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Roomful of injuns - 6/29/2006 10:16:54 PM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		For a time, I was the only one in my livingroom without any Native American blood.

One ligered, and we talked, we talked about work, his thing was "Why won't they give me a raise ?", etc. He is severely underpaid, so eventually the subject came to something I brought up, I guess in a way to cheer him up.

"What if you and, say a bank vice-president were on a tour and the boat capsized and it was you and him, survival ?".

This guy who makes one third of what I make came up with a viable plan, when I could not. He is dyslexic, but that, apparently is his only hinderance. He is not stupid.

Hijacking my own thread, I submit that people were actually smarter in more primitive times. It took more brains to survive. He actually has overcome, and can read, but not all that well. You give him a one page joke in 14 point size, expect a laugh about eight minutes later.

I submit that mankind was more intelligent in the past. Think about a world where the wheel hadn't been invented. There is no prior work to go on. Old Og had to come up with the concept alone.

If you compare life in the 20th, 19th, 18th, 17th 16th 15th centuries you will find that only the strong survived in the past. People starved to death, froze to death etc., before the advent of cities.

If you compare all this to caveman days, it becomes more aparent. I am not talking about IQ level here. This is the ability to meld what you know about the environment with your instinct. It has nothing to do with how well you read or understand math. It has nothing to do with you computer skills or your other modern abilities of any sort.

If stranded on an island even Reading and wRiting and Rithmatic are useless.

At 60% Native, he got it pretty figured out, first, you need to know what kind of animals are on the island, how big it is etc., so you must explore. Then he went into how to make a fishing pole with nothing. As soon as you can eat, thus survive, you then figure out a way to be seen. If you were on a cruise ship, or even a small boat, they, somebody knows you are out there. Need to know about the animals, and if not hungry, work on the distress fire first.

Need to find some rocks first, work them against each other to sharpen them. Cut vines, as long as you can. Then make spears, but if you found wild animals there you would make spears first. Basically anything that would attack humans on the island needs to be considered. Depends on what you got. Some animals, the sight of the spear might scare them away, others you have to stick with it. Then others you have to kill. Good, we got meat today.

Building a fire is another thing. No matches, no lighters.

Who figured out how to rub sticks together to make fire ? It is my considered opinion that it was a carpenter in the pre iron age, trying to drill through wood with wood.

Whaddya think ?

T
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RE: Roomful of injuns - 6/29/2006 10:21:23 PM   
slavejali


Posts: 2918
Status: offline 		I think with modernisation we have lost intelligence in some areas and gained it in others.

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RE: Roomful of injuns - 6/29/2006 10:28:29 PM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		jali I didn't say we haven't gained anything.

Technology is great, what we can do now would be seen as witchcraft by simple societies of the past.

I thimk a good way to put it is that we lost something alot more important.

T

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RE: Roomful of injuns - 6/29/2006 10:34:40 PM   
slavejali


Posts: 2918
Status: offline 		I think one of the saddest things we have lost is being a conscious participant in the process of life. In many ways modern man is removed from the process and has no connection to it.

Simple Examples:
People who eat meat arent even really aware that an animal has given its life for their own sustenance.
Pre-packaged meals - not being part of the process of growing it, nurturing the crops, cutting it down, cooking it.
Car travel: People have lost track of distance, walking for 20 minutes seems such a long way away.

Stuff like that..losing touch with the process...

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RE: Roomful of injuns - 6/29/2006 10:56:35 PM   
Rule


Posts: 10479
Joined: 12/5/2005
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

One lingered, and we talked, we talked about work, his thing was "Why won't they give me a raise ?"
Perhaps it is his time to move to another, better paid job?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
He is dyslexic, but that, apparently is his only hinderance. He is not stupid.

Indeed. Such things are causally related. Genius may be exhibited by those who have a mental handicap of one kind or another.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
Hijacking my own thread, I submit that people were actually smarter in more primitive times. It took more brains to survive.

I submit that mankind was more intelligent in the past.

I am not talking about IQ level here. This is the ability to meld what you know about the environment with your instinct.

In those days people used what they were taught, just like today. The difference is that 'modern' people are so specialized that few have the any of the stone age skills.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
Who figured out how to rub sticks together to make fire ? It is my considered opinion that it was a carpenter in the pre iron age, trying to drill through wood with wood.

They most probably used a stone drill. I suspect that it started with noticing that friction produced warmth and subsequently rubbing two pieces of wood together. Only much later someone thought of using a bit of wood as a drill, Later still someone had the bright idea to use a drilling bow.
 

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RE: Roomful of injuns - 6/30/2006 12:29:13 AM   
NeedToUseYou


Posts: 2297
Joined: 12/24/2005
From: None of your business
Status: offline 		I've thought this before. And I think it is true for the most part. People generally confuse intellect with rote memory. For the most part our whole education system is based around rote memory moreso than actually encouraging problem solving or questioning the correctness of accepted fact. Or confuse knowing how to use sophicated devices as being themselves sophicated in thought. Memory requires nothing more than memory.  How much thought and intellect is required today. Not much really.

Last century really only produced about a 1000 trully creative people in terms of people that had thoughts that changed the world permanently. The rest, well, used what those few created and some derived products or themes based around the originators work. It's scary  when you think how few people actually created the core concepts and devices that comprise nearly every usefull concept we throw around, and every unique invention we use.

Just my opinion, but I highly respect anyone that thinks of something trully original. Tesla would probably be my all time favourite. Original, questioned accepted intellectual fact, changed the world, did it out of a drive to improve the world on a fundamental level. Died poor and uncelebrated, even though inarguably his inventions made nearly every device we use daily possible.

Everyone, by no means can do that, but if we were actually encouraged to think and question accepted fact, I'm sure we would produce many more trully brilliant people.

I wandered off topic a bit. Sorry. But I think it relates to the lack of understanding we are allowed to have about how our world works.

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RE: Roomful of injuns - 6/30/2006 1:16:26 AM   
meatcleaver


Posts: 9030
Joined: 3/13/2006
Status: offline 		Even what appear to be truely original thoughts do not come out of thin air. They are influenced by the interests of the times and a bank of knowledge that has been built up collectively. Einstein's relativity and Newton's mechanical universe were not ideas that were plucked out of fresh air.

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RE: Roomful of injuns - 6/30/2006 5:06:20 AM   
NakedOnMyChain


Posts: 2431
Joined: 11/29/2004
From: Indiana
Status: offline 		My opinion is that the farther we get away from living with the land and depending on each other for survival, the more cultural memory we lose.  Are we less intelligent?  No.  Are we missing out on a wealth of valuable knowledge?  Yes.

Rural living led to a strong sense of cultural memory.  You knew who you were.  You knew where you came from.  You knew how to best survive in your native environment.  In modern society this is more and more rare as we lose our roots for various reasons.  Oral tradition is on its deathbed with the wealth of technology we have at our fingertips, and we thereby quickly lose most of the wisdom it took our ancestors thousands of years to amass.

And never doubt that there is wisdom in nature, and typically wisdom in age.  The next time you have the chance to listen to an older relative's stories of how much simpler it was "way back when", take the opportunity, because they have the rare experience of having listened to the stories and of holding the knowledge of every generation that came before them.  The next chance you have to stop and stand still to listen to the wind in the trees, take the opportunity, because they hold the innate memory of our planet, who knows more than we could possibly imagine.  These are the timeless lessons that our earth and those who came before us have to offer.  Listen and learn.

(Can you tell I'm Native American?  And black Irish, and Scottish.  I let the memories of my family die, and I'm just recently realizing the value of relearning them.)

_____________________________

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"I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave."
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RE: Roomful of injuns - 6/30/2006 6:56:43 AM   
Lashra


Posts: 4900
Joined: 2/9/2006
Status: offline 		We have lost our instinct for survival. I'm part Cherokee Indian, my Grandfather was a fullblood and the difference between the indian way of thinking and the white's is very different. My Grandpa used to tell me stories about the land, animals and how we should love, care and respect them. He would say all people are equal, an indian disrespects himself if he looks down upon another. Women walked along side their men as equals with respect.
Though I feel with intergration that gap is beginning to close. Alot of the white man's ways are being adopted by some of the Indians and its a damn shame.

~Lashra
Whipping asses since 1981

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RE: Roomful of injuns - 6/30/2006 7:48:51 AM   
JohnWarren


Posts: 3807
Joined: 3/18/2005
From: Delray Beach, FL
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Lashra

We have lost our instinct for survival. I'm part Cherokee Indian, my Grandfather was a fullblood and the difference between the indian way of thinking and the white's is very different. My Grandpa used to tell me stories about the land, animals and how we should love, care and respect them. He would say all people are equal, an indian disrespects himself if he looks down upon another. Women walked along side their men as equals with respect.
Though I feel with intergration that gap is beginning to close. Alot of the white man's ways are being adopted by some of the Indians and its a damn shame.

~Lashra
Whipping asses since 1981


Adoption of the "white man's ways" isn't really a new thing.  In fact, the Cherokee was the tribe who went furthest in taking ideas and technology from the "new guys in town."  They created an English-based writing system and even had a rather successful newspaper printed in both Cherokee and English.  Unfortunately, rumors of gold lead to the Trail of Tears and the destruction of most of what had been built up.

One of my fellow PhD candidates at The University of Tennessee did her dissertation on the newspaper and the cultural and technological transfers.

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