the romans would frequently talk about how going beyond the mediterranean is a folly, dead and foreign gods dwell in the seas, elements become fickle and nonstatic, the world begins to unwind after a certain point so you may as well forget what you know, you are not as adapted to new climates as the humans there are and it felt like nature knew this. deadly animals and diseases were far more numerous and the technology was much poorer and you didnt have the logistics to fix or replace what breaks.
honestly, strong agree. theres a few pockets of oasis that we have all dug ourselves into and tamed. the world itself is dangerous as hell without modern technology.
The world is dangerous but we should also not forget people who live and lived without what we call modern technology and they did so pretty well. Many people have repeatedly chosen a lifestyle that is closer to hunter-gathering than anything else, even when agriculture and infrastructure were available as alternatives. They used and use different technologies, in their own ways highly sophisticated and with a form of social organization that is arguably more sustainable (it's not capitalism, for one thing). This is/was much more feasible in areas where there were lower populations and very large amounts of natural resources so that finding food and shelter and building tools etc was not particularly challenging. We live in a world we have damaged significantly. Far fewer fish, plants, frogs, etc. The bison massacred for genocide. The bedouin forced into factories and fields. Entire landscapes left to go fallow when they had been curated by humans despite Western impressions of "the wild".
Reading old texts is a little hobby of mine and my book club. It's really fascinating how teeming with life the world used to be. Some fishers would talk about being able to almost walk on water from all the Fish off the new england coast
Yes and imagine how you could live if getting a fish meant just waking over to a pool and grabbing one. Obviously we can do that now by going to a store and handing over cash, but the convenience was surprisingly not that massively different when ecosystems were healthier and you didn't have to go get that cash by working an hour or two somewhere first.
Not that it's all perfect or is/was monolithic. Many fishing cultures had slaves and such. Humans have organized themselves in many different ways. But there are also ways in which are modern lifestyles and technologies don't represent a massive improvement in our lives. Mostly due to capitalism, of course, which claws back our gains in different ways. If we organized ourselves around human need we could all be living qualitatively better lives.
the romans would frequently talk about how going beyond the mediterranean is a folly, dead and foreign gods dwell in the seas, elements become fickle and nonstatic, the world begins to unwind after a certain point so you may as well forget what you know, you are not as adapted to new climates as the humans there are and it felt like nature knew this. deadly animals and diseases were far more numerous and the technology was much poorer and you didnt have the logistics to fix or replace what breaks.
honestly, strong agree. theres a few pockets of oasis that we have all dug ourselves into and tamed. the world itself is dangerous as hell without modern technology.
The world is dangerous but we should also not forget people who live and lived without what we call modern technology and they did so pretty well. Many people have repeatedly chosen a lifestyle that is closer to hunter-gathering than anything else, even when agriculture and infrastructure were available as alternatives. They used and use different technologies, in their own ways highly sophisticated and with a form of social organization that is arguably more sustainable (it's not capitalism, for one thing). This is/was much more feasible in areas where there were lower populations and very large amounts of natural resources so that finding food and shelter and building tools etc was not particularly challenging. We live in a world we have damaged significantly. Far fewer fish, plants, frogs, etc. The bison massacred for genocide. The bedouin forced into factories and fields. Entire landscapes left to go fallow when they had been curated by humans despite Western impressions of "the wild".
Reading old texts is a little hobby of mine and my book club. It's really fascinating how teeming with life the world used to be. Some fishers would talk about being able to almost walk on water from all the Fish off the new england coast
Yes and imagine how you could live if getting a fish meant just waking over to a pool and grabbing one. Obviously we can do that now by going to a store and handing over cash, but the convenience was surprisingly not that massively different when ecosystems were healthier and you didn't have to go get that cash by working an hour or two somewhere first.
Not that it's all perfect or is/was monolithic. Many fishing cultures had slaves and such. Humans have organized themselves in many different ways. But there are also ways in which are modern lifestyles and technologies don't represent a massive improvement in our lives. Mostly due to capitalism, of course, which claws back our gains in different ways. If we organized ourselves around human need we could all be living qualitatively better lives.