goats and a very happy ram.

[Kozzy]

I'm talking earlier stuff---the grass hut days so to speak.  One might even call it "tribal" living days.  Although there were obviously times when there was a flurry of work, average daily hours weren't that high because people didn't use that many resources to get by.  For instance, Most on the American continents pre-columbian had extensive free time relative to today's workman.  That allows inefficient methods of work such as the moving blocks shown to be viable--

[ThomasPowers]

Yup massive projects done with hand labour pretty much proves a surplus of time.

[JHCC]

And a hierarchical society that can put all the agricultural etc. labor into one part of the population and free up the rest of the population to work on those projects. 

[ThomasPowers]

I thought having the army working on infrastructure was a great idea Rome had.

 

memo to self: wear disguise when traveling near Fort Bliss...

[rockstar.esq]

Thanks for posting this video.  I believe I first saw it in a high school science class.  The comments about how much free time people had in history are interesting.  Not that it's at all scientific, but I've noticed that a great many semi-famous people in history had extensive resume's with wide ranging stuff like book-keeping, nail-making, crop farming and cattle driving. 

By way of comparison, I see a lot of people's resume's and they're remarkable for their localized vocational specificity.  Growing up, nearly everyone I knew had spent their entire lives within 50 miles of their birthplace.  Most of their parents were the same way.  There are factories in Michigan where it's not unusual for three generations of the same family to be working there.

A lot of those people weren't particularly happy with their job, their prospects, or their location but it was commonly assumed that it would be irresponsible to make "big changes" that could affect your life. 

[Joel OF]

Well I'm sold.