music 2.0

[PsyTox]

I need to read more about these guys. A lot of aspects of their culture were really positive. If you look at their acheivements in civilisation, their artwork, thier astronomy. Those guys were not Barbarians.

They were the greatest scientists of their era and even now many of their findings still stand. But nevertheless, they were at the same time a very savage bunch who were extremely cruel to enemies.

These sacrifices weren't a thing of "let's offer the gods a piece of meat on sunday": these were done daily and often in a constant stream. I don't know if you have ever heard or been to Chitzen Itza, the old Mayan city in Mexico. It's an amazing place with even a star watch and huge temples and marvellous buildings, but there's also their sacred cenote where they threw the corpses in of the ones they sacrificed. Explorer Jacques Cousteau once decended in the pit to try and determine how many bodies were in there. he had to stop after a while, because the number of skeletons in there seemed endless.

Just to tell you, this idea of old tribes being peaceful is very wrong. Violence isn't something the Europeans exported, it was available everywhere. Which is only logical as we all come from the same source material, so why would it be any different.

Anyway, the point of it all: mankind is a violent beast and will not stop until everything is depleted and we all die as a species, making room for whatever comes next. It's the way history works. Kinda puts a perspective on the vinyl vs digital debate

[ChrisCV]

Referring to your last point, I don't think we can speculate too much on the conditions of ancient cultures. So much of their knowledge was quickly labelled as 'primitive' and quickly lost or deleted, but time and time again we're being shown that they knew more than they were given credit for.

don't get me wrong... i have the up most respect for ancient civilisations... with their resources and technology they achieved some incredible things... some of the temples they built and achievements they made is nothing short of breathtaking... i was amazed at the peruvian temples built by these huge stones... precision cut without lasers and transported hundreds of miles... placed together in a way that made them incredibly earthquake resistant... add to that they pyramids, great wall of china... all amazing feats of achievement...

but my point is it wasn't all fairytales and happy living... life was hard... the toils were constant... no civilisation had it better than we do now in the developed world. no civilisation has as much free time as we do.... we've come along way from the lessons of previous civilisations...

The current floods in Australia are a good demonstration of that... 50,000 years of life understanding the geology of the continent quickly brandished as tribal stupidity and margnialised... those floods are a reminder of the real truth... shame that it's not the perpetrators that are paying the cost right now.

i'm not sure what aborigine knowledge you're talking about has been brandished as stupid... and who the perpetrators are?? but i'm guessing its more of the lets live life in harmony with the planet chat vs the polluters causing global warming maybe?? if that's the case, then the current austrailian floods are not a very good example... flooding in that area happens... floods this big have happened before thoughout austrailia's history.... the cause is mainly due to the natural La Nina cycle, which is a pacific atmospheric/oceanic phenomenon... like El Nino it flips the climate on its head... causes higher surface sea temperatures which energises the atmosphere with moisture... when it hits the cooler air over austrailia you get lots of rain... this year was a particularly strong la nina hence the massive flooding... but its happened before...

so maybe the aborigines were clever enough not to live there... but like i say... population density drives you to spread out and therefore weigh up risks vs continued well being. as for the perpetrators... i'm not sure if there really are any for the Oz floods.

In some ways I think we have to accept that life is kinda spazzy... Like evolution is kind of a grim truth... it's about death to the stupid/weak. But in some ways we've reached the capacity of letting genetics guide us... cos we are now the masters of the planet... it's fate rests in the hands of our "civilisation"

not really... evolution is more the phasing out of those less suited to the environment... not really those that are weak or stupid... loads of stupid things survive...and we are far from masters of the planet... i one swoop we could be easily wiped out... nature giveth and she can taketh... just look at all the natural disasters and famines that can happen...

I think it's now become more complicated than population density... I mean the centre of density issue is resource supply versus need. But in some ways it's not about that, it's about equilibrium... like how can you justify luxury trainers for pride being made by slaves... or greed when others are starving.

luxury trainers are the least of worries... it all boils down to population density.... even if you spread all the world's resources fairly and equally... if the population keeps increasing there will always come a point where we will reach breaking point... its impossible to live in equilibrium with your resources without keeping your usage/the number of people utilising those resources constant with the generation of new resources...

trainers are the least of our worries... feeding the world in the future is one of the biggest problem we face... we've already seen glimpses of it with the food riots a couple years back.... back in the day they might have had ideas to live in harmony.. but ultimately they were thinking about a fraction of the people that now exist... according to wikipedia the estimated global population in 1750AD was 791 milllion... now we're upto around 7 billion people.

[oblioblioblio]

ha ha. looks like i recevied some schooling on some issues here. interesting discussion.

hmm Aborigine knowledge like 'sometimes theres fuckloads of water... watch the fck out'.... looks like there wasn't a link in a chain of knowledge there. Or maybe it's like you say.... it was a calcualted risk...e.g. my last employer are happy to build on floodplains.

Masters of the planet is not the right phrase... what I mean to say is that the decisions we make now have much more impact than previously... for example destroying an entire ecosystem, or depleting the worlds supply of a resource. But perhaps thats just another event in mankinds resource usage history.

i was just using trainers as an example of inequality... something quite distorted about someone who can't afford to eat making products to feed someones ego/insecurity.

[stevësto]

morphine is a hell of a drug

[jackbrazzo]

but the same technology and development that has let us thrive will ultimately decimate us.

How true - some really good comments guys here - Will have to get the book recommendations - then find time to read it!