It's about Global Pollution, Not Global Warming...

The real problem, Skip, is that a rational and sustainable economy
is utterly incompatible with this one. They are fundamentally
different structures.

You can't turn this system into that system. You can't make
a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

So how do we get the job done?

Littlefoot

 

You've hit upon a very important point, Skip: We can't all live
like hippy communitarians as they we and are (those that are
known to the public). Because they aren't out of the system
at all and need it to live as they do.

But we do not need the system. It is possible to create all the
needful things of life from very basic, and commonly available
resources: Wood, soil, water, clay, iron ore....

The problem is, as I mentioned above, that it is ILLEGAL to
live independently of this system.

Building, Health, and Safety Codes, Zoning Laws, and Property
Taxes will prevent it, even if you own the property and live way
the hell out in the mountains.

Very small groups can get away with a lot, but a commune
cannot get away with anything.

Unless it is hidden from the eyes of the system.

Littelfoot

 

I think this is very realistic. Man should assume responsibility. Man did influence nature, most often for the worst, and now the consequences appear. But man is not ready to assume responsibility, and blames it on global warming...

 

Hey Skip.

The spirit of what you are saying is true, but there are practical realities that
prevent us from living materially the way most of the 'Native Americans' did.

Namely, our much larger population and the very poor condition of the
natural environment here.

The gathering-hunting lifestyle requires vast acreages of pristine wilderness
to support a tiny vilage sustainably.

(I put 'gather' before 'hunt' because the typical 'Native American' diet
consisted of 85% or better plant foods. We now know of over 2000
species of wild edible plants in the Western U.S. from them...)

So we are going to have to use some good old Yankee Ingenuity to
live sustainably on this land without stepping on the rights of other
species.

Namely, instensive, no-till gardening.

Plus, we (or most of us) are simply not 'Native Americans'. For that
matter, neither are they. Their ancestors were, but you are what you
do and they live like White folk now. Wearing traditional costumes
and building sweat lodges is not living as a gatherer-hunter. I doubt that
there is a single 'Native American' in the Lower Forty-Eight who
could live like his/her ancestors did: Starting with nothing and
creating a good life with just their hands and the bounty of
Nature.

The First Nations people of the Northwest Territories in Canada
hunt caribou with snowmobiles and high-powered, scoped rifles...

So we are going to need decent artificial light and hot water and soap and
steel tools and some glass. All of which can be done
sustainably and without overworking ourselves.


LIttlefoot

 

The gathering-hunting lifestyle requires vast acreages of pristine wilderness
to support a tiny vilage sustainably.
th
ere are more deer now than there was then!
(I put 'gather' before 'hunt' because the typical 'Native American' diet
consisted of 85% or better plant foods. We now know of over 2000
species of wild edible plants in the Western U.S. from them...)
please tell me were you heard this? at one time before the white man there were heards of buffallo in the millions!!(I put 'gather' before 'hunt' because the typical 'Native American' diet
consisted of 85% or better plant foods.
where do you get this info?

Namely, instensive, no-till gardening.

do you mean what is called french intensive or no till? or some combo?
have you ever realy tryed it?
ive been reading your posts and it seems to me, that you think we should but now you say we cant!! so witch is it lowest form of tech. or somthing inbetween? or could it be the highest form of tech. used responsibly?
but ya skip i hear you power to the LAKOTA!!!! ihope they get to take back possession of their lands ecspecialy the sacred!!!! PEACE!!!

 

well i did a lousy job of copy paste sorry im still a noob on this thing!

 

Native Americans were able to live here without causing a huge amount of environmental perterbation for one reason and one reason only: they lacked the tools and population to do so. The ancestors of what we consider Native Americans, lets remember, were almost certainly responsible for the extinction of nearly every species of large mammal near the end of the last glaciation. Native Americans modified the environment around them, but with a comparatively small population the net impact was small.

 

Quotes of mine that flmkpr is replying to are in bold.

That may be true, but the number of deer is a very small
part of this picture.

Compare those numbers to the number of people and do
some simple math to see how long they'd last.

"Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World" by
Jack Weatherford, and "Wild Edible Plants of the Western U.S." by Donald
Kirk, among many other sources.

There's a lot bullshit around. A lot of it is found in scientific journals and
history books. Especially it is in the movies and on the TV and on the
Web and in the novels.

Yes. But the majority of the Indians in North America didn't hunt them.
Many were expert gardeners. In fact, some of them taught us how to
farm. They were much better at it than the Europeans. We got potatos and
corn and squash and cucumber and tomatos and peppers and dry beans
(and others) from the Indians.

There were no tomatos in Italian cooking until they brought to Italy
from the New World.

Got several thousand square feet of it in my backyard. And they aren't
my first gardens of these kind. Just living soil that isn't tilled except
once, if needed, in the beginning, to work in organic matter.. No rows,
just plants everywhere. Weeds are cut off at the base, not pulled.
But only if they get out of hand. See the work of Masanobu Fukuoka,
like "The Natural Way of Farming".

Don't know what you mean by that. We can live in the way I've described
in several posts on the Forums.

In between, like I've always said. But we can develop some high tech
things later, done sparingly. Technology does not require industry.

Needs to be the lowest order of technology that will get the job
done. High-tech is the most labor-intensive and energy-intensive
and destructive, and is the last choice.

If they take back their lands they'll trash them, because they live like
White people. They don't get around by mocassin, they get around
by car. If they don't trash their lands they'll trash someone else's
land to get the stuff they use. Just like we do. Because they live
like us.

LIttlefoot

 

That is utter nonsense. But it doesn't surprise me. Most Americans think
that everyone in the world and throughout history is/was as ammoral as they are..

Believe me, Chris. There are people now and then that aren't like you
at all. Aren't like Americans at all.

How come every person who gets a science degree thinks they know everything?

Do you get ego enhancing implants when the Wizard gives you a brain?

Littlefoot

 

I apologize for being so hard on you, Chris. You deserve better.

It's just that I don't have any patience with mainstream science anymore.

Why?

Because it's based upon two assumptions that I find to be utterly
preposterous. Assumptions that can't be tested with the scientific
method and have to be taken on faith.

1. That the universe we see with the physical senses came to be
by accident.

The very concept of "accidental" happennings, or randomness, is
is untestable with the scientific method. It has to be taken on
faith.

Show me something like a nuclear power plant, which is orders
of magnitude of orders of magnitude simpler than the Earth ecosystem
alone, that came to be by "accident", and I'll consider the idea
that the visible universe came to be by "accident'.

The burden of proof is on science, not me. And it can't even begin
to try to test the hypothesis. Take randomness away and mainstream
science collapses like the house of cards it is.

2. The assumption that only the visible universe is real and that
the "subjective" experiences of people are just illusions caused
by electro-chemical activity in the braind (etc.).

Just what, pray tell, is perceiving those supposed illusions?

What I experience is real. Period. A lot more real than all the
scientific literature every written.

There's a vast reality 'within'. I know that because I have experienced
it, as most people have. I don't give a shit what a bunch of eggheads
who have decided in advance that there is no 'within' think. There
minds are closed. Which is pretty damned un-scientific, isn't it?

Anyone can believe any damn fool thing they want to. And a billion
people can be as wrong and misguided as an individual can.

Please, Chris, don't waste your time trying to debate me on these
issues. Words are just words and the winner of a debate and the
holder of Truth are often not the same party.

I'm telling you what I believe. If you think your beliefs are more
valid than mine, then you are a fool. A belief is just a belief.

Some represent Truth and some represent falsehood. There is
no way to detemine Truth with reason alone. All reason is based
upon assumptions. If those assumptions are wrong then everything
based upon them is wrong.

Once again, I apologize. But don't expect me to accept you as
any kind of an authority just because you spent a few years
memorizing stuff in books that someone told you contained
the truth.

Littefoot

 

True science isn't about memorizing things, it's about understanding things.

 

Leaving aside the fact that "understanding" is a loaded term, that's
rather like saying "true breathing is about respiration".

Littlefoot

 

Hey Skip.

I was referring to a deliberate change of lifestyle. You are talking about the
collapse of civilization.

Okay. Let's talk about that scenario:

The cities have about a week's supply of food. The people living there would
have no choice but to flood out into the countryside. And because they
weren't prepared for living off the land, they'd have take whatever they
could from whoever they could take it from. Many of them will have guns,
but it wouldn't matter if they didn't. With nothing to lose, they'd use clubs
and knives and rocks.

Their impact on the environment would be far worse than if they had been
trained to live in a new way.

There's an enormous difference between a hobby and actually living in
the old ways.

I am a highly-trained 'survivalist' Skip. I can, and have, walked naked
into the mountains and lived off the land for a month and a half.

I know the real thing when I see it.

Skip, I have thoroughly investigated the 'Native Americans' of today. I've tracked
down over a dozen groups that claimed to be living like their ancestors.

So-called "wild Indians".

They wore Levis and drove pickup trucks and carried modern firearms and
wore vibrim-soled hiking boots. They were just camping out in the woods.

You should spend some time on the Reservations and see what they really
are like. Try the Colville Reservatin in Okanogen County in eastern Washington
state. It's the most rural county in the nation. It's a huge Reservation shared
by many different tribes.

They have wonderful displays for the tourists, complete with native costumes
and sweat lodges and traditional implements and shelters and Medicine Men
and Women and traditional dances.

And there isn't a single person on that entire Reservation who could walk
off naked and empty-handed in the mild summer and live off the land.

If the System breaks down, long before they run out of bullets (which
they can't make) they will be in serious trouble.

I did some calculations while I was there. Got the figures on human population
from the Feds (for the Res) and county government and the figures on deer
and bear populations from the State and BLM and NFS.

If the System breaks down and _no_ refugees make it to the area, the
deer and bear populations will both be extinct within 6 months.

And it will be much, much worse east of the Rockies.

The 'Native Americans' have been so thoroughly conquered that they
now believe their own bullshit, just like we do.

The bottom line is this: We can't live like they did. There were perhaps
10 million of them when we arrived here, and the continent was a
pristine natural paradise.

Now, there are almost 300 million of us and much of the land has been trashed.

We _can_ live in a way that respects the land and the rights of other species.
We _can_ live in harmony with Nature.

But we can't turn back the clock.

And romanticizing the 'Native Americans' is something that can be taken
too far. They weren't perfect. Running entire herds of buffalo off the
lips of canyons to die horrible deaths was pretty sickening, don't you
think? Especially considering that they couldn't use most of the meat
and it just rotted.

And how about all the Indians who slaughtered the wildlife in order to
sell the pelts to the White traders for pots and pans and axes and
bullets and blankets and booze?

They didn't even want to live like Indians back then!

The list could go on and on.

Sure, there is much that we should have learned from some of them (and
still should) that we chose to ignore . But they weren't perfect by any
means.

Littlefoot

 

Lots and lots of technologies like that, for sure.

But you better start learning them now.

Try it, Skip. It isn't that simple. It's a LOT more work than making steel
from scratch. Why do you think that most dead cars are crushed and dumped
into landfills? Even with modern equipment it's not practical to do.
Not cost efficient.

It's very simple to dig a little iron ore and make a little charcoal and leach
some wood ashes and make a bellows and a little smelter from clay and
rocks. You don't need much steel. It lasts a long time.

In a post-collapse scenario, anything worth salvaging will be claimed by groups
in very short order. By groups with weapons.

Littlefoot

 

Well I wasn't leaving that aside but whatever...

 

Okay. What do you mean by "understanding"?

Littlefoot