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> So build them. I don't understand why the fact that this or that person built it is relevant. I don’t think the specific person that built it is important, t

> So build them. I don't understand why the fact that this or that person built it is relevant. I don’t think the specific person that built it is important, that would be ridiculous. But I can completely see the argument that structures built by cultures that evolved in exact environment they’re being built in are much more likely to be ecologically beneficial, than those designed by cultures foreign to that environment. The local culture will be filled to brim with historical knowledge and techniques all formed and shaped by the unique resources and requirements of their local area. You could rediscover all of that knowledge using the scientific method, but why bother? The local cultures have already done the heavy lifting, just find away to continue applying it. I don’t see why it’s surprising that indigenous peoples end up building more ecologically appropriate structures. > Anti-scientific garbage. The author clearly has a preconceived notion that Europe and Enlightenment ideals (presumably including science) are evil, and the rest is derived from that. Quite frankly, Europe/science has just been through an extend period of believing that humans are capable of overcoming nature, and can generally just ignore ecological consequences, because future technology will deal with those consequences (the Victorians were renowned for this type of thinking, something the UK is still dealing with today). We of course know now that just ignoring nature and building over it results in an unimaginable number of unintended consequences, and far more that we’re capable of innovating our way out of. Overall it’s smarter to avoid impacting our environment as much of possible, and to use tools and techniques that are sympathetic to the local environment, rather than treating the local environment as an obstacle to be removed.

fluoridation 3y ago
>You could rediscover all of that knowledge using the scientific method, but why bother? The local cultures have already done the heavy lifting No. The heavy lifting is determining whether a specific practice is ecologically beneficial or not. The people who built those mounds did not document how they arrived at the practice of building them (although it's safe to assume it wasn't a scientific process), so someone had to evaluate whether they are ecologically beneficial or not. The same would have to be done for any other practice, same as you'd do for any other idea someone comes up with. A proposal for action is worthless is there's no indication that it suits the desired goal. >I don’t see why it’s surprising that indigenous peoples end up building more ecologically appropriate structures. Because everyone is indigenous to the place they're from, and people routinely build structures in their homelands that are environmentally destructive. Do you think, say, Roman aqueducts were not at least disruptive? This implicit distinction you're making between "indigenous" and "not indigenous" is exactly what the idea of the noble savage is. People are people. They'll build the things that suit their needs and in the process they'll destroy some things they don't care about, and some that perhaps they should. >Quite frankly, Europe/science has just been through an extend period of believing that humans are capable of overcoming nature I don't see any non-Europeans doing anything differently. Do you? It seems to me that the only people not trying to massively transform the environment are those who don't have means to do it.
- avianlyric 3y ago
  > No. The heavy lifting is determining whether a specific practice is ecologically beneficial or not. The people who built those mounds did not document how they arrived at the practice of building them (although it's safe to assume it wasn't a scientific process), so someone had to evaluate whether they are ecologically beneficial or not. I would hardly call that heavy lifting. Validation of an idea or process is substantially easier than creating one (although I don’t claim that validation is easy, just easier). > This implicit distinction you're making between "indigenous" and "not indigenous" is exactly what the idea of the noble savage is. No I don’t make any claim that indigenous designs are inherently more ecologically sound. But I would claim they’re more likely to be ecologically sound given they’re developed by a culture that presumably also had to deal with the consequences of their designs. Cultures that completely destroy their environments aren’t known for their longevity. > I don't see any non-Europeans doing anything differently. Do you? It seems to me that the only people not trying to massively transform the environment are those who don't have means to do it. Sure, but few other cultures have demonstrated such a propensity for environmental destruction so far. Even if it just a lack of means, it doesn’t change the fact that designs will also be constrained by their lack of means, forcing them to innovate within a much narrower envelope that doesn’t allow them to simply bulldoze their local environment. Ultimately the underlying intention behind the designs of any particular culture are irrelevant. I’m not making any claims that indigenous cultures are inherently less destructive, simply that their culture will have been shaped by their local environment, and thus will inherently be more sympathetic to their local environment, simply out of necessity. As our entire species is slowly discovering, cultures that don’t respect their local environments tend to die off as food, water and other required resources start disappearing. So to more succinctly summarise my argument. Indigenous designs have the wonderful advantage of survivorship bias, the humans and their intentions are almost irrelevant.
  - fluoridation 3y ago
    >I would hardly call that heavy lifting. Validation of an idea or process is substantially easier than creating one (although I don’t claim that validation is easy, just easier). Creating an idea takes practically no effort. I can do it right now: let's fix global warming by lassoing passing ice comets and dropping them in the ocean. What takes effort is filtering the useless ideas from the useful ones. If a past culture had some practice that just tells you they came up with something and determined that it was useful for their purposes. We still need to know if it'll be useful for our purposes. There's not reason to think the purposes are the same, and if they're entirely unrelated the idea in question is not likely to be more useful than my astronomical rodeo. >Sure, but few other cultures have demonstrated such a propensity for environmental destruction so far. So, for example, the Chinese don't have some of the most polluted cities in the world, right? They're not Europeans, so their propensity to destroy the environment (including their own living spaces) is lesser. >designs will also be constrained by their lack of means, forcing them to innovate within a much narrower envelope that doesn’t allow them to simply bulldoze their local environment. So if you agree with that, then it follows that anyone who has access to bulldozers will use them to solve at least some of their problems, right? Regardless of whether they're European or not, right? Then I don't understand what you're arguing and why you're singling out Europe. >So to more succinctly summarise my argument. Indigenous designs have the wonderful advantage of survivorship bias That's only because they had been doing the same things for hundreds if not thousands of years, and at small scale without powered tools. There was practically no chance they could have screwed the environment to bad they would have died out; I can't think of a single historical example like that, other than possibly Easter Island. If your argument is "returning to a pre-industrial lifestyle will be good for the environment" then I agree with you, but I don't think that's in the cards. I imagine people are looking for solutions that fit into our existing society, not to tear everything down and start over.

fluoridation 3y ago

>You could rediscover all of that knowledge using the scientific method, but why bother? The local cultures have already done the heavy lifting No. The heavy lifting is determining whether a specific practice is ecologically beneficial or not. The people who built those mounds did not document how they arrived at the practice of building them (although it's safe to assume it wasn't a scientific process), so someone had to evaluate whether they are ecologically beneficial or not. The same would have to be done for any other practice, same as you'd do for any other idea someone comes up with. A proposal for action is worthless is there's no indication that it suits the desired goal. >I don’t see why it’s surprising that indigenous peoples end up building more ecologically appropriate structures. Because everyone is indigenous to the place they're from, and people routinely build structures in their homelands that are environmentally destructive. Do you think, say, Roman aqueducts were not at least disruptive? This implicit distinction you're making between "indigenous" and "not indigenous" is exactly what the idea of the noble savage is. People are people. They'll build the things that suit their needs and in the process they'll destroy some things they don't care about, and some that perhaps they should. >Quite frankly, Europe/science has just been through an extend period of believing that humans are capable of overcoming nature I don't see any non-Europeans doing anything differently. Do you? It seems to me that the only people not trying to massively transform the environment are those who don't have means to do it.

avianlyric 3y ago
> No. The heavy lifting is determining whether a specific practice is ecologically beneficial or not. The people who built those mounds did not document how they arrived at the practice of building them (although it's safe to assume it wasn't a scientific process), so someone had to evaluate whether they are ecologically beneficial or not. I would hardly call that heavy lifting. Validation of an idea or process is substantially easier than creating one (although I don’t claim that validation is easy, just easier). > This implicit distinction you're making between "indigenous" and "not indigenous" is exactly what the idea of the noble savage is. No I don’t make any claim that indigenous designs are inherently more ecologically sound. But I would claim they’re more likely to be ecologically sound given they’re developed by a culture that presumably also had to deal with the consequences of their designs. Cultures that completely destroy their environments aren’t known for their longevity. > I don't see any non-Europeans doing anything differently. Do you? It seems to me that the only people not trying to massively transform the environment are those who don't have means to do it. Sure, but few other cultures have demonstrated such a propensity for environmental destruction so far. Even if it just a lack of means, it doesn’t change the fact that designs will also be constrained by their lack of means, forcing them to innovate within a much narrower envelope that doesn’t allow them to simply bulldoze their local environment. Ultimately the underlying intention behind the designs of any particular culture are irrelevant. I’m not making any claims that indigenous cultures are inherently less destructive, simply that their culture will have been shaped by their local environment, and thus will inherently be more sympathetic to their local environment, simply out of necessity. As our entire species is slowly discovering, cultures that don’t respect their local environments tend to die off as food, water and other required resources start disappearing. So to more succinctly summarise my argument. Indigenous designs have the wonderful advantage of survivorship bias, the humans and their intentions are almost irrelevant.
- fluoridation 3y ago
  >I would hardly call that heavy lifting. Validation of an idea or process is substantially easier than creating one (although I don’t claim that validation is easy, just easier). Creating an idea takes practically no effort. I can do it right now: let's fix global warming by lassoing passing ice comets and dropping them in the ocean. What takes effort is filtering the useless ideas from the useful ones. If a past culture had some practice that just tells you they came up with something and determined that it was useful for their purposes. We still need to know if it'll be useful for our purposes. There's not reason to think the purposes are the same, and if they're entirely unrelated the idea in question is not likely to be more useful than my astronomical rodeo. >Sure, but few other cultures have demonstrated such a propensity for environmental destruction so far. So, for example, the Chinese don't have some of the most polluted cities in the world, right? They're not Europeans, so their propensity to destroy the environment (including their own living spaces) is lesser. >designs will also be constrained by their lack of means, forcing them to innovate within a much narrower envelope that doesn’t allow them to simply bulldoze their local environment. So if you agree with that, then it follows that anyone who has access to bulldozers will use them to solve at least some of their problems, right? Regardless of whether they're European or not, right? Then I don't understand what you're arguing and why you're singling out Europe. >So to more succinctly summarise my argument. Indigenous designs have the wonderful advantage of survivorship bias That's only because they had been doing the same things for hundreds if not thousands of years, and at small scale without powered tools. There was practically no chance they could have screwed the environment to bad they would have died out; I can't think of a single historical example like that, other than possibly Easter Island. If your argument is "returning to a pre-industrial lifestyle will be good for the environment" then I agree with you, but I don't think that's in the cards. I imagine people are looking for solutions that fit into our existing society, not to tear everything down and start over.