Posted on 06/10/2006 6:43:49 PM PDT by RWR8189
I think urban civilization is very fragile. Take away the food in a city like LA for a week and it becomes a Snake Pliskin movie in a hurry.
ping
... civilization is a flimsy cloak, and just outside are hunger, thirst, and cold... waiting. Louis L'Amour
In order for nimble hunter/gatherers to survive climate change, most must die off periodically to maintain the balance. Farming prevented this kill off. We can return to be hunter/gatherers if we will accept high infant mortality, short life spans, and the loss of ten thousand years of accumulated knowledge.
An upcoming show with Sigourney Weaver returning to Africa to visit the Gorillas in the Mists should tell us alot about our curioisty.
And the deaths of about 5 billion+ people. Not a happy thought.
the only survivors in a hunter-gatherer culture were successful conservatives....(Ann Coulter,Ted Nugent types),
then the farming culture produced a need for sharing, spawning the fragile communist mindset of the leftist liberals....(Cindy Sheehan/Al Gore types)
so do the math .....which set of culture types is more likely to survive harsh circumstances
The most apparent contradiction is that if Fagan were correct, most human societies today would still be hunter-gatherer. But they are not.
The point the author doesn't notice is that 'hunter-gatherer' and 'farming' refers to societies, not individuals: a subsistence farmer in drought conditions may be more vulnerable than a given member of a hunter-gatherer society to drought, since the latter can just move without abandoning an expensive investment in cleared land, irrigation works, and livestock. But those investments mean the farming society recovers more quickly and (above all) is more powerful when fighting hunter-gatherers who can simply be swamped by greater numbers.
Frankly, nonsense.
Modern civilization is a robust and complex interconnected system with a wide variety of redundant and fault tolerant paths. When a natural disaster strikes, other regions can transport help, markets send price signals about scarcity and need.
We can use technologies that past societies would consider precognition to be able to predict the paths of storms, the onset of flooding, to watch lightning and tornados. We can predict and prepare and we have economic systems that insulate individuals, groups, and the rest of society from risks that become issues.
Billions of minds can collaborate, even without contact, solving problems like the development of vaccines, creation of chemicals to produce sanitation, development of light and strong materials to create structures that are resistant to heat, cold, shock and many other dangers.
We have withstood plagues, natural disasters and wars that would have been so massive as to be incomprehensible to past civilizations. Where the death of a key crop might have destroyed a more limited civilization, we simply substitute.
People like the author are afraid of interdependencies, but interdepedencies are what makes our civilization resilient. Imagine living in a small group of hundreds - what could you accomplish, how many problems could you solve? One thing is for sure - not even close to those we can solve in our exciting, complex, turbuklent society.
To hell with the doomsaers!
Sorry, not the author, but the article the author was citing was nonsense.
(sigh)
"In order for nimble hunter/gatherers to survive climate change, most must die off periodically to maintain the balance. Farming prevented this kill off. We can return to be hunter/gatherers if we will accept high infant mortality, short life spans, and the loss of ten thousand years of accumulated knowledge."
True. Along the same lines. We have these great immune systems. Where did they come from? From natural selection, which is to say, massive and continual death. What effect do you think modern medicine is having on our immune systems? They will quickly atrophy, like any system not needed.
I am a UCSB grad and have had to put up with Fagan and his ilk for a long time. Bollocks! Diversity and redundancy of sources (food, water, etc.) make the modern world robust, not fragile.
I would point out that hunters/gatherers are much more dependent on weather than farmers. Hunters/gathers do not have the ability to store food against tomorrow. Farmers do it all the time. That food storage makes farming superior.
Consider a city in a third world hell hole. One rotten local government guy, and the city would be destroyed. Look at Zimbabwe, as a particular example.
How many disasters would have to occur to have a city in the US fall to that level. Even New Orleans, after a disasterously corrupt state government for over 50 years, after a disasterously corrupt city government for 50 years, even when it is 30 feet below sea level, and then taking a hurricane:
New Orleans is still there!
US cities are like government programs: they hardly ever die.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Don't forget modern firearms which encourage even those without ethics to at least act like they have them.
"Blunderbuss: A short weapon with a wide mouth or bell, capable of discharging multiple balls or slugs, now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.:
Oxford English Dictionary, 1932.
WE'RE DOOMED!
Just finished reading "Collapse" by Jared Diamond...I find this type of history fascinating...thanks for the post.
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