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Naturalism vs Post-naturalism
Topic Started: Apr 11 2016, 11:13 AM (4,212 Views)
HangingThief
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Flisch
Apr 15 2016, 09:10 PM
Tartarus
Apr 15 2016, 07:40 PM
On the whole hunter-gatherer vs farmer thing I think many on this thread are misunderstanding the whole issue. The point is not that hunter-gatherer societies are inherently better than post-agricultural societies and a way more ideal sort of society to live in. The point is that hunter-gatherer societies do have some benefits over post-agricultural societies, just as post-agricultural societies have some benefits over hunter-gatherer societies.
No, that wasn't HangingThief's point at all. (and he brought it up in the first place)
He quite literally said that farming made us all into "sickly husks", or shells or whatever word he used, and that we would be better off if we reverted to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, because apparently all of them were healthy and diseases and parasites did not exist.

That is what everyone is arguing against.

I never said we would be better off if we tried to revert back today. Which would never happen.
I'm not gonna apologize for a little bit of hyperbole, either. But i will say that the average hunter- gatherer was likely healthier than the average modern human, and you guys really seem to be confusing early humans and modern humans trying to act like them.
Also, pretty sure when i brought it up, i was only mentioning it in passing while explaining a more relevant point and you guys latched on to it. I wasn't trying to start an argument about it.
Edited by HangingThief, Apr 15 2016, 09:27 PM.
Hey.


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LittleLazyLass
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Them being healthier - if they even were - hardly matters when we have to medical science, technology, and knowledge to keep ourselves alive decades longer than they could, and survive things easily that would've killed them without a doubt.
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Scrublord
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OK. But listen to it from my perspective.
I have epilepsy--a brain disorder. I used to have seizures as often as once a week, but now I take medication for that. Without that medicine, I would be unable to function as an independent, healthy human being. Such medication simply did not exist in pre-agricultural, pre-industrial times, so people like me, even if they were otherwise healthy, were forced to live short lives and die young. It is thanks to the benefits of modern society that I can live as I do now.
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HangingThief
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Apr 15 2016, 09:35 PM
Them being healthier - if they even were - hardly matters when we have to medical science, technology, and knowledge to keep ourselves alive decades longer than they could, and survive things easily that would've killed them without a doubt.

I still don't like the idea of being dependent on technology. Our society could break down very easily. Not that there's anything that can be done about it, but still.

Scrublord
Apr 15 2016, 09:37 PM
OK. But listen to it from my perspective.
I have epilepsy--a brain disorder. I used to have seizures as often as once a week, but now I take medication for that. Without that medicine, I would be unable to function as an independent, healthy human being. Such medication simply did not exist in pre-agricultural, pre-industrial times, so people like me, even if they were otherwise healthy, were forced to live short lives and die young. It is thanks to the benefits of modern society that I can live as I do now.

True, but epilepsy is a genetic condition. People with genetic conditions would've been very rare, since they wouldn't get a chance to breed and pass on the condition. And today, with the population of over 7 billion, we still get people who are born with unusual, uncurable conditions that the medicine of our day can't help. But in prehistory those people would've been astronomically rare if they existed at all.
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Kamidio
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Alright, since everyone insists on this being the topic now - Scrublord, change the topic title to 'Farmer v.s. Hunter-Gatherer', since no one can drop this topic even though Parasky himself said to.
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The topic is fine, go somewhere else if it's not interesting to you.
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Ànraich
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That's a serious, serious, serious simplification of genetics. Epileptics most certainly did exist in per-agricultural human societies as did many people with genetic conditions. The only difference is in modern society most of those conditions are no longer a death sentence. The thing about genetic disorders is that they are usually caused by recessive genes, which makes them nigh impossible to phase out of a population. You and generations of your ancestors could have the genes for a disorder and never have a single family member exhibit the symptoms of it until they mate with another person that carries the same recessive gene.

You also don't seem to understand how agricultural societies work. We're not as dependent on technology as you think. If banks fail people stop using credit and use cash, if the reserves fail then people stop using cash and barter. The thing is if you look back through history--really look at it in depth--there has never been a civilization that has actually collapsed. Even the Maya, who are the go to example for society collapse, never really collapsed. They migrated southward and weren't as prominent as before sure, but even the Spanish reported thriving, wealthy Mayan cities quite some time after their supposed "collapse." I think the issue you have is that you see hunter-gatherer and settled agricultural societies as opposites whereas really there is no defined line. People often engaged in semi-agricultural (if not outright agricultural) behavior during the spring and summer and then relied on hunting and gathering during the fall and winter. Agriculture is a pretty broad term, it doesn't necessarily mean large scale farming. It can be as simple as returning to the same place each spring and altering the environment to encourage the growth of plants you rely on as food. What changed was the domestication of grains, which could be stored without spoiling and thus allow for year-round settlement in a fertile area. Suddenly instead of living in the river valley only during the spring and summer while there were lots of wild vegetables around you grew grain there and lived off that grain during the winter when the wild veggies were gone.

In truth there is no "per-agricultural" society. Human society has always been agricultural whether they be hunter-gatherers that encourage the growth of edible plants in an area, pastoral nomads that herd domesticated livestock between seasonal pastures, or neolithic farmers. The real distinction is "pre-grain" humans and "post-grain" humans. And grain isn't something we're going to give up. It's a miracle plant. You can grow a progressively larger crop every year and you can make bread from it. Bread is itself a miracle. I could give you nothing but flour and water to live off of and if you turned it into porridge you would be dead within a weak. Make bread out of it though and you could survive off of nothing but that flour and water indefinitely.
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Zorcuspine
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I partially agree with Kam here, this thread's gone way off course. I don't have any problems with this discussion continuing, but shouldn't we like, split this into two threads or something to make it less confusing?
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Sheather
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What kind of poison porridge are you giving us that will kill us in a week???
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Porridge is gross and disgusting and I'm pretty sure I'd die if I ate it.
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HangingThief
Apr 15 2016, 09:59 PM
I still don't like the idea of being dependent on technology. Our society could break down very easily. Not that there's anything that can be done about it, but still.
My first comment is a pedantic one, that I don't think you mean all technology, but rather 'high' or 'complex' or 'high-impact' technology, since we've had fire for at least 400 kya, and spears for at least 300 kya. But I'm sure you know that. A lot of thinkers who discuss 'simple living' are asking for less technology, and the removal of high-impact, unsustainable technologies and the technologies that rely on those.

Societal breakdown has not always been a bad thing, since it allows rapid, extensive adaptation to a new situation. Your issue is that societal breakdown in the western world might also lead to infrastructure collapse, which would dramatically lower the population. The old ideas about 'oh, if X happens, our society will break down into barbarism!' are founded on myth of progress nonsense about the only alternative to our society being a life that's 'nasty, brutish and short'.

It's definitely possible to lessen your dependence on infrastructure, and if you think a collapse is imminent, you can prepare for that too. Just remember that you can't build a new society on your own :P

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True, but epilepsy is a genetic condition. People with genetic conditions would've been very rare, since they wouldn't get a chance to breed and pass on the condition. And today, with the population of over 7 billion, we still get people who are born with unusual, uncurable conditions that the medicine of our day can't help. But in prehistory those people would've been astronomically rare if they existed at all.
Epilepsy is a subject of lots of ongoing research, and was barely understood at all until recently. But it looks like a lot more people than those diagnosed with epilepsy have the potential to have seizures, if subjected to significant stress, sleep deprivation, substance abuse etc... the issue is that people with epilepsy have a much lower threshold for seizures. Outside crowded cities and our highly taxing employment system the risk factors for seizures are much lower, so it seems likely that people could have had epilepsy in prehistoric times completely undetected.

Rather than "inferior genes" taking over the world that's the real issue IMO: previously existing issues in our physiology that were not an issue in the world we used to inhabit, but interact really negatively with the new environments we're building.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

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Epilepsy, if I recall correctly, can be triggered by bright, rapidly blinking lights, of which there's lots of in modern society. In prehistoric times, there would have been very little in the way of stuff like that, so epilepsy wouldn't have been as problematic.
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Scrublord
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My point still stands. I have a condition that I take medicine for, which allows me to function with that condition. In a society without my medication, I could not function as I do.
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HangingThief
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Well, my general point is this: We and ancient hunter gatherers both have unique problems with our respective societies. But in my opinion, we have more and worse problems. Their problems were, as far as they were concerned, simple facts of life. But we can easily acknowledge ours as problems.
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Ànraich
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Yes, hunter-gatherer society had a shorter list of cons. Modern society has a long list of cons. It also has a much longer list of pros. I don't see why you would prefer a world in which problems are "simple facts of life" as opposed to one in which problems are... Solvable problems.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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