History Why are poor countries poor?

[Seeds]

Well then clearly I didn't do a good enough job of explaining myself, either that or you didn't read the post properly.

My argument was that unless you bring agriculture and the diseases and other negative consequences etc as well then merely saving a baby is pretty pointless in a society that can't support more babies. History and the laws of unintended consequences suggests that kind of do-good approach would result in more misery and deprivation in the long run than the feel-good benefit of "saving" a baby would result in benefits for hunter gatherers.

I agree. Thats why agriculture and development is a far better option and improves the richness of life. Because it enables us to have kids and live and more people to experience life than what exists under a hunter gatherer society.

 

[jonoman89]

It's probably easiest to just go down the left-wing route and say poor nations are poor because Europeans made them so.

Of course that's mostly a load of shit, but if you want to appease a school or university lecturer it's probably the argument you should adopt. Remember, whenever a white person does anything it's automatically imperialist.

 

[cancat]

My ultimate point though is that for mist indigenous peoples civilisation had been incredibly destructive and that in a hypothetical world, given the opportunity, it would be much more humane to have high infant mortality than to save a few babies and rapidly drag a hunter gatherer society into the modern era just to save a few babies

What level of child murder is acceptable to you? Researchers estimate that up to 50% of children born in hunter gatherer societies are killed at birth. Then of course there is the cannibalism found in hunter gatherer societies. On a numbers basis, eliminating child murder and cannibalism would counteract the risk of mortality caused by exposure to disease.

It is inevitable that at some point these lost tribes will be integrated into modern society. If we leave them alone to protect their culture aren't we also denying them access to ours? Surely you would be in favour of these people adopting values such as non violence towards women, gay rights and care of the elderly?

 

[Cwross]

Because God is angry

 

[Upton Sinclair]

What level of child murder is acceptable to you? Researchers estimate that up to 50% of children born in hunter gatherer societies are killed at birth. Then of course there is the cannibalism found in hunter gatherer societies. On a numbers basis, eliminating child murder and cannibalism would counteract the risk of mortality caused by exposure to disease.

Would it? Or is that just an assumption you're making? Historical reality says otherwise, in populations decimated by western disease (pre-Colombian population numbers are estimated to be as high as 100 million), those populations have never recovered and in the existing remnants disease and poverty are rife and life expectancy is much lower than among colonist populations.

What level of genocide is acceptable to you?

It is inevitable that at some point these lost tribes will be integrated into modern society. If we leave them alone to protect their culture aren't we also denying them access to ours? Surely you would be in favour of these people adopting values such as non violence towards women, gay rights and care of the elderly?

If by "integrated" you mean killed off by being exposed to pathologies that they have no evolutionary adaptations then, yes, you are probably right.

But if you are suggesting that hunter gatherer societies can simply adopt modernity and suddenly their lives improve is the sort of well-intentioned paternalism that was discredited in the 19th century.

I'm surprised you aren't advocating that we go in and take their babies and raise them in white homes so as to breed the native out them!

 

[cancat]

I'm surprised you aren't advocating that we go in and take their babies and raise them in white homes so as to breed the native out them!

As long as gay couples wanting to adopt are not discriminated against

 

[Slax]

It is inevitable that at some point these lost tribes will be integrated into modern society. If we leave them alone to protect their culture aren't we also denying them access to ours? Surely you would be in favour of these people adopting values such as non violence towards women, gay rights and care of the elderly?

But what makes our view of civilization so great? As Churchill said "Democracy is a flawed system"

 

[Wish Wellingtons]

I cannot believe the ignorant glorification of hunter gatherer societies, by any objective indicator they lived short, cruel and brutish lives. They lacked any of the comforts we all take for granted, they lacked the cultural depth, technological prowess, philosophical thought, knowledge, means of preserving information and left nothing to show for their existence except a few cave paintings and if you are lucky a language or two and perhaps a few quirky and now redundant technologies.

Their cultures were utterly crushed when put up against modernity, so if we are to take a cold Darwinian (though of course we are not talking about evolution of species here, merely the principles of competition and survival) and look at the outcomes we can only really draw one conclusion as to superiority. Civilisation is simply greater than lack thereof.

And the Gaiia worshiping of coexistence with nature is also bullshit. Primitive peoples did not manage or sustain their land perfectly, they expoited it to the fullest of their capabilities. Do you think there was anyone tracking woolly mammoth populations or voicing concern over the destruction of Australian megafauna? of course not. Rather than managing the land the land managed them; they were unable to rise above their environment and were subjected to it, except for in the aforementioned instances when they exploited the land just as anyone would. So how do we judge the success of a hunter gatherer culture? By what twisted Orwellian logic can that way of living come out on top? We have to completely invert any objectively based values to come up with an idea of eudaimonia sourced from drudgery and ignorance?

And even if we are to take an approach of complete unalienable cultural relativism, what is left? Just a state of utter nihilism where everything is subjective and no one is better than anyone else, which only lends itself to conclusions that "might is right".

Anyway, I have to laugh at these oh-so-edgy Luddites who want to return to a state of nature, but would not last a second in the wilderness. The world we live in should not be taken for granted, life was a bitch. Don't romanticise what you know nothing of just because you are now full of angst about the pressures of modern society or whatever it is that is getting you down. At least you have enough time to feel sorry for yourself, that should be something to be proud of.

(well that rant got out of control)

 

[The_Reaper]

Would it? Or is that just an assumption you're making? Historical reality says otherwise, in populations decimated by western disease (pre-Colombian population numbers are estimated to be as high as 100 million), those populations have never recovered and in the existing remnants disease and poverty are rife and life expectancy is much lower than among colonist populations.

!

Is that pre-columbian North America or the Americas as a whole?

The central Americans and the Incas weren't hunter gatherers.

Also I've never seen 100 million as an estimate. The highest estimate I've seen is about 70 million. 100 million was roughly the population of Europe at the time.

 

[Upton Sinclair]

(well that rant got out of control)

At least you got one thing right

Is that pre-columbian North America or the Americas as a whole?

The central Americans and the Incas weren't hunter gatherers.

Also I've never seen 100 million as an estimate. The highest estimate I've seen is about 70 million. 100 million was roughly the population of Europe at the time.

100 million is an upper estimate for both Americas combined. Sure, 'hunter gatherer' is the wrong terminology, the results were the same though. When Francisco de Orellana first sailed down the Amazon he saw great wooden cities and literally tens of thousands of people lining the banks of the river, the next time someone went down the river it was all gone. People assumed de Orellana's original accounts were fanciful but recent archaeological evidence supports him - the populations numbering in the millions were ravaged by exotic diseases and society went into collapse, within a few years the whole enterprise had been consumed by the jungle.

The point being that population densities have been underestimated and the sophistication of some of these civilizations is dismissed. And even where there was agriculture and settlements etc the people had no adaptations to Eurasian diseases.

 

[bombermick]

Probably much the same reason as why we still use QWERTY keyboards

Guns, Germs and Steel provided a good answer. China was largely a monolithic society, and if the emperor decreed this technology was evil or not of use, it never got off the ground. Europe meanwhile had competition. Of course Australia wasn't one country, but there would have been limited interaction and thus competition between tribes.

 

[bartel magic]

Libertarian plutocrats.

Give us an example.
I would have thought that a libertarian and a plutocrat were from two totally different ends of the spectre.

 

[cancat]

(well that rant got out of control)

Thought it was nicely done

 

[cancat]

Would it? Or is that just an assumption you're making? Historical reality says otherwise, in populations decimated by western disease (pre-Colombian population numbers are estimated to be as high as 100 million), those populations have never recovered and in the existing remnants disease and poverty are rife and life expectancy is much lower than among colonist populations.

If by "integrated" you mean killed off by being exposed to pathologies that they have no evolutionary adaptations then, yes, you are probably right.

It is plainly ridiculous to extrapolate from pre-Colombian statistics to the present. Medicine has moved on massively since the 16th century.

Your argument is also hugely flawed by not addressing my point that Aborigine life expectancy is way above that found in modern hunter gatherer societies.

But if you are suggesting that hunter gatherer societies can simply adopt modernity and suddenly their lives improve is the sort of well-intentioned paternalism that was discredited in the 19th century.

I'm surprised you aren't advocating that we go in and take their babies and raise them in white homes so as to breed the native out them!

Consider that you have two societies living side by side and/or mixed - i) hunter gatherer and a modern western society. Are your values - such as non violence towards women, gay rights and care of the elderly - universal values that should be applied in both societies? Or does some sentimental evaluation of an indigenous way of life override your otherwise passionately held beliefs?

 

[Upton Sinclair]

It is plainly ridiculous to extrapolate from pre-Colombian statistics to the present. Medicine has moved on massively since the 16th century.

Yet in the teal world, when uncontacted tribes are discovered (by anthropologists & not logging/mining companies, generally the other candidates) they are quarantined from physical contact because the risks are so real. But I guess you know better, right?

Your argument is also hugely flawed by not addressing my point that Aborigine life expectancy is way above that found in modern hunter gatherer societies.

Well you ignore the point that having population numbers cut by 90% is not outweighed by the apparent benefits accorded to a few survivors.

That being said, I don't accept your claim that aboriginal people throughout the 2th/21st C's necessarily DID enjoy higher life expectancy rates, nor the premise that life expectancy should outweigh other measures for quality of life:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/20481119/

Consider that you have two societies living side by side and/or mixed - i) hunter gatherer and a modern western society. Are your values - such as non violence towards women, gay rights and care of the elderly - universal values that should be applied in both societies? Or does some sentimental evaluation of an indigenous way of life override your otherwise passionately held beliefs?

That question has nothing to do with the thread. You're trying to divert the discussion towards the culture wars narrative that seems to instruct your thinking on any issue of this kind.

We were discussing why societies have stuff, that led to a discussion about what constitutes wealth. Not which values are superior, just because imposing our way if life on others might not be good for said others does not mean the other way of life is better than ours. Line it or not, values are relative to the culture into which you were born.

 

[bombermick]

But what makes our view of civilization so great? As Churchill said "Democracy is a flawed system"

No-one has created a better one. A benevolent dictator is okay (Singapore, even if it's slowly moving towards our system), but the limits on freedom from such a system are unacceptable.

 

[Slax]

No-one has created a better one. A benevolent dictator is okay (Singapore, even if it's slowly moving towards our system), but the limits on freedom from such a system are unacceptable.

What and have a system where you legislate to protect the idiots and make life onerous on the average person. I personally beleive in the theory of less social controls on personal freedoms, just change the legal system to make it harder for them to sue when they get injured for acting like an idiot.

 

[Fluro Boots]

Consider that you have two societies living side by side and/or mixed - i) hunter gatherer and a modern western society. Are your values - such as non violence towards women, gay rights and care of the elderly - universal values that should be applied in both societies? Or does some sentimental evaluation of an indigenous way of life override your otherwise passionately held beliefs?

I'm interested as to why we so often see non violence to women raised, surely it should more often be stated as just non violence. I get that Men are the stronger sex which makes women more vulnerable but if we're striving to eradicate one why not go the whole hog and tackle violence as a whole.

 

[bombermick]

What and have a system where you legislate to protect the idiots and make life onerous on the average person. I personally beleive in the theory of less social controls on personal freedoms, just change the legal system to make it harder for them to sue when they get injured for acting like an idiot.

How is what you what are proposing the antithesis to the Singaporean system? What happens to people who are in shitty situations through not fault of their own in your system? Stiff shit.

 

[cancat]

Well you ignore the point that having population numbers cut by 90% is not outweighed by the apparent benefits accorded to a few survivors.

90%? Cobblers. 400 year olds stats are meaningless when dealing with modern situations. Try again.

That being said, I don't accept your claim that aboriginal people throughout the 2th/21st C's necessarily DID enjoy higher life expectancy rates, nor the premise that life expectancy should outweigh other measures for quality of life:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/20481119/

Oh dear, you are quoting from some undergrad paper now?

That question has nothing to do with the thread. You're trying to divert the discussion towards the culture wars narrative that seems to instruct your thinking on any issue of this kind.

We were discussing why societies have stuff, that led to a discussion about what constitutes wealth. Not which values are superior, just because imposing our way if life on others might not be good for said others does not mean the other way of life is better than ours. Line it or not, values are relative to the culture into which you were born.

The thread was originally about rich and poor countries and expanded to consider what factors led some societies to be rich or poor. There was a dramatic change from hunter gatherer to agrarian society so that food could be stored, societies could be planned and wealth/technology could be acquired. Clearly. there was also a moral shift, sourced from reduced desperation, so that it became unacceptable for children and the elderly to be killed.

Values might be relative to the culture into which we are born but we can still argue argue for basic human rights where primitive societies have not progressed beyond very limited ways of thinking.[/quote]

 

[Jentleman Geff]

The thread was originally about rich and poor countries and expanded to consider what factors led some societies to be rich or poor. There was a dramatic change from hunter gatherer to agrarian society so that food could be stored, societies could be planned and wealth/technology could be acquired. Clearly. there was also a moral shift, sourced from reduced desperation, so that it became unacceptable for children and the elderly to be killed.

Not really. Infanticide persisted long after civilisation was established. Ancient Greeks and Romans were well known for their practising of it.

 

[cancat]

Not really. Infanticide persisted long after civilisation was established. Ancient Greeks and Romans were well known for their practising of it.

What you say is true, and it still happens now. But it was routine in Hunter Gatherer societies. There are estimates that up to 50% of babies born were killed.

 

[mantis]

What you say is true, and it still happens now. But it was routine in Hunter Gatherer societies. There are estimates that up to 50% of babies born were killed.

Have you got a link to back up that claim?

 

[HappyChappy35]

I'd put it down to geographical location and previous governments. What it mostly is though is the subsequent domino effect, or cycle of poverty that results from this. Once a nation is trapped within this cycle of poverty, it is fairly difficult to escape.

 

[Old Spice]

What level of child murder is acceptable to you? Researchers estimate that up to 50% of children born in hunter gatherer societies are killed at birth. Then of course there is the cannibalism found in hunter gatherer societies. On a numbers basis, eliminating child murder and cannibalism would counteract the risk of mortality caused by exposure to disease.

It is inevitable that at some point these lost tribes will be integrated into modern society. If we leave them alone to protect their culture aren't we also denying them access to ours? Surely you would be in favour of these people adopting values such as non violence towards women, gay rights and care of the elderly?

Uggh, you are joking. A bigger and more ignorant clown is hard to find.

Where is this evidence that 'up to 50% of children born in hunter gatherer societies are killed at birth."? Up to 50% killed? at birth?

You can't provide it because it is such patent bullshit.

PROVIDE THIS TRUTH OR PROVIDE A FULL RETRACTION.

Cannibalism?