4 ms·

Definitely not as indiscriminately. Interestingly a large number of these people went down this path initially because of chronic health problems, e.g. autoimmu

by cco 7y ago

Definitely not as indiscriminately. Interestingly a large number of these people went down this path initially because of chronic health problems, e.g. autoimmune issues; things that our modern medical system is not great at diagnosing or treating but sometimes radical diet changes or the like can alleviate symptoms. For most run-of-the-mill things they'll just use natural remedies which, if you have no experience with them, can be surprisingly effective. Aspirin was derived from willow bark, chewing that bark gets rid of a headache just as well. With that said when things get serious and/or acute, the people I know do still use modern medicine as a backstop. If someone were to break their leg and have a piece of bone sticking out of their skin, I'm certain they would go to a hospital. Or for instance if they couldn't breath because they caught covid-19, I'm sure they'd go to a hospital and use a ventilator. There are probably diehards who wouldn't, but those exist in cities too ;)

natmaka 7y ago
Pandemics (COVID-19 included) aren't possible in an usual tribal zone, where population density remains low (because there is not industrial ways to produce food) and people travel much more slowly and rarely than we do (because there is no vehicle). Many (maybe even most(?)) our modern thingies, respirators included, are only useful/necessary because we live as we do. IMHO the bottom line is: are we more happy and fulfilled to live as we do than to live like 'Lynx' (the woman subject of the article) does?
- masonic 7y ago
  Even tribes trade and combat between themselves. European diseases traveled quite readily between native populations in the Americas.
  - natmaka 7y ago
    They don't combat and trade as intensively and effectively as we do. European diseases traveled because Europeans traveled.
    - samatman 7y ago
      This is trivially true, insofar as Europeans traveled to the Americas and brought diseases, notably smallpox, with them. It isn't meaningfully true, however. Smallpox tore through all of North America well before settlers were west of the Appalachians.
      - natmaka 7y ago
        It's about the extent. Smallpox was devastating only when people traveled quickly far away. Our current COVID-19 pandemics is only possible to such an extent for the very same reasons.
    - int_19h 7y ago
      If you adjust the number of homicides per capita, tribal wars are far more destructive that anything more modern (including WW1&2). It's hard to get the right perspective on it, because hunter-gatherer societies are so small, the death toll from warfare isn't just a large and impersonal number, but specific people's stories. So then we compare it to our nameless millions of dead, and proclaim ourselves to be monsters. But: "Anthropologists formerly idealized band and tribal societies as gentle and nonviolent, because visiting anthropologists observed no murder in a band of 25 people in the course of a three-year study. Of course they didn’t: it’s easy to calculate that a band of a dozen adults and a dozen children, subject to the inevitable deaths occurring anyway for the usual reasons other than murder, could not perpetuate itself if in addition one of its dozen adults murdered another adult every three years. Much more extensive long-term information about band and tribal societies reveals that murder is a leading cause of death. For example, I happened to be visiting New Guinea’s Iyau people at a time when a woman anthropologist was interviewing Iyau women about their life histories. Woman after woman, when asked to name her husband, named several sequential husbands who had died violent deaths. A typical answer went like this: “My first husband was killed by Elopi raiders. My second husband was killed by a man who wanted me, and who became my third husband. That husband was killed by the brother of my second husband, seeking to avenge his murder.” Such biographies prove common for so-called gentle tribespeople and contributed to the acceptance of centralized authority as tribal societies grew larger."

by cco 7y ago

natmaka 7y ago

Pandemics (COVID-19 included) aren't possible in an usual tribal zone, where population density remains low (because there is not industrial ways to produce food) and people travel much more slowly and rarely than we do (because there is no vehicle). Many (maybe even most(?)) our modern thingies, respirators included, are only useful/necessary because we live as we do. IMHO the bottom line is: are we more happy and fulfilled to live as we do than to live like 'Lynx' (the woman subject of the article) does?

masonic 7y ago
Even tribes trade and combat between themselves. European diseases traveled quite readily between native populations in the Americas.
- natmaka 7y ago
  They don't combat and trade as intensively and effectively as we do. European diseases traveled because Europeans traveled.
  - samatman 7y ago
    This is trivially true, insofar as Europeans traveled to the Americas and brought diseases, notably smallpox, with them. It isn't meaningfully true, however. Smallpox tore through all of North America well before settlers were west of the Appalachians.
    - natmaka 7y ago
      It's about the extent. Smallpox was devastating only when people traveled quickly far away. Our current COVID-19 pandemics is only possible to such an extent for the very same reasons.
  - int_19h 7y ago
    If you adjust the number of homicides per capita, tribal wars are far more destructive that anything more modern (including WW1&2). It's hard to get the right perspective on it, because hunter-gatherer societies are so small, the death toll from warfare isn't just a large and impersonal number, but specific people's stories. So then we compare it to our nameless millions of dead, and proclaim ourselves to be monsters. But: "Anthropologists formerly idealized band and tribal societies as gentle and nonviolent, because visiting anthropologists observed no murder in a band of 25 people in the course of a three-year study. Of course they didn’t: it’s easy to calculate that a band of a dozen adults and a dozen children, subject to the inevitable deaths occurring anyway for the usual reasons other than murder, could not perpetuate itself if in addition one of its dozen adults murdered another adult every three years. Much more extensive long-term information about band and tribal societies reveals that murder is a leading cause of death. For example, I happened to be visiting New Guinea’s Iyau people at a time when a woman anthropologist was interviewing Iyau women about their life histories. Woman after woman, when asked to name her husband, named several sequential husbands who had died violent deaths. A typical answer went like this: “My first husband was killed by Elopi raiders. My second husband was killed by a man who wanted me, and who became my third husband. That husband was killed by the brother of my second husband, seeking to avenge his murder.” Such biographies prove common for so-called gentle tribespeople and contributed to the acceptance of centralized authority as tribal societies grew larger."