'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
Try out some Alan Weisman - https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Us ... 212&sr=8-1
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jacob
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Pr ... 0786715472 ... in the same vein but more about civilization than precivilization.
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2Birds1Stone
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
Picked up Ishmael from the library this afternoon, already 150 pages in......impressed so far.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
For the extreme environmentalism or anti-civ perspective:
https://www.amazon.com/Language-Older-T ... 931498555/ changed me profoundly and probably lead me here.
I think INFJ-leaning folks (like me) can particularly appreciate it.
https://www.amazon.com/Language-Older-T ... 931498555/ changed me profoundly and probably lead me here.
I think INFJ-leaning folks (like me) can particularly appreciate it.
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2Birds1Stone
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
Finished Ishmael yesterday and had my library order Beyond Civilization from a different branch. Looking forward to the read after really enjoying Ishmael.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
I read the trilogy 5 years ago and couldn't stop talking about it to anyone who would listen. The argument was paradigm shifting for me.
I presented some of his arguments in a thread here around that time and received a lot of push back which discouraged me from posting about it more.
ETA: It was on the global population thread. Much of the criticisms are understandable as his recommendations don't seem practical from an individual human standpoint in 2019. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5416
I presented some of his arguments in a thread here around that time and received a lot of push back which discouraged me from posting about it more.
ETA: It was on the global population thread. Much of the criticisms are understandable as his recommendations don't seem practical from an individual human standpoint in 2019. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5416
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jennypenny
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
A lot more research has been done in population dynamics in the last 30 years and even in non-human populations it's not as simple as the early models suggested. That said, given that humans are somewhere on the spectrum between r and K, I think the territoriality typically associated with K has more influence on human reproduction than food supplies. IOW, the reality or perception of having a good deal of available secured space is correlated to higher birth rates.
Thus, the relatively low level of reproduction exhibited on this forum can be seen as cost of expression of territoriality over time. IOW, in modern society, the acquisition of capital within a structure that offers reasonable assurance of property rights, is like being a cob securing boundaries of pond from larger flock of geese over course of entire lifetime prior to investing energy in reproduction. Whereas, some other members of the human species might only go so far as to obtain the relative insecure boundary of the backseat of a car parked under broken street light.
Thus, the relatively low level of reproduction exhibited on this forum can be seen as cost of expression of territoriality over time. IOW, in modern society, the acquisition of capital within a structure that offers reasonable assurance of property rights, is like being a cob securing boundaries of pond from larger flock of geese over course of entire lifetime prior to investing energy in reproduction. Whereas, some other members of the human species might only go so far as to obtain the relative insecure boundary of the backseat of a car parked under broken street light.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
Thank you, Jenny! That means a lot coming from you
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
@theanimal:
I read the thread you linked to, very interesting. I was surprised at the pushback, given how familiar everyone seems to be with the book.
I also thought Quinn's idea was misunderstood in that thread.
This is how I understand his food argument: If you increase any animal population's food supply, its numbers always will increase to the constraint allowed by the food supply. The inverse is also true. Humans are animals. If you increase the human populations food supply their numbers will always increase with that food supply.
It's possible to make all kinds of arguments about trade or demographics, but they don't refute this relatively simple thesis.
This thesis is (1) a pain, because it's not very actionable (except maybe, once you think about it really hard, ERE) and (2) dangerous, because it seems to imply that we should stop giving aid to foreign countries and let everyone starve. His statement doesn't say that, nor does he encourage this anywhere else in the book (he also doesn't discourage it).
What I believe he's trying to say is that we are unlikely to solve problems created by more people with more food.
I think his greater point is that we strayed from the way of life that sustained humans for hundreds of thousands of years and lead to relatively stable populations. We traded this way of life for a more reliable food source and there have been a slow build up of consequences from that over the past 10,000 years. There are 10,000 other factors, but with animals, following the food is usually not a bad place to start. I had never thought about our problems from this frame and I found it very interesting, if not very obviously actionable and pretty depressing.
I read the thread you linked to, very interesting. I was surprised at the pushback, given how familiar everyone seems to be with the book.
I also thought Quinn's idea was misunderstood in that thread.
This is how I understand his food argument: If you increase any animal population's food supply, its numbers always will increase to the constraint allowed by the food supply. The inverse is also true. Humans are animals. If you increase the human populations food supply their numbers will always increase with that food supply.
It's possible to make all kinds of arguments about trade or demographics, but they don't refute this relatively simple thesis.
This thesis is (1) a pain, because it's not very actionable (except maybe, once you think about it really hard, ERE) and (2) dangerous, because it seems to imply that we should stop giving aid to foreign countries and let everyone starve. His statement doesn't say that, nor does he encourage this anywhere else in the book (he also doesn't discourage it).
What I believe he's trying to say is that we are unlikely to solve problems created by more people with more food.
I think his greater point is that we strayed from the way of life that sustained humans for hundreds of thousands of years and lead to relatively stable populations. We traded this way of life for a more reliable food source and there have been a slow build up of consequences from that over the past 10,000 years. There are 10,000 other factors, but with animals, following the food is usually not a bad place to start. I had never thought about our problems from this frame and I found it very interesting, if not very obviously actionable and pretty depressing.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
I very much like Daniel Quinn and I am very much in favor of including the science of ecology in all levels of human decision making, BUT...
... the concept that humans or even all other animals are primarily limited in reproduction by food supplies is antiquated and observably wrong except, perhaps, at the level of grotesque first approximation.
There are many species that would not be in danger of extinction if this risk could be mediated by human provision of food. Providing food is not good enough because there all sorts of other factors/resources these species require to facilitate healthy reproduction. For instance, many species of birds will not lay eggs if the specific materials they require for nest building are not available.
The vast majority of human evolution took place in pre-agricultural era. There is little evidence supporting starvation or even malnutrition as primary limit to population growth. There is more evidence supporting death by accident, violence , and as always due to risks inherent risks of our vulnerable too-big-headed infancy and child birth. Birthing forceps were not invented until the era of patent law and the effect was so huge, it is estimated that the legal skirmish around this patent led to as many deaths as a small war.
Rats and humans have a good deal in common in terms of dietary preferences, but they have much larger and more frequent litters and they do not have to spend decades of life energy educating their young in the realm of food acquisition. Across the globe in every culture as it becomes post-subsistence agricultural, human females when given the power to make a choice choose to have and raise fewer children in the face of plentiful resources.
... the concept that humans or even all other animals are primarily limited in reproduction by food supplies is antiquated and observably wrong except, perhaps, at the level of grotesque first approximation.
There are many species that would not be in danger of extinction if this risk could be mediated by human provision of food. Providing food is not good enough because there all sorts of other factors/resources these species require to facilitate healthy reproduction. For instance, many species of birds will not lay eggs if the specific materials they require for nest building are not available.
The vast majority of human evolution took place in pre-agricultural era. There is little evidence supporting starvation or even malnutrition as primary limit to population growth. There is more evidence supporting death by accident, violence , and as always due to risks inherent risks of our vulnerable too-big-headed infancy and child birth. Birthing forceps were not invented until the era of patent law and the effect was so huge, it is estimated that the legal skirmish around this patent led to as many deaths as a small war.
Rats and humans have a good deal in common in terms of dietary preferences, but they have much larger and more frequent litters and they do not have to spend decades of life energy educating their young in the realm of food acquisition. Across the globe in every culture as it becomes post-subsistence agricultural, human females when given the power to make a choice choose to have and raise fewer children in the face of plentiful resources.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
I've been trying to process (grok) the message of Ishmael or, more accurately, what to actually do with this message since reading the book.
I've been reading some Derrick Jensen, which is in the same vein, but much more angry and sad. Where the Ishmael series lacks actionable advice, Jensen struggles deeply with the failure of personal and cultural action to stop the slaughter of the environment (and, to a certain extent, ourselves). The books are pretty depressing. He constantly reminds the reader how hard we are fucking the environment and how many people we are stepping on/ have stepped on in order to get what we have. He too falls short on actionable solutions. He considers our culture to be insane, so his solution seems to be completely dismantling our cultural and changing everything we've ever known/ believed in.
I just finished reading "Civilized to Death" which is written by the same author as "Sex at Dawn." This book is probably the easiest and most enjoyable read of those I've mentioned, although it contains a lot of conjecture from the author.
ERE tied together a lot of philosophical and practical concepts that I'd thought about since childhood. The "anti-agriculturalists*" tie together a lot of philosophical and moral concepts.
*My name for a movement that may only exist in my head.
The main takeaways for me have been:
(1) Comparing our civilization to hunter-gathering people rather than other agricultural societies. I think, by comparison, we have it pretty good compared to most previous agricultural societies. This is not necessarily true when compared to hunter-gatherer societies (as represented in the books referenced above).
(2) The narrative of "original sin" or "life is suffering" is pretty ubiquitous in modern religion and modern culture. I'd always assumed the opposite of Christianity was either Buddhism or Atheism (as championed by liberal humanists), but all three of these contain some version of the narrative that life is a difficult struggle that only the chosen few escape through very hard work. This narrative is so prevalent in our culture that I'd never noticed it, much less questioned it.
(3) An increased understanding of the importance of the social world and our immediate communities. The prevailing cultural narrative, as I've understood it, economic reality is the most important and that the social world and the larger community is only really "important" insofar as it services the economic. Maybe you're aloud a little socialization with your community of drinking buddies on the weekend, but really only if it serves the economy. It's a useful reminder that social/ community ties were life or death for most of human existence. The social world came before and is more real than the economic. Perhaps this is not literally true for necessities, but for a long period of time the social world was how most economic needs were filled.
I'm curious if anyone has mounted a serious counterargument or refuted any of the claims by the anti-agriculturalists (much like 7w5 did in her previous excellent post)? The main drawbacks mentioned by the authors above are the high prevalence of infanticide and how they deal with those who are feebled by old age (suicide, murder or leaving them to die as the group moved on).
I've been reading some Derrick Jensen, which is in the same vein, but much more angry and sad. Where the Ishmael series lacks actionable advice, Jensen struggles deeply with the failure of personal and cultural action to stop the slaughter of the environment (and, to a certain extent, ourselves). The books are pretty depressing. He constantly reminds the reader how hard we are fucking the environment and how many people we are stepping on/ have stepped on in order to get what we have. He too falls short on actionable solutions. He considers our culture to be insane, so his solution seems to be completely dismantling our cultural and changing everything we've ever known/ believed in.
I just finished reading "Civilized to Death" which is written by the same author as "Sex at Dawn." This book is probably the easiest and most enjoyable read of those I've mentioned, although it contains a lot of conjecture from the author.
ERE tied together a lot of philosophical and practical concepts that I'd thought about since childhood. The "anti-agriculturalists*" tie together a lot of philosophical and moral concepts.
*My name for a movement that may only exist in my head.
The main takeaways for me have been:
(1) Comparing our civilization to hunter-gathering people rather than other agricultural societies. I think, by comparison, we have it pretty good compared to most previous agricultural societies. This is not necessarily true when compared to hunter-gatherer societies (as represented in the books referenced above).
(2) The narrative of "original sin" or "life is suffering" is pretty ubiquitous in modern religion and modern culture. I'd always assumed the opposite of Christianity was either Buddhism or Atheism (as championed by liberal humanists), but all three of these contain some version of the narrative that life is a difficult struggle that only the chosen few escape through very hard work. This narrative is so prevalent in our culture that I'd never noticed it, much less questioned it.
(3) An increased understanding of the importance of the social world and our immediate communities. The prevailing cultural narrative, as I've understood it, economic reality is the most important and that the social world and the larger community is only really "important" insofar as it services the economic. Maybe you're aloud a little socialization with your community of drinking buddies on the weekend, but really only if it serves the economy. It's a useful reminder that social/ community ties were life or death for most of human existence. The social world came before and is more real than the economic. Perhaps this is not literally true for necessities, but for a long period of time the social world was how most economic needs were filled.
I'm curious if anyone has mounted a serious counterargument or refuted any of the claims by the anti-agriculturalists (much like 7w5 did in her previous excellent post)? The main drawbacks mentioned by the authors above are the high prevalence of infanticide and how they deal with those who are feebled by old age (suicide, murder or leaving them to die as the group moved on).
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classical_Liberal
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
@J+G
I believe anti-agriculturalists fall into the same weird self hate that climate folks do. @Axel Heyst and I were talking about this in his journal.
viewtopic.php?p=204305#p204305
I also believe that there is no "proof" regarding hunter gatherer prehistory culture. I think it's mostly academics placing their own belief structure onto very little physical evidence which is very open to interpretation. I mean, it's hard for anti-vaxxers to remember what it was like with measles, we have records of that, it was recent and horrible. It's even harder to imagine the constant potential for starvation, or when a broken leg means certain death, or any of the other types of daily suffering that probably accompanied prehistory lives. That type of stuff was a very long time ago and there are no records of the human suffering, so we can pretend it was all great.
Humans are part of the planet's ecosystem. Agriculture is so effective at minimizing human suffering that it was developed many times over independently and stuck around each and every time. I submit that agriculture is part of the natural development of humans, and humans are part of the natural development of Earth's biosphere. What we are doing is natural. Who knows where our cultural evolution will take us next and who knows if we are going to be a more permanent part of Earth's biosphere. No matter what, do what you feel is right, but don't self-species hate, or get all depressed about it.
We are not the first creatures on this planet to cause mass extinctions, and we will likely not be the last.
I believe anti-agriculturalists fall into the same weird self hate that climate folks do. @Axel Heyst and I were talking about this in his journal.
viewtopic.php?p=204305#p204305
I also believe that there is no "proof" regarding hunter gatherer prehistory culture. I think it's mostly academics placing their own belief structure onto very little physical evidence which is very open to interpretation. I mean, it's hard for anti-vaxxers to remember what it was like with measles, we have records of that, it was recent and horrible. It's even harder to imagine the constant potential for starvation, or when a broken leg means certain death, or any of the other types of daily suffering that probably accompanied prehistory lives. That type of stuff was a very long time ago and there are no records of the human suffering, so we can pretend it was all great.
Humans are part of the planet's ecosystem. Agriculture is so effective at minimizing human suffering that it was developed many times over independently and stuck around each and every time. I submit that agriculture is part of the natural development of humans, and humans are part of the natural development of Earth's biosphere. What we are doing is natural. Who knows where our cultural evolution will take us next and who knows if we are going to be a more permanent part of Earth's biosphere. No matter what, do what you feel is right, but don't self-species hate, or get all depressed about it.
We are not the first creatures on this planet to cause mass extinctions, and we will likely not be the last.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
@c_L: I read your comments in @AxelHeyst's journal. You said that you'd done a lot of research but didn't present any of your sources. What are your sources?
The article you posted was interesting. I guess it begs the question if it matters that humans, collectively and individually have intent. Which also begs the question if we actually had control or were more or less destined to follow this path and also begs the same questions about the algae from the article (maybe I've been reading to much Derrick Jensen).
I think that both you and @bigato aren't seeing this movement how I see it. For me the really interesting parts are that humans lived differently than we live now for a majority of our history. I'd never thought about this or considered the implications. Even just asking if hunter/ gatherer society was better or question some of the foundational assumptions of our (or any) civilization (which honestly I'd never even realized existed) is new to me. Much like ERE, the anti-agriculturalist (or as @AxelHeyst called it, anti-civ movement) tied together a lot of questions I'd been considering. Why do we feel paid employment is a natural part of human existence? Why do we raise children and construct families the way we do? Why do we value financial capital more than social, despite living in a world with an abundance of one and dirth of the other? Why are we massacring the environment? Why is collectively sharing resources so hard?
It also raised some questions that I'd never thought of. Why do we blindly accept technological advance as human progress? Why do we live so far outside our original environment? Why does our culture so adamantly dismiss other cultures? Why do we believe life is an extreme struggle that only a lucky few enjoy? Is blind scientific faith the new blind religious faith? Is constant war a natural state for man? Were freedom from the oppression of others rule and leisure time every hunter/gatherers birthright or are these only recently won freedoms of the relatively rich? Why did "we" massacre all hunter/gatherer societies we encountered? What has been lost in our departure from a natural environment which we were clearly much more linked with/ dependent on previously?
I think these questions are relevant even if it could be proven that everything the anti-civ movement is saying is factually incorrect. However, I am interested in how much truth there is in what the anti-civ movement says. It makes sense that this narrative is convenient for anthropologists. The books I've read contain a lot of opinion; however, if the facts presented about hunter/ gatherers are true, they are well argued.
I'm not a well researched anthropologist. However, I've done a bit of reading in this area. If I could refute the arguments above from how I understand anti-civ, the argument is not that we should go back to hunter-gatherer society or that all tech/ culture is necessarily bad (well, except Jensen), it's more to point out that a lot of the things we claim to be pursuing as we "progress" are things that h/g were all but guaranteed. That we are searching for something that we once already had. What to do with this information is left up to the reader.
According to the anti-civers there are many observed examples of hunter/ gatherer societies including remote amazonian, eskimo and african tribes as well as many accounts of Europeans encountering the native people of North and South America, the Caribbean Islands and Australia/ New Zealand.
The article you posted was interesting. I guess it begs the question if it matters that humans, collectively and individually have intent. Which also begs the question if we actually had control or were more or less destined to follow this path and also begs the same questions about the algae from the article (maybe I've been reading to much Derrick Jensen).
I think that both you and @bigato aren't seeing this movement how I see it. For me the really interesting parts are that humans lived differently than we live now for a majority of our history. I'd never thought about this or considered the implications. Even just asking if hunter/ gatherer society was better or question some of the foundational assumptions of our (or any) civilization (which honestly I'd never even realized existed) is new to me. Much like ERE, the anti-agriculturalist (or as @AxelHeyst called it, anti-civ movement) tied together a lot of questions I'd been considering. Why do we feel paid employment is a natural part of human existence? Why do we raise children and construct families the way we do? Why do we value financial capital more than social, despite living in a world with an abundance of one and dirth of the other? Why are we massacring the environment? Why is collectively sharing resources so hard?
It also raised some questions that I'd never thought of. Why do we blindly accept technological advance as human progress? Why do we live so far outside our original environment? Why does our culture so adamantly dismiss other cultures? Why do we believe life is an extreme struggle that only a lucky few enjoy? Is blind scientific faith the new blind religious faith? Is constant war a natural state for man? Were freedom from the oppression of others rule and leisure time every hunter/gatherers birthright or are these only recently won freedoms of the relatively rich? Why did "we" massacre all hunter/gatherer societies we encountered? What has been lost in our departure from a natural environment which we were clearly much more linked with/ dependent on previously?
I think these questions are relevant even if it could be proven that everything the anti-civ movement is saying is factually incorrect. However, I am interested in how much truth there is in what the anti-civ movement says. It makes sense that this narrative is convenient for anthropologists. The books I've read contain a lot of opinion; however, if the facts presented about hunter/ gatherers are true, they are well argued.
I'm not a well researched anthropologist. However, I've done a bit of reading in this area. If I could refute the arguments above from how I understand anti-civ, the argument is not that we should go back to hunter-gatherer society or that all tech/ culture is necessarily bad (well, except Jensen), it's more to point out that a lot of the things we claim to be pursuing as we "progress" are things that h/g were all but guaranteed. That we are searching for something that we once already had. What to do with this information is left up to the reader.
According to the anti-civers there are many observed examples of hunter/ gatherer societies including remote amazonian, eskimo and african tribes as well as many accounts of Europeans encountering the native people of North and South America, the Caribbean Islands and Australia/ New Zealand.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
I see a lot of pessimism in this line of thought. How are we massacring the environment in context compared to what we've done in the past ? Is it really that bad ? My take is that we are improving the environment significantly all the time and it's going to get better. Geez we have all sorts of media to watch now, we have great transportation options available and we can live lives that are fantastic even compared to 20 years ago.
In the past there has been massive culling of various fauna and flora. Humans change their environments. We are amazingly good at this. That doesn't mean that we are ruining the environment. Sure we are changing our environment but we've been doing this for years and the Earth has been changing for years without our intervention. If we take the universe into consideration it even puts Earth into perspective.
There is a difference between a value judgement (massacring the environment) compared to reality (the world today).
We do this sensationally well. I'm typing on a keyboard in Australia that was probably manufactured in China and you can read this in another country basically as soon as I post it.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
The whole environmental debate is based on subjective assessments on what is acceptable in relation to an environment. The self-hate term that you use is a good way to describe this outlook. I also see a massive amount of hypocritical behaviour.classical_Liberal wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2020 3:28 am@J+G
I believe anti-agriculturalists fall into the same weird self hate that climate folks do. @Axel Heyst and I were talking about this in his journal.
viewtopic.php?p=204305#p204305
I also believe that there is no "proof" regarding hunter gatherer prehistory culture. I think it's mostly academics placing their own belief structure onto very little physical evidence which is very open to interpretation. I mean, it's hard for anti-vaxxers to remember what it was like with measles, we have records of that, it was recent and horrible. It's even harder to imagine the constant potential for starvation, or when a broken leg means certain death, or any of the other types of daily suffering that probably accompanied prehistory lives. That type of stuff was a very long time ago and there are no records of the human suffering, so we can pretend it was all great.
Humans are part of the planet's ecosystem. Agriculture is so effective at minimizing human suffering that it was developed many times over independently and stuck around each and every time. I submit that agriculture is part of the natural development of humans, and humans are part of the natural development of Earth's biosphere. What we are doing is natural. Who knows where our cultural evolution will take us next and who knows if we are going to be a more permanent part of Earth's biosphere. No matter what, do what you feel is right, but don't self-species hate, or get all depressed about it.
We are not the first creatures on this planet to cause mass extinctions, and we will likely not be the last.
My sister-in-law went to a global warming rally recently. She drives a car, travels on a plane, eats meat, lives in an untidy house that is full of crap that she buys on a whim and she has two dogs. She is an unmitigated consumerist disaster but she goes to a rally on climate change and argues something has to be done about it.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
Thanks for pointing me here @G+J. I have more thoughts on this that I’m going to take time to flesh out before posting, but I wanted to underscore the last thing you said:
Current understanding of hunter/gatherer societies, how they lived, is *not* based on conjecture pieced together from the archeological record. It is based on anthropological *observations* of contemporary h/g societies.
Criticisms of anti-civ have to take this in to account, and many of them do not. “H/g would have preferred civ” is a shaky thing to say, because we have record after record of contemporary h/gs being introduced to civ and saying “no thanks, are you kidding? Easiest decision ever.” H/g cultures being procured/lured into civilization as the lands that support their lifestyles are destroyed and offer them little choice is not the same as them choosing it.
(Would be great if we had some ex-h/g’s on the forum to weigh in on this...)
Last thing for now: we talk about the Wheaton Scale a lot, borrowed from Permaculture. What if in the the Wheaton Scale of Society, we’re basically all L2 or some such, and h:g is what L9 looks like? And we have no way of thinking about it because that’s +7. We have no hope to understand it. We say that Suelo is an ERE Wheaton 8 or 9. Suelo lives off the salvage of civilization. Are there not some similarities between him and h/g?
I have to echo @g+j, that ERE ties all these threads together very nicely for me. i have spent a lot of time trying in vain to figure out how to actionize the philosophy of Ishmael, Civilized to Death, Edward Abbey, Jensen, Et al in my own personal life. I’ve been highly frustrated by all these author’s lack of a concrete ‘how to’ section, particularly Quinn. ERE is that missing chapter, to me.
Current understanding of hunter/gatherer societies, how they lived, is *not* based on conjecture pieced together from the archeological record. It is based on anthropological *observations* of contemporary h/g societies.
Criticisms of anti-civ have to take this in to account, and many of them do not. “H/g would have preferred civ” is a shaky thing to say, because we have record after record of contemporary h/gs being introduced to civ and saying “no thanks, are you kidding? Easiest decision ever.” H/g cultures being procured/lured into civilization as the lands that support their lifestyles are destroyed and offer them little choice is not the same as them choosing it.
(Would be great if we had some ex-h/g’s on the forum to weigh in on this...)
Last thing for now: we talk about the Wheaton Scale a lot, borrowed from Permaculture. What if in the the Wheaton Scale of Society, we’re basically all L2 or some such, and h:g is what L9 looks like? And we have no way of thinking about it because that’s +7. We have no hope to understand it. We say that Suelo is an ERE Wheaton 8 or 9. Suelo lives off the salvage of civilization. Are there not some similarities between him and h/g?
I have to echo @g+j, that ERE ties all these threads together very nicely for me. i have spent a lot of time trying in vain to figure out how to actionize the philosophy of Ishmael, Civilized to Death, Edward Abbey, Jensen, Et al in my own personal life. I’ve been highly frustrated by all these author’s lack of a concrete ‘how to’ section, particularly Quinn. ERE is that missing chapter, to me.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
Saying we are massacring the environment is pessimistic and I guess it's subjective (what is a massacre? what constitutes "the environment?" Who are "we?") I am also placing a certain amount of faith in scientists and thinkers who are paying attention to and researching the problems. Do they have an agenda they have hidden from me? Have they duped me? I'm not sure, but this is the best I can come up with, with the information that's been presented to me.steveo73 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2020 9:09 pmJin+Guice wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2020 8:44 pm
Why are we massacring the environment?
I see a lot of pessimism in this line of thought. How are we massacring the environment in context compared to what we've done in the past ? Is it really that bad ? My take is that we are improving the environment significantly all the time and it's going to get better. Geez we have all sorts of media to watch now, we have great transportation options available and we can live lives that are fantastic even compared to 20 years ago.
To answer your questions: Examples of massacring the environment include but are not limited to the extinction of hundreds of species per day, destruction of much of earth's forests, acidification and overfishing of the oceans and heating of the earth's climate. Putting this in context of "the past" depends on defining when "the past" was. My take is that we are consistently making the environment worse and it's going to get worse.
Is life really better than it was 20 years ago? I disagree that the answer is obviously yes. We have more and cheaper technology, is that the definition of life being better?
According to the anti-civ people this is not true. Yes h/g would have "changed their environment" but calling what they did the same thing as what we are doing is a misnomer.steveo73 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2020 9:09 pmIn the past there has been massive culling of various fauna and flora. Humans change their environments. We are amazingly good at this. That doesn't mean that we are ruining the environment. Sure we are changing our environment but we've been doing this for years and the Earth has been changing for years without our intervention
This is a good point. Though I don't think this is a popular opinion among anti-civers, I think capitalism is a great innovation. I have some problems with the way we're employing it currently, but overall it's fucking amazing system of integrating and co-operation amongst people who never even speak, much less see each other. What's frustrating is trying to set up any kind of shared space/ tool arrangement. I'd be happy to share most of the tools I own with other people, because I'd like access to tools that I don't actually need to use that often. I also need very little personal space and would like to share common/ cooking/ bathroom spaces with others to minimize cost and resource usage, but these arrangements are hard to come by. I thought this was a sad hippy problem, but it seems like h/g were remarkably good at this kind of sharing, in their way.steveo73 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2020 9:09 pmJin+Guice wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2020 8:44 pm
Why is collectively sharing resources so hard?
We do this sensationally well. I'm typing on a keyboard in Australia that was probably manufactured in China and you can read this in another country basically as soon as I post it.
There are examples of radical environmentalists who do not do these things. I do agree that the mainstream environmental movement is more talk than action. Even radical environmentalists (at least American and European ones) generally travel by plane and car. This doesn't make what they are saying untrue, though it would be more inspiring if they would lead by example.steveo73 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2020 9:18 pmThe whole environmental debate is based on subjective assessments on what is acceptable in relation to an environment. The self-hate term that you use is a good way to describe this outlook. I also see a massive amount of hypocritical behaviour.
My sister-in-law went to a global warming rally recently. She drives a car, travels on a plane, eats meat, lives in an untidy house that is full of crap that she buys on a whim and she has two dogs. She is an unmitigated consumerist disaster but she goes to a rally on climate change and argues something has to be done about it.
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classical_Liberal
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
I wrote a huge response that got lost, I should have backed it up. Oh well. Civ, hunter/gatherer, if we look at it all with a truly open mind, we will see there are huge advantages and disadvantages to each. I don't think asking a hunter/gatherer if they want to join civ is good experimental data. Ask your average suburbanite if they want to be hunter/gatherers.
Humanity has lost some of its soul since agriculture and civ, particularly more recently with the dominance of materialism in science and fossil fuels. OTOH, Civilization has created amazing things, and provided abundance for our species to expand.
I think @J+G's questions are great. But they dont really help answer the question at hand, what do we do, given the fact humans are soon reaching a huge pivot point. I believe we should try and take the best of what we have learned and try to synthesize something new and better. We should not hate ourselves or species for doing what every biological organism always does. If humans do anything truly unique it's our ability to pass blame and hate ourselves.
What do you do? Mitigate suffering, that's it. Do it for yourself with ERE, and do it for others however you can. Part of the reason we have the problems with civilization that we do, is because people try to make it more complex.
Humanity has lost some of its soul since agriculture and civ, particularly more recently with the dominance of materialism in science and fossil fuels. OTOH, Civilization has created amazing things, and provided abundance for our species to expand.
I think @J+G's questions are great. But they dont really help answer the question at hand, what do we do, given the fact humans are soon reaching a huge pivot point. I believe we should try and take the best of what we have learned and try to synthesize something new and better. We should not hate ourselves or species for doing what every biological organism always does. If humans do anything truly unique it's our ability to pass blame and hate ourselves.
What do you do? Mitigate suffering, that's it. Do it for yourself with ERE, and do it for others however you can. Part of the reason we have the problems with civilization that we do, is because people try to make it more complex.