Primitivism Discussion

[phantomb]

I'm guessing that your argument is actually "you're going to die [sooner than you would at the epicentre of technological development, assuming you're well placed in your society to take advantage of those developments]".

Correct. I thought that would be obvious from the sentences I wrote explaining the item.

Once again, the benefit you're suggesting is duration, with scant regard for quality.

Aside from the fact that massive amounts of violent conflict and no doctors or medical care when you're sick would be quality issues, did I not also write at length about many of the quality issues that come with agriculture, urbanism, and a modern lifestyle?

Additionally, those advantages are largely limited to the priviliged and provided, in substantial part, by people whose lifestyle is essentially primitive, certainly exhausting and probably nasty, brutish and short.

Assuming you're talking about the advantages of a modern lifestyle, I think every one I mentioned is universal at least to some extent. Life expectancies in modern times are extremely high damn near everywhere, and the low ones are mostly due to very high rates of HIV/AIDS infection. Modern infrastructures, amenities, and consumer goods are also pretty much everywhere to some extent. Consider that as of 2007, the majority of the world's population has been living in urban areas. Education, technology, science. I can't imagine these are spreading or developing slower on average today than they would in a primitive culture.

 

[Corsair 115]

Also, they never seem to imagine themselves -- or their children -- getting sick in such a world. Anything from toothaches to infant mortality will magically pass them by in that primitive, wonderful world.

It's not just diseases, it's also accidents. Like, say, a broken rib after falling off a horse or a broken leg after falling off a roof, or a burned arm after a blacksmithing mishap. Or any of a myriad of other accidents that can happen. Sometimes the health consequences of an accident can be severe, if not fatal, if not treated properly.

 

[Belz...]

Less arguing, more comprehending.

Jesus, can we really not have a rational discussion?

Pot, kettle, stove ornaments.

 

[Belz...]

I'm having a bit of a hard time with the notion of having a discussion advocating for a lifestyle which is being held on a method of communication which would be impossible if said lifestyle was actually used. It just seems... odd to me. It'd be like holding a discussion saying we ought to abandon air travel while being a long-distance flight.

Actually, it would be more like holding a discussion saying we ought to abandon air travel, VIA air mail.

 

[Earthborn]

Partially because I *think* I enjoyed it.

Isn't that all that matters? If you think you enjoyed it, you should not ask for an interpretation that you think you would not enjoy.

Sure, I can see how that is a plus for people with profound physical challenges. I think it is a big negative for the general population.

I don't think it is a big negative for the general population, because the general population is the people with profound physical challenges. Even the healthiest among us have physical limitations, and we'll all likely face more physical challenges when we're old.

Perhaps a ratio of modernity/primitivity could be reached such that those with profound difficulties could contribute in a meaningful way, but not encourage the unhealthy lifestyle of the masses.

I don't it is desirable to create a society in which the "disabled" are treated differently than the "abled". I think we should strive for a society that can accomodate the largest possible human variation.

And my version of primitivism definitely includes access to soap.

That goes without saying. It is trivially easy to extract soap from a variety of wild plant sources. I am sure I don't have to tell you how to do it.

"Why don't I just walk out into the woods....?"
Because I am not the unibomber. I still like some version of a community.

I think it is posible to walk out into the woods without necessarily permanently going to live there. I may have done it a few times.

I "lived" on a commune ["for a while"]. Sorry to be pedantic, but I'd make more effort to reply to your post if you'd given any evidence of actually reading mine.

If you carefully read my post, you'll notice that I didn't claim that you were still living in this commune, but rather that hypothetically you can live in one.

The most under-appreciated thing of modern life are hot showers and flush toilets.

Even more under-appreciated are the infrastructural works that makes them function.

And padded chairs.

Over-rated. One can easily do without them with a padded bum.

2) No pandemic diseases.
Can't happen when everyone lives in small, isolated groups and you don't constantly fly sick people around the world in planes.

Not quite true. There have been plenty of pandemics before air travel. It is true though that they tend to spread a lot more slowly. That doesn't help you much, because you also get a lot less advance warning.

 

[jiggeryqua]

Hippies who live in communes are generally (almost always) idiots. Why would I want to be around them?

I'm sure you wouldn't, that much was clear. But if you can cast your mind back to the context of this exchange, you'll recall that you offered an opinion from your experience. I suggested that you widen your experience, so that your opinion would count for something.

 

[Xephyr]

When the term "primitivism" is used, I think "caveman".

Today's society could never step back into that mode even if we were to lose worldwide electricity tomorrow.

Knowledge has been obtained over the centuries since then and cannot be lost... various sciences like medicine, physics, engineering, etc.

Even if those sciences would have to be now practiced utilizing nothing but manual labour, elbow grease, and mother nature, we surely would not be mirroring anything even remotely close to a "medieval" lifestyle.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

So on that note, it seems to me you guys are arguing semantics just for the sake of it.




... now if you'll excuse me, I have to go use my flush toilet.

 

[jiggeryqua]

It's not just diseases, it's also accidents. Like, say, a broken rib after falling off a horse or a broken leg after falling off a roof, or a burned arm after a blacksmithing mishap. Or any of a myriad of other accidents that can happen. Sometimes the health consequences of an accident can be severe, if not fatal, if not treated properly.

Let me know by flyingpig airmail when the technology actually reaches the point where we can all live forever, I'll maybe accept that as an argument. Meanwhile, people died, people die, people will die. I'm of the opinion that we're a tad too succesful at keeping people alive. We really don't have the room or resources for a strategy like that. Here in the UK at least we're already considering denying medical care to smokers - who next, do you suppose?

 

[phantomb]

That is total romantic BS. Life in a pre agricultural society was nasty, brutish and short.

Well, my information comes from some basic reading I did about this as an undergrad. Here is one of the peer-reviewed articles I came across: Why did the first farmers toil? Human metabolism and the origins of agriculture, which argues that the archaeological evidence and time-budget studies show that a life of farming, while certainly providing many benefits, ultimately required more work for the individual in exchange for food which was less nutritious, with eventual plagues, crowded conditions, and the constantly looming threat of famine.

The framework predicts that agriculture, as soon as it became economically viable, would have “lured” foragers into an irreversible trap wherein the increased population size which agricultural sedentism permitted would force the early farmers into performing this harder job for more hours. Essentially, in the short run, farming produces a local surplus of food resources which can be spent resulting in more surviving offspring (not only were non-sedentary peoples limited in their number of offspring by the availability of resources, but also by the fact that children unable to cover large distances themselves had to be carried), resulting in turn in an increase in population. Then, in the long run, the increased population, due to diminishing returns to labor, shifts down earning schedules and consumes the caloric surplus, a process that continues until the economy is in Malthusian equilibrium (a state where all production is used for subsistence).

http://www.econ.ku.dk/english/research/publications/wp/2008/0815.pdf/

And here's a link to What Hunters Do For a Living, the time-budget study referenced by the above article.

http://faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/lee.pdf

 

[quixotecoyote]

Let me know by flyingpig airmail when the technology actually reaches the point where we can all live forever, I'll maybe accept that as an argument. Meanwhile, people died, people die, people will die. I'm of the opinion that we're a tad too succesful at keeping people alive. We really don't have the room or resources for a strategy like that. Here in the UK at least we're already considering denying medical care to smokers - who next, do you suppose?

Somehow I don't really imagine you placing yourself in the queue for the necessary die-off. But who knows, maybe you'll disappear from the board, a relative or friend will post about you in community, and I'll be proven wrong.

 

[jiggeryqua]

Hippies who live in communes are generally (almost always) idiots. Why would I want to be around them?

I almost missed that. You haven't experienced any (or at least, very few) hippies who live on communes. You've told us that much. But you 'know' they are "almost always idiots". Are you defining 'idiot' as 'anyone who does something I wouldnt want to do'? In which case there's no call to back up your baseless, offensive assertion I suppose.

 

[jiggeryqua]

Somehow I don't really imagine you placing yourself in the queue for the necessary die-off. But who knows, maybe you'll disappear from the board, a relative or friend will post about you in community, and I'll be proven wrong.

I'm a smoker. I've already been placed in the queue.

Is your difficulty in imagining people doing things you wouldn't do something to boast about, do you think?

 

[quixotecoyote]

I'm a smoker. I've already been placed in the queue.

Is your difficulty in imagining people doing things you wouldn't do something to boast about, do you think?

Nope. Sorry, you're still posting, thus still alive, thus still lacking credibility.

 

[phantomb]

Not quite true. There have been plenty of pandemics before air travel. It is true though that they tend to spread a lot more slowly. That doesn't help you much, because you also get a lot less advance warning.

That was a rhetorical example. In a state where everyone lives in isolated groups of less than 100 and sick people virtually never move between groups by any means at all, there will be no pandemic diseases.

 

[Varanid]

Granted, but you can't get to internet-level without all the things that I'm sure you consider "bad" about technology. It's necessary evil. If you want to get rid of it, no internet.

I am not insinuating we abandon all knowledge, progress, or even technology. I am suggesting (for my argument) that we pick and choose.

 

[technoextreme]

I am not insinuating we abandon all knowledge, progress, or even technology. I am suggesting (for my argument) that we pick and choose.

Thats not primitivism.

 

[Varanid]

Why by your own admission would you start a discussion on something that you actually aren't? I don't consider that primitivist. I consider that anticonsumerist with a tinge of made up stuff in there (ie. Types of stress???).

Seriously? So I guess I shouldn't start a thread on Christianity, because I am not a christian? Is the problem here that I am not just digging my heels in the sand and blabbering on and on about something I have already decided? I think reasonable minds can see that the world is not black and white.

And there is nothing made up about different types of stress. I must be missing your point.

Sure the blood chemistry may indeed be the same, that doesn't speak to the emotional component. Losing a child is stressful, losing a parking space is stressful- surely they aren't the same. I am simply arguing that the stress from living a primitive lifestyle may be preferable to that of modern society.

Obviously, many of you disagree. That generally makes for better discussion than all of us agreeing about something.

"So, you like stuff?"
"Yeah."
"Me too."

 

[technoextreme]

Sure the blood chemistry may indeed be the same, that doesn't speak to the emotional component. Losing a child is stressful, losing a parking space is stressful- surely they aren't the same. I am simply arguing that the stress from living a primitive lifestyle may be preferable to that of modern society.

Really??? I think getting stressed out over a parking space is really really stupid.

 

[Varanid]

Thats not primitivism.

I think I covered that in my 3rd or 4th post, I don't disagree with you.

Primitivism seemed like the best catch-all term for the thread.
I acknowledge in the first couple of sentences that there is quite a bit of room for discussing this.

I see statements thrown around about the subject in environmental threads, and wanted to just have a conversation about it. I don't think I have even really advanced a fleshed out argument, because I haven't really decided on my entire argument.

 

[Varanid]

Really??? I think getting stressed out over a parking space is really really stupid.

You just made my point. All stresses are not equal.