The culture of Ahab, Elijah, Shlomtzion, Philo of Alexandria, Bruria, Abraham Abulafia, Ashtori Ha-Parhhi, Shalom Shabazzi, Franz Kafka, and Ofra Haza.
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I assume you mean religion, no?
No?
I mean culture (of which religion is just one part), had I meant religion I'd have written so.
Quote:
Religion is but one aspect of a culture.
Indeed.
Quote:
Judaism may well survive another thousand years, but your culture, whatever that may be, probably will be permuted a million times before then.
It so happened that said religion is not independent of said culture, and is not available separately, so the former will only survive if the latter will, which it probably will, given its track record.
Rome didn't survive the acquisition of its religion. [/QUOTE]
Sorry to be blunt, but your talking out of your arse....
Rome indeed survived for another 250 years after the acceptance of Christianity as the state religion. Your also forgetting that the Roman empire, divided itself into two (western & eastern ) with Constantinople being the capital of the eastern Roman empire ( Christian , which survived till well into the 1400's...or thereabouts...
Getting back to the Roman ( western section ), the western empire largely imploded, due to a number of causes including disease, pressure on the borders, evasion of taxes..( yes..read that clearly ), so when a handful of VisiGoths ( less than 10,000 ) came into Rome, they found it already exhausted...nothing to do with religion....except that the Visigoths quickly took on the mantle of roman behaviour & lifestyle..including its christian religion.
If anything Christianity then went on to conquer all the Yurropean armies..so how do you get over that little hurdle of debate ?
some problems: The areas of the world that are currently experiencing famine et al. are places that were formally colonised by the so-called "enlightened." The disruptions of those cultures ways and means of living and producing in order to feed the material wants of "the enlightened." is at the root of most of those areas problems.
I won't argue that industrialized cultures haven't gone around exploiting non-industrialized ones and causing lots of problems. But you make it sound like were starving people by exploiting their food away from them to fill our plates, which is hardly the case. The biggest causes of famine that I can think of these days are:
1) War and political disruption.
2) Too many people abandoning agriculture while trying to find a better living in large, squalid cities.
3) Just enough medical advancement to allow populations explode beyond old environmental limits.
There is no thing as "overcrowding" when 1/5 of the worlds population consume upwards of 70% of the worlds output.
Crowding and consumption are somewhat roughly related, but hardly the same thing. We're on the hairy edge of having enough arable land to feed everyone on the planet. No matter how you slice it, that's overcrowding the planet, regardless of the distribution of SUVs and DVD players -- things that make up a big part of the kind of consumption figures you're quoting.
Where acres and acres of land are deemed "private property" or made into parks and golf courses.
Your point? I doubt that you're suggesting turning every golf course and park into farm land until everyone's fed. In case you are, that's a fairly poor idea.
The issue is how people live on planet Earth. Prior to Europeans leaving Europe and killling thier way across the planet many cultures had relationships with their environment that was far more symbiotic than what we see now.
Let's not get overly romantic about this. Most of that "symbiosis" you're talking about was achieved by death, disease, and scarcity keeping populations in check, not because non-European, non-technical cultures were full of extraordinarily wise, compassionate people living in a mystical, spiritual harmony with the land.
Of course we may say that we are more "advanced" and "enlightened" because we have computers and can travel great distances in ever shortening times. But many people may not see that as "enlightened." they may see having a family as advanced.
I can't think of a single culture that has ever said of itself, "Look how advanced we are! We decide to have these things called 'families'. It's a major step forward from... um, what was it that we use to do?"
They may percieve that not polluting the Earthj is a more "enlightening" thing to do.
Cultures that have not polluted the Earth have avoiding doing so simply because they haven't had the means to make the mess that industrial cultures have made. Inability to do something, however, is not the same thing as an enlightened choice against doing that something.
this is the crux of the problem, even as we discuss terrorism. That one world view is neccessarily more "enlightened" than another due to some materialistic measuring stick.
There's a gross oversimplification of the problem of terrorism if ever I saw one.
Could you elaborate on Rome in the light of this statement? Wouldn't you say that the mentality of some cultures towards reproduction simply doesn't scale?
Not sure what you're looking for, but IIRC the Roman Empire, until after its collapse, always had a much, much larger population than any (or all) of its neighbors. There were something like 40 million Romans in the 3rd century, while your average migrating german tribe had less than 100,000 people. The pressure on the frontiers wasn't caused so much by huge numbers of barbarians as by waves of invading turkish people kicking the germans westward, so they had nowhere to go but into the Empire. The population of the city of Rome didn't collapse until it got separated from its granaries (Tunesia and Egypt), and the population of the Empire as a whole fell gradually from the "fall of Rome" into the dark ages as authority waned, farming became less efficient (for climactic as well as political reasons) and trade broke down.
Actually, the theme of small numbers of warlike nomads invading, defeating and occupying much, much larger numbers of settled peoples is repeated throughout history. "Survial" means much more than just numbers. Although, in the end, most of those conquerors wound up being more-or-less absorbed into the cultures they conquered.
Most countries today with increasing populations do so largely because they do not give women the rights they enjoy in here and in most democracies, or they define feminine success exclusively in terms of child rearing.
Women's rights certainly has something to do with it, but I think economic development is more important. Populations in developing countries exploded because modern sanitation and, to a lesser extent, modern medicine reduced death rates while birth rates remained unchanged. And those birth rates stayed high because in many societies there is still little incentive to raising fewer kids, better. You don't get to that point, I think, until education becomes more important to earning a living than labor.
Yes. I was talking about ancestry. The genetic and lingustic evidence appears to be that the Basques are the descendents of the European indigenes of the Late Paleolithic. Basque is a unique language in Europe and it's closest relative appears to be spoken in a few valleys of Northern Pakistan (I love this stuff.) Their ancestors were probably ubiquitous throughout Europe until the darn farmers came out of the Levant. These people spoke ur-Indo European, it would appear, judging by the similarity of words for things like 'butter', 'grain', and others (I have a list somewhere.)
As for the rest of your post it's irritatingly good. Fortunately I'm moving house today and by the time I'm in front of a computer again no-one'll give a toss anymore.
Bye bye all, see y'all next week. I'm breaking the umbilcal cord to West London for a large warehouse residence in Stoke Newington: I'm going to be living in a building site for God knows how long and I don't even know where the phone points are.
Other than that, my culture is doing fine thank you (while I don't know enough of all other cultures to say mine's definitely better than all of them, it certainly is the best for me thank you again), and it was here before most cultures of yours appeared, and will probably still be in the far future when most of the present ones are consigned in whatever they'll have for history books.
...but I'm not sure about this. What's so damn special about Jewish culture? It's a culture like any other. It's got the same chances as any other. It changes at the same rate as any other (apart from the ultra-Orthodox bits, which are a minority and fetishise conservatism.) It's no more or less likely to be around in the "far future" than other culture on this planet. It's achievements are no lesser or greater than those of China, India, Africa, Iran, the Arabs, or Europe.
[edit: not saying there's anything 'not special' about Jewish culture (if you see what I mean) merely that the same 'rules' apply to everyone.]
I second the recommendation for Jared Diamond. fascinating book. Gladwell is also a two thumbs up read. Dawkins makes three, but not all at once unless you're retired.
birth rate growth and meme growth are not the same.
Darwin's metric != Dawkins' metric
'Western', particularly American culture has spread into many of the other cultures you've mentioned at rates that far surpass the differential breeding figures.
media saturation and global communication have contributed to the viral spread of some memes and cultural icons
even cultures as historically insular as Japan are full of Coca-Cola, Elvis clones complete with pompadours, and Disney (although not nearly as prolific as Hello Kitty, Pokemon, or Anime characters, so the local imagination is still rolling its own heroes)
while HK/China cranks out huge volumes of martial arts reels, India's film industry actually produces more films/day, and is named Bollywood in response to the american idea-factory behemoth that dominates cinematic blockbuster standards in almost all other countries.
McDonalds in India, home of the sacred cow.
Gods Must Be Crazy and it's Coke bottle quests.
Chinese student protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989 built a statue modeling a western concept, the "Goddess of Democracy" struck the Statue of Liberty pose with flaming torch and flowing robes as a seemingly universal symbol of pro-democracy.
ask Nelson Mandela or Wei Jinsheng about the influence of Amnesty International's "candle behind the wire" letter writing campaign pushing for the release of political prisoners. neither South Africa's then hardline Apartheid government nor the PRC's old gaurd revolutionaries could have been considered "western culture", but the spread of those "western human rights" memes filtered through, at least in those limited cases
radically different birth rates in neighbouring populations with a history of political or religious or territorial conflict are a major issue in Ireland/Ulster, Israel/Palestine, perhaps some Balkan states, etc
cultural memes waft back the other way too... many a union rally sports a polish Solidarnosc banner, plenty of westerners follow the dalai lama, or do yoga, or practice tai chi, or worship other than judeo-christian flavours of deity, and traditional chinese medicine (herbology and accupuncture) are more common in western culture than ever before
now i'm not arguing that E.T., Rocky Balboa, John Wayne, James Bond or the Marlboro Man are more deserving of cultural survival than Tomte or Hanuman or Chow Yun Fatt or ...
just saying that genetic trait-transfer through heredity fails to account for the (more rapid) permeation of ideas that cross borders and entice new minds
I won't argue that industrialized cultures haven't gone around exploiting non-industrialized ones and causing lots of problems. But you make it sound like were starving people by exploiting their food away from them to fill our plates, which is hardly the case. The biggest causes of famine that I can think of these days are:
1) War and political disruption.
2) Too many people abandoning agriculture while trying to find a better living in large, squalid cities.
3) Just enough medical advancement to allow populations explode beyond old environmental limits.
There is no thing as "overcrowding" when 1/5 of the worlds population consume upwards of 70% of the worlds output.
Thanks for your honest response but you would have to be very naive to not know the underlying causes of the various wars. off the Back I can tell you that in say South Africa the leading cause of native poverty is Aparthied and the gross missapropriation of land by the Europeans in that country ( I refuse to call them Africans). Zimbabwe, Mugabe's poor leadership aside, is another great example of European duplicity in regional starvation. the Genocide in Rwanda and Burindi are direct results of European manipulation of that population that fostered and created a vicious ethnocentrism among a populatyion that had formerly lived quite peacably, if not equitably, prior to the involvement of Europe. Ethiopia also had to deal with the Italians and their bombing of that country that resulted in the famous speech made by Haille Selasi that wound up being Bob Marley's "War" song. I could go on at length, but the point should be self evident: Much of the wars in the world are created by purposeful manipulations of so called "third world" governments by Europe and America. Even if we allow for a modicum of self blame on the part of those exploited, it still does not fly that their wars are simply isolated incidences.
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Crowding and consumption are somewhat roughly related, but hardly the same thing. We're on the hairy edge of having enough arable land to feed everyone on the planet. No matter how you slice it, that's overcrowding the planet, regardless of the distribution of SUVs and DVD players -- things that make up a big part of the kind of consumption figures you're quoting.
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we are not overcrowding the planet, the planet is being used in an inefficient manner largely by the industrial nations. It is a known fact that Americans have the largest "personal space" requirements in the world, folllowed closely by Europeans. Many other cultures do not ascribe to the need to grab up mass amounts of "personal" space in order to live. Nor do many other cultures consume anywhere near the amount of food that Americans regularly eat and, most importantly destroy on a regular basis. I'm sorry but your contention that the world is near capacity is not supported by the facts.
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Your point? I doubt that you're suggesting turning every golf course and park into farm land until everyone's fed. In case you are, that's a fairly poor idea.
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see above
_____
Let's not get overly romantic about this. Most of that "symbiosis" you're talking about was achieved by death, disease, and scarcity keeping populations in check, not because non-European, non-technical cultures were full of extraordinarily wise, compassionate people living in a mystical, spiritual harmony with the land.
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No fantasizng at all. I believe others here have already discussed the various customs of people as it regeards the killing of Animals. You'd be surprised at how little death by disease actually affected "traditional" societies. You were more likely to die from hard work. And on the issue with scarcity, one should recall that, in the case of West Africa, prior to European involvement, There were societies that were well planned out and people knew of growing seasons (of which much of Africa has 3). Anyone from a tropical place will tell you that there is no lack of opportunites to eat. Food grows on trees and bushes practically year round and there are plenty of animal protein sources. It is only when one needs to have Money to buy that which occurs naturally, that one faces "scarcity."
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I can't think of a single culture that has ever said of itself, "Look how advanced we are! We decide to have these things called 'families'. It's a major step forward from... um, what was it that we use to do?"
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My original comment was sarcastic. The point being that some societies don't base their value on how "advanced" they are.
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Cultures that have not polluted the Earth have avoiding doing so simply because they haven't had the means to make the mess that industrial cultures have made. Inability to do something, however, is not the same thing as an enlightened choice against doing that something.
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That is absolutely not true. for example, the Chinese had what we now call gun powder, yet it's culture, it's worldview didn't allow for them to think" Hey, this would be a great way to kill people." Europeans did that. Similarly, it wasn't until the brutality of the European spread across Azania ( South Africa) that Shaka Zulu thought of changing the way that the Zulu's carried out warfare and changed into an imperial organization.
Sometimes, the culture of the people determine what they will or will not find as acceptible use of resources. That does not make them innately unable.
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this is the crux of the problem, even as we discuss terrorism. That one world view is neccessarily more "enlightened" than another due to some materialistic measuring stick.
There's a gross oversimplification of the problem of terrorism if ever I saw one.
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Agreed, I didn't take the time to flesh this out, But my contention that the issue of worldview is largely at the base of what we see as "terrorism." is a valid argument. Just not one I feel like going into at this moment and is most likely off topic anyway.
Evolution says that those with the best reproductive output are the most fit.
...when there is a natural predator involved or reducive environmental phenomenon in effect, IMO. I think that is a crucial part missing from your statement. When there is no natural predator or environmental phenomenon, the evolution statement may be too simplified to be meaningful.
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By that measure we would Western Civilization would be very "unfit" since we are pretty much non-reproducing ourselves into oblivion.
This could also be explained whereby this could just be a natural "slow-down" phenomenon to limit population overgrowth, in the absence of natural predators and environmental barriers to hold a population in check. Perhaps, when a lower population limit is reached, another natural phenomenon might activate so as to stimulate reproductive output. I guess what I'm saying is that perhaps there is a natural self-regulation in effect here that we aren't even aware of?
...or in a perverse sense, maybe we just aren't having enough world wars such that people are actively encouraged to bear more children (or similarly, soldiers not leaving pregnant wives/mothers before they go off to war)?
My own anectdotal experience on the topic of reproductive output is such that I know quite a few "blue collar" or "poor level" people where 4-5 children is the norm (and prior to that generation, 6 children families were not unheard of). I even knew somebody who had 10 children! On the professional/managerial end of the spectrum of people I have come to know, child bearing is often put farther back in age (30's vs. 18 ), with 2 children being the norm, and a notable frequency in couples who decided to not have children at all. Clearly (to me), there seems a bias in reproductive output based on academic/career achievement. Maybe they aren't directly connected, but there is a correlation manifested by another factor which happens to follow along with academic/career achievement.
(Gee, that's buggy. You can't put the number 18 followed by a closing parenthesis w/o invoking the cool icon.)
Here's a crazy idea- maybe the advent of populations that are under-reproductive and populations that are over-reproductive are essentially evolution at work. Evolution will keep trying until it finds the "right" population that happens to reproduce at just the right amount to fill a given area. The under-reproductive group will eventually fizzle out (essentially go extinct like so many other species that came before it), and the over-reproductive group will eventually annihilate itself in a melee of overcrowding, super-disease, and just plain disposition for self-destructivity.
Comments
Originally posted by billybobsky
and what "culture" would that be?
The culture of Ahab, Elijah, Shlomtzion, Philo of Alexandria, Bruria, Abraham Abulafia, Ashtori Ha-Parhhi, Shalom Shabazzi, Franz Kafka, and Ofra Haza.
I assume you mean religion, no?
No?
I mean culture (of which religion is just one part), had I meant religion I'd have written so.
Religion is but one aspect of a culture.
Indeed.
Judaism may well survive another thousand years, but your culture, whatever that may be, probably will be permuted a million times before then.
It so happened that said religion is not independent of said culture, and is not available separately, so the former will only survive if the latter will, which it probably will, given its track record.
Sorry to be blunt, but your talking out of your arse....
Rome indeed survived for another 250 years after the acceptance of Christianity as the state religion. Your also forgetting that the Roman empire, divided itself into two (western & eastern ) with Constantinople being the capital of the eastern Roman empire ( Christian , which survived till well into the 1400's...or thereabouts...
Getting back to the Roman ( western section ), the western empire largely imploded, due to a number of causes including disease, pressure on the borders, evasion of taxes..( yes..read that clearly ), so when a handful of VisiGoths ( less than 10,000 ) came into Rome, they found it already exhausted...nothing to do with religion....except that the Visigoths quickly took on the mantle of roman behaviour & lifestyle..including its christian religion.
If anything Christianity then went on to conquer all the Yurropean armies..so how do you get over that little hurdle of debate ?
Originally posted by Sondjata
some problems: The areas of the world that are currently experiencing famine et al. are places that were formally colonised by the so-called "enlightened." The disruptions of those cultures ways and means of living and producing in order to feed the material wants of "the enlightened." is at the root of most of those areas problems.
I won't argue that industrialized cultures haven't gone around exploiting non-industrialized ones and causing lots of problems. But you make it sound like were starving people by exploiting their food away from them to fill our plates, which is hardly the case. The biggest causes of famine that I can think of these days are:
1) War and political disruption.
2) Too many people abandoning agriculture while trying to find a better living in large, squalid cities.
3) Just enough medical advancement to allow populations explode beyond old environmental limits.
There is no thing as "overcrowding" when 1/5 of the worlds population consume upwards of 70% of the worlds output.
Crowding and consumption are somewhat roughly related, but hardly the same thing. We're on the hairy edge of having enough arable land to feed everyone on the planet. No matter how you slice it, that's overcrowding the planet, regardless of the distribution of SUVs and DVD players -- things that make up a big part of the kind of consumption figures you're quoting.
Where acres and acres of land are deemed "private property" or made into parks and golf courses.
Your point? I doubt that you're suggesting turning every golf course and park into farm land until everyone's fed. In case you are, that's a fairly poor idea.
The issue is how people live on planet Earth. Prior to Europeans leaving Europe and killling thier way across the planet many cultures had relationships with their environment that was far more symbiotic than what we see now.
Let's not get overly romantic about this. Most of that "symbiosis" you're talking about was achieved by death, disease, and scarcity keeping populations in check, not because non-European, non-technical cultures were full of extraordinarily wise, compassionate people living in a mystical, spiritual harmony with the land.
Of course we may say that we are more "advanced" and "enlightened" because we have computers and can travel great distances in ever shortening times. But many people may not see that as "enlightened." they may see having a family as advanced.
I can't think of a single culture that has ever said of itself, "Look how advanced we are! We decide to have these things called 'families'. It's a major step forward from... um, what was it that we use to do?"
They may percieve that not polluting the Earthj is a more "enlightening" thing to do.
Cultures that have not polluted the Earth have avoiding doing so simply because they haven't had the means to make the mess that industrial cultures have made. Inability to do something, however, is not the same thing as an enlightened choice against doing that something.
this is the crux of the problem, even as we discuss terrorism. That one world view is neccessarily more "enlightened" than another due to some materialistic measuring stick.
There's a gross oversimplification of the problem of terrorism if ever I saw one.
Originally posted by ena
Could you elaborate on Rome in the light of this statement? Wouldn't you say that the mentality of some cultures towards reproduction simply doesn't scale?
Not sure what you're looking for, but IIRC the Roman Empire, until after its collapse, always had a much, much larger population than any (or all) of its neighbors. There were something like 40 million Romans in the 3rd century, while your average migrating german tribe had less than 100,000 people. The pressure on the frontiers wasn't caused so much by huge numbers of barbarians as by waves of invading turkish people kicking the germans westward, so they had nowhere to go but into the Empire. The population of the city of Rome didn't collapse until it got separated from its granaries (Tunesia and Egypt), and the population of the Empire as a whole fell gradually from the "fall of Rome" into the dark ages as authority waned, farming became less efficient (for climactic as well as political reasons) and trade broke down.
Actually, the theme of small numbers of warlike nomads invading, defeating and occupying much, much larger numbers of settled peoples is repeated throughout history. "Survial" means much more than just numbers. Although, in the end, most of those conquerors wound up being more-or-less absorbed into the cultures they conquered.
Originally posted by trumptman
Most countries today with increasing populations do so largely because they do not give women the rights they enjoy in here and in most democracies, or they define feminine success exclusively in terms of child rearing.
Women's rights certainly has something to do with it, but I think economic development is more important. Populations in developing countries exploded because modern sanitation and, to a lesser extent, modern medicine reduced death rates while birth rates remained unchanged. And those birth rates stayed high because in many societies there is still little incentive to raising fewer kids, better. You don't get to that point, I think, until education becomes more important to earning a living than labor.
Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein
Basques, hunters-gatherers?
Yes. I was talking about ancestry. The genetic and lingustic evidence appears to be that the Basques are the descendents of the European indigenes of the Late Paleolithic. Basque is a unique language in Europe and it's closest relative appears to be spoken in a few valleys of Northern Pakistan (I love this stuff.) Their ancestors were probably ubiquitous throughout Europe until the darn farmers came out of the Levant. These people spoke ur-Indo European, it would appear, judging by the similarity of words for things like 'butter', 'grain', and others (I have a list somewhere.)
As for the rest of your post it's irritatingly good. Fortunately I'm moving house today and by the time I'm in front of a computer again no-one'll give a toss anymore.
Bye bye all, see y'all next week. I'm breaking the umbilcal cord to West London for a large warehouse residence in Stoke Newington: I'm going to be living in a building site for God knows how long and I don't even know where the phone points are.
Life is great.
Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein
Other than that, my culture is doing fine thank you (while I don't know enough of all other cultures to say mine's definitely better than all of them, it certainly is the best for me thank you again), and it was here before most cultures of yours appeared, and will probably still be in the far future when most of the present ones are consigned in whatever they'll have for history books.
...but I'm not sure about this. What's so damn special about Jewish culture? It's a culture like any other. It's got the same chances as any other. It changes at the same rate as any other (apart from the ultra-Orthodox bits, which are a minority and fetishise conservatism.) It's no more or less likely to be around in the "far future" than other culture on this planet. It's achievements are no lesser or greater than those of China, India, Africa, Iran, the Arabs, or Europe.
[edit: not saying there's anything 'not special' about Jewish culture (if you see what I mean) merely that the same 'rules' apply to everyone.]
birth rate growth and meme growth are not the same.
Darwin's metric != Dawkins' metric
'Western', particularly American culture has spread into many of the other cultures you've mentioned at rates that far surpass the differential breeding figures.
media saturation and global communication have contributed to the viral spread of some memes and cultural icons
even cultures as historically insular as Japan are full of Coca-Cola, Elvis clones complete with pompadours, and Disney (although not nearly as prolific as Hello Kitty, Pokemon, or Anime characters, so the local imagination is still rolling its own heroes)
while HK/China cranks out huge volumes of martial arts reels, India's film industry actually produces more films/day, and is named Bollywood in response to the american idea-factory behemoth that dominates cinematic blockbuster standards in almost all other countries.
McDonalds in India, home of the sacred cow.
Gods Must Be Crazy and it's Coke bottle quests.
Chinese student protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989 built a statue modeling a western concept, the "Goddess of Democracy" struck the Statue of Liberty pose with flaming torch and flowing robes as a seemingly universal symbol of pro-democracy.
ask Nelson Mandela or Wei Jinsheng about the influence of Amnesty International's "candle behind the wire" letter writing campaign pushing for the release of political prisoners. neither South Africa's then hardline Apartheid government nor the PRC's old gaurd revolutionaries could have been considered "western culture", but the spread of those "western human rights" memes filtered through, at least in those limited cases
radically different birth rates in neighbouring populations with a history of political or religious or territorial conflict are a major issue in Ireland/Ulster, Israel/Palestine, perhaps some Balkan states, etc
cultural memes waft back the other way too... many a union rally sports a polish Solidarnosc banner, plenty of westerners follow the dalai lama, or do yoga, or practice tai chi, or worship other than judeo-christian flavours of deity, and traditional chinese medicine (herbology and accupuncture) are more common in western culture than ever before
now i'm not arguing that E.T., Rocky Balboa, John Wayne, James Bond or the Marlboro Man are more deserving of cultural survival than Tomte or Hanuman or Chow Yun Fatt or ...
just saying that genetic trait-transfer through heredity fails to account for the (more rapid) permeation of ideas that cross borders and entice new minds
Originally posted by shetline
I won't argue that industrialized cultures haven't gone around exploiting non-industrialized ones and causing lots of problems. But you make it sound like were starving people by exploiting their food away from them to fill our plates, which is hardly the case. The biggest causes of famine that I can think of these days are:
1) War and political disruption.
2) Too many people abandoning agriculture while trying to find a better living in large, squalid cities.
3) Just enough medical advancement to allow populations explode beyond old environmental limits.
There is no thing as "overcrowding" when 1/5 of the worlds population consume upwards of 70% of the worlds output.
Thanks for your honest response but you would have to be very naive to not know the underlying causes of the various wars. off the Back I can tell you that in say South Africa the leading cause of native poverty is Aparthied and the gross missapropriation of land by the Europeans in that country ( I refuse to call them Africans). Zimbabwe, Mugabe's poor leadership aside, is another great example of European duplicity in regional starvation. the Genocide in Rwanda and Burindi are direct results of European manipulation of that population that fostered and created a vicious ethnocentrism among a populatyion that had formerly lived quite peacably, if not equitably, prior to the involvement of Europe. Ethiopia also had to deal with the Italians and their bombing of that country that resulted in the famous speech made by Haille Selasi that wound up being Bob Marley's "War" song. I could go on at length, but the point should be self evident: Much of the wars in the world are created by purposeful manipulations of so called "third world" governments by Europe and America. Even if we allow for a modicum of self blame on the part of those exploited, it still does not fly that their wars are simply isolated incidences.
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Crowding and consumption are somewhat roughly related, but hardly the same thing. We're on the hairy edge of having enough arable land to feed everyone on the planet. No matter how you slice it, that's overcrowding the planet, regardless of the distribution of SUVs and DVD players -- things that make up a big part of the kind of consumption figures you're quoting.
----
we are not overcrowding the planet, the planet is being used in an inefficient manner largely by the industrial nations. It is a known fact that Americans have the largest "personal space" requirements in the world, folllowed closely by Europeans. Many other cultures do not ascribe to the need to grab up mass amounts of "personal" space in order to live. Nor do many other cultures consume anywhere near the amount of food that Americans regularly eat and, most importantly destroy on a regular basis. I'm sorry but your contention that the world is near capacity is not supported by the facts.
---
Your point? I doubt that you're suggesting turning every golf course and park into farm land until everyone's fed. In case you are, that's a fairly poor idea.
-----
see above
_____
Let's not get overly romantic about this. Most of that "symbiosis" you're talking about was achieved by death, disease, and scarcity keeping populations in check, not because non-European, non-technical cultures were full of extraordinarily wise, compassionate people living in a mystical, spiritual harmony with the land.
----
No fantasizng at all. I believe others here have already discussed the various customs of people as it regeards the killing of Animals. You'd be surprised at how little death by disease actually affected "traditional" societies. You were more likely to die from hard work. And on the issue with scarcity, one should recall that, in the case of West Africa, prior to European involvement, There were societies that were well planned out and people knew of growing seasons (of which much of Africa has 3). Anyone from a tropical place will tell you that there is no lack of opportunites to eat. Food grows on trees and bushes practically year round and there are plenty of animal protein sources. It is only when one needs to have Money to buy that which occurs naturally, that one faces "scarcity."
------
I can't think of a single culture that has ever said of itself, "Look how advanced we are! We decide to have these things called 'families'. It's a major step forward from... um, what was it that we use to do?"
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My original comment was sarcastic. The point being that some societies don't base their value on how "advanced" they are.
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Cultures that have not polluted the Earth have avoiding doing so simply because they haven't had the means to make the mess that industrial cultures have made. Inability to do something, however, is not the same thing as an enlightened choice against doing that something.
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That is absolutely not true. for example, the Chinese had what we now call gun powder, yet it's culture, it's worldview didn't allow for them to think" Hey, this would be a great way to kill people." Europeans did that. Similarly, it wasn't until the brutality of the European spread across Azania ( South Africa) that Shaka Zulu thought of changing the way that the Zulu's carried out warfare and changed into an imperial organization.
Sometimes, the culture of the people determine what they will or will not find as acceptible use of resources. That does not make them innately unable.
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this is the crux of the problem, even as we discuss terrorism. That one world view is neccessarily more "enlightened" than another due to some materialistic measuring stick.
There's a gross oversimplification of the problem of terrorism if ever I saw one.
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Agreed, I didn't take the time to flesh this out, But my contention that the issue of worldview is largely at the base of what we see as "terrorism." is a valid argument. Just not one I feel like going into at this moment and is most likely off topic anyway.
Originally posted by trumptman
Evolution says that those with the best reproductive output are the most fit.
...when there is a natural predator involved or reducive environmental phenomenon in effect, IMO. I think that is a crucial part missing from your statement. When there is no natural predator or environmental phenomenon, the evolution statement may be too simplified to be meaningful.
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By that measure we would Western Civilization would be very "unfit" since we are pretty much non-reproducing ourselves into oblivion.
This could also be explained whereby this could just be a natural "slow-down" phenomenon to limit population overgrowth, in the absence of natural predators and environmental barriers to hold a population in check. Perhaps, when a lower population limit is reached, another natural phenomenon might activate so as to stimulate reproductive output. I guess what I'm saying is that perhaps there is a natural self-regulation in effect here that we aren't even aware of?
...or in a perverse sense, maybe we just aren't having enough world wars such that people are actively encouraged to bear more children (or similarly, soldiers not leaving pregnant wives/mothers before they go off to war)?
My own anectdotal experience on the topic of reproductive output is such that I know quite a few "blue collar" or "poor level" people where 4-5 children is the norm (and prior to that generation, 6 children families were not unheard of). I even knew somebody who had 10 children!
(Gee, that's buggy. You can't put the number 18 followed by a closing parenthesis w/o invoking the cool icon.)
Here's a crazy idea- maybe the advent of populations that are under-reproductive and populations that are over-reproductive are essentially evolution at work. Evolution will keep trying until it finds the "right" population that happens to reproduce at just the right amount to fill a given area. The under-reproductive group will eventually fizzle out (essentially go extinct like so many other species that came before it), and the over-reproductive group will eventually annihilate itself in a melee of overcrowding, super-disease, and just plain disposition for self-destructivity.