Cultural violence: tradition or modernity

This is a challenge to cyrene.

i will be defending the view that traditional hunter gatherer societies were largely less violent, more enjoyable, more stable and secure and basically better in general than our own modern societies.

I will make the case that living a traditional hunter gatherer lifestyle is a better way of living rather than continuing our technological developments in the persuit of a replacement for the natural world hich currently barely supports us.

I would welcome any initial criticism as i think this debate could use a bit of narrowing down.

i plan to make the first post on friday, cyrene has already agreed to participate.

I will be arguing that hunter-gatherer’s/tribal groups engage in more violence for their population size, ie; their more violent and the only reason its not apparent is because theres a lot more of *us. that you’re more likely to die from violence in plenty of hunter-gatherer societies and the brutality of hunter-gatherer/tribal life.

I accept!

if you could start before friday, that’d be appreciated, but i guess theres no rush.

Excellent.
What are the rules? Is this basically a continuation of the debate in “what is science good for”? Who will judge?

(In Faust’s absence I’ll be MCing the forum, and I’ll judge if you want, but my bias is pretty clear in this case )

haven’t talked rules with wonderer but its a more serious/formal continuation of that thread. Should be fun.

i’d be happy to let you be the or a judge though. I’m sure that if wonderer provided the stronger arguement and provided more evidence for his claims that you’d fairly vote for him.

I’d be interested in judging, if you’ll have me. I’m actually somewhat torn on this issue, since some of my philosophical stances would suggest that the relationship follows Wonder’s model, whereas others would be more in line with Cyrene’s. I’d just as soon get the matter settled and having a bunch of pre-chewed information in front of me would be extremely helpful in that respect.

interesting stake. am i to understand that you will argue that modern society is less violent because of it’s possible efficiency ratios?

i will do my best to find the time to make a serious post, but i havn’t started the necessary research yet.

are you opposed to video documentary as a source?

they would be available free online to watch instantly. information about unspoiled tribes has proven to be difficult to find on the net, though many video documentaries contain information and more…

You can watch it and use it as a reference if you want or provide it as a reference here, whether or not the document is accurate or provides a strong arguement is another question though.

i’d like it if you fleshed out the arguements in the documentaries so i wouldn’t have to personally watch them, though.

Alright, to get the rule-ball rolling, let me suggest:

-3 posts each, alternating.
-Once we’ve picked a start date, both opening posts should be made that day (Gaia suggested having both sent to a judge and posted simultaneously. That might be much, but I think they should both be ready to fire on the first day).
-After the initial posts, whoever is responding first (coinflip?) has 24 hours to make their rebuttle, and 24 hours for each subsequent rebuttle.
-3 judges: Xunzian sounds appropriate, and I’ve volunteered but Wonderer hasn’t vetted me. And a third. . .

Does any of that sound good?

Wonderer for the strengthening of your position may I reccomend that you read Karl Polanyi.

books.google.com/books?id=xblEAA … ult&pgis=1

It would help you in many ways with a understanding of philosophy of course.

Also may I be judge?

Like Xunzian, I am torn between the contradictions here, so this’ll be very interesting indeed…

i want to do a 3 judge system, i’d like carleas and the other one xun-somthing, if i can get wonderer to agree with them the third choice would certainly go to him. though your ability to objectively judge anything seems doubtful to me. mr.doom

as much as i would like to, i agree with cyrene that you are probably already biased doom

sorry but when i win i want there to be no excuses (cough cough, heh heh )

i’m fine with xun and carleas, but watch out carl, i’ve got my eyes on you

let me have a brief look see for a fresh judge, if i can find none, doom gets the job.

If all that is keeping this from moving, I’ll offer to be a judge. Like Xunz, I have my feet in two perspectives… (Actually, I need more feet. Too many perspectives)

then is it setteled.

the epic battle of the scotia novans will take place 2 sleeps from now…

3 posts each, 1 opening, one rebuttle to the opening, and one conclusion. (or something like that).

lets try to keep them concise. make sure you expound and support arguments including possible objections and i think we will have a rich debate on our hands…

i challenge you to a race around the world - GO!

Umm, Wonderer, I think that Cyrene has to approve, and then carleas has to approve, and then it is a go.

I can make the thread as soon as we get confirmation. When do you want the deadline for the first post to be?

What wonderer just laid out sounds pretty good to me I assume wonderer will be posting first somewhere near friday, as to a deadline; personally doesn’t matter to me, maybe somthing for the judges or wonderer to decide.

I’m not biased. I don’t hate technology. I just disagree that modern civilization is superior at anything socially or existentially given that I have studied anthropology of primitive societies which are anything but the dumb savages people here on this website make them out to be.