hello people just joined up .Never done anything thus before

[ZERZANZOOMSPARK]

I'm in London , a vegan since the war broke out .A slow typist.91 gulf war that is. Atheist sounds too much like Asexual for my liking. I guess I'm more Anti .Making me Anti Christ...Bit harsh soundin.Anti the whole one god squad. They lost me at witch killing. Which killing? My veganism is currently shaken after I saw John Zerzan give a talk in London 2 or 3 years ago. He pushed me into a new ,for me,camp...vegan awaiting perhaps. Waiting for what? A choice of living within an intact ecosystem . Pie in the sky perhaps. Future primitivism he called it , hunter gatherers again living free and equal in some kind of band society of around 80 people .In this lovely vision I picture myself as far more gatherer hunter than hunter gatherer. Thing being the downright evils of domestication.This seems so hard to take seriously too remote to envisage for a lot of people Ive spoken to since that talk. But it struck a chord with me and my friend Leah. Domestication lead on quickly to capital then all the nasty stuff , shamen , kings,priests,generals, slaves, surfs and whole kit kaboodle and the kitchen sink. Habitat destruction even for organic veg seems so last season thinking . Anyone out there see it that way? ZERZANZOOMSPARK

[brimstoneSalad]

Welcome, Spark.
I'm afraid you are very misinformed.

My veganism is currently shaken after I saw John Zerzan give a talk in London 2 or 3 years ago. He pushed me into a new ,for me,camp...vegan awaiting perhaps. Waiting for what? A choice of living within an intact ecosystem . Pie in the sky perhaps.

Not only "Pie in the sky", but unsustainable unless 99% of the human population dies off. People can't live like that. Foraging is incredibly low-yield per acre (so is, by the way, organic farming: Conventional farming is actually more environmentally sustainable).

Do you know about agricultural yield? It's the most important thing to understand.
You can not feed eight billion people by gathering, and certainly not by hunting. That's insane.

Why would you want 99% of the world to die? That's incredibly misanthropic.

But let's assume that you see whatever plot of bio-terrorism or triggering of whatever nuclear apocalypse you are hoping for (is that the goal here?):

Beyond the unsustainability, it's also a terrible idea all around.
You have no notion of what quality of life you're talking about.

You really think you want to return to paleolithic times? Enjoy your 30 year life expectancy. Outside of civilization, there is hunger, there is starvation, there is very nearly no art -- nobody has time for that -- there is no substantial culture, no literature, no science. It's a state of profound ignorance, and survival. You merely are, you merely get by. Everything that we are, all philosophy, all reason, takes a back seat to crude tribal law.

And that is not yet to even mention war:

Future primitivism he called it , hunter gatherers again living free and equal in some kind of band society of around 80 people .

Free and equal? No, that's incredibly absurd.
You don't seem to know much about tribal society or culture. You seem to have romanticized it to the point of delusion. Try to study more anthropology before swallowing that kind of nonsense whole. What you're really looking at is social order that resembles organized crime today; that which arises outside the bounds of government control (violence and extortion are the norm even in peace time). And oh the war:

http://www.amazon.com/War-Before-Civili ... 0195119126
Read this book.

Enjoy your 25% to 60% chance of dying by violence if you're a man. If you're lucky, you die in war or if captured you'll have the honor to be sacrificed to a god, if you're less lucky, you'll be tortured to death for entertainment.
And very nearly 100% chance of being raped and kept as a domestic slave by an abusive husband if you're a woman (and then a good chance of being kidnapped and gang raped by another tribe if yours is killed off, to be lucky if somebody decides to keep you as a domestic sex slave).

Jared Diamond is a little more charitable, and thinks we can learn a lot from tribal societies:

http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Until-Y ... 0143124404
But he isn't delusional either.

Tribal societies, particularly outside the bounds of strong states, are profoundly brutal, inclined to war, and human rights violations you've never even heard of.

How about widow-strangling? Or leaving the elderly to die in the wilderness? Infanticide is downright pedestrian.
If babies don't die from starvation or disease, they will likely have their heads smashed in, their necks broken, be suffocated, drowned, etc. by their mothers' new rapists when another tribe or wandering band of thugs rolls in.

Life for humans in the "wild" is far worse than for other species because of what we do to each other. Tribalism is not some kind of utopia, unfettered by the greed and power of modern states; it's human fear and hatred, unfettered by law and social order.
Even our worst wars today have a minute fraction of the mortality rates of tribal warfare.
In your worst nightmares you could not dream of a society more dystopian than those of the past which you have so naively romanticized.

You can make stuff up and romanticize it all you want, but tribal society is brutal, and far from egalitarian. Far from anything any sane and educated person would ever want to live in, knowing even the basic facts.

In this lovely vision I picture myself as far more gatherer hunter than hunter gatherer.

The choice is more "worm food" vs. "roving murderous serial rapist barbarian".

But sure: Let's imagine that your vision of the past has any semblance to reality at all. That humans are magically peaceful as soon as you take away money and civilization. That your life wouldn't be threatened by disease and hunger.

Why exactly would you want to chase down and kill animals?
We're talking about fellow sentient beings who also want to live. How is that less violent than being vegan in our current progressive (and slowly improving) civilization?

Habitat destruction even for organic veg seems so last season thinking .

Killing off 99% of humanity to avoid this "habitat destruction" doesn't seem like much better of an alternative.
Being a hunter-gatherer is not more environmentally friendly than having a garden.

There are also other options. There's this thing called technology.
Rooftop hydroponics, window gardening, renewable energy, clean nuclear power, growing underground, or in tanks of algae at amazing rates of biomass conversion efficiency.

[Jebus]

Welcome to the forum.

I agree with Brimstone's post.

[Lightningman_42]

Welcome to the forum.

I agree with Brimstone's post.

Yeah me too.