Rutherford B. Hayes Pwnz Barack H. Obama! ^_^

Mr. Obama, in his eternal quest to dumb the American public down to the education level typical of a Chicago Democrat and also to justify his own indulgence of a pseudo-science scam called "green energy", recently claimed that Rutherford B. Hayes had scorned the invention of the telephone when in point of fact Mr. Hayes was the first President to install one.

Well, I guess it's only fair that this gave rise to some a captioning frenzy and I think the only thing left for me to do is to note that aside from some repetition it seems to currently be 37 pages of snarky goodness. Enjoy! ^_~

Hat tip: Instapundit

Mood Music: 'Don't Know Much About History Written' by Sam Cooke, Lou Adler, and Herb Alpert. As sung by Sam Cooke.

Poison in the Well!

Quoth Glenn Reynolds: "Reliance on Bellesiles is scholarly malpractice."

I actually have to disagree with him on this one. The problem with pseudo-histories of the sort that Bellsiles practiced is that it is easy for them to become embedded down through the ages by virtue of the fact that even the most determined scholar cannot check every source. You and I might know that Mr. Bellsiles is unreliable by virtue of our knowledge of current events but can some innocent researcher of the 23rd century necessarily be expected to know this as well? This is how "scholars" such as Bellsiles and Parson Weems thrive. It's in essence the Livy vs. Polybius approach to history in action. Livy felt that the purpose of history is to create accounts of the past that would guide moral behavior while Polybius felt that the purpose of history is to provide accurate knowledge of the past by which we might learn from past mistakes and precedents and thus be prepared when similar events come our own way. As someone who considers himself political scientist and historian I am inclined to consider the approach of Polybius the correct one. The path of Livy is nothing more than poison in the well.

Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering? @_@

Quoth SCC: 'Aldercreatures are our sometimes elected City Council. There are 50 of them for some reason and their conviction rate averages around one-a-year - we don't know how New York City gets along with only half that many with three times Chicago's population. Must be something in the water.'

A more accurate description of them than that would be very hard to find. ^_^



Quoth Glenn Reynolds: 'Environmentalists, like feminists, are just another arm of the Democratic establishment: “running dogs” to be loosed or reined in as politics require. It is thus unnecessary to pay attention to what they say, since it’s just politics anyway.'


True enough. If you allow your poltical party or faction to do your thinking for you and dictate what you may read, think and say - as pretty much all leftists have done since the time of Karl Marx - then you have allowed them to turn you into a trained parrot. And once you have allowed your party to turn you into a parrot then why should you be regarded as anything more than a trained performing animal rather than as a human being? o_O

Sucks to be either a feminist or an environmentalist but they did this to themselves! :P


Also from Glenn Reynolds: 'I guess the lesson is, if you want scrutiny of Executive Branch actions, vote Republican. . . .'


That does tend to be the logical consequence of Old Media having made themselves the lapdogs of the Democrat Party, doesn't it? I wonder if they themselves would ever be bright enough to appreciate the irony? ^o^

And, before we continue on to others, yet another from Glenn Reynolds: 'Personally, I believe that “fairness” consists in the fruits of my labor not being taken by corrupt hacks to redistribute to their cronies in exchange for votes.'

But, sadly enough, the patronage hounds and wardheelers who favor high taxes would seem to disagree. I wonder why that might be? :P



Quoth A. Jacksonian: 'Engineering is the Dirty Little Secret of getting energy.'


The fact that the Left is hostile to this basic truth is the reason that people like Mr. Obama and all his little toadies will never fit for office.



Quoth Claire Berlinski: 'The danger that Stroilov and Bukovsky faced was real and grave; they both assumed, one imagines, that the world would take notice of what they had risked so much to acquire.'


I suppose one does not have to be a ninja to know that the truly hidden is sometimes that which is within plain sight. >_>


Quoth Paul Mirengoff: '...Thus, NASA's primary mission is no longer to enhance American science and engineering or to explore space, but to boost the self-esteem of "predominantly Muslim nations.'

Given that any form of leftism seems to eventually require its adherents to become a bunch of technophobes should we really be surprised by this? o_O

Mr. Obama and his fellow Dummycrats have clearly forgotten the Dirty Little Secret of Energy that AJacksonian pointed out to us before and in doing so have quite firmly made themselves the citizens of Cloud Cuckoo Land! ~_~



Quoth Francis Turner:'The death of the traditional print business model was merely hastened by Amazon. The seeds of its destruction had already been laid by the earlier adoption of the grocery business model, however Amazon helped speed up the death spiral. Not that this is going to help Amazon much in the longer term. The problem for Amazon is that while the web helped them take sales from existing bricks and mortar stores because of larger inventory and lower prices, their success is gradually killing these stores. If (when?) the bricks and mortar stores go away then so does the casual reader base that buys bestsellers and takes an occasional chance at something else when browsing in an airport bookstore. These folks are the ones whose purchases support publishers and thus, eventually, the industry as a whole. Hence Amazon's gain at the expense of the bookstores looks like it could be rather temporary. Unless of course we can replace that casual treeware reader base with a casual electronic reader base....'


He's right. I've seen the same thing happen, albeit from different causes, in various hobbies when they cease to be newbie-friendly. It's not an accident that a trip to certain SF Cons can feel like a visit to a geriatric ward. And reading for the sake of pleasure is very definitely a hobby, albeit an important one!


Quoth Wretchard: 'A lot of Democrats who are now staring political death in the face may now be asking themselves what has changed since they were re-elected last. Who brought this pox upon their houses? The right answer would be the political and economic environment. But the obvious answer would be Barack Obama. He’s the obvious patsy. He’s what changed since last. As the President’s unpopularity bears down on his supporters like the albatross around the Ancient Mariner, the temptation to survive at his expense may easily infect a group of people who were opportunists to begin with.'

Actually, I suspect this may be a case where the rats aren't bright enough to desert the sinking ship. Because where are they going to go? They used their ideology to stifle their conscience and whatever very slim chance of political survival the Left still has depends on them hanging together in case things can somehow still be worked out. If I am correct then it's only when the election is over, and they find themselves out in the cold and truly hated by all, that the Left will then turn upon Mr. Obama and one another. But when they do so it will be in the manner of piranas and not a pretty sight at all. Any bets on the forms that it will take? ^_~

That said, expect more and more dirty tricks and cheating from the Democrats this year as their desperation begins to mounts. It's been the only thing they've had left for decades now and the more that the American voters have seen through them the more desperately they've continued to need it. I wonder if any of them could still operate in any other way or even imagine doing so? o_O


Quoth Dr. Jerry Pournelle: 'I did find it interesting that they kept counting until Franken won. And I make no doubt that will happen this November as well. It's always best to have a decisive win. Recounts generally go to the party employing the recounters.'

Worth remembering the next time any Democrat wants a recount, isn't it? :P

Just as it's worth remembering that the Democrats tried to use this trick to steal the 2000 election when Mr. George W. Bush legitimately defeated Mr. Al Gore. Remember what I said about dirty tricks being the only thing the Democrats have left? And even such tricks are nothing more than a double edged weapon with poison for them. Each time the liberals use it for a short term gain they lose a bit more of the public's respect, a bit more of their own supporters, and a bit more of their own ability to do things in any other way. Such things have postponed their collapse but only makes things worse for them on the day that collapse comes. I wonder how long it will be before we see their party go the way of the Federalists and Whigs? O_o


Quoth Tom Smith (The Right Coast blogger, not the filker!): 'I remember reading stories of women who got themselves sterilized because of the population explosion. Fewer dumb genes in the gene pool you may say, but it's not as if they can sue Paul Erlichman.'


It wasn't just the women either. I remember hearing about a lot of men who got vasectomies on the same account. Hardly the first time that people messed themselves over or were messed over because of the more wacky environmentalist beliefs when you think it. Nor will it be the last. If you doubt me then consider how many people may be messing up their lives or the lives of others here and now because they honestly think "Global Warming" something more than a scam that has been somewhat anti-science. For that matter, ask yourself where the 20 million children
who have died from Malaria because of Rachel Carson and her disciples go to get their lives back either? Especially when it's quite likely that these deaths continue at the rate of 800,000 per year? >_<

Something to think on the next time an environmentalist trys to sound a bogus alarm, no? But it's not as though anyone who is of the Left will ever be any good at taking responsibility for what they do, now is it? :P

A Chapter of History in French Health Care.

There are those who feel that the government rather than we should be responsible for our own health care and thus support Mr. Obama in his push to make this happen. Many of them give the health care system of France as a prime example of the way our own system should be like. But I am dubious that they would do so if their memories stretched back into history a mere 6 years ago. With that in mind let us turn to the month of August in the year of 2003 AD to remember just what the French Health system that some of them so dearly admire was like when it was put to the test.

I begin with Dissident Frogman's account because I feel his eyewitness testimony concerning what had happened with his own relative brings the matter to life in a way that dryer accounts might not. Let us not forget that this is a widely known event that took place a mere six years ago. That this was not a fluke may be seen here.

The way the French Health Care system released its patients after their treatment one way or another is also noteworthy in its fashion.

Independent verification that the events described here did indeed happen in August of 2003 is not hard to come by. I offer this post from Just One Minute from August 15 both as evidence that in fairness to the Chirac government of the day nobody quite knew how bad it was at first and as evidence that they did know there *was* a problem and that it was quite obvious even then that they weren't moving quickly enough on it.

Let's continue with some of the stories that cropped up in Instapundit at the time as taken from Instapundits archives. Note that this particular post represents the time period when they first found that the death toll had climbed to over 10,000. Let us then note that in this piece dated September 9, 2003 the death total had climbed over 15,000. It is worth remembering, as this September 26, 2003 post reminds us, that in spite of the fact that it was the same heat wave all over Europe the number of deaths still hit France disproportionately because of the poor performance of their national "health" service.

As Mark Steyn noted in his commentary, those senior citizens would have had a better chance at survival if they had been captured by Marines and put in Gitmo then they did under the tender mercies of French health care. Perhaps the real reason libs disliked the Gitmo camp lies in that fact? :P

I like this paragraph in particular: "In Paris this spring, a government official explained to me how Europeans had created a more civilised society than America - socialised healthcare, shorter work weeks, more holidays. We've just seen where that leads: gran'ma turned away from the hospital to die in an airless apartment because junior's sur la plage. M Chirac's somewhat tetchy suggestion that his people should rethink their attitude to the elderly was well taken. But Big Government inevitably diminishes its citizens' capacity to take responsibility, to the point where even your dead mum is just one more inconvenience the state should do something about."

From the USA Today of Sept. 25, 2003 we can read: "The new estimate comes a day after the French Parliament released a harshly worded report blaming the deaths on a complex health system, widespread failure among agencies and health services to coordinate efforts, and chronically insufficient care for the elderly...The heat wave swept across much of Europe, but the death toll was far higher in France than in any other country. Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei has ordered a separate special study this month to look into a possible link with vacation schedules after doctors strongly denied allegations their absence put the elderly in danger. The heat wave hit during the August vacation period, when doctors, hospital staff and many others take leave." (Emphasis mine!).

Any leftist who would like to deny that this occurred should keep in mind that an obscure outfit called the BBC also covered the event.

So did another set of podunk broadcasters called the NPR.

But make no mistake. This did happen. It happened on a large scale. And it was the failings of socialized medicine that caused it to happen. To adopt Obamacare would be to put our elderly on a death march and I do not consider that a good idea at all.

A Quick Look at British Health Care. >_>

As the Gentle Reader may already know, Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats are pushing a national health care plan. With that in mind it may be worthwhile to see how well such a plan has worked in Great Britain:

1. Item: Hundreds of people report poor health care by the British NHS after initial report of substandard care is published. Reasonable extrapolations make it probable that this extends to at least a million patients.

2. Item: Newbies thrown into technical nursing positions after only a week of training. In the same report both a whistleblower and a former Labor minister indicate that the trained nurses regard certain basic tasks intrinsic to the role of nursing as too menial for their dignity.

3. Item: British hospital refuses to provide blankets for patient. Who can doubt that such concern for the patient is the essence of what public health care would be like? u_u

4. Item: British health care system leaves 85 year old woman without food or water while waiting for surgery. Tells her to wet her bed instead of providing her with needed assistance.

5. Item: Former nurse left in soiled bed clothes and own vomit and berated for waking staff at night to ask for a drink. Found by husband covered in dried feces because British staff couldn't be bothered to change her.

6. Item: 82 year old cancer victim has treatment switched to palliative without discussion with her relatives. Never receives visit from tissue viability nurse because said nurse was on annual leave.

7. Item: Man has to have appendix removed twice because the British Health Care system flubbed it the first time. During the second time he is left infected. Doubtless our leftist friends would argue that practice made perfect.

8. Item: Some of the English resort to pulling their own teeth because they have a hard time finding a dentist *or affording one*. Tsk. Weren't we told that government health care would prevent that sort of thing? :P

Is anybody surprised that Glenn Reynolds has a few snarky things to say about this? o_O

I wonder what it says about Democrats such as Mr. Obama that they would try to impose this sort of health care system upon America? @_@;


****************************************************

Omake: 10-22-2009

Ooooo, I'm so tempted to make this a seperate post but it actually belongs here; From both Instapundit and Small Dead Animals we learn the following item of interest - That the NHS of Great Britain is spending public money to give its employees private health care.

*snicker* ^~^

Kinda says everything you need to know about what any "universal" health care service is going to be like when even the universal health care employees vote with their feet against it, don't it? ^_~

Nancy Pelosi Orders Books Burned! ^_^;

Think I'm kidding? Then check this out! Isn't it typical of the Left that they would be in the forefront of the destruction of books? >_<

Kinda shows what "Hope and Change" is worth when you think about it, don't it? o_O

I Would Argue That This Is Useful! ^_^

Betsy notes sadly that there are many on the left who have made a little tin god out of Che Guevara and wear his face on their T-shirts. I myself on the other hand am inclined to see this as A Good Thing... After all, isn't it convenient when idiots designate themselves as too dumb for adult conversation? ^_~

Mood Music: 'Here's Your Sign!' by Bill Engval.

Mr. Obama and Corvee Labor.

Let us start with a word from Karl A. Wittfogel from Chapter 2, Section F, Part 2, "The Power Of The Hydraulic State Over Labor Greater Than That Of Capitalist Enterprises" of "Oriental Despotism; A Comparative Study of Total Power":

"In both spheres the hydraulic state levied and controlled the needed labor forces by coercive methods...They compelled able-bodied commoners to work on them through the agency of the corvee.

Corvee Labor is forced labor. But unlike slave labor, which is demanded permanently, corvee labor is conscripted on a temporary, although recurring, basis. After the corvee labor is completed, the worker is expected to go home and continue his own business.

Thus the corvee laborer is freer than the slave. But he is less free than a wage laborer. He does not enjoy the bargaining advantages of the labor market, and this is the case even if the state gives him food...or some cash. In areas with a highly developed money economy the hydraulic government may levy a corvee tax and hire rather than conscript the needed labor. This was done largely in China at the close of the Ming dynasty and during the greater part of Ch'ing rule.

But there as elsewhere the government arbitrarily fixed the wage. And it always kept the workers under quasimilitary discipline." - pp. 47-48 of "Oriental Despotism; A Comparative Study of Total Power by Kurt A. Wittfogel, (New Haven and London:Yale University Press, 1957). (Emphasis mine!)

Now, having taken the time to read and digest that, let us look at the "National Volunteer Act" that Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats have espoused since the mid-1990s when in some locales they passed what they themselves at the time so charmingly named "Compulsory Volunteering"...

"Specifically, Obama’s national service plan addresses foreign and domestic issues....Under the plan, all middle and high school students would be required to do 50 hours of community service...".


Because, of course, Democrats and other leftists just know the world would come to an end if blameless students leading blameless lives were allowed to decide to do homework or play video games instead of working on a corvee labor gang to the whims of a leftist Chicago wardheeler, no doubt! :P

Isn't it interesting that Mr. Obama and his toadies would wish to remake America in the image of feudal China? o_O

Mind you, those beyond high school age would do well not to be too smug about this: When the modern income tax was first instituted it was limited only to those who made more than $50,000 a year. The modern taxpayer will doubtless note that such limits have fallen by the wayside. Who can doubt that such gradualist measures were the way corvee labor was first imposed in the various hydrualic states as well? And yet, the end of this was that those who consented to such things, whether for others or for themselves, ended by finding that they had become the property of the state. ^_^;

With this in mind, it deserves to be be remembered that a vote for Mr. Obama or any other Democrat is a vote to make yourself property. Property of the state but property all the same. I would suggest voting the other way instead! But then you knew that already, didn't you? ^_~


Mood Music: Chain Gang by Sam Cooke and Charles Cooke, as sung by Sam Cooke.

Last Call? ^_^;

Someone truly liked his beer! @_@

Which Nobody Can Deny! :P

Quoth Les Bates over at Living In The Surreal World: "Remember: A day without Socialism is like a day without slavery and murder."

The logical implication of this premise, when you think about it, is that anyone who supports Socialism is a participant in a very nasty little nutcult! ^_~

A Truly Scientific Sentiment! ^_^

Quoth Tatterdemalian . in response to a Tim Blair post: "Personally, I don't see mistrust of science as a bad thing. A true scientist can always prove his work, without requiring trust. A scientist who demands trust is a scientist with too much emotional attachment to his agenda to be trusted."

He's completely right, of course. Not merely for science but for all scholarship in general. Any scholar may speculate. Any scholar may guess or surmise or dream. But at the end of the day if you can't prove what you say, and lay that proof out for others to check, then you were not a scholar but merely a poser.

Tatterdemalian's entire post is worth reading twice. The post that inspired it might be worth a glance as well. ^_~

A Transfer of Luck.

Campaign ideas can come from various places indeed. In
"Greek Religion" by Walter Burkert (translated by John
Raffen, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985)) on
pages 82-83, we come across the following passage:

"In Abdera, some poor victim is bought every year as a
purificatory sacrifice, Katharsion; he is fed
royally and then on a certain day is led through the
city gates, made to walk the walls and finally chased
across the boundries with stones...On dire occasions
such as a plague, the people of Massalia-Merseilles
resorted to similar measures: a poor man was offered
pure and costly food for a year, then decked in boughs
and sacred vestments, he was led around the whole town
amid curses and finally chased away." (Pages 82-82,
"Greek Religion" by Walter Burkert (translated by John
Raffen, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985).

This, combined with my enjoyment of "The Lady or the
Tiger?" sort of scenarios does bring to mind a notion
for FRP purposes: One fine day our PCs are approached
by the city fathers of a community undergoing hard
times with a proposition. In return for participation
in a special ceremony the adventurers would be given a
year of luxary living and free training (Up to 50
hours a week since the city fathers do want the
characters to honestly enjoy themselves for the
purposes of the ceremony and deem that there are
limits to how much somebody could spend in training
and still be enjoying themselves). Something that the
adventurers would be told upfront is that the purpose
of the ceremony would be to transfer all the ill luck
of the community from the community to the
adventurers.

Now the reason that the players might want to look
twice at this is that this might actually be a pretty
good deal. In game systems like Bushido, GURPS,
Runequest 3 and Traveler where downtime and training
can provide relatively risk-free and significant
character advancement, a year of subsidized downtime
like this should be a relatively tempting prize. But
of course this brings up a theme I enjoy playing with
now and again - In a world where magic exists how do
you distinguish between what is magic and what is
superstition? A ceremony for transfering bad luck like
this isn't going to be on many of the standard spell
lists of any FRP if only because such lists are
designed with individual spellcasters in mind. But
does this necessarily mean that such a ceremony
wouldn't work? Even if the City Fathers themselves
think it no more than a device to boost the town's
morale does that mean the ceremony itself wouldn't
necessarily have the stated effect?

The thing to remember is that, even under regular
circumstances, a genuine transfer of the bad luck of
3,000 to 50,000 people to a group of 3 to 5
adventurers is not necessarily going to be a good
thing for the longterm prospects of the 3 to 5
adventurers in question (At the very least, using
GURPS mechanics, I would feel justified in awarding
them a level of "Unluck" or "Jinxed" as a disad), but
in a community resorting to this because of plague or
famine such a transfer of luck would be very dire
indeed. (In the case of plague giving the characters
who underwent such a ceremony the "Terminal Illness"
disad might not be out of the question). If you were an
adventurer who thought the ceremony would work for
certain would *you* undergo it? ^^;

And yet, an entire community would have a wide range
of skills and spells to teach; the larger the
community, the better the range. If you thought for
sure the ceremony's only effect was social could you
afford to turn down the power boost such a year could
give? Mind you, if it turns out the ceremony's only
effect is a social one this could still affect the
adventurers in their dealings with other people. How
eager would *you* be to deal with a stranger if you
thought he was a carrier of bad luck that might be
contagious?

To make this of interest to players and DM alike the
following conditions would have to be in place:

1. The characters must have been in action long enough
that the players have an emotional investment in what
happens to them.

2. The characters should also be low enough in power
and material wealth that a year spent like this should
seem desirable. Note, by the way, that this is offer
unlikely to occur to settled adventurers who have a
community that cares about them. :p

3. The campaign setting should be one the characters
feel a connection to and the players should be the
sort who care what the NPCs think.

4. Within the campaign itself itinerant adventurers
should be relatively low in social status. (My own
campaign is Hyborian-flavored so most of the NPC
adventurers are of the "Never had a plan, just
a-livin' for the minute!" sorts.)

5. PCs in the Jack Vance, Larry Niven, Robert
Heinlein, and Roger Zelazney "We are good
rationalists. We know how to take the smooth without
standing still for the rough" mode might want to take
the offer, spend 10 or 11 months in training and then
skip town ahead of time. Let them. If the curse exists
then it's easier for such a curse to find them and
affect them with greater severity if there's a good
moral reason for the town to curse them. For
ceremonial purposes the connection was established the
moment the town took them in and the year beyond that
was the town's obligation for their benefit rather
than to the town's benefit in any way. In addition
they now get the benefit of a reputation as welschers
and doublecrossers. In a profession where your word is
your coin this is going to be its own reward. ^O^
(And note also tht this effect on their reputation is
independent of any magical oomph the ceremony itself
might have. ^_~).

6. The players may want money for their effort.
Burkert's writing suggests this ceremony preceded the
days when metal money was known but the reaction of
the community fathers who bring this proposition will
doubtless vary based upon their own temperment and the
resources that their community may command. A village
asking this might not have much more to offer in the
way of money than a fistful of coppers. A thriving
urban metropolis might be able to offer "as much gold
as you can carry". If the city fathers are nice
however, they'll point out something the sapient
adventurer will already know - this is a greed trap:
When the time comes for the adventurers to be driven
forth from the community on pain of death the
adventurers will need to be able to move faster than
the community enforcers who drive them forth. This
won't be the case if they load themselves down with
treasure. Another problem for them, if the surmise of
Burkert is correct, is that since such ceremonies are
basically watered down versions of human sacrifice
ceremonies the community won't lose much if an
adventurer's greed caused him to die in expiation for
the curse rather than merely be driven off, no? n_n

In any event, the community fathers are here to do
their own community a bit of good through honest
commerce rather than to enrich a gang of
good-for-nothngs at the community's expense. They are
interested in a deal rather than desperate for one,
and if the adventurers either demand too much or turn
them down that won't bother them a bit since they're
sure that the number of fools who would risk blighted
lives in the longterm for high living and free
training in the here and now is one resource that
really is inexhaustable! T_T

The players in my group tend to be prudent sorts so
I'll always make a point of having other scenarios
prepared whenever I spring this one on them. But in
addition to being a nice little exercise in
cost/benefit analysis and a useful way to explore the
way the players think the first time it's used, it
also serves as a useful element to give one's campaign
a useful feeling of both societal and temporal depth
that serves to aid the suspension of disbelief that is
always a necessary element to good roleplaying. ^_~

A Useful Metaphor! ^_^

Over at The Gates of Vienna, Baron Bodissy introduces an interesting essay by Dimitri Kolb on the collapse of the Soviet Union. ^_^


Frequent readers of this blog are doubtless aware that I am fond of the vampire metaphor myself as evidenced both here and here, but who can deny that the Undead are indeed legion and that Dimitri has described quite correctly one of the nastiest vampires of them all? o_O

Let's just hope that the stake is of sturdy stuff and remains in the heart of that particular vampire forever! ^_~


Mood Music: "Hunter of the Damned" by Michael Longcor.

Why Does the AP Neglect Afghanistan? o_O

Over in Captain's Quarters, Captain Ed joins Jules Crittenden in asking a simple question that is both interesting and pertinent: Why do the AP reporters not think our soldiers who died in Afghanistan worth naming? Since Garry Traudeau is playing a similar game in his comic strip it's worth asking why he doesn't think such soldiers worth naming either. Someone should explain to such people that Memorial Day is a day to remember *all* the troops rather than merely the ones they think they can use to score political points with. >_<

Oh well, as Sweetness and Light once pointed out, there were once Copperheads who opposed America's fight to survive in the days of the Civil War that started our Memorial Day traditions to begin with and sought to undermine the nation for their own selfish purposes even then. We should probably not be surprised that such Copperheads would be with us today as well. ~_~

The Ghost of Futures Past...

James Lileks gives us an interesting look at what SF Fandom was like in the past complete with prime examples of the sort of Reader Service the fans had back then. Those who would like to take another look at that time via fiction might enjoy reading a novel called What Mad Universe?"" by Frederic Brown which is its own way was the "Fallen Angels" of that day. ^_^

(Via Ed Driscoll (Although "elites" is very much not the word I would use for the Leftist zombies, noobs and lamers who worship at the alter of Doom! :P ), via Instapundit ).

All Their Sins Remembered... >_>

Oh my! O_O

And people thought *I* had a harsh view of the Dummycrats? o_O

I'm not as gloomy about the matter as Pierre Lagrand but I do agree that ever since Vietnam the Democrats have pretty much allowed themselves to become the "Surrender Monkey" party. It's not without reason that their decline and fall from political dominance can be easily traced from Jimmy Carter to the present day although I would argue that there is more than one reason for that fall. My own suspicion is that 2006 represented America giving the Democrats a last chance to redeem themselves rather than any endorsement of what they stand for.

That said, his post is a good reminder of just why it is I suspect that the Democrats will be Gollum-like in blowing their last chance at redemption if they don't wise up! >_<

1 Novelist > All the Clerics of Islam! ^_^

1. The Ayatollah Khomeini was once angry with a novelist.

2. After a while the novelist wasn't very happy with the Ayatollah either.

3. The Ayatollah put a $1,000,000 open contract upon the head of the novelist because who would do the bidding of a mere jihadi cleric for anything less than that?

4. The novelist, by way of contrast, did not put any money on the head of the Ayatollah because who would ever think a Moslem cleric to be worth anything?

5. The Ayatollah Khomenei is dead.

6. Salmon Rushdie is still alive and well. ^_^

7. So much for the Ayatollah Khomenei! ^_____^


There's a lesson to be learned from that, don'tcha think? ^_~

A Glance at Failed Prophets of Doom.

Well, it looks as though the WWF wants to wrestle on behalf of Gaia. ^O^



The thing is, Doomsday cant of this sort isn't exactly new..

One would think that 40 years of failed prophecies of doom would give all the ZPGers, the Malthusians, and the Global Warming cultists just a little bit of pause but apparently that's not the case. ^_~

The Fisking of the Diamond!

A link to the article being fisked may be found here.



"Opinion The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
By Jared Diamond University of California at Los Angeles Medical School
Discover Magazine, May 1987
Pages 64-66"

Gee, don't be shy Mr. Diamond. Why don't you use a title that tells uswhat you *really* think? ^O^


"To science we owe dramatic changes in our smug self-image. Astronomy taught us that our earth isn't the center of the universe but merely one of billions of heavenly bodies. From biology we learned that we weren't specially created by God but evolved along with millions of other species."

Yadda, yadda, yadda! Saying that bodies of study such as Astronomy "teach" would a tad anthropomorphic even if the lore taught by the sciences were not a "conditional" knowledge that may change without notice tomorrow. And note, pax Sagan, that as long as the Fermi Paradox is still in play our Earth will not be "merely one of billions" for aslong as it holds intelligent life. Thus, until a premise of that Paradox is proven wrong, it is still legitimate to regard the Earth as the center of the living universe. With a beginning like this I can't help but feel that terms like "smug self-image" is more properly our line to Mr. Diamond than his to us. ^_^'


"Now archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life,was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence."

Wow! And here I thought that disease was caused by germs that had already been in existence at the time the human race was formed. Silly me. I suppose we're also not supposed to notice that the division of sex roles into men as hunters and women as gatherers is pretty much universal in primitive societies? I understand that Mr. Diamond wanted his first paragraph to be an attention grabber in the way that any good writer or speaker should, but if he's going to be blaming agriculture for things that were and are present in hunter/gatherer societies as well then his essay has already jumped the shark. ^_^;;


"At first, the evidence against this revisionist interpretation will strike twentieth century Americans as irrefutable. We're better off in almost every respect than people of the Middle Ages, who in turn had it easier than cavemen, who in turn were better off than apes. Just count our advantages. We enjoy the most abundant and varied foods, the best tools and material goods, some of the longest and healthiest lives, in history. Most of us are safe from starvation and predators. We get our energy from oil and machines, not from our sweat. What neo-Luddite among us would trade his life for that of a medieval peasant, a caveman, or an ape?"

A fair summation of my own position that is not weakened by the factthat Mr. Diamond himself does not seem to be in any hurry to trade his own life for that of a caveman. ^_^


"For most of our history we supported ourselves by hunting and gathering: we hunted wild animals and foraged for wild plants."

Did we? Jane Jacobs called this into question in her book "The Economy of Cities" (New York: Vintage Books, 1970) and while I have never seen her hypothesis that hunter/gatherer and nomadic cultures were the result of failed cities proven neither have I seen it disproven. Absent such proof I must regard such an assumption on Mr. Diamond's part to be unwarrented.


"It's a life that philosophers have traditionally regarded as nasty, brutish, and short. Since no food is grown and little is stored, there is (in this view) no respite from the struggle that starts a new each day to find wild foods and avoid starving. Our escape from this misery was facilitated only 10,000 years ago, when in different parts of the world people began to domesticate plants and animals. The agricultural revolution spread until today it's nearly universal and few tribes of hunter-gatherers survive."

Mr. Diamond does deserve credit for a fair summation of the opposing view here. I should note that this particular view and even the phrase Mr. Diamond uses to describe it orginates with "The Leviathon" by Thomas Hobbes and does seem to have the evidence of history to support it. The chief caveat being less that "there is no respite" than that like Aesop's fable of "The Grasshopper and the Ant" the hunter/gatherer band is in trouble in adverse conditions in ways that the agricultural civilization is not. But with that exception stipulated, let us note Mr Diamond's summary and come back to it later.


"From the progressivist perspective on which I was brought up, to ask "Why did almost all our hunter-gatherer ancestors adopt agriculture?" is silly. Of course they adopted it because agriculture is an efficient way to get more food for less work. Planted crops yield far more tons per acre than roots and berries..."

A fact that cannot be denied. ^_^


"The progressivist party line sometimes even goes so far as to credit agriculture with the remarkable flowering of art that has taken placeover the past few thousand years. Since crops can be stored, and since it takes less time to pick food from a garden than to find it in the wild, agriculture gave us free time that hunter-gatherers never had. Thus it was agriculture that enabled us to build the Parthenon and compose the B-minor Mass."

OK, let's spot the hunter/gatherers Stonehenge and the stone heads of Easter Island. Even with that, the monuments built by civilization for the sake of aesthetics still outnumber theirs. If you doubt me then ask yourself "How many B-minor Masses have these hunter/gatherers composed and written down *lately*?" o_O

One reason why literacy is a feature of settled societies rather than of hunter/gatherer or nomadic herding cultures lies in the fact that books require stationary storage that only a settled society can provide. If you give up agriculture then you can kiss such things as mangas, mystery novels and 5 act Shakesphere plays goodbye forever. So yeah, art does flower best in a society sustained by agriculture and let's make no mistake about it. Perhaps that's why, in the 18 years since he gave this speech, a noted writer like Mr. Diamond hasn't dumped civilized life for that of a happy hunter/gatherer in spite of his stated preference for it? ^_^


"While the case for the progressivist view seems overwhelming, it's hard to prove. How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming? Until recently, archaeologists had to resort to indirect tests, whose results (surprisingly) failed to support the progressivist view. Here's one example of an indirect test: Are twentieth century hunter-gatherers really worse off than farmers? Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of so-called primitive people, like the Kalahari bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted eachweek to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania."

So you wanna know how they spend their leisure time? From page 29 of "War Before Civilization" by Lawrence H. Keeley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) we learn, "Thus many small-band societies that are regarded by ethnologists as not engaging in warfare instead evidence very high homicide rates. For example, The Kung San (or Bushmen) of the Kahari desert are viewed as a very peaceful society;...However, their homicide rate from 1920 to 1955 was four times that of the United States and twenty to eighty times that of modern industrial nations during the 1950s and 1960s. Before local establishment of the Bechuananland/Botswana police, the Kung also conducted small-scale raids and prolonged feuds between bands and against Tswana herders intruding from the east."

With leisure time like that wouldn't you rather spend a couple of extra hours weeding? ^_~


"One Bushman, when asked why he hadn't emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, "Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?"

And what's he supposed to say, "I wouldn't know where to begin because I don't have the skills!"? Or maybe, "Successful agriculture requires a community and where would I go for other people who are interested?". Would *you* say anything of the sort while talking to strangers or would you try to put the best possible face on it as well? If the mongongo nuts were as plentiful as he would have it would his people have spent that much time in murder and theft? o_O


"While farmers concentrate on high-carbohydrate crops like rice andpotatoes, the mix of wild plants and animals in the diets of surviving hunter-gatherers provides more protein and a bettter balance of other nutrients. In one study, the Bushmen's average daily food intake (during a month when food was plentiful) was 2,140 calories and 93 grams of protein, considerably greater than the recommended dailyallowance for people of their size. It's almost inconceivable that Bushmen, who eat 75 or so wild plants, could die of starvation the way hundreds of thousands of Irish farmers and their families did during the potato famine of the 1840s."

Almost inconceivable by who? Does Mr. Diamond honestly think that drought only happens in civilized nations? In that case he won't mind if all of us stop donating to Food Aid, right? :P


"So the lives of at least the surviving hunter-gatherers aren't nasty and brutish, even though farmers have pushed them into some of the world's worst real estate."

That brings up a good question. If agriculture is so-o-o-o unhealthy and hunters are so-o-o-o cool then howcum them weak, scrawny farmers were able to push around all them mighty hunters? ^-^


"But modern hunter-gatherer societies that have rubbed shoulders with farming societies for thousands of years don't tell us about conditions before the agricultural revolution."

In that case why does Mr. Diamond bother to bore us with talk about the Bushmen? For that matter if hunting and gathering societies were better in the olden days while agricultural societies have only improved since they first started doesn't that imply a major advantage to life in a civilized society that makes Mr. Diamond's case worse instead of better? o_O


"The progressivist view is really making a claim about the distant past: that the lives of primitive people improved when they switched from gathering to farming. Archaeologists can date that switch by distinguishing remains of wild plants and animals from those of domesticated ones in prehistoric garbage dumps."

Wrong! If you stop and think about it a belief that technology is a good thing implies a claim about present and future as well as past. I might come back to this later.


"How can one deduce the health of the prehistoric garbage makers, andthereby directly test the progressivist view? That question has become answerable only in recent years, in part through the newly emerging techniques of paleopathology, the study of signs of disease in theremains of ancient peoples."

Translation: The archeologists finally figured out the virtues of forensic medicine! :P


"One straightforward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunger-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5' 9" for men, 5' 5" for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B.C. had reached a low of only 5' 3" for men, 5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks andTurks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors."

Almost as though Greece had undergone at least 3 massive folk migrations in the Bronze Age and an additional 1 or 2 after the break up of the Roman Empire, ain't it? Or that Turkey has been the subject of nomadic invasion after nomadic invasion from the steppes even in that period as well as into the 1300s and beyond. Of course there's *no possibility* that such a series of invasions and migrations could alter the gene pool, is there? O no! I'm sure Mr. Diamond would not want us to think *that*. :P


"The evidence suggests that the Indians at Dickson Mounds, like many other primitive peoples, took up farming not by choice but from necessity in order to feed their constantly growing numbers."

The evidence suggests or the people looking at it suggest? My bet's on the latter. Strange use of the passive tense on Mr. Diamond's part isn't it? @_@

But let's assume for the sake of arguement that their SWAG* is correct. Is Mr. Diamond really saying that nutritional stress is worse than no nutrition as all? That between a life with food that doesn't give you all your vitamins and the prospect of starving to death he feels it's better to starve? I would say that is a choice he may be entitled to make for himself but not for anyone else! ^_^;

'"I don't think most hunger-gatherers farmed until they had to, and when they switched to farming they traded quality for quantity," says Mark Cohen of the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, co-editor with Armelagos, of one of the seminal books in the field, Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture . "When I first started making that argument ten years ago, not many people agreed with me. Nowi t's become a respectable, albeit controversial, side of the debate."'

Ah! So somewhere along the line "The evidence" changed his name to Mark Cohen. That's very good to know. But it's also worth noting that by his own account his hypothesis is not as authorative as to justify a phrase like "The evidence suggests" much less as to pass a worthwhile judgement on the worth of civilization or technology over that of the primitive life.


'"There are at least three sets of reasons to explain the findings that agriculture was bad for health. First, hunter-gatherers enjoyed avaried diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition. (today just three high-carbohydrate plants - wheat, rice, and corn - provide the bulk of the calories consumed by the human species, yet each one is deficient in certain vitamins or amino acids essential to life.)"'

'Cheap'? o_O

'Cheap'? O_o

Excuse me, wasn't Mr. Diamond deriding farmers as chumps for working harder than his beloved primitive hunters just a few paragraphs ago? Precisely how is getting what you want through hard work and sacrifice supposed to be cheap? It seems to me that in this context Mr. Cohen, like. Mrs. Malaprop, is using one word when he means another. Perhaps we should help him out and substitute the word 'plentiful' for 'cheap'? ^_~


"Second, because of dependence on a limited number of crops, farmersran the risk of starvation if one crop failed."

That particular pony won't run. In "War Before Civilization" Keeley points out that in times of drought hunter/gatherers tended to go to war against their neighbors in a desperate attempt to get food. Do you think they'd go in for war for that reason if they weren't running the risk of starvation during drought as well? Farmers, unlike hunter/gatherers, have the option of storing food and using irrigation to alleviate their problems. These days improved transport gives us even more ability and it's noteworthy that in the late twentieth century and early 21st Century the only time famine occurred was when a government deliberately starved its people or there was a civil war where one faction or another was deliberately starving people.

"Finally, the mere fact that agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infectious disease. (Some archaeologists think it was the crowding, rather than agriculture, that promoted disease, but this is a chicken-and-egg argument, because crowding encourages agriculture and vice versa.) Epidemics couldn't take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly shifted camp. Tuberculosis and diarrheal disease had to await the rise of farming, measles and bubonic plague the appearance of large cities."

Nice to know that in this speech Mr. Diamond apparently didn't think Malaria or Smallpox ever had the ability to lay waste to hunting/gathering clans. I'm sure the clans in question wish he had thought correctly. But this sort of thing worked 2 ways: Let us note that the reason so many hunter/gatherer Indians died out from Smallpox was that being isolated meant they hadn't built up the immunities that the members of any Eurasian culture could take for granted. The isolation that Mr. Diamond wishes upon the human race would be a costly one in the long term. >_<


"Besides malnutrition, starvation, and epidemic diseases, farming helped bring another curse upon humanity: deep class divisions. Hunter-gatherers have little or no stored food, and no concentrated food sources, like an orchard or a herd of cows: they live off the wild plants and animals they obtain each day."

Except, of course, when there is drought. At that point hunter-gatherers starve because they "have little or no stored foods and no concentrated food sources". Sucks to be them. ^_^;


"Therefore, there can be no kings, no class of social parasites who grow fat on food seized from others." In other words, social parasites like Jared Diamond or Paul Erhlich would no longer be able to exist. I suppose that *is* a point in favor of the hunter-gatherers, but that's still a little too drastic for me. ^_~


"Only in a farming population could a healthy, non-producing élite setitself above the disease-ridden masses." "Disease-ridden masses", eh? That reminds me. I wonder how much of the Malthusian philosophy is nothing more than misanthropy given a voice? o_O


"Skeletons from Greek tombs at Mycenae c. 1500 B. C. suggest that royals enjoyed a better diet than commoners, since the royal skeletons were two or three inches taller and had better teeth (on the average,one instead of six cavities or missing teeth). Among Chilean mummies from c. A. D. 1000, the élite were distinguished not only by ornaments and gold hair clips but also by a fourfold lower rate of bone lesions caused by disease."

So he hates the "masses" for being disease ridden and he hates the "aristocrats" for *not* being disease ridden? Looks like our good Mr.Diamond is a bit hard to please. :p


"Similar contrasts in nutrition and health persist on a global scale today. To people in rich countries like the U. S., it sounds ridiculous to extol the virtues of hunting and gathering. But Americans are an élite, dependent on oil and minerals that must often be imported from countries with poorer health and nutrition."

Nice to know he thinks America is L33t! ^_^

But did you also notice that he's skimmed over the fact that the "countries with poorer health and nutrition" are the ones who don't have much in the way of a decent agriculture? Hmmmm! @_@


"If one could choose between being a peasant farmer in Ethiopia or a bushman gatherer in the Kalahari, which do you think would be the better choice?"

Decisions, decisions! Why don't we go back to Keeley and pages 134-135 of his book to help us out on this one?

"...in fact, there is plentiful evidence of trade, intermarriage, and the incorporation of individual San as "clients" or serfs by the Khoikhoi and Bantu tribes...In recent descriptions of these patron-client relationships by historians and anthropologists, the arrangement is depicted as benign, voluntary, and mutually beneficial. But a description of San clientship by a Bantu Tswana chief has a very different tenor: The Masawara[that is, the San] are slaves. They can be killed. It is no crime. They are like cattle. If they run away their masters can bring them back and do what they like in the way of punishment. They are never paid. If the Masawara live in the veld, and I want any to work for me, I go out and take any I want." I will leave to the readers as to how many of them would like to run out and live the life of a happy, fun Bushman life after reading those words. On the whole I think I'd rather be an Ethiopian farmer than oneo f them. ;>_>


"Farming may have encouraged inequality between the sexes, as well. Freed from the need to transport their babies during a nomadic existence, and under pressure to produce more hands to till the fields, farming women tended to have more frequent pregnancies than their hunter-gatherer counterparts with consequent drains on their health. Among the Chilean mummies for example, more women than men had bone lesions from infectious disease."

Well, let's compare that to the egalitarian relationship of the sexesin the hunting/gathering societies, shall we? o_O

"For a few blankets, an Indian father of no particular rank wouldgladly sell his daughter, who might be no more than 12 years old. Such deals were a venerable tradition in the north country, a chief would demand and get a horse or two for a daughter." P. 41 of "The Old West:The Canadians" by Ogden Tanner, Time-Life Books, 1977.

Oh my! See the value that hunting/gathering cultures put upon women?With the right parents a woman can aspire to be sold for 2 horses! Two whole horses! How could any woman possibly resist the urge to go outand become a happy and obedient squaw because Jarrod Diamond told herto when she learns something like this? I mean, TWO WHOLE HORSES! What greater value can be put upon any woman's total worth than that? :p

BTW, I hope the more discerning readers have picked up a small sense of sarcasm from that last sentence in spite of the awe one feels at realizing just how much better feminine life can aspire to be in a hunting/gathering culture. ^_~


"Women in agricultural societies were sometimes made beasts of burden. In New Guinea farming communities today I often see women staggering under loads of vegetables and firewood while the men walk empty-handed. Once while on a field trip there studying birds, I offered to pay some villagers to carry supplies from an airstrip to my mountain camp. The heaviest item was a 110-pound bag of rice, which I lashed to a pole and assigned to a team of four men to shoulder together. When I eventually caught up with the villagers, the men were carrying light loads, while one small woman weighing less than the bag of rice was bent under it,supporting its weight by a cord across her temples."

Hm, 110 pounds! That does sound bad, doesn't it? Well, before we go any further let's use an excerpt from page 342 of Peter C. Newman's book,"The Company of Adventurers: The Story of the Hudson's Bay Company" (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), to contrast that with the happy life of a hunter/gatherer's squaw:

' "Chipewyan women", observed Diamond Jenness in his definitive study of Canadian Indians. "were the first to perish in seasons of scarcity.In winter they were mere traction animals; unaided, they dragged the heavy toboggans. In summer, they were pack animals, carrying all the household goods, food and hide on their backs. It was nothing out of the ordinary for a Chipewyan woman to be lugging a 140-pound pack insummer and dragging twice as much on a sled in winter."'

Aha! Now we know Mr. Diamond's *true* objection to the 110-pound loads the one woman was carrying. He thought she was a slacker for not carrying 30 more pounds, right? :P

But to make up for this let's take a moment to see just what valued members of the hunting-gathering community they really were by the way Chief Matonabee describes them: "Women were made for labour. One ofthem can carry or haul as much as any two men can do. They also pitchour tents, make and mend our clothing, keep us warm at night...Though they do everything *[they] are maintained at a trifling expense; for as they always cook, the very licking of their fingers in scarce times is sufficient for their subsistence.*" pp. 342-343 (emphasis mine).

[Begin sarcasm module]

Boy, what a bunch of warmhearted guys these hunter gatherers were, weren't they? Doubtless every civilized woman who reads the good chief's words will now want to run out and become a happy hunter/gatherer's squaw, right? Hm! Then again, maybe not! :P
[End module]


"As for the claim that agriculture encouraged the flowering of art by providing us with leisure time, modern hunter-gatherers have at leastas much free time as do farmers."

I think that at this point we should note that Mr. Diamond apparently can not tell the difference between leisure and idleness. An important difference is this: If you are doing so because you choose to do so then it is leisure. If you are so so because you have no choice then it is idleness.


"The whole emphasis on leisure time as a critical factor seems to me misguided. Gorillas have had ample free time to build their own Parthenon, had they wanted to."

And doubtless they would do a better job of it than the average EcoFreak as well, right? ^_~

The fact that skill has something to do with the building of a Parthenon or the writing of a novel or the building of a plane seems to have eluded our poor Mr. Diamond. How much skill of that sort did Mr.Diamond's Bushmen ever gain? o_O


"While post-agricultural technological advances did make new art forms possible and preservation of art easier, great paintings and sculptures were already being produced by hunter-gatherers 15,000 years ago, and were still being produced as recently as the last century by such hunter-gatherers as some Eskimos and the Indians of the Pacific Northwest."

And in some places they're still being practiced today but so what? Not that easy for much of any of it to last when you don't have the means to keep it. Civilization as a whole is not merely superior in making art but in keeping and maintaining it as well. ^_^


"Thus with the advent of agriculture and élite became better off, but most people became worse off."

Have we? Anyone want to go eating bugs with the hunter/gatherers instead of sitting down to beef because they don't feel better off? o_O


"Instead of swallowing the progressivist party line that we chose agriculture because it was good for us, we must ask how we got trapped by it despite its pitfalls."

Perhaps because our ancestors figured out that hard work is better than starvation and chose the Ant over the Grasshopper? ^O^


'One answer boils down to the adage "Might makes right." '

That brings up an interesting question: How often has wimpiness made right? O_o

A society that doesn't have the muscle to protect itself and its members isn't going to do well at establishing justice either. ^~^


"Farming could support many more people than hunting,..."

Very true. ^_^


"...albeit with a poorer quality of life. (Population densities of hunter-gatherers are rarely over one person per ten square miles, whilefarmers average 100 times that.)"

Yeah, that's why we always notice how many people move from high population density areas to lower population density areas. Wait a minute! You tell me that the reverse is the case? How can this be? Mr.Diamond by implication has just defined "quality of life" as being less than "one person" per 10 square miles. How dare the nasty facts suggest that Mr. Diamond could possibly be wrong! @_@


"Partly, this is because a field planted entirely in edible crops lets one feed far more mouths than a forest with scattered edible plants."

Again, let us note that this is true. ^_^


"Partly, too, it's because nomadic hunter-gatherers have to keep their children spaced at four-year intervals by infanticide and other means, since a mother must carry her toddler until it's old enough to keep upwith the adults. Because farm women don't have that burden, they can and often do bear a child every two years."

Those nasty farm women! How *dare* they have options that the hunter-gatherers don't have? And isn't Mr. Diamond such a wonderful defender of womanhood for not wanting women to have any choice in this matter at all? u_u


"As population densities of hunter-gatherers slowly rose at the end of the ice ages, bands had to choose between feeding more mouths by taking the first steps toward agriculture, or else finding ways to limit growth."

And Mr. Diamond knows this how? Through his Ouija board? o_O

What we have here is a variant of Rousseau's "State of Nature" myth but the trouble with such myths is that, however confident a philosopher may be when they make these little dramas up, they are never backed by evidence and indeed seldom seek any. Thomas Hobbes' "State of Nature" myth was also as lacking in evidence for the purposes he was using it for but at least it had the advantage of describing primitive life as it had actually been observed.


"Some bands chose the former solution, unable to anticipate the evilsof farming, and seduced by the transient abundance they enjoyed untilpopulation growth caught up with increased food production."

"The evils of farming" being that women had more choices about when they would bear more children and that there was more food to go around? Hmmm! Mr. Diamond's definition of 3vil is an interesting one. @_@


"Such bands outbred and then drove off or killed the bands that chose to remain hunter-gatherers, because a hundred malnourished farmers can still outfight one healthy hunter."

It's also true that a hundred healthy farmers will outfight one malnourished hunter or even one healthy hunter. ^____^


"It's not that hunter-gatherers abandoned their life style, but that those sensible enough not to abandon it were forced out of all areas except the ones farmers didn't want."

Which then begs the question as to how "sensible" those hunters truly were if their culture proved wimpy in the moment of truth. @_@


"At this point it's instructive to recall the common complaint that archaeology is a luxury, concerned with the remote past, and offering no lessons for the present."

At this point it is instructive to wonder how many Bushmen or gorillas have gone on archaeological expeditions lately. Archaeology *is* a luxary and one that only the civilization that Mr. Diamond hates can afford. :p


"Archaeologists studying the rise of farming have reconstructed a crucial stage at which we made the worst mistake in human history. Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare,and tyranny."

As opposed to the starvation, warfare and tyranny inherent in the hunting/gathering lifestyle? o_O


"Hunter-gatherers practiced the most successful and longest-lasting life style in human history."

Successful at what? u_u


"In contrast, we're still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has tumbled us, and it's unclear whether we can solve it."

Yeah, 3 square meals a day, a nice warm shelter, increased leisure options, career options, personal liberty and the ability to read and write for pleasure are so *messy*, aren't they? But somehow I'm not in any hurry to see Mr. Diamond and his fellow Ecofreaks "solve" these things for me, are you? ^-^


"Suppose that an archaeologist who had visited from outer space weretrying to explain human history to his fellow spacelings."

OK, I'm supposing. Among the things I'm supposing is that I don't think he'd be able to engage in intersteller travel if his people hadn't been wise enough to invest in things like the technology and civilization that Mr. Diamond apparently dispises. ^O^


"Finally, at 11:54 p.m. we adopted agriculture. As our second midnight approaches, will the plight of famine-stricken peasants gradually spread to engulf us all?"

Actually, I'm still wondering just how much hunting/gathering a spacefaring culture would bother with. And isn't Mr. Diamond's question a bit of a non-sequiter in relation to its prelude? o_O

By the way, I've noticed that these days in 2006 Michael Moore is obsessing over weight. Would he be doing that if people getting enough to eat were really that much of an issue? @_@


"Or will we somehow achieve those seductive blessings that we imagine behind agriculture's glittering façade, and that have so far eluded us?"

Excuse me, they've *eluded* us? As I write this all of us enjoy the blessings of literacy, indoor plumbing, video games, and not least of all the assurance that we know where our next meal is coming from in ways that hunter-gatherers do not. Once again, if Mr. Diamond does not like these things why has he not sought out a wilderness spot, shed his clothes and gone out to live the life of a happy Bushman if he doesn't like where he is at? Perhaps the blessings of civilization have eluded them but, as I read one of my Conan novels, you can be assured that they certainly haven't eluded *me*. Perhaps Mr. Diamond hasn't looked hard enough? ^-^

All the same, there is one thing to keep in mind as we conclude Mr.Diamond's little essay...Anyone who follows the doctrines of a Jared Diamond or a Paul Erhlich is the sort of person who hates civilization and regards it as a mistake. If you doubt me, keep in mind that Mr. Diamond has just told us as much himself. ^_~



Update: Corrected my misremembering of Jane Jacob's book from "The Economic History of Cities" which it wasn't to "The Economy of Cities" which it actually was and added publisher and copyright date to the reference as well. While I was at it I corrected some of the formatting typos as well. *^_^*: