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> Ancient beliefs, behaviors and norms – what archaeologists call culture – were fundamentally integrated into technological solutions in this part of Peru in a

by 627467 2y ago

> Ancient beliefs, behaviors and norms – what archaeologists call culture – were fundamentally integrated into technological solutions in this part of Peru in ancient times. Isolating and removing the tools from that knowledge made them less effective. Ancient beliefs, behaviors and norms may have helped indigenous people perpetuate the solutions/technologies. Studying and understanding those may help people - today - to more quickly understand those solutions. But it's not like a thorough understand ing and application of these technologies - today - require us to "maintain technology and culture coupling" as this _archeologist professor_ implies. The Spanish may have made wrong assumptions at first and failed to replicate the solution, but if we still see it being used today, that's because the colonist eventually learned - without perpetuating the culture (not to the same extend as the indigenous)

Calwestjobs 2y ago
problem of today is not having enough knowledge, books, ... for storing that stuff or for generating more appropriate stuff to work with modern knowledge they did not had, but problem is not having workforce big enough to do this stuff AND live in current economic system on top of physical/planetwide system. there is just too may people and only two things can solve that problem - A) what stalin, hitler, did [ graph in GIF https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH_C_MORTACRACIES.GIF https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH_C_MORTACRACIES.GIF ] B) culture of not having 4 children and having need to live energy expensive life. after hitler in west, reforms were made. after lenin in east, stalinist came. so without having everybody on board choosing B)... what is the answer? and you can not be peruan-style farmer when you have terrorists pumping oil from ground , building tanks, drones, paying people to burn buildings, cars, writing nonsense "red-pilling" people ... USA was lucky not having wars, and not having war in USA was 99.999% because of geography - no land bridge. and 0.001% of "tyrrany" of state not allowing mass murder in rest of the world (yes redpill-ing oil here). but culture is changing, state no longer cares about that 0.001% (or atleast seem so ). we do not care about transporting muck into our fields so we do not need to manufacture fertilizers. so yeah culture is not important but it is. he means culture as a "we do care about sitting next to your field and thinking about it [but that means not spending time programming healthcare system systems] and we do care about earth" [even without hippie drugs]
greenavocado 2y ago
Traditions are solutions to problems that civilizations forgot they had
mock-possum 2y ago
Exactly - just because they used culture, or religion, to underpin that stuff - doesn’t mean we need to. Doesn’t mean we need to use the same culture, or even the same religion, for that matter. “This is what works, and this is why it works, and this is the benefit, and this is why it’s worthwhile” can be enough, with a minimum of pretense.
- hosh 2y ago
  Permaculture design was developed out of systematically studying indigenous methods from around the world, and one of the insights is that how humans inhabit the land — the culture — matters a lot. If something is not aligned to human interests and norms, they won’t do it. It goes with what Christopher Alexander understood about living architecture. How people use it matters. The whole point of pattern languages was the creation of a grammar where all possible ways in which patterns come together develop a valid, architecturally cohesive design. This allows the inhabitants themselves to make changes as their life and circumstances change, and as long as they follow the grammar, it will come out as a cohesive, functional design. Alexander also systematically studied indigenous architecture and went in with a background in mathematics. There is a reason his work influenced people working with software architecture and human-computing interactive design (but our computer systems and products does not realize the full potential of Alexander’s ideas). There is a kind of bias at play, where we think the culture itself is rigid, and becomes out of date, and therefore, impedes progress. It does not have to be that way, and often time, the culture itself encodes ideas that are crucial. Furthermore, cultural practices can be understood or designed such that it is flexible and versatile — similar to Peru’s pre-Hispanic system of canals. If anything, it’s the bias of our modern worldview that tries to fix culture into the rigid structures just as it tries to create rigid solutions. For a deeper reading on why that might be, I suggest: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-called-legibility/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-call...
  - 627467 2y ago
    > if something is not aligned to human interests and norms, they won’t do it. I won't litigate strongly against this statement because its obvious this matters, but human interests and norms are not immutable and the mechanism to change it definitely involve doing things (at some scale) that can be seen as abnormal or against (some) human interests. This tension and how it's resolved is the evolutionary pressure. > where we think the culture itself is rigid Well, the article cites the example of the Spanish failing for decades to irrigate the land because they dismissed the existing culture. Seems like the author has a rigid view of culture, because it seems clear to me that the syncretic culture post-conquest (Spanish ruled) was one radically different to indigenous or european ones.

by 627467 2y ago

Calwestjobs 2y ago

problem of today is not having enough knowledge, books, ... for storing that stuff or for generating more appropriate stuff to work with modern knowledge they did not had, but problem is not having workforce big enough to do this stuff AND live in current economic system on top of physical/planetwide system. there is just too may people and only two things can solve that problem - A) what stalin, hitler, did [ graph in GIF https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH_C_MORTACRACIES.GIF https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH_C_MORTACRACIES.GIF ] B) culture of not having 4 children and having need to live energy expensive life. after hitler in west, reforms were made. after lenin in east, stalinist came. so without having everybody on board choosing B)... what is the answer? and you can not be peruan-style farmer when you have terrorists pumping oil from ground , building tanks, drones, paying people to burn buildings, cars, writing nonsense "red-pilling" people ... USA was lucky not having wars, and not having war in USA was 99.999% because of geography - no land bridge. and 0.001% of "tyrrany" of state not allowing mass murder in rest of the world (yes redpill-ing oil here). but culture is changing, state no longer cares about that 0.001% (or atleast seem so ). we do not care about transporting muck into our fields so we do not need to manufacture fertilizers. so yeah culture is not important but it is. he means culture as a "we do care about sitting next to your field and thinking about it [but that means not spending time programming healthcare system systems] and we do care about earth" [even without hippie drugs]

greenavocado 2y ago

Traditions are solutions to problems that civilizations forgot they had

mock-possum 2y ago

Exactly - just because they used culture, or religion, to underpin that stuff - doesn’t mean we need to. Doesn’t mean we need to use the same culture, or even the same religion, for that matter. “This is what works, and this is why it works, and this is the benefit, and this is why it’s worthwhile” can be enough, with a minimum of pretense.

hosh 2y ago
Permaculture design was developed out of systematically studying indigenous methods from around the world, and one of the insights is that how humans inhabit the land — the culture — matters a lot. If something is not aligned to human interests and norms, they won’t do it. It goes with what Christopher Alexander understood about living architecture. How people use it matters. The whole point of pattern languages was the creation of a grammar where all possible ways in which patterns come together develop a valid, architecturally cohesive design. This allows the inhabitants themselves to make changes as their life and circumstances change, and as long as they follow the grammar, it will come out as a cohesive, functional design. Alexander also systematically studied indigenous architecture and went in with a background in mathematics. There is a reason his work influenced people working with software architecture and human-computing interactive design (but our computer systems and products does not realize the full potential of Alexander’s ideas). There is a kind of bias at play, where we think the culture itself is rigid, and becomes out of date, and therefore, impedes progress. It does not have to be that way, and often time, the culture itself encodes ideas that are crucial. Furthermore, cultural practices can be understood or designed such that it is flexible and versatile — similar to Peru’s pre-Hispanic system of canals. If anything, it’s the bias of our modern worldview that tries to fix culture into the rigid structures just as it tries to create rigid solutions. For a deeper reading on why that might be, I suggest: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-called-legibility/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-call...
- 627467 2y ago
  > if something is not aligned to human interests and norms, they won’t do it. I won't litigate strongly against this statement because its obvious this matters, but human interests and norms are not immutable and the mechanism to change it definitely involve doing things (at some scale) that can be seen as abnormal or against (some) human interests. This tension and how it's resolved is the evolutionary pressure. > where we think the culture itself is rigid Well, the article cites the example of the Spanish failing for decades to irrigate the land because they dismissed the existing culture. Seems like the author has a rigid view of culture, because it seems clear to me that the syncretic culture post-conquest (Spanish ruled) was one radically different to indigenous or european ones.