From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Wed May 15 2002 - 15:47:12 MDT
On Wed, 2002-05-15 at 11:48, Sylvia Morscher wrote:
>
> um... are you referring to the "Kalahari Bushmen" (sorry i don't know how
> to reproduce clicks in ascii so i can't refer to them by a correct name)?
>
> don't they live in a _desert_, and have very advanced hunting and
> gathering and navigation technology, considering that they survive in an
> environment that defeats most other people?
Their abilities and techniques are nothing special; they merely have a
lot of experience in their environment. Most of us, if suitably
inclined, could develop the same survival ability with minimal
difficulty. And with technology thrown into the mix, we'd probably find
it *easier* to survive.
What defeats most people is their inexperience, and perhaps more
importantly, not really being aware of just how ignorant they are. When
people live in an environment, there are not usually consciously aware
of just how much information about their environment that they absorb. I
see this all the time when I drag some of my city dweller friends out
into the high deserts of the inter-mountain region in the US, a place
where I am very comfortable. I see them do any number of incorrect or
stupid things that it never even occurred to me that I would have to
tell them not to do. It isn't that they are stupid people, they just
haven't absorbed the parameters of their environment. After spending
some time out there, they too know of the dangers that are out there and
how to deal with them.
Or to put it another way, Kalahari Bushmen would probably find it nearly
as difficult to survive in a city you know as second nature as you would
find it difficult to survive in the Kalahari. Given a little time
and/or guidance, everyone could learn to survive in their newly adopted
environment. That's what makes humans so wicked good at surviving on
this planet.
Cheers,
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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