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Yes, we all started out as hunter/gatherers millennia ago. We are not now. We have been mostly improving the wastelands ever since. (I say mostly because occ

Yes, we all started out as hunter/gatherers millennia ago. We are not now. We have been mostly improving the wastelands ever since. (I say mostly because occasionally we re-waste them again but thankfully less and less often these days.)

esarbe 7y ago
I'm not sure that I would consider i.e. cutting down the amazon rain forest and turning them into pastures for cattle or fields for mono cultures as an improvement of wasteland. Pretty much the same happened to the European rain forest and is currently happening to east-Asian rain forests. What we've been doing is changing the environment to suit our needs as agriculturalists, but that's not an objective improvement from wasteland to garden-of-Eden. Indeed; exactly with this transformation from "wasteland" (as you would maybe call it) to predatively exploited ecosystem (as I would call it) we (as agriculturalists) have infringed on the rights of all hunter/gatherers that have been there before. We've set up enclosures to limited their ability to travel from hunting ground to hunting ground, we've slaughtered their prey animals (i.e. bisons), all the while claiming that their are uncivilized and barbaric and that this is all for their best.
jaldhar 7y ago
The Amazon has 50,000 species of beetles which is good for beetles I guess but what makes it wasteland or not is what it does for humans. There as well we can discuss whether cattle or biodiversity is a better improvement but that is a different topic.
- esarbe 7y ago
  The Amazon (and similar environments) has been supporting human life for millennia. Even if you discount beetles (as I wouldn't, since beetles are awesome), calling it a wasteland does not seem very appropriate to me.
  - jaldhar 7y ago
    Waste as used in e.g. the Domesday Book literally means “land not under [human] cultivation.”
    - esarbe 7y ago
      That's an interesting definition I knew not about. Thanks for sharing! https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wasteland https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wasteland In the previous discussion, I was mainly focused on the 'barren' and 'barely inhabitable' aspects. If your sentiment was about cultivation; yeah, you're probably right. Hunter/gatherer societies usually do very little cultivation. (There's some indication that the Amazonas river fronts were heavily cultivated in pre-columbian times, as the presence of terra preta implies, though) In that case however we'll run into the discussion about 'improving the land', since arguably cutting down woods to make room for agriculturalists is not improving the land for hunter/gatherers.

esarbe 7y ago

I'm not sure that I would consider i.e. cutting down the amazon rain forest and turning them into pastures for cattle or fields for mono cultures as an improvement of wasteland. Pretty much the same happened to the European rain forest and is currently happening to east-Asian rain forests. What we've been doing is changing the environment to suit our needs as agriculturalists, but that's not an objective improvement from wasteland to garden-of-Eden. Indeed; exactly with this transformation from "wasteland" (as you would maybe call it) to predatively exploited ecosystem (as I would call it) we (as agriculturalists) have infringed on the rights of all hunter/gatherers that have been there before. We've set up enclosures to limited their ability to travel from hunting ground to hunting ground, we've slaughtered their prey animals (i.e. bisons), all the while claiming that their are uncivilized and barbaric and that this is all for their best.

jaldhar 7y ago

The Amazon has 50,000 species of beetles which is good for beetles I guess but what makes it wasteland or not is what it does for humans. There as well we can discuss whether cattle or biodiversity is a better improvement but that is a different topic.

esarbe 7y ago
The Amazon (and similar environments) has been supporting human life for millennia. Even if you discount beetles (as I wouldn't, since beetles are awesome), calling it a wasteland does not seem very appropriate to me.
- jaldhar 7y ago
  Waste as used in e.g. the Domesday Book literally means “land not under [human] cultivation.”
  - esarbe 7y ago
    That's an interesting definition I knew not about. Thanks for sharing! https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wasteland https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wasteland In the previous discussion, I was mainly focused on the 'barren' and 'barely inhabitable' aspects. If your sentiment was about cultivation; yeah, you're probably right. Hunter/gatherer societies usually do very little cultivation. (There's some indication that the Amazonas river fronts were heavily cultivated in pre-columbian times, as the presence of terra preta implies, though) In that case however we'll run into the discussion about 'improving the land', since arguably cutting down woods to make room for agriculturalists is not improving the land for hunter/gatherers.