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[Kogut]

ChairmanPoo is right. Hgs with life better than farmers - it was before fancy inventions like crop rotation, irrigation and centuries selective breeding (mostly accidental) of plants, animals etc.

[Osmosis Jones]

Hmmm counterintuitive at first, but it kinda makes sense; the nomadic lifestyle would prevent the wallowing in your own filth that existed prior to decent sewage systems and, coupled with the fact that HG's are small, widely seperated groups rather than a large population jammed closely together, diseases would spread far slower, preventing many plague scenarios. Also, as they ate whatever they could get, their diet was possibly more varied; quality over quantity holds with nutrition.

Still, that said, some linkage would be nice

[Montague]

Of course, all the problems inheriant in civilization are irrelevant if you abandon civilization altogether.

Why worry about a pension or medical care or mortgage payments when I can simply spend my later years doing fun, natural things like clawing at the frozen ground with my bare hands for edible tubers?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Why worry about a pension or medical care or mortgage payments when I can simply spend my later years doing fun, natural things like clawing at the frozen ground with my bare hands for edible tubers?

Worrying about those pensions and medical bills will kill you. I'm not kidding. Modern people spend their entire lives constantly under stress about financial obligations. Even if you are relatively well off over decades that has to add up to something.

In a hunter-gatherer band you wouldn't have to worry about money. And you really probably wouldn't have to worry about food all that much either. Humans are actually fairly starvation-resistant overall, and without the effects of modern society upon Earth there would be more natural food sources still out there. You are only ever going to encounter 30-50 people in your entire life, and that's a low enough number that you can care about and get along with most (if not all) of them. Disease is going to be a lot more rare since the band is isolated from other humans 99% of the time. There's no real reason for any social inequality to arise because there's very little for people to want, and what is desired exists in ample qualities.

There are certainly also negative trade offs compared to agricultural society, have no doubt, but ultimately I sometimes do wonder if we all aren't going down a horribly flawed path. What use is 75 years of life if you spend it in a constant crushing state of anxiety and depression over money and social status?

[Bauglir]

What use is 75 years of life if you spend it in a constant crushing state of anxiety and depression over money and social status?

Cheeseburgers with a glass of beer. Impossible, on several levels, in a hunter-gatherer society.

[Montague]

I'd think running around in the woods eating wild mushrooms is the exact fate people are trying to avoid when they have anxiety and depression about their finances and future.

Then without money or society, you'd have to worry about things like surviving the winter, dying of insect and water-borne diseases and happening across enough food on the ground to survive.

Though admittely, you would'nt have to worry about things like obesity or side effects of medication in the latter situation though...

[Criptfeind]

Right, I mean. Everyone is going to worry about things. You will always worry. But replacing the worry of "how successful will I be" with the worry of "Will I be able to survive next winter" is not a good trade.

[Angle]

Of course there are things where capitalism is bad and ineffective - private army is a Certified Bad Idea®. Main problem with socialized healthcare and socialized something is that often it is funded from borrowed money, what may end in interesting way (see Greece). And planned approaches can work better than free market ones - but it is different than

Soooo....
Down with Capitalism? Cause that's starting to look more and like the only answer.

without providing reasonable alternative.

In general - there are problems with large companies, broken regulation, bad regulations, very large companies, stupid regulations and random bailouts. But proper response is not "destroy capitalism and later find something better".

I did provide a reasonable alternative! Did you not see my my posts?

I think that a decentralized system in which a number of organization each work to do some task in society. The principle difference between this and capitalism is a cultural one. In this system, insatiable greed is not held up as the most holy of motivations! It is not respected, it is not rewarded, it is not encouraged! Seeking to do something well for yourself and your fellow human beings, seeking to be  a good person, a competent person, seeking to make a pleasant world for yourself and your fellows is what is respected, rewarded, and encouraged! This is whats wrong with America and a significant chunk of the world. We respect people who make money, who exercise power. We reward them for their efforts, we tell children, "Look at that guy! You should try and be that guy!" And so they do. And we wonder why things are so fucked up.

So how do we accomplish this? It's simple. We need a counterculture. Not the idiot hippy "I'ma drop acid hope everything works out" counterculture, a counterculture of "I'ma clean this shit up!". We need to band together, and assert that things should be different. More importantly, we need to demonstrate how things should be different. We start establishing our small organizations, and we work to make the world work. Not to rob it for every penny we can.

Another thing I think is important is that we recognize the value of argument, discussion, and free speech. All too often, You'll see an "argument" that consists entirely of "does too!" "does not!" "does too!" "does not!", especially in politics. This needs to go. We need to actually talk about things and discuss them. Skepticism and "proof in the pudding" should be major parts of such a society. That's why I want a gradual change instead of some overnight revolution. It'll give us time to find flaws with with such a system and create solutions. And if it doesn't work out, we can always revert to capitalism.

[Criptfeind]

So. Your saying... Capitalism with a differing culture? Or a planed economy?

[Willfor]

This world is going to kill all of us, no matter whether we have civilization or not. However, the lack of civilization is going to kill a lot more of us a lot faster. And the unfunny thing is, the people in Africa who are starving are still going to be starving. The only thing that will change is the fact that we are going to join them quickly. We're going to depopulate a large portion of our fellow species on earth as well in a desperate attempt to feed ourselves -- in fact, I believe we would cause more environmental and habitat destruction in our death throes as billions of people suddenly try to become hunter-gatherers than we are doing right this instant.

The net result of the loss of civilization would leave the world far worse off for every species excepting bacteria, and the only gain that would be made is ... well, I can't really see a gain, because I see civilization attempting to reform itself pretty much instantly, but starting off back at Despotism on the government tech tree.

Fun times!

[Angle]

Not a planned economy, no small group of people would ever be capable of running and economy. It has to be handled in a decentralized fashion. And not just a culture change, there would need to be some actual structural changes to make it stick. I'm not sure what exactly is necessary though, that's why I'm inviting discussion.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Right, I mean. Everyone is going to worry about things. You will always worry. But replacing the worry of "how successful will I be" with the worry of "Will I be able to survive next winter" is not a good trade.

That requires the knowledge of what you have to worry about, though. And it's not even about success today. It's about every waking moment being filled with constantly thinking about "debt obligations schedule work bills payment license promotion foreclosure college bankruptcy marriage insurance conference applications car money therapy" over and over again until you finally die and your relatives fight over your possessions and money once you're six feet under. I can't say that I find that very impressive.

Hunter-gatherers didn't know about the seasons and had little reason to care even if they did. If it gets uncomfortably cold somewhere they'd just move to somewhere else until they find a warmer place. It's also worth noting that most places where you would have been able to find hunter-gather bands are closer to the equator than not, so winter would be a lesser issue. "Surviving the winter" is a thing that mostly showed up when people started agriculture.

Ultimately this is all moot, though. There's no getting out of agricultural society anymore; we are far too invested in it to ever go back and there aren't any hunter-gatherers really left now.

[Criptfeind]

You are kidding right?

[Montague]

I guess he means whatever the guy in the Adbusters article was talking about.

So. Your saying... Capitalism with a differing culture? Or a planed economy?

The idea that large scale, globalized capitalism is inheriantly a doomed method, because it concentrates wealth to a small minority and consumes resources in a wildy unsustainable rate. Also because advertisment brainwashes people into docile complacency (or something.)

The alternative being that everyone lives in self-sufficient communes, er, communities and the method of resource distribution isn't important, because (in theory) the group is so small and tight-knit and there is enough there for everyone and small scale market economies are fine as long as nobody becomes too wealthy in comparison or tries to extert too much independance from the group.

Kinda like how communities like the Amish function.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You are kidding right?

No, not really. Don't go mistaking this for some neo-tribalist hippy argument, I'm just pointing out how things in our society may not be as great as we'd like to think. Is it better than hunter-gatherer society overall? Probably. Is it perfect? Hell no.