My friend Tony just posted an interesting yet mistaken entry dealing with society and conlict to his live jornal. Tony begins the meat of his post by building an image construct of two societies one with pletiful resorces and space, while another impovershed and lacking in space.
Tony: societies living in large environments with abundant natural resources (fertile soil, thriving aquatic life, rich mineral deposits, etc.) that allow for large & dense populations inevitably end up with specialized workers (because a small subset of the population can produce enough food for everybody), social hierarchies (indicating that human society needs hierarchy in order to scale), complex artwork (resulting from the increased freedom afforded by intensive farming) & military force (to defend themselves as well as to expand their territory).
Tony: people living in small harsh environments with scarce natural resources that restrict population growth tended to remain (or revert to) loosely organized egalitarian societies that lived in harmony with each other and nature. They made virtually no technological, religious, political or artistic progress because they could achieve a sustainable lifestyle by spending all their time foraging & hunting but had neither incentive nor opportunity to advance beyond that. This is the sort of society that many people yearn for today because of it's simplicity, tranquility & equality.
After painting us this picture he goes on to say that societies as the later are "always" decimated by like the first type and that the , "issue at stake is that of competition." Yes, Tony fails to see the this idea that we live in a large enviroment with abundant natural resources is flawed. Now that humanity lives every where on the planet we live in a situation where population growth needs to be restricted (for if not we have no chance of developing beond this planet). Aditionaly the people of the earth are now able to talk to eachother every where, we are one society fighting with it self.
Tony: societies living in large environments with abundant natural resources (fertile soil, thriving aquatic life, rich mineral deposits, etc.) that allow for large & dense populations inevitably end up with specialized workers (because a small subset of the population can produce enough food for everybody), social hierarchies (indicating that human society needs hierarchy in order to scale), complex artwork (resulting from the increased freedom afforded by intensive farming) & military force (to defend themselves as well as to expand their territory).
Tony: people living in small harsh environments with scarce natural resources that restrict population growth tended to remain (or revert to) loosely organized egalitarian societies that lived in harmony with each other and nature. They made virtually no technological, religious, political or artistic progress because they could achieve a sustainable lifestyle by spending all their time foraging & hunting but had neither incentive nor opportunity to advance beyond that. This is the sort of society that many people yearn for today because of it's simplicity, tranquility & equality.
After painting us this picture he goes on to say that societies as the later are "always" decimated by like the first type and that the , "issue at stake is that of competition." Yes, Tony fails to see the this idea that we live in a large enviroment with abundant natural resources is flawed. Now that humanity lives every where on the planet we live in a situation where population growth needs to be restricted (for if not we have no chance of developing beond this planet). Aditionaly the people of the earth are now able to talk to eachother every where, we are one society fighting with it self.
