Would you mind elaborating on how eradicating diseases and improving the quality of life for billions of people is 'more harm than good'? I'm not exactly sure where you're coming from here.
There shouldn't be billions of people, and we shouldn't be using artificial chemicals, radiation, and so on. Primitive hunter-gatherers are much happier, since they gain transcendence through their basic living experience. Everything they do is truly worthwhile.
Number three. That last bit.
Care to explain what that means in layman's terms?
As I've already established, the fossil record does not indicate that there was ever a replacement of Neanderthals with a new population (so-called humans). Instead, there was a gradual transition from robust, large-brained, harmonious-skulled Neanderthals to weak, small-brained, craggy-skulled, retruded-faced "modern" humans. The factors at play were:
1. new technology like farming, villages, and medicine allowed inferior people to survive and reproduce
2. this technology also led to facial adenization
3. there was likely some gene flow of other, less-advanced hominids from other parts of the world which further lowered the quality of the Neanderthal gene pool
The end result was us. Sure is a lot to be proud of, huh?
"I do accept that barter is a foolish, impractical system for anything bigger than a hippy dippy kiwi farm."
"I think living in a very primitive society that has no need for money is superior to using some kind of modern economics system. It is by far the lesser of two evils."
Sorry buddy, but you contradicted yourself in these statements. I hoped you would quickly correct yourself but you for some reason didn't. You can't say you think barter is a foolish impractical system when applied to larger more complex economic systems and then claim that living in a very primitive society is superior to using a more modern economic system.
"It inevitably leads to big economies and big governments which have corruption, stealing, bank leaching, and so on."
Why is it inevitable? Why does it lead to big governments and economies? It is certainly possible but speaking in absolutes does not help you. I will not deny the issues big governments and economies can cause but you are dismissing them out of hand without considering the drawbacks of bartering as well as considering the current status-quo of the 21st century.
The reason that countries need these more complex economic systems is because of economic globalization, that is the inevitable increasing economic integration and interdependence of national, regional and local economies across the world through an intensification of cross-border movement of goods, services, technologies and capital.
This is an over-simplification, but when some countries desire resources from others that are crucial to keep their economies running, a flow of trade between countries is often required to keep their current resources as well as innovation and technology from becoming stagnant and/or dwindling. More efficient economic systems are able to facilitate creation of new technologies because of faster, greater amount of resources that are able to travel farther.
Okay, but I don't think we should have any of that stuff. I'd rather not have globalization or more technology.
Okay, rotated makes me sense to me than twisted. So your maxilla and zygomatic bones are rotated in two different directions?
Okay, so I'm just going to play along for a moment. You have your maxilla and zygomatic bones rotated in two different directions. Inflating finger cots up your nose is the clear solution. So here are some questions:
1. How do you know how much pressure you need to realign these bones?
2. How do you figure out where to apply this pressure so the bones actually align properly?
3. How do you work out how many inflated finger cots this will take in order to have a successful realignment?
1. I feel a sensation of movement and expansion inside my skull
2. I just do it in all 6 turbinates
3. I have no idea. It will probably never re-align all the way, only by a tiny amount.
Anything that could reasonably be described as "de-evolution" is, really, just evolution, which refers to changes in the frequency of certain types of genes in populations over time. When a population of cave fish loses its eyes, that's evolution, not "de-evolution." When sea-dwelling whales evolved from a population of land-dwelling mammals which had, itself, evolved from sea-dwelling animals, that's still just evolution.
Fair enough. Evolution is not always a good thing, though.
Thank you for those answers, Amud.
I think
@GeorgeDaMoose has asked some good follow-up questions that are consistent with my line of inquiry
The only question I would like to add to his is:
4. What is your specific indicator of success for this procedure?
I don't know.
This seems to contradict itself quite seriously.
If you acknowledge that barter is a foolish, impractical system for anything larger than a small commune, how is living in a "very primitive" society superior to modern economics?
As I said in my original post, modern economics has allowed our species to travel to other worlds. You can't build a space shuttle with barter.
How would your alternative system handle something as expensive and complicated as a space program, which requires huge resources and many very individuals with highly specialised skills?
How would your alternative system allow individuals to specialise, as money does? What I mean by this is; in my original example, I could focus entirely on kiwi farming because the medium of exchange I used was essentially sorted. In your system, how would computer programmers, bioengineers, chemists, etc earn a living?
If your system would rather we not have those, there are very prominent "return to agriculture" social systems that have sprung up in recent memory, such as the Khmer Rouge. In many ways, your philosophy is eerily similar. The Khmer Rouge despised education and had educated people executed. They also held in high esteem the various primitive mountain tribes (as you seem to hold primitive societies in high esteem). The Khmer Rouge's social policy focused on working towards a purely agrarian society.
Would you say that this is an accurate representation of the government system you want to create?
I would absolutely not kill educated people.
@Amud - what evidence do you have to show you have a "superior immune system"? Why do you believe this?
I don't really get illnesses or infections at all. Most people get a cold every few weeks or so and get the flu every year despite getting flu shots.
According to this post, he's claiming himself to be at least 50% chinless weakling, 25% big-nosed caveman, and 25% bloated-cranium elf. Seems like probably a combination that women wouldn't find attractive.
You forgot my twisted maxilla.
