Honestly being overworked makes people unobservant and passive and it literally kills people every day. People don’t seem to realize that an overworked nurse might not notice your sepsis symptoms and a tired truck driver might not notice your car when he’s merging into the lane. Failing to protect worker’s rights impacts nearly everyone
This supposedly has to do with the fact that the original Celts were Iberian and their ancestors migrated across the strait of Gibraltar from Africa. The red-haired and pale look typically associated with Celtic identity likely comes from admixture from Germanic peoples. Remember that everyone’s ancestors came from Africa if you go far back enough.
Evidence of this phenotype can still be seen in some people today, particularly those from Wales and other western coastal regions. For example:
Welsh presenter Alex Jones
Welsh footballer Chris Coleman
Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones who can notably pass for Hispanic.
English actor Ian McShane
It’s important to note that none of these people are immigrants or descended from immigrants. They all come from families native to the British Isles.
The take-home message here is A) don’t ever let anyone tell you British = pale and B) this
may actually be one of the most accurate versions of Guinevere we’ve seen so far.
This post is hard to find because Tumblr hates links so I’m giving it a boost.
Let’s talk about Cheddar Man.
Cheddar Man was a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer whose bones were found in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, UK. He’s about 10,000 years old and from his DNA, it is likely that he had dark skin and pale eyes. He’s not alone! Other hunter-gatherers found in Spain, dating from around 7,000 years ago, showed similar genetics.
And even when we move into the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition and into the Neolithic, we have evidence of Whitehawk Woman and Lola (discovered in the UK and Denmark, respectively) - also with dark skin and pale eyes. Lola is incredibly cool because all we know of her is the DNA left on the birch pitch “chewing gum” she left behind.
It goes to show that when Homo sapiens radiated out of Africa (around 45,000 years ago, but now is not the time to talk about Out-of-Africa vs. Multiregional Continuity vs. Assimilation models), the switch from dark skin to pale skin did not happen as quickly as previously thought.
There are so many different skin tones because of the balance between UV radiation, folate, and Vitamin D. High UV exposure usually means darker skin because folate, an essential vitamin for growth and development, can be found in the skin and breaks down under high UV. High UV also means you’re getting plenty of Vitamin D from the sun, which you need for calcium absorption, amongst other things. Yes, more melanin also equals more protection from skin cancer, but from a natural selection point of view that doesn’t matter as much as folate and Vitamin D.
When humans started moving into areas with weaker UV (aka higher latitudes), that could have triggered a shift to paler skin to allow for more Vitamin D synthesis - and because UV is weaker overall, there isn’t as much concern about folate breaking down, either. However, if you’re getting enough Vitamin D from your diet, that shift from darker to paler skin need not happen - Inuit populations are a great example of this, and so are these historical examples.
It was probably only when during a shift to intensive agriculture in Neolithic Europe - and other areas, but Europe’s the one losing its mind over dark-skinned hunter-gatherers - that natural selection kicked in and there was a change where genes like MC1R shifted from producing eumelanin (brown-black pigment) to pheomelanin (reddish-pink). Intensive agriculture meant more monocropping and less diversity in diet. The Vitamin D that was once coming from the diet now needed to come from Vitamin D synthesis within the skin.
Why my very English mother is much darker than I, a biracial Native American, am. I did not get my color phenotypes from either parent or any recent relative, I’m a genetic throwback to some very pale ancestor in what is now the UK
Good news: if you’re currently laying around and not producing anything, you are a credit to your species.
I’m an ant biologist and I’d like to point out that ants also spend a significant percentage of the time doing nothing.
Turns out sometimes the most evolutionary useful thing you can do is chill and not wear yourself to shreds, whether mammal or insect. It helps you deal with emergencies and adapt to change. Plus, you can act as living food storage!
That last part is probably more an ant thing than a human thing, but hey, live your dreams.
it’s also a bear thing, which absolutely explains me
Doing absolutely fuck-all is how antarctic sea sponges live to be over 10,000 years old, so live your best, longest, laziest life.
Remember lions? Fellow apex predators?
Yeah, they spend 16-20 hours of the day laying around, socializing, raising Cubs and napping.
The last 4-8 hours are spent hunting.
Wait wait, they’re not a primate so they don’t count.
How about Orangutans?
Well, they spend 90% of their time awake just hanging out in food-rich areas, eating fruit and leaves, socializing, raising children, and chilling.
Well, they’re not people so it doesn’t-
How about Stone Age people in Europe?
They probably worked 3-5 hours per day, every day. (Though seasonal changes in food scarcity could change that)
Laborers in ancient Egypt worked 8 hours, with an hour break at lunch. They did this for 8 days, then rested 2 days. That sounds familiar. Except… they also had regular time off for festivals and holidays, and only worked for about 18 out of every 50 days.
Artisans in imperial Rome generally worked from 6am to Noon, and then had the rest of the day off… and only worked for half the year, due to all the holidays and festivals they got off.
But that’s too easy, what about a Peasant in medieval England?
6-8 hours per day, with Sundays off, Farm workers put in longer hours at harvest time but worked shorter days in winter when there are fewer hours of daylight. Economist Juliet Schor estimates that in the period following the Plague they worked no more than 150 days a year, due to the long holidays and many festivals.
Ugh, let’s go poorer. 17th century France. Starvation was afoot for the working poor!
During the reign of King Louis XIV, the workers of France had it tough, and hunger for the poorest was a fact of life. The typical working day was as much as 12 hours long, but two hours were set aside midday for lunch and perhaps an afternoon nap. Nevertheless, the Ancient Régime is said to have also guaranteed peasants, labourers and other workers a total of 52 Sundays, 90 rest days and 38 religious holidays off per year, meaning they worked just 185 out of 365 days.
So what changed?
The industrial revolution, baybe~~
New factory owners could work their employees to the bone due to a lack of regulation and abundance of cheap labour.
The typical factory worker in mid 19th-century England toiled away for a soul-destroying 16 hours a day, six days a week, 311 days per year!
THAT nightmare became the standard by which western society began to judge “work-life balance” and anything gentler than the industrial factory’s unfettered brutality is considered “softness”
(So many people died being mangled in those machines. Hair handkerchiefs went into style during American industrialization because working women would otherwise get their hair caught in the machines, and be either scalped or be bodily pulled inside to die…. But that’s a horror for another time)
Americans in 2020 worked an average of 8.5 hours per day on weekdays, plus another 5 hours on weekends.
Taking out federal holidays and weekends, we work 262 days per year. Most of us get 5-9 sick days to take per year. (Yes, a fixed number, no matter how sick you really are), and usually either no paid vacation, or 7-15 days paid vacation, depending on seniority and the company. Unpaid vacation doesn’t have a max, but taking it often risks you getting fired.
Even comparing against the poorest laborers in ancient history the current working structure for humans is, frankly, inhumane.
We are mammals. Let us rest. Let us celebrate holidays and attend festivals. Let us attend to our homes and families.
Even the ultra wealthy folks who got their heads chopped off gave us more time off than this!!!
Someone in the comments said something like “humans are instinctively industrious and productive, as social creatures!”
Buddy, that’s a lie fed to you by capitalism.
In our default state, we attend to our families yes, but we also party like hell, lounge around, and make fantastic works of art just to be proud of ourselves. We made beautiful things for the joy of creating them.
Stone Age humans may have spent a couple hours hunting and gathering, but DEFINITELY spent loads of time painting every available surface. Time and weather washed most of it away, but some places like Arizona and Colorado still preserve a few of the endless murals made by ancient hands.
Evidence shows that the ancient world was COVERED in paintings and etchings - just saturated with images of birds and beasts and humans, sunsets and cool weather. We invented mythologies and painted about them. We did something impressive, and painted about it. We taught our children how to paint and lifted them into our shoulders so they could mark the ceiling.
In our most base state, humans will work enough to survive, but our instincts demand we use all other time to create art. We want to communicate. To make connections.
“Working” or “being productive” is not on that list.
ok but if bruce wayne somehow came upon zuko fresh out of banishment he would lose his mind.
black hair? check. bad parent(s)? check. trauma? double check.
bruce: how’d you get your scar?
zuko: my dad got mad at me for saying that killing people is wrong so he lit my face on fire and banished me.
bruce, vibrating with excitement, already pulling adoption papers from his utilility: that’s terrible. how do you feel about capes.
Zuko: Do you mind if I wear this blue demon mask?
Bruce: *sniff, tear in his eye* Not at all.
*Zuko fighting the Joker*
J: “wan na kno w h ow i go t thes e sc ar s”
Z: *rips off mask* i don’t give a fuck
I’m still stuck at the “batman has adoption papers in his utility belt”.
“Quick, it’s time to use the Bat-adoption papers!”
Bat-option papers
Okay, but you’re missing the best part of this.
Alfred and Iroh complimenting each other on tea while they discuss their overly dramatic children.
iroh: once, i told zuko that he needs to work on his inter turmoil. he screamed at me that he had no such inner turmoil, and then proceeded to go to a cliff during a thunderstorm to scream at God to strike him with lightning
alfred: master bruce and i have that interaction at least three times per week.
@absentlyabbie
I see your “Alfred and Iroh as tea bros” and raise you “Alfred and Iroh as tea rivals”
Consider
Iroh: you too must learn patience. Boiling the water ruins the delicate flavor of the white jade
Alfred: oh I’m dreadfully sorry - for some reason I expected this tea to have TEA in it
(later)
Alfred: *aggressively laying out full tea service with milk, lemon, sugar, and, just to drive his point in, jam*
Iroh: *dying inside*
excellent addition
hey bruce spent a lot of his bat-study abroad in the far east and has kind of a weeb weapon collection so proposal, what if Bruce appreciates Iroh’s tea
while Zuko is enthusiastic about cream and sugar
further fueling their dad-figures’ passive-aggressive rivalry?
You had me at Zuko vs. Joker, I was crying by the Eastern vs. Western tea service
Wait a minute. Batman and Zuko have the same arch-nemesis.
Mark Hamill
Saw the last comment and my brain would not rest until it happened
this post has everything
this was an enjoyable ride. i liked the scenery very much. smooth suspension, nice height, several fascinating loops. 10/10 would go again.
