Anonymous
6/13/2025, 6:08:16 PM
No.17761307
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>>17761317
>>17761362
>>17762034
>>17762319
>>17762326
>>17763067
>>17763113
Were people really "built different" in the past, or is it just a meme?
>>17761307 (OP)
I'd say both yes and no, it's complicated.
On one hand, in the past you would have been desensitized to death at a much earlier age simply because life was much harder. Your mother dying in childbirth, your father dying in a workplace accident, your brother or sister dying of illness would've been far more common. Even if it didn't happen to you specifically, it would have happened to others you knew.
On the other hand, I don't think human psychology has actually changed that much over the millennia, we're simply subjected to different stimuli now. Also such experiences wouldn't necessarily have produced tougher people. It would just as easily have produced broken people. The town drunk probably didn't become a drunk just because he enjoyed alcohol a little too much, but because he lost little sister to smallpox as a boy and turned to self-medication to cope with the trauma. The bandit who robs and kills people didn't end up that way because he's just a psycho who enjoys murder, but because his wife died in childbirth and his grief is so extreme that he simply lashes out at everyone in a never-ending fit of rage.
I'd say both yes and no, it's complicated.
On one hand, in the past you would have been desensitized to death at a much earlier age simply because life was much harder. Your mother dying in childbirth, your father dying in a workplace accident, your brother or sister dying of illness would've been far more common. Even if it didn't happen to you specifically, it would have happened to others you knew.
On the other hand, I don't think human psychology has actually changed that much over the millennia, we're simply subjected to different stimuli now. Also such experiences wouldn't necessarily have produced tougher people. It would just as easily have produced broken people. The town drunk probably didn't become a drunk just because he enjoyed alcohol a little too much, but because he lost little sister to smallpox as a boy and turned to self-medication to cope with the trauma. The bandit who robs and kills people didn't end up that way because he's just a psycho who enjoys murder, but because his wife died in childbirth and his grief is so extreme that he simply lashes out at everyone in a never-ending fit of rage.