I'm no longer sure what you mean by the word 'civilization'. Do you define it as 'anything that happens after we start planting our food instead of foraging'?
Civilization is cities. Civ can't exist w/o agriculture.
From wiktionary on civilization:
civilization (plural civilizations) An organized culture encompassing many communities, often on the scale of a nation or a people; a stage or system of social, political or technical development. the Aztec civilization Western civilization Modern civilization is a product of industrialization and globalization. (uncountable) Human society, particularly civil society. A hermit doesn't much care for civilization. I'm glad to be back in civilization after a day with that rowdy family.
civilization (plural civilizations)
Civilization is not limited to cities. There have been nomadic civilizations. Nomadic civilizations exist without agriculture. So, you are against people creating stationary shelter? Do you even believe in shelter? I suppose a home that isn't a natural cave would be too much technology for you.
Freedom4Me73986: Why, then, is the world population estimated at 7 billion people and growing? This would seem to directly contradict your claim. Wrong. Birthrates in most white countries are at an all-time low. The only people in the world who breed like bunnies are the ones who live in places where the average lifespan is way lower.
Why, then, is the world population estimated at 7 billion people and growing? This would seem to directly contradict your claim.
Wrong. Birthrates in most white countries are at an all-time low. The only people in the world who breed like bunnies are the ones who live in places where the average lifespan is way lower.
This is actually because people choose to have less children as a function of wealth, not any sinister reason. When you can afford condoms, you control when you have children and also how many. When children cost more to raise because each child needs to have a ton of education to survive in a civilized society, people also cut back. Children used to be a boon because families needed the labor, when 90% of families ran farms. Now children are more a burden.
I know this is the conventional wisdom but I think there are a lot of good reasons to doubt it. First of all, I think that "net reproductive success" is one of the most important factors driving high childbirths. When your children have a low probability of surviving young childhood, a reproductive strategy is to simply have more children. Then there are cultural/political factors.
I think the idea that people have children because "they can't help it from happening" is basically false. You've never heard of non-vaginal sex? It doesn't lead to pregnancy and I've heard reports that it can be quite satisfying. Even cavemen (and cavewomen) could manage that form of birth-control. If the only thing holding back the floodgates of childbirths is contraception, ask yourself why every woman before about AD 1960 didn't have at least 12 to 16 children.
I think that the supposedly negative correlation between wealth and fertility is also false - the more wealthy a family, the more children they have at least within the US. Look it up, US fertility statistics are positively correlated with household size all the way up the socioeconomic ladder. Rich people have more children. That people in richer countries have less children than people in poorer countries shouldn't be a mystery given the reproductive strategy for low childhood survival rates - have more kids! In addition, cultural factors need to be taken into account. People in the US today have fewer children than people in the US circa 1950, yet the US is roughly the richest nation in the world as it was in 1950.
I've written on the economics of reproduction here. I don't agree now with everything I wrote then but I think that the general gist still holds: reproduction is a market and reasoning about it in other terms - as all popular discussion on the topic invariably does - leads to confused and useless conclusions.
Clayton -
The Original Affluent Society
Read this blog to know why/how your being poisoned by your food.
Do you have another website to tell me how I'm being poisoned by using the Internet??
From wiktionary on civilization: civilization (plural civilizations) An organized culture encompassing many communities, often on the scale of a nation or a people; a stage or system of social, political or technical development. the Aztec civilization Western civilization Modern civilization is a product of industrialization and globalization. (uncountable) Human society, particularly civil society. A hermit doesn't much care for civilization. I'm glad to be back in civilization after a day with that rowdy family. Civilization is not limited to cities. There have been nomadic civilizations. Nomadic civilizations exist without agriculture. So, you are against people creating stationary shelter? Do you even believe in shelter? I suppose a home that isn't a natural cave would be too much technology for you.
How are nomads a "civilization?"
Because they fit the definition of a civilization given in the quote directly above your question. The Bedouin, for example, were (and still are though dying out) a great civilization that has had a major impact on modern civilization.
So now we're playing semantics?
No, we're playing "words have a definite meaning."
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
No primitivist would call non-ag societies "civilizations." How can you have a civ if your only hunting and gathering?
Not that it matters mr "Anarcho Capitalist", but here is Rothbard:
http://mises.org/daily/1607
http://mises.org/daily/3009
Seriously, switch names you're an anarcho-primitisvist; you've nothing to do with capitalism
F4M: No primitivist would call non-ag societies "civilizations." How can you have a civ if your only hunting and gathering?
You can if it is "[a]n organized culture encompassing many communities, often on the scale of a nation or a people; a stage or system of social, political or technical development."
Not that it matters mr "Anarcho Capitalist", but here is Rothbard: http://mises.org/daily/1607 http://mises.org/daily/3009 Seriously, switch names you're an anarcho-primitisvist; you've nothing to do with capitalism
So being an anarcho-capitalist means agreeing with everything Rothbard said?
F4M: So being an anarcho-capitalist means agreeing with everything Rothbard said?
Vive has a good point. You have nothing to do with capitalism, anarchist or otherwise. Nevermind the division of labor and markets, you need CAPITAL for there to be capitalism.
F4M: So being an anarcho-capitalist means agreeing with everything Rothbard said? Vive has a good point. You have nothing to do with capitalism, anarchist or otherwise. Nevermind the division of labor and markets, you needCAPITAL for there to be capitalism.
Vive has a good point. You have nothing to do with capitalism, anarchist or otherwise. Nevermind the division of labor and markets, you needCAPITAL for there to be capitalism.
Capitalism is free markets. Markets exist inherently. Property rights exist inherently. What makes you think capitalism wouldn't reemerge after civ's collapse?
Wiktionary on Capitalism:
Noun capitalism (countable and uncountable; plural capitalisms) (politics, uncountable) a socio-economic system based on private property rights, including the private ownership of resources or capital, with economic decisions made largely through the operation of an unregulated market. (economics, uncountable) a socio-economic system based on the abstraction of resources into the form of privately-owned capital, with economic decisions made largely through the operation of an unregulated market. (countable) a specific variation or implementation of either such socio-economic system.
capitalism (countable and uncountable; plural capitalisms)
You need capital for capitalism. Capital is something you hate. Therefore, you hate capitalism.
Yuck, I hate posts pending moderation. F4M, you will see my post eventually. Capitalism requires capital. Look it up in a dictionary. It is not just markets.
And BTW I read those Rothbard writings your linking to a long time ago when I was considering rejecting civilization. Here's what you need to understand: civilization is NOT sustainable. It WILL collapse. I don't need "scientific studies" to prove this. Everything I know indicates this is true.
Rothbard doesn't even define primitivism properly. Primitivism is rejecting civ. Capitalism and markets are an innate characteristic of all human groups that is not dependent upon civ. This failure to properly define civ, primitivism and capitalism alone is grounds for dismissal of your silly assumptions about primitivism and capitalism.
Capitalism requires capital.
I carve a branch into a spear. That's capital.
It's a capital good. To have capital per se, you need a general medium of exchange (money).
What makes you think money needs civilization to exist?
Probably because an indirect medium of exchange requires "[a]n organized culture encompassing many communities, often on the scale of a nation or a people; a stage or system of social, political or technical development."
Let me ask you this: do you think hunter-gatherers have "civilization" according to your def?
If it fits the definition, then yes...
So your saying civilization has always existed?
I did not say that. I said if it fits the definition, then a hunter-gatherer society could be a civilization. Obviously, if you run around in the woods by yourself, or perhaps even with a woman (zing!), then no, that would not constitute a civilization.
You need to read this and maybe then you'll change your mind about what a great thing civilization is. There's unquestionable evidence that ag was the worst thing to happen to humans.
F4M: There's unquestionable evidence that ag was the worst thing to happen to humans in my opinion.
There's unquestionable evidence that ag was the worst thing to happen to humans in my opinion.
Fixed it for you.
F4M: There's unquestionable evidence that ag was the worst thing to happen to humans in my opinion. Fixed it for you.
Who cares? Ag is not sustainable, creates overpopulation, creates statism and will collapse sooner then later. All the worlds land will be farmed-out within the next 50 years and I'm expecting massive wars over resources to feed populations. Anyone with a brain would see the benefit in homesteading virgin lands and taking up a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
Also, I'm going to stack up on gold and silver in case I need to go back into civ every once and a while to trade.
vive la insurrection:Seriously, switch names you're an anarcho-primitisvist; you've nothing to do with capitalism
Unfortunately I've already been on that merry-go-round...
vive la insurrection:Seriously, switch names you're an anarcho-primitisvist; you've nothing to do with capitalism Unfortunately I've already been on that merry-go-round...
Again, you don't need a civilization to have a market. Markets exist inherently.
Freedom4Me73986: vive la insurrection:Seriously, switch names you're an anarcho-primitisvist; you've nothing to do with capitalismUnfortunately I've already been on that merry-go-round...Again, you don't need a civilization to have a market. Markets exist inherently.
What the hell does that have to do with your oxymoronic label for yourself?
i'm not quite getting how you'd escape these massive wars. Besides that it seems to me like the complaint about overpopulation is kinda silly- if there's less people around because there's no agriculture, why is that a good thing? I don't think hunter-gatherer lifestyles are sustainable. Get a cut, get an infection, and find that the plants around you are not good enough as compared to an antibiotic and goodbye