Where was God...

[NCHillbilly]

You have to have some domesticated crops and preferably animals to start a civilization. It all begins with the ability of a few farmers to feed the masses. Then you can can division of labor, professional specialists, and so on. If you’re lucky enough to have some animals you can raise to eat and pull a plow, even better.

If a group of people don’t have that they stay stuck in hunter gatherer mode, and the top priority of everyone is finding food.

Which culminates in politicians, taxes, wars, and regulation. I often think that the hunter-gatherer folks are the only ones left that have any sense.

 

[livinoutdoors]

Which culminates in politicians, taxes, wars, and regulation. I often think that the hunter-gatherer folks are the only ones left that have any sense.

They have done studies that show that hunter gatherer groups actually have quite a bit of free time, and tend to sit around doing nothing a good bit.

 

[livinoutdoors]

The harsher = smarter rule makes sense. We only grow when an external force demands that we grow. Eskimos (as one example) expanding into arctic regions didn't have much room for error. They had to figure out fast how to make new tools and learn new techniques from scratch. Aborigines really had to step their game because EVERYTHING in Australia is designed to cut or poison you.

Those would actually be two examples of fairly low tech societies by our standards.

 

[livinoutdoors]

You know it! That's one of the side effects of human curiosity and imagination. Our knack for making new things & entertaining ourselves has outstripped our ability to see how wasteful and sometimes destructive it can be. In some ways humans are almost too successful for our own good and the planet's good. But who could see this coming hundreds of thousands of years ago?

This would be a side note but i myself do believe we have gone too far and taken too much. Now we must seek to rebalance our place in nature before we cant.

 

[livinoutdoors]

We see in the modern world just how much diet and location can effect the human condition that is true, but why did early meat consumtion lead to jets and computers? Why didnt this happen in other animals? Still seems like the seperation between us and them is bigger than diet and chance but thats just me. Our role in the world will be known at some point to every person in it.

 

[Qazaq15]

We see in the modern world just how much diet and location can effect the human condition that is true, but why did early meat consumtion lead to jets and computers? Why didnt this happen in other animals? Still seems like the seperation between us and them is bigger than diet and chance but thats just me. Our role in the world will be known at some point to every person in it.

I think we're a branch of evolution that just worked. Our brains use 20 to 25% of our total energy intake. That noodle takes a lot of energy to work, it has to earn its keep. And it did, through several positive feedback loops. We got smarter, which allowed us to harvest more protein, which made us smarter still, and so on. With it came the ability to create more complex tools, then language really expanded our horizons. It gave us the ability to think abstractly, a means to convey past and future, and with that a realization of our own mortality, which in turn leads to spirituality. Why it happened only with us I don't know, but it did, and it gave us the ability to outcompete every other species on the planet.

 

[livinoutdoors]

I think we're a branch of evolution that just worked. Our brains use 20 to 25% of our total energy intake. That noodle takes a lot of energy to work, it has to earn its keep. And it did, through several positive feedback loops. We got smarter, which allowed us to harvest more protein, which made us smarter still, and so on. With it came the ability to create more complex tools, then language really expanded our horizons. It gave us the ability to think abstractly, a means to convey past and future, and with that a realization of our own mortality, which in turn leads to spirituality. Why it happened only with us I don't know, but it did, and it gave us the ability to outcompete every other species on the planet.

And i think there is more to it than that, as im sure you are aware by now

 

[Qazaq15]

And i think there is more to it than that, as im sure you are aware by now

So do I, I'm painting with a pretty broad brush. I think our smarts just made us realize something has been there all along.

 

[livinoutdoors]

So do I, I'm painting with a pretty broad brush. I think our smarts just made us realize something has been there all along.

I can dig that, man

 

[bullethead]

We see in the modern world just how much diet and location can effect the human condition that is true, but why did early meat consumtion lead to jets and computers? Why didnt this happen in other animals? Still seems like the seperation between us and them is bigger than diet and chance but thats just me. Our role in the world will be known at some point to every person in it.

https://www.amnh.org/explore/science-topics/microbiome-health/fire-cooking-human-evolution

 

[oldfella1962]

You have to have some domesticated crops and preferably animals to start a civilization. It all begins with the ability of a few farmers to feed the masses. Then you can can division of labor, professional specialists, and so on. If you’re lucky enough to have some animals you can raise to eat and pull a plow, even better.

If a group of people don’t have that they stay stuck in hunter gatherer mode, and the top priority of everyone is finding food.

Good summation! And as for those few folks who consider hunter-gatherers "primitive" they are misguided. The H/G people just have a different skillset
and toolbox. Humans have been H/G for far, far longer than we have had "civilization" post large scale agriculture.

 

[oldfella1962]

Well pass me the muktuk! lol

I'm good! You can have my share.

 

[Nicodemus]

Good summation! And as for those few folks who consider hunter-gatherers "primitive" they are misguided. The H/G people just have a different skillset
and toolbox. Humans have been H/G for far, far longer than we have had "civilization" post large scale agriculture.

Are you a primitives skills and old ways practioner?

 

[oldfella1962]

If humans are no more important than animals why haven’t animals ever done things that transcend their existence that aim at something higher the way humans do? Animals don’t have that need because all they are concerned with is mating and getting enough to eat. Why are those two things not enough for humans if we are just animals?

Good question! It would be interesting to imagine what humans would be like if our brains had evolved slightly differently. What if humans had no desire for "wanting" things and we just focused on our needs? I don't mean that we are unemotional robots or anything, or had any less intelligence, but we just had slightly different drives and motivations. Did "wanting more" have some type of evolutionary advantage in early man or proto-humans? Did it develop very gradually or relatively recently? We have different aged skulls to measure brain capacity, but we don't know exactly what was going on inside those earlier brains.

 

[WaltL1]

This would be a side note but i myself do believe we have gone too far and taken too much. Now we must seek to rebalance our place in nature before we cant.

I agree.
But I think its already too late to do it voluntarily. Not enough people care. I just cant see enough folks willing to make the necessary sacrifices.

 

[livinoutdoors]

https://www.amnh.org/explore/science-topics/microbiome-health/fire-cooking-human-evolution

This was a very long winded way for the author to blame obesity on evolution. If humans had a weak digestive system to start out with, that starved us of nutrition, then how were we able to get to the tools and fire stage? Seen any other animals cookin a steak? On the flip side of that hogs and other animals have been eatin cooked food that humans provided them for centuries. Why are hogs not driving cars now? And, to top it all off, if other animals have the ability to access proper nutrition without fire, then why did their brains not grow large and give them intelligence on the human level. I will also add that modern nutrion science seems to show a vast array of health problems from eating overly processed foods. So, in the modern world we are seeing what happens to the body when it gets too much.

 

[livinoutdoors]

I agree.
But I think its already too late to do it voluntarily. Not enough people care. I just cant see enough folks willing to make the necessary sacrifices.

People on the large scale will only care when they are forced to care. The world around them will make them care at some point. If you know better, then it is your burden to set the example and hope that others follow. If you force people to do a thing they will fight it, but if you can make them see why they should choose it, then there is hope. Small hope but still.

 

[WaltL1]

People on the large scale will only care when they are forced to care. The world around them will make them care at some point. If you know better, then it is your burden to set the example and hope that others follow. If you force people to do a thing they will fight it, but if you can make them see why they should choose it, then there is hope. Small hope but still.

I question how long a "rebalance" would last before we went right back to doing the same things that got us here. In a couple of generations the rebalance would seem normal and not important and we would get right back on the same path of over indulgence.

 

[livinoutdoors]

I question how long a "rebalance" would last before we went right back to doing the same things that got us here. In a couple of generations the rebalance would seem normal and not important and we would get right back on the same path of over indulgence.

That is why its important to preseve the things we have learned.

 

[oldfella1962]

Are you a primitives skills and old ways practioner?

Just for recreational purposes. I have never truly lived "off the grid" being a H/G that's for sure. But I do believe that the more we do things (no matter what activity we are doing) the way that mankind has naturally done them, the better it is for our minds & bodies. For example not eating so many processed foods. I try to eat a pretty large percentage of my foods in their original state, like whole fruits & vegetables & eggs for example. For exercise I walk (with a rucksack *) and lift weights mostly with kettlebells ** and body-weight resistance like pushups & pullups ***.

* walking (or running) is about the most natural movement humans can do.
Only humans can do it for extended distances and are bodies have evolved to be PERFECT for it. Doctors have studied Sardinian shepherds who walk constantly all day everyday - and eat simple foods - and their overall health is well above that of their city living/sedentary peers. Walking with a rucksack makes sense because early humans had to pack killed animals or shelter materials around while keeping their hands free to carry weapons or even more critters & rocks or whatever.

** Kettle bells provide a very natural "plane of motion" so your joints are not put into positions & leverages that compromise them. In other very natural body movements. Machines force your body into awkward & dangerous positions much of the time. Yes, lifting rocks and logs is great too, but at 60 years old I'm just not as coordinated as I was at 30, so safety has to be my #1 priority.

*** Body weight exercises the purest form of exercise going back even before humans. Pulling your body up or hanging on tree branches for example was about as useful and natural as you could get!

Sidenote Balance Of Nature probably does provide you with vitamins & minerals. But you get fiber and bulk from eating the fruits + vegetable in their whole form, which promotes faster waste processing through your body (at my age I need all the help pooping that I can get) and the bulk helps keep you feeling full so you might not want to eat more calories from snacking than you need.