Re: Collapse
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One of the things the National Park Service emphasized is that the term Ancestral Puebloan is preferred for this civilization over the term Anasazi. The term Anasazi is linked to a Navajo word meaning ancient enemy. Additionally, most historians now agree that the ancestors of the modern-day Puebloan people in Arizona and New Mexico are, in fact, the same people who constructed the ruins that had been termed Anasazi in origin. Although I am generally a brontosaurus person, preferring the use of popular terms, I can also definitely sympathize with the arguments in favor of not defining a culture as an enemy. Thus, Diamond's choice of the term Anasazi instead of Ancestral Puebloan immediately perks my interest - hopefully it is explained later on. Could it be that the NPS is necessarily PC to the extreme? To the best of my understanding, this is not simply an NPS thing, but really does represent the professional consensus of historians. Again, while I tend to be a brontosaurus person, there definitely is something to be said for not defining a culture as an enemy, and I don't think it requires hyper-sensitivity to bein PC to understand that. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Collapse
JDG saidL To the best of my understanding, this is not simply an NPS thing, but really does represent the professional consensus of historians. Again, while I tend to be a brontosaurus person, there definitely is something to be said for not defining a culture as an enemy, and I don't think it requires hyper-sensitivity to bein PC to understand that. On a related note, welsh means foreigner, but that hasn't stopped the Welsh using that name to refer to themselves. Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Collapse
Doug Pensinger wrote: Unfortunately I've been very busy and haven't had a chance to do Chapter 2 yet. Ditto. Work's been treating me like a baby treats a diaper, so I've been glad to see I'm not falling behind. :) Jim ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Moving to Montana Soon?
This first chapter is also of particular interest to me, as I traveled extensively through the State of Montana two years ago while retracing the Lewis and Clark Trail - and I'll additionally find myself in the town of Big Sky, MT next week on business for work. The chapter certainly held my interest, and was a good read, but the more I reflect on it, the more it has left me unsatisifed. In fairness, we probably shouldn't expect a steak in the first chapter of a 500-or-so page book, but I'll see if I can express some of these iniital thoughts. --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A similarity to my home town of Morgan Hill, Ca. to the Bitterroot Valley is the contrast in attitudes of the old timers; farmers and ranchers with sizeable land holdings and upper-middle class to upper class professionals with a fondness for the small town atmosphere in close proximity to a major metropolitan area. Morgan Hill has a slow-growth policy that allows a limited number of new housing units per year. This is frustrating to landowners because there is a huge demand for housing in the area. It seems to me that this policy is a boon for existing landholders in Morgan Hill, due to the artificially limited supply of housing. The big losers are anyone who wants to move to Morgan Hill, as they will find the price of housing there artificially inflated. One interesting conundrum he discusses is the conflict between businesses that exist to make money and moral obligations to clean up after themselves. Is this a good argument against the preeminence of a free market economy or can we have both a strong economy and a clean environment? I don't think so. First, I think that Diamond unwittingly expresses some bias by using business as his primary example. I think a strong case could be made that it is simply a human tendency to avoid wanting to clean up after onesself. For example, one need only drive through West Virginia and see the instances of household trash being dumped on public lands by those who don't want to have to pay for trash removal. Likewise, Diamond's examples of householders who are unwilling to pay for the removal of decrepit dams located on their property also indicates that this phenomenon is hardly limited to businesses. Secondly, I think it is important to distinguish from a laissez-faire economy and a free market economy.Only the most strident anarcho-libertarians truly believe that government should have no role in the economy. Instead, I would say that at a minimum, most believers in the free market believe that the government has a role in enforcing property rights in the free market. In particular, this would include either prohibiting persons and businesses from dumping waste in a way that negatively affects the property of others, or at least requiring persons and businesses who do so to compesnate those who are affected for those negative effects. Another interesting point that he raises is the fact that while native Montanan's are extremely suspicious of government and especially Washington, they are heavily subsidized by the federal government; If Montana were an isolated island, as Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean was in Polynesian times before European arrival, its present first world economy would already have collapsed, nor could it have developed that economy in the first place. Is it hypocritical of Montanaâs people to be unsupportive of the Federal Government while they have their hand in the till? This was one of the bigger objections I had to this chapter. Although I don't recall the exact quote you have cited, this is certainly a theme of the chapter. In the setion on forest fires, for example, he contrasts Montanans desiring the US Forest Service to put out any fire that threatens any home - or even any view from a home with some Montanan's rabidly anti-government attitudes that don't want to pay taxes towards the cost of fire-fighting. The problem here is that Diamond is mixing anecdotal and statistical evidence. For example, in the 2004 Presidential election, John Kerry still received nearly 40% of the vote in the State. I'd argue that this is evidence that it is entirely possible for separate significant groups of Montanans to hold all of the views that Diamond described - without there necessarily being a group of Montanans that hold paradoxical or hypocritical views. Thinking more about the quote you provide from Diamond, I'm not sure that Diamond really does establish that Montanan civilization would never have developed without subsidy from the federal government, nor that Montanan civilization would collapse if this subsidy was removed. Certainly, if Montana were an isolated island, it might never have developed its current civilization - but given that we don't really understand what produces economic development in the first place, that is hardly surprising. At the end of the
Re: Moving to Montana Soon?
JDG said: At the end of the day, this chapter seems like a laundry list of environmental problems facing Montana. That's all well and good, but a similar list of problems could probably be produced for almost any location you care to name. What doesn't happen is that this list of problems isn't really connected to collapse.I think it would be more surprising if any civilization did not have any problems, but the existence of imperfection hardly implies potential collapse. My reading of the entire book is that humans have had a substantial environmental impact wherever and whenever they've settled, and whether societies thrive or fail comes down in large part to whether they detect such problems and how (or even if) they try to solve them. I think the analogy that he was aiming for was between our globalised civilisation and any of his model cases, rather than merely between a local part of our civilisation - such as Montana or Australia - and one of those earlier models. What really surprised me was how optimistic the book was in the face of the many problems that Diamond outlines. Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Question for Charlie
Richard Baker wrote: Your answer concentrated on the morality of creating human/chimp hybrids in the first place, rather than on their status once created. I specifically crafted the question so that the morality of their creation wasn't the focus of attention, and in fact agree that creating them is a pretty dodgy thing to do morally and ethically. Thus, I don't think you really replied to it, but then the flow of the list swept the topic away and we started talking about other things. Would it be moral to clone a Neanderthal? An australopitecus? Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Question for Charlie
Alberto Monteiro wrote: Richard Baker wrote: Your answer concentrated on the morality of creating human/chimp hybrids in the first place, rather than on their status once created. I specifically crafted the question so that the morality of their creation wasn't the focus of attention, and in fact agree that creating them is a pretty dodgy thing to do morally and ethically. Thus, I don't think you really replied to it, but then the flow of the list swept the topic away and we started talking about other things. Would it be moral to clone a Neanderthal? An australopitecus? Alberto Monteiro Cloning ONE, so that it could be the only one of its kind, and get to appreciate that fact? No. Recreating a breeding population and giving them a place of their own to live? Maybe. What existed once may exist again. But please don't bring your secret labs on line until we've talked things through. : ) ---David ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: James A. van Allen, 1914-2006
On 8/10/06, Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=20565 -- Ronn! :) Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever. -- Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskiy That's really too bad. My father studied under him as a student, and he seemed like a neat guy (quite aside from his accomplishments). ~maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: James A. van Allen, 1914-2006
In a message dated 8/11/2006 5:51:29 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: That's really too bad. My father studied under him as a student, and he seemed like a neat guy (quite aside from his accomplishments). ~maru The correct science fiction tribute would be to go to your favorite space port bar and have a belt. Vilyehm ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
