Not science , but technology .
Brains+hands+culture=technology .
Stone-age technology (fire , nets , stone tools) were sufficient to lead to extinction singularities for societies like the Maya .
The problem is evolutionary specialization caused by intra-species conflict . The fittest end up in very narrow specialized niches .
These niches are very vulnerable to environmental changes (especially if they are overpopulated , as they are by definition-ref Malthus).
Getting out of these local optima is impossible for beings using their bodies as tools (eg Smilodon , etc) .The DNA system cannot backtrack .
Cultural systems are the DNA of humans societies . Humans will usually die before they change them .
I refer you to the excellent example of the Norse in Greenland . They starved to death in the Little Ice Age next to rivers teeming with salmon , because some bishop told them that fish should not be eaten . This sounds unbelievable , but it is true . Archeologists always have to check the middens of the extict settlements for themselves before believing it . There are no fishbones in the middens .
Humans are group animals : you cannot change their mind one at a time . You have to change groups .
There is one reliable method of changing human cultures without killing most of them : break down individuals and build them up .
The first to evolvel :
1. The Army : by trial-and-error , a personality demolition and rebuild of new groups evolved . Anybody who has been through basic training knows exactly what I am talking about . Each Army unit is a new culture .
2. The same principles were then used in Organised religions because they work .
3. Cultures then accreted around these two entities .
Ho-ho-ho!!
Won't this stick in the craw of liberals!
Armies are the basic building block of all present societies and religions . And the mechanisms of conversion are the same .
Assyrians and Romans were needed before Christians.
The recipe is simple :
1. Induction of learned-helplessness (cf Sapolski) by random stimuli and deprivation in an environment that is completely controlled .
2. Rebuilding of personalities by switching to a strict set of rules after personality demolition . The person's new personality forms around the new set of rules . The Rules Must Be Strict and very clearly delineated .Otherwise the neural networks cannot learn the new behaviour patterns .
The new set of rules can be Army (your unit) , Christian , Islam , Buddhist , residence , gang , organization , job , sect , etc, etc .
The New Persons will literally die before they leave their unit-comrades in the lurch .
The system is remarkably successful .
Before about 1800 :
Only about 3% were unteachable . These were usually autism , psychopaths , criminals and a tiny few rebels (though the system saw them as one of the three above)
After about 1800 :
About 20% are unteachable at present , and the percentage is rising .
As described in previous posts , (http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/) : mild autism (Aspergers) is heavily selected because of the nature of technology : concentrated , repetitive work for long periods .
The selection mechanism operates on an epigenetic level , so it is very fast .
Induction of learned-helplessness works on anything that has a neural-network (cockroaches to computers) .
But New Rules that involve empathy has shallow ground for a MkIV Human .
You won't find him in the ignorant armies that clash by night in the plains . He is the one sitting on the cliff with a torch , reading the manual .
He is also in control of most of the energy on the planet and all the weapons of mass destruction .
So , as you stated , the problem is not technology or science , but in human's ability to change their culture (which will automatically change their technology) .
They already have a mechanism for changing their technology , but the traditional religions are appealing to fellow-feeling , something aspergers (MKIV humans) do not have in abundance .
A very good example is Kitchener's campaigns in the Sudan and South Africa .
This scenario still ends in mass-depopulation . But it can be gradual instead of abrupt .
And so it goes .
Andre .
-----Original Message-----From: Michael.Reid@dpi.vic.gov.au [mailto:Michael.Reid@dpi.vic.gov.au] Sent: 08 October 2007 08:43 AMTo: andre.w@absamail.co.zaSubject: RE: How to be a refugee .I think a large proglem in waiting for a 'super-hero' has been our heavy reliance on science to solve the problem, where in fact science has been the soluation to problems but also generated greater environmental issues later.... rather the solution relies in critically reflecting from a society point of view.....
"Andre Willers"
06/10/2007 06:15 AM
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RE: How to be a refugee .
Hi, Thank you for your reply . I have read Jared Diamond's various books , as well as other similar ones . History does not repeat , but it rhymes . See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/ "The Origins of War and Peace" "What is to become of us?" "Prodigies" "War warnings" etc . We are facing imminent collapse and depopulation of the order of the Late Bronze Age civilization . One of the symptoms is that none of the negative feedback mechanisms that used to keep societietal growth in check are working . Everybody hopes that insane exponential growths can be maintained by some trick . Some technological Deus-ex-Machina . Some Super-Hero that will clean up the mess , wipe all the asses and snotty noses . (The latest candidates are entities deep in the Singularity.) On the other hand , nobody gets out of here alive . Andre
-----Original Message-----From: Michael.Reid@dpi.vic.gov.au [mailto:Michael.Reid@dpi.vic.gov.au] Sent: 01 October 2007 08:53 AMTo: andre.w@absamail.co.zaSubject: Re: How to be a refugee .Andre, My name is Michael, one of Aniki's friends from Australia - father a fugee from South Africa came over on a boat. Anyway, thanks for your email - reminds me of a book I read and think you would find enjoyable, it is called 'Collapse: How socities chose to fail or succeed' the author is Jarrod Diamond - provides a really interesting case studies societys and their demise - check out the review http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0670033375 Regards, Mike.
"Andre Willers"
01/10/2007 08:21 AM
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How to be a refugee .
How to be a refugee . Andre Willers 1 Oct 2007 Valuable lessons in how to survive as a refugee are documented all over , mostly in verbal memories. But nowhere are they drawn together . (I looked on the Internet) . “Refugees for Dummies” “The Idiots Guide to being a Refugee” We need this desperately . Most of you who are reading this are refugees (ie the South African diaspora ) or descendants of refugees . All of us hope never to become refugees . But given the world climate change and overpopulation giving rise to political instability , it is nearly inevitable . We desperately need a “How to” guide . Most middle class Westerners have not the faintest clue on how to survive when their social support system collapses . So how did our ancestors survive ? Unfortunately , they did not like to talk about it . The information is there , but not easily available . I am not talking vague generalities . What we need is a site like HowToBeARefugee.org that spells it out , organized on the lines of Wikipedia . The people of New-Orleans is a good example . It is no use saying to a mother of three small children standing on a roof while the water is rising that she should have been prepared . What is she to do NOW ? Should she stay ? Run ? What must she take , not only for immediate survival but for survival in a week , 2 weeks , a month ? . Dive in and rescue her documents ? The radio ? A bottle of Southern Comfort ? Baby formula ? This is the question facing generations of humans . Remember the newsreels of long lines refugees in Europe , with grandma’s bed on a rickety cart while planes are strafing them and tanks bulldozing them out of the way . How much do you bribe a guard or a border official ? Do you trust fellow refugees? Share your food , water or information ? By the time you learn these lessons , you might well be dead . Does a woman trade sex or money , or both ? If so , in what proportion ? All things learned the hard way by millennia of refugee women , but not shared except in strictest confidence with their daughters . Needless to say , this is not an optimum strategy . General Rules : 1. Band together . (Make friends . Network) 2. Move . (If you’re being killed here , it can only be the same or better elsewhere.) 3. Share . (Critical . A group less than about a 100 never has diversity enough to survive.) 4. Carry documents.(Critical in civilized or semi-civilized disasters.) 5. Have a way of making fire . (Signalling , heating , cooking , weapon , etc.) Human societies have superb built-in memes for surviving disasters , given some time . The trick is to survive until these kick in . If you are excluded , the above principles still apply . Ask the Aztecs , Mongols , etc ad nauseam . Lone , stationary , selfish individuals do not survive in poor environments without self-regenerating support systems . Notice that the studies done on very poor structures that survive in the present world are based on these principles . Ho-ho-ho ! The first Christian communities were found on these very same principles , for the very same reasons . If you were dropped into a SA township , or a Brazilian favela or a Darfur hut , would you survive ? More importantly , would you even know how to go about it ? Where could you find out really , really quickly ? Remember , this is not like the training special forces undergo to survive in the veldt . That relevance disappeared about 500 years ago . I hope that some of you get busy and organize it . You will probably need it . Andre
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