RE: ~1.5~ Reimagining Civilization: What does a free society look like?
I really need to go through your other posts.
There is much to be said for SBHG. I believe it's how we evolved and is our natural setting. I was recently discussing with someone else how civilisations never last and need to change in order to not disappear. Yet the hunter gatherers still exist to this day in places largely unchanged until the "civilised" world intervenes. Historically, every time a civilisation does collapse the people go back to the hunter gatherer ways.
One question it raises for me is, are we too over populated to return to hunter gathering without stripping the landscapes bare? Because this way of life relies on nature replenishing as we go through, whereas with farming we can give nature a hand by cycling things around the land.
I’ve felt the same way for a long time now. I think people tend to put every civilization that didn’t have metal tools and large governmentsin into one boat and confuse them all as hunter gatherers. So they think SBHG lbs were just as violent, if not more so, as State societies. But true SBHG didn’t have domesticated animals or plants and their bands were under 150 people in size. By the time Europeans came to the Americas centralization had already started and agricultural tribes were already displacing the SBHG people. Same for Africa where the Bontu people who displaced almost all African SBHG people. Once domestication of animals and or plants happens, peace and egalitarianism degrades. Population size could be to blame, or the lifestyle, and concept of ownership could be.
You ask a good question, I think permaculture offers a good mix and solution. But I do think we are too overpopulated for everyone to enjoy the quality of life I laid out in this post. So I think a slow decline in population would be best for humanity. Somewhere around the 3 billion mark is sustainable if we don’t further degrade our earth.
Concept of ownership is something that had been cropping up a lot of late. It certainly does create a lot of fighting. Even back when there were SBHG I suspect most of the fighting would have been over roaming areas. I imagine coming to your usual place of abundance for the time of year and finding someone else got there first is quite worrying if your people rely on it.