I think the big difference between hunter and gatherers to civilized man is that organic tools are found in abundance amongst nature where anyone can use them in comparison to synthetic/prosthetic tools which one needs specialization in utilization not to mention alot of abstract tools just to form the object.
What are other people’s thoughts on this?
I think you hit the target with your speculation, TheJoker.
Everything comes from the earth. The question lies in how much complexity it took in order to shape or transform the thing from its natural state into its man-made state.
I can make some twine from yucca leaves with just a round rock and a tree stump to pound the fibers out. I could also make twine from polymers if I had a way to drill oil, refine it, process the refined oil into a polymer, and then manufacture the polymer as a long thin strand. After that point, my polymer fibers bear enough resemblance for me to twine them the same way.
I have heard of civilization likened to a Rube Goldberg machine–think the Breakfast Machine in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Civilization uses an enormous amount of complexity in order to deliver us the same “products” we could fashion for ourselves if we had the knowledge.
[quote=“WildeRix, post:2, topic:222”]I think you hit the target with your speculation, TheJoker.
Everything comes from the earth. The question lies in how much complexity it took in order to shape or transform the thing from its natural state into its man-made state.
I can make some twine from yucca leaves with just a round rock and a tree stump to pound the fibers out. I could also make twine from polymers if I had a way to drill oil, refine it, process the refined oil into a polymer, and then manufacture the polymer as a long thin strand. After that point, my polymer fibers bear enough resemblance for me to twine them the same way.
I have heard of civilization likened to a Rube Goldberg machine–think the Breakfast Machine in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Civilization uses an enormous amount of complexity in order to deliver us the same “products” we could fashion for ourselves if we had the knowledge.[/quote]
I agree.
It would seem that the hierarchy of civilization only exists to keep a monopoly on such abstract tools that people are fooled/coerced into believing they need or also that they can not live without such dependencies when infact these same people could substain themselves by their own hands without the authority of noone but themselves.
Human beings have the will and survival skills to live relatively self sufficient or indepedent lives but it is the mental submission of the mind extended from the entity of civilization that we have created that leads us away from our true potential.
There is a old reluctant philosophical proverb that I like to go by in the discussion of the civilized abstract:
" Civilization was born out of man’s own weakness."
I agree also. When you look at the energy it takes to make things “easier” it rarely pans out. The only reason we think it does is derrick jensens idea of “ghost slaves”. Someone or something else paid for our abundance and we are so abstracted we don’t even realize it. But even on a personal level I think most any housewife will tell you that the bigger the house and the more appliances the more work there is to do. It’s insidious in that way. Having a dishwasher just encourages you to dirty more dishes. Having electricity just encourages you to leave on the lights.
In philosophy there is the saying that the more quantitative complexities that arises the more vices one becomes enslaved to.
