YOU AND I ARE BUT JUICE pt III

[Cain]

out of curiosity
does anyone know if there is a genesis to this idea that it is in fact the development of society that is the cause of evil and if we retreated back to living like primates in the wilderness everything would return back to its natural happy state
i remember a few hippies peddling it back in high school and a few on the interweb since then...
did it just kind of morph into existance? or was there a root?

The philosopher Rousseau.  His ideas concerning the "noble savage" were hugely influential during the 60s, yet have almost entirely turned out to be wrong, because people used empirical evidence to go check how hunter-gatherer societies live, or did detailed excavation of early agricultural societies and so on and so forth.  And it turned out they didn't live in natural harmony, weren't naturally peacefully inclined and their societies were hardly any less fucked up than our own.

Then again, the main contrast to his position, Hobbes, also turned out to be wrong as well, though he was far more right than Rousseau.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

Edit: that was Hobbes.  Sounds like a spot-on description of people in a state of chaos to me.

[Requia ☣]

Also, the average life expectancy of a member of a Neolithic culture was 20 years old,

Last I checked (a few years ago whn I was studying this at Uni) hunter/gatherer societies had much better life expectancy than pre industrial agrarian societies.  Famine and disease and malnutrition are more common by far for farmers than hunters.  Its not until the indistrial revolution, when we start to have medicine and a varied diet, that QOL was any good.

on that too I know, and of course different regions are harder to live in, and may have more diseases, but the main point of agrarian societies suck even more still stands.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

I don't have any citations on hand but the number is actually more like 30 years.  On the other hand, a mobile lifestyle drastically reduces both fertility and infant viability.  Agrarian lifestyle is pretty much inevitably ascendant because a steady diet (if relatively unhealthy) and a sedentary lifestyle create a relative population explosion.  In terms of diseases, either lifestyle is prone to different but equally debilitating problems (ie tooth wear vs cavities), though people living in towns are more likely to get infected with something nasty.  Agrarian societies are much more hierarchical because not everyone has to spend all their time looking for/preparing food, and for the people on the top of the pile the quality of life was probably pretty good. 

I could go more in depth but I am going to go party instead.

[Thurnez Isa]

life expectancy

mesolithic age - 30
neolithic - 20 (went down)
copper age - 35 (start steady increase)
bronze age - over 35

if i remember middle ages was even higher then it dropped slightly during the industrial revolution then skyrocketed modern era

i can link you up with an article in an hour or two once im done what im doing now

[Thurnez Isa]

in otherwords it was the beginning of the agricultural rev. that it went down but it shot back up quickly and kept rising
hunter/gatherers even to the modern age have never substancialy increased life expectancy without outside aid

[Thurnez Isa]

  Famine and disease and malnutrition are more common by far for farmers than hunters. 

in regards to disease...
only for a brief period
most diseases orginate from domestic animals
it took a while for people to build up a resistance to it
but once they did the life expectancy went back up
thats why populations that had very little domestic livestock (ie the Aztecs) got desimated from contact with diseases (carried by people who had restances but still were carriers then by the livestock they brought with them) they had no resistance to

[Requia ☣]

Um, apparently I mixed up neolithic and mesolithic (or else remember right, but am using a different map, anthropology sucks for consistency), neolithic is early agrarian, which is where the peak shitty LE was, that'll teach me to shoot my mouth off.

One other thing, its not the steady diet that creates the population explosion, as much as it is the form the diet takes, namely cereal grains and a higher percentage of fat/muscle meats instead of internal organs, which both produce more body fat, and allowing children to be weaned sooner (breastfeeding and lack of body fat interfere with ovulation).

[Thurnez Isa]

yes, probably a little of both as well as the fact that when people got settled, didn't have to move from area to area and developed homes, even had some free time, well to put it bluntly had more oppertunity to fuck


anyways
this isnt the exact one i was looking for ..in fact its a work paperr I had found and bookmarked
but had a lot to do with what we were talking about
I haven't read it in a few years

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Economics/Papers/2004/2004-14_paper.pdf

its long and kind of dry so heres the goods

social, economic and environmental changes that were associated with the transition from hunter-gatherer tribes to sedentary agricultural communities and ultimately to urban societies affected the nature of the environmental hazards confronted by the human population, triggering an evolutionary process that had a significant impact on the timenpath of human longevity. The increase in the extrinsic morality risk (i.e., risk associated with environment factors) associated with the Agricultural Revolution triggered an evolutionary process, further enhanced by the process of urbanization, that gradually altered the distribution of genes in the human population that are associated with the intrinsic mortality risk (i.e., physiological and biochemistry decay over lifetime). Individuals that were characterized by a higher genetic pre-disposition towards somatic investment, repairs, and maintenance (e.g., enhanced immune system, DNA repairs, accurate gene regulation, tumor suppression, and antioxidants) gained the evolutionary advantage during this transition, and their representation in the population increased over time. Despite the increase in the extrinsic mortality risk that brought about a temporary decline in life expectancy, longevity eventually increased beyond the peak that existed in the hunter-gatherer society, due to the changes in the distribution of genes in the human population. Moreover, the biological upper bound of longevity increased, generating the
biological infrastructure for the recent prolongation of life expectancy that was brought about by the decline in the extrinsic mortality risk due to improvements in medical technology.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Do Native Americans throw some sort of a monkey wrench into those statistics, though? Pre-Columbian indians were supposed to have had a long life expectancy, especially in Coastal areas. It declined drastically when they were forced onto reservations, from a life expectancy of well over 80 to one of only 40 to 50.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Do Native Americans throw some sort of a monkey wrench into those statistics, though? Pre-Columbian indians were supposed to have had a long life expectancy, especially in Coastal areas. It declined drastically when they were forced onto reservations, from a life expectancy of well over 80 to one of only 40 to 50.

America is a massive piece of geography.  Some places with a steady range of food supply might sustain a long life expectancy but I can't imagine every tribe in the entire country would consistantly have that kind of lifespan. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

No, of course not, but as I have read at least, the populations in most areas were pretty stable and, short of drought, generally did pretty well.

It's still a huge geographical area, and life expectancy still varies somewhat from population to population.

[Thurnez Isa]

Do Native Americans throw some sort of a monkey wrench into those statistics, though? Pre-Columbian indians were supposed to have had a long life expectancy, especially in Coastal areas. It declined drastically when they were forced onto reservations, from a life expectancy of well over 80 to one of only 40 to 50.

not really
as badger said North America is geographical mess
i remember reading a few times (too early to remember all the citations) but the America's run North to South rather then East to West like oversees, meaning the climate and conditions are drastically different, which in one way limits the transfer of trade, culture and ideas, and as well produces drastically different situations that someone finds themself under
also im usually a little suspicious when people talk of native culture... I really enjoy native culture probably more so then most others, but there is a segament of the population in North America (natives and whites alike) that look upon Native culture like it was hippie paradise, all peaceful, smoking their peacepipes and frolicing through fields of flowers... of course archeoligical evidence states otherwise. Some of it is wishful thinking, some of it is cause for years archeoligy never took native history as serious as Western European or even Asian - other then maybe the Aztecs or Mayan, but they built HUGE fucking pyramids so you can't really ignore them

[Requia ☣]

Keep in mind that infant mortality rates sucked, LE of 30 might well become 60 for anybody who survived to adulthood.

[LMNO]

People are social animals?  hmmm  & evolution has saddled us with some pretty big brains.  Evolution as a tool?  The brain a tool?  hmmm.  These things make sense to me.  Not sure about the part about returning to the forest tho?

I'm just visiting here.  I've gotten pretty comfortable with uncertainty.  I think I Love uncertainty.  It's a useful tool.  Every day I see new things.  & yeah well some of the things might be the same things I saw yesterday but it looks different to me today.  In the light of a new day.  I also like to think about Time.  As a tool.

Sometimes, I notice what I like to call trends.  Things that seem to show up everyday, usually at the end of the day.  Some of those trends:

This place is pretty fucked up.
Is anyone alive in here?
How can I entertain myself?
What kind of experiments can I try?

Thinking about these things keeps me busy, busy, busy!  (Used to practice Bokononism & sometimes still do)

Another thing I observe, usually on a daily basis, is that I happen to like things of Nature.  Seeing Beauty there.  Looking at things closely.  Being out in it when the Weather is extreme.  The Ocean.  That kind of thing.

Not a huge fan of returning to the forest tho.  I like urban life.  I've also observed (living in US) that many of the worst sewers of stinking stagnation are in the places most isolated from urbanity (not sure if I'm using the right word here).  I mean, lookit the Amish enclaves?  & what about those hellholes of Xian fundamentalism?  That kind of thinking doesn't seem to lend itself to cities.

I've passed through places like these (stinking sewers of stagnation in the US) & I don't see anything coming from there!  The 1 thing I've noticed is that Peoples want OUT of those kind of places.  bbbrrr shudder bbbrrr  These kinds of places seem to be self-perpetuating not self-sustaining.   

I haven't spent all that much time in Internet communities either.  Mostly passing through.  I have noticed though, if you are inclined to do so, you can create mind-numbing communities on the Internet as well.  It might be easier to escape from those types of thought ghettos than from the geographical ones.  I really hope so.

Anyway, hope I haven't solipsised too much here or gotten off into my own tangential way of thinking as to distract from what's been said here.  I'm new here & I really like what I've seen so far.  I especially appreciated the Black Iron Prison.  Thanks.  Respect.   

Honey

Could we PLEASE get more n00bs who post like this?

Pretty please?