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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 01, 2013 05:34 PM |
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Quote:
France 1919, Germany 1945, Japan 1946 and on to most anywhere in the Middle-East like Syria today with refugees fleeing homes. These folks needed/need to grow things to eat, know how to make a fire FAST or make build a shelter. These things are not optional in crisis. We have to eat, need to keep warm and preferably...dry.
Well, in such crisis situations, I don't think it would take too long for a repair man or a heart surgeon to learn farming potatoes. Your problem would rather be things like:
1- There wouldn't be enough land to farm for everyone.
2- It takes quite some time for the crops to grow.
3- You can only plant the crops in certain times of the year.
4- Even if there was enough land, it wouldn't be your property to farm.
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted October 01, 2013 09:16 PM |
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Goodness man. You just can't let my point stand. You do know a there is a such a thing as success at farming? It's one thing to "try to do anything for the first time and quite another to be prepared to succeed. The crisis list was nice but beside my point; but I think you know that.
To repeat<imo> Gaging progress by the collective is nonsense, by that measure we've all built cars and rocket ships. The only reasonable gage (if there is one) is one based on the avg-person and what they are able to do. I'll retire from this topic.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 01, 2013 09:27 PM |
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Well, where we differ is. I think such things would be a productive hobby but I don't think in a modern day crisis, it would help you much. It's better than nothing, sure, I just think you're contemplating these as an "emergency kit" more than they could be. I don't strongly oppose to your point, I just don't agree with it completely.
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 02, 2013 04:20 AM |
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how are property laws relevant in such cases?
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 02, 2013 07:18 AM |
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Well, just because you're a refugee, you can't build a shack or plant some corps anywhere you like. Actually, it's the opposite. You'll probably end up in a refugee camp where many actions including those will be restricted.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 21, 2014 08:51 AM |
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I think some recent posts in the VW are relevant, so I'll bring them over here:
fred79 said:
isn't north africa mostly a desert? why in the hell would anyone want to conquer that? a sandbox for all their cats? 
xerox said:
omg there are so many cats around there and they look quite healthy, especially in the port city of Essouira which I also visited (its where Slavers bay scenes for Daenerys in Game of Thrones were filmed) where they had lots of fish. but yeah, most of north africa is not really a desert but its definftly not anywhere close to Europe when it comes to fertile ground (the Altas mountains are amazing though)
artu said:
North Africa is culturally Middle-Eastern, the real desert is in Middle Africa, blocking any means of trade and historically preventing the soceities below it to go beyond tribe level.
xerox said:
There were African feudal kingdoms in north west Africa and plenty of trade on the mid-south eastern coast Africa (going all the way across the Indian ocean). However, it seems Arab traders were the first to establish any real civilisation and transcontinental trade there.
i've been thinking a lot of why there has been no African civilisation comparable to those in Europe after the Middle Ages, but I've haven't found any answers (the environment seems fine in signficant parts of the continent, yet there isnt any development there)
JoonasTo said:
For the same reason there was none in australia
mvassilev said:
Too many boxing kangaroos
xerox said:
and what reason is that???
Victoria in Australia seems pretty nice
I mean seriously, I've read about Indonesia which is like on the equator and they had regional naval great powers in the European middle ages (with gunpowder) and yet native australians never progress? there are no excuses for their fail culture
fred79 said:
xerox said:
there are no excuses for their fail culture
maybe tribal civilizations never felt the need to "advance" any further?
i've always liked tribal people, except for the scarification thing, genital mutilation, extreme body modification, saggy boobs... tribal women aren't all that hot, imo...
xerox said:
I don't think any civilisation ever has "felt a need" to progress. It's a much more natural process where people develop/get access to new technology and ideas that makes life easier for them. However some cultures, which have not been completely isolated, have been very bad at developing these things or incoporating them from other cultures.
fred79 said:
maybe the rest of the world needs to sack up. tribals don't seem to have the same sissy problems as the rest of "civilized society". they can run forever, live off of bugs and stuff that would make a billygoat puke(including the billygoat), dress in practically nothing in most inclement weather... yeah. and they have no problem showing their balls. bumblebee tuna.
mvassilev said:
Tribal people live uncomfortable lives and are subject to the norms of their tribe. They don't have any of the benefits of modern technology or Enlightenment thinking. Being tribal is awful.
xerox said:
what if they dont know anything else and life is actually quite comfortable for them? so theres not really been a need for them to change for a while?
mvassilev said:
People can get used to a lot of things that are bad for them. Even amputees get used to having missing limbs. It's still bad for them.
xerox said:
Of course, I think tribal life sucks (I only want to live in English, European and East Asian countries). but a person who hasn't seen anything else has not had the possibility to realise that.
artu said:
There are many aspects, of course. But historically, advanced civilization usually comes after a significant rise in population. Where there are crowds, there's stocking of food, where there are stocks, trade, calender (to check how long the stocked food will last), notion of time and historicity and alphabet (to keep inventory of stock) comes. Things organize further from there. If you dont have enough population for various reasons (no milking animals in Americas, desert in parts of Africa, very cold in polar zones, etc etc) you simply dont feel the need to develop more sophisticated forms of society. If there's no water, nobody will build a boat.
fred79 said:
mvassilev said:
It's still bad for them.
according to you. if they don't know anything else, how would they know the difference? take a person who has been blind all their lives, would they miss sight? no, because their other senses would be heightened, and they would have nothing to compare it to, anyway.
personally, i think tribal people are more in tune with the natural world. they leave the smallest footprint, and their impact on their environment is mostly nil. compared to the rest of "civilization".
that being said, i could never be a tribal. mosquitos and flies in my face make me homicidal, and that bathing in animal urine or dirt thing? yeah. not bathing makes me 3x as hostile as mosquitos. i would be the most bloodthirsty, headhunting, intestine-ripping, viciously evil tribal the world had ever seen. like the aztecs or the mayans, there would be sacrifice on a scale that would boggle whitey's minds. i'd be at war with the entire world.
xerox said:
but there are plenty of non-deserty parts of subsaharan Africa that were stuck with mud huts for tens of thousands of years
Also the Nordic countries have never had much of a population at all and are fairly successful. Sweden was also a great power in Europe for a hundred years (we liked the Ottomans!).
artu said:
That's much later and in accordence to being neighbors to parts of Europe where real development was. If you go to, say 500 A.D., Nordic people are much more primitive and tribal compared to ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia or Mediterranean.
mvassilev said:
Quote:
if they don't know anything else, how would they know the difference?
Doesn't matter if they know the difference, they'd still like living a better life. I don't know what it's like to see in 3-D, but you can be sure I'd like to be able to do it.
fred79 said:
mvassilev said:
I don't know what it's like to see in 3-D, but you can be sure I'd like to be able to do it.
that's because you don't think it's evil, or witchcraft, perpetrated by "equinsu ocha".
artu said:
Quote:
I don't know what it's like to see in 3-D, but you can be sure I'd like to be able to do it.
You DO see in 3D, you geek, life is not inside a monitor! 
mvassilev said:
I mean I don't have depth perception. Close one eye and only use the other. That's mostly what the world looks like to me all the time. I can use both of my eyes, but their field of vision doesn't overlap, so I can't see in 3D. To me, everything looks like a picture of itself. That means that I can't watch 3D movies, and sometimes going down steep stairs is troublesome.
artu said:
Oh, sorry, I didnt know you had a condition. Btw, when I use only one eye, there is still depth, it is not binocular depth perception but it's still not 2D, and dont worry, the difference is not so drastic.
mvassilev said:
It's not 2D in the same way cartoons are, obviously, but it's 2D in the way that pictures or images on a screen are.
Corribus said:
mvassilev said:
Tribal people live uncomfortable lives and are subject to the norms of their tribe. They don't have any of the benefits of modern technology or Enlightenment thinking. Being tribal is awful.
Someone living 1000 years from now would probably say the same thing about us.
mvassilev said:
And they'd be right. Compared to them, we live in wretched poverty.
artu said:
Don't mistake me for a defender of the "noble savage" but it's not as simple as you put it. First of all, one can easily speculate that a lumberjack from the medieval ages, living in his shack in the woods, spending most of his day sleeping it off, jerking around hunting rabbits, having all the time in the world, is much happier than a modern industrial worker, spending all his time under heavy traffic in the morning, a meaningless set of robotic tasks during the day and envying the rich he watches in the television during the night. Comfort doesnt necesserily mean more happiness but that aside, sometimes new technology doesnt even mean comfort for everyone either. But the real paradox is, when new technology arrives, it also takes away some of the aspects of the old life, which people often miss but they never truly miss the new technology before it arrives. (They can fantasize about it to a point but your analogy is still flawed because you are aware of binocular depth perception while a tribe man isnt aware of new technology.) I remember the times before internet and cell phones, there was a different level of privacy in life which I sometimes miss, now I wouldnt like the internet to shut down, I got used to it, but the point is, we were not missing it while it was not there. There wasnt any feeling of absence because of it in our lives and that goes for every new invention. So while it's true beyond doubt that new technology brings comfort to our life, there is no guarantee that the comfort will transform into hapiness. Another issue would be the kind of anxiety that only the level of self-awareness in modern times produces. Alienation is always a part of information about our insignificant place in the universe and one can easily argue our ancestors were way better without it.
Overall, I do like progress but these are counter arguments that shouldnt be taken lightly and they are all partially true.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 04:21 PM |
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That's just not true. People in modern times like to idolize the medieval lumberjack because his life was "simple", but if the average person were to live his life, they'd realize that it sucks. There's a reason people were really happy when running water, sewer systems, electricity, washing machines, etc were invented. Because of all those inventions, people have more leisure time than ever before. People like to remember the best parts of the past and forget the bad. They're biased.
As for alienation, it's a fake problem, by which I mean it's entirely made up. It's literally not a problem that anyone has ever had. There are people with uninteresting jobs who are unhappy because of it, but that's not the same thing as alienation. Boredom and depression are real, but alienation (caused by "meaninglessness", which is more nonsense) isn't.
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 21, 2014 06:13 PM |
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I guess by "idolize" you mean romanticize but obviously that was not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the modern man romanticizing the lumberjack, I'm speculating on the lumberjack's feelings directly and you are dead wrong about people having more time to themselves because now they have washing machines and stuff... Life is faster than it ever was and capitalism turned the average person into a working agent more than ever. People had so much more time to themselves in the past despite the fact that it took them longer to cook or wash clothes. Besides, you totally skip the main point which was "COMFORT and HAPPINESS are very different things." If you are very uncomfortable in general (which they were not, at least in the sense you claim, cause they had no notion of comparing their daily routine to our age) it's unlikely for you to be happy but comfort does not bring happiness all by itself. At least if you are not quite shallow.
Alienation is not a fake issue, it is a special kind of depression that is unique to post-industrial age, unlike, say, depression that comes with losing a family member or being homesick. There are hundreds of novels, films and philosophical literature adressing the issue. It wont just puff away because you happen to think such things don't make sense in your world of absolute pragmatism. Feeling life is meaningless is also not a fake issue, IF you expect your life to have a significant meaning. Note that, this search does not necessarily need to be a search for something super-natural (like a god or some karmic force) but to suggest "people feeling meaningless is meaningless" again makes me wonder what do you exactly expect from life. If you had awful lot of money and you could rent service for any physical task you could think of, would that be enough for your happiness or do you imagine you'd get bored after a while?
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 06:25 PM |
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Of course people have more time to themselves as a result of technological advances. They no longer have to wash their clothes by hand, clean up after their horses, etc. Life may be faster in the sense that people do more different things in one day, but that's irrelevant because now they can do more things they enjoy, instead of having to work so much. If you're spending a long time cooking, cleaning, gathering food, etc, you obviously don't have much time for yourself.
Happiness and comfort aren't the same thing, but discomfort is a major source of unhappiness. Being comfortable in material means and in free time doesn't guarantee that you'll be happy, but it makes it much easier. There are many things that contribute to happiness - one's material conditions (comfort, as we're calling it here), one's character (virtue), positive interpersonal relationships, getting enough sleep, mental health, etc.
Alienation is a fake issue. Sometimes it's entirely invented and ascribed to workers by intellectuals - "Look at how they're working, they can't possibly be happy!", even though the workers are reasonably satisfied with what they're doing. At other times, alienation is misdiagnosed, and the real problem is something else - it's common for people to misidentify the source of a problem. For example, if you don't like your particular job, it's easy to think that all jobs are like that and that an entire line of work is inherently depressing. Or someone may have clinical depression (which is underdiagnosed) and think it's coming from one specific thing (work) when it's really a more general problem.
To answer your question about me having a lot of money, that would make me happier, yes. Given that I'm already happy, it would make me comfortable and financially secure, and therefore happier. It's not a guarantee for everyone, though, there are plenty of people who would be made better off by this, but it wouldn't be enough for happiness, because they don't have friends or are depressed.
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 21, 2014 06:50 PM |
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You're taking the term alienation in a very orthodox, Marxist way, it's not just about factory workers and revolution etc etc... Just read The Stranger from Albert Camus for starters.
And no, people dont have more time to themselves, just look at the things you enlist here and imagine how long they will take in a week. Also, imagine the women of a village, going by the river together and washing the clothes of the house while chatting with each other, maybe going in for a swim even... It's not exactly hard-labor, is it? It can easily be preffered to hours of dull office work.
You have a pattern of oversimplifying human nature and happiness (or unhappiness) and it's hard to convince you otherwise since you are so clueless about how oversimplified you interpretation is and there is no positive way of measuring these things. However, the amount of anti-depresants sold in wealthiest countries should give you a hint.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 06:58 PM |
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The other meaning of alienation is just depression or something similar - a personal psychological problem, not caused by modern technology in the least. People have only started to talk about it in contemporary times because they were too worried about survival earlier to devote any effort to talking about or addressing it. Now that people are wealthier in general, they can afford to focus on less immediate and less severe problems.
People obviously have more time to themselves. Again, you're romanticizing the past. Nothing is stopping people from talking and swimming together, and they don't even have to wash clothes while doing it. Public pools aren't uncommon - put your clothes in the washing machine, call your friends, and go.Quote:
However, the amount of anti-depresants sold in wealthiest countries should give you a hint.
Yes, it gives me a hint that people care about depression now, instead of having to bear it in silence. People in the past were messed up psychologically. Saying that more antidepressants = more depression is like saying more shampoo = worse hygiene.
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 21, 2014 07:16 PM |
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Quote:
The other meaning of alienation is just depression or something similar - a personal psychological problem, not caused by modern technology in the least.
Not by modern technology but by modern age. It's still specific to recent times.
And I certainly dont have tendency to romanticize the past, not pre-capitalist times anyway. (I'm always a sucker for the 60's though). I simply pointed out you exxagerate the toughness of pre-industrial everyday work. Having to wash your clothes or not having a fridge are not the kind of things that determine a person's happiness. That's the most consumerist logic I've heard in quite a while. And history is not a straight line of progress that just keeps making people happier each passing century.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 07:26 PM |
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There's nothing about the modern age that should cause people to be more depressed than before, so either way, it's not the problem.
Washing your clothes once or twice isn't a huge deal, of course, but it is a nuisance if you have to do it regularly. Not having a fridge is even more of a problem - it makes storing food significantly more difficult. It means you have to shop more often, etc. One nuisance after another adds up to unhappiness. Why do you think people were so happy to buy refrigerators when they became available? If modern technology wasn't as great as I say, people wouldn't flock to it they way they do.
The only reason history isn't always progress (at least in the post-medieval era) is because of wars and bad laws. In terms of as far as social norms and technology affect life, it's been an improvement.
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 21, 2014 07:34 PM |
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Obviously, nobody was unhappy because there were no fridges before. And you talk as if buying more and more stuff actually made people genuinely happier which is not the case.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 07:38 PM |
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Buying more stuff doesn't always make people happier, but it does when it saves them significant amounts of labor or other forms of effort, which is the case with fridges, washing machines, etc.
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 21, 2014 07:42 PM |
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Not at all. Somebody who must work hard can be really happy while a born billionare can be bored to death. There is no direct causality there. It will only help if you are already happy for much more significant reasons such as loving what you do for a living or having a healthy relationship or a loving family etc etc...
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 07:45 PM |
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It'll make you happier or at least give you more free time and/or income with which to face your problem, for example, so you can pay a therapist. Just because labor-saving devices aren't guaranteed to make you happy doesn't mean they don't make you happier than you would have been otherwise. Lonely people aren't thinking, "Damn, if only I didn't have a refrigerator!"
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Eccentric Opinion
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 08:48 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 20:53, 21 Feb 2014.
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I think the apparent rise of depression seen in wealthy countries can be attributed to their cultures becoming more individualistic and secular, thus putting more pressure on the individual. People in wealthy countries rely a lot more on themselves than on their communities (family, church, long term workplaces) and faith.
I think alienation in relation to westernization in developing countries is really interesting. Many "third world" leaders have tried to specifically replicate the West by imposing its institutions and values in their own cultures. This has often resulted in withspread public alienation towards these Western values of secularism, materialism and individualism. The adminstrators of these countries, often being composed of a small but western enthusiastic elite, have tried to realize a view on progress which does not at all align with the views of the masses.
This phenomenom is especially noticeable in the Muslim countries of North Africa and the Middle East. Turkey is perhaps the only country where a process of westernization can be considered fairly successful. Probably due to the country's proximity to Europe. But there are a lot of examples where it has failed miserably. Egypt and Iran are great examples. In Iran, you have the Islamic revolution which largely occured due to the masses feeling alienated from the views of the elite, and the westernization these were trying to impose on them. Islamism (ranging from moderates to fundamentalists) is arguably the greatets political force among the Egyptian public, being contained only by the military and the failures of its representatives such as Mursi. The sharp rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the last decades largely originates in this feeling of alienation towards progress in the shape of westernization. A westernization which has often been violent, radical and non-democratic as seen in the last Shah of Iran and the regimes of Egypt, particulary during the reign of Nasser.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 09:00 PM |
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I'm not going to say there isn't an element of that, but I think much of those things happened because of politics, not culture. The Shah was an oppressive ruler. The West has long been meddling in the Middle East and North Africa - colonialism, imperialism, etc. Even if the culture and values were the same, they'd still have plenty of reasons to fight.
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 21, 2014 09:01 PM |
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Edited by artu at 21:02, 21 Feb 2014.
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Well, the Ottoman Empire was not just Middle-Eastern, it was also Mediterranean and European (if you take the word at large and consider the Balkans as part of Europe's core culture). Being a Turk is still culturally being all of these things. I think part of the problem is people relating everything to Western culture, when in fact a lot of it was due to industralization that only happened to arrise in the West FOR THE FIRST TIME. If you are interested in the subject, and especially the Arabic part, I recommend this book. The author has great insight on the subject not only because he is a terrific writer but also because of his heritage:
Amin Maalouf, born 25 February 1949 in Beirut, is a Lebanese-born French[1] author. Has lived in France since 1976.[2] Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French, and his works have been translated into many languages. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel The Rock of Tanios (English translation of Le rocher de Tanios). He has also been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in its 2010 edition. He was elected at the Académie française on 23 June 2011, on seat 29. Maalouf is the first Lebanese inducted as an academy immortal.[3] He filled the vacant member seat of the late Claude Lévi-Strauss, French anthropologist and ethnologist.[4]
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This thread is pages long: 
