OK. I'd rather not live a hunter gatherer exitence. I don't buy that they (any of those you listed) have a society free from one person taking advantage of another.
The old all degrees of imperfection are equal argument. It?s not a society free from one person taking advantage of another. That was never my point, and if I didn?t make that clear, my fault. However, as I stated in the beginning, it is the Elites taking from the Harvesters. Hunter gatherer societies are societies of Harvesters without a class of Elites. That doesn?t mean that they don?t have individuals who are better than others, that means they don?t have classes of privileged elites which we do.
Which does not address my point. Encounters with these societies cannot be regarded as conclusive proof that these societies are free for the strong preying on the weak.
Science is deductive, not inductive. Nothing is ever proven. There aren?t valid arguments, only strong arguments. Again, all degrees of imperfection aren?t equal. How do these social orders compare with ours as regards to predation? Do they have entrenched elites as we do? A single bully and the American oligarchy are hardly equal.
National Geographic? They are terrible fact checkers. You know there little zop code articles in the back? Well they did Fargo. The misidentified the lady sweeping snow (she is a relative of my wife'). They listed the totals of OJ, Milk etc used at an annual pancake feast... I did the math. Everyone had to drink a gallon of OJ and milk to get even close.
Again with the all degrees of imperfection are equal argument. So who does a better job? In every single case in which I have known the intimate details of the incident, the American media has gotten it wrong. So do I get my information from God, or do I muddle through?
I have books written by professional anthropologist, they more or less agree with the National Geographic on this issue. So could you give me a source for your opinion? I?m not asking for a cite, just a source.
Here you have an article by someone who visited the Hadza. As opposed to what?
I started watching more closely after that. The frequency with which the got it wrong was very troubling.
And your source that got it right? Yes, you live in Fargo, and I would expect you to know more about it than visitors. If you had lived for a few years with the Hadza, I would take your word over the National Geographic unless I thought you had a motive to lie.
Greenland.... yes, the colonies traded with the local populations. Newfouondland, they probably did though iirc the Greeland Saga also discussses warring with "skraelings." And, since we are back to comparing our background.... I don't read nat geo anymore - to was a history major - I read scholarly works on these issues.
Perhaps I didn?t make myself clear, though somehow it is very hard to do so with you, I was talking about 19th and 20th Century Danes. The people you are talking about were Vikings from Greenland. The Inuit won the test of survival with the Vikings, it was only after the Danes could use an appendage of an industrial society to allow them to exist on the Ice that they could compete with the Inuit.
Those primative cultures... you adore them. South America (and central for that matter) never got itself involved with anything so nasty as human sacrifice. Or rather they did.... a lot. But that's not the strong preying on the weak is it.
I?m interested in them because I?m interested in the origin of civilization. That?s why I know a little about the subject. The cultures you are talking about, the Inca and the Maya, were civilized. They took from the Harvester and gave to the Elites. The Incas were damn sure the strong preying upon the weak. It took an even more predatory civilization with millennia of technology and societal intermingling over them to bring them down with a
little help from the diseases they brought with them.
The Andean civilizations are especially fascinating because they give rare insights into the development of Civilization from the pre-civilized stage.
Stone age cultures never had much conflict did they... it was an era marked with lots of conflict.
Civilization could exist with lithic technology. There was conflict before civilization, but it was more on the nature of raiding and sport. Civilization developed mass warfare, that?s how they acquired their subjects. If you study the beginning of any civilization, it began with the subjugation of populations through war.
No, you assign that belief to me. You have assumed that those cultures you refer to never had issues of the strong preying on the weak.
No, you stated this.
Of course not, you're speculating. And, I'll even go so far as to say you're probably right for the most part but to suggest there was no conflict with the strong taking advatage of the weak is not something you have evidence of.
You assumed that I had no evidence, etc. . Wasn?t that an assumption?
I have no evidence one way or the other. As such I said you cannot possibly know that your assumption is true. There is a big difference between me saying "you're wrong and here's why" and me saying, "you cannot know that to be true" and here's why.
First of all, because you have no evidence, doesn?t mean that I have no evidence. It seems obvious to me that I?m far better informed on this issue than you are. It?s something I?ve been interested in for fifty years. I?m sure there are a lot of things that you know far more than I do about, like law, for example. You haven?t proven why I cannot know that to be true, you have made statements of opinion, that?s all.
Ah, so now you are walking your edenic noble savage argument back.
Where did I make the edenic noble savage argument? I don?t agree with Rosseau on that one. There was nothing noble about pre-civilized man. He was feral man. Civilized man is domesticated man. The wild dog versus the family pet.
Glad we agree on that point.
Missed the agreement.
It being true that the strong preying on the weak is part of the human condition I'd prefer a society laws to walking around the Kalahari Desert lookinbg for food. I like my fridge, my AC, my cable TV.
Your truth, my fiction. Oh course you do, domesticated animals prefer domestication. The wolf doesn?t like the life of a dog, and the dog doesn?t like the life of a wolf.
Where is preying on the weak institutinalized today in our civilization? You made the claim, please give evidence rather than scoff at the question and change the topic.
I don?t remember scoffing and changing the topic. Contract slavery is a case in point. You call it employment. Yes, the worker has an alternative, he can turn to crime or beg. By worker, I?m referring to the set without sufficient skills to find self employment.
Additional examples.
The people living in the slums are there by choice, and the people in prison are there because they want to be. This is, of course, ignoring the crimes that got our social order to its present state like slavery, cultural genocide and genocide. I am also ignoring the crimes that our social order commits outside of its boundaries.
Ad hominem is not a useful tool in discussion unless you're looking to have an insult contest. I'm pretty good at it once I get going but I find it tedious. So, can we stick to the topic?
An ad hominem has to be false, since I?m not clear what you mean, I can?t tell whether your charge is valid. If you make it clear, I will apologize.
My idea of assail.... again, you assume, you assign a belief to me that is inaccurate. I meant assil in a much largher context, the most minimal would be actual physical violence. I meant, take advantage of... and that may take many forms.
Economic serfdom.... again you assume, you assign to me a belief to me that is inaccurate..
Sorry, but I?m lost.
You don't ever speak in specifics. You carry on in vague and diaphanous assertions void of any material with which to have a discussion.
Praise from Caesar.
Give concrete examples of what you are talking about please. Where are these serfs?
Economic serfs? That?s another term for common hourly paid factory workers. They are becoming less common now that we are exporting our industrial base. Now they can be found pumping gasoline, serving hamburgers, or making beds as well. A subset of contract slave which is a subset of Harvester.
Now that you are clear on the set, you shouldn?t have too much problem locating them.
