Not trying to oversimplify you. Just thought there might be an underlying allegiance to your thoughts on philosophy and politics. — Srap Tasmaner
If the original sin is settlement, agriculture, etc., then all such civilizations have gone wrong. Is there something especially wrong with European civilization? — Srap Tasmaner
Objectively, the average contemporary western citizen is better off than most other humans throughout all of history by every applicable metric. — VagabondSpectre
If what we have now is in any way good or worth preserving, then we should continue progressing on the paths we're on as if western civilization is not a disaster. — VagabondSpectre
Obstacles in food security, fuel security, reproductive security, physical security, environmental security, and so on, will inevitably rise if a group carries on existing long enough. — VagabondSpectre
Small, ancient, and otherwise non-western civilizations are not exempt from internal and self-caused disasters either, and compared to the west they're downright fragile. Small groups can have sadistic charismatic leaders who do noting but exploit. Small groups experience intra/inter-group violence and warfare, with the only convention against total injustice (war-crimes) being tradition if you're lucky (though tradition can support injustice just as easily). Disease and early natural death affect non-western societies much more than the west, owing to lack of medicinal understanding and low living standards. Infanticide is a word not heard often heard these days, but minimalist tribes and groups of all orders have practiced infanticide for all sorts of backwards reasons (security, superstition, legacy), and so I say why not look at western civilization where infanticide is punished as an escape from disaster? — VagabondSpectre
1. You can't possibly know this, or even reasonably infer it. For most of human history (the vast majority) all we have to go on are a few scraps of bones from very specific burial circumstances and the limited non-perishable remains. How on earth are you sustaining a conclusion that the people whose lives are hinted at by these scant remains are "objectively" worse of than the average Westerner? — Pseudonym
One of the major issues with "western" culture is inequality. It would be no surprise to find that, in such a system, the "average" person is reasonably comfortable, the question is whether it is just that this is bought at the expense of the fact that the least comfortable is an 11 year old child forced to work 12 hours a day stitching shoes so that this "average" person can lead their "comfortable" life. — Pseudonym
I don't understand your logic here. You seem to be saying that because there is some good in western culture we should continue with it along the same unaltered path. — Pseudonym
This is a very substantial underplaying of the situation we face almost to the point of being ridiculous. Global warming could very well make half the world uninhabitable, we are presiding over just about the largest mass extinction ever known, 12 million hecatres of previously productive farmland is now in "Seriously Degraded" condition according to the UN (a state from which there is currently no known remedy), we dump 2.2 billion tons of waste into the ocean every year, air pollution kills 18000 people a day, availability of fresh drinking water has halved in the last 50 years...I mean, do I have to go on? It's just absurd to suggest that these are 'just one of the obstacles that always arise with any group which carries on long enough. We lived as hunter-gatherers for at least 200,000 years without having any appreciable impact on our ability to continue doing so. Western (or modern) civilisation has been around for barely a hundredth of that and is already using more than one and a half times the resources the earth can sustain over the next 50 years.
Yes, we could overcome all these problems technologically, but where are the solutions? It's no good just wishful thinking, they have to come in time, not just eventually. If we're halving the available drinking water every 50 years we need technology to stop that right now, not at some point in the future. — Pseudonym
Show me some evidence, any evidence at all, for any of these wildly presumptive assertions being widespread in respect to nomadic hunter-gather communities. — Pseudonym
The bones themselves tell us about the age of the deceased (and in numbers, their average lifespan), and the condition of the bones can tell us about causes of death like violence or child-birth (and in numbers average cause of death). — VagabondSpectre
We know from anthropological research that on the whole, ancient tribal life was rife with early demise and hardship. It would be exhausting to present every applicable metric to actually prove my point, so perhaps you could point out a non-western civilization which fares better than our own in a specific metric of your choosing? — VagabondSpectre
the average child is less likely to die early or be exploited than in the past. — VagabondSpectre
We're making moves to bring a universal end to the exploitation of children; things are getting better. — VagabondSpectre
We're currently at a place where injustice has been reduced more than ever before — VagabondSpectre
Things could get worse and then maybe we can call the whole thing a disaster, but until then I think we're performing passably. — VagabondSpectre
I have made no presumptive assertions. nomadic hunter-gatherer communities are not exempt from bad leadership, disease, famine, hardship (inducing infanticide), warfare, etc...
Warfare and bad leadership being equal (it depends on the time and place), disease, famine, hardship, infanticide, and premature death are all things that occur less frequently in the western world (and on average in the world of today) than any other society and globally at any other time. We have greatly extended lifespans thanks to medicine which can keep us alive through afflictions, and thanks to better living conditions which is an added health bonus. — VagabondSpectre
No, because the entire sample is biased in favour of bones left in places where they were either buried or otherwise preserved from the elements. This represents a specific sub-section of all deaths of unknown significance. We cannot extrapolate the cause of all deaths from a subset of deaths which we know is not a stratified sample — Pseudonym
I see, you can't come up with an example to prove your claims so you ask me to. If I were to make the claim that, overall, black people were more violent than whites and then refuse to provide any evidence but simply say "you prove they're not" how seriously would you take my argument?. I'm nonetheless happy to provide some examples. — Pseudonym
Metric 1 - Suicide. The leading cause of death in young men of most Western societies, in the top ten causes of death among virtually all age groups. So rare among hunter-gatherers that most don't even have a word for it in their language. — Pseudonym
Metric 2 - Equality. Here is a link to a paper describing the way hunter-gatherers are predominantly egalitarian, it not necessarily the best example just one I happened to have the link to, but it gets the point across. — Pseudonym
Metric 3 - Health. Here is a meta study bringing together much of the data demonstrating the catastrophic effect on health brought about by a move to subsistence farming (the state of at least 25% of the current world population). — Pseudonym
What I can't beat western societies on is lifespan, infant mortality, death in childbirth, and death in war. I'm not claiming hunter-gatherers live in some kind of utopia, but this idea of some violent backward savage is borderline racist (not you, the view your espousing). — Pseudonym
Proof — Pseudonym
Again, I'm not suggesting that things are not getting better, I'm arguing that the concept of things having been only progressively worse in the past is false. Things got worse and are now getting slowly better again (in some areas). No children are exploited in the vast majority of hunter-gather societies, they are left entirely to the own devices and have the freedom to do exactly as they choose. See here — Pseudonym
Again, this is without proof. I've provided evidence for the egalitarianism in Hunter-gather societies, are you suggesting that all the authors contained within the entire meta study were simply making it up? — Pseudonym
Well, you have very low standards, and a poor grasp of maths. If using one and a half of the world's sustainable resources is passable, then how do you propose we continue? Where's the other half a planet we need? — Pseudonym
You've just repeated the same assertions without any evidence. Repeating a thing doesn't make it any more true. You do realise your graph only goes back to 1550? Modern humans first evolved about 200,000 years before then. Your graph is missing a bit. — Pseudonym
You're basically saying archeology and anthropology are hopeless endeavors because we don't have perfectly representative remnants. — VagabondSpectre
At first I thought you believed traditional ways of life are just the bee's knees, but now I see you think it's racist to say western civilization is somehow better than any other civilization.
Is that correct? — VagabondSpectre
Should we take from this that being Leo Tolstoy or being rich and famous constitutes a disaster? If he did commit suicide, does that mean his life was objectively a disaster or not worth living or that the lives of his servants were more worthwhile? — VagabondSpectre
If I had to make a serious guess as to why suicide rates are increasing, I would say it has to do with a rise in emotional and mental stress, and/or a reduction in forces which have previously mitigated suicide. Working in a cubicle is almost certainly less emotionally healthy than hunting or working your own farm (and can seem bereft of the kind of existential pat on the back traditional living can provide), but in the end the boons of centralized economies and long distance trading means working in cubicles leads to fewer of our children starving or suffering malnutrition. — VagabondSpectre
Without the cities we wouldn't have the medical and human capital that makes that possible, and our massively increased average lifespans and low infant mortality rates are testament to this — VagabondSpectre
Perhaps if they had property rights, established farms and infrastructure (along with the ensuing inequalities), there would have been a place for her to be cared for. — VagabondSpectre
“What kind of development is this when the people lead shorter lives than before? They catch HIV/AIDS. Our children are beaten in school and won’t go. Some become prostitutes. We are not allowed to hunt. They fight because they are bored and get drunk. They are starting to commit suicide. We never saw this before. Is this “development”?” — Roy Sesana of the Botswana Bushmen
“We are against the type of development the government is proposing. I think some non-Indians’ idea of “progress” is crazy! They come with these aggressive ideas of progress and impose them on us, human beings, especially on indigenous peoples who are the most oppressed of all. For us, this is not progress at all.” — Olimpio, of the Guajajara tribe in the Brazilian Amazon
‘Mining will only destroy nature. It will only destroy the streams and the rivers and kill the fish and kill the environment – and kill us. And bring in diseases which never existed in our land.’ ‘We are not poor or primitive. We Yanomami are very rich. Rich in our culture, our
language and our land. We don’t need money or possessions. What we need is respect: respect for our culture and respect for our land rights.’ — Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami
It's like having a gun cocked against our heads — Guarani-Kaiowa, Brazil
We are committing suicide because we have no land — Unnamed Guarani, Brazil
‘My father said that before the whites [came] we had hardly any illnesses. In 1984 my father died of a lung infection. At the time of [the building of the road] everyone got flu and measles and everyone died’
"We have been in long lilim long before the companies came in… in the past our life was peaceful, it was so easy to obtain food. You could even catch the fish using your bare hands – we only needed to look below the pebbles and rocks or in some hiding holes in the river. The people are frequently sick. They are hungry. They develop all sorts of stomach pains. They suffer from headaches. Children will cry when they are hungry. Several people including children also suffer from skin diseases, caused by the polluted river. Upper patah used to be so clean.’ — Ngot laing, 53, chief of long lilim community
‘When i was a child life was easier because there was forest, enough food and we made farinha [manioc flour] and fished. We made our own sugar from the forest bees. I was born in amambai and it was an indigenous village then. I think things are much worse now. We are surrounded by ranchers here. They have fenced us in and they won’t let us in to hunt armadillos and partridges. They won’t even let us look for medicinal plants on the farms. The time when we used to get honey from the bees is over because there is no forest left. There is nothing for the indian now. He has to look for everything in the town now. So that’s why the young are committing suicide because they think the future will be worse’ — Adolfin Nelson, limão verde, 1996
‘First they make us destitute by taking away our land, our hunting and our way of life. Then they say we are nothing because we are destitute.’ — Jumanda Gakelebone, Gana Bushman, Botswana
This is a link to a google scholar search, so I'm not sure which paper you're referencing. — VagabondSpectre
working in cubicles leads to fewer of our children starving or suffering malnutrition. — VagabondSpectre
...before they had to spend all their time hunting, foraging, and processing. — VagabondSpectre
It is quite relevant to point out that infanticide and violence are inherent in some non-western ways of life. — VagabondSpectre
in some ways we treat the lowest members of our society (criminals) better than they can afford to treat their most beloved. — VagabondSpectre
I'll demonstrate that it stands to reason with the following: — VagabondSpectre
Not being deprived of education generally means not being engaged in labour of some kind, and it also tends to absolve them (especially girls) of an economic/cultural/traditional need to marry at what we consider to be an extremely young age. — VagabondSpectre
We don't need another half a planet, we just need to not run out of oil before we can diversify away from it. — VagabondSpectre
Yes, basically the presentation of a way of life created almost entirely by white people as being some kind of pinnacle of civilisation whilst presenting all the remnant tribal peoples (who just happen to be almost entirely non-white) as backwards, violent, superstitious animals scraping a living from the dirt, who need to 'educated' out of their uncivilised ways, is just racist colonialism — Pseudonym
This seems to me to be the bulk of your argument, apart from a few technical mistakes which I will pick up on later, you seem to be saying that, yes, hunter-gatherers were more egalitarian, ate a more nutritious diet, were less stressed, and less prone to kill themselves or die from industrial diseases, but it's worth losing all that because we live longer, have lower infant mortality rates, and can hoard more stuff than we actually need if we want to. So;
Firstly, that's not your call to make and Western Civilisation is nothing if not all consuming. If some group of people made that call and decided they wanted to take the advantages you list over the disadvantages you admit to, then good luck to them, I'm not about to claim that I have such prophetic abilities that I know what path is best for humanity. But that's not how it goes is it. Those people who want those advantages gain them by destroying utterly anyone who makes a different choice. Rather than try to speak for the people who are destroyed in the name of 'Civilisation', I'll let then speak for themselves. — Pseudonym
Secondly, that's the point I made earlier (although you may not have read my earlier posts). You seem to presume that the disadvantages are necessary to gain the advantages. Are they? On what grounds? — Pseudonym
There is virtually no evidence at all that children starve or are malnourished in tribal societies outside of the pressures caused directly by development. None of the rigourous ethnographies from early contact report starvation or malnutrition, this is simply not true — Pseudonym
The Hadza you refer to work an average 14 hour week obtaining all their food and necessities, and they live in a bloody desert! The idea that hunter-gatherers are working every hour under the sun to just about scrape enough food to live is again simply untrue, not even in the harsh environments they have been pushed to by early farming, we can only imagine how little time must have been spent hunting in the rich environments later taken by early agrarian societies. — Pseudonym
That's not what you said though is it? You said "Small groups can have sadistic charismatic leaders who do noting but exploit. Small groups experience intra/inter-group violence and warfare, with the only convention against total injustice (war-crimes) being tradition if you're lucky (though tradition can support injustice just as easily)...Disease and early natural death affect non-western societies much more than the west, owing to lack of medicinal understanding and low living standards. Infanticide is a word not heard often heard these days, but minimalist tribes and groups of all orders have practiced infanticide for all sorts of backwards reasons (security, superstition, legacy)".
That's not just "pointing out", that violence and infanticide are inherent in tribal communities, that judging them, 'sadisitc', 'exploit', 'war-crimes', 'low living standards', 'backwards reasons'. That's what's racist. — Pseudonym
Again, this is just showing your, let's generously call it cultural bias, rather than racism. — Pseudonym
You simply presume that because you would rather be alive at 70 (even if in a prison cell with no freedom at all) that everyone would also make that choice, so you scoff at cultural differences like geriatricide. If you found evidence of the elderly being murdered, being offered the choice of a shorter life in the wild or a longer life cooped up in a cell and them taking the latter, then you'd have a point. In reality, Bushman elders have one of the highest suicide rates in the geographic are when they are forcibly settled. If they prefer a longer life in a cell to a shorter one in the wild, how do you explain the sky-rocketing suicide rates? — Pseudonym
What has a graph going back to 1820 showing how many people attend school and can read and write got to do with anything we've been talking about? — Pseudonym
So, you're just completely ignoring the evidence I gave you that hunter-gatherer children are not forced to do anything at all, let alone labour, and the average age of childbirth among the Awa, for example, is 22 — Pseudonym
"By 2012, the equivalent of 1.6 Earths was needed to provide the natural resources and services humanity consumed in one year." - WWF Living Planet Report. We absolutely do need 1 and a half earths to sustain our lifestyle. So where's the other half an earth coming from? I admire your optimism, I really do, but where is all this progress? — Pseudonym
The only thing I've said is backwards are reasons for infanticide. — VagabondSpectre
we also have more reliable diets on average (freedom from starvation and food insecurity). — VagabondSpectre
I imagine hunter-gatherer children generally didn't die of malnutrition and starvation but instead actual infanticide, and for reasons other than just food insecurity. — VagabondSpectre
How much time do you spend obtaining and processing your food? Is your house, computer, and internet a necessity? Would you give it all up if only you had a primitive Eden? — VagabondSpectre
Granted, the Hadza, have 2 hour work days, and the rest of the time they sit around gambling in boredom (metal arrow heads, knives, honey and such), with nothing else to bother accomplishing. — VagabondSpectre
Pointing out that leaders of small groups can wind up being sadistic is not racist. — VagabondSpectre
Cultural practices which exploit the innocent exist among some indigenous peoples and it's not racist to point this out. — VagabondSpectre
The west doesn't guarantee it either, but it does better on average. — VagabondSpectre
Seems like a false dichotomy. I would prefer not to die of exposure because that's the cultural and therefore justified norm. I'll take a hospice over a tent in the woods any-day. How about you? — VagabondSpectre
You've decided to impugn my character instead of addressing my point that bushmen cannot afford to care for their elderly like we can, and while we could always do better than we currently do, we sure beat the pants off a tent in the woods. — VagabondSpectre
Here's a quote from the article you cited. "Girls are around 14 years old before they begin regular food gathering and water- and wood-collecting. This is in spite of the fact that they may be married before this age. Boys are 16 years old or over before they begin serious hunting. Children do amazingly little work.” — VagabondSpectre
is WWF saying that we've taken out a loan on another half a planet? — VagabondSpectre
I would like to ask if you can imagine a technologically advanced society that is not a disaster. — VagabondSpectre
Right, so from which ethnography have you obtained your knowledge about the reasons for infanticide? — Pseudonym
Which ethnography describes sadistic leaders? — Pseudonym
Which describes war crimes? — Pseudonym
Once you have your citations, compare them to the weight of ethnographies showing absolutely nothing of the sort, then come back and we'll talk about your claim that the generalisations are not racist. — Pseudonym
I can't debate with you if you're just going to make stuff up in support of your argument. I've provided you with ample evidence that hunter gatherer diets were both nutritious and reasonably secure (both things absent from at least a quarter of the modern population), yet you keep just presuming, without any evidence at all, that hunter-gatherers were permanently on the brink of starvation. Where is your evidence for this? — Pseudonym
My house is a necessity, yes. I'd probably die from exposure fairly quickly without it, and I work a 24hr week to pay the rent. And yes, I would quite happily give it all up to live in a primitive Eden, as the thousands of tribal peoples fighting for their land and traditional way of life rather than 'development' are doing right this moment. — Pseudonym
Which ethnographies have you read from which to draw the conclusion that the Hadza are bored and achieve nothing worthwhile with their spare time. What efforts have you made to obtain a balanced account? For someone trying to convince me you're not racist you seem to be doing an awfully good job of sounding like one. — Pseudonym
So, if in a debate about the merits of white and blacks I just "pointed out" that some black people are sadistic, that wouldn't be racist? Afterall, some black people are sadistic, do you want specific examples? — Pseudonym
This I would like some examples of, preferably from a reasonably wide range of anthropologists so as to avoid bias. — Pseudonym
Tent in the woods, thanks. I guess we're all different, quel surprise. So what was the justification for the West imposing it's culture on everyone else whether they want it or not again? — Pseudonym
The original comment you made said that we treated our prisoners better than the Hadza treated their elderly. I pointed out that vast numbers of Hadza elderly voluntarily choose to die rather than be in settled accommodation, let alone a prison cell. You're imposing your own culturally generated world view on others who do not share it. — Pseudonym
No, I've directly addressed your point. Actual bushmen who are given the actual choice of a 'tent in the woods' (without geriatric care) or a house in the settlement (with the sort of medical care most of the world have access to) voluntarily kill themselves. They make their choice in just about the most clear way anyone can. Your cultural values place more on prolonging life than on freedom and dignity, their cultural values are the opposite, but instead of accepting cultural differences, you presume they're all 'backwards'. I've generously termed this cultural bias, but it's basically racism. — Pseudonym
Firstly again, you're confusing your own cultural bias for objective judgement. Who are you to say when adulthood begins? Because we postpone it to 18 or 20 that makes it right for every culture in the world to do the same? — Pseudonym
Secondly, again, you've selected just one ethnography to condemn the whole way of life, ignoring the contrary data, and ignoring, even in your own evidence, the key word "begin". Are you suggesting that in the west children do not "begin" to work at age 14-16? No paperounds, no shop work, no household chores? — Pseudonym
Yes, that's almost exactly what they're saying. The lifestyle you are using for comparison cannot be sustained, the nutritional security, medicine, technology, police forces that you laud are all bought at the cost of half the world living in relative poverty and no future for your great-grandchildren. — Pseudonym
1. Drop the cultural bias and take people's preferences on their words and actions. The vast majority of tribal people offered 'development' freely are choosing to fight for their traditional way of life instead. You might not prefer it, they do. — Pseudonym
Compare hunter-gatherer lifestyles with a sustainable average Western one, not the unsustainable lifestyle of the richest 10%, and not some optimistic techno-utopia that you've no sound reason to believe will ever happen. — Pseudonym
According to our western moral and medical prowess, a young girl being married off deprives her of sexual freedom, presents a real threat to her physical, sexual, and mental health, and denies her opportunities for education and independence. — VagabondSpectre
This is becoming ridiculous. I'm not about to dedicate half my mornings to giving you a crash course in anthropology when I'm not even convinced you have any interest in the subject beyond what it has on offer to support your cultural biases. — Pseudonym
1. Your citations and examples are not drawn from nomadic hunter-gatherers, they are drawn from indigenous tribes, there's a difference. Many indigenous tribes are agriculturalists or pastoralists. I'm talking about the lifestyles of nomadic hunter-gatherers. — Pseudonym
My claims in that regard are;
Hunter-gatherers have more egalitarian forms of government than western civilisations. Each individual has more autonomy and is less likely to be forced into anything they don't want to do. — Pseudonym
Suicide and suicide trends aren't necessarily a measure of a civilization's merits. But also, citation please.They have lower rates of suicide than western civilisations which I take to be about the clearest measure of whether the people are happy or not. — Pseudonym
They do not exploit their children, force them into marriages, commit war crimes, have sadistic leaders, torture people, kill anyone for ritualistic or superstitious reasons, nor waste their time on non-productive activities to the extent Western civilisations do — Pseudonym
They are not facing starvation, working all the time to get food, struggling to feed everybody any more than western civilisations. — Pseudonym
They do not suffer from industrial diseases, heart disease, cancer, or any of the top ten causes of death to the extent Western cultures do. — Pseudonym
If you wish to combat any of those claims you would need an example from a nomadic hunter-gatherer Community and evidence that it occurred more frequently than in Western civilisation, preferably from more than one source to eliminate bias. — Pseudonym
You have used the terms "backwards", "bored" you and accomplishing nothing". You've exaggerated negative traits without any attempt to quantify their frequency. You've made negative presumption about both lifestyle and motive without evidence. — Pseudonym
These are pejorative terms and actions for cultural traits which you show little understanding of or willingness to understand. You've taken the first negative description that comes along and generalised it at least to the extent that you feel capable of concluding it occurs more than it does in Western civilisation. At the very least that is an uncomfortable degree of bias in favour of your own culture, at worst it is racism. — Pseudonym
Modern medicine, electricity, running water, and education do not all come standard in the west. They are denied to huge swathes of the population, cannot be sustained using the technology we have. What planet are you living on where you think running water modern medicine and electricity are 'standard' benefits? Have you ever been to a third world country? — Pseudonym
Yes, because we're so concerned about their mental health that in 2015 suicide was the most common cause of death among 5-19 year olds and the NHS in England treats over 250,000 children with severe mental health problems at any one time with about 60% having suffered some traumatic event.
How are you interpreting a skyrocketing suicide rate as indicating that we are providing children with a better life? — Pseudonym
The Hadza happen to be semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, and so are Eskimo, but if I've not addressed hunter-gatherers specifically enough then it's your fault for not naming a specific group with which I can do an apples to apples comparison with a contemporary western society. — VagabondSpectre
Living in an egalitarian environment isn't the same as having more freedom or being free from coercion or being free from violence, it more or less means that no individual has extra power or authority. The Hadza abide and enforce their own cultural institutions through third-party punishment where the most common means of preemptively resolving a possibly violent conflict is for a band to split and form separate camps. — VagabondSpectre
You generally require a group to survive in regions such as the Hadza occupy, and survival necessitates daily hunting and foraging, which makes all individuals beholden to the norms of Hadza groups. — VagabondSpectre
The fact that the Hadza have a territory large enough to permit the splitting of groups is a necessary environmental reality which allows for the violence avoidance of group-splitting in the first place. Resource scarcity or overpopulation which could threaten this mechanic might lead to catastrophe. — VagabondSpectre
it is indeed a myth that hunter-gatherers are completely free from the ubiquitous human problems of violence and injustice — VagabondSpectre
I recommend reading the article by William Lomas as it very directly addresses the issue we seem to be having: I'm not adhering to the old school primitive savage stereotype that portrays all hunter-gatherers as violent and backward; I'm rebuking the newer stereotype that portrays all hunter-gatherer society as better than western culture by virtue of innate peace and harmony with nature, or in terms of degrees of freedom or freedom from coercion. — VagabondSpectre
78% (pg. 21) of Hadza die from illness and disease though, and they live shorter lives on average. — VagabondSpectre
The Hadza, the !Kung, and Eskimo groups are three examples of nomadic hunter-gatherers which are far from perfect and statistically live less long, die more often due to violence, and have significantly higher child mortality rates, and the two latter groups additionally practice infanticide. — VagabondSpectre
Suicide and suicide trends aren't necessarily a measure of a civilization's merits. But also, citation please. — VagabondSpectre
Many Amazonian groups practice tribal warfare involving stark levels of violence (surprise attacks in villages involving the beating, rape, and murder; torture). The Yanomami people for instance dabble in agriculture, so perhaps you wouldn't accept them as an example of an imperfect hunter-gatherer group? Western presence in the Amazon region may be one of the root causes of exacerbated violence among the Yanomami (by causing resource scarcity and anxiety among groups mainly), but it also shows how fragile indigenous societal systems can actually be. When the Hadza people inevitably face enough loss of livable territory that allows them to avoid conflict by moving away (or some other crisis which forces settlement such as population growth) then they too will experience rising levels of inter and intra-group violence as their existing conflict resolution mechanisms are strained or no longer function. — VagabondSpectre
There's some ambiguity in the term "western world" but I thought that we were referring to first world nations who have adopted contemporary western technology and standards, where food, medicine, and education are actually guaranteed human rights. We can indeed sustain these things given our steady technological improvements, and one day they might be available in every nation... — VagabondSpectre
Yes, So my claim that they are more egalitarian than western civilisations stands. My claim wasn't that they were less violent than western civilisations (although there's not a significant difference). The Hadza have equality of rights even for children, each individual has an equal say and conflicts are usually resolved peacefully, how's that a bad thing? Yes, there's coercion, sometimes quite strong, violent coercion, but how's that any different to western civilisation, in what way are we more free? — Pseudonym
In the west, we all need land in some form (either directly growing crops or for housing), all land is in private ownership so we are all beholden to the economic system to purchase in some form the land we need. I'm still not seeing the difference here. Be required to co-operate altruistically with your group, or be required to earn money in whatever economic system is prevalent in your country. I know which I'd prefer. — Pseudonym
This is a very salient point and something people like the Hadza have been suffering from since the 19th Century, as have virtually every tribal community forced to the very edges of hospitable land. Think about that next time you presume that levels of violence in modern hunter-gatherers reflect the levels of violence they lived with before the colonisation of western civilisation. — Pseudonym
At what point did I say that hunter-gatherer societies were completely free from violence and injustice? You're attacking a straw man. The point raised, a point you vehemently defended, was that western culture was much better than hunter-gatherer culture, no-one even mentioned the idea that hunter-gatherer culture was somehow completely immune from violence. — Pseudonym
That being said, from your own source which you have completely cherry-picked for the data you want (still trying to convince me you're not biased?);
"It is widely debated what the ultimate causes of conflict are within hunter-gatherer societies, but it has been well established that conflict and violence escalate as the shift from foraging practices toward pastoralism and agriculture subsistence increases."
"Egalitarian societies appear to have less intra-group conflict compared to socially stratified societies."
"Self-proclaimed leaders are not tolerated and are often ostracized by the group."
"...hunter-gatherers rely on informal methods of social control such as gossip, shunning, ridicule, ostracism, and public debating which lead to group consensus. These methods of conflict management are extremely effective at ensuring that quarrels and violence are avoided, or, if they should arise, they are dealt with swiftly within the group to return the group back to the status quo."
And most importantly, as I have mentioned;
"...care must be taken to not make the common assumption that these modern groups are representative of past hunter-gatherers."
But you seem to have conveniently ignored all that, together with the three pages the author spends explaining hunter-gatherer's primarily non-violent means of conflict resolution to hone in on the report on on single anthropologist reporting a level of violence over access to women in a tribe whose population dynamic has been devastated by the very western civilisation you're trying to claim is better. — Pseudonym
I'd already read the Lomas article, and if you want to rebuke the notion that hunter-gatherers are innately peaceful and harmonious, I suggest you find someone who thinks that hunter-gatherer societies are innately peaceful and harmonious, and stop straw-manning my argument that they are more egalitarian, more healthy and have a lower suicide rate, and that these things are indicators of a successful civilisation. — Pseudonym
The people being studied nowadays have generally had some form of contact with Europeans, bring diseases they've never encountered before, and are living in some of the harshest environments on earth. If you could just set your bias aside for five minutes, how do you think the pressure from western civilisation, conflict with loggers and farmers, marginalisation to the lands not even rugged pioneers will farm...how do think all that is going to affect their health? — Pseudonym
Suicides were not unheard of in Arctic communities prior to sedentarisation; elderly or infirm members of the community would occasionally take their own lives in times of food shortage. However, suicide among young, healthy, productive individuals was unheard of. NAHO 2005; Bjerregaard et al 2004; Shephard and Rode 1996 — Pseudonym
In British Columbia, groups [of tribal peoples] with strong links to their land and culture reported no suicides, while those with no continuity to their land and culture reported rates up to 10 times the national average. Chandler and Lalonde (in press) — Pseudonym
Guarani communities in which suicide has been a terrible problem have reported no suicides since returning to their land to live in their traditional ways. CIMI 2001 — Pseudonym
It appears that mental illness was present in Australian Aboriginal culture prior to European colonization of Australia but was, most likely, a relatively rare occurrence. The much greater prevalence of mental illness and suicide in the current Aboriginal population is a reflection of the significant disruption to Aboriginal society and has a strong context of social and emotional deprivation. Psychological disorders of Aboriginal Australians - Journal of Metal Health. — Pseudonym
Personally, I think suicide is a very good measure of a civilisation's merits, How are you interpreting the fact that our children are more likely to kill themselves than die of any other cause as a measure of success? — Pseudonym
Unbelievable, you're trying to blame the hunter-gatherers (agriculturalists) for the violence brought on directly by western colonial dominance. Basically your argument here seems to be that western culture is better because it can bully other cultures into having to fight each other for land. What kind of metric is that for success? — Pseudonym
As I said, there is no point continuing if you keep comparing a completely imaginary utopian scenario of western civilisation (ignoring the pillage it reaps on the third world to sustain it and the environmental un-sustainability) to the very worst cases you can find of hunter-gatherers. — Pseudonym
Population growth eventually puts a strain on resources, which inevitably leads to competition and aggression. — VagabondSpectre
Overall physical health is something that the west performs better in than anywhere else. Longer lifespans and lower child mortality rates does really say it all. — VagabondSpectre
It does not actually follow that if suicide rates are lower a society is more happy; reasons for suicide can extend beyond the presence of happiness; the suicide of some doesn't necessarily represent widespread unhappiness in the overall population; living in the bush in and of itself may alter the nature and perception of suicide (you can disappear and never be seen from again and nobody would know what happened; being depressed for an extended period of time in the bush could increase the likelihood of accidental death or failure to subsist, thereby reducing the possibility of suicide, etc...). — VagabondSpectre
If any of the citations you've provided speak of suicide I apologize for missing it, if so and otherwise, can you direct me to any reliable data assessing mental health statistics in hunter-gatherer societies? — VagabondSpectre
The west is decidedly better at enduring and achieving change; we've downright mastered it. — VagabondSpectre
This is just factually inaccurate. Suicide is not the leading cause of death for any age group, at least in America (the most readily available statistics): — VagabondSpectre
At least some of the Yanomami violence is inherent to its culture, and an increase of violence in response to uncertainty and competition seems to be a component of that culture. — VagabondSpectre
I'm actually examining the first examples I encountered by following the google search you've linked it me to. — VagabondSpectre
Regarding pillaging/unsustainability, etc., we're on the path toward stable technology and renewable energy, and it's not as if every non-western nation has been thoroughly pillaged in order to pay the west's bill. The west does also produce wealth and could plausibly continue existing without exploiting third world nations. — VagabondSpectre
Your claim is that the excess violence is a really bad thing and was probably as bad outside of colonial pressure. I put less of an emphasis on non-violence as a measure of a society (though still important) and believe the indications are that it would have been much lower outside of pressure from western civilisation. We cannot resolve this difference by resort to evidence because none exists. You don't agree with my theory, I don't agree with yours. — Pseudonym
Conflict appears to occur at a lower incident rate amongst hunter - gatherers of a “simple” form. However, through this analysis it has become evident that archaeologists have unduly created a myt h of the “peaceful hunter - gatherer”. It has been made clear that conflict is prevalent and healthy within these groups. Furthermore, the method in which conflict is managed and resolved is much different than what Westerners are accustomed to. Simple hunter - gatherers are acephalous and conflict is dealt with by collective social control. This method is effective because each individual is interdependent and conformity is necessary for the livelihood of each member.
In addition to utilizing social control for conflict resolution and management, modern hunter - gatherers live in vastly different environments than their counter - parts did in the past (LeBlanc 2003). The present residential environments are primarily harsh and modern groups have low birth rates that maintain stable resources. This combination allows for adequate resources to be shared within the group, generally reducing resource competition. The differing residential areas of the past, however, provided great resources, and high population growth rates ensued. This combination eventually provides a strain on resources and competition naturally follows. Consequently, evidence of historical violence and warfare are common in the archaeological and ethnographical record. One must look at the data and evidence both objectively and critically to dispel these perpetuated myths of the “noble savage” or brutish solitary “beast”. This is vital for a clear, concise representation of what humans were like prior to the development of agriculture which transformed the current global human condition. — Lomas
You want a society where one person can excel at the expense of the other. I don't. That's an ethical position and again, not one that can be resolved by further recourse to evidence. No amount of evidence that the Hadza fiercely maintain egalitarianism by pulling down those who seek to rise up is going to convince me of anything because I don't believe they're wrong to do so. — Pseudonym
Likewise with your proposition that "Human groups have been suffering territory issues since time immemorial." You're speculating that resource availability has a massive influence on societal structure to the extent that hunter-gatherer social dynamics might have been as violent or unhealthy in the past as a result of natural variation as they are now as a result of the pressure from western civilisation. I could point you in the direction of evidence that this is not the case (Jared Diamond would be a good approachable start), but that would be pointless, because by this point in speculation, there will be enough evidence to the contrary for you to believe whatever you want to believe. — Pseudonym
Again, you're speculating. I have no doubt you can find evidence to support this claim, so I'm not even going to ask you to. I would have equally ease putting my hands on evidence to refute this claim. I'm thinking particularly of a paper I read recently on resource manipulation in Zebra fish and the way in which it affected aggression, then relating this to studies of Aborigonal Australians. The upshot was that resource availability does not affect the balance between aggression/cooperation in the way you think. When resources are scarce ther'e more value in cooperating because aggression leads to fighting which is more energy consuming than cooperative hunting. Likewise when resources are rich, there's little point in hoarding them. The conclusion was that competition arose only when resources we abundant enough to supply the energy for fighting, but scarce enough to be worth fighting for. To meet this criteria, they needed to be time-stable (ie continually available) which meant no nomadism. Hence the author's postulated this as a reason why all nomadic hunter-gatherers were egalitarian. I could try to dig out the article if you like, but at the moment I'm convinced the effort would be wasted. I have no doubt at all that you could find an article contradicting it, it's only a theory after all. If you don't want to believe it, I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince you. — Pseudonym
Same again here. Your assertion that physical health is measured only (or even best) by lifespan and child mortality is just that, an assertion. There's nothing wrong with your position, but it's not debatable, there's no point further discussing it. You think it is, I don't I prefer to think about the health of the individual through their life. Ten years of good health is worth more to me than twenty of poor health. I'd rather spend 40 years a fit and able person enjoying an active life than spend 60 years an overweight layabout kept alive by drugs. But if you'd rather the latter, I can't argue with that, it's just a preference. — Pseudonym
I really don't understand this comment. I cited three quotes which speak specifically of suicide, you can't possibly have missed it. — Pseudonym
But again, we're back to the same problem. Because you don't want to hear that suicide isn't a problem in hunter-gatherer societies, my sources aren't good enough for you, you want widespread data, you want stratified surveys. When you wanted to find evidence of mistreatment in tribes the say-so of a single anthropologist from a single tribe was enough for you to base your entire worldview on. You'll find what you want to find. The evidence is sufficiently scant and vague for you to do that. My sources, by the way, are papers I happen to have here in the office, I don't know of any online versions. Again, I could try and track them down if you like, but I get the feeling the effort would be wasted. If the only thing that's going to convince you of the low suicide rates in hunter-gatherer tribes is some kind of universal stratified sample which somehow also takes into account unexplained disappearances, or any other possible misconception of term, then I don't have anything for you. Just try applying that standard to your other claims — Pseudonym
More opinion. The meaning of 'better' is the very thing we're discussing here. — Pseudonym
By this point I've given up on this exchange of evidence, but the difference is in the degree of speculation the coroner puts into the 'unintentional harm' category, which is often a judgement call. It also depends on the degree of 'clumping' one applies to other diseases (the more of those you lump together, the more significant they will be). We do things slightly differently in England, hence the stats are different. But again, you'll just pick whichever version proves whatever it is you already want to believe so the excersice is pointless. — Pseudonym
See... How can you possibly know this? Putting aside the fact that the Yanomami are actually agriculturalist and so outside the scope of this discussion, also putting aside the fact that their reputation for fierceness comes almost entirely from Napoleon Chagnon, a single anthropologist whose agenda has since been widely discredited.
Aside from those two things, you can't possibly know what they were like pre contact. — Pseudonym
The Lomas article spends three pages on describing the successful non-violent means hunter-gatherers use to settle disputes without violence, it cautioned against drawing conclusions about ancient hunter-gatherers from modern examples because of the effects of colonisation. You completely ignored the non-violent methods, completely ignored the warning about extrapolation, and simply concluded that egalitarianism is and always was maintained by violence. That's the cherry-picking I'm talking about. — Pseudonym
No it isn't, yes it has, and no it couldn't. I think we're pretty clear on what each other's opinions are on this matter. Do you have any evidence to bring to bear, or shall we just agree to differ?...
...By all means, present your case, but I don't think it's right to use your case to try and prove someone else's wrong. Lack of a correspondence with the evidence proves a theory wrong. The mere existence of an alternative does not — Pseudonym
It stands to reason that some groups will have engaged in more violence prior to western influence, and some will have engaged in less — VagabondSpectre
environmental conditions can have drastic and disparate effects on simple social structures — VagabondSpectre
Well at least you didn't point me toward Howard Zinn — VagabondSpectre
Resource availability/scarcity affects so many aspects of possible and optimal survival strategies that they are beyond counting. From the perspective of thermodynamics, the more scarce energy is, the fewer possible courses of action are available which will yield a positive return. Energy economy and upward efficiency on return (not wasting energy) become very important for success along with careful resource management practices (to not overtax or squander the few renewable resources that are available). In the context of jungle and savanna hunter-gatherers who live in somewhat harsh bush environments with a low upward limit on resource availability per acre per year, having a peaceful and war-free society (the kind that leaderless egalitarianism upholds) can wind up saving a ton of potentially lost and wasted energy in unnecessary warfare. If the environment was less harsh and more bountiful, then instead of moving from place to place once resources are depleted, a more successful strategy might be to claim a rich area and settle down permanently. Many factors play a role in what cultural and survival strategies are possible and popular, but the factor of resource scarcity really should not be underestimated, and is evidently crucial for sustaining many traditional hunter-gatherer cultures. — VagabondSpectre
The stability of indigenous ways of life are dependent on steady state environments. — VagabondSpectre
a crisis in suicide rates concentrated in one or two demographics should not be used to hastily generalize the overall mental health and therefore happiness of the rest of the population. — VagabondSpectre
even the poor of western societies have more practical freedom and rights than HG people — VagabondSpectre
in the west we're less likely to die from violence of any kind. — VagabondSpectre
It's possible that skeptical American coroners are pushing down the suicide numbers in America, but the clumping possibility is why I asked for per capita suicide rates to begin with and not potentially misleading statements like how can the west be more happy if suicide is the leading cause of death. — VagabondSpectre
Whether or not the west will be able to continue existing is a bit of a complex subject, but at least until the end of oil (30-50 years) or unless rapid climate change occurs, we'll be doing fine. If we can develop a battery that can outperform a tank of gasoline then oil won't even be an issue and perhaps the climate could recover. The extraction of energy resources from third world countries would no longer be required, and given the right advancements in materials and construction, countries like China might no longer rely on imported materials. Energy and infrastructure developments (I.E, mobile/automated electric construction) could solve agriculture and food exploitation issues as well. Maybe these are pie in the sky ideas, but the problems western societies (and humanity as a whole) are facing are being given more and more consideration every day. — VagabondSpectre
Still unsure what the components of 'Western Civilization' are, and if it is distinct from the equally confused concept of 'White Civilization'. — Maw
can current civilization be inspired by anything at all from tribal cultures? — 0 thru 9
As I said, I'm not interested in your story-telling. I have absolutely no doubt at all that you can construct a reasonable story from the evidence that's available to support your notion of the peace-loving, justice seeking, freedom seekers that is white western civilisation and the backwards, violent communist spoiler of innovation that are hunter-gathers (who, I'm sure just happen to be entirely non-white and that's just a complete coincidence). — Pseudonym
The issue is that you are confusing you ability to come up with an explanation, with an argument that it actually is the case. The fact that you can interpret the evidence the way you do does not in any way prove that that is in fact the meaning of the evidence. It's pointless you keep saying "It stands to reason", "This is reasonable...", "a more successful strategy might be...", "hunter-gatherer cultures may have indeed been...", "competition over resources is as likely an explanation as any.". "If...", "Would be..., "Could..." etc.etc.. I'm not doubting your ability to come up with possible scenarios, I'm arguing that you cannot say they are necessarily the case simply because you can come up with them. — Pseudonym
No it doesn't. What factors are preventing it from being the case that all hunter-gatherer groups engaged in less violence prior to western contact. Or, for that matter that all hunter-gatherer groups engaged on more violence prior to western contact. We have no clear evidence of levels of violence prior to western contact other than the third-hand reports of anthropologists relating what village elders have told them, and bone fragments from a very limited number of buried remains. No conclusion "stands to reason" at all on the basis of such scant evidence. — Pseudonym
This seems to be your new line of attack, but I see scant evidence supporting it. There is no evidence that I'm aware of permanent settlements for 99% of human prehistory, a time when we lived through some of the most dramatic environmental upheavals the world has seen. So far you've only presented the evidence of a single author speculating that inter-tribal conflict may have been greater when resources were differently distributed. You seem to have taken this single data point and wildly speculated that the whole social structure will have changed without any evidence at all to support this theory. — Pseudonym
This entire section is nothing but idle speculation with no evidence to back it up. Read something, anything, about what we can infer of human social structure from past environments. There is not a single example of a group "...claim[ing] a rich area and settl[ing] down permanently" until about 9200 years ago at most. In fact, a recent study by Philip Edwards at La Trobe University has pushed the date further forward still. It is an undisputed fact that our ancestors were nomadic throughout whatever environmental change they were exposed to and in absolutely every environment they encountered. — Pseudonym
Again, the evidence contradicts this. There is a long-ranging stability in the types of paleo-archeological finds throughout environments and environmental changes. In fact paleo-archaeologists even use consistent cultural markers as a means of tracking the migration of groups as the move from one continent to another. Your idea that the environment itself has a far -reaching effect on the type of society adopted is simply without evidential support. It effects levels of conflict, birth rates, death rates and migration. There is no evidence that it affects social structure or culture at that scale. — Pseudonym
Actually, in the UK, the highest suicide rates are in the 40-54 ages, with another smaller peak at 30-34, and there is only a 15 point variation across all ages from 15 to 90. Suicide is the leading cause of death for males all the way from 5 to 50 — Pseudonym
Where are you getting this from? In what way have the poor of Western societies got more practical freedom than Hunter-gathers? If they have any freedom, then why the hell have they chosen to live in the slums they do? — Pseudonym
Another example of having your cake and eating it. In the west apparently, we're far less likely to die from injury due to the marvels of modern medicine. Someone with a simple piecing fracture might have died in Hunter-gatherer society, but would have suffered nothing more than a brief hospital visit in western culture. And yet, when comparing cultural attitudes, you completely ignore the evidence you just used and claim that hunter=gatherers are just as violent because they're more likely to die from violence. Do you not see the bias? How violent do you think our society would look of every fracture counted as a death from violence? We're less likely to die from violence because we have good medicine, meaning we're less likely to die from injuries caused by violence. You've no evidence at all that the culture is less violent. — Pseudonym
However, when you look at statistics for violence itself, an estimated 12.5% of US children experience confirmed child maltreatment — Pseudonym
I'm not sure what difference this would make. The per capita suicide rate in the US is 9.1, but 11.9 in Europe where it is calculated differently. At the moment the evidence we have from palaeoanthropology and the reports of anthropologists and tribal elders is that the suicide rate in pre-contact tribes is zero (or close to it). To my knowledge, there have been no palaeoanthropological finds where the cause of death has been attributed to suicide, there have been no ethnographical accounts which mention prevalent suicide and the quotes I gave you all point to fact that it was virtually unheard of. — Pseudonym
As I said way back, we're comparing hunter-gatherer societies to what the west actually is, not some utopian dream of what it could be. — Pseudonym
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