The Worst Mistake in Human History

[ralis]

Erm...

 

Firstly, using words like "primitive" and "civilization" in the way you just did is an excellent subtle way of degrading the viewpoint you want to attack. Well done.

 

There is no inherent value in the word "civilization" when one realizes that what "civilization" amounts to is a bunch of hairless chimps running around fucking and killing each other in concrete jungles.

 

Secondly:

 

 

Good...

 

 

 

 

And yours, and mine? Are we immune to disease? Is everyone in the "civilized" world well-fed? Have we not replaced wild animals with cars and guns and crazy bastards with bombs?

 

 

 

I've known people, in cities around the world, who've died of cancer, AIDS, and mental disease. Not to mention hearing about violent rape and murder every single day in the media. And again, we're not immune to infection just because we live in cities. As mentioned in a previous post, crowding together has been a cause of many of our problems.

 

I'm not convinced that "civilization" -- living in the city -- is more "civilized" than living in the woods.

 

I never stated that primitive cultures were not civilized. I am defining primitive as stated here.

 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/primitive

[Taomeow]

That is a real put down with no basis in fact!

 

Wasn't meant as a put down. And of course it's based on fact, the only kind of fact available to me when assessing the state of Ralis -- his posts. They tend to be pretty unfriendly toward any and all deviation from the ministry-sanctioned mentality. In particular, you have repeatedly (very repeatedly) treated me as an ignorant flake on the basis of my expressing non-ministry-approved views, opinions and beliefs, whereas I assure you this is not the case. I'm neither ignorant nor flaky and take my cognitive process seriously. It's just that I try to be mindful of its health by stopping the ministry's attempts to hijack it and replace it with their own template. It has been my impression that you never found these conscious precautions necessary, which is why you often speak as though you are speaking their mind. This state I view as unfortunate -- but I may be wrong, you may be far more fortunate than me, in which case the word "victim" should be replaced by the word "beneficiary." Would that work?

Edited December 31, 2014 by Taomeow

[ralis]

Smallpox -- precisely at the time of introduction of agriculture. I didn't say disaster struck in the form of urbanization and forgot all about agriculture. Agriculture always comes first, urbanization, next. Whether epidemic disease appears spontaneously as the outcome of agricultural lifestyles having altered the environment and the host (weakening both), or is introduced by the same entities, whoever they are, who forced agriculture on the species that was doing mighty fine without it, is anybody's guess. But the sequence is ironclad.

 

Peer reviewed research please with links as opposed to personal opinion.

[ralis]

Wasn't meant as a put down. And of course it's based on fact, the only kind of fact available to me when assessing the state of Ralis -- his posts. They tend to be pretty unfriendly toward any and all deviation from the ministry-sanctioned mentality. In particular, you have repeatedly (very repeatedly) treated me as an ignorant flake on the basis of my expressing non-ministry-approved views, opinions and beliefs, whereas I assure you this is not the case. I'm neither ignorant nor flaky and take my cognitive process seriously. It's just that I try to be mindful of its health by stopping the ministry's attempts to hijack it and replace with their own template. It has been my impression that you never found these conscious precautions necessary, which is why you often speak as though you are speaking their mind. This state I view as unfortunate -- but I may be wrong, you may be far more fortunate than me, in which case the word "victim" should be replaced by the word "beneficiary." Would that work?

 

When you state a belief as fact, as opposed to framing it as your opinion that I have trouble with. That applies to anyone posting here. I am just challenging belief systems which are only inaccurate maps.

[Taomeow]

Peer reviewed research please with links as opposed to personal opinion.

 

Gotta get ready for the new year's party, so, no homework for today, please. Remind me later -- although "peer reviewed" equals "ministry approved," so you might have to do with references to a few books instead. Sorry.

[beyonder]

III. Let us now turn to the questions of when agriculture was introduced, the complexities of its introduction, and its implications for the future.

A. The introduction of agriculture, sometimes called the Neolithic revolution, was a crucial change in the human experience. Some would argue that, other than the emergence of the species itself, the development of agriculture and the later replacement of agricultural economies with industrial economies are the two key developments of the human experience.

B.Agriculture was invented in at least three separate places.
1. The first invention occurred in the northern Middle East/Black Sea region with domestication of wheat and barley.
2. The second invention occurred in South China and continental Southeast Asia around 7000 BCE with the introduction of rice.
3. The third invention was the domestication of corn, or maize, in Central America about 5000 BCE.
4. Agriculture may also have been invented in other places, including sub-Saharan Africa and northern China.

C. By 5000 BCE, agriculture had gradually spread and was becoming the most common economic system for the largest number of people in the world. Despite the advantages of agriculture over hunting and gathering, its widespread adoption was slow.
1.One reason for this slow spread was that contacts among relatively far-flung populations were minimal.
2. Not all regions were suitable for agriculture; some were heavily forested or arid.
3. An alternative economic system based on nomadic herding of animals prevailed for a long time over agriculture in the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and Central Asia.
4.Agriculture involves settling down,which might not have been attractive to some hunting-and-gathering societies that treasured their capacity to move around.


IV. When agriculture was introduced, it brought massive changes in the human experience.

A. Agriculture involves more work, particularly for men, than hunting and gathering; thus, it redefined and increased the work expectations of human society.

B.Agriculture also redefined gender relations. In most hunting-and-gathering societies, men did the hunting and women did the gathering, but because both groups contributed to the food supply, women usually had some influence in society. In agricultural societies, however, patriarchal systems predominated.
1. The most obvious reason for the increase in male dominance was that agriculture both permitted and required an expansion of the birthrate.
2. Men increasingly assumed the role of principal cultivator of the crucial food crops, resulting in the development of patriarchal societies.
3. In hunting-and-gathering societies, children had few functions until they reached their early teens. In agricultural societies, childhood and work became more closely associated, and the idea of obedience tended to follow this shift.


V. The advent of agriculture raises interesting questions about human progress.

A.Despite what many of us learned in grade school, the adoption of agriculture had a number of drawbacks. In some cases, these drawbacks affected some groups willingness to adopt agriculture.
1.The first drawback is the introduction of new kinds of inequality, particularly between men and women.
2.The second is that agriculture allowed people to settle down into clustered communities, which exposedthe inhabitants to increased incidences of epidemic disease.
3.The third is that agricultural societies altered the local environment in a way that hunting-and-gathering societies did not do, to the extent of damaging and even destroying a regional environment and the communities that existed there.

B.The advantages of agriculture, however, allowed it to spread.
1.One not entirely frivolous theory toexplain this spread is that agriculture allowed the growth of products that could be fermented to create alcohol.
2.More systematically, agriculture significantly improved food supplies, which in turn allowed families to have more children and resulted in population expansion.
3.These conditions prevailed for a long time, between about 9000 BCE until 300 to 400 years ago.

C.Agricultural economies were constrained by limitations in the amount of food that a given worker could generate. Even the most advanced agricultural economies required about 80 percent of the population to be engaged primarily in agriculture, which limited the amount of taxation that could be levied and limited the size of cities to no more than 20 percent of the populationa crucial feature to remember about agricultural societies in general.

D.Agricultural societies also generated cultural emphases, especially by encouraging new attention to the spring season and to divine forces responsible for creation.

E.The crucial features of agriculture were its role in population increase and its capacity to generate discernible surpluses, which freed at least some people to do other things, such as manufacturing pottery. As we will see in the next lecture, manufacturing could lead to yet additional developments in the human experience, including the emergence of cities and advancements in other areas of technology.

-Peter Stearns, "A Brief History of the World" Guidebook 1, p. 9, 10, 11

F. It is a mistake to think our ancestors were unsophisticated.
1. To survive using Stone Age technologies, they needed detailed scientific knowledge of their environments, accumulated through millennia of collective learning and stored in stories and myths.
2. Southwestern Tasmania was one of the most remote environments on Earth in the Paleolithic era. Yet modern archaeological studies of Kutikina Cave, which was occupied from 35,000 years ago to perhaps 13,000 years ago, have revealed hundreds of stone tools, ancient hearths, delicate spear points of wallaby bone, and knives made from natural glass (Mithen, After the Ice, pp. 30607). The first Tasmanians exploited their environment with great efficiency.

-David Christian, "Big History" Guidebook 1, p. 63

B. To many, it may seem obvious that Paleolithic lifeways were harsh, brutal, and unpleasant. Yet in 1972, American anthropologist Marshall Sahlins wrote a famous article, The Original Affluent Society, in which he questioned these assumptions. Sahlins argued that in some ways Paleolithic life was not too bad.
1. Being nomadic, people had little desire to accumulate goods. This, he describes as the Zen path to abundance: a feeling that everything you need is all around you.
2. Diets were often healthy and varied.
3. Modern studies of foraging societies suggest that people often survived on just 3 - 6 hours of work a day.
4. Because there was little accumulated wealth, Paleolithic societies were more egalitarian than those of today (though this does not mean there were no conflicts between individuals, or divisions by age, lineage, and gender).

C. On the other hand, studies of Paleolithic skeletons suggest that most people died young, usually from physical trauma of some kind.

D. Sahlins may have overstated the case, and we can be sure that someone reared in a modern society would struggle to survive in a Paleolithic society. Nevertheless, Sahlinss article reminds us that we should not
assume without question that history is a story of progress.

-Ibid.

2. Agriculture did not necessarily improve living standards, which is why many foragers who knew about farming rejected it. Archaeological evidence suggests they may have been right, for many early farmers suffered from poor health and nutrition. This idea encourages us to look for push rather than pull explanations, for factors that forced people to take up agriculture whether they wanted to or not.

-Ibid. p. 72

V. How well did the first farmers live? Did agriculture necessarily mean progress?

A. We saw in Lecture Twenty-Two that, by some criteria, Paleolithic foragers lived quite well.

B. The evidence on early farmers is mixed.
1. The first generation or two probably lived well, enjoying improved food supplies.
2. However, within a few generations, population growth created problems that nomadic foragers had never faced. Sedentary villages attracted vermin and rubbish, and diseases spread more easily with a larger pool of potential victims to infect, particularly after the introduction of domesticated animals, which passed many of their parasites on to humans. Studies of human bones from early Agrarian communities hint at new forms of stress, caused by the intense labor of harvest times, or by periodic crop failures, which became more common because farmers generally relied on a more limited range of foodstuffs than foragers. Periodic shortages may explain why skeletons seem to get shorter in early Agrarian villages.
3. On the other hand, early Agrarian communities were probably fairly egalitarian. Relative equality is apparent even in large sites such as Catal Huyuk, where buildings are similar in size, though differences in burials show there were some, possibly hereditary, differences in wealth.

VI. The early Agrarian era transformed a world of foragers into a world of peasant farmers. Within these denser communities new forms of complexity would begin to emerge. Yet by some criteria, living standards may have declined. Complexity does notnecessarily mean progress!

-Ibid. p. 75

By modern standards, Paleolithic and early Agrarian communities were simple and egalitarian. However, during the early Agrarian era, institutionalized hierarchies began to appear, dividing communities by gender, wealth, ethnicity, lineage, and power. About 5,000 years ago there appeared the first tribute-taking states. These were controlled by elites who extracted labor and resources, partly through the threat of organized force, just as farmers extracted ecological rents from their domesticated plants and animals. The appearance of states was a momentous transition in human history.

-Ibid. p. 77

V. Now we return to the early Agrarian era to trace how power structures became more significant and more institutionalized. It will help to imagine two distinct ways of mobilizing power. Though intertwined in reality, we can distinguish them analytically.

A. Power from below is power conceded more or less willingly by individuals or groups who expect to benefit from subordination to skillful leaders. People expect something in return for subordination, so power from below is a mutualistic form of symbiosis. As societies became largerand denser, leadership became more important in order to achieve group goals, such as the building of irrigation systems or defense in war.
1. Familiar modern examples of power from below include the election of club or team officials or captains.
2. When we think of power as legitimate (e.g., the right to tax in a democratic society), we are generally thinking of it as power from below, even if it is backed by the threat of force.

B. Power from above depends on the capacity to make credible threats of coercion. That depends on the existence of disciplined groups of coercers, loyal to the leader and able to enforce the leaders will by force when necessary. In such an environment, people obey because they will be punished if they do not. This aspect of power highlights the coercive (or parasitic) element in power relationships.
1. The existence of jails, police, and armiesis evidence that such power exists.
2. Yet no state can depend entirely on coercion becausemaintaining an apparatus of coercion is costly and depends on maintaining the willing support of the coercers. No individual can single-handedly coerce millions of others.

C. In practice, the two forms of power are intertwined in complex ways. Protection rackets, for example, offer a service. Yet it is often the racket itself that is the likely source of danger, so does the payment of protection money count as a form of power from below or above?

D. Building coercive groups is complex and costly, and the earliest forms of power emerged before such groups existed. That is why the first power elites depended mainly on power from below.

-Ibid. P. 78

According to my idea, those who knew well to govern mankind would not act so. The people had their regular and constant nature: they wove and made themselves clothes; they tilled the ground and got food. This was their common faculty. They were all one in this, and did not form themselves into separate classes; so were they constituted and left to their natural tendencies. Therefore in the age of perfect virtue men walked along with slow and grave step, and with their looks steadily directed forwards. At that time, on the hills there were no foot-paths, nor excavated passages; on the lakes there were no boats nor dams; all creatures lived in companies; and the places of their settlement were made close to one another. Birds and beasts multiplied to flocks and herds; the grass and trees grew luxuriant and long. In this condition the birds and beasts might be led about without feeling the constraint; the nest of the magpie might be climbed to, and peeped into. Yes, in the age of perfect virtue, men lived in common with birds and beasts, and were on terms of equality with all creatures, as forming one family - how could they know among themselves the distinctions of superior men and small men? Equally without knowledge, they did not leave (the path of) their natural virtue; equally free from desires, they were in the state of pure simplicity. In that state of pure simplicity, the nature of the people was what it ought to be. But when the sagely men appeared, limping and wheeling about in (the exercise of) benevolence, pressing along and standing on tiptoe in the doing of righteousness, then men universally began to be perplexed. (Those sages also) went to excess in their performances of music, and in their gesticulations in the practice of ceremonies, and then men began to be separated from one another. If the raw materials had not been cut and hacked, who could have made a sacrificial vase from them? If the natural jade had not been broken and injured, who could have made the handles for the libation-cups from it? If the attributes of the Dao had not been disallowed, how should they have preferred benevolence and righteousness? If the instincts of the nature had not been departed from, how should ceremonies and music have come into use? If the five colours had not been confused, how should the ornamental figures have been formed? If the five notes had not been confused, how should they have supplemented them by the musical accords? The cutting and hacking of the raw materials to form vessels was the crime of the skilful workman; the injury done to the characteristics of the Dao in order to the practice of benevolence and righteousness was the error of the sagely men.
-Zhuangzi, Horses Hoofs 2
http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/horsess-hoofs

Edited January 1, 2015 by beyonder

[Apech]

@beyonder ... thanks for that.

 

Just going back to that 10,000 BC origin for smallpox which I see is quoted in Wikipedia and cited to an academic paper which would cost me 29.95 $ to buy (so I'm not going to) I suspect this is a bit speculative ... or possibly based on genetic history - probability of mutations and so on ... I find the Ram 5 as the first physical evidence more believable (also quoted in Wiki). It's well known that viruses mutate and become pathogenic over time ... some are originally animal diseases or perhaps mild infections which can break out into acute conditions due to unknown causes. So the idea of a stable and static disease organism existing over long periods of history is probably a poor model for understanding these things. The point being perhaps that it takes urban population concentrations to give the conditions for acute infectious diseases to flourish. On a deeper level the very process of 'civilization' which I have heard called 'syphilization' (this may be a homeopathic quote I'm not sure) but along with urban living comes the licensing of sex and so on. In some of the first cities they used to bury their ancestors under the floors of their houses which is a good illustration of living on a layer of unresolved psycho-spiritual stress = what we call now the subconscious (the dark dungeon of unconfronted fears and horrors). Compare this with the shamanic space of active dialogue with the ancestors and you can get some idea of why we are now so psychologically disturbed. Try asking friends and relatives how many people they know who are on anti-depressants and so on. Seems like nearly everyone.

[dust]

Yeah, beyonder, excellent finds. Thanks for that.

 

Apech -- I'm not entirely sure what you mean by psycho-spiritual stress etc, but either way you make some good points.

To me, simply knowing that one's dead relative is decomposing a few feet below where one sleeps should be enough to cause some psychological disturbance!

[Apech]

Yeah, beyonder, excellent finds. Thanks for that.

 

Apech -- I'm not entirely sure what you mean by psycho-spiritual stress etc, but either way you make some good points.

To me, simply knowing that one's dead relative is decomposing a few feet below where one sleeps should be enough to cause some psychological disturbance!

 

By psycho-spiritual stress I mean mental/emotional/ energetic disharmony due to unassimilated experiences ... as in disease = dis - ease. the ancestral record contains both positive and negative influences ... which is why all ancient cultures and many modern cultures include for propitiation of both spiritual entities (e.g. gods) and the ancestors - both to gain their wisdom and advice but also to ward off harm.

[dust]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23084993

 

I've only read the abstract, but it offers an interesting idea.

 

It seems fairly likely that our morality has become more condition-dependent and far less random over the last few millennia, thus (if we go by the results of the study) leading to a higher lifespan overall. This would explain shorter lifespans in paleolithic times very simply: people physiologically couldn't live as long as we can now.

 

Taking this into account, we might argue that agriculture and the "stability" of more modern societies has been responsible for our increased lifespans.

 

What we must also consider is that thing called relativity:

 

A dog lives 17 years, a human 65, a tortoise 250. Whose life is “better”?

 

A prehistoric human lives 40 years, a modern human 80. Whose life is “better”?

[iain]

Hello dustybeijing,

The article is interesting but seems rather limited in its scope to me.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25352727

 

We fundamentally know very little about what life is; and the Occidental notion of what time is is very dubious from the perspective of a Jyotis̩a, though it is undoubtedly more aggressively perused as a "norm" in financially directed research circles.

The doctrine that I study who's origins dates back 5000 years and more, uses the time span of 120 solar years, when calculating human life. Its foundations state that in the age prior to its roots 10000 years ago, that humans lived a much healthier and longer lifespans. That time itself undergoes an entropy and that we have degenerated to a recent low; the middle or dark ages; from which we are now emerging.

Time is not viewed as linear, and it is considered to be something that emerges rather than exists.

Edited January 1, 2015 by iain

[dust]

The doctrine that I study who's origins dates back 5000 years and more, uses the time span of 120 solar years, when calculating human life. Its foundations state that in the age prior to its roots 10000 years ago, that humans lived a much healthier and longer lifespans. That time itself undergoes an entropy and that we have degenerated to a recent low; the middle or dark ages; from which we are now emerging.

 

I'd quite like to believe that, but the archaeological evidence does (seem to) point to much shorter lifespans way back then

[iain]

To which time period are you referring?

 

The records of this science exist in India and the time scale chosen for a full human life span was 120 years there is no doubt on this figure as a estimated "long life span", it is fundamental to Jyotish calculations. But the way that time and life are perceived are so fundamentally different to that of occidental thought (which is now predominating globally). So much so, that it is difficult to equate with; Schrodinger did try.

 

We find what we want to find, and occidental research seeks to justify its own position, where as another stance would lead to different conclusions; most researchers are ego driven idiots. Original and truly wise minds are rare and original thought is far from encouraged in occidental academia. If you step on established toes you don't get funding, this unfortunately colours the results.

 

For an example all texts translated from Sanskrit were doctored to fit with current western beliefs; where as the Indian scholars have always stated them to be referring to older periods; to understand the importance of this astrological dating you must first realize how fundamental astronomy is the the Indian calendar, and also to its philosophy and literature.

 

http://www.indicethos.org/Astronomy/GreatBharatawar.html

 

Occidental scholars are still emerging from the long effects of the Christian beliefs and indoctrination; the "style" of thought is still guided by its former mind set. The effect of Occidental thought upon the well established yet humble Indian system was devastating for quite some time. Not due to superiority; but rather due I am afraid, to intellectual aggressiveness.

 

To my mind anyhow.

Edited January 2, 2015 by iain

[Apech]

I'd quite like to believe that, but the archaeological evidence does (seem to) point to much shorter lifespans way back then

 

If you take into account the levels of infant and child mortality ... which in ancient times would be high ... this drags down the average life expectancy. If however an individual survives into adulthood then they can expect to live into old age.

[Taomeow]

The life expectancy myth is made up in its entirety. The goal of the falsification is twofold -- to teach us not to complain, and to convince us that we have nothing to complain about.

 

There's not so many hunter-gatherer of prehistory bones that have ever been available for investigation to begin with, no more than a few scientists ever actually saw them, and fewer had a chance to work with them, and fewer, to work with them thoroughly, and fewer to none -- to come to any conclusions that would deviate from the party line. So they gingerly positioned this party line on just one fact -- only one -- nothing else -- and then they interpreted this fact to mean what they were supposed to coerce it into meaning (something the fact by itself never meant to mean.) That single fact is that these bones are dense and not diseased.

 

The whole tall tale about this fact meaning that their owners died off like flies before getting arthritis is wobbling through its glorious scientific existence standing on this premise. Sometimes I simply marvel at the idiocy of our "scientific thought" wherever life sciences are concerned -- it's as though being brain damaged is a prerequisite to getting a Ph.D. in those. But the propaganda machine couldn't possibly work any other way. could it? Who of the overlords or their scientific hirelings would announce to the public that courtesy of their activities we live shorter and far more miserable lives than hunters-gatherers did?.. Better present everybody with brain-damaged logic instead, and let's damage every brain so it can accommodate it.

 

No scientific paper making a peep about bones having been dense not because their prehistoric owners died young but because (e.g.) they didn't consume gluten-containing grains that destroy the bones until agricultural practices were introduced has ever made it through the "peer review," but the thing is, BOTH facts have made their leap through both respective hoops -- it's just that no scientist is allowed to put two and two together, to use fact B as a better explanation for fact A than the current lopsided one. It is a fact that consuming grains causes bone deterioration -- the very first signs of "aging bones" appear together with agricultural practices. It is, moreover, a well understood fact just how exactly gluten destroys bones -- immunologically it's pretty fancy, it's an autoimmune process that triggers a self-destruct program because the body constantly attacks the foreign and hostile protein (gluten molecules closely resemble the structure of some ancient viruses) at the site of its attachment -- which, interestingly enough, happens to be the bones (not that it stays put there, it does damage everywhere else but the bones are the primary site of its sedimentation, and that's what the immune system gets to work attacking, with chronic inflammations that make our bones look "aged" and eventually brittle and lace-like structure-impaired if this is going on long enough.)

 

No one who doesn't eat that would have such bones. Hunter-gatherers didn't eat that. So instead of concluding that their bones, barring exposure to what damages ours, appeared young because they were undamaged in old age, we pronounce that they simply failed to reach old age. And then spin a tall tale with not a shred of proof explaining how they were clumsy and careless and overall inept at survival and so dropped like flies at 30-40 years of age. Brilliant.

 

In reality, even today, in people who've practiced taiji for decades, bone density (which the practice slowly but continuously increases) at 90 is indistinguishable from that in a healthy 19-year-old. I wonder what scientists will say about those bones ten thousand years from now if they stick to the same logic ours use today. In all likelihood, they will say that the average life span of a taji practitioner in the 21st century was 19.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Taomeow

[iain]

The human brain has been the same for the last 100000 years and I think complex modern society conceals fundamental aspect of life that would have been glaringly obvious in the past.

Jyotish is used medically, and to my mind in many ways it is in advance of today's newly developing occidental understanding of endocrinology; but this has been mapped our in Asian and Indian medicine for a 1000's years or more. I think verbally much longer

You can see cancer in a horoscope and also suspicious afflictions to jala tattva that clearly effect the autoimmune system in a way that might well be perceived as a syndrome, what more can I say other than to much science can blind you.

It is the working of the mind that is different, but you can not see this if you still perceive time as being linear; its just not, that is an illusion.

[dust]

No one who doesn't eat that would have such bones. Hunter-gatherers didn't eat that. So instead of concluding that their bones, barring exposure to what damages ours, appeared young because they were undamaged in old age, we pronounce that they simply failed to reach old age. And then spin a tall tale with not a shred of proof explaining how they were clumsy and careless and overall inept at survival and so dropped like flies at 30-40 years of age. Brilliant.

 

Love it

[Brian]

To me, the ugly transition is not the one from hunter-gatherer to farmer (or, more aaccurately, adding gardening to the mix) so much as the one to a grain-based diet. This latter (and later) transition is profoundly damaging and rife with control, manipulation and subjugation. You'll get no disagreement from me there.

[Taomeow]

To me, the ugly transition is not the one from hunter-gatherer to farmer (or, more aaccurately, adding gardening to the mix) so much as the one to a grain-based diet. This latter (and later) transition is profoundly damaging and rife with control, manipulation and subjugation. You'll get no disagreement from me there.

 

I suspect it was a process that entails stages -- all linear mechanistic "renovations" do, of necessity -- step 1, step 2, step 3, step 10,000 -- and we may well be in the final stages, accelerating toward its goal. The names for this ultimate goal changed throughout history, but the essence, the heart of the matter, has always been the same. The modern name for this goal is "transhumanism."

 

What it actually means is, all things human have to be eliminated in stages -- step 1, step 2, etc, -- because it can't be done all at once. If you want to unclutter what you think is in the way of the sterile order you envision -- to wit, mother nature -- you have to go step by step. Deforestation first, monocultures next, man-made niches inhabitable only by whatever species you allow to inhabit them (sedentary agricultural settlements and then cities) next, biodiversity on a wider, planetary scale eliminated next, human diversity eliminated progressively with each step, toward just one type of human -- and on and on. I don't believe it could happen spontaneously via human error, we didn't err like that before, and if we did, we promptly self-corrected. It's something else...

 

I forgot to mention one more, not last and most definitely not least, blessing we were given with agriculture and urbanization: war. Now THAT's something our prehistoric ancestors weren't advanced enough to think up, that's for sure. The most violent tribe ever discovered in modernity is the Yanomame of the Amazon, they lived and breathed war till very recently -- and here's how they waged it. Two warring villages come together. Together, they build a corral of sorts, and let one man from each side enter it, each with a big stick, and start beating each other. Once the weaker warrior falls, a new pair is cheered onto the scene, and they beat each other. And so on. Once a number of boxers... er, hockey players... er, football players... no, MMA fighters, that's it! -- had thus waged the tribal war, the side that has fewer fallen warriors celebrates victory by getting drunk and rowdy, and everybody goes home.

 

One-on-one combat was how we expressed our violence till we became civilized. Of course there weren't any countries to engage, in fact you can't have a country unless you invent war first...

[Brian]

Yeah, the Yanomame played a significant part in my early anthropology studies -- did I ever mention that I was an Anthology major before I realized I had no interest in being a professional anthropologist?

 

As you might expect, the professor misunderstood the implications and didn't much like my questions about what this all suggested.

[eye_of_the_storm]

Taomeow have you read the Ringing Cedars of Russia?

[gendao]

Osho essentially postulates that the "illusion" of separateness creates the Ego which makes an effort to "improve" Nature which then becomes "culture" and eventually "civilization."

So the first thing to understand about Chuang Tzu before we enter his sutras, is – be natural. Everything unnatural has to be avoided. Don’t do anything that is unnatural. Nature is enough – you cannot improve upon it, but the ego says, no, you can improve upon nature – that is how all culture exists.

Any effort to improve upon nature is culture, and all culture is like a disease – the more a man is cultured the more dangerous he is.

I have heard that a hunter, a European hunter, was lost in a forest in Africa. Suddenly he came upon a few huts. He had never heard that a village existed in that thick forest. It was not on any map. So he approached the chief of the village, and he said: This is a pity that you are lost to civilisation. The chief said: No, it is not a pity, we are always afraid of being discovered – once civilisation comes in we are lost. Nature is lost once you make an effort to improve upon it – that means you are trying to improve upon God.

All religions are trying to do that – to improve upon God.

Chuang Tzu is not in favour of that. He says nature is ultimate, and that ultimate nature he calls Tao. Tao means that nature is ultimate and cannot be improved. If you try to improve upon it, you will cripple it – that is how we cripple every child.

Only when "you" (your Ego) stop making an effort and accept that your Ego ("You") does not fully "exist" to begin with...and fully accept Nature...thus correcting your "Original Sin"...is Enlightenment realized.

Edited January 4, 2015 by gendao

[thelerner]

Going back to the OP, here is another long time human foible often bred by fundamentalism: The world is going to end. I like what Jay Michelson wrote about it:

"Today, fully 77 percent of U.S. evangelicals believe that we are living in the End Times, the last period before Christ returns to Earth to judge us all. That’s compared with 40 percent of Americans, and 51 percent of Protestants overall—still high numbers, when you think about it, but imagine a huge crowd at a mega-church or Christian Right political event. Three quarters of those people believe the end of the world is nigh.

 

Sutton’s new book, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, argues that this belief is not incidental to the evangelical movement, but central to it. Focusing on the birth of fundamentalism (roughly, the 1880s through 1940s), Sutton marshals quotation after quotation from the leaders of the movement.

 

For example: “We are on the brink of a world catastrophe and impending judgment,” said Billy Graham, who also asked, “Are the last days here?” way back in 1949.

 

Perhaps more disturbingly, Ronald Reagan said privately in 1971 that, “For the first time ever, everything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the second coming of Christ.” One wonders if his subsequent battles with the “Evil Empire” were animated by this belief.

 

And the bestselling nonfiction book of the 1970s was Hal Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth, which calculated the year of the apocalypse to be—wait for it—1988.

 

I admit, it’s hard not to read American Apocalypse without smirking at a century of such failed prophecies. Will we ever learn?"

Edited January 5, 2015 by thelerner

[closrapexa]

I think it goes further than simple health or territory. It is about culture, language, identity. Agriculture allowed humans to allocate and divide work, thus letting some people do other things... like be poets or painters or scientists. While a hunter-gatherer society may sound ideal on paper, it would mean going without far more than just laptops. Humans work best as a hive mind, our greatest strength is in sharing ideas and passing them on to be developed by future generations. In a sense humanity is one big brain, but that brain needs some continuity, and I doubt a hunter-gatherer society, despite the nostalgia inherent in such an idea, would allow that, seeing as we would all be, well, hunting and gathering.

[Infinity]

Hmmm the worst mistake let me think this is easy!

 

correct><mistake

 

There has never been one!

 

good><bad

perfect><imperfect

 

Have a nice day><night