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posted by chromas on Wednesday May 22 2019, @01:40AM   Printer-friendly

Phys.org:

Hunter-gatherers in the Philippines who adopt farming work around ten hours a week longer than their forager neighbours, a new study suggests, complicating the idea that agriculture represents progress. The research also shows that a shift to agriculture impacts most on the lives of women.

[...] Every day, at regular intervals between 6am and 6pm, the researchers recorded what their hosts were doing and by repeating this in ten different communities, they calculated how 359 people divided their time between leisure, childcare, domestic chores and out-of-camp work. While some Agta communities engage exclusively in hunting and gathering, others divide their time between foraging and rice farming.

The study, published today in Nature Human Behaviour, reveals that increased engagement in farming and other non-foraging work resulted in the Agta working harder and losing leisure time. On average, the team estimate that Agta engaged primarily in farming work around 30 hours per week while foragers only do so for 20 hours. They found that this dramatic difference was largely due to women being drawn away from domestic activities to working in the fields. The study found that women living in the communities most involved in farming had half as much leisure time as those in communities which only foraged.

Also, hunting comes with beer.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 22 2019, @06:38PM (1 child)

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday May 22 2019, @06:38PM (#846351)

    1. This was right in the middle of the big recession, and I don't live in Silicon Valley or other places where techies are in ridiculous demand, so I didn't want to jump ship without the next ship available. I could have lasted for a while from my savings but did not see any benefits to doing so.
    2. When you're working long hours, the amount of available time to job-hunt is limited.
    3. Companies in the middle of stuff like this are also too busy to hire anybody new, so had I jumped then that would have resulted in my colleagues having to put in even more time to cover my absence, also for no reward. They're decent folks who deserved better than that.
    4. Yes, they had created a fairly good work environment prior to that. It all began to go very wrong after a shift in management 3 levels above me, when somebody who had run 2 of the company's brands into the ground for 8-figure losses somehow secured a promotion and immediately started firing all the competent people. A couple years ago, she had managed to run her 9-figure division into the ground and it was folded under someone else's authority. A couple of weeks ago, everybody who was still left in that division was fired.

    There are some circumstances I'd be running rather than walking for the exits: You ask me to do something illegal, for instance. But in this case, I strolled out rather than ran out.

    --
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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 23 2019, @03:17PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday May 23 2019, @03:17PM (#846662) Journal

    Where do you live?

    I'm curious because I'm getting tired of living in the big city. It's been fun and all, but now I'm pining for the big open spaces again and the blessed peace and quiet. The trouble is, when there are not that many tech opportunities around situations like the one you're describing seem particularly nettlesome. It's easy to feel trapped. It's good to have options, especially when we're in an industry as volatile as tech, but there aren't that many when you move out from hubs like Silicon Valley or NYC.

    Just generally curious how other Soylentils have negotiated tech careers in more rural areas.

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    Washington DC delenda est.