quote:

Well, a mylar sheet can focus sunlight but you have to get the parabola correct.

quote:

Moonhead:

What percentage of the world's population do you think would be happy living their lives in a rainforest without access to medical care or anything to occupy their time other than hunting and gathering?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aneirin

What I personally see as a problem with civilisation, is the very modern concept of centralised everything, everything is run from somewhere else, a place where a community's specific needs are lost amongst others needs. I would therefore consider a situation where communities served themselves, they looked after their own specific needs, basically they all contribute for the good of the community, which on a local basis, is the good of the family and then the self.

quote:

ORIGINAL: luckydawg

Actually there are several closely related bands of Pygmies, Mbuti are just one of them.
There are several closely related bands of americans, the jones's and the smith's are just two of them.
I am not sure what your point is here but I was discussing only the mbuti.

While some folks like to pretend they live in a paradise the reality is quite different. For over 2000 years they have been economically entertwined with the farmers living outside thier forest.


In seven pages of discussion you have yet to validate this.

The idea that thier culture has not changed for 6000 years is nonsense.

The book "The Forest People" says you are mistaken.

In addition they have an at birth life expectancy of 32 years. 20% of the children die before the first birthday, and 50% die before they turn 15.

Which would mean that the remaining 50% would live to age 64.



Like I (and the article from the OP said, lots of dead babies, the article says that is a good thing as it keeps the population down.).


It seems to have allowed these people to thrive for nearly 6000 years that we know of


They have an almost 100% illiteracy rate.

How is this relevant for people who have no need for literacy?


And for thousands of years have depended on Villagers to handle their criminal cases.

This is untrue and is discussed at length in the book "the forest people" by colin turnbull.


They do indeed fight, and kill and rape. The idea they havbe now words for these are nonsense.

This is discussed thourougly in the book "the forest people"


More of the "Noble savage" bullshit that has been popular with Westerners for the past few generations. An aspect of cultural self loathing.



Perhaps you are invloved in that self loathing but that is not the point of the book that you refuse to read but constantly disagree with.


They are also completely unable to defend thier lands and way of life.

Yet they have managed to survive and enjoy life for the past 6000 years which no other culture has done...even the ones who were able to defend their lands and way of life

quote:

And you of course will provide evidence that they have no word for war rape or murder. Or that they live in an independantly sustainable society.

All of which is validated in the book "the forest people"



"Rome was a few hundred years the hgs are in the thousands of years. "

I actually see it differently. The effects of Roman Civilization (which to a large degree was inherited) are manifest, and affect the world today. While 99.99% of hunter gatherer societies have collapsed, most thousands of years ago. Through Darwinistic struggle.

That there are few hgs left is not in dispute.
That numerous non hgs civizations have dissapeared is also not in dispute.


Not to argue the point in a lame way, but currently in the aftermath of the wars in the Congo, The Mbuti certainly have words for war rape and murder.

Those words would not be native to the language of the mbuti...they would be cognates from which ever language they were lifted

Pygmies are considered magical by many african tribes, and have been hunted adn eaten for the past 15 years or so, by soldiers trying to gain thier forest magic.

Why is this relevant to this discussion?


Your article clearly calls for a zero % literacy. And Zero Doctors. Everyone is a Hunter/Gatherer. There is no specialization. There is no surplus created to feed a specialist.


What need have they of specialists?

I think it would be a rather crappy life.


I would agree that not everyone can get along with out their Ipod or their flat screen tv or cable.

Every single time they come into conflict with others, they lose.

For about 6000 years they seem to have overcome those who would seek to attack them.


Why don't you go live (not to visit) in the rainforest(or in the Artic, I garuntee that not a single Innuit wants to get rid of thier rifles or snow machines), in a sustainable manner? Because for a short time, with gear, it is awesome. If it was forever with no metal, it would absolutly suck.


The inuit are not hgs so why would you mention them in this thread?

It does have some good points. They are egalitarian. They don't punch a clock. They get lots of fresh air and sunshine. But I feel the benefits are outweighed by the negatives.
Actually t, you need to look at that chart a little more carefully. Those aren't %'s. they are deaths per 1000 live births. Not a single country in the world has a 20% rate. Angola is the worst at 18%.

Congo (where the Mbuti is a subset) has a infant (before 1 year) rate of 7%. The Mbuti who are part of that average have a 20% rate.

IF you think that is admirable, that can be your opinion. I think it is a lot of dead babies and crying mothers.

The mortality rate is not relevant to this discussion.
In turnbull's book about these people he does not mention the "crying mothers" you keep pimping

So t, how should the readers interpret your attack on my vote (that 100% illiteracy, incredibly high infant mortality rates, no surplus food production, no specialists of any kind) in not an attaractive or viable path ofr the future of mankind? (what this thread is supossed to be about our opinions on an essay advocating "reen Anarchy".)


As has already been pointed out the birth and death rate of the mbuti keeps their population stable and prevents them from destablizing their environment unlike what the rest of the world seems to have accomplished.

You either agree with me ( and several others, and vote for not an attractive future) Or you vote with Pyro and Anerin, that yes it is an attractive viable future.

History has shown us that the micro-technical model leads to the destruction of other cultures to feed the micro-technical culture...when the micro-technical culture runs out of not m-t cultures to eat they will starve

Or your just a troll shitting in this thread, because you have some obsession with me. Which really is the most likely.
Oh my don't we have a rather plump opinion of ourselves?

I can give at least one example of a Mtubi, who wanted to get out of his culture. The one that Turnbull took as his gay lover and brought home to die in the USA. That one chose to leave his culture, right or was he kidnapped by Turnbull?


It is most telling of your homophobia that you would post this lie.
Post your proof of this or be known as a lying homophobic bigot

Turnbull is widley understood to have romantizied the mbutis ( he fell in love with one).

No turnbull clearly states that he fell in love with all of them.


Are Pygmies a static independant culture that has not changed for 6000 Years?

"They are easy to cheat," a roadside merchant says of the Pygmies along the way. "Like children."

In the book "the forest people" the mbuti say the same thing about the merchants and farmers.
You would not know that because you have not read the book.


http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0509/feature5/text2.html

I can find dozens of references to the fact that African Pygmies trade with outsiders, and have not had a static culture for 6000 years. This is just one.


Is it your opinion that an article in the national geographic is more valid than research by scientists?

They are real people, not cute monkeys.

You are the only one who has referenced these people as "cute monkeys"

Pygmy life expectancy adn child mortality rates.

This one is of the Aka, which as you pointed out is the same as Mtubi, just like Jones and Smiths...

I have only referenced the mbuti...any other groups are purely yours.

"About 30,000 Aka live in the tropical forests of northern Congo and southern Central African Republic. Most Aka live in remote areas of the tropical forest where the population density is less than one person per square mile. Aka women average six live births during their lifetime. One-fifth of Aka children do not live to their first birthday, and close to half die before they reach age fifteen. Infectious and parasitic diseases (from the clean drinking water) are the most common causes of death. Due to the high child mortality (death) rate, average life expectancy at birth is only thirty-two years of age. However, if a young person lives to age fifteen, he or she will probably live to age fifty-five or older.

Yet your own statistics call for an age at least nine years older than that 55 and the book we have been discussing,that you refuse to read while simultaniously disagreeing with, list ages equivilant or greater than many m/t cultures.


http://www.africaguide.com/culture/tribes/pygmies.htm
This was the source of my first number. On looking around more, I find that is kind of low.

This site is a tourist agency....how does this validate anything?


In fact current scientific thinking is that the condition of being a pygmy (they are not just found in africa) is an evolutionary result of extremely low life expectancy.

No; the current scientific thinking of ONE woman reseacher thinks that. That line of thought seems to fall flat when YOU point out that adult mbuti live to be 55 and older

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/51/20216.full

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-pygmies-evolved-to-be-shorter

"Clean Water is A Challenge for Congo's Rural Poor
Clean water is essential to life! The high child mortality rates in Congo is directly related to drinking water from unimproved and unsafe sources. Clean water save lives!

The mbuti do have clean water it is the rest of the CAR that do not.

Generally, children under five years old die from severe or chronic diarrhea caused by poor water quality."

http://www.endingextremepoverty.org/2009/03/clean-water-is-a-challenge-for-congos-rural-poor.html

This article does not discuss the mbuti so why have you posted it except to try to obscure the truth.


"Despite ongoing clashes in the east of the country, a study published earlier this year asserted that less than one percent of all deaths in the DRC were directly attributable to violence. "The majority of deaths have been due to infectious diseases, malnutrition and neonatal- and pregnancy-related conditions," stated the report, 'Mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo: An ongoing crisis', produced by the IRC and the Burnet Institute - a medical research and public health organisation based in Melbourne.

You are in the wrong country here dude....the DRC is not the CAR.

All too often, the infectious diseases in question take hold because water supplies are contaminated.

"Mainly the causes (of diseases in the DRC) are water quality, whether or not the water has to be boiled, the hygiene is not clean around the house, and such," says Steven Lauwerier, deputy representative in the DRC for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). "

Wrong country wrong demographic...
Why do you post unrelated facts? It does nothing for your argument.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42109



How many children in the UK die from lack of safe drinking water every year?


The idea that living naturally in the forest gives you safe clean drinnking water is nonsense.

If I had to drink from a random river, I would take the UK over Congo anyday (and the USA over either).

The book "the forest people" indicates that the mbuti drink primarily pure rain water

What attack?
I asked what value literacy had to the mbuti.


No you declared they had no need to read TV guide. Lie 1

You need to learn what a lie is.
You need to learn to comprehend what you read.


I pointed out the infant mortality was irrelivant.

Nope you declared I was wrong, Lie 2. though I would like to see an explanation as to why Infant mortality is irrelevant.


If you ever learn how to comprehend what you read you would have understood my explanation.


Surplus food production is unnecessary if you pick your food up daily.




Sure if a life expectancy of 30ish

But they aren't which you have already acknowledged.

I have not made a case in favor of hgs. I have pointed out how they live based on research done by Turnbull and others.


Nope actually just by Thurnbuill and his partner.

I have also listed Liazos who has recently undertaken a critical review of turnbull's field notes.
I have listed Buhauchet who essentially validates turnbull with his reasearch in the 80's

A radical celebrety intellectuall from the 60s, who is widley regarded as having romanticised these folks.

Widely regarded ...by whom?
Who has successfully repudiated turnbull's work?

And ignored thier extensive contacts with the surrounding farmers, that has existed for thousands of years.

So far you have yet to validate this

And you havent actually shown that they agree with you, that the Pygmies are not poor, have no words for Murder or Rape, or have had a fixed unchanging culture for 6000 years

This is the woof and warp of the turnbull book.


They can not trade with and adopt the language of their neighbors, and have a static fixed unchanging culture.


The two directly contradict each other.

These are your opinions, so far unsubstantiated by you....
on the other hand all of my statements are fully documented and validated in trurnbull's book.


Then provide some field Data T, you so far have presented exactly zero....

Nor have you provided any evidence of them not being poor. your claim
Nor any evidence that they live long healthy lives on par with the west. your claim
Nor any evidence that they have a sustainable independant unchanging culture. your claim

Then why are you afraid to post any of this "data" you have.

Why are you afraid to read the book that all of this is based on?


https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

average life span in Congo is 54. Mbuti life span is 32. How do you see that as 10 to 12 years higher?

You are in the wrong country as has been pointed out to you before.

Absolutly no data you have introduced indicates they get thier water from the Daily rain. And they have a dry seaon, where they get no rain for a few months.
Quit pretending you introduced data, and do so.
Teach me something, don't just be a lying troll.

Read the book [8|]

Lets look at your post 13.

"They live long healthy lives that are equal or greater than most industrialized societies.
No one is rich no one is poor. No one is hungry."


Complete and utter bullshit. Not even close to reality.

Perhaps if you read the book that you are disagreeing with you might disabuse yourself of your ignorance

quote:

ORIGINAL: luckydawg

Holy Shit.

what an empty life you must have.


every fact I referenced was in the links I posted.

Natioinal Geographic, is scientists. Current ones. With the latest research. Peer reviewed.

Paul Salopec, the author of the national geographic article graduated from UC santa barbara in 1984 and went to work as a journalist in 1985 and has worked as a journalist ever since. How does this make him a scientist? Who has peer reviewed his work?


So is Scientific American.

The article in scientific american was by ms. migliano who wrote a paper on the causes of lifespan in pygmies. Not even remotely germain to the discussion.
I have only found one review of her work and it was negative.


You strangley enough have to rely on a single source for every single one of your facts about these people.

Since it is the book I referenced it would make sense to cite it.

Yet are afraid to list the page numbers, or back up your work in anyway.

Perhaps if you read it it would help you to understand.
Instead you persist in disagreeing with something you have not read.
How is possible for anyone to disagree with something they have not read?

But spend time pulling senatnce fragments from several posts, so you can play ask a thousand questions.

Not at all.
I simply responded to each and every one of your points.
I have shown you to be a liar, a bigot and a homophobe.
At some point you will have to use your signature line:
"oh poop i was wrong....luckydawg"



I take solace, in the fact that every single person who posted in a relevant manner to this discussion, agreed with me. 100%. And no one did with you. At all.

Is it your position that truth is something that can be voted on?


but you may pretend you won.

I pretend nothing.
I post facts and point out obvious bullshit.

quote:

ORIGINAL: luckydawg

Yet you refuse to acknowledge my post on your errors about "thier" language.....

quote:

The Bambuti are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and are one of the oldest indigenous people of the Congo region of Africa. The Bambuti are composed of bands which are relatively small in size, ranging from 15 to 60 people. The Bambuti population totals about 30,000 to 40,000 people. There are four distinct cultures, within the Bambuti. These are the Efé, which speak the language of their neighboring Bantu tribe (the Balese or Mamvu), the Sua, who speak the language of their neighboring Budu (BaBudu), the Mbuti, who speak the language of the neighboring Bila (BaBila), and a small subgroup of the Aka who speak the language of the neighboring Mangbetu tribe[1]. (The majority of the Aka likely migrated to the western Congo basin thousands of years ago).

The term BaMbuti (mbuti) therefore is confusing, as it has been used to refer to all the pygmy peoples in the Ituri region in general, as well as to a single subgroup in the center of the Ituri forest. it can be weird

Around 2,500 BC, the Ancient Egyptians made reference to a "people of the trees". That could be the Mbuti. [2].

quote:

You seem to be saying that the mbuti are not smart enough to learn a second language.

quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx

quote:

Moonhead:

What percentage of the world's population do you think would be happy living their lives in a rainforest without access to medical care or anything to occupy their time other than hunting and gathering?

According to Turmbull they spend a lot of time smoking dope and fucking...when they are not doing that they are singing and dancing or telling stories...then of course there are the stars at night which are pretty kewel.
No big flat screen 60" plazma, no I pod, no $200 sneekers, no spinner hub caps...no job...no house payment,no exwife payment.
Perhaps it might be attractive to some.

quote:

ORIGINAL: luckydawg

Sentance fragments.....Typical


the sentance you cut up....says....

There is some evidence for an original forest forager language (Bahuchet 1989), yet all forest foragers that are known to the ethnographic record have adopted languages of their current or previous farming neighbors.


That is unethical, cutting of the "ye"t of your Quote, because it directly contradicts what you are trying to say.


You have cited nothing while I have cited the paper I was quoting. My quote shows a break in the quote. Here is the complete quote which you chose to leave off the important part.

There is some evidence for an original forest forager language (Bahuchet 1989), yet all forest foragers that are known to the ethnographic record have adopted languages of their current or previous farming neighbors. The Efe usually live in association with Lese, Mamvu and Mangbetu, all of whom speak languages from the same linguistic family as the Efe; the Mbuti usually live in association with the Ndaka, Bila and Budu farmers, all of whom speak languages from the same language family as the Mbuti.

Is there some part of the bolded part of that statement that you fail to understand?

Have adopted. Do you fucking read English.

I do but obviously you have a few problems with it.

The farmers did not adopt the Pygmy language.

I have not made that claim.

The Mbuit have adopted the Farmers languages, which are all Bantu derived.
Because I speak spanish means I cannot speak english...is that what you are trying to say?

Whom they have extensive contact and trade with, as your article points out.



I have already said that they used to have a Pygmy language. Now there are just a few vestigal words of it.

You keep saying that but so far have not provided any proof.
You continue to disagree with a book you have never read.
You act like a man with a paper asshole trying to fight a forest fire.

Mbuti speak 4 different (yet related) languages, in a direct realtionship to the language of the farmers they live and trade with. They also utilise different hunting and other cultural differences exists, based on those language lines.


All of which your article confirms

And backs up my point that the idea that thier culture has not changed for 6000 years is nonsense.

Is it your position that when I learned french in school that the american culture changed?
Is it your position that when I learned spanish in school that the american culture changed?
The article does not support any of your claims.

quote:

ORIGINAL: luckydawg

quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx

quote:

Moonhead:

What percentage of the world's population do you think would be happy living their lives in a rainforest without access to medical care or anything to occupy their time other than hunting and gathering?

According to Turmbull they spend a lot of time smoking dope and fucking...when they are not doing that they are singing and dancing or telling stories...then of course there are the stars at night which are pretty kewel.
No big flat screen 60" plazma, no I pod, no $200 sneekers, no spinner hub caps...no job...no house payment,no exwife payment.
Perhaps it might be attractive to some.

except its a nonsense fantasy. Just look at your post.


"THey spend a lot of time doing drugs and fucking. and the rest singing and dancing".


a lot plus the rest = 100%. You are not including the farm work at exploitive wages. The time giving birth/nursing. The average Pygmy woman has 6 live births in her life (its in the links I already gave you). The simple drudgery of life.

Its a nonsense fantansy view of thier life. It seems to be important for you to beleive this wierd romantic view of their lives. That there has to be something better, than your life. IF only there was no Civilisation, life would be not be the shitty hell it is for you now. Or something like that. Its a symptom of cultural self loathing (the Myth of the Nobel Savage) that has been part of Western thought for a few centuries at least.

It's sad.