Methods of Freedom: Interaction Without Hierarchy
by Benjamin ShenderOn my previous post on freedom and enslavement to the civilized system I alluded to methods of obtaining this freedom, and several people have since wondered about details. I could simply pull a Quinn and say “be creative,” but that is somehow unsatisfying as an answer. So, instead, here is example one.
Civilization means hierarchy. They feed off each other, and never is one found without the other. A concentration of surplus, which is a requirement of civilization, always leads directly to hierarchy. And, hierarchy can only be sustained by a denial of privileges to a lower class, otherwise, why would they obey? This denial is only possible through civilization. Indeed, some people have gone so far as to refer to them as being nearly synonymous.
This ultimately means that civilization can be effectively undermined by replacing hierarchy. Without it, civilization cannot maintain itself. So the question now becomes: what earthly good does that do us?
Replacing hierarchy on a grand scale is beyond our abilities. Also, any violent or non-violent revolution directed against hierarchy would only serve hierarchy by acknowledging their power. After all, if they are the ones you are trying to get that power from, it means they have the power.
However, if you merely do not propagate hierarchy in your own life, then you have, at least partially, freed yourself from that hierarchy. All of this is accomplished by merely denying it. There is no “fighting” of hierarchy that can be effective. But if you simply refuse to acknowledge its power it becomes powerless.
What is the alternative to hierarchy? Egalitarianism. How is this accomplished? With great difficulty if you were not born to it.
The first step is to watch your use of language. Any use of language that puts one person above another without justification of superior ability in that instance should be eliminated. So, saying that Bob is better shot is fine. Telling blonde jokes is not. I know it is hard, but nobody said it was going to be easy. Take it as an opportunity to learn new, funny jokes.
Next, you have to stop leaving people out of the equation. Essentially this means that oligarchies, dictatorships, and even democracy can no longer be your primary means of decision making. The alternative is consensus. Formal Consensus, is not necessary. But some form would be appreciable. Formal Consensus does not mean that everyone has to agree. It means that everyone has to agree that the current plan is workable and best that is available. This is achieved by taking a possible solution and adjusting it to meet any and all concerns presented. The solution once it goes through this process should be acceptable to everyone, even if not universally adored. This is not the same thing as compromise. In compromise, no one gets what they want. In consensus, everyone gets what they want.
And then you have to start calling people on this. This one is hard. But this kind of thing has to be done in groups. When someone slips up, you need to remind them, kindly, that they were behaving civilized, and that such behavior is inappropriate.
Beyond that, it is more little things. By not behaving civilized, people around us will begin to treat us in that way. Luckily, behaving in an uncivilized way amounts to flawless manors by civilization’s reckoning.
As I read it, this set of guidlines seems to be aimed at making life less civilized while we continue our scrubby existance in its grasp. This seems to be the only option for bettering our lives, as any off the grid “mini collapse” will be conquered by neighboring areas, as pointed out by Jason. However, I wonder if your comments still hold up POST collapse. Specifically, the blonde jokes. Understandably, the survivors of civilization are going to be the civilized, and it will take time to make them “wild” again. Therefore, it’s not as if, post collapse, survivors instantly become egalitarian… though it seems that evolution will favor those that elect to do so.
My question is this. Do you feel that you would re-assert your “no blonde jokes” proposition in context of a post-civilzation egalitarian society? It seems to me that “neighboring culture jokes” could serve the goal of cultural diversity, tradition, identity, among other things. So, is it ok to have cultural understandings that one group of people is lesser without justification— if this understanding is sustainable, and probably reciprocal? After all, post-civilization, I don’t believe it to be possible for one society to ENACT their cultural hatred of their neihgboors, and exterminate them. What are your opinions, Ben and others?
Comment by Anonymous — 13 December 2005 @ 10:03 PM
Just to make sure we are on the same page, “blonde jokes” are an example of a larger group of jokes, comments, assumptions and the like. Remember, us white folks can go into a drug store and buy flesh-colored bandages that match our skin tone.
But, yes. Any culture that makes jokes belittling a segment of their own society due to gender, perceived race, or class is not egalitarian. Those jokes are how we transmit values of supression to each other and our children. Stop telling them, and these views will slowly receed. Granted, having been brought up in this fashion we will never be free. But if we watch ourselves, perhaps we’ll be free in a couple generations.
Now, joking about the sheep-loving jerks over the next ridge…well, they just aren’t very bright, so why would they be offended?
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 13 December 2005 @ 11:35 PM
It’s well documented that Arabic speakers hate freedom, that’s why we spend so much money trying to kill them all.
If all the Arabs in the West were eradicated and deported, there would no longer be an Arabic subculture among us… would the above meme still result in subversion on THIS hemisphere?
Perhaps civilized propaganda is a neighboring issue that’s slightly different.. in that it’s spawned by the elite in order to split their slaves against each other or to provide legitimate justification to do things counter to the prevading morality… ? I’m not sure.
Comment by felix — 14 December 2005 @ 12:12 AM
Actually, and this is no small nitpick, hierarchy is found outside of civilization. But it depends on your definition. If you want to define hierarchy as “that which only exists in civilization” then you’re clear. But commonly accepted forms of the word hierarchy are present in chiefdom societies. From the link:
So, hierarchy is not dependent upon civilization but civilization is dependent upon hierarchy.
You seem to miss the biggest piece of the picture as well — having a community is essential to interaction without hierarchy. People we are truly friends with we are typically in a relationship of equals with. Interacting without hierarchy is then a process of simply making friends with people and interacting the way you would without a formal power structure or without indoctrination to that formal power structure. It is this latter which you touch on by calling for awareness of how we are relating to those around us and replicating the extant social power structures of civilization, as those perpetuate and reinforce the more entrenched material power structures.
Other influencing factors include sustenance methods, group size, and decision making processes.
Comment by Devin — 14 December 2005 @ 7:18 AM
Chiefdoms are even more hierarchical than states in some ways, but chiefdoms also inhabit the fuzzy border regions of civilization. A lot of chiefdoms are usually considered civilized–like Cahokia, for example, which at its height had a larger population than [i]London[/i]. And there’s a question as to whether the chiefdom is really a stable state of social organization, or merely a transitionary state on the way to full-blown civilization (making the chiefdom a civilization embryo?).
I was thinking the same thing as Anonymous, above. Where the two groups are separate, insulting jokes can be a primary means of establishing group identity and cultivating tribalism, in its usual sense. The problem is when those groups aren’t quite so separate. Even if we were to follow the crazy plan Felix suggested hypothetically, we’d still be in the same, globalized system with Arabs.
Tribalism is great, until you have to live with them. That’s a very odd situation, granted, but that’s when tribalism goes from adaptive to destructive.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 14 December 2005 @ 10:36 AM
I’m wondering, maybe it’s not so much the animosity as the power to do something with it. If you have too much animosity within a tribe, granted, it’ll probably eventually split it up, but I think rivalry is ok so long as no one group/person has the power to subjugate the rest.
Comment by Raku — 14 December 2005 @ 12:20 PM
I was actually considering Chiefdoms to be “civilized-wannabees.”
I guess you’re right. I didn’t talk about community. I just kind of assumed it was inherent…hmmm. Is that a good sign or a bad one? And with those communities not liking those on the outside keeps them together (which works best when you legitmately couldn’t destroy them, doesn’t apply to our current case). But when a sub-group is hated, that’s a problem. That causes division and seperation. At that point your own a resource concentration away from racism, subjegation, and possibly full-blown slavery.
As for other factors of walking away…this was kind of intended as being the first in a series. This time I was just talking about interacting with people without stratification. Next time I’ll talk about another thing you can do. And then another. Maybe I’ll do sustenance next just to make Devin happy.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 15 December 2005 @ 12:08 PM
The only problem with the hypothesis of chiefdoms being embryonic civilizations is that it’s an untestable hypothesis. One can look at every chiefdom that’s evolved into a civilization and say that there’s some pretty strong circumstantial proof, but any chiefdom that hasn’t changed into a civilization can be justified within the confines of the theory by simply claiming that enough time hasn’t elapsed for the necessary changes to occur.
This was a very insightful article.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 15 December 2005 @ 3:35 PM
Civilizations are all built through the exploitation, such as enslavement, of at least one underclass, and hierarchy is simply the most efficient mechanism for transacting that exploitation.
Transitioning to sustainability, defined by the ending of exploitive relations with the earth and all its inhabitants, threatens civilizations and their hierarchical methods of control.
Stop the exploitation, in all its manifestations, and the hierarchies are ultimately doomed [Neither victims nor executioners be]. But they’re not going to go gently.
– Rick
Comment by Rick — 15 December 2005 @ 4:21 PM
Why is it this group seems to deny the possibility of an egalitarian, sustainable, civilization that retains some complexity? If civilization means hierarchy then what would the above be called?
Tribes or groups that you are describing that are only concerned with their own freedom will most likely repeat the history of the last 10.000 years only faster. i.e. “Those dumb sheep-herders on the other side of the ridge should be pushed out to improve our deer and elk harvests.�
Comment by Bob Harrison — 16 December 2005 @ 2:38 PM
Hey Bob –
No I wouldn’t call that civilization… I usually refer to it as ’some third thing’ (that we have never seen before.)
I hold out hopes for that possibility, but it really IS an untried and unknown possibility, so it is impossible to PROVE that it can happen, unless and until we do
Janene
Comment by Janene — 16 December 2005 @ 4:41 PM
If humans are hardwired to reproduce themselves to the point of overshoot, like rabbits or yeast, then we are subject to bloom and dieoff, just as they are.
William Catton in Overshoot, says that the current exuberant expansion of human flesh has been brought about by a one-in-a-billion convergence of the “discovery” of a relatively underpopulated western hemisphere and the discovery and exploitation of oil, the most versatile energy source on the planet.
That era of convergence is about over.
If there are post-dieoff human survivors, and there are likely to be, I think, they are likely to be living in some sort of tribal arrangement with limited technologies and little need for hierarchies of exploitation, that is, they’ll be living within their means and not making too much more trouble.
We are probably talking about a timeline of the next 100/150 years, outside our own lifetimes but incredibly quickly by historical or [even more] evolutionary standards.
In the meantime, the trick is to manage the powerdown and dieoff and get as many of our own and our friends’ (our tribes, if you will) genes successfully into that post-petroleum, Olduvai future.
Whether that future will more resemble Paleolithic hunter-gatherers or Middle Age Europeans or bucolic mid-19th century Americans is anybody’s guess. Probably some of all of them, in various places.
If the sustainable human population worldwide in a resource-depleted, environmentally degraded world is one or two billion, and we’re currently at six billion and climbing, it’s pretty clear that war, pestilence and famine are going to have a field day in the near term.
Fasten your seatbelts.
Rick
Comment by Rick — 16 December 2005 @ 5:53 PM
I think there might be hierarchies left with collapse. A little of it depends on how precipitous collapse is. I imagine there might be clans with demented people as leaders like Dennis Hopper in Waterworld promising them greatness and the rest eating it up. I read an essay and it described a scenario of post-collapse where you are harvesting tubers (potatoes I guess) and a fascist clan comes along and demands you give them their food. And they might kill you I think. If you don’t defend yourself, you’ll end up dead. I watched a movie called Black Robe about a missionary traveling with the American indigenous people. They encountered an indigenous tribe of assholes that beat them for no reason and low and behold they had a Chief. They had barrier walls and wood structures it looked like out of saplings. I have read that some American indigenous people were a little imperialistic. Afterall, they had nations. I also heard though that the pioneers dubbed these certain people Chiefs even if they weren’t to sign their land treaties. There might be some asshole, hierarchal tribes though in collapse. Possibly, even in the majority, through survival of the fittest or most aggressive. Hopefully, most survivors will learn some lessons from the collapse though.
Comment by planetwarming — 16 December 2005 @ 6:54 PM
Janene:
That there has never been an anarchist society is the most common dismissal of the concept. However it is not certain that everything that’s of value has already happened. History hasn’t ended yet.
Civilization is defined by dictionary.reference. com as:
An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions.
Just because an anarchist civilization would be a new event doesn’t make it impossible or barbarian(uncivilized).
Comment by Bob Harrison — 16 December 2005 @ 7:13 PM
Except there have been hundreds, thousands of anarchist societies. But our ethnocentric viewpoint won’t let us see that they are truly anarchist. All the extant forager groups and tribes throughout history have been anarchist. Also, you’re using a very ethnocentric definition of civilization. See Jason’s posts on What is Civilization? and The Meaning of Civilization for more.
Comment by Devin — 16 December 2005 @ 8:32 PM
Devin:
Yes there have been anarchist societies, and many tribes could be so described. What we don’t yet have is an example is an egalitarian civilization.
Thank you for pointing me to Jason’s posts on the subject. I hadn’t seen them. Obviously, a complex and egalitarian society would fail the last four of Childe’s primary criteria. I would also hope it would fail Jason’s definition of civilization as “a complex of coercion, domination and terror.â€? Both Childe and Jason’s definitions are based upon looking at civilizations that are based on hierarchy. For the benefit of those readers that haven’t read Jason’s other posts it would be less confusing to use the term hierarchical civilization when that is what is meant.
However, I think the premise of hierarchy is not necessary to the concept of civilization. (If, rather than establishing the casting of pebbles, Pericles had designed a consensus-decision-making process that incorporated all Athenians, would Athens no longer be considered a civilization?)
Wikipedia offers a minimalist definition of the term: “a civilization is a complex society.� According to this definition and the definition I offered above, an egalitarian civilization is not an oxymoron.
My reason for being concerned about this issue is because I don’t think enough thought is being directed toward how small egalitarian tribes or groups will respect and cooperate with each other. Even after a collapse there will be a need to think globally. War and freedom are not compatible.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 17 December 2005 @ 2:20 AM
Hey Bob –
Devin already answered most of your first post… but you will also not that I didn’t say that a ‘third thing’ was impossible — just impossible to [i]prove[/i] as functional.
However, now that you have given it a name, there is some scientific evidence to suggest that anarchy is unable to function amongst millions of people. I’m sure you have seen some of the discussions here on Dunbar’s Number. Dunbar’s Number suggests that egalitarian/anarchistic societies start to break down when the population exceeds the level where individual members CAN interact as individuals. Basically that as you approach 150 people, the human brain becomes incapable of keeping track of all of the other members, leading to objectification, stereotyping, and therefore stratification (hierarchy).
On civilization… why would it be useful to strip the word ‘civilization’ of all of its defining characteristics? I mean, you could call ALL vegetables ‘beans’ but then you would cease to be able to distinguish beans from peas. I mean, yeah, sure they are related, but the words that distinguish them increase our ability to communicate effectively.
On Tribal Relations… The Appalachian Confederation comes to mind
Janene
Comment by Janene — 17 December 2005 @ 11:46 AM
What about the excavations at Çatalhöyük?
These indicate a neolithic city with a population of 8,000 hunter gatherers. In regards to egalitarianism at Çatalhöyük: “The people appear to have lived relatively egalitarian lives with no apparent social classes, as no houses with distinctive features (belonging to kings or priests, for example) have been found so far.”
This would seem to contradict the idea that as you approach 150 people society leans towards objectification, stereotyping, and therefore hierarchy.
Comment by Lope — 17 December 2005 @ 1:24 PM
Janene:
As usual you and I seem to be close to agreement in principle, but differ semantically. My reason for not liking the archaeological definitions for civilization is that for most of us not coming from that background it is not intuitive. Although I do not at this point consider myself a primitivist, these archaeological definitions make me one. I am not against civilization according to its general meaning as long as it doesn’t include hierarchy, private property, lock down of food, wage labor, or other methods of oppression. It can have some rational complexity as long as it is environmentally sustainable. Obviously I am against this civilization and realize it cannot be reformed, but I don’t feel comfortable stating that I am against civilization in general.
I am aware of Dunbar’s Number, and having some experience in groups that work by consensus, I know that even that number is impractical for the basic group size. A partial solution would be very similar to that described in ‘The Appalachian Confederation’. Rhizomes could be created by urban or village groups forming counsels similar to the tribal counsels, which could form confederations.
That this would work is not proven in either case. The prevention of oppression within the groups is dependent on the character of the individual members. The functioning of the rhizome is dependent on the cooperation of the nodes. Without these qualities the rhizome will be as fragile as a cartel.
Another problem that exists for either type of rhizome is how to coordinate the usage of the commons. Although this may not be a problem initially after a drastic collapse, the tragedy will arise eventually and if not resolved cause another collapse. This problem requires a global solution.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 17 December 2005 @ 5:56 PM
Lope:
Thanks. I had not know about Çatalhöyük and found the information fascinating. It seems these people managed to do what we can’t 8000 years ago. An egalitarian society that large and living that close together is quite an accomplishment. It seems they put up with the inefficiency of living in a village in spite of remaining essentially hunter-gatherers for cultural reasons. There is speculation that these people created much of their culture and moved into the town BEFORE they took up agriculture.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 17 December 2005 @ 6:14 PM
Hey –
On Catal Huyuk… I’ll have to do some research on that. I did a major research paper on Mesopotamian (+Anatolia, the Levant,the Zagros Mntns etc) Neolithic developments, and based on what I learned then, I would contest the assertion of ‘no social classes’.
Catal Huyuk (and other early neolithic villages) certainly were far less rigid and stratified than the later develpment of al Ubaidian and then Sumerian cultures… but that makes perfect sense when you understand that Catal Huyuk was a horticultural village as compared with later, full-on agriculture in the south. (They were horticultural not pure H-G)
There is also some question over how much time it takes to move from egalitarian nomad to horticultural ‘Big Man’ to agricultural civilization. Specifically, is there a lag in the memetic components of these structures? When does specialized emphasis becomes specialized exclusiveness? When does a ‘favor’ become a command? And how do you determine any of this from archaeological remains? They use standards to try and give archaeologists some structure to thier assessmnents… but also, keep in mind, that any object that is unexplicable gets a coin toss: heads it is a ‘religious object’ tails it is a ‘game’.:-)
Hey Bob — one of the (again) mechanical structures that we can draw on to deal with the tragedy, as well as any fragility in a rhizome network is drawn from game theory combined with selfish gene theory… if we can build communities (and network those communities) with an emphasis on long-term benefit, we can leverage our biological tendancy toward selfishness. (not the negative, ‘accusatory’ selfishness, but the ‘at the end of the day, I am most concerned about me and mine. As long as they are ok… then I can think about you’ If you know what I mean) This could well be the most daunting piece of the task that we face… How do you imbue modern americans (for the gods sake!) with an awareness of ‘forever’? This might be one place where a collapse could help a lot. Once you know that the cavalry will NEVER come riding over the hill, then you ‘get it’ that your life and well being is TOTALLY DEPENDANT on the life and well being of your community. Period. At that point, you don’t need to jump a big hurdle over the whole ‘trust’ issue, because you no longer have a choice…
Janene
Comment by Janene — 17 December 2005 @ 7:42 PM
Janene, you write:
I find an interesting implication here; that every time and everywhere, chiefdoms become civilizations. That this is unavoidable, that this happens semper et ubique.
If this isn’t what you meant, sorry. If it is, you should examine the logic of your faith in this idea. As I said earlier, the only problem with the hypothesis of chiefdoms being embryonic civilizations is that it’s an untestable hypothesis. One can look at every chiefdom that’s evolved into a civilization and say, “There’s your evidence,” but that’s circumstantial. Likewise, any chiefdom that hasn’t changed into a civilization can be justified within the confines of the theory by simply claiming that enough time hasn’t elapsed for the necessary changes to occur.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 17 December 2005 @ 9:43 PM
Hey Chuck –
You’re asking the same sort of questions that I mean to be implying.
You cannot answer the question ‘Do ALL cheifdoms become civilization?’ without getting a firm understanding of, and technique for determining, what point in development represents the change.
Let’s look at it another way… if we were to be able to answer the above question, then we would be able to look at a series of chiefdoms that had existed, but NOT become civilization. IF some of them had resisted the shift to civilization, we might be able to identify features that can tell us that.
So no, we will never prove without a doubt that cheifdoms always lead to civilization… but if we could answer these more fundamental questions, we might be able to prove that it does NOT. Its that whole ‘proving a negative’ thing.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 18 December 2005 @ 10:45 AM
One also must consider that there will inevitably be a transition between a hunter-gatherer society and a civilization, and that all civilizations at some point could probably have been classified as chiefdoms. You can’t just poof a civilization into existence. The helpful distinction to me seems to be to look at the point at which social stratification begins to occur and stay away from that. The idea that chiefdoms are closer to civilization on the whole social organization spectrum is enough for me to be skeptical of chiefdoms.
The problem comes in when we try to include the idea of progress in this whole cultural evolution thing. Then we start to see the spectrum of societies as a line going from most primitive or least advanced to most advanced, with advanced being a value judgment. That’s the myth of unilineal cultural evolution — that all tribes are just primitive chiefdoms, and all chiefdoms are just primitive civilizations, and certain civilizations are more advanced than others, etc. This is just an ethnocentric view where the society we live in today is by default the more advanced and “better” society. Multilineal cultural evolution is the predominant paradigm today among anthropologists.
I think that’s all we know enough to say at the moment. I’d like to see the questions Janene poses explored, but I’m afraid any exploration of that will lead to tentative conclusions at best.
Comment by Devin — 18 December 2005 @ 4:12 PM
Every culture has some complexity. “Sustainable” and “egalitarian” are precluded by the definition of civilization, which we’ve discussed before, first with, “The Meaning of Civilization,” and later refined with, “thesis #13.
Now, complexity is fine. Every culture has some level of complexity. But complexity does not a civilization make. Most of us would be uncomfortable referring to an Aborigine “civilization,” and with good reason. But the theological complexity of the Dreamtime puts the wankery of Thomas Aquinas to shame.
The things we usually associate with”civilization”–music, art, philosophy, technology, science, mathematics, etc.–have nothing in the least to do with civilization. They all date back to the Upper Paleolithic Revolution, and they’re all four times older than civilization. They’re universal to all human societies, civilized and primitive alike. What’s unique to civilization is war, hunger, poverty, oppression, corruption, bureaucracy, disease and theft.
We would be, but the dynamic equlibrium of the firs two million years of our existence would belie such a notion that this is “the norm.” This is a brief abberation in the history of our species; we should not make it out to be more indicative of our inherent nature than it is, simply because we happen to be unfortunate enough to live through it. It is still the most minor blip in our history as a species.
Sigh. See thesis #13, where I write of precisely that definition:
An anarchist civilization is a contradiction in terms. Three of Childe’s five defining criteria of civilization is class structure, concentration of surplus, and state-level political organization. A large-scale anarchist society could be very complex (it would have to be, to allow humans to live in such a scenario where they are so maladapted–just like fish would need a great deal of complexity to live in space), but it would never be a civilization.
I do not believe such a society would be possible, though. As I wrote in thesis #13:
It’s a simple mathematical fact that as a population grows, so too do the number of troublesome encounters between people. How should such conflicts be resolved? Humans simply cannot sustain communities hundreds of times larger than they are adapted to, without significant abridgements of the egalitarianism and freedom to which they are adapted in those societies.
That’s redundant. The term “civilization” comes from the Latin civis for city. How can you refer to a civilization with no cities? The term must be reclaimed from simply a synonym for “good,” because everything inherent in it is anything but.
You’re using the term simply to mean a complex society. There have been many complex forager societies. Most of us have an intuitive understanding that they are not civilizations, though. That intuitive understanding is quite correct. It is only when pressed for a formal definition that people reduce “civilization” to a synonym for “society,” because it is only then that the stark ethnocentric assumptions of the term become apparent.
Well, they’d cease to be a civilization in short order. Spreading around decision-making tends to de-centralize the wealth–and that tends to break up cities. Once Athenian culture no longer had a city, yes, it would have ceased to be a civilization.
Oh, but it is! Every society has some amount of complexity, so how complex is “complex”? Where’s the cut-off point? You’ll see in thesis #13 that I also defined civilization in terms of complexity–but not with such a strange, fuzzy cop-out. Rather, I suggested that a civilization is a society that pursues increasing complexity as the solution to all its problems. Complexity can be measured in the number of social roles, as well as anything else, and new specialists can often solve your problems. But seen in a certain light, elites are simply a type of administrative specialist. We cannot concieve of more than 150 persons, and hierarchy allows us to simplify a highly populated world into stereotypes and ranks, rather than complex, nestng relationships. A highly populated world needs hierarchy.
What about them? That quote was either taken out of context or made by someone with little to no background at Çatalhöyük. I usually think of Çatalhöyük as the birthplace of oppression and hierarchy. Their society was very hierarchical.
Finally, are chiefdoms incipient civilizations? It’s hard to say–like you mentioned, it’s something of an untestable hypothesis, isn’t it? I don’t know. In some ways, chiefdoms are even more hierarchical and oppressive than civilizations. Some anthropologists have suggested that the chiefdom is an unstable state that must move to either civilization, or collapse back down, but as you say … it’s a fairly untestable hypothesis. The theory is sound enough and well-argued, but theories are a dime a dozen. I don’t know. I don’t trust chiefdoms, I know that, and I feel pretty comfortable lumping them in with civilizations as an embryonic form, but no, I can’t say with any certainty that every chiefdom must be unsustainable.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 19 December 2005 @ 11:40 AM
I guess many primitivists are against hierarchy, but it would be nice if the more experienced ones would take a leadership position in creating primitive tribes besides just doing the teaching of skills at wilderness survival skills. I appreciate this writing, but I wish this website might use its popularity to organize tribes for reality and not just focusing on the theoretics of collapse and civilization and how much better lives primitives have.
Comment by planetwarming — 20 December 2005 @ 7:56 PM
Jason: I hope you are recovering well from your fall. The following are responses to some of your responses to my posts here:
In civilizations or, if I must, complex societies which historically have occurred after and outside of hunter-gather societies the above accomplishments have been considerably more intense and diverse. Not mentioned above and of extreme importance is the availability of stored human knowledge due to printing, and other means of information storage. The individual in such an environment has access to an immensely greater diversity of human interaction, ideas and life choices. These advantages are greatly diminished by hierarchy and competition.
With the exception of bureaucracy all of these can exist in any society, unless you are going to define hunter-gatherers as a society without these qualities. None are necessary qualities of a complex society although they are for your definition of civilization.
Are you saying that a city must be hierarchical or are you defining cities that way? Why would de-centralized wealth, held as a commons, break up the city?
This is an over-simplified and therefore erroneous application of a principle of evolutionary psychology known as Dunbar’s Number or the monkeysphere. The fact that humans have the ability to easily track and relate to that number of people with little conscious effort doesn’t mean we cannot relate to more. We have the ability to conceive of reality from the perspective of even an unknown other. We can emotionally feel compassion for strangers. Although many of our mental functions are hard-wired and have changed little in the last 10,000 years, our brains are capable of developing new functions without the need for evolving them. Modern humans develop soft wired mental abilities that hunter-gatherers do not. I would say that a highly populated world could avoid hierarchy. Neither of our statements is testable.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 20 December 2005 @ 10:08 PM
Hey Bob –
That’s true, Bob. But are we racing? If civilization speeds up and increases the number of discoveries/ innovations/art forms that we have available to us, but at the same time makes our lives more difficult/unpleasant/unfulfilling… then is that really a boon?
If civilization had never started, the existant hunter-gatherers might only now be discovering how to make cotton into cloth. But what is wrong with that?
Evidence does not support you here. H-G had scarcity and conflict and occasional genetic disorders and illnesses. But ALL of them are on a totally different scale than what you find in Civilization. Conflict is not War any more than a broken arm is death. Diseases — the real endemic diseases that civilization contends with — are herd animal diseases that jumped to humans. Without domestic animals, that never would have occured. Genetic Disorders generally led to early death (infanticide oft times) so the occurance was reduced by natural selection. Other illnesses would have been largely the same… the rare case of a ‘real’ disease popping up and wiping out a village — and then going extinct itself for lack of hosts, late-life genetic diseases, certain abberations like the brain disease among … who is it? the New Guinea ‘cannibals’.
Again, the science does not back you up on this. There is not enough data (that I know of, and IMO) to conclusively prove Jason’s point, but what data there is, does support him. For example, Dunbar’s Number was applied (or accidentally hit upon?? not sure) by a manufacturing company in New Jersey. They have created psuedo egalitarian structures in each of thier factories, and conscientiously tracked the individual factory ‘population’ so that they can build a new facility and sub divide older ones to keep the population between 75-150.. what they have found is that each time that population begins to approach the 150 mark, the effective operation of the facility begins to decline. Malcolm Gladwell discusses this in detail in The Tipping Point
Another science to consider here is game theory. Studies on the difference between single-iteration interactions, and infinite iteration interactions. It is ‘easy’ to be a complete asshole on the street of a major city — because the people around are people you can reasonably expect to never see again. Sitting down with your family (especially extended family) over a holiday meal, you would never feel that ‘freedom’ — because you know you will be back there again within the year. You could counter by talking about your ‘feelings’ for you family… but the same would be true if we were talking about your ‘hated’ uncle Ed. (Or your coworkers at a job you plan to keep, or club members, or neighbors…)
Janene
Comment by Janene — 21 December 2005 @ 9:46 AM
Janene:
I was not comparing civilization as Jason defines it and the condition of human life for hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago. I detest this hierarchical, oppressive, competitive and materialistic, society as you do. It would be great to go back to the past and change the present, but I don’t think that will be possible. I was comparing a future sustainable, egalitarian, complex, society (this is difficult to state when I can’t say civilization) to a future of bands of H-G.
Dunbar’s number was proposed by Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist. He derived it from studies by paleontologists on non-human primates. He derived the number from comparative neocortex size. Gladwell did popularize this concept as the upper limit of the number of people that an individual can treat as truly human. People who have worked in egalitarian organizations have experientially learned about these optimum group sizes long ago. Gladwell’s conclusion that humans can’t consider more as truly human is not acceptable. If that is true for modern humans, then we must change this characteristic. .
Comment by Bob Harrison — 21 December 2005 @ 11:26 AM
Planet, I suppose you missed this bit? This site is run by the Tribe of Anthropik. No, we can’t go setting up tribes for you, but we have one of our own. This site is in its initial stages still, just like our tribe. We’re laying a theoretical foundation, so instead of having to have the same arguments over and over again, we can just point people to the appropriate thesis.
Once that’s finished (and we’re looking at late January for the completion of that phase), this site will begin to move more towards current events and commentary from the worldview we’re laying out here, and also following our tribe’s progression in real time, so you can get a glimpse of what the tribal life is like. That’s the much more important work, in my mind; all this theoretical wankery you see now is merely to prepare for that.
The advantages of printing have come at a great cost, though: literality. It has changed the way we think, and the way we remember, on a very basic level. Pre-literate peoples were capable of feats of memory that seem superhuman to us today, because our faculty for memory is so immensely diminished. Also, literality has given us a perception of the world as unchanging or static which is patently untrue. It’s given us a concept of “literal” truth: the idea that there are static facts separate from all perception or opinion. Primitives tend not to harbor such ideas.
So, we can write things down … but we can’t remember. And it has made our concept of the world static, rather than the fluidity that follows from orality. So, I’m not sure if the impact of literacy on human knowledge has been, on the balance, positive or negative. The benefits, as you point out, are great. But the cost–a cost few even know we paid–has been tremendous, as well.
But this is a fine example that the benefits of complexty are rarely as unambiguous as we imagine. We should evaluate the pros and cons of any new bit of complexity, rather than simply accept it uncritically as “good.”
Finally, your distinction is unnecessary–there have been several complex hunter-gatherer societies. The two are not a paradox. It’s merely that all the complex ones were easily wiped out by the more complex civilizations that encountered them; only the least complex forager groups still survive today.
A common assumption, but simply not true.
Because people only live in cities when they must–when someone else controls the wealth, and forces them to live in the city to have some part of it. The crowding, pollution, and stress of city life have, at all times and places, motivated anyone who could afford to move away from any city to do so almost as soon as they are able. You can hear this sentiment echoed by modern Manhattanites yearning for “upstate,” just as much as in Greek poetry. Humans don’t like cities. Never have. They move away from them in droves whenever they are able. Cities swell only durng economic downturns. The last big migration to the cities in the U.S., for instance, was the Great Depression.
Actually, that’s exactly what Dunbar’s Number is. We can easily track somewhere around 12. 150 is our effective limit.
Only by making one of our 150 “persons” a stereotype that we can identfy the stranger as.
Not if we’re talking about a neurological function. You can’t exceed your hardware. Anyway, you’re talking hypotheticals, and I consider my case on this already proven with thesis #7.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 December 2005 @ 11:51 AM
Bob … you realize at this point, you’re pointing to Dunbar’s Number and saying that humans are flawed and we just need to be better than we’ve ever been before–better than our brains will physically allow.
That’s assuming that it’s “good” to have egalitarian societies of thousands or millions of people. Why? Why is it better to have large-scale egalitarian societies (that are impossible with humans), rather than small-scale egalitarian societies (which are not only possible for us, but are in fact the natural state to which we are perfectly adapted)?
Your desires are sounding increasingly utopian and self-defeating, in that they make the same essential mistake as civilization: a denial of human nature, and founding an entire society on the premise that humans are inadequate and should be “better” than they are. A society maladapted to its members; fitting a square peg in a round hole.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 December 2005 @ 11:56 AM
Hey Bob –
I’m not certain exactly what this was in response to… art and technology? If so, then are you saying that we NEED to continue to develop at the staggering rates that we have in recent history or else… what?
I am well aware of Dunbar’s Number, where it came from and so forth… my whole point was that not only was this a theoretical upper limitation, but that there is also supporting evidence in practical application of the idea, including a chapter in the Gladwell book.
If, on the other hand, you agree that ‘People who have worked in egalitarian organizations have experientially learned about these optimum group sizes long ago’, why would you suggest that we ignore that science and just ‘assume’ that we can apply the same mechanisms to communities numbering in the thousand, tens of thousands, and beyond?
Janene
Comment by Janene — 21 December 2005 @ 4:51 PM
Thus spake Jason: “No, we can’t go setting up tribes for you, but we have one of our own.”
Have you thought about franchising your concept? I’d be interested in the Anthropik Tribal Franchise for the PNW, depending on the fees of course.
If you can develop a turn-key system, there could be thousands of dollars of revenue in it for you.
Comment by Peter — 21 December 2005 @ 6:26 PM
Jason: You said:
I don’t believe that Dunbar’s number limits the number of people that we can value as human. Yet, if so, we should try to change that. I don’t believe that we are perfect. We are not incapable of self-improvement. Although we are limited by the physical capability of our brains, I don’t think we have as yet approached that limit.
The strongest reason is that more people would need to suffer and die to create the conditions for tribal societies. Some of us are capable of emotionally reacting to the suffering and death of large populations without seeing this as just something statistical. I realize we may have no choice in this matter, however I would hope that the approach of this calamity will cause a swift enough change in common beliefs to mitigate the extent of the collapse.
I would enjoy experiencing a utopian tribal society as you describe here with plenty of food, no war or competition for resources, long disease free lives etc. I don’t think “natural state� is a meaningful concept for humans or that we (members of this society) are “perfectly adapted� to tribal life.
I realize I am going against both the concepts of Daniel Quinn and many people here to deny than humans are “naturalâ€? like all other species. I believe that this is the only reality and therefore everything is natural. What makes us “unnatural”, if by that you mean not following the rules of nature, is that we are the only species that has learned how to beat natural selection. The rules of this game are that each species try to increase as much as possible. Each must compete with other groups or species for resources. This competition and other environmental factors create stress. Balance is reached when a species is limited by the deaths due to stress of individuals that would be capable of reproduction. The reward for living in a stressful condition is improvement of the species through natural selection.
Humans have “won� this game as no current competitive species can limit them. Some are beginning to realize this is a short-lived win due to environmental collapse. For as long as humans lived as H-G, if there was no shortage of food, violent deaths, or rampant disease, as you claim, then there was no stress and no natural selection. Intentional limitation of population is either intentional or random selection, but not the natural selection required for natural evolution. This will continue to be true whether we limit population in a complex or in a simple H-G society. The alternative is competition and for humans probably war.
An evolved human characteristic that although not unique, is stronger than in other species is non-evolutionary adaptability in mental functions. We do have hard-wired mental functions and emotional responses that were genetically evolved and therefore are like those of H-G’s. A module that enables us to understand language is one of these. The module responsible for Dunbar’s number may be another. The human brain also creates soft-wired functions during development in what we call the learning process. Examples are modules that without our conscious attention can automate many of the functions needed to read, type, play a musical instrument, ride a bicycle, or drive a car.
Although a modern infant could be as well adapted as a H-G infant if H-G parents accepted and raised him, we (modern humans) don’t have the necessary software to make that happen. It is not likely that adult modern parents could acquire this knowledge and the means of transmitting it to their offspring accurately even if they studied modern H-G’s. It will take a few generations before new H-G’s are adapted and even then they won’t have the millenniums of handed down knowledge our ancient ancestors had.
I would never try to defend the values of this civilization or civilization as you define it. I am with you on the side of rhizome vs hierarchy. I would prefer as simple a society as possible but not at the cost of human genocide. As I wrote above I do not deny human nature but seemingly do perceive it differently than you. As a Buddhist I believe that we have infinite potential, but are a long way from manifesting it. Because of our adaptability being the square peg in the round hole is one of our talents.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 21 December 2005 @ 6:32 PM
That’s fair. You’re welcome to believe anything you like. This particular belief is the direct contradiction of fact, but many people believe such things.
No, you are reacting to the death of “humanity.” You care nothing for the billions of people who will suffer–you’re physically incapable of it. So, to get around that, there’s an abstract concept in your head–”humanity”–that is something you can have concern for.
But once you remember that “humanity” as such doesn’t exist, but as an abstraction of billions of real people, things start to come undone.
But your “concern” for our current billions has nothing to do with primitivism. Die-off has nothing to do with our idealism; our idealism is a reaction to die-off, not a cause of it. Primitivism allows for something positive to come out of collapse. Billions will not die for primitivism. Billions will die because the earth cannot support billions; and in the course of that, primitivism will be the only viable positive vision left to embrace. But you can no more blame the horrors of the die-off on primitivism, than you can blame the deaths from a natural disaster on the charities that come afterwards to try to rebuild.
This is not unique to humans. Many, many species do this. In fact, they do it all the time. A temporary fluke allows their numbers to rise, but then the fluke goes away, and there’s a die-off. It’s so common there’s even a name for it: “overshoot.” Reindeer do it. Rodents do it. Reptiles do it. Humans do it. We’re not unique in this, and neither is any of our responses to it. Neither will the outcome be unique. It just sucks when it’s us.
I imagine reindeer also debated if they were subject to such basic ecological laws, or if they might be the one species in history to beat that rap….
‘Kay, I could pretty much make an (uncomfortable) life for myself as a forager right now, and that took me all of about three months. The basics are not hard, and once you’ve got the basics, it’s a simple matter of improving quality of life. Millions of adults learn to camp, hunt, fish, identify wild edibles, etc. each year. Why would it be so impossible for someone to put it all together? These skills are really much easier than you might think.
Genocide suggests that someone is planning it. Collapse is inherent to this system; the deaths of many were sealed when it all began. The only question is how many. Each generation that refuses to pay the price passes it on to their children, and the price becomes higher. Before long, the price will be the end of all multicellular life on earth. Had our distant ancestors had more courage, many would be spared. They did not, and so we must suffer.
Or will we, too, find some miracle to save us from that price–and force our children to pay one still higher? One that might be unimagnable to us now?
Such is the fate of every animal population who decides to live on borrowed time.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 December 2005 @ 7:07 PM
Hey –
Bob Wrote:
I don’t understand this at all.
Are you suggesting that war, famine, and pestilence are neccesary for a species to evolve?
If so, how did homo sapiens come to be?
Hell, how did ameoba come to be?
There are LOTS of selection pressures that play into evolution, but to suggest that the only ones that ‘count’ are those that we create through this one particular lifestyle choice seems… bizarre.
All species are subject to genetic disorders, occasional disease and inter and intra species competition. That is all we might expect from any future primitivist or third way….
Janene
Comment by Janene — 21 December 2005 @ 8:13 PM
Jason:
This is not fair when you claim my beliefs are beliefs, but yours are facts. Can you prove that we are perfect or that we have reached the physical limits of human brain capability? Can you prove that the number of people we can value as human is limited to 150?
It would be foolish to argue with your long diatribe about what you believe I care about.
I haven’t and would not blame the collapse on primitivism. I would hold each of us now alive as partially responsible. Especially those of us who are aware of the coming disaster.
What is true of humans and not reindeer is that humans have the ability of bringing down the planets carrying capacity for all life with us. The other thing that we can do and reindeer won’t is decide not to play the evolution game and intentionally control our numbers at a sustainable level. If we do this either before or after a collapse we will not be evolving by natural selection. We have the knowledge and the ability (but perhaps not the wisdom) to control our population at the sustainable level that we choose. For this reason unlike wolves or other predators, we are responsible for that choice or the lack of it.
I’m not impressed. I’ve also lived in the woods and have those skills. I don’t have the arrogance to claim my knowledge of living without civilization in any way approaches that of a H-G who grew up with the knowledge of his tribe and forbearers.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 21 December 2005 @ 11:36 PM
Who is this we?
And where does choice come from? Control? These things are illusions. You say you are a Buddhist but these things you speak of are rather Western concepts. The “Eastern” worldview is different from the “Western” one in that it is cyclical rather than unidirectional. See the wikipedia article on worldview for an interesting discussion of how that fits in.
And the myth of human exceptionalism is present (though perhaps less pronounced) in Eastern thought as well, so that doesn’t help much there. Our potential for compassion is not limitless, it exists only within the physical realities of the world, such as time. As you do not have the time or ability to get to know all 6.5 billion people on this earth, neither do you have the ability to have compassion for all of them.
- Devin
Comment by Devin — 22 December 2005 @ 6:34 AM
Janene:
Natural selection can be expressed as the following general law (taken from the conclusion of The Origin of Species):
1. If there are organisms that reproduce, and
2. If offspring inherit traits from their parents(s), and
3. If there is variability of traits, and
4. If the environment limits the size of natural populations,
5. Then those members of the population with maladaptive traits (as determined by the environment) will die out or reproduce less, and
6. Then those members with adaptive traits (as determined by the environment) will survive to reproduction or reproduce more.
The result is the evolutionary change of populations and eventually of species.
As you can see from the above, natural selection requires all four of the “if� statements including the fourth that requires the environment to limit natural population. Natural selection requires that environmental stress cause enough deaths of individuals that would otherwise be able to reproduce to limit the species population. Environmental stress can be disease, inter or intra species conflict, predatation, lack of sufficient necessary resources etc. If population is limited by birth control, abortion, or infanticide the result is artificial not natural selection. Both homo sapiens and amoeba came from this process. This means that homo sapiens and their predecessors were subjected to environmental stress that limited their population. This means they lived under conditions that caused enough deaths to, over the long run, limit their population. My question is how did HG’s meet this requirement when they had negligible deaths from hunger, violence, disease etc? What causes the deaths in HG societies to limit their growth?
Comment by Bob Harrison — 22 December 2005 @ 10:05 AM
YES! Yes I can! That’s the whole point. That’s exactly what Robin Dunbar did. As I stated above, I discussed this all in thesis #7, but you don’t seem to be willing to read it, so I’ll quote the relevant section:
“The Ultimate Brain Teaser,” both linked and quoted in thesis #7, discusses Dunbar’s research in detail. I quoted this passage in thesis #7:
In other words, beyond 150, our ability to consider an individual as a full, three-dimensional person drops off. It’s simply neurological capacity. Hardware, not software. It’s not a bug in the software, it’s disk space. Humans did not evolve in large-scale societies, so we don’t have the brains for it. Now, if civilization persists for a few million years, maybe we’ll evolve enormous brains that can handle this kind of society, but that’s going to be a long, long time in coming. Far too long to be any kind of factor in the imminent collapse of this foolhardy, maladapted mess we find ourselves in.
But, the fact remains that the whole issue of Dunbar’s Number is precisely that this has been proven. You can believe otherwise if you like, but this has nothing to do with two equally valid opinions. I’m citing a proven, scientific fact. You are simply stating that you choose not to believe it because you’re uncomfortable with the ramifications. These are no more equivalent opinions than evolution and intelligent design.
Why would you hold us now alive responsible? The collapse was not caused by us; the collapse was caused by a bunch of people 10,000 years ago in the Middle East. And those of us who are aware also know that there is nothng we can do to stop it, and even if there were, we would only succeed in temporarily averting catastrophe at the probable cost of all multicellular life on earth.
See now, I hold the people of the late Bronze Age responsible for not enduing the catastrophe, and visiting something far worse on us now. And if we can’t find the courage to face it, then we’ll be even worse than them. But I also have faith that we’ll endure and find that courage–because we’ll have to. The catastrophe comes, and it doesn’t care what we think of it. Courage is created by its need, not necessarily its supply.
To a degree. Most life on earth–the single-celled kind–won’t even note our passing, even in a nuclear winter. So, if we’re talking about “to a degree,” then it’s true of reindeer, as well. The loss of any species reduces the trophic level of a biosystem, and causes cascades of change, displacement and extinction in its wake. We just want to think we’re special in that regard because we’re ourselves.
Neither can humans. We’ve talked about it a lot, but we’ve never done it. If the ability to grow exists, then someone will take it. I discussed all this in thesis #4, where I wrote:
Why do you think evolution never goes with a strategy of “restraint”? Because it’s self-eliminating.
Never said it did, but you said it would be impossible for an adult living today to learn how to survive in the wilds. That doesn’t seem to stack up to all the adults living today who learn how to survive in the wilds. To the extent of a native-born hunter-gatherer? Obviously not. But the issue here is basic survival. You can also get by in modern America without Bill Gates’ fortune, and you can survive as a human without being born and raised a hunter-gatherer.
Of course, over the generations, that will change, too.
Note, “or reproduce less.” Natural selection doesn’t require–and usually does not entail–the death of the less competitive. It merely means they reproduce less. Even a 2% lower reproduction rate can breed out a population in just a few thousand years.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 December 2005 @ 10:44 AM
Devin:
I thought it was obvious that the “we� applied to humanity. After reading your post I realize I should acknowledge that to consider that “humanity� could make a choice is treating an abstract concept as being capable of subjectivity. In reality it would take the agreement of all of us to make this decision. Our individual responsibility is limited by our ability to effect that agreement.
I read the article on worldview. I tend to be very critical of all philosophies and do not myself or recommend that others accept any totally. Although it did originate in the “East�, I don’t see that your remarks on worldview are otherwise relevant to Buddhism.
This statement does conflict with Buddhist thought. Limitless compassion is one component of Buddhist Enlightenment as is the belief that we have that potential.
Having compassion for someone doesn’t require knowing them.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 22 December 2005 @ 10:49 AM
Hey –
Jason already said it, Bob, but I will reiterate, because it is important… most natural selection occurs at the level of reproduction — not die off.
So we do not need to have lots of people dieing from war (which is very much artificial selection — deaths of the poor, undereducated and ‘low born’ rather than of those less able to survive), endemic disease (which does not occur without HIGH population and domesticates), or famine (which does not occur without agriculture, or occassional MASSIVE environmental shifts).
What we DO need, is a natural (not artificial) limitation on population size, which will naturally limit births to those that have the best survivial traits.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 22 December 2005 @ 11:09 AM
Jason:
This is only true if the reduced reproduction rate is due to environmental stress on individuals. Does this happen with humans? The birth rates of modern stressed populations don’t support this thesis.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 22 December 2005 @ 11:10 AM
Actually, it very much does. Animals under environmental stress typically react with a more r strategy. We ship in food to support this so that they “don’t go hungry,” because of our “limitless compassion” for “humanity.” So, the birth rate is ratcheted up to offset the expected rise in death rate (due to environmental stress; people don’t live as long, etc.). This would normally be tempered by the environmental stress itself. The drive to reproduce increases because the ability is diminished, in order to try to keep things even. Except, thanks to our “aid,” the ability isn’t reduced. You get catastrophic birth rates in a region that already can’t support it.
As Quinn put it, shipping in food to relieve a famine is like trying to save a burning house by throwing oil on it.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 December 2005 @ 11:38 AM
Jason and Janene:
I’m running out of time to research this. I can’t reliably either confirm what you’re saying about fertility of stressed human populations or find a reference to deny it. I’ve seen various “authorities� contradict each other. I just realized I don’t need to in order to show that natural selection won’t occur in utopian HG groups. A tribe that had plenty of food and only needed 3 hours to collect it would not deprive its females of necessary nourishment. If the tribe reached a stress level where this was necessary it would probably expand or find a more productive territory. Otherwise it would decide (like Quinn says he would) to practice some kind of birth control. We still have no deaths or lack of births due to environmental stress and therefore its not natural selection.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 22 December 2005 @ 3:31 PM
Hey Bob –
Maybe this is the source of our disagreement… no one here is suggesting ‘utopian’ H-G groups. We are simply saying here are the characteristics that are typically found in small, egalitarian communities so let’s use that as a model to work from. the only ‘utopianism’ is trying to say ‘well it works for small groups so why not apply the same thing to large scale groups’(answer: because the mechanisms that enable the behavior to be functional break down in larges societies)
Again — if these mechanisms allowed homo sapiens to evolve in the first place, why would the same mechanisms ‘prevent’ future evolution?
Janene
Comment by Janene — 22 December 2005 @ 4:29 PM
Foragers practice all kinds of birth control, and during harder times they worker longer and harder. Not to the point where anyone starves, but certainly to the point where they’re spending more time looking for food and less time making the sweet love. Which is to say, the birth rate drops. Which is to say, natural selection.
Ideas of natural selection have changed a great deal since Darwin’s day. One of the biggest changes has been realizing that the natural world isn’t nearly as brutal and, well, “Darwinian,” as Darwin thought it was–and that natural selection more often had to do with very slight competitive advantages over the long term, than anything anybody would get killed over.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 December 2005 @ 4:32 PM
I was general above, because there are many different forms of Buddhism and many different understandings of what it means. I chose to separate Eastern and Western thought as it was easier. But everything I’ve read about in books by Thich Nhat Hanh — interbeing, no self, impermanence, nirvana (”the extinction of all concepts”), etc. — precludes these concepts of choice, responsibility, and humanity.
—-
You don’t have to know someone to have compassion for them?
You would likely give up some of your own food if it were a loved one (a member of your family, a close friend) who were starving. But when it is a homeless man you pass on the street, you probably don’t even notice. When it is an entire country in Africa that is starving, it is so far removed from your daily life that you cannot even fathom the reality of the situation. Can you be truly aware, mindful, or compassionate at a distance? What does compassion mean to you in this instance?
If I’m supposed to have compassion for people I don’t know, forget it. I’m done with pretending I can have blanket compassion for all human beings. I can’t. When people were dying in the tsunami, I read the newspaper articles alright, but I didn’t feel much of anything at all. Why should I have? I didn’t know a single one of those people. Very little in my life was affected by their deaths. I’ll venture the same for you, and probably nearly every single person that didn’t have one of those 180,000+ people in their social group.
People are dying in Iraq as we speak. Are you feeling anything? I’m not. These people have stories, lives, families, loved ones, hopes, dreams… and they’re dying. In a very general, abstract way I can feel something for these people. But I wouldn’t call it compassion.
Comment by Devin — 22 December 2005 @ 4:53 PM
What is a cause of death that is not due to environmental stress? A better word is probably environmental constraints. Environmental constraints on birth, in a H-G culture, would include distance to be walked to collect the food. Being pregnant or carrying an infant would increase the pressure of that constraint. There are also, certainly, cultural pressures, which you seem to be calling ‘unnatural’, such as who is allowed to marry whom. The problem with calling those cultural pressures ‘unnatural’ is that they have evolved under the same types of pressures as any other form of animal behavior. Those barriers exist because they work.
Comment by JimFive — 22 December 2005 @ 5:01 PM
Hey –
I find this discussion of compassion to be really personal… Jim and I got into a rollicking debate a month or three back on this whole discussion of Dunbar’s number, neurological limitations, compassion for ‘humanity’ etc… and I find many of the points we hit coming back in this discussion.
The point where it really hit home for me:
He insisted that we CAN feel compassion for strangers, that we can and should feel for people around the world in difficult situations… and I snapped a little… asked if he had been personally affected by the horror of Katrina (knowing full well that he had not, I’m nasty that way sometimes). The point being that I had… not because I have any greater capacity for it, or am somehow uniquely able to identify with strangers… but because when I actually heard the NO parish manager talking about his ‘momma’ calling every day asking when someone was gonna come… y’all remember that bit? When I listened to his voice and hs pain, for just a moment, I could feel compassion, empathy, whatever for this one individual at that one moment in time — and I balled my eyes out with the horror of it.
But there is NO WAY that anyone can feel that way about an abstraction like ‘humanity’ or ‘all humans’ or ‘all life’ — in fact, i cannot even call up those feelings from that moment again now. It is a memory of feeling but not a memory of feelings.
So I guess my point is that I think sometimes people mistake the ability to make a temporary connection like that, with being able to maintain a perpetual connection with all 6.5 Billion of us… (in addition to thinking that because we care what happens in a general sort of way, that this is the same as real compassion.)
Janene
Comment by Janene — 22 December 2005 @ 5:47 PM
China and its attempts to decrease birth rates comes to mind. Also note that the carrying capacity of European nations is not exceeded, but their populations are not growing.
I realize that the following suggestion is a hypothetical with low value in reality due to cultural reasons.
I believe that there could be invented a technological solution to the problem of unrestrained fertility. A birth control “weapon”, something one can point at others and decrease their fertility. Obviously it will never work due to cultural reasons, but the technology is almost ready.
Comment by _Gi — 22 December 2005 @ 6:02 PM
Interesting, this little bit on compassion.
A man you pass on the street, homeless, may draw your compassion a lot easier than a man thousands of miles away going hungry because of a disaster. Why? Probably because you don’t see him and probably will never see him. When I see the faces of the hungry and tired and weak, I feel something, perhaps it’s compassion. But mostly this compassion comes from the feeling of “what if this happened to me, or one of my loved ones?”
It is impossible to honestly care about every single person on the planet, and most of the time, I just don’t feel anything at all. It’s hard to feel something strong for people not directly connected to you.
Comment by Miranda — 22 December 2005 @ 6:05 PM
China. Mostly a case of smoke and mirrors. Population control measures have worked in the cities, but not so much in the countryside, allowing the overall system to continue unabated.
Europe. This is addressed explicitly in thesis #4, where I write:
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 December 2005 @ 6:25 PM
Since we are so well-off right now and the Third World people are so miserable, won’t the Third World people start to die first during collapse giving us some time to prepare? If we no longer can export food at all, we’ll still have some for us (perhaps strictly rationed), even as most people in Africa are starving.
Sure, we get news of starvation and genocide in the Third World now, but until the news that the population growth is negative there, should we start to worry about starvation here?
Comment by _Gi — 22 December 2005 @ 6:43 PM
That will be the first step, most likely. But that can’t last very long, as that means losing the Third World we’re so dependent on. Once that happens, collapse will come to us, too.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 22 December 2005 @ 6:49 PM
On compassion:
I didn’t realize this would be such a confusing concept. When I spoke of compassion for strangers I was using it in the sense that I understand it as a Buddhist. In this sense it means to have a personal desire to alleviate the suffering or enhance the well being of another or others. It is not something you are supposed to feel but a spontaneous emotional desire. It not something that either is or isn’t but has a spectrum of levels. Usually it is stronger for those you know and care about or those whose situation is the more critical or unfair. If you can’t understand this feeling for a class of strangers, maybe you’re aware of the opposite side of the spectrum. People that have a strong desire to see a group of strangers suffer. Like Communists, gays, Muslims, Israeli’s, Nazis, Anarchists, Capitalists, Gringos, Arabs, Fundamentalists etc.
Devin: I don’t think it would be proper use of this forum to get into a discussion of Buddhism. I am a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist. You can check that on Wikipedia.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 22 December 2005 @ 7:35 PM
YES, we should be worrying about starvation here. By the time you notice negative population growth, you’re already far on the downslope of decline. Food production per capita peaked in the 1980s. The following is excerpted/modified from a discussion I had earlier today on this very subject:
While food production per capita is probably going to be the best data available on this subject, it does not necessarily measure how much food is actually being eaten. There will be inefficiencies, and much of the food that is produced each year is wasted. Theoretically, as long as efficiencies in distribution and consumption are improving faster than agricultural yields are dropping, net end-user consumption could continue to increase. So we must also consider the effect of distribution; unfortunately, oil production per capita already peaked as well, which does not bode well for the future of distribution networks.
Further, as there are other contributing factors to population equations besides food, populations in the Third World countries may have been limited not by food availability but by other factors such as disease. Thus a decline in food production would not necessarily contribute to a net increase in crude death rate.
Finally, there is the element of feedback lag. Populations can (and will) continue to increase for a time even when food production levels off or declines. All this says is that negative feedback of decline in food availability does not have an instantaneous effect. By the time you see populations starting to decrease, you’re already on the backside of the slope and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
For a well-done presentation on this matter by Jason Bradford, Ph.D, click here.
—-
To clarify what I wrote about compassion, I tried to give three different examples to show three different degrees of compassion. I was originally going to give some money in my example of the homeless man, but decided that the more accurate reality was that we merely ignore them. I then demonstrated the most distant example of Africa — many people will give as much to a homeless man they pass on the street as they will to the entire African continent. Yet another illustration is that donations for Hurricane Katrina victims far outstripped donations for the tsunami victims. This is not to say that compassion can be measured by money, but to highlight a general trend in what we pay attention to.
- Devin
Comment by Devin — 22 December 2005 @ 7:39 PM
Meh. Sorry to be so unclear with my pronouns. What I mean to say is, if you’re waiting for the population to stop growing before you start to be concerned about starvation, then you’re really misunderstanding population dynamics.
—-
Bob — You posted while I was writing, but I think I addressed what you say a little bit in my above post. I agree with the spectrumization of compassion. But this does not mean our compassion is limitless, it merely reinforces the reality of those limits. If our compassion were limitless, we could have the strongest form of compassion for all people. This is decidedly not so.
As a result of the above limits, I personally view compassion as a practice that must be undertaken on an individual level, not on a mass scale. “Think globally, act locally” has never been more relevant.
- Devin
Comment by Devin — 22 December 2005 @ 7:58 PM
JimFive:
A “natural� death. Either due to a genetic flaw or age. Natural selection works by culling the weakest members or preventing them from reproducing. For this to happen there must be enough stress due to environmental conditions to either kill or prevent an individual from reproducing. Your example of the distance to a hunting grounds would work as long as it created enough stress to prevent births or cause deaths. The point I am making is that this cannot happen unless the tribe is in a stress condition. Cultural means of limiting births work for the purpose of limiting population, but prevent the stress necessary for natural selection to work.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 22 December 2005 @ 8:11 PM
Random mutations + selective breeding is a form of natural selection. Is this not sufficient for evolution? *scratches head* I’m having trouble seeing where you’re coming from, anyway. No one here is saying that hunter-gatherer life is idyllic, without pressures. There will be deaths from disease, exposure, accident, natural disasters, all kinds of things. But neither does this make those societies worse than civilization, it merely makes them influenced by the goings-on of their environment. I think this conversation originally started as a comparison of civilization with hunter-gatherer groups, which apparently led to some miscommunication between Jason and Bob, leading Bob to think that Jason was saying that there would be no pressures on hunter-gatherer populations. Which I don’t think he was, correct me if I’m wrong. So this whole conversation seems to be something of a miscommunication.
- Devin
Comment by Devin — 22 December 2005 @ 8:22 PM
Devin:
There probably is some misunderstanding happening here. What I have been trying to say is that humans differ from all other species because they can and do elect to avoid natural selection. This means that we are either going to let our future evolution be controlled by cultural values or we might try breeding. I am not making a value judgment about this. Natural selection that controls the evolution of other species has a price. It requires living in a competitive stressful environment. I would have no problem with participating in HG groups if our population drops that far. I think such groups should control their populations in order to maintain sustainability and feel no guilt about not being “natural�. I would prefer that enough of us survive to create a more complex, bottom up, non-competitive, non-hieratical society.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 22 December 2005 @ 8:52 PM
Humans have no ability to vote ourselves out of nature. We can change our surroundings, and thereby change what we select for and how long it takes for us to select for that. But we cannot choose to not evolve any more than a pebble can chose to exclude itself from an avalanche.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 22 December 2005 @ 10:48 PM
Benjamine:
How can you say that? Why not?
Comment by Bob Harrison — 23 December 2005 @ 1:02 AM
I think this just got to the crux of the matter.
How can you choose in a chaotic system? What is choice?
Comment by Devin — 23 December 2005 @ 1:06 AM
How can you not choose?
Comment by WackyMorningDJ — 23 December 2005 @ 4:24 PM
1. Sometimes, I think proof that something has to happen is that it did. When something had to be resisted by the rest of the people, that is most likely evidence that it couldn’t be stopped. I have heard people resisted the industrial revolution. You can’t stop progression. You can’t stop even using something like genetically engineered food, even though it sucks. The corrupt and short-sighted people in power were bound to be in power because that is who wins when competing factions. The one who is most corrupt because they have more access to more resources with which to win through their corruption. They do the unsustainable things. There would be many others to take their place though. It wasn’t their individual actions that shaped so much really. Or stratch that. I guess there’s one exception. Maybe, it took so long after the agricultural revolution to have the industrial revolution because they had to wait until Edison was born.
2. Egalitarianism was more prevalent pre-Industrial Revolution. I mean, most people didn’t even use any money at all for a long time. Only people in cities, right? Some people in a stationary society will always want to obtain power over others. But they probably had a lot less power before.
3. However, I do think civilization could live without the Third World exploitation at least currently. I mean, I have read The Third Wave about how much they oppressed the Third World in the beginning of the Second Wave. But I don’t think they have to exploit the Third World really. We could still have manufacturing. We would buy less stuff, but maybe the dollar would be worth more so we would be at the same level. Just not have so many frivolous jobs, less complexity. I think we could have a system to account for external costs and civilization would still function. Just have less productivity. Or maybe the same amount since the external costs also cut into productivity. I think we could transition to not exploiting them if the people in power wanted to, but they will never want to do that because of the unresistable forces.
4. The number 150. I wonder how many people were in a tribe. If it was around 150, then tribes soon to be formed probably would be less. The tribes would be more like extended families in their quantity. I wonder what that means to its functionality. It depends the actual group size that humans were adapted to.
5. I have read that rainforests have a certain carrying capacity.
It has been estimated that a group of eighty-four people needs a minimum territory of 640 square kilometres in order to be fully self-sufficient. http://www.yptenc.org.uk/docs/factsheets/env_facts/rainf_tribes.html
And that it the most productive habitat in the world. It also says that tribes in the rainforect kill their babies to limit their own population. So, it’s not just making less sweet love. Humans are just like deer as far as population is concerned. They are probably a lot less predated too in hunter/gatherer tribes, but I’ve tried to find out about that and haven’t been able to find how much bears affected the Indians.
6. I have compassion for the billions. Maybe, you think I can’t comprehend them, but I still care. But it is not something I can stop anyway like you said. I can see how people in general were not supposed to feel compassion for strangers, masses of strangers. Since we still do things even though we know other people were exploited to make them like buying stuff from sweatshops even when they know that that is where something is from. But that has a lot to do with other dynamics like powerlessness and economic factors of self-interest.
7. Why should the previous generations have had the courage to have a dieoff? Everyone cares about them and theirs, and that it why they didn’t want to do that. I might die in the dieoff too because maybe somehow I won’t be ready though I’m trying to get ready and want to be a primitive anyway someday even if it didn’t happen. Maybe I’ll take a little comfort in my death that it would help future generations, which sort of proves that I have compassion for future generations which you seem to have compassion for too in that way. But I’m not really convinced that if dieoff doesn’t happen, all multicellular life would be in jeopardy. I just don’t know. I don’t feel comfortable highlighting the benefits of it, even if there are any.
8. I’d be interested in hearing someone from the anthropik tribe’s speculation of how likely and what forces would be involved collapse apocalyptic war- as in nuclear war. Like what are the factors? Are the elites willing to do it in a seeming fulfillment of messianic prophesy when they will no longer have their power. Or will their self-interest and their ability to live through it and thus do the most important thing for them that surpasses their need for power-survival. Would they even be thinking in that way when they considered hurling nuclear bombs at each other? I have a feeling they are smart enough not to start that, but who knows? I thought one of you might have insight about it that I don’t have since you seem to have a lot of insight into a lot of things that I don’t have.
9. Yeah, I guess I’ll have to find my own tribe. Or maybe, someday I could join yours if you aren’t yet up to 150. I don’t know how exclusive you are, and you don’t know me of course. But I figure the paucity of primitives might make those normal social rules less stringent. Or maybe you have to wait to be asked. I don’t know. I’m not in a position to go wild right now anyway.
10. I wonder how tribes will form as the collapse happens.
11. That’s an interesting theory about how education affects population growth and resource use and the interaction of them.
Comment by Anonymous — 24 December 2005 @ 3:38 PM
The above message was me if it matters.
Comment by planetwarming — 24 December 2005 @ 3:55 PM
Janene:
Natural selection cannot predict the survivability of a variation and prevent its birth. Only after an individual is born can it be culled because of inferior traits. Only if it doesn’t survive to reproduce or if it isn’t able to reproduce due to a flaw in its reproductive abilities are its genes removed from the pool. If nature should limit reproduction when these environmental limitations were approached inferior variations, with the exception of those related to reproductive ability, would continue to be reproduced. The tendency to increase population until food supply or other enviromental factors limit it is what creates the stress necessary for natural selection. For natural selection to work this stress must cause deaths or limit reproduction such that those that could have reproduced without the stress can not. If individuals decide not to reproduce in order to avoid this stress, they are also avoiding natural selection.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 25 December 2005 @ 10:59 AM
Hey –
Ah ha… Bob, these two statements are the same thing. You are creating an artificial distiniction between ’stress preventing reproduction’ and ‘choosing not to reproduce to avoid stress’ when really that ‘choice’ is the epitome of a natural response to stress. Other examples of ways that natural selection and reproduction interact in humans: inability to ovulate due to decreasing body fat percentage in women, miscarriage due to vitimin deficiency (etc), ‘choosing’ to take a miscarriage-inducing herb because of stress, ‘choosing’ to commit infanticide because there is no extra food available… all of these choices limit the population and the choice itself is driven by our genetic tendancies. I don’t know if I have linked this before, but I think you might find a piece a wrote some time back useful in this discussion: “Applying the Stable Gene to Human Behavior” where I discuss the ways that genetics interfaces with the human mind and behavior.
Well, umm, if by egalitarianism you mean serfdom… remember that before the Industrial Revolution, most people were just a little better than slaves to thier landowners. They may have had somewhat egalitarian relationships between the villagers in some cases, but even there, there was a jockeying to ‘get ahead’
Jason will have to check me on this, but I believe most bands fall into the 15-30 member range. So WELL below the 150 maximum.
The Rainforest is decidedly NOT the most productive habitat in the world. While it holds huge quantities of biomass, very little of that biomass is suitable for human consumption. (Most of it is trees, after all). But yes, infanticide certainly occurs in tribal groups as one of several means of population control (for instance, most band societies would kill the second twin, if twins were born — there is simply no way for a woman to carry around two babies for two years…)
And predation? I suspect the numbers there are pretty darn low. I (merely guessing) would suspect that most of the time, if a human is killed by a predator it is under a couple of specific situations: a child separated from its mother (ie totally defenseless), an elderly person ‘left behind’, or a hunter that makes a fatal mistake (ie, a hunter trying to take down a bear, gets killed by that bear).
You can have compassion for ‘the billions’ just not for every individual that makes up those billions — and that makes a HUGE difference in the WAY that you feel about the things that happens.
I don’t think Jason literally meant to ‘blame’ the Europeans of previous eras any more than he ‘blames’ the people of mesopotamia ten thousand years ago.
Personally, I don’t think nuclear war will become an option. Simply because ‘everyone knows’ that everyone loses in that proposition. There is some evidence to suggest that some American Elites are preparing for a collapse of some sort — preparing by clustering the assets and infrastructure they control within a narrow range (Texas/New Orleans/Gulf Coast) so that as things start to fall apart they can regroup thier empire in a smaller area. Conspiracy Theory? Maybe, but also the ‘best’ way for them to maintain power for another generation or three…
Janene
Comment by Janene — 25 December 2005 @ 11:52 AM
Jason:
Natural selection cannot happen until after birth. The only natural selection that could occur in the above circumstances would be the elimination of the genes of those individuals unable to attract mates.
This is why environmental stress to cause deaths or affect reproduction is necessary. Of course most variations would not in themselves be fatal. However selection/elimination of the genes for a trait will only occur if a trait changes the likelihood of survival or reproduction. Since the proportion of this gene in the gene pool must actually be changed, this will require enough environmental stress to cause deaths or prevent reproduction.
Changes in reproductive rate are selective only for traits that affect reproduction. A trait like more efficient kidneys would require culling those that were less efficient. Of course this would be gradual but could only occur under stressful environmental conditions that caused the deaths of at least some of the weakest before they reproduced.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 25 December 2005 @ 3:13 PM
Janene:
For the purpose of this discussion it doesn’t matter whether avoiding reproduction is a free choice or a genetically programmed reaction to an emotion. Natural selection functions by favoring the more successful variations over the less successful. If individuals aren’t conceived or are killed at birth the viability of their genetic composition has not been tested. There is no way of knowing whether the children that the tribe allowed to survive are more viable than those that didn’t. We can’t know about those that didn’t survive. Those that did won’t be tested because we removed the stress. Morally I agree with this procedure, but I still say we are avoiding natural selection.
The methods you mention of a natural tendency to decrease fertility under stress likely evolved to save women for later pregnancies. Again the women would need to be in stress to trigger these reactions. Still natural selection requires more than limiting population.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 25 December 2005 @ 4:23 PM
The short answer is “easily, and with great conviction.”
The medium length answer is more like this:
Humans are animals. Humans are alive. Humans eat. Humans breathe. Humans are born. Humans die. Humans kiss. Humans love. Humans fuck.
If any of these statements are unagreeable then there is a deeper issue we’re discussing.
To try and futher clarify my point here is a little snippet of a script:
The point being that we have not divorced ourselves from the reality of being alive. We’ve only divorced our minds from appriciating that we are alive and all that means.
If humans live in a equitorial desert their skin becomes darker, they become better at conserving water, etc.
If humans live in a tundra region they become light skinned, stocky, and grow more hair.
If humans live in a city they become more resistance to disease, develop higher tolerances for toxins (expecially those found in grains), etc.
We don’t stop evolving. Ever. The only time we stop is when we’re finished. When we’re extinct.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 26 December 2005 @ 12:53 AM
Hey Bob –
…
You continue to only look at the next generation. Which children are born or survive in the next generation is based upon the natural selection affecting thier parents.
Compare this to natural selection of ideal bird clutch sizes. Those birds with genes for the most efficient clutch size tend to have the greatest number of offspring that survive. (Which in turn leads those surviving chicks probably having genes for, once again, the most efficient clutch size) If the environment changes and ‘most efficeint clutch size’ changes, then in a couple generations, most of the surviving birds will have the NEW adaptation. Even though it is also affecting whether an individual is ever born in the first place, that is irrelevant to the effect of natural selection.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 26 December 2005 @ 11:49 AM
Benjamin:
I agree that humans are animals. Because of this everything that we do is in a sense natural. Also like each other species we are unique. What I said was that we have the unique ability to choose not to evolve through natural selection. This doesn’t mean that generations won’t be different. Evolution would no longer be directed to favor the most survivable individuals. Skin color may still change over time, but only randomly or because of mate choices. Humans could also choose to direct evolution through intentional breeding practices.
Natural selection improves the survivability of a species because random variations are placed in competition with each other and environmental conditions. Those variations with more survivable properties survive more often increasing the proportion of those with traits that enhance survivability and reproduction. Most variations don’t in themselves determine survivability. They either enhance survivability or decrease its likelihood. Natural selection requires stress that decreases the number of individuals that manage to reproduce. If everyone can survive and reproduce there is no selection.
HG groups that will have plenty of food and no other environmental factors limiting their growth will have the choice of increasing their population until they encounter the old food race or limiting their population. I would consider limiting the population to be the natural answer, but it would prevent natural selection.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 26 December 2005 @ 2:49 PM
Janene:
The testing of parents continues during their entire reproductive life. That of their offspring begins with their birth. In your example the clutch size was a test of the mother. The offspring are fortunate to have avoided the stress of the less efficient clutch size, but are just beginning to be tested by natural selection. For this situation to be analogous to what Jason was describing, the clutch size would need to be reduced to the point where there was not enough competition and environmental stress to prevent any of the offspring from surviving to reproduce. Although possible for humans, I doubt a bird species could do this, as they must compete with other species and predators. (I don’t know and it doesn’t affect this discussion, but I suspect that such a rapid change in overall clutch size would be due to an evolved ability to adjust clutch size to environmental conditions.)
Comment by Bob Harrison — 26 December 2005 @ 4:47 PM
Hey Bob-
If you can see that thier parents are being subjected to natural selection in this generation, why would they not also be subject to the same pressures as they grow up?
No one is suggesting that “there was not enough competition and environmental stress to prevent any of the offspring from surviving to reproduce.” We are simply saying that MOST of the effects of natural selection are more subtle than blatent starvation. Starvation is uncommon. Epidemic disease is unheard of outside of civilized environments — because endemic diseases NEED high population densities and poor living conditions to survive for any length of time, and true war, likewise, is not seen in ‘natural’ populations.
Living in an uncivilized environment is not the same thing as ‘no environmental stresses’ — its just different and frequently more subtle stresses. And because it is more subtle, it is also more effective from an evolutionary standpoint.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 28 December 2005 @ 6:18 PM
Janene:
You can consider the stress subtle, but it must be strenuous enough to cause some individuals healthy enough to survive otherwise to die before they reproduce. In an egalitarian tribe this would put everyone under more stress then they would tolerate if they could avoid it. Individuals that die before they reproduce because of a fatal genetic flaw don’t pollute the gene pool but their deaths have no effect on the selection of traits in the rest of the population. Without enough stress to cause additional deaths you will have genetic drift but not selection for those traits that would enhance survivability in the environment. That is OK, since everyone is living to reproduce we don’t need to evolve further. What I am trying to say is that we should be able to recognize that by choosing to limit our numbers instead of allowing the food race to do it we have avoided natural selection. Other animals can’t decide to do this.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 28 December 2005 @ 8:01 PM
Hey Bob –
You’re still missing the point.
The Food Race is NOT the only way to put stress on a population, and death is not the only way to affect the gene pool.
Beneficial traits will be increased in the gene pool by the slightest advantage.
This is the way it occurs for ALL animals. Why would it be different for humans?
Show me a single mammal that regularly starves to death and I’ll reconsider, but the fact is that this is not what actually happens in natural population demographics.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 28 December 2005 @ 10:19 PM
Janene:
I will pick groundhogs, because I was familiar with them when I lived on a ridge in WV. Starving is a real danger for them because they come out of hibernation before their food sources are available. They spend a few dates mating and then plants had better be sprouting or they will starve. This is why it’s so important for them to be certain they know when winter is ending.
As far as I know all mammals will reproduce at a rate fast enough to keep their population increasing. If other environmental stress (predators, weather, disease, lack of water, fire, etc.) doesn’t prevent it, the population will increase until some individuals starve.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 28 December 2005 @ 11:02 PM
Hey Bob –
Hmm… yeah, hybernating animals may be somewhat different on this score, but it is a very different adaptation as well. From what I could find, most starvation among groundhogs takes the form of ‘not emerging from hybernation’. So, for groundhogs, scarcity, bad luck and bad weather — and possibly some residual bad adaptations — lead them to fail to acheive great enough body mass over the summer months, so that when they go into hybernations, they sometimes simply do not wake up again.
But I do think this is somewhat different from starvation in non-hybernating mammals. After all, there is no ’suffering’ involved in the process.
I have to admit, that there is often talk about the big cats — the amount of energy they expend on the hunt, and the devastating effect of a couple of bad hunts on thier potential to survive (which is of course, then reverted as soon as they DO have a successful hunt) Question is, if the environment were not emaciated by human activity, would their chances of a successful hunt be much higher than they are today?
The other point to make on groundhogs, however, is the relationship between what you are saying here and what I have been trying to express.
Groundhog yearlings are the least likely to survive over winter. Apparently, there seems to be a direct relationship between when they are weaned and thier chances for survival the following winter. If they are weaned early in the summer, they have more time to build body fat, and therefore a much greater chance for survival. Likewise, once an animal survives a winter, they are more likely to survive the next.
Next point, those that do survive thier first year (and subsequent) will bear young in the spring in proportion to the available food: ie, if there is a lot of food early, they are more likely to have a larger litter AND more likely to wean thier young early enough to allow them to survive. So while the young ‘pay the price’ by surviving or not thier first season, whether they do is affected more by the environmental stresses and responses of thier parents than by thier own behavior(or genetic profile).
Janene
Comment by Janene — 29 December 2005 @ 11:05 AM
First, I would consider time to be an environmental factor so age is ‘natural’. Secondly, genetic variations are only flaws within an environmental context, within a malarial swamp the gene for sickle cell anemia is a boon.
Secondly, natural selection works by causing less fit members of a population to reproduce less than the more fit members.
Here again, the stress only needs to be strenuous enough to cause some individuals to reproduce less.
Hmm…Where do you think the offspring are getting their genetic code from?
It seems to me that you are saying that evolution cannot work unless individuals in a population are dying from extreme causes. However, a subtle environmental constraint that allows women who have children at 5 year intervals to have 3 children, but women who have children at 4 year intervals to only have 2, will tend to expand the population of 5 year mothers. No one in this scenario has to die a tragic or horrible death.
As for population control among animals: Have you read “My Ishmael” (I think, it might have been “Ishmael”) by Daniel Quinn? He mentions a rodent species that has a survival strategy involving the killing of the young. Does this put that species beyond evolution? I don’t think so, because behaviors like this evolve in the same way as appearance or ability.
JimFive
Comment by JimFive — 29 December 2005 @ 11:19 AM
Janene and JimFive:
First, although Malthus may have seen the problem as not enough food instead of too large a population, he was correct in stating that a species will increase their numbers as long as they have enough food and are not limited by other environmental factors. Darwin agreed and so does Daniel Quinn. If this is true then all species, except humans, will increase their numbers until their population is limited by environmental factors. This type of limitation prevents those individuals least able to cope from reproducing. Do either of you know of a species that in ideal conditions would not increase its numbers to the limit of its available resources?
If the environmental conditions necessary to support a species are variable, that species could not maintain its maximum population without deaths unless it could change its birth rate by anticipating these changing conditions. Natural selection is a process without intelligence and cannot anticipate. Natural selection occurs because genes with variations that cause traits that increase the likelihood of the gene’s reproduction are increased in the gene pool increasing the chances of individuals being born with those traits.
Let’s try an example of birds with changing clutch sizes. I will assume that some of these birds have evolved the ability to adjust clutch size determined by the prevalence of a particular parasite, which is more destructive in a crowded nest. The genes of the birds that can adjust their clutch size will become more prevalent in the gene pool only if more of the young of those without this ability die. It is the parents’ genes that are being tested here. Although more of the surviving young may now have this ability, it is the traits that are caused by new variations that need yet to be tested to see how they affect the gene pool. Notice that although the variable clutch size survived, it requires the deaths of some of those without this quality to increase their proportion in the gene pool.
Species can and do evolve methods of decreasing their reproduction rate in adverse circumstances. If this were successful enough to prevent any deaths, how do we get more genes with improvements into the gene pool? The only means would be those variations that reproduce more copies of themselves. But this would increase the birth rate and eventually cause deaths. As far as I know there are species that adjust their birth rate but only enough to prevent gross overkill. Selecting genes without deaths can only select for reproducibility.
Selection for abilities to survive environmental stress requires those with the least ability to die. I will try another example to illustrate this. When I lived in WV I had pigs that were free running with other animals. These pigs had a very useful ability in the winter. They could smell apples, pears, and other edibles through the snow. My mules, ponies, goats, dogs, and cows didn’t have this ability. They would follow the pigs to find these things.
Suppose a few wild ponies evolved with genes for this ability. If they lived in an area with plenty of vegetation for the pony population there would be no reason that this gene variation would be increased. They would enjoy treats the other ponies couldn’t find but the next generations would not have more ponies with enhanced smelling abilities. Only when food became so scarce that the ability to smell it caused more of these ponies to survive and reproduce would the proportion of super smelling ponies increase.
JimFive:
These responses were not addressed above:
I said that death by old age was “natural�
What I meant by a genetic flaw was a variation that caused death.
Genetic code changes very gradually so that most of the code in genes of an individual have been previously and are continually being tested. What is tested for the first time during the life of an individual is the new unique combination with whatever new variations it might have.
As Benjamin stated above in this thread, evolution will continue as long as there is life. Natural selection to improve qualities other than reproductive requires deaths.
I have read Ishmael but not By Ishmael. As I said above I don’t believe any animal will limit its population if it has enough resources not to. It is when humans, who can anticipate, decide to avoid the “food race� that its called artificial selection. Artificial doesn’t make it wrong or stop evolution.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 29 December 2005 @ 7:36 PM
Hey Bob –
Of course all populations will naturally grow to ‘fill thier nitch. Who has said differently?
But the fluctuation is dramatic only in dramatic situations. Asteroid crashes into the planet, population levels will plummet from all causes. But in the normal course of events, natural attrition, reduced birth rates and increased infant death rates will account for most of that fluctuation.
No, natural selection itself has no intelligence or design nor any way to anticipate… however, it is VERY GOOD at giving species the ability to do so for themselves. There is a reason that birth rates drop in times of scarcity — because it improves the individuals chances of surviving to reproduce at a later time.
No one has said ‘prevent any deaths.’ We have said that FAMINE, PESTILENCE and WAR are not the primary mechanisms of natural selection and certainly NOT, as you implied, the ONLY mechanisms.
Of course it would. The ponies with the mutant gene would bear more surviving young than ponies without those genes. In time, the success of the adaptation would spread through thte entire population.
‘The Food Race’ is not a euphamism for ‘any selection pressure’. It very specifically refers to the positive feedback loop between population and food supply within an agricultural system.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 29 December 2005 @ 11:43 PM
Janene
“Suppose a few wild ponies evolved with genes for this ability. If they lived in an area with plenty of vegetation for the pony population there would be no reason that this gene variation would be increased.”
“Of course it would. The ponies with the mutant gene would bear more surviving young than ponies without those genes. In time, the success of the adaptation would spread through thte entire population.”
I don’t understand. Why would healthy ponies with normal noses bear fewer surviving young than those with super noses?
Comment by Bob Harrison — 30 December 2005 @ 12:03 AM
Hey –
Because the ponies with the advantageous gene would be able to find more food at times when it is scarce. So when mating season comes along, they would be stronger and healthier, more likely to concieve, more likely to successfully give birth and more likely to bear healthy offspring.
Otherwise, you are relegating natural selection to only a negative mechanism: it would NEVER be able to select among advantageous genes, only lethal ones…
Janene
Comment by Janene — 30 December 2005 @ 12:10 AM
Janene:
When surviving in spite of environmental limitations is the selecting factor, only a few of those of the disadvantageous variation must die. This process does gradually select for more advantageous traits although only a few are dying from environmental stresses.
The process you are speaking of works well for traits that affect reproduction. However, for traits that improve survivability only to the extent they also improve reproduction. This will only happen in the real world while a species is increasing to fill its nitch. A species that had unlimited resources and no enemies that caused deaths would evolve in this manner while improving its reproductive rate. If it were in a non-infinite environment, however, it would reach the limits of its resources and revert to normal natural selection with deaths.
This scenario will only be avoided if births are limited either naturally or intentionally. If this is the case, however, an increased reproductive ability will not be an advantage. We are left with genetic drift or, if under intentional control, artificial selection.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 31 December 2005 @ 1:21 PM
You keep saying it, but it keeps not being true.
Comment by JimFive — 31 December 2005 @ 1:53 PM
JimFive: Happy New Year
Selection for abilities to survive environmental stress requires those with the least ability to die.
I think in context you should have seen that I meant natural selection. Selection that occurs because of mating choice or elimination of variations unable to reproduce will not select for adaptations that improve a species ability to survive environmental conditions. Only artificial selection, where mates are intentionally selected for survivable qualities, can accomplish this.
Natural selection is based on the principle that all species increase exponentially until they reach environmental limits by producing more than enough young to maintain a constant population. When the environmental limit is reached the death rate must meet the birth rate to maintain a constant population. At this time those individuals least able to survive die and the species adapts to its environment A species that evolved the ability to control its birth rate and prevent this process would be an exception to this principle. When the population is not yet environmentally stressed, sexual selection occurs. This process will select for reproductive ability and qualities that affect mate preference.
If you know how natural selection could select the more fit individuals without eliminating some of the unfit please explain.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 2 January 2006 @ 10:24 AM
Hey Bob –
It strikes me that you are describing the mechanisms of ‘Punctuated Equilibrium’ but in a way that suggests that that speciation event occurs constantly…
To back up a little…
Evolutionary Biology has two primary schools of thought. Punctuated Equilibrium and Stable State. Both consider the mutation rate to be statistically constant.
What they disagree on is the way that these mutations move through a population. Obviously direct, fatal mutations are always self eliminating, but then we need to consider adaptions that slightly improve or hinder organisms.
In Punctuated Equilibrium, these adaptions build up within a population with little or no effect until an environmental change occurs. The smaller the population size and the more isolated it is, the more dramatic these changes will be as a result. This is the point where you normally see speciation events… assuming that the affected adaptions (mutations) have spread through the population effectively, once the crisis is passed there is a decent chance that the remaining population is distinctly different from the original.
In Stable State, the argument is that mutation rates AND adaptive changes in the population overall both occur at a relatively stable rate. So what happens is that slight improvements in adaptive traits confer slight advantages to the host animal allowing them to be slightly more successful doing all of the things that allow them to survive and propogate.
In my mind, both of this scenarios occur in natural populations. Gradual genetic drift over time combined with dramatic events in times of stress. This, to me, is the most logical and complete view of both drift and speciation.
Now, I would like to point out that if you decide to read up on PE that you be a bit cautious. I have described PE as originally presented by Gould et al back in the `70’s. However, since that time, the theory has been driven into more extreme territory — that ALL change ONLY occurs during puctuation events, perhaps some hints of group selection (which is blantantly and demonstrably false, IMHO) etc. Even Gould himself appears to have gone along with some of this… but that is distinctly different from what I am talking about and willing to consider plausible.
On your last question: natural selection can select the more fit, simply by MORE, more fit individuals being born into the population. At the end of the day, ALL selection CAN BE reproductive… ie, a really good hunter is more likely to survive to reproduce than a poor one, someone that walks a little more silently is slightly more like to avoid predation… so one, and so forth. Very subtle effects that can and do affect the whole population on an extremely large time scale (and then magnified, for short sudden bursts in times of stress.)
Janene
Comment by Janene — 2 January 2006 @ 1:13 PM
uhhhhhhh………
Comment by hello — 18 January 2006 @ 4:43 PM
What is here being referred to as “environmental stress” are in fact all completely natural factors in the living systems of this planet. Of course any population will increase if there are zero factors affecting lifespan other than “old age”. But that is a straw argument if ever there was one — it will never happen, has never happened. Predators, weather, drought, etc., are all factors that have and will ALWAYS be around and impact populations (especially mammals), so what is the point being made here?
Comment by visitor — 28 January 2006 @ 1:50 PM
The suggestion is that the natural world is a brutal thing where populations are kept in check only by the unrelenting cruelty of its existence, and starvation in times of want.
In fact, it almost never comes to that. When the lion population grows, the herds of gazelle decrease. Fewer gazelle are harder to find, so lionesses spend more time hunting–and less time having sex. That lowers the birth rate, which lowers the population. With less predation, the gazelle population goes up, making them easier to find, so the lionesses don’t have to spend so much time hunting. That gives them more time to have sex, so the birth rate goes up, so the lion population expands, and so much predation brings down the gazelle population. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Starvation is only the most extreme control available–and rarely used.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 January 2006 @ 7:32 PM
Visitor:
The point is that I am attempting to critique a theory that seems to be a basic premise here.
It is a fact that Paleolithic humans maintained an almost constant population. It’s also a fact that evidence shows that many of them were well nourished. There is controversy as to why this is so. It is possible that predators, diseases, hunting accidents, homicide, tribal conflicts, infanticide, birth control, child neglect, sometimes food limitations, or a combination of these, controlled their population. There are a few anthropologists and a primate named Ishmael who believe, as Jason and Janene seem to, that natural populations are controlled by a demographic homeostasis that controls fertility and prevents stressful living due to resource availability.
This is important because this theory of a “biological guiding hand� supports their assertion that hunter gathers did not and will not need to be consciously concerned about population control. In this way they were and will be exempt from the tragedy of the commons.
I am at a disadvantage because my background is in electronic control systems and not in anthropology or biology. However I have a strong intuition that this theory is false. I need more time to critique it properly. I intend to do that, but I don’t want to participate in a “pissing contest� now.
Jason: The last time you responded with this answer, (http://anthropik.com/2006/01/thesis-26-collapse-is-inevitable/#comment-4457) I asked for a reference. You didn’t give one but, as I indicated above, I have found some.
Although this natural world is full of suffering, I don’t consider it cruel as that would require intention.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 30 January 2006 @ 8:03 PM
Most hunter-gatherers have cultural practices that limit their population, as well. Extended breastfeeding periods are not only healthier, but they also space out birth. Consciously, though, foragers tend to identify these as freeing the mother from carrying children more than spacing out births. Emic and etic.
That’s difficult–it’s a fairly basic tenet of ecology, and basics are always difficult to cite, since everyone takes it for granted. Dr. Thornhill addresses this in detail in his video with Daniel Quinn, “Food Production and Population Growth.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 January 2006 @ 10:20 PM