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#1
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
Billy wrote: uhoh, quoting is messed up below... ... Similar contrasts in nutrition and health persist on a global scale today. To people in rich countries like the U.S., it sounds ridiculous to extol the virtues of hunting and gathering. But Americans are an elite, dependent on oil and minerals that must often be imported from countries with poorer health and nutrition. If one could choose between being a peasant farmer in Ethiopia or a Bushman gatherer in the Kalahari, which do you think would be the better choice? (Search for it on the web: mistake_jared_diamond.pdf) well, i'll say i don't agree with many of his assumptions and so that won't lead me to much harmony with his conclusions. Wouldn't want to amplify on that would you? You disagree with what assumptions? that agriculture was the cause of class divisions. that he's making valid comparisons between cultures on the whole. that he's doing much other than picking what suits the conclusions he's already made. There are at least three sets of reasons to explain the findings that agriculture was bad for health. First, hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, a prime example of my point. there are many hunter-gatherer societies that do not live off a varied diet. Humor me with an example. pick any of the far northern tribes. i'm not sure what the names are now, but they used to be called Inuit or Athapaskans or something like that. fairly limited diet for large parts of the year. also they are small people (like the many rain forest tribes of Africa and South America). American Plains Indians would follow the buffalo , or what ever from place to place. They were working an environment that they knew. most of their food came from the buffalo. that society was not long running, as the last ice-age was only recently gone. while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. plenty of hunter-gatherers were/are in the same situation. Again, humor me. I'm not seeing it. the native groups of the eastern US used cattail, acorns, corn and wild rice as their major starches. that's about it, four isn't a great variety. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition. (Today just three high-carbohydrate plants--wheat, rice, and corn--provide the bulk of the calories consumed by the human species, yet each one is deficient in certain vitamins or amino acids essential to life.) reads like begging the question to me. It's almost inconceivable that Bushmen, who eat seventy-five or so wild plants, could die of starvation the way hundreds of thousands of Irish farmers and their families did during the potato famine of the 1840s. you won't have hundreds of thousands of bushmen in the same area to have that kind of problem, but i would be very surprised if there were not various events which caused starvation in bushmen too. i think you understand that many who starved during the potato famine starved because of political reasons. the Irish were still shipping food to England even as their own people were starving. Second, because of dependence on a limited number of crops, farmers ran the risk of starvation if one crop failed. if you were an idiot farmer then yeah. there were likely idiot hunter-gatherers who starved too. �he Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine�. yep in that case and in many many other cases too, it's often politics or wars which cause a lot of starvation. You don't have to be an idiot to starve, but we can talk more about corporations later. Finally, the mere fact that agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, the mere fact is that it is likely that there were people clumping together for reasons other than agriculture long before agriculture came along. Perhaps, my understanding is that groups of hunter/gatherers were rather clanish, and not looking for recruits. When groups got too large, they would divide ans separate. I'd probably have to do some digging thought to come up with supporting references though. Unless you'd be willing to accept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter- gatherer#Social_and_economic_structure Hunter-gatherer societies also tend to have relatively non-hierarchical, egalitarian social structures. This might have been more pronounced in the more mobile societies. According to archaeologists, violence in hunter-gatherer societies was ubiquitous. Approximately 25% to 30% of adult male deaths in these societies were due to homicide, compared to an upper estimate of 3% of all deaths in the 20th century. The cause of this is near constant tribal warfa "From the !Kung in the Kalahari to the Inuit in the Arctic and the aborigines in Australia, two-thirds of modern hunter- gatherers are in a state of almost constant tribal warfare, and nearly 90% go to war at least once a year." [16] does that sound like a great way to live? i think not... but that was a part of how they controlled their populations to keep within the bounds of what that land could support (in addition to infanticide and elder-suicide). Full-time leaders, bureaucrats, or artisans are rarely supported by these societies.[17][18][19] In addition to social and economic equality in hunter-gatherer societies there is often, though not always, sexual parity as well.[17][20] Hunter-gatherers are often grouped together based on kinship and band (or tribe) membership.[20] i think most have some kind of respected elder or shaman role which is held apart. many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infectious disease. (Some archaeologists think it was crowding, rather than agriculture, that promoted disease, but this is a chicken-and-egg argument, the whole thing is a chicken-and-egg argument... because crowding encourages agriculture and vice versa.) Epidemics couldn't take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly shifted camp. Tuberculosis and diarrheal disease had to await the rise of farming, measles and bubonic plague the appearance of large cities. Besides malnutrition, starvation, and epidemic diseases, farming helped bring another curse upon humanity: deep class divisions. this is the point in dispute isn't it? i claim that class divisions existed in groups long before agriculture. Hunter- gatherers have little or no stored food, and no concentrated food sources, like an orchard or a herd of cows: they live off the wild plants and animals they obtain each day. this is a very limited view of hunter-gathering societies, which happens to ignore some groups which do store food (because they live places where it stays cold enough to freeze meat) or the herders who have large stores of food on the hoof. it also ignores the many groups which lived in northern climates which required them to have food stores for the winter or they'd die. so clearly there is a bias in his writings, observations and comments which exclude peoples who clearly survived just fine for thousands of years without agriculture who also had class divisions in their groups. Sedentary hunter/gatherers? I'll need to think about that for awhile. I've never heard of such a thing. the far north coastal tribes, gather from the sea, they cannot wander in the extreme cold. Therefore, there can be no kings, no class of social parasites who grow fat on food seized from others. Only in a farming population could a healthy, nonproducing elite set itself above the disease-ridden masses. Skeletons from Greek tombs at Mycenae c.1500 B.C. suggest that royals enjoyed a better diet than commoners, since the royal skeletons were two or three inches taller and had better teeth (on average, one instead of six cavities or missing teeth). Among Chilean mummies from c. A.D. 1000, the elite were distinguished not only by ornaments and gold hair clips but also by a fourfold lower rate of bone lesions caused by disease. perhaps to be an elite you had to be healthier to begin with? perhaps there are other reasons for the elite being healthier? like they had personal servants who kept things clean? that could make a difference in disease rates apart from nutrition... Being an "elite" was based on a physical??! no, being an elite means you may have been bigger to start with. much as in today's society there is an elite based upon looks or how tall someone is. In any event, things were kept clean by the hunter/gatherers moving away from all their manure, and garbage, and going over the next hill, or across a valley where there was fresh, clean land. surely that's a big help if you don't know how to compost or are too lazy to bury your wastes. i don't find his arguments well thought out and too much of the conclusion is biased by his preconceptions. "One straightforward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunter-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5'9" for men, 5'5" for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B.C. had reached a low of 5'3" for men ,5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors. again this could be some other aspect happening. not that i'm sure it is, but it could be. selection for taller or shorter people is possible and is independent of nutrition to some degree (not completely, but possible, after all those herders in Africa are tall (so they can see their cattle and see predators? i'm not sure why actually, but they do seem to select for tall), but they also live on a fairly restricted diet (meat, milk, blood being their major foods)). Another example of paleopathology at work is the study of Indian skeletons from burial mounds in the lllinois and Ohio river valleys. At Dickson Mounds, located near the confluence of the Spoon and lllinois rivers, archaeologists have excavated some 800 skeletons that paint a picture of the health changes that occurred when a hunter-gatherer culture gave way to intensive maize farming around A.D. 1150. Studies by George Armelagos and his colleagues then at the University of Massachusetts show these early farmers paid a price for their new-found livelihood. Compared to the hunter- gatherers who preceded them, the farmers had a nearly fifty percent increase in enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, a fourfold increase in iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced by a bone condition called porotic hyperostosis), a threefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease in general, and an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, probably reflecting a lot of hard physical labor. "Life expectancy at birth in the preagricultural community was about twenty-six years," says Armelagos, "but in the postagricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress and infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive." ah now we've finally gotten a long enough study of one society to see it happen. ok, yay! one society is not the whole of the world. the Tikopians and the Amazonians practiced agriculture and seemed to be healthy for long periods of time (thousands of years in both cases). what you really are coming up with is the case that poorly done agriculture is bad for the health of certain peoples. which is not a blanket condemnation that they seem to be trying to come up with. one counter-example is good enough to disprove the universal claim. right now, we have a very broad variety in many different agricultural societies. this is currently being supported by fossil fuels so diversity in local crops isn't as quite a problem as it could be. as oil gets more expensive more and more people will raise local crops for diversity because they'll be forced to. otherwise they'll be subject to the malnutrition that you are speaking of. this is the difference between modern times and times past. more people know better. ----- Would you settle for his post conceptions? If you read the archiological record, I don't know what other conclusion you could come to. Hunter/gatherer: healthy Farmer: malnourshied, and sick. the archaeological record is biased too. only some societies practiced burials in places that could be found later. the more stable the society the more likely they did this. which means that the more stable societies have an archaeological record, maybe even a fairly complete one, but they are trying to compare that society against a hunter-gatherer bone record which may not be even close to being complete. they are missing the ones who died in infancy and were discared or the elderly who went off to die alone if that was the accepted way. i accept that some societies are healthier than others, but that's about it. clearly (at least to me ) not in all cases is the health of the people determined alone if they practiced agriculture or not. If we consider a twenty-four hour clock on which one hour represents 100,000 years of real past time. It the history of the human race began at midnight, then we would now be almost at the end of our first day. We lived as hunter-gatherers for nearly the whole of that day,from midnight through dawn, noon, and sunset. Finally, at 11:54 p.m., we adopted agriculture. As our second midnight approaches, will the plight of famine-stricken peasants gradually spread to engulf us all? Or will we somehow achieve those seductive blessings that we imagine behind agriculture's glittering facade and that have so far eluded us? i'd suggest finding a better approach, but shoddy thinking isn't too likely going to help much at all. I think it's called putting things into perspective. i think putting 20-30% deaths by murder into perspective is a pretty good counter-point. ... i did, i don't agree with too many of his assumptions. What, that a division between the people who did the actual work, and the planners didn't lead to a stratification of society? i'll repeat myself. all groups stratify. period. full stop. end of statement. Deference to an individual, because of their hunting kills isn't stratification isn't social stratification. When one individual benefits all, and I mean ALL, there will be deference, just as there will be for the best stone chipper, healer, singer, or painter, but that isn't social stratification. what is it then? i think it is the basis for stratification. that is how craft-guilds get started, how priesthoods get started, because the specialised knowledge starts getting complicated enough that it requires years of study to get it right, which means if the society values those practices it has to support the setting of some people apart and come up with a way of feeding them and protecting them. and that then pushes agricultural practices along too. it is a transformation that happens all together and is not "the result of agriculture". And your example of that in a hunter/gatherer group would be . . . ? strong and smart person is likely at the top of the heap. most likely that person will even be more on top if they are considered good looking or have charisma, if they have many children or many wives or husbands. children, elders, injured, chronically sick, mothers, fathers, those who know the plants and animals well. there are many different types of layering going on, one person may be at the bottom of the heap in one aspect but near the top in another. So it isn't stratification. last i knew stratified is just another word for layered. It used to be, if you didn't like your neighbors, or the local strong man, you walked away. The food was there for the taking anyway. i think that's not very likely. families stick together even in the face of some rather rotten behaviors and situations. many many stories of police getting called into a domestic dispute to help break it up only to find that both parties start in on the police officer. there's a good reason why police hate domestic trouble calls... function of the species/brain. we group, divide up, regroup, etc. constantly. even the most rigid of the religious societies fragment and divide once the charismatic leader dies or something happens which sets enough people off into another direction. it's just what we do. any group of people of more than one person has a class system, rankings, etc. they may be unspoken and there are likely many different ones in operation. The word civilization comes from the Latin civitas, meaning city or city-state. You saw his argument on hunter/gatherers superior health? and i don't agree, he's sweeping a lot of things under the rug. Such as? all the stuff i wrote above. That's a bit dodgy to say, but if you'll just respond to what I've responded, we can get on with it. i have done that. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086...29546060_email _1p_1_ti Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization The evolutionary road is littered with failed experiments, however, and Manning suggests that agriculture as we have practiced it runs against both our grain and nature's. Drawing on the work of anthropologists, biologists, archaeologists, and philosophers, along with his own travels, he argues that not only our ecological ills-overpopulation, erosion, pollution-but our social and emotional malaise are rooted in the devil's bargain we made in our not-so-distant past. And he offers personal, achievable ways we might re-contour the path we have taken to resurrect what is most sustainable and sustaining in our own nature and the planet's. ----- I know it doesn't prove anything, but at least I, and Jarod Diamond, aren't alone in this belief. I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. alas, i'm getting into planting season, and my health is better than any hunter-gatherer. especially if you consider i'd have never lived past a day in a society that didn't have some form of medical science and an incubator. i'm still rather fond of the much less than 20-30% murder rate too, but perhaps that is only a temporary lull in the mayhem of human existance. if the future goes wild and crazy we might get back to mass starvations and high rates of murder as the planet answers the question of over-population and abuse of resources. i certainly hope for better, i don't think a return to hunting-gathering is likely for a vast number of people. a subset might be able to do it as urban hunter-gatherers or those who can be rich enough to afford enough land and have some way of protecting it from intruders or governmental confiscation. the next real hunter- gatherer societies are likely to be either those of the post-apocalyptic or on another planet. if that other planet is one we've had to engineer then it's pretty likely we've also had a good shot at doing good work here on this planet too. at least i try to remain optimistic about either of those cases. the world can heal itself given time. we see this in the geological record after huge events. so, yeah, i am optimistic, the world will continue, the question is with or without us? songbird |
#2
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086...29546060_email _1p_1_ti Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization The evolutionary road is littered with failed experiments, however, and Manning suggests that agriculture as we have practiced it runs against both our grain and nature's. Drawing on the work of anthropologists, biologists, archaeologists, and philosophers, along with his own travels, he argues that not only our ecological ills-overpopulation, erosion, pollution-but our social and emotional malaise are rooted in the devil's bargain we made in our not-so-distant past. And he offers personal, achievable ways we might re-contour the path we have taken to resurrect what is most sustainable and sustaining in our own nature and the planet's. ----- I know it doesn't prove anything, but at least I, and Jarod Diamond, aren't alone in this belief. I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. I'm doomed. I'm 10 pages into it, and it is an effortless read. The worst thing about it is the number of books the he mentions as asides. They fall like feathers in molting season. If you liked "Omnivore", then you'll love Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368389425&sr=1-1&keywords=Aga inst+the+grain+%3A+how+agriculture+has+hijacked+ci vilization+%2F+Richard+ Manning From Booklist A growing body of somewhat controversial scholarship ties the beginnings of war to the "culture of scarcity" that emerged with the invention, sometime in the Neolithic era and probably in the eastern Mediterranean, of agriculture. Before that, these theorists contend, humans lived as hunter-gatherers who were, far from the common vision of the half-starved caveman, quite comfortable and well-fed, because their diet was both varied and seasonal. The investment of time and energy to grow a few crops led, paradoxically, to both great excess and horrific want; when the crops failed, famine followed among people whose population had swelled beyond the small tribes of the earlier peoples. These theories are regularly bruited about at academic meetings, but rarely are they the subject of popular writing (Daniel Quinn's 1992 novel Ishmael constitutes an exception). Manning brings theory to life with well-crafted essays that cover such diverse subjects as the Irish potato famine and the controversy over bioengineered plants. Readable and well-researched, this book unsettles as it informs. ====== I have a sinking feeling. Tomatoland : how modern industrial agriculture destroyed our most alluring fruit http://www.amazon.com/Tomatoland-Ind...stroyed-Alluri ng/dp/1449423450/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=136839 0807&s r=1-1&keywords=Tomatoland+%3A+how+modern+industrial+ag riculture+destroyed +our+most+alluring+fruit Looks like it is good too :O( The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food by Kaayla T. Daniel http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Soy-Stor.../0967089751/re f=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368391029&sr=1-1&keywords=The+whole+soy+sto ry+%3A+the+dark+side+of+America%27s+favorite+healt h+food+%2F+Kaayla+T.+Da niel. Too early to tell. The writing seems a little pedantic to my taste, but all the elements for a good, corporate conspiracy are here. I think I'm running out of bookmarks. -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#3
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: .... I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. I'm doomed. I'm 10 pages into it, and it is an effortless read. The worst thing about it is the number of books the he mentions as asides. They fall like feathers in molting season. haha. what year was it published? i'll put it on the list. Tomatoland is already on it. i think you'll enjoy _Debt_, the first 5,000 years by Graeber. If you liked "Omnivore", then you'll love Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization i'll add it to the list too. .... The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food by Kaayla T. Daniel http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Soy-Stor.../0967089751/re f=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368391029&sr=1-1&keywords=The+whole+soy+sto ry+%3A+the+dark+side+of+America%27s+favorite+healt h+food+%2F+Kaayla+T.+Da niel. Too early to tell. The writing seems a little pedantic to my taste, but all the elements for a good, corporate conspiracy are here. I think I'm running out of bookmarks. songbird |
#4
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. I'm doomed. I'm 10 pages into it, and it is an effortless read. The worst thing about it is the number of books the he mentions as asides. They fall like feathers in molting season. haha. what year was it published? North Point Press, 2004., according to the library. North Point Press; 1st edition (January 13, 2005) according to Amazon. i'll put it on the list. Tomatoland is already on it. i think you'll enjoy _Debt_, the first 5,000 years by Graeber. 534 pages, huh? I'll get you for this, bird. Maybe I could interest you in "Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment by David Kirby http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Factory...vironment/dp/B 004IK9EJQ/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1368423484&sr=1-1 It practically reads itself,honest, and is only 512 pages. or The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine...lism/dp/031242 7999/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368423694&sr=1-1&keywords=Shock+Doct rine Who knew Milton Friedman sold Neo-liberal economics to Russia, China, and the Chilean dictator, Pinochet? If you liked "Omnivore", then you'll love Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization i'll add it to the list too. ... The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food by Kaayla T. Daniel http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Soy-Stor.../0967089751/re f=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368391029&sr=1-1&keywords=The+whole+soy+sto ry+%3A+the+dark+side+of+America%27s+favorite+healt h+food+%2F+Kaayla+T.+Da niel. Too early to tell. The writing seems a little pedantic to my taste, but all the elements for a good, corporate conspiracy are here. I think I'm running out of bookmarks. songbird and I still have a pound or 2 of " A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present", by Howard Zinn to read. Oy. -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#5
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. I'm doomed. I'm 10 pages into it, and it is an effortless read. The worst thing about it is the number of books the he mentions as asides. They fall like feathers in molting season. haha. what year was it published? North Point Press, 2004., according to the library. North Point Press; 1st edition (January 13, 2005) according to Amazon. i'll put it on the list. Tomatoland is already on it. i think you'll enjoy _Debt_, the first 5,000 years by Graeber. 534 pages, huh? I'll get you for this, bird. it is another interesting read, i think he has a pretty good grasp of the topic. Maybe I could interest you in "Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment by David Kirby http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Factory...vironment/dp/B 004IK9EJQ/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1368423484&sr=1-1 It practically reads itself,honest, and is only 512 pages. harhar! it sounds too much like books i've already read (how much different from _The Omnivores Dilemma_ is it?) or The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine...lism/dp/031242 7999/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368423694&sr=1-1&keywords=Shock+Doct rine Who knew Milton Friedman sold Neo-liberal economics to Russia, China, and the Chilean dictator, Pinochet? any history of the WMF could make almost anyone weep. .... and I still have a pound or 2 of " A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present", by Howard Zinn to read. Oy. still on my list for next winter... i think i'll put tomatoland on that winter list too as i would like to keep going on the permaculture references for a bit yet. much better to have enough to read than be stuck watching tv. i keep the podcast list topped up too when i get times to listen. i have two rainy days forecast... almost done with the first permaculture book by Mollison and then will get to one other of his books that i have on the pile. songbird |
#6
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: Billy wrote: uhoh, quoting is messed up below... The Gordian Knot solution snip I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. alas, i'm getting into planting season, and my health is better than any hunter-gatherer. especially if you consider i'd have never lived past a day in a society that didn't have some form of medical science and an incubator. i'm still rather fond of the much less than 20-30% murder rate too, but perhaps that is only a temporary lull in the mayhem of human existance. if the future goes wild and crazy we might get back to mass starvations and high rates of murder as the planet answers the question of over-population and abuse of resources. Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i certainly hope for better, i don't think a return to hunting-gathering is likely for a vast number of people. a subset might be able to do it as urban hunter-gatherers or those who can be rich enough to afford enough land and have some way of protecting it from intruders or governmental confiscation. the next real hunter- gatherer societies are likely to be either those of the post-apocalyptic or on another planet. if that other planet is one we've had to engineer then it's pretty likely we've also had a good shot at doing good work here on this planet too. at least i try to remain optimistic about either of those cases. the world can heal itself given time. we see this in the geological record after huge events. so, yeah, i am optimistic, the world will continue, the question is with or without us? songbird Planted a dozen Yellow Banana Peppers yesterday. Instead of prepping in my normal fashion, I've taken to poking a hole in the soil, and then putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#7
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: Billy wrote: uhoh, quoting is messed up below... The Gordian Knot solution snip I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. alas, i'm getting into planting season, and my health is better than any hunter-gatherer. especially if you consider i'd have never lived past a day in a society that didn't have some form of medical science and an incubator. i'm still rather fond of the much less than 20-30% murder rate too, but perhaps that is only a temporary lull in the mayhem of human existance. if the future goes wild and crazy we might get back to mass starvations and high rates of murder as the planet answers the question of over-population and abuse of resources. Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). i finished it two nights ago. quick read. i'm not really sure what i think of it. as it is a bit dated and the enemy of popularity has turned from big-ag processor ADM to ag-chem-seed producer Monsanto. If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. i think the current world is making up for it in some ways, but the question is if it is sustainable, and it doesn't look like it is as most are currently practicing... i certainly hope for better, i don't think a return to hunting-gathering is likely for a vast number of people. a subset might be able to do it as urban hunter-gatherers or those who can be rich enough to afford enough land and have some way of protecting it from intruders or governmental confiscation. the next real hunter- gatherer societies are likely to be either those of the post-apocalyptic or on another planet. if that other planet is one we've had to engineer then it's pretty likely we've also had a good shot at doing good work here on this planet too. at least i try to remain optimistic about either of those cases. the world can heal itself given time. we see this in the geological record after huge events. so, yeah, i am optimistic, the world will continue, the question is with or without us? Planted a dozen Yellow Banana Peppers yesterday. Instead of prepping in my normal fashion, I've taken to poking a hole in the soil, and then putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. i was a bit worried by the lack of bees on the blooming honeysuckle for a few days, but they were out in force today. *whew!* we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers within the next few weeks and i'll be finding more spots for beans, beets and peas, cucumbers, squash, strawberries are blooming and the rhubarb is coming along well as are the peas and onions already planted and the beets sprouted days before i expected to see them. the challenge is keeping the melon seeds from sprouting and pushing up so much that they are pushing all the beets out of the ground. i guess that is one way to thin them... rain due this week. we'll appreciate it. the killdeer are still sitting on their eggs. busy day today. i'm due for a bit of a snooze. songbird |
#8
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: Billy wrote: uhoh, quoting is messed up below... The Gordian Knot solution snip I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. alas, i'm getting into planting season, and my health is better than any hunter-gatherer. especially if you consider i'd have never lived past a day in a society that didn't have some form of medical science and an incubator. i'm still rather fond of the much less than 20-30% murder rate too, but perhaps that is only a temporary lull in the mayhem of human existance. if the future goes wild and crazy we might get back to mass starvations and high rates of murder as the planet answers the question of over-population and abuse of resources. Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). i finished it two nights ago. quick read. i'm not really sure what i think of it. as it is a bit dated and the enemy of popularity has turned from big-ag processor ADM to ag-chem-seed producer Monsanto. If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. Famines every 10 years don't auger well for agriculturalists. It's way past time to start humanities return to sustainable environmental practices. It's probably an impossible dream with greed intrenched in government. Civil disobedience, thats not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. Thats our problem. -Howard Zinn Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. -John Maynard Keynes i think the current world is making up for it in some ways, but the question is if it is sustainable, and it doesn't look like it is as most are currently practicing... When the "free market" reigns, corporations will own the seeds for our food, the rights to the our water, and charge us rent for the clothes on our backs. Of course the problem may be moot if Global Warming gets away from us, or we meet another Chicxulub asteroid. i certainly hope for better, i don't think a return to hunting-gathering is likely for a vast number of people. a subset might be able to do it as urban hunter-gatherers or those who can be rich enough to afford enough land and have some way of protecting it from intruders or governmental confiscation. the next real hunter- gatherer societies are likely to be either those of the post-apocalyptic or on another planet. if that other planet is one we've had to engineer then it's pretty likely we've also had a good shot at doing good work here on this planet too. at least i try to remain optimistic about either of those cases. the world can heal itself given time. we see this in the geological record after huge events. so, yeah, i am optimistic, the world will continue, the question is with or without us? Planted a dozen Yellow Banana Peppers yesterday. Instead of prepping in my normal fashion, I've taken to poking a hole in the soil, and then putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. Ah, to be young again. i was a bit worried by the lack of bees on the blooming honeysuckle for a few days, but they were out in force today. *whew!* we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers within the next few weeks and i'll be finding more spots for beans, beets and peas, cucumbers, squash, strawberries are blooming and the rhubarb is coming along well as are the peas and onions already planted and the beets sprouted days before i expected to see them. the challenge is keeping the melon seeds from sprouting and pushing up so much that they are pushing all the beets out of the ground. i guess that is one way to thin them... rain due this week. we'll appreciate it. the killdeer are still sitting on their eggs. busy day today. i'm due for a bit of a snooze. songbird We had unexpected, but much needed company yesterday. Back to planting today. -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#9
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: .... Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). i finished it two nights ago. quick read. i'm not really sure what i think of it. as it is a bit dated and the enemy of popularity has turned from big-ag processor ADM to ag-chem-seed producer Monsanto. If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. Famines every 10 years don't auger well for agriculturalists. It's way past time to start humanities return to sustainable environmental practices. It's probably an impossible dream with greed intrenched in government. wait until you get to the part where he talks about China and famines (p. 71). Civil disobedience, thats not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. Thats our problem. -Howard Zinn well yes. we have a lot of people in jail on very minor things (non-violent offenders). Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. -John Maynard Keynes the alternatives are demonstratably worse as already seen. socialistic adaptations to capitalism are fine to protect the elderly and the poor, but subsidies are destructive in the long haul because they distort the market signals. of course, i've already stated before what i think of taxation for pollution and making sure there is recycling and many other things. i sure know that communism isn't functional. works ok at a small scale, breaks down quickly once the group gets larger. i think the current world is making up for it in some ways, but the question is if it is sustainable, and it doesn't look like it is as most are currently practicing... When the "free market" reigns, corporations will own the seeds for our food, the rights to the our water, and charge us rent for the clothes on our backs. Of course the problem may be moot if Global Warming gets away from us, or we meet another Chicxulub asteroid. they don't own my seeds and i'll gladly share. putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. Ah, to be young again. today is a day of r-n-r. very humid and in the 80s. if i didn't need to get areas above flood stage i wouldn't be digging quite as much and having free fill to put underneath is a big help too. i could not justify spending money i don't have for 20 yards of topsoil, but i do have time and can use the exercise. my back hasn't felt this good for many years. thanks to chiropractor and being careful the past year and listening to what my body is telling me. we're trying to walk each day before gardening. so when the day is done i'm done too. i was a bit worried by the lack of bees on the blooming honeysuckle for a few days, but they were out in force today. *whew!* we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers within the next few weeks and i'll be finding more spots for beans, beets and peas, cucumbers, squash, strawberries are blooming and the rhubarb is coming along well as are the peas and onions already planted and the beets sprouted days before i expected to see them. the challenge is keeping the melon seeds from sprouting and pushing up so much that they are pushing all the beets out of the ground. i guess that is one way to thin them... rain due this week. we'll appreciate it. the killdeer are still sitting on their eggs. busy day today. i'm due for a bit of a snooze. We had unexpected, but much needed company yesterday. Back to planting today. good luck to you and your sprouts. songbird |
#10
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). i finished it two nights ago. quick read. i'm not really sure what i think of it. as it is a bit dated and the enemy of popularity has turned from big-ag processor ADM to ag-chem-seed producer Monsanto. If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. Famines every 10 years don't auger well for agriculturalists. It's way past time to start humanities return to sustainable environmental practices. It's probably an impossible dream with greed intrenched in government. wait until you get to the part where he talks about China and famines (p. 71). ??????? It's the same deal, famines every 10 years. Civil disobedience, thats not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. Thats our problem. -Howard Zinn well yes. we have a lot of people in jail on very minor things (non-violent offenders). What we have is more people in jail (percentage wise) than any other country in the world, 1%. Most of these people are people of color, because the law is applied disproportionately. This is the new Jim Crow, just in time for the Prison Industrial Complex. The term prisonindustrial complex (PIC) is used to attribute the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. The term is borrowed from the militaryindustrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in his famous 1961 farewell address. Such groups include corporations that contract prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. Activists have argued that the Prison-Industrial Complex as perpetuating a belief that imprisonment is a quick yet ultimately flawed solution to social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex More specifically see "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander and Cornel West. http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-I...dness/dp/15955 86431/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369114986&sr=1-1&keywords=The+New+J im+Crow Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. -John Maynard Keynes the alternatives are demonstratably worse as already seen. socialistic adaptations to capitalism are fine to protect the elderly and the poor, but subsidies are destructive in the long haul because they distort the market signals. of course, i've already stated before what i think of taxation for pollution and making sure there is recycling and many other things. i sure know that communism isn't functional. works ok at a small scale, breaks down quickly once the group gets larger. Who would know, it has never been tried. The U.S.S.R. was an oligarchy, as is the capitalistic U.S. of A. The Delaration of Independance says "We the People". It doesn't say I, me, mine. We are all in this together to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. Nothing in the Constitution says anything about banks making money at the tax payer expense. i think the current world is making up for it in some ways, but the question is if it is sustainable, and it doesn't look like it is as most are currently practicing... When the "free market" reigns, corporations will own the seeds for our food, the rights to the our water, and charge us rent for the clothes on our backs. Of course the problem may be moot if Global Warming gets away from us, or we meet another Chicxulub asteroid. they don't own my seeds and i'll gladly share. The natural, free seeds are becoming fewer, and fewer. As much as I like open pollinated seeds, I know that hybridized squash has less of a problem with mildew. Hybridized means that it is owned by somebody. Usually that somebody is Monsanto. putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. Ah, to be young again. today is a day of r-n-r. very humid and in the 80s. Mid 70s to mid 80s here for te last few weeks and the seedlings are jumpin' if i didn't need to get areas above flood stage i wouldn't be digging quite as much and having free fill to put underneath is a big help too. i could not justify spending money i don't have for 20 yards of topsoil, but i do have time and can use the exercise. my back hasn't felt this good for many years. thanks to chiropractor and being careful the past year and listening to what my body is telling me. we're trying to walk each day before gardening. so when the day is done i'm done too. I hope you make it to 60 without any chronic illnesses, otherwise it can be a real pile of shit. Good luck. i was a bit worried by the lack of bees on the blooming honeysuckle for a few days, but they were out in force today. *whew!* we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers within the next few weeks and i'll be finding more spots for beans, beets and peas, cucumbers, squash, strawberries are blooming and the rhubarb is coming along well as are the peas and onions already planted and the beets sprouted days before i expected to see them. the challenge is keeping the melon seeds from sprouting and pushing up so much that they are pushing all the beets out of the ground. i guess that is one way to thin them... rain due this week. we'll appreciate it. the killdeer are still sitting on their eggs. busy day today. i'm due for a bit of a snooze. We had unexpected, but much needed company yesterday. Back to planting today. good luck to you and your sprouts. Peppers (28) are in. Now it's on to the squash, sunflowers, and more lettuce. Then it will be beets, onions, and the misc. The seeds for the green beans must have been too old. I'll have to try again. songbird -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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