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RE: New Dimensions, New Times
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Don't worry, Miguel, I did not think you were referring to me personally in your post, and I hope you did not think my reply was directed at you personally. I think we know each other well enough (after a couple of lunches at Rosita's!) to conclude that neither of us places much emphasis on being "consumers." I think we both find the world of ideas far more interesting than buying the latest "smartphone."
My comment, however, was based on experiences I have had over the years of being lectured to by Liberals (some of them friends who know I am a Conservative) about blind consumption, exploitation, environmental degradation and the like. The irony, and in some cases rank hypocrisy, enters the equation when I know damn well that many (not all, but many) are far more engaged in blind consumption, exploitation, and environmental degradation than I. They buy the latest "smartphone" and I Pad; they buy their clothes that are made in Bangladesh by workers undergoing horrible conditions and exploitation; they live in homes that use up quantities of energy, etc.
Yes, I know some will pay a higher premium in order to ensure they are purchasing "fair trade" coffee. But even that is just a "feel-good" notion. If you have read any of the in-depth studies of how so-called "fair trade" coffee is produced and brought to market, and who gets how much of the profit in Colombia, Guatemala, and other sources, it is evident that much of the hoopla is just that, "feel-good" hoopla.
At any rate, this is the second violation of my intention to end my part in this discussion and let others take it where they wish. I always enjoy crossing intellectual swords with you, Ruphus, and others on the Foro. But we discussed all of this more than a year ago on another thread, so I'm outta here on this topic.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 31 2014 17:07:32
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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Yet in a relatively modest form for many, with permission to fancy autonomous thinking and freedom. As long as only not aware about the chopped off energy and about the hardship of the paria, us being so much better up than bondsmen of the past.
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Our talk about consumption has directed my thoughts to the psychology behind it.
See folks like Bill or Richard who could clear GSI´s antique shelves, yet won´t. Or my sister who despite proper bank account frisks department stores for discount offers ...
I mean well situated individuals who stay humble with their consumption and grounded. Typically the ways of sophisticated outline.
Basically needing finances as a back up and reserving generous spendings for occasions they consider worthy in life ...
And compare that to the behaviour of pathologically greedy psyches.
To spirits who won´t lean back after the first 5 mio of loot. Not be happy with 20 mio, not with a billion, not with 100 billion of $s.
To who yet after giant assets can´t be bothered to start considering mental health problems, and be it only for the hardship and death they needlessly cause.
This pity little "ME!" Me, me, me.
Like "People don´t love me yet. Need to accumulate some more to finally attract them". Or "Those 15 guys there still own more than me. Can´t stand that."
"What do they think?! This is ME!"
Me; that ego of a crippled poor sucker, emotional bankrupt and intellectual illiterate particle.
So primitive that it can´t value anything aside of its miserably aching soul.
So frigide that no skinny starving fellow could make it reconsider. So sensationally cocooned that the most grandious of footage of a tiger´s vanishing royalness can´t cause a cognitive spark and turnaround. Can´t cause the lending of use to that senselss sucker´s existance.
Immune against any lowest degree of appreciation and evaluation.
That mind set that could literally ending up sitting on a meteorite left over from this planet, still taken by ...
You name it. Me, me, me!!!!
If we were riding to hell this worlds indiscribable chance for cockaigne for at least something of aim, and be it just for a failed kind of thought ...
But all this suffering and pity on behalf of ordinary emotional debility ... That is so beyond me; that I swear: I cannot put it into my head.
That is really it in my perspective.
Regarding my personal being, if there was to be any sort of tombstone, and someone would write on it "He couldn´t put it into his head". That would describe the essence of my life.
5 billion years of cumbersome winding to paradise on earth, only to be finished by a 5000 years blink of idiocy.
An idiocy that won´t even halt in the past two centuries of advanced science. Not even now in the age of nano assembly.
Just look at us.
We cannot even agree on something as trivial like that there ought to be something wrong when 2% of the people occupy 50% of all property.
Worse even, can´t we determine the coherence between this and the injust and cruel destruction out there.
This is literally mind-blowing in the detrimental way.
I don´t get it.
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Date Jan. 31 2014 20:07:41
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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Personally, I see little hope for a revolution in human perception that will save the planet from our depredations. We have evolved to pursue short term profit, ignoring the long term consequences. Throughout recorded history we have oppressed the weak among us. Although some of us are aware of the consequences, only a tiny fraction of us have assembled the collective will to implement such a sensible policy as exploiting forms of energy that don't continue dumping great quantities carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We continue to reproduce exponentially, adding to our burden on the planet's resources.
I don't think it will end at all well, yet I remain fairly happy, and my neighbors appear to do so as well. Some of them might even share some of my views, others appear to cling to the past.
This equanimity in the face of eventual disaster is further cause for pessimism. I read history, biography, mathematics and physics, I while away an hour or two a day at the computer, I process, print and frame a few photos from the thousands gathered traveling and diving, I practice a couple of hours a day making slow progress, but steady enough to hope that I will get back to a reasonable standard some day, I go to an average of a concert per week, and I go on long trips to exotic destinations a couple of times a year.
Meanwhile the world goes to hell in a handbasket.
I calculate that unless a general catastrophe occurs, at least I am personally safe from the major consequences. The financial system could collapse, wiping out my savings and investments, but I still have that heavy box of gold coins I inherited from my mother, so I am somewhat insulated from that hazard. All in all, things run on pretty smoothly for me.
This is perhaps our most dangerous talent.
RNJ
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Date Feb. 1 2014 18:11:00
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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I was careful to say, "Throughout recorded history," not speculating on how we may have been before that.
However I will point out that among what might be called "nonhistorical cultures of the present day," that is to say, cultures with little or no contact with the mass societies that now dominate the planet, anthropologists have found a wide range from relativeley peaceful, more or less isolated groups to fiercely warlike groups like the tribes of New Guinea, engaged in almost perpetual combat.
The surviving tombs of my ancestors display a tender regard for the deceased. They have survived for as long as twelve centuries precisely due to the high status of the people buried in them. I'm sure a certain amount of oppression went along with it from time to time.
This prompts another observation. The employee owned company I participated in consisted of 35 people. The founder likened it to a happy family. Until my early university days there were about 25 people at my grandparents' table on festive occasions, with another six or eight at the children's table in the same room. It was a harmonious group, all relatives. My father's generation had grown up in close contact.
Significantly larger groups fell into two classes in my experience. In some there was constant conflict. Two such organizations were Lockheed Missiles and Space Corporation and the Pentagon. Conflicting interests within the Pentagon slowed things down a great deal and led to glaring inefficiencieis. Personal and organizational conflicts within LMSC not only caused inefficiency, they destroyed careers.
I was unaware of any significant conflicts within Boeing Missiles and Space Company. Their efficiency made it a pleasure to work with them as consultant or subcontractor. It was the product of a rigidly hierarchical organization, and enforced by strict discipline. A benign dictatorship, but a dictatorship nonetheless. I turned down more than one offer to work there.
RNJ
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Date Feb. 2 2014 5:10:41
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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I should had noticed that limit of history.
It is true that oppressive conditions develop a certain efficiency within their boundaries, ever more refining by further tuning underdogs to function against their own interest until they will show even unproductive when treadmill is reduced. Meaning that the artificial cycle will resume almost like organic systems would, however only for a short while.
But that kind of "efficiency" is not worth mentioning compared to how productivity and creativity unfold in a social community in the ways most indigene ones are.
Further, what are 5000 years in regard of human evolution and genetical / behavioural adaption? Nothing.
We are still being born with the preferences and drives from before the kingdoms, and largely developing psychosis because of the inconsistency of king´s society with our emotional requirements.
Let aside the material situation and physical shortcomings.
To adapt to the unsocial structures and possibly find satisfactory emotion under drastically reduced solidarity and empathy, according to anthropological measures we should be needing another 95 000 years of servant being. Something impossible regarding ecology alone, and lesser even by chances of sustaining empires.
We still are stuffed as the homo sapiens who used to roam environment in small groups, always trying to stay close to each other, prepared to jump side to a fellow dragged away by the sabre-tooth tiger. Ready to risk own life for the chum, who again was contributing to own survival.
Though the sabre-tiger is no more, and roaming the discounters shelves being not nearly as risky, our basic outlines have not changed one bit, leaving us in permanent discrepancy to todays apathetic conditions.
The incoherent lemming-being that we are molded into by systematical structures of incapacitation make us a pity shadow of ourselves. Detouched cripples.
Beings tormented by a deep yearning for something not aware of, yet so strong nonethelss. Something that makes us deem a lack yet when we should be satisfied in respect of what we consider satisfactory.
From there, those who find themselves privileged with goods and pleasures, allowed to relax, rather than not feel something missing. Feeling an unknown emptyness, frustrated about the undefined cause ( and often eroding the pleasure of achievements in the same time).
It is the lack of pals who´d intensively sincerely embrace you as the completition of their own existance. Fellows you´d know standing at your site come what may. Appreciation and love that is only carried anymore in our affluent lyrical trials to emulate the condition ( and which as our romantic missing link sells in novell, song and movie like nothing else).
For us, that mere silhouette of a very intensive emotional being and autonomous thinker under democratic surrounding.
It is why for instance Mr. Bill Gates returned from his one of a kind island, now seeking fulfillment in engaging in aid projects ( currently even looking forward to giving up MS board position). Unfortunately, however unaware of how to target the core of what he is aiming for.
He has been too sophisticated to stay on a blind material path, and apparently been too much human.
We are a species of awareness. Not emerged to live without ideal and intellectual seeking.
And when under unnatural conditions we develop into all kinds of either vegetating sheep or sadistic ogres, or both.
Humans without humane surrounding become destructive like no other species. That is the most dramatic and fatal about our situation. That plutocracy that we have been made to believe in as democracy consequently is a literally bloody mess that is about to desert mother earth.
Right now, friends; not sometime.
How can mates not feel that while the lands and waters are emptying before our eyes?
How intelligence can be so complexly conducting yet clueless in the same time.
That is the big wonder for me who not at last am a fool myself.
Ruphus
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Date Feb. 2 2014 10:23:55
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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I failed to make my point in the organizational comparisons. I will try again.
"Efficiency" however defined or evaluated, was not the criterion I intended to emphasize. After all, many would see a more efficient Pentagon as a bad thing, not an improvement.
What I meant to focus on was the presence or absence of conflict. I have seen small groups function without conflict, though small group size is far from being a guarantee of harmony. But the only large groups I have seen to function with little visible conflict have been rigid hierarchies with strongly enforced discipline-not my choice of a group to join. However, large numbers of people do join such organizations voluntarily, and in the USA you can quit if you don't like it.
Is conflict inherent in human nature, or is it the result of a mass psychosis, hypnotised by an evil plutocracy? It seems clear to me that modern mass societies tend to impose constraints in opposition to some basic human drives. Is this a pathology imposed by our history, or is conflict inherent in individual human psychology?
Modern mass societies also satisfy certain basic human drives. Papua New Guinea remains one of the most violent cultures. Yet tribal members overwhelmingly report relief from the fear and suffering of almost constant warfare. This relief was imposed by "civilization" through the superior force of police or the military.
I remain skeptical of a vision of prehistory that is free of the conflicts played out by us on a larger scale, except in one respect. We were too few to destroy the planet. We could get away with a lot of styles of behavior that now promise to be fatal.
In my experience the narratives developed by anthropologists, based on archaeological evidence, are more reflections of the anthropologists' personal viewpoints than they are objectively scientific.
Since my high school days I have been interested in the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas. While I was at university the leading expert on the Mayans was J. Eric S. Thompson. He wrote the definitive books, led the most famous expeditions, and had the most successful students. His vision of the Mayans was as a peaceful, artistic and scientific civilization, in stark contrast to the bloodthirsty Aztecs of central Mexico.
Disagreeing with Thompson's view imperiled your career. A prominent example was the case of Tatiana Proskuriakoff.
There is extensive writing to be found among Mayan ruins, but all that had been deciphered during Thompson's time of greatest influence were dates and a few other symbols.
The Mayan script was eventually decoded in large part. Interestingly enough, some of the key breakthroughs were made by a high school student. Reading the extensive inscriptions revealed a bloody history of warfare and shifting alliances among the various city states. Yet Thompson's narrative contradicting this had prevailed for decades, based upon extensive archaeological research into very numerous physical remains.
Archaeological evidence for our prehistoric hunter-gatherer experience is far more limited. Among modern hunter-gatherer societies having very little contact with the outside world, we find a spectrum ranging from relatively peaceful cooperation to tribal warfare.
I remain skeptical of a narrative that posits a Golden Age, an idea that has been with us at least since the Bronze Age. Even if there once was a time when "Adam delved and Eve span," I doubt its relevance to today's mass societies, which may elicit a different set of inherent human drives.
In practical terms, I think prehistory scarcely has any implication for our modern difficulties. Our task is to find solutions to the present predicament. The scientific method was developed when it was realized that theory without experiment was unlikely to arrive at the right answer.
Our present societies are fragile products of a few thousand years of cultural evolution. Large scale experiments have uniformly resulted in violence, no matter what their eventual outcome might have been. There seems to be a sizable chance that change gradual enough to be non-violent will be unable to keep pace with environmental destruction.
Having said all that, I agree that a more just and humane society is something worth pursuing with effort and determination. This requires no theoretical justification. It has been a human aspiration evident throughout our sadly checkered history.
RNJ
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Date Feb. 2 2014 22:18:03
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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There has been great reluctancy in the academies, and even greater one among common sense, to accept the news when established world view / truisms ought to be renewed. That´s how its been with the image of females as the weak gender, with inferiority of `human races´, with the myth of `human instinct´( still a reject of public) and with `brutish prehistorical´ men ( still partially preserved by the orthodox in the academy).
In a reluctance to accept eventual change of view you turn my basic arguments upside-down, so that they may be easily refuted.
# Efficiency
The observation of better function under hierarchy indicates an efficiency of dependence and obedience for exploitative structure. Naturally that, as dictated strategy will reduce or suppress conflicting views in the same time. ( Thus probably not your choice of team.)
Vice versa: Mentality educated in such way, at least at first will not know how to engage without firm hierarchy / "run wild".
# Conflict
My pointing to natural being as much more solidary and empathical does not mean that conflict would be exterminated.
But it very well does mean that the exploitative form of society with its deprivation of emotional and material supply and introduction of compensational behaviour is significantly increasing conflicting situations.
It should be only fair to not distort plain descriptions like this into caricature.
Further, the constraints that would be imposed through mass societies alone are no comparison to the inhumane conditions under mass exploiting societal systems.
Finally, yes, conflict is inherent to human psychology.
Only that its vehemence and management is depending on culture. Which ranges from knifing or even beheading typical in mysticism-based culture to very harmless ones of which some don´t even produce the reaction of aggression.
# Culture
Aggressive cultures are and have very likely always been in the minority of tribal ones. To focus on Papua New Guinea or on South-American kingdoms makes little sense when trying to understand what the anthropological thread of human is, and from there the precondition for our genetical preference as a social being.
The fact that self-rewarding and soothing mechanisms will set in after a fight, - stemming from ages as first escaping prey then hunter which will function the same after war action-, does not yet prove a preposition for us as warriors.
Rather is there so much more indicating opposite talent for social being and deesacalation.
# Anthropology
True that this and other behavioral subjects used to be quite influenced by unrelated factors like societal obligations and reflections of anthropologists' personal viewpoints. But is is interesting how you notice a failed interpretation about benign Mayas, but not the countless news that made the Anthropology of the past ~ 25 years.
Which have pretty much been ever more increasingly refuting the classical scene about a crude prehistory; step by step revealing our ancestors as so much more advanced than we used to think.
Further, the reading of the ancient times is not as vague as it used to be. The layerings, positions, conistency and condition of artifacts tell us progressively more than before. There are indicators for whether there may have been cannibalism or occult procedures, whether rather hostility or community.
And the advance of trade and artisanry is the more amazing the more we learn about it.
Todays anthropological knowledge has little to do with the one from 30 years and more ago. In the opposite, now correcting on what used to be the primitive object ( often times actually primitively oriented subject).
# Theory or practice
It is not so much about covering our evolution with a theory, than it is about taking notice about probability.
Once again:
It is ranking pretty much around impossibility that a short-sightedly selfish human being could had survived the lethal challenges of the prehistorical environment.
Who thinks so, does not realize how todays urbanity is practically allowing for the unsocial being.
No idea about landscapes filled with mighty beast of prey, and how such does for small communities of collectors and hunters who are inferiour in all respects, except of for their ability to cooperate.
If you took 60 000 socially degenerated heads like us and put them into an environment like of human world-wide population´s bottleneck of 40 000 years ago, and you would see them going extinct in no time.
That should be less a theory than a practical probability.
Again: Who even remotely fancies the traditional image of hominid behaviour capable of surviving large-scale, mainly has no vision of the environmental conditions until some thousands of years ago.
It is emprics and logic that tell us the impossibility of a broadly unsocial human history, not theory.
# Relevance of prehistory
Human evolution shaped us, who we are still and fully the product of adapting to natures environmental requirements.
We are not genetically / emotionally adapted to unsocial conditions of caste society and kingdom.
This leaves us in inherent discrepancy and compensational behaviour.
It is essential to understand that we are not made for living in the style of incapacitated ants, and that such way of living disfigures us. So much even that we, - anthropologically a species of reason -, result into self-destructing dumbs who - worst of all - are taking the whole of higher evolution with us to Nirvana.
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In general:
Not plausible appearing yet?
Take the discomfort to inform yourself on what is happening to the planets ecology right now.
Take the personal depression to allow fully sighting the dimension of devastation.
Once done, in respect of the common apathy you will realize that we are completely detouched from a basic cognitive level, which even is no yet equalling a fraction of what we on the other hand comprehensively display in specialized fields as functioning dogsbody.
When realizing the discrete intellectual fallow, the rest of realizing the mental suspension will come to you all by itself.
Would you, while walking the desert, use your water reserves for grooming suit and tie? No?
Would that appear like disproportionate / irrational action?
If able to see such matter of course, why not with the ongoings of something as minor like livelihood of living beings on earth?
It is namely just that the majority of advanced species on this earth currently is perishing away while most of us have not even began understanding that there is something blatantly wrong with the ways established.
It really wouldn´t surprise me if there were physical means engaged that kept brains from wholly functioning.
In fact, out of explanation for the rigid mass numbing, it appears rather likely than not to me.
Ruphus
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Date Feb. 3 2014 15:33:54
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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Ruphus, I have to say this is your usual over-reaction. I was agreeing with your conclusions, while expressing a bit of skepticism about your premises.
Having spent 60 years as mathematician, physicist and engineer I am capable of varied degrees of skepticism. Mathematics offers near certainty, but of a somewhat vacuous kind. All provable mathematical propositions are of the form "If A is true, then so is B." These provable propositions are pretty much certain. But whether A is in fact true remains to be determined by observation and experiment, with the ever present possibility that new information may cause us to change our minds.
Physics is a work in progress, but it is quite accurate in many of its predictions, and its most serious shortcomings are fairly clearly recognized.
Engineering entails a good deal of judgment. Experts may legitimately disagree on the best solution to an engineering task.
As you observe, anthropology is very much a work in progress, undergoing significant revisions at this very moment. Its present conclusions are certainly worth considering in trying to find a solution to our pressing problems. But the subject has been in constant flux throughout my lifetime, and shows little sign of arriving at empirically testable conclusions, despite the fact that the archaeological methods you cite have been in use for a century.
Anthropology is a fascinating and valuable discipline, but broad brush conclusions drawn from it don't earn as high a degree of credence from me as quantum electrodynamics does.
quote:
It is not so much about covering our evolution with a theory, than it is about taking notice about probability. It is ranking pretty much around impossibility that a short-sightedly selfish human being could had survived the lethal challenges of the prehistorical environment.….
You happen to be addressing one of the world's leading experts on the application of probability theory to the design of radars, and of countermeasures against radars and other sensors This expertise is the fruit of decades of study of the general subject of probability. It is one of the things that makes me skeptical of assertions unsupported by experimental data.
You may be right. I'm sure you could pick a number of modern people who would flunk your test badly. You could be wrong. There might be enough people in a large random sample who would be capable and intelligent enough to survive. Only a large scale series of experiments could settle the question. You would have trouble finding volunteers.
quote:
No idea about landscapes filled with mighty beast of prey, and how such does for small communities of collectors and hunters who are inferiour in all respects, except of for their ability to cooperate.
I and two others spent six weeks walking in the high jungle in southern Yucatan and northern Guatemala in 1961. In those days villages were on average separated by most of a day's walk. Only a very few people had firearms. We met two. They were professional hunters who respected the jaguars as gods. They treated them with ultimate respect. Even annoying one would have earned opprobrium. Killing or even injuring one would have earned them ostracism, with an almost certainly fatal result.
No one spent the night in the jungle, for fear of evil spirits. I interpreted this as a wise avoidance of malaria and yellow fever. No one that is, slept in the jungle except us. We were vaccinated, took malaria pills, and were well armed. Three times the jaguars came to see what we were doing, crashing noisily through the forest, showing themselves with no concern for being detected. But they didn't eat us.
I have dived at least a thousand times in waters heavily populated with large sharks. They too came to see what we were up to, sometimes in groups of more than a hundred. It didn't take long to learn that they obeyed the same rule as others: the bigger the fish, the more cautious they are. That's how they grow up to be big.
My college room mate is part owner of two photo safari camps in Tanzania. These are in large game preserves covering thousands of square miles, where it is strictly prohibited to interfere with predators. I have yet to visit there, but he tells me the lions and leopards are not afraid of people, but they leave the people alone.
Of course you are aware of the rite of passage among the Masai of single-handedly killing a lion with a spear, to prove oneself capable of defending the cattle herd. I'm sure steel spear points are an improvement, but there is ample evidence of people in North America killing mammoths with stone spears. I'll grant that killing a mammoth might be better handled by a team.
I have no idea how well these approximate the experiences of our ancestors on the savanna. I don't think we know how much effort prehistoric homo sapiens had to devote to defense against carnivores.
But I do think many modern people, having spent no time at all in the presence of large carnivores in the wild, have mistaken ideas about their behavior. In my experience we evolved to be very careful around large carnivores. You can hardly take your eyes off a big shark in the water. Coming unexpectedly upon a huge brown bear makes you stand very still and be very quiet. It may even make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It doesn't mean you are about to die, if you behave reasonably cautiously.
I don't think it is wrong to say that cooperation evolved strongly in our ancestors. It is quite evident in people today.
I don't dispute your anthropological assertions. You are welcome to them. I just don't assert them myself as matters of fact.
quote:
In general:
Not plausible appearing yet?
Take the discomfort to inform yourself on what is happening to the planets ecology right now. Take the personal depression to allow fully sighting the dimension of devastation.
Please don't accuse me of ignorance.
I am a good deal older than you, and grew up much of the time amid a far more pristine environment. When I was a boy, there were jaguars in south Texas.
I lived in Alaska in the late 1940s. My friend Ivan and I would set out walking after breakfast on Saturday, and before lunch we would arrive at a place where there was no evidence any human had ever preceded us. With his father we hiked on the Kenai peninsula before there were roads. We carried a little salt and pepper and our fishing gear. We lived off the very abundant fish and the local ferns, roots and berries. Clear running streams of drinking water were readily available. When traveling with my older brother and his friends, my job was to get up an hour early to catch enough fish for breakfast for six people. It was easy work. We were extremely cautious around the huge brown bears, since they are bad tempered, not only toward humans, but among themselves.
I have traveled to more than 50 countries and seen what we are doing to the earth. I have seen the burnt wastes of Borneo and Sumatra. I have seen the muddy gashes of development in northern Thailand. I have seen the fish farms take over the land south of Bangkok, and the rise of the gigantic fish food factories. I have seen the hotels spring up for mile after mile on the road between Siem Reap and the airport, and I have seen the temples of Angkor become choked with rude and thoughtless tourists, carried there by huge busses belching diesel fumes. I have witnessed the redfish population of the Texas coastal bays destroyed when their flesh became fashionable. I have seen the destruction of the rain forest of southern Yucatan, the high jungle cut down to make pastures for cattle, whose carcasses are exported to the USA to make hamburgers. It destroyed a human way of life that lived in harmony with the forest for more than a thousand years.
There are now ten times as many people in the Austin area as there were when I came here to the University. You can't drive on the main roads between 7 and 9 AM or between 4 and 7 PM. Most of the nearby areas that we enjoyed as wilderness are now paved and covered with houses and shopping malls.
I could fill page after page with the destruction I have witnessed, just in my lifetime.
It pains me deeply.
quote:
Once done, in respect of the common apathy you will realize that we are completely detouched from a basic cognitive level, which even is no yet equalling a fraction of what we on the other hand comprehensively display in specialized fields as functioning dogsbody.
I never said we weren't.
quote:
When realizing the discrete intellectual fallow, the rest of realizing the mental suspension will come to you all by itself.
Your presumption is often quite annoying. It is the opposite of persuasive. I suspect it loses you potential allies.
I think there is a good chance we will learn some quite novel and very useful information from the burgeoning field of brain studies.
RNJ
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Date Feb. 3 2014 21:13:32
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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Richard,
I am sorry. I should had made more clear that the section under "In general:" was not aimed at you anymore.
You know that I respect you.
I have been in the realm of the Jaguar too, inapropriately dressed with plastic slippers, on foot almost daily for a while, together with a local guy. And I knew before already how wildlife most likely is when you make no mistakes.
A typical encounter in ancient landscape ought to have been different from today however. With the big ones ( and for some million years even just big birds) then knowing hominids as prey. ( Consider that monkeys / apes are among the favorite prey for many of the big carnivors.) Further animal populations density was very high, encounters necessarily frequent and often occuring in plains overgrown with elephant grass, a plant taller than the groups walking through it.
With high probability of running into big animals within initiation distance.
And what makes a big difference is one´s distinct awareness at that time about the scene when any such animal decided to attack or ambushed. No jumping into Jeeps, no gun.
The characters who have the nerves for anything similar today are less than little in numbers. Lest even the ones solidary enough to face anything as startling like a 2m shoulder hight kind of a cat in action or even much larger cave bear.
And it must be kept in mind that I was talking of social qualities. Projecting todays people in the ambience of the first millions of years would not mean an inclusion of todays ingenuity. ( Though I am not even assuming that the latter could help making it through with still weak social skills.)
-
Are you at chance envisioning how the segmented cognition could be coming about?
I am really interested in hearing some thesis on this matter.
Ruphus
PS:
Funny that you mention the Massai.
I had them in the back of my head during last post, but skipped.
Telepathy. ;O)
PS2:
To emphasize todays finer means for the scientists I should had mentioned techs like RC and spectral analysis etc., with the latter allowing the tracking of topological and nutrition items.
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 3 2014 23:25:35
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
By the way, I didn't bring up the ancient Mayans (residents of Mexico and Central America) in hopes of shedding light on human evolution. It was meant to illustrate a well known example of archaeological/anthropological fallibility. However the evidence of their environmental overuse and the nearly constant warfare among the various kingdoms preceding the abrupt collapse of the Classic Mayan civilization could stand to be better known as a cautionary tale for the present day.
You might have added as well that the constant warfare among the ancient Maya of Central America and Mexico; among the Dani, Amungme, and other groups in today's New Guinea; among groups in the violent society in Samoa, both past and present (Margaret Mead completely misunderstood Samoan society in her study based on a few months there in 1923--it was, and is, a violent society); among the American Indians such as the Navajo and Apache who raided and made war on the Southwestern pueblo cultures such as the Hopi and Zuni, gives lie to and refutes the happy notion that ancient, as well as more recent, traditional societies lived in harmony with each other and their environment.
The concept of the "noble savage" living in harmony with the land and his fellow man always was a myth, but one that is difficult to dispel among those of a romantic persuasion. And we won't even go into the various African tribes and groups who made war on each other, took captives as slaves, and who themselves were as complicit in the slave trade, both on the Atlantic American and European side, as well as on the East African, Arab side, as those who took the slaves.
No doubt there have been cultures, societies, and groups throughout history and prehistory that have been peaceful and cooperated with others. The Hopi Indians, living on their three mesas and the town of Oraibi in Northern Arizona are an example. But I don't think the record we have demonstrates that to have been the norm.
My study of history and experience living among and visiting other cultures and societies, both traditional and modern, leads me to the conclusion that modern man is no more rapacious and unforgiving in his dealings with his fellow man and his environment than were his ancestors. The difference is that modern man has the technology and the overwhelming numbers to wreak much greater havoc and destruction than his earlier, traditional ancestors. But his motives are no more venal than were theirs.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 4 2014 2:17:58
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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Just to round up the bits on anthroplogical means:
Mid of last century makes no 100 years yet, and the methods ( at least RCA from what I know) have improved.
But that is not relevant, I fully agree that today there are being asked better questions, and what counts is a much better and sober approach these days.
Bill,
In my view it is you and nearly 100% of people who follow a cliché about caveman´s roughness. And as I said, because of not estimating environmental conditions that would had wiped out a species of being weak and stupid in the same time. Over a period of millions of years anyway.
And I am glad for you romantic fellows who have tribes and friends at your site who would jump ahead with some ridiculous light weapon only to defend you against carnivors that let todays Kodiaks appear like a lapdog.
Because that does not match my empirics at all.
Last time I had someone side with me ( or someone else) in a fight has been decades ago, and that was merely against physically superiour or major appearing humans. Not animals that kill you with a single blow.
If you experience what I only think to see sporadically and rather in rural ( say old-fashioned) communities, yet not remotely comparing to what we are talking about, then we must be living in different worlds. With yet no comparison to the courage it took to be siding with your people of ancient times.
Should it be your thinking of comradship displayed here or there like in rodeos or encierros, aside of such not matching the degree discussed yet, keep in mind that these are being exceptions, while the kind of solidarity that we are discussing ought to have been common.
I tell you where todays social skills and degree of solidarity is at.
Besides of most incredible conditions that I experienced personally, let me mention an excerpt of two documentaries about todays elderly.
One was an article from years ago about life in old people´s home, which went roughly like: "Many relatives will show up only once per month, on the day when the elderly receive their pocket money, in order to cash it in".
Another one was a TV report on elderly from weeks ago. From about 10 or so individuals presented only two were in contact still with their children, and receiving some support. About the rest it went like: "Mrs. X has 5 children none of which she has seen for years", or "Mr. X has eight children whom he despises for their neglect", etc.
You really think people have always been the same? You don´t sense any changes at least with current development?
With our social condition humans would had remained a temporary mutation of millions of years ago.
That seems obvious as can be if only wholly considered.
Ruphus
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Date Feb. 4 2014 10:56:14
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
And I am glad for you romantic fellows who have tribes and friends at your site who would jump ahead with some ridiculous light weapon only to defend you against carnivors that let todays Kodiaks appear like a lapdog.
"Cave bears were comparable in size to the largest modern-day bears. The average weight for males was 400 to 500 kilograms (880 to 1,100 lb), while females weighed 225 to 250 kg (495 to 550 lb)."
Per Christiansen (1999). "What size were Arctodus simus and Ursus spelaeus (Carnivora: Ursidae)?". Annales Zoologici Fennici 36: 93–102.
But this site
http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/a/arctodus.html
puts forward the recent theory that the cave bear was not an active carnivore, hunting down and killing its prey, instead that it was specialized as a scavenger.
Kodiak Bears:
"Size range for females is from 225 kg (500 lbs) to 315 kg (700 lbs) and for males 360 kg (800 lbs) to 635 kg (1400 lbs).[2] Mature males average 480–533 kg (1,058–1,175 lb) over the course of the year,[6] and can weigh up to 680 kg (1500 lbs) at peak times.[2] Females are typically about 20% smaller and 30% lighter than males[2]"
2. "Kodiak Bear Fact Sheet". Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Wildlife Conservation. 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-27."
6. Wood, Gerald (1983). "The Guinness Book of Animal Facts and Feats". ISBN 978-0-85112-235-9
Polar bears are about the same size as their close relatives, the Kodiak bear, but the largest polar bear on record was a large male which weighed 2,290 pounds, twice as big as the biggest cave bear mentioned in the reference above.
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/about-polar-bears/faqs#q5
While we lived in Alaska my father took me on a trip to Barrow, at the northernmost point of the (then) Territory. Among the people I met were the Inupiat chief and his 13-year old grandson. A year later we returned. During the intervening winter the 65-year old chief had been a member of a group hunting seals on the sea ice. He was stalked and killed by a polar bear. Polar bears are noted for their stealth, persistence and cleverness. The chief was killed when he was briefly away from his companions.
I expressed my condolences to the grandson. He replied, "He was old. Nanuk is our grandfather (the tribal totem). It was an honor for my grandfather to be taken by the bear."
Saber tooth tiger:
"Smilodon populator, 1 million–10,000 years ago; occurred in the eastern parts of South America and was larger than the North American species.[15] It is PERHAPS THE LARGEST KNOWN FELID, with a body mass range of 220 to 400 kg (490 to 880 lb).[10][16] It stood at a shoulder height of 120 cm (47 in).[9] Compared to S. fatalis, S. populator had a more elongated and narrow skull, higher positioned nasals, more massive metapodials and slightly longer forelimbs relative to hindlimbs.[12]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smilodon
Modern tigers run a bit smaller than the biggest of the three saber tooth species., 306 kg (675 pounds), but are still not relegated to house cat size--about 3/4 the weight of the biggest saber tooth tiger, but comparable in length and height. The modern tiger is comparable in weight to the mid-sized saber toothed cat, and is much bigger than the smaller smilodon gracilis.
Which were the gigantic and terrifying carnivores our ancestors faced? I'm not finding them on Google.
RNJ
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 4 2014 21:26:53
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: New Dimensions, New Times (in reply to Ruphus)
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Richard got me there, David.
My vision of the cave bear stems from a steady show of the museum of natural history in Hanover / Germany. There used to be a description of the cave bear as allegedly reaching a shoulder hight of up to 5 meters. And there was a miniature scene built into a cubicle that stuck in my mind since.
It showed a giant bear coming out of a cave while a small group of hunters was awaiting him with rocks and speers in hand. The proportions quite like described, even considering humans of that time to have been around 160 cm only.
That was sometime around early / mid eighties.
Now finding quite the same like Richard on the internet search, I suppose the scenery in the museum to not exist anymore in that way.
As I just read the cave bear must even have been outperformed by the brown bear, as allegedly specimens of the Kamtshatka bear of up to 4 m hight when erected have been hunted until the late 20th century.
Besides; I recall diverse estimations on the cave bear as scavanger, but there has still been speculation that these animals liked to drag away sleeping humans. ( Derived from human remains in bears refuges in caves.)
Worst of men hunter however supposed to be the cave lion.
Similar news for me about the sabre tooth tiger.
I remember from diverse sources over time that just the African lion was described as with up to and over 2 meters of shoulder hight. ( While sabre tooth cats yet are supposed to be largest of the cats family.)
Todays search however spilled only 120 cm for the smilodon.
So, I stand corrected about the size of these animals and bow to you with apologies.
Yet, after correcting on ancient predators size the situation won´t change basically for humans as prey / the vital dependency on mates´ solidarity and protection.
Ruphus
PS:
Besides, what the Massai do for initiation rite I don´t consider a fight. In an actual fight a man stuffed with manual weapon would have about no chance.
The Massai guys provoke the lion to jump and will let him land into a spear that they´ll brace up against the ground.
That though unnerving enough is rather a kind of trapping.
Certainly not worth the loss.
Much less these days, which that mentality won´t care about though, while they drag their cattle and tuberculosis into the remaining landscape, infecting buffalos and again decimating the lions through TBC.
The inflated number of cattle hoarded besides once again for nothing but matter of macho pride.
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Date Feb. 5 2014 10:50:12
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