Well said, Larry.Originally Posted by Larry Edgerton
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Brilliant observation!
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Country dwellers rhapsodizing about their sense of self-sufficiency on an Internet forum tickles my sense of irony.
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
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This whole thread does honestly, quite entertaining at times
Epilog Fusion M2 40 Watt CO2 Laser
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Check your history. During the great depression, there was a mass exodus of people from the cities to the country because that was the only place they could survive. If things were truly disastrous, it could happen again. Personally, I am less than two generations away from subsistence living and could get back to it if I had to. Those with no land and no assets can't do that. I make no false assumptions about the value of the internet, cell phones, electric cars or any other modern convenience or amusement. These things are trivial and I could drop them in a heartbeat if I had to. There is no rhapsodizing about it. It is not an easy way of life and I certainly don't want it.
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There's no way city people could survive in the country, even if they could get access to a farm. They just have no idea what goes into farming and animal husbandry. So if some event occurred that forced many city people to seek survival in the countryside, I expect they would come with their assault rifles and attempt to take what they needed. It would not be pretty.
I grew up on a farm and I'm happy to be living in a city now. I don't expect that such a catastrophic event will occur that will force people into survival mode.
Mike
[Some people love farming but for me, I saw it as dirty, hard work that was all day long, 365 days a year (if you have animals) for not a lot of money. I told my father that one thing that got me through college was the fear that I'd have to go back to the farm if I flunked out.]
Last edited by Mike Henderson; 04-11-2018 at 8:18 PM.
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
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If I lived in a Southern California city, I would be worried about water resources to support civilization in a desert.
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I was raised on a thousand cow outfit, I can tell you one thing I learned. Horses make walking a pleasure.
History note, the South suffered severe casualties during the civil war due to disease (compared to the north) because they were country boys. City boys had more immunity.
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Well, let me point out that we stole our water fair and square.
Remember that long before there were canals and pipes bringing water to SoCal from Northern Cal and the Colorado River, people lived here. You'd have to presuppose some complete disaster, such as nuclear war, before all water deliveries to SoCal were cut off. In the case of nuclear war, as close are we are to LA, I expect most of the people in this area would not survive the war. Those surviving would have to revert to what people did here before about 1900.
Something like a severe financial depression would not cut off the water to SoCal.
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
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I visited lake Meade a few months ago and the level is dropping precipitously. If the sources go dry, there is nothing that Californians can do about it. Somebody is going to have to move. This is just one of many examples of the fragile nature of big cities that must import everything in vast quantities from long distances. I think it is ironic that so many city dwellers whine about "sustainability" when their location and lifestyle create such enormous sustainability problems.
Last edited by Art Mann; 04-12-2018 at 10:03 AM.
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I did a software project to manage the calculations and data needed to sell our water (Arizona) to California. CA is paying our farmers (and their own) not to farm so they can use the water. That's not necessarily bad, but figured it is interesting and topical. I learned a lot about water on that project.
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Cities are not necessary for human survival. Agriculture is. We have such an abundance of food that few city dwellers realize that. Trading farm land for water so that cities can exist in the desert is necessarily bad in my judgement.
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Getting back on-topic:
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...pens-in-sweden
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If your only criteria is "survival" you're correct. But cities apparently are necessary because every society that developed and progressed created cities. Education, technology, philosophy, etc. developed in cities. For progress to occur, people need to come together to learn, teach, and develop new ideas and concepts. With companies it's the same thing. A lot of ideas develop because someone ran into someone else and started talking about an idea.
The Native Americans - to a large degree - lived the way you describe. But it was just survival - very little technological progress. And a society without technological progress will generally be overcome by one that did develop. So perhaps cities are necessary, not for human survival, but for survival of the society.
Mike
Last edited by Mike Henderson; 04-12-2018 at 2:07 PM.
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
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Of fun... slot cars for adults. and faster then a cable car.
Bill
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