subsistence Societies

[John D Harris]

I'm starting a new thread to unhijack this thread: http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...7;t=001291;p=4

The primiss(sp?) has been put forth that the subsistence societies take only what they can use from nature. I put forth they use all they take, and if they could take more they would. No differant than the modern western societies, if you have any doubt try this next time you are walking one of the concret jungles and you stop for a hot dog from a street vender, what do you think that hotdog is made of? Lips and ass holes!!! we use everything we can get our hands on just like the subsistence peoples only differance is we can get our hands on more than they can. Try this little experiment also take a day and go for a ride in the country away from the city, look at all the fields empty fields, notice how only a few field have cattle/sheep/goats on them. stop and ask a farmer how many fields he has. I bet you'll find he has several. then ask him how many fields have animals on them? you'll find he kkeps animal on only a few fields at a time, leaving the other fields to recupurate from the animals. He rotates the animals from field to field. Nature does the same thing it is called migration. Now if you want to have animals roaming allover the place OK. but don't come complaining to me when animals get killed on the Highways, and people are killed when their car hit a cow and they are all killed.

[Aerich]

Originally posted by John D Harris: The [premise] has been put forth that the subsistence societies take only what they can use from nature. I put forth they use all they take, and if they could take more they would.

Partially true. I'm not sure they could even have comprehended the mass wastage that goes on in our modern world, but subsistence societies did affect the world around them in many ways.

There is speculation that the extermination of several species (like giant ground sloths) was at least partially due to prehistoric hunters.

This discussion reminds me of a dispute I had with my overly-idealistic social studies (Civ) teacher in grade ten. She tried to tell us that the native peoples of North America used every part of the buffalo (or bison), every time. There was a cute little cutaway diagram of a buffalo in the textbook, pointing out various parts of the buffalo and what they were used for (e.g. ribs = sled runners). Aside from pointing out that we should have found thousands of sleds, I had very good evidence that hunting efficiency was THE priority, not having no wastage. The summer before, I visited a place in Alberta called Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump. Essentially, it's a cliff once used by native peoples to hunt. They would frighten a buffalo herd with fire and shouting, and stampede them over the edge. Examination of the earth at the bottom of the cliff revealed buffalo remains to a depth of 25 feet. That is, the top 25 feet of dirt was mostly comprised of rotted buffalo that had not been taken away and used.

Now I'm not suggesting that the native peoples (among other subsistence cultures) couldn't use every part of the animal they killed, but it didn't make a lot of sense for them to do so if they had killed in excess of what they needed. Necessity had more to do with it than the kind of worldview that idealists assume they had.

All this is not to say that subsistence societies did not revere the earth and its products more than we do. While we in modern society may try to reduce our environmental impact as much as we can in our personal lives, that sentiment has not been very evident in our industrial endeavours until the environmental movement of the '60s. It is still a struggle (and will remain to be) to balance off anti-pollution initiatives and regulation with the need to be economically competitive.

It's impossible to avoid altering the natural world because of our nature, numbers and actions, but we have to be a little more cognizant of the world's finite capacity to absorb and neutralize the products and by-products of our activities.

[Timber Loftis]

Taking what you can get from the land is one thing. But the notion that you can own the land, that you can keep others from taking from the land alongside you, is the paradigm shift that societies like the American Indians did not make -- and that shift in mindset makes all the difference in the world.

If you want to see another shift in ideology that subsistence cultures may have had that we do not, try looking up the term "seven generations."

http://www.ic.org/pnp/cdir/1995/30morris.html

[ 08-10-2004, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Yorick]

Great link Timber. Thanks for that. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Yorick]

Originally posted by John D Harris: I'm starting a new thread to unhijack this thread: http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...7;t=001291;p=4 The primiss(sp?) has been put forth that the subsistence societies take only what they can use from nature. I put forth they use all they take, and if they could take more they would. No differant than the modern western societies, if you have any doubt try this next time you are walking one of the concret jungles and you stop for a hot dog from a street vender, what do you think that hotdog is made of? Lips and ass holes!!! we use everything we can get our hands on just like the subsistence peoples only differance is we can get our hands on more than they can. Try this little experiment also take a day and go for a ride in the country away from the city, look at all the fields empty fields, notice how only a few field have cattle/sheep/goats on them. stop and ask a farmer how many fields he has. I bet you'll find he has several. then ask him how many fields have animals on them? you'll find he kkeps animal on only a few fields at a time, leaving the other fields to recupurate from the animals. He rotates the animals from field to field. Nature does the same thing it is called migration. Now if you want to have animals roaming allover the place OK. but don't come complaining to me when animals get killed on the Highways, and people are killed when their car hit a cow and they are all killed.

Fine and dandy John, but it doesn't take into account whole sharks thrown back into the water to drown, after their fins have been cut off. It doesn't take into account the huge amounts of garbage thrown out by food chains each night. New York City alone (which doesn't recycle!!!) is one giant rubbish tip at night. It doesn't take into account wheat dumping, or the bad land usage due to annual crops on the great plains. It doesn't take into account that mountains no longer exist once mined, that we are CONSUMING nonreplenishable oil which will cease to exist, nor that vast amounts of usable land are taken up by carpark upon carpark upon carpark. Long live the automobile. It will be the death of us.

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Yorick: Fine and dandy John, but it doesn't take into account whole sharks thrown back into the water to drown, after their fins have been cut off. It doesn't take into account the huge amounts of garbage thrown out by food chains each night. New York City alone (which doesn't recycle!!!) is one giant rubbish tip at night. It doesn't take into account wheat dumping, or the bad land usage due to annual crops on the great plains. It doesn't take into account that mountains no longer exist once mined, that we are CONSUMING nonreplenishable oil which will cease to exist, nor that vast amounts of usable land are taken up by carpark upon carpark upon carpark. Long live the automobile. It will be the death of us.

Well Yorick you live there do something about it Talk to the garbage unions but be careful if they send somebody to talk to you carrying a violin case that can't play the violin. Yes there is waste, there is waste to be found every where, have you not heard one man's trash is another man's treasure? The car may very well be the death of us all, BUT right NOW OIL and CARs are the life of everybody!!!!! There was a thread earlier about how little coal is actually on hand at any one time for electric generation. The same is true for the food in the Grocery stores, you name it,you will find it is the same for nearly everything we use. Take the car away you city folks will be dieing by the millions. Welcome to the world of supply side economics [img]smile.gif[/img] I don't know of many Amreican fishermen that cut sharkfins off, push for the eastern peoples to stop that, beside why are they cutting off sharkfins? for some old back to nature medical remody(sp?), trying to use things the way the subsistence societies did. Teach them to use Viagra, Spanish Fly, a bottle of cheap wine, or an old southern tradition a 4X4 jacked up and a couple of sixpacks, and the greatest pick-up line ever "Get in the truck B****"

Aerich, I bet there is less waste per unit of comodity(sp?) now, then ever in history. "Hale" they use cow parts in make-up, yes ladies your are wipping cow parts on your lips, cheeks and eyes for us knuckle dragging men. If there can be money made on it they use it for something, ground up beef bones become the Calcium you get in your Vitamins, why cause somebody will buy it. As I wrote earlier we turn beef lips and rear-ends into Hotdogs and people line up to eat them. Don't get me wrong the North American Indians had lots of good points, Lordy they could do things with Buffalo guts and beaver tail that a country boy like me finds neat and would like to be able to do.

T.L. Don't give me they didn't have a concept of land ownership, maybe not as we know it, but you let a Blackfoot hunt on Sioux hunting grounds and there would be war! So what if the Indians had reverence for a deer they killed and thanked the deer for giving it's life for them to live. You people let a Christian give thanks publicly for the thangs(southern for things) they got and "Holy Hale" will break lose.
Edit: the Indians never hurt mother Earth, MY rear-end. I'm going to give you a free history leason Until the 30's and 40's the Indians and their way of life was not held in high reguard. Then along comes this man "Grey Owl" the city folks back east feel in love with this old Indian sage and his way of living with nature, sowing the seeds for the eviromental/stop hurting mother earth movements of years later. Only one problem "Grey Owl" was a white man, a bum, a con man suckering people in. P.T Barnum way underestemated the birthrate of suckers.

[ 08-10-2004, 04:54 PM: Message edited by: John D Harris ]

[Aerich]

It's not so much about how much of the animal/whatever that we use. The waste and environmental degredation is in other areas. Particularly with garbage, as Yorick mentioned, and also with industrial byproducts - effluents and air contaminants.

Re: the garbage, our ability to recycle and reuse is nowhere near where it needs to be. We seem to specialize in single-use items, plastics, and fancy wrapping that are NOT biodegradable. They have to sit in garbage dumps.

And quite simply, it's a matter of scale. We have billions of people in the world now, which means that sometimes a city of 5 million is sitting on land that used to support a tribe of 500.

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Aerich: It's not so much about how much of the animal/whatever that we use. The waste and environmental degredation is in other areas. Particularly with garbage, as Yorick mentioned, and also with industrial byproducts - effluents and air contaminants. Re: the garbage, our ability to recycle and reuse is nowhere near where it needs to be. We seem to specialize in single-use items, plastics, and fancy wrapping that are NOT biodegradable. They have to sit in garbage dumps. And quite simply, it's a matter of scale. We have billions of people in the world now, which means that sometimes a city of 5 million is sitting on land that used to support a tribe of 500.

You are right about the garbage, but there is an additional problem that you will hear very little of, that is garbage dumps themselves. There has been only one scientific study that I know of on the subject, done for the National Geographic Society. It was found that because of enviromental regulations Garbage dumps do not work. In order for anything on this earth to break down a cuople of things are needed oxigen(sp?) and UV light breaks down certian chemicals. Eviromental laws make the Garbage dumps line the dumps with CLAY, above and below the garbage. CLAY seals off the garbage, no smell no leaking into ground water, great, right ? Wrong!!!! in a 100 years you could dig up a dump and find garbage that looks like it was thrown in there yesterday. Why No decay, no rot, no Composting of garbage. Thanks to the enviromental movement. This study found only one garbage dump that worked it was and older dump that was grandfathered in and was exempt from the laws in the older areas of the dump. There was a stream running through the dump underground, the water brought Oxigen to the garbage Oxi alowed bacteria to grow and eat the garbage. The water coming out of the stream you ask, (I knew you would so I beat you to it)was as clean coming out as going in. Why because the germs ate everything.

If anybody has NGeo cd or old issue of the magizine, check it out, spring of 1991 or 1992 May of June issue IIRC. I lent my issue to an enviro friend who couldn't beleive it, he never returned it. He didn't like me being right

We do have a lot of people around now, that's a fact Jack That's what trucking is for But we also have VAST areas where there is little population, drive out of town for 15 minutes and count the fields you see where there are no people, where crops are grown to feed people, where cattle are raised to feed people. This is true for the USA and Canada I don't know about Europe. Here in the USA we have VAST tracks of land where there is nothing but trees and furry creatures waiting to be eaten by a bigger furry creature with claws, Or maybe shot by man.

[Timber Loftis]

Hey, John D., there wouldn't be any rot to speak of at garbage dumps anyway. Why? Do the math. Acres and acres of garbage surrounded by garbage doesn't decay either. Even before the clay liners you could bury into landfills and pull forth 100% preserved newspapers from 50 years ago. The part that borders the earth does rot, but it's so slow that the middle part never effectively gets reached for millions of years.

All the while, all the contaminants are leaching into the soil and groundwater. (And note that the contaminants we really care about, hazardous wastes, can't really be ingested by nature's critters.) So, the clay liner rule was adopted. While it subverts the decomposition, which would take millions of years anyway, it does at least preserve our drinking water during the present. (The landfill you site is an anomoly from what I have seen -- and I've seen a bunch.)

Now, I will wholeheartedly agree it is a goddamned shame that after those rule first came about in the 80s, we have not figured anything better to do with the garbage. You know, it would be real easy to enact a cost-effective rule requiring the injection of bacteria, water, and other "natural garbage processors" into existing and new landfills, but Waste Management and other waste industry leaders block that, because ever .0001% of profit margin is a sacred cow.

Anyway, I have got to go for today. You still get my vote for the crustiest of the crusty coots.

[ 08-10-2004, 06:11 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Yorick]

[quote]Originally posted by John D Harris:
Well Yorick you live there do something about it Talk to the garbage unions but be careful if they send somebody to talk to you carrying a violin case that can't play the violin.
[quote] Are you suggesting I can get killed for suggesting recycling for New York City. Is that what you're implying? What are you doing John?

Yes there is waste, there is waste to be found every where, have you not heard one man's trash is another man's treasure? The car may very well be the death of us all, BUT right NOW OIL and CARs are the life of everybody!!!!!

?? I beg to differ. Air quality, road accidents, high stress, lower quality of land, you name it; the car's killing it. Wars fought over it too might I add.

There was a thread earlier about how little coal is actually on hand at any one time for electric generation. The same is true for the food in the Grocery stores, you name it,you will find it is the same for nearly everything we use. Take the car away you city folks will be dieing by the millions. Welcome to the world of supply side economics [img]smile.gif[/img]

What do you mean "you city folks"? I grew up in the Australian desert, around mining towns and cattle properties the size of belgium. I'm more country than you are. I live in a city because I'm a musician. First chance I get, I'm by a beach, in mountain forests of Vermont, or some other place where I can breathe. Take the car away and we would have
1.More space. Roads and parking take up unbelievable space. Notice how old towns like Amsterdam are compacted? You can fit a lot of people into a very pretty area when you get rid of the car.
2.Cleaner air. 'nuff said. Without air we'll die. CFCs from car airconditioners is destroying the ozone layer too.
3.Better health. Notice how New York City doesn't have the obesity problem the rest of the car-cultured USA has? Walking everywhere is a big factor in that. Less back problems, better circulation, better fitness. Walking is great for your health. The car will kill you.
4.Less stress. No traffic jams, cutoffs, being late and unable to run, horns blowing all the time, car alarms ruining sleep. The carless future of tomorrow could be incredible peaceful.

I don't know of many Amreican fishermen that cut sharkfins off, push for the eastern peoples to stop that, beside why are they cutting off sharkfins? for some old back to nature medical remody(sp?), trying to use things the way the subsistence societies did.

Nope, it's for "shark fin soup" a product of the city dwelling chinese culture. They've had cities in east Asia longer than the USA John.

Aerich, I bet there is less waste per unit of comodity(sp?) now, then ever in history. "Hale" they use cow parts in make-up, yes ladies your are wipping cow parts on your lips, cheeks and eyes for us knuckle dragging men. If there can be money made on it they use it for something, ground up beef bones become the Calcium you get in your Vitamins, why cause somebody will buy it. As I wrote earlier we turn beef lips and rear-ends into Hotdogs and people line up to eat them. Don't get me wrong the North American Indians had lots of good points, Lordy they could do things with Buffalo guts and beaver tail that a country boy like me finds neat and would like to be able to do.

Nevertheless, the point still stands.

T.L. Don't give me they didn't have a concept of land ownership, maybe not as we know it, but you let a Blackfoot hunt on Sioux hunting grounds and there would be war! So what if the Indians had reverence for a deer they killed and thanked the deer for giving it's life for them to live.

regardless, it's still not property ownership as per the western concept. Aboriginal Australians had the same inability to grasp the western concept of land ownership. And when you think about it, it IS rather crazy. How can you own land? It can own you, but not the other way round.

You people let a Christian give thanks publicly for the thangs(southern for things) they got and "Holy Hale" will break lose.

I give thanks publicly. Is there a problem with that?

Edit: the Indians never hurt mother Earth, MY rear-end. I'm going to give you a free history leason Until the 30's and 40's the Indians and their way of life was not held in high reguard. Then along comes this man "Grey Owl" the city folks back east feel in love with this old Indian sage and his way of living with nature, sowing the seeds for the eviromental/stop hurting mother earth movements of years later. Only one problem "Grey Owl" was a white man, a bum, a con man suckering people in. P.T Barnum way underestemated the birthrate of suckers.

I fail to see what this has to do with Aboriginal Australians.