A good friend to whom I forwarded this post responded with:
"But the government and the state are just other businesses"
Somebody else's $0.02 euros.
From: Eric Armstrong <eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com>
> (long, philosophical)
>
> Kent wrote:
> >
> > BTW, did you happen to read any of the "Ishamel" books yet?
> >
> In fact, I have. Finished Ishmael. Now working on My Ishmael.
> Very thought-provoking, and very interesting. However, it also
> seems belittle some of the real problems with the hunter/
> gatherer lifestyle.
>
> It does make good points that synchronize well with the
> "Caveman diet" proposition, however. It was either Ishmael or
> the beyondVegetarianism.com web site that made some excellent
> points regarding the suitability of available land for
> agriculture -- to the effect that 2/3 of all available land is
> *not* suited for agriculture, making herding the only reasonable
> use of the land. Not to mention the damage done by plowing, etc.,
> which would seem to make a herding-based culture much more
> sustainable. The fact that the "Caveman diet" produced by
> eliminating grains produces such extraordinary health and
> energy is, of course, an additional benefit.
>
> Again, though, there is the issue of the problems with the
> hunter/gatherer lifestyle -- mainly the fact that one can
> find oneself cold, wet, and hungry -- and generally miserable
> a fair amount of the time.
>
> Now, from reading Ishmael, the solution seems to be to turn
> off the minds that *think* they know the difference between
> good and evil, and willingly submit to the culling of the
> tribe that accompanies hard times. However, that just ain't
> going to happen. So what is the alternative?
>
> The really desirable alternative, I'm afraid, is climatically
> impossible. In general, I'm a big believer in Garden of Eden/
> Atlantis legends. Somewhere back in remote times, I suspect
> there was a time when the climate was really temperate, food
> readily available, and there was little need for intelligence
> to develop.
>
> [Side note: I suspect that human aggressiveness developed
> side by side with intelligence, btw. I was watching a nature
> show where the lions rush in and take a zebra. The other
> zebra are all agitated, then they settle down and go back
> to grazing while the lions feast on their kill. I was
> outraged! How can you stand there and take that! Then it
> occurred to me that the rage I felt had a lot of explanatory
> power -- our ancestors felt the same thing. They not only
> banded together, wielding their clubs to beat off the lions,
> but if one was successful, they pursued that critter to the
> ends of the earth to finish it off -- and buried the carcass
> just for spite! "He may have killed one of us before we could
> get there, but he is by god not going to derive one damn
> morsel from it. That aggressiveness -- and the memory capacity
> to hold a grudge -- explains both our burial rituals and the
> fact that there is no animal left on earth that considers
> man as reasonable prey, because we exterminate(d) any animal
> with the genes to think we are... That, too, is an aspect of
> the human condition that Ishmael seems to overlook.]
>
> Anyway, to get back to the Garden of Eden... I've thought for
> a very long time that if (a) It were warm and (b) food were
> readily available, then there would be very little need for
> the massive civilization we have built. However...
>
> The climate is *not* warm. That produces the need for housing,
> heating, available water, and plumbing. Personally, I think a
> comet came by and swiped us, and we are still seeing the
> perturbations millions of years later -- including shifting
> continents, weather patterns produced by the rising of the
> Himalayas, the wobble in our orbit, droughts and deserts,
> hurricanes, and all the rest. (I'm thinking that if you smashed
> a billiard ball into a fluid-filled tennis ball, and then slowed
> down the time scale a million times, you would have very similar
> effects. Similarly, if you could speed up the earth's changes
> a million times or so, we would probably recognize the changes
> as continuations of an initial collision.
>
> Now, the need for housing, plumbing, and all the rest leads to
> the division of labor that produces our civilization. Meanwhile,
> the shifting seasons present the need for food storage, since
> one can starve to death over the course of a long winter.
>
> Now admittedly, mankind is utterly failing to do it's part to
> *create* a Garden of Eden -- a situation I find utterly
> deplorable. With all the advances in genetic engineering, I have
> not seen so much as *one* project devoted to crossing wild strains
> with domestic strains, in order to produce full, fleshy fruits
> that will thrive virtually anywhere without cultivation. Instead,
> I have seen project after project aimed at producing a tomato
> that can withstand stronger pesticides -- so we can sell more
> poisons and trash our environment even more, while making a better
> profit.
>
> Given that we *can't* control the environment, I think it behooves
> us to do as much as we can with what we have. That means coming as
> close to a garden of eden as we can, within extant constraints.
>
> But we are not doing that. Why? We have the technology to begin
> moving in that direction -- but *all* of our efforts are governed
> by the profit motive. And that motive is very likely to damn us
> all to oblivion, because the quest for profit tends towards short-
> term decision making that can have potentially deadly long term
> consequences. (Example: Ford "gets it" that SUVs are a danger to
> other drivers, to the environment, and to oil supplies. And more
> than most they try to limit the damage. But if they stopped making
> them, they wouldn't be profitable -- someone *else* would make
> them, and their profits would disappear. Now, is that sad, or what?)
>
> These are areas where government activity seems to me to be the
> only effective vehicle. Governments should be strenuously funding
> truly beneficial genetic engineering. Business just isn't going
> to do it. Governments should be aggressively funding studies of
> herbal remedies, nutritional cures, and disease-prevention through
> nutrition. Business isn't going to do it.
>
> But guess what? Government programs are *so* widely influenced by
> business, that government isn't doing it either! This leads to my
> basic proposition: The one weak link in our entire civilization,
> the one problem that prevents all the *other* problems from being
> solved, is the lack of separation between business and state.
>
> The framers of our constitution saw the need to separate church
> and state. In one stroke, they prevented the excessive and abusive
> exercises of power that characterized other nations, and they
> prevented religions from exerting a stranglehold on government
> action. However, they could not have foreseen the rise of the
> industrial civilization that is now exercising a new kind of power,
> frequently in ways that ultimately harmful. (On television last
> night, there were drugs to make you go to sleep, drugs to fix
> your upset stomach, drugs to solve you "social anxiety" problems,
> and drugs for a variety of other conditions. There were also ads
> for cereals, soft drinks, beer, and dozens of other fun but
> so essentially-unhealthy substances that they should be treated
> like cigarettes -- you can sell them, but you can't advertise
> them. When you add up all the harmful things that are being sold
> over the airwaves, it's pretty sickening, really.)
>
> So how, HOW, does one achieve a separation of business and state?
> What does that mean? What does it translate to in terms of things
> that the government can and cannot do? The question is important,
> because I'm not sure there is any way for culture to begin
> approaching a garden of eden, unless we answer it.
>
> [Final note: The "back to nature" movement, as appealing as it
> is in some respects, needs some controls, too. I mean, it's nice
> to travel to Ireland. Who on earth would stand behind the ticket
> window and make that possible, were it not for the wage they
> earn in the process? Who would make the guitars I enjoy playing,
> and how would I get to those sessions where I can play them?
> True, we have a lost a lot. But we have also gained a lot. How
> can two such fundamentally different approaches to life ever be
> reconciled, if at all?]
>
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