Primitive Technology and the evolution of information sharing

I’ve been spending a lot of time watching primitive technology videos. If you’re unfamiliar, these are videos of people using “primitive” techniques to build shelter, tools, and other items out of raw materials like rocks, sticks, water, and dirt. I find them both soothing and amazing: A man walks into the forest with nothing but their own hands, and in just a few minutes he has a working furnace, a well and water filter, or an underground house complete with swimming pool. That’s a few minutes video time, of course — the actual projects can take days, weeks, or even months to film.

There is something very soothing, on a primal level perhaps, about watching a human carve existence from the wilderness. Maybe it’s an escape from more modern stresses, a reminder of a time when human needs were basic: Fire, water, food, and shelter — and, I suppose, not becoming food yourself. More than once I’ve drifted off to sleep to the sound of forest birds singing as a shirtless man stacks firewood or digs in the dirt with a sharpened stick.