This thread is for discussing Ch. 7 - Norse Greenland's Flowering.

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Edited by: misterpessimistic  at: 6/16/05 8:22 pm

pg 228

I was again amazed by the science that allows carbon-isotope analysis of bone to show the ratio of seafood to land-food eaten by the Norse.

I love this kind of stuff!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Much of this section (chapters 6, 7 & are being covered in badmendicant's post "Greenland Collapse II".

The Norse really messed up by not be-friending the Inuit, but in the parlance of the times, I guess there was little hope of any other outcome due to prevailing predjudices and religious dogma.

I have seen a few timese in this forum that people feel that examining these smaller societies does not mesh with applying Diamond's theory to larger, global society. On page 267, Diamond touches on how this is not necessarily a good stance to take. He points out how much turmoil was cause by the oil embargo of 1973. What would we do if the oil producing nations cut off our oil supply? (Aside from pre-emptive war - lol). Would this be a function of trade relations with FRIENDLY neighbors or hostile neighbors? Whatever the case, it would hurt our country and many others big time. It would impact every economy of every country precisely BECAUSE of our global economy.

On page 273, Diamond also alludes to another modern problem of population shift. In the smaller societies studied, like Norse Greenland and Maya, when population expanded, new settlements were formed and smaller population clusters abounded. But when the well ran dry due to climate change, those outlying clusters flooded back in to the main cities and thus caused big problems for all. This Diamond likens to immigration from poor countries into "the over-crowded lifeboats" that are rich countries. Do we accept continued immigration at the risk of our own eventual collapse?

Chapter 8 closes with an example of leadership that I see today. Affluent people trying to get more at the expense of what is good for the society. It is an irritating example of an insane dichotomy that has plagued our species since that first hominid bashed his buddy on the head for the shiney little rock he wanted all for himself. We live to succeed, either biologically or otherwise, and yet we will destroy that which enables us to do so.


Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Mr P, I think that that's a very rational post. I have one small caveat and I know I'm laboring a point to the level of pedantry, but hey! Someone has to be the forum asshole.

When people talk about befriending the indigenous population why is it assumed that the indigenous populations wanted to be befriended? In a territorial conflict situation it takes two to tango. The assumption always seems to be that Western colonists just had to say, we've stolen your land but hey! stick with us and we can build a better culture together, and the two factions would have broken into a chorus of different strokes.

Edited by: badmendicant at: 6/17/05 6:18 am

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Someone has to be the forum asshole.

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You are not an asshole...you are very emotional about this issue and that is a good thing. SOmewhere along the line, I hope we all at least come to some kind of middle ground, or at least move closer to it.

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When people talk about befriending the indigenous population why is it assumed that the indigenous populations wanted to be befriended?

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Oh you are right...there may be resistance from the natives...and rightly so. It is their land that is getting stolen! But what got me is the description of the Norse cutting the Inuit and then writing so non-chalantly about HOW they bleed!

Ignorance was abundant in the past, and that is not a slight, but reality: knowledge was just not as abundant then as it is now.

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we've stolen your land but hey!

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See, this is where any defense of a conquering civilization falls. They stole the land. My mindset is that we just should not do this. Now this is very relative to who I am in today's world and must be taken with a grain of salt. I just weep over how some people treat others and feel no remorse about it.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper