Hi Andy,
I too will try to share insights to my views.
When I wrote "More people live longer, eat better, have more rights, have
more education, have a wider range of opportunity and experience and work
together in larger and larger interactive networks," you replied that it was
only because of population growth. In other words, you portray it as a
numbers game.
This is not so:
Average Lifespan increased 37 years worldwide in 20th century (the average in
the stone age is believed to have been as low as 21 years)
Illiteracy rate has dropped from 75% to 20% over the same century
Starvation rate (per the UN) dropped from 37% in 1970 to 18% in 1996
Average caloric intake has increased 38% in developing countries in past 40
years.
Per capita income has more than tripled in developing and developed nations
in the past half century
Over the same 40 years, grain yields are up 30%, and the yield per cow, pig
and chicken (in meat or milk) has roughly doubled
Per capita income has more than tripled in developing and developed nations
in the past half century
There are more democracies now than in any previous era (I don't have it
available, but there is a Freedom Index that measures this.)
ANDY:
There was never any need to free man from the biological
chains. I know from your past posts that you disagree, but hunter and
gatherer
tribes did live in relative harmony with there environment. This is not to
say
that they did not have an effect on their surroundings, but they never caused
any
large-scale damage to the ecosystems that they coexisted in.
ROG:
Your expert on the issue -- Jared Diamond -- refers to this myth as "The
Golden Age That Never Was." Can you honestly tell me that you are unaware of
the ecological/biodiversity disasters of the Anasazi Indians, of Easter
Island, of Petra, of New Zealand and of Madagascar (to name a few)? Are you
forgetting the widespread massacre of the majority of large land mammals in
the Americas with the original introduction of the Indians? Have you
forgotten that violent murder is the most common cause of male death in
hunter/gatherer societies?
As for your question on why I would presume hunter/gatherers do not support
the dominance of intellectual values, it is because H/G societies cannot
produce science, mathematics, philosophy, logic, etc. These are recent
accomplishments even for developed nations.
I read the E.O. Wilson article last week. It doesn't differ much from my
views. In brief I think we agree that as society progresses, people expand in
numbers up to the limits of the new technology, which forces problems until
new solutions are found, which allows people to overpopulate again, which...
The solution fans the flames of even bigger problems. Society progresses, but
at what cost?
ANDY:
And if there is ever some omniscient judge of quality in the universe that
may
rank human societies based on the "their contribution to the evolution of
life,"
our age will certainly rank toward the bottom based on the diversity of life
that
we have helped destroy during our tenure as the dominant species on the
planet.
ROG:
Again, I agree that species extinction is bad. The question I have for you
is what are you suggesting? What is your solution? (I have given mine
already, but in brief it is that cultures must control overpopulation and
continue the technical/intellectual/social advances necessary to support a
reasonable number of people in harmony with the planet and other species.)
Rog
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