patrick.net

Of course “primitive” people today have longer lives. There’s no mystery in that at all.

Well, they could have shorter lives, the same, or longer lives, due to new diseases of diabetes, heart disease, alcoholism, smallpox, colds, influenza, measles, mumps, rubella, tuberculosis, HIV, etc, and the problem of incarceration and deaths in custody. Some of them now live on a diet of tinned spaghetti and no longer hunt, catch or forage much for food. However, there's little doubt that extant HG societies discovered in the past 2 centuries engaged in a lot of inter-tribal warfare, often based on grudges, suspicion and beliefs in magical tampering, sometimes over territorial matters, etc. 'Primitive' is another no-no word in expert circles as well. (Technologically) simple societies. Pre-industrial societies. Stateless societies. Nomadic societies. But you'd know that from the Ph.D ;)

just to contrast the Hollywood Flintstones cave man fiction and fantasy of the way homo sapiens (modern man) lived for 200,000 years before the last 10,000 years of history in HG societies (in which dinosaurs apparently did co-exist with cavemen!), this is taken from Marshall Sahlins 'The original affluent society' work, where the early European invasion of Australia found:

It is a mistake, Sir George Grey (7) wrote, to suppose that the native Australians "have small means of subsistence, or are at times greatly pressed for want of food". Many and "almost ludicrous" are the errors travellers have fallen into in this regard: "They lament in their journals that the unfortunate Aborigines should be reduced by famine to the miserable necessity of subsisting on certain sorts of food, which they have found near their huts; whereas, in many instances, the articles thus quoted by them are those which the natives most prize, and are really neither deficient in flavour nor nutritious qualities". To render palpable "the ignorance that has prevailed with regard to the habits and customs of this people when in their wild state", Grey provides one remarkable example, a citation from his fellow explorer, Captain Stuart, who, upon encountering a group of Aboriginals engaged in gathering large quantities of mimosa gum, deduced that the "unfortunate creatures were reduced to the last extremity, and, being unable to procure any other nourishment, had been obliged to collect this mucilaginous". But, Sir George observes, the gum in question is a favourite article of food in the area, and when in season it affords the opportunity for large numbers of people to assemble and camp together, which otherwise they are unable to do. He concludes:

"Generally speaking, the natives live well; in some districts there may be at particular seasons of the year a deficiency of food, but if such is the case, these tracts are, at those times, deserted.

It is, however, utterly impossible for a traveller or even for a strange native to judge whether a district affords an abundance of food, or the contrary... But in his own district a native is very differently situated; he knows exactly what it produces, the proper time at which the several articles are in season, and the readiest means of procuring them. According to these circumstances he regulates his visits to different portions of his hunting ground; and I can only say that l have always found the greatest abundance in their huts."(8)

The Original Affluent Society--Marshall Sahlins

The entire article is worth reading to dispel a few more myths...

Randy H Says:
So to distill DS’ arguments to a readable form:

– This is false, incidentally, by the Schiller data which shows population growths along with infant mortality, and longevity. DS is wrong because populations grew very fast, meaning both decreased infant mortality and increased longevity.

Just on this, you left out increased fertility, apart from the questionable quality of any data obtained from the Schiller Institute. I say that the longevity figures are life expectation at birth, and leave out the average age of survival from say age 15, when the adolescent is robust enough to survive without difficulty. Note that intertribal warfare in HG societies that we have observed such as in PNG and Oz normally only involves males at a safe distance in skirmishes, not the out and out subjugation and kill 'em dead warfare for resources that we're more used to -- it is over suspicions of black magic or territorial incursions normally. Once a few spears have been thrown and someone has capitulated, it is normally over. Slave-taking, subjugation and similar activities are very rare, that seems to have occurred for the first time in agrarian or fixed societies (where tending gardens and fields is actually a lot more work) and ever-expanding empires.

Note that urban infant mortality figures from Georgian and Victorian times are much higher than rural figures at the same time due to urban epidemics around sanitation and overcrowding.

Once again, you've missed the point -- I'm not saying HG societies are 'better' than living in the past 100 years known as modernity (and only the past 100 years) -- however, they have some redeeming qualities that would make them better than many other epochs in history for many people -- and that they value things differently, as per the Sahlins paper produced all those years ago (which is also referenced in the Journal of Population Research article), and perhaps possess certain values which we should look to again regarding lack of concern for material things and perpetual 'wanting'. I certainly hope our only hope is not to colonise or mine other planets, because no other planet in this solar system possesses hydrocarbons for machine lubrication and fuel derived from decaying plants and animals for a start, apart from technical feasibility and timescale questions. Without lubricants and petroleum, our entire mode of running machinery and producing materials such as plastics is dead, think about that at the recreational monster truck rallies, speed boat racing and F1 and drag racing strips (sorry bap).

Seriously, has anyone figured out how to set up a killfile for wordpress? The closest I have is to pick up the RSS for Comments and then set up a filter, but that approach has its own shortcomings.

SP

@astrid,

Well...? It's happening! Sunday's Las Vegas Sun had a great article describing exactly what you predicted! My "party all the time, neighbor from hell" scenario is playing out with frightening accuracy! (Ben Jones also posted the article)

Seems "San Niccolo" (a GATED community) in LV is becoming a nightmare already. The "gate" is crashed with regularity as "young renters" partying friends nudge the gate with their cars to gain entry on the weekends. One poor gal was chased back into her 2,600 s/f rental (for $1,350 a month) by her neighbor's PIT BULL! She now keeps 2 cans of pepper spray at the door and has ordered a Glock (for it's "stopping power").

This (formerly) upscale, gated and 600k+ community is now described as having a "frat house atmosphere"! I'm just miffed someone beat me to it!

SP

Older versions of FeedDemon used to have nice RSS-based filtering. The newer versions took it out, for some reason. This blog isn't very nice via RSS though.

You could always just skip my comments ;0

Crank one out yourself and I'll promote the hell out of it for you.

DinOR,

Ha ha!

(Is there a German or Welsh word for taking joy in having one's prediction of other people's misfortune come true :)

I can't believe that neither Wordpress nor Mozilla extension exist for filtering out comments...

@astrid,

Maybe you are just a schadenfreudian (decide whether to capitalize or italicize depending upon your own syntactic preference).

Randy H Says:
Older versions of FeedDemon used to have nice RSS-based filtering. The newer versions took it out, for some reason. This blog isn’t very nice via RSS though.

I have a few RSS aggregators that I use, but although they allow decent blacklist and whitelist filtering, they are only good for reading, not for participating in a discussion. Sharpreader does decent filterspec, but it is tied to the .net framework so I can't use it on my linux machines.

You could always just skip my comments ;0

Yeah, but automating it would be so much nicer. :-) But seriously, I am not looking for filtering out by author, but by keywords.

Crank one out yourself and I’ll promote the hell out of it for you.

Or we could just evolve into higher beings and start using Usenet.

SP

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC.N) Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo said the U.S. housing market is unlikely to recover before 2009, as lenders and homeowners work through oversupply, stagnating home prices, and the excesses of recent lax lending standards in much of the mortgage industry.

He he he...

SP

I miss Usenet. I used to participate quite a bit in rec.poetry, but then again back then I had youthful ideals and a lot more hormones.

Actually, has anyone tried to revive Usenet by facading it with blog-like interfaces? I have to think through why, but it sounds like there might be something there.

Randy H Says:
Actually, has anyone tried to revive Usenet by facading it with blog-like interfaces? I have to think through why, but it sounds like there might be something there.

Of course. Google groups covers that. G bought out Dejanews' content and rolled it into http://groups.google.com/

In many ways, Usenet as a discussion platform was further evolved than most blogs are today.

SP

I'm visiting CA as I write. Why don't you tax the crap out of cigs? I can't believe they are only $3.50 a pack. I thought CA was so into health and whatever! Back in Chicago $7.00 is a deal and the state is about to increase the tax by another 75 cents. Imagine what the state could do for health care and high speed rail with the extra $3.50 to $4.00 a pack! WOW!!!

Here's a link-

http://tinyurl.com/2ger3s

Yeah, but the CEO of Countrywide is going to make a mint, no matter how well or poorly the company does:

http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSN2543727420070725

Even if Countrywide Financial Corp.'s profit falls sharply in 2007, Chairman Angelo Mozilo still could pocket a maximum incentive of $10 million, thanks to a change in his employment contract that does not require earnings growth.

Mozilo, the son of a butcher who built Countrywide into the largest U.S. mortgage lender, is used to receiving handsome compensation. Over the past five years, Mozilo has received $387 million from pay and stock option gains.

Missing from this discussion, and admittedly I didn't peruse every word in 249 previous comments, is corporate avoidance of taxes.
Large corporation's share of the tax burden has fallen from 35% in the 1940's to something around 10% today. Multinational corps. largely run the government and write the laws ( see the credit card bill of a few years ago, the current farm bill, the operation of our intelligence gathering) and they increasingly operate without any restrictions whatsoever.

As to all the "welfare queen" bashers: I hope there is no karmic coming back in another life to enlighten you as to what it is to be poor in America.

You're all wrong! Just kidding, however there is a solution that I didn't see posted above, the Henry George "single tax". Take a look at www.henrygeorge.org but don't reject the idea until you are sure you really understand it. It takes a little study since it flies in the face of common preconceptions and it is very easy to think you get it when you don't. Just keep in mind the principle - don't tax that which you want more of!

By the by, the FairTax is, IMHO, only very slightly better than the current mess. It is far from a good solution.