A Critique of Civilization As A Disease.

[La Verdad]

I’m from Canada, and I have studied the native history here and most tribes didn’t devastate the landscape, they lived minimal sustainable existences for thousands of years.

This is true because there were such small numbers of them with no or little technology that they didn’t have the capability to devastate the landscape plus their belief systems ensured that they protected the natural world.

lol You really don't need that much technology to wreck the environment. Many North American tribes engaged in the extremely wasteful practice of chasing whole herds of buffalo over cliffs and then eating a small fraction of the corpses.

I found it interesting you mentioned Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" you might be interested in his other book "Collapse" - where he gives examples of how the Polynesians, the peoples of Easter Island, the Anasazi, and others - and shows how the screwed over their environment horribly with the utterly primitive means at their disposal.

In Canadian history, It is only the white man in his overpopulated cities and grossly exaggerated technologies that is able to totally devastate a landscape.

Japan and the countries of the West have negative population growth. Almost none of them are able to maintain the 2.1 children/per woman reproduction level required simply not to shrink. The notable exception to this is America (who's population is growing only because Jorge Bush can't be bothered with controlling our borders).
Population growth is a third world phenomenon.
Some demographers have even projected that the Africa of 2050 will have a population of 2 billion.
The poorest continent on Earth will capture the largest demographic increases for the next century.

You are a fool because you believe the drivel that they teach in American Universities. America is pure pride, and they will do anything do maintain their sense of achievement and superiority.

They will even lie about the past so they do not have to face up to the myriad of blunders that their ancestors are guilty of.

Hahah yeah right. Our universities shovel the same silly-ass Rousseauesque 'Noble Savage' nonsense as you do.

The genius doesn’t want to be a part of any of this chaos. This is why I agree with many of the other intelligent posters on here when I say that sustainable living through permaculture implementation is the most intelligent environment to create as a means to allow genius to grow and mature.

A combination of sustainable gardening techniques with minimal housing is the ideal model to create as a means to create a fertile environment for the developing genius.

You condemn civilization as a disease, and a poor petri dish for 'growing' genius - yet you'd be hard pressed to name a single genius who did not live in a civilization.
It is only civilizations that have given the world Buddha, Goethe, Socrates, Epictetus, Beethoven, and Cato - not the primitive tribes of the world.
The tribal environment is either not conducive to the rearing of genius, or it lack the means (e.g. writing) to record the achievments of their genii (and thereby being immoral in their robbing of posterity and allowing the lifeworks of great men to pass so easily into oblivion) - although I'm inclined to believe the former.

[Ryan Rudolph]

La Verdad wrote:

lol You really don't need that much technology to wreck the environment. Many North American tribes engaged in the extremely wasteful practice of chasing whole herds of buffalo over cliffs and then eating a small fraction of the corpses.

This is in incredibly weak example. Killing buffalo is much different is severity than lets say constructing a vinyl chloride plant to make siding and destroying the air and water quality in a 200 mile radius in the process.

Of course Natives caused damage, but their damage wasn’t as extreme, namely because they existed in such low numbers and more importantly because they didn’t have the knowledge or technology that we do now.

La Verdad wrote:

where he gives examples of how the Polynesians, the peoples of Easter Island, the Anasazi, and others - and shows how the screwed over their environment horribly with the utterly primitive means at their disposal.

This is rare and not the norm. It isn’t as likely because most natives tribes had complicated superstitiutions to ensure the protection of the natural world, and also they only had their bare hands to cause the damage, man is rather powerless without knowledge and technology.

Starting with the industrial and agricultural revolution, man started to calculate and accumulate power to such an extreme that it became much easier to destroy vast landscapes in a small amount of time.

Natives could still do it once and awhile, but it took much longer so the environment could always heal.

Natives lacked this power because they didn’t have technology, knowledge or the ability to perform complicated calculations.

But I’m not saying Natives were inherently wise, because in terms of psychology they had their pitfalls but they were closer to the minimalist ideal than people heedlessly living in civilization. They were not even aware that they possessed wisdom because they had no knowledge of what wisdom was, they were more instinctive than intellectual.

When man cultivates a highly refined intellect and thinks he knows something, this is the recipe for disaster, look at the history of British expansion.

La Verdad wrote:

Our universities shovel the same silly-ass Rousseauesque 'Noble Savage' nonsense as you do.

I haven’t met an intelligent person at university yet. The professors are like domesticated poodles barking at you if you start at conversation that threatens their security.

You don’t understand, I’m not saying savages were noble, they lacked knowledge/power besides their irrational superstitutions,

Basically they weren’t as destructive because they weren’t as powerful. Man scoffs at the natives because he sees their powerlessness as inferior, but this is debatable.

La Verdad wrote:

It is only civilizations that have given the world Buddha, Goethe, Socrates, Epictetus, Beethoven, and Cato - not the primitive tribes of the world.

You are just in awe of the sages that were in the spotlight. There are ancient stories written in sandskit which speaks of nomadic sages who traveled from small farming village to small farming village being embraced by the villages there. it is quite funny that this board only studies the powerhouse sages, it shows our motives for being here.

We don’t need a macdonalds, supermalls, or business parks, man can grow and mature in small rural villages, I’m not suggesting a return to hunter/gatherer state, but I am an advocate of a rural simplicity close to nature’s beauty.

La Verdad wrote:

Japan and the countries of the West have negative population growth. Almost none of them are able to maintain the 2.1 children/per woman reproduction level required simply not to shrink. The notable exception to this is America (who's population is growing only because Jorge Bush can't be bothered with controlling our borders).
Population growth is a third world phenomenon.
Some demographers have even projected that the Africa of 2050 will have a population of 2 billion.
The poorest continent on Earth will capture the largest demographic increases for the next century.

The way in which you are measuring population growth is irrational. Do not use calculations, simply look around, use your eyes, Would you live in an overpopulated hell such as Toronto? LA? New York? To observers from space large cities look like overly complicated networks of irrationality. Man has become a busy creature to circumvent the fear of death, he is terrified of stillness. Man is terrified to return to a rural simplicity because he is so gratified by the vices of the city, he is afraid to lose what he knows, and what he knows is ultimately worthless.

[DHodges]

This is rare and not the norm. It isn’t as likely because most natives tribes had complicated superstitiutions to ensure the protection of the natural world, and also they only had their bare hands to cause the damage, man is rather powerless without knowledge and technology.

There are other examples. I would point to the civilizations of South America - the ones that are relatively unknown today because they failed. Some of these were quite impressive in their day, with massive pyramids and other structures. Some had remarkable irrigation systems.

They may have had complicated superstitions, but if they didn't happen to be good ones, they died out. Sometimes it took a long while; a civilization can be around for a thousand years, and then suddenly collapse. Beliefs may not change with, say slowly changing climactic conditions. Calendars may slowly get out of synchronization with the seasons.

Natives could still do it once and awhile, but it took much longer so the environment could always heal.

In some cases, the people died out or had to leave their land because it was no longer fertile.

Yes, a thousand years later, the land has healed itself, and the pyramids are now lost in jungle.

You are just in awe of the sages that were in the spotlight. There are ancient stories written in sandskit which speaks of nomadic sages who traveled from small farming village to small farming village being embraced by the villages there. it is quite funny that this board only studies the powerhouse sages, it shows our motives for being here.

If you are aware of such that you think highly of, can you post their names? I might be interested in checking them out. Is there extant text, translated into English?

I'd never heard of Nagarjuna before coming to this forum (well, in one of the board's previous incarnations) - yet, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way is probably the most important philosophical work I've read.