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Wednesday, February 27, 2019

A thin layer of technology



When you think about it, in the grand sweep of human existence, our technological world is a fairly new development. I’m pretty much measuring from the start of the industrial age. We’ve had technological advancement before then. When you think about it, stone axes, bows and arrows, and fire making were huge steps in our development. In the early days technological improvement happened at a glacial pace.

Personally, I think the bronze age was a high point. We had metal working, organized cities, writing, complex social structures, city planning, International trade, treaties and so on. Significant areas of the world were civilized.

Technology really got going in the industrial age. Once fossil fuels were harnessed, the scale of everything changed. Humanity was no longer limited by the power of a growing season’s sunshine. Coal, oil and gas are basically a store for thousand’s of years worth of sunlight. We’ve had a huge explosion of technological advancement in the last two hundred years. On the scale of human existence, that’s a short time.

We really aren’t all that different physically from our stone age ancestors. Humanity has a heck of a lot more experience at being hunter gatherers than anything else. Mentally, we are struggling with this whole civilization and technology thing. Don’t believe me? Study after study shows how our mental condition is improved with just 20 minutes of exposure to the natural world a day. Humanity needs nature to thrive.

So while we’ve had civilization for something like 10,000 years, that’s hasn’t been long enough to totally transform us. At our core we need to walk among the trees, stroll along the beach and run barefoot in the grass.

That and maybe we need to kill something with a spear. That’s not too far down under our thin technological veneer.

-Sixbears

10 comments:

  1. You might enjoy the book, "Blinded by Science" by Matthew Silverstone.

    I get strengthened outdoors and walk around in "grounding" shoes when I can.

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  2. I took my ballistic spear into the bush last night. Didn't manage to put a hole in anything to convert it into dinner but I did come back refreshed from the walk in the trees.

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    1. Always enjoyable to take the boomstick for a walk.

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  3. I just finished re-reading a book about the collapse of the bronze age. Some of it was a little too high up the academic scale (I don't speak latin or greek) but all in all I thought it was interesting. I probably won't read it again, have had it for years. If you want it, email me an address and I'll send it to you. If not, I'll give it to the Humane Society Thrift store with a bunch of other one's I'm sorting out. You can reach me at philipnolan1953@gmail.com

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  4. Well, it isn't a spear, but when I stab the steak with a fork, I get a bit of smugness run through me :^).

    "That and maybe we need to kill something with a spear. That’s not too far down under our thin technological veneer."

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    1. Nice to be a bit higher up on the food chain, isn't it?

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  5. I have killed deer with a bow and arrow, well, actually the arrow killed the deer, the bow just propelled the arrow. Also with firearms. Deer. squirrel, rabbit, etc. have decorated my dinner plate many times.

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    1. I missed the whole hunting season with my leg infection. Was looking forward to that. Oh well, maybe next time.

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