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The Hunter-Gatherer pursuit...

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,116 ✭✭✭RDM_83 again


    About the idea of some Hunter gather societies being egalitarian, yes some of them are, but they aren't just passively egalitarian they are actively egalitarian using methods like insults to prevent the formation of a "Big Man" type society.
    Unfortunately can't find my old essay on social structures in prehistory ATM on this so no proper links/references apart from this one
    http://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/mrossano/grad_cog/ancestral%20landscapes/chapter%208.pdf


  • Registered Users Posts: 20 Reillym


    Black Swan wrote: »
    Let's look at this hunter gather lifestyle from a personal anecdotal and emic perspective; i.e., through the eyes of a (potential) participant.
    Currently I am enjoying university, and related work as a research associate. It's not stress-free, but neither is your hunter-gatherer existence. Hans Selye suggested in his theory of stress that stress was normal in life, but there were different kinds. For example, prolonged distress was not healthful, but "eustress" was healthful in that it motivated us to get up in the morning, to discover something new, and take on the diverse challenges of life. I have very little distress today, but a lot of eustress that drives me to experiment and play with life.

    Hmm maybe I'm talking to the wrong people, most of us in Ireland are very well off. Maybe I'd be better off talking to people who aren't as lucky as us.
    Black Swan wrote: »
    Today I am not depressed, I'm physically fit with no over-weight problems (e.g., healthy diet, participate in a sport, and workout daily), have no addictions (except for my love of java), although I've been told by my friends that I am stark raving mad (but happily so). I do not foresee that radically changing my lifestyle to one of a primitive hunter-gatherer would improve it, or make me more happy.

    I don't think I've met some in this day and age without an addiction. Video games, chocolate, t.v, sweets, bread,? The list goes on. How many could you stop using/eating? Often people don't notice, at least in my opinion, that they're addicted because it's something that people nowadays accept you to be addicted to.

    I wouldn't be doing this because I think people in developed countries would be better off, I would be doing this because it would improve the lives of people from developing nations and even the less fortunate here and also for other species. So instead of comparing your life to a HG compare, for example, a homeless persons life to a HG life.

    Also maybe instead of comparing snapshots of the worst moments of HG lives (like infants dying at birth) we should compare the avg. day of a HG. But I suppose that in itself is difficult to work out.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 47,212 CMod ✭✭✭✭Black Swan


    Reillym wrote: »
    Also maybe instead of comparing snapshots of the worst moments of HG lives (like infants dying at birth) we should compare the avg. day of a HG. But I suppose that in itself is difficult to work out.
    Continuing with the emic personal and anecdotal perspective, because I have relatively narrow hips (although into sports and healthier than most of my peers), there's a good chance that I would probably not survive giving birth to a child in the hunter-gathering wilds lacking modern medicine. Of course, some may think that I and the child should die and not pass on my genes to future generations, because of not having optimum H&G physical characteristics?


  • Registered Users Posts: 20 Reillym


    Black Swan wrote: »
    Continuing with the emic personal and anecdotal perspective, because I have relatively narrow hips (although into sports and healthier than most of my peers), there's a good chance that I would probably not survive giving birth to a child in the hunter-gathering wilds lacking modern medicine. Of course, some may think that I and the child should die and not pass on my genes to future generations, because of not having optimum H&G physical characteristics?

    If we did live in a HG society though it's not very likely that the genes associated with narrow hips would have ever got passed down. So in a HG society I doubt it was a huge problem, only affecting a single person and never being passed down. Nature's motto is kinda 'survival of the fittest' so maybe in a HG you 'should' die although it's a pretty strong word for it. It's not like all your HG mates would be chasing you around with spears.

    Of course there are some farmers who breed huge continental breed bulls with small British breed Heifers, resulting in the calf being too big to be naturally pushed out and generally both will die in the process. I'm just trying to say that although modern medicine might make it possible for you and others with narrow hips to give birth, modern practices also make it very difficult for other species to give birth. Also I'm confident to say that although women with narrow hips in developed countries have access to modern methods to enable them to give birth, there are probably plenty of narrow hipped women in places like India, parts of Africa and China that don't.

    Also if we were HG and had the knowledge, we could always 'pair' women with narrow hips with very skinny, short guys. Although it's impractical to think that we can just pair up. Plus that means the gene would live and eventually someones gonna suffer for it.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 47,212 CMod ✭✭✭✭Black Swan


    Reillym wrote: »
    If we did live in a HG society though it's not very likely that the genes associated with narrow hips would have ever got passed down. So in a HG society I doubt it was a huge problem, only affecting a single person and never being passed down. Nature's motto is kinda 'survival of the fittest' so maybe in a HG you 'should' die although it's a pretty strong word for it. It's not like all your HG mates would be chasing you around with spears.
    I thought you were proposing that we should all leave today's modern civilisation and return to the hunting-gathering existence?

    Herbert Spencer coined the term "Survival of the Fittest," was considered Social Darwinism Theory, and if applied today would suggest that hunter-gatherer peoples were not the fittest, and had been replaced by a more fit modern society.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 20 Reillym


    Black Swan wrote: »
    I thought you were proposing that we should all leave today's modern civilisation and return to the hunting-gathering existence?

    Herbert Spencer coined the term "Survival of the Fittest," was considered Social Darwinism Theory, and if applied today would suggest that hunter-gatherer peoples were not the fittest, and had been replaced by a more fit modern society.

    I was and stand by it.

    First of all there are still hunter-gatherers around today.
    Second of all they weren't replaced instead most hunter-gatherers became farmers.

    That's like saying modern civilization is fitter than the roman civilization. It doesn't work like that. The term 'survival of the fittest' can't really be applied to civilizations.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 47,212 CMod ✭✭✭✭Black Swan


    Reillym wrote: »
    It doesn't work like that. The term 'survival of the fittest' can't really be applied to civilizations.
    "Survival of the fittest" has been applied to species, populations, civilizations, nations, organisations, companies, groups, and entrepreneurs (to name only a few) depending upon your unit of analysis.

    Technology rules. Hunter-gathering societies failed to compete against more advanced technologies, especially when there was demand and competition for scarce resources, or a need to produce resource surpluses. An appeal to the cruel harsh reality of day-to-day hunter-gathering existence exemplifies the vestigial philosophical remains of 18th century sentimentalism and early 19th century romantic primitivism.


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