[Terrapreta] Earthen Kiln Conjecture

[lou gold]

Thank you Michael for mentioning this. It needs to be mentioned because
people often can't see the subtle (or not-so-subtle) biases of their culture
any more than a fish can be able to really see the water.

On the other hand, let's not turn it into a judgment (as so often happens
here). It may be that these cultural differences are parallel and
alternative realities. An arrogant  "modern" view that "primitives" are
stupid (or, for that matter, that farmers are stupid) is what has been
necessary to advance the industrial age agendas. THIS HAS BROUGHT CERTAIN
BENEFITS but it has also carried a huge and horrible price.

Perhaps we are now trying to re-balance? I often see biochar as an
ancient/future development. Oh, oh, there I go back to hoping for a both/and
solution. I guess that's my prejudice and my audacity.

hugs and blessings,

lou

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 7:26 AM, Michael Bailes <michaelangelica at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I seem to get an undercurrent of "How could dumb Indians have worked this
> out" though out a lot of TP discussions
>
> America was far more populous than Europe in 1400. They also had huge
> botanic gardens dwarfing anything Europeans had (The first Botanic garden in
> Salerno Italy in c15 was pathetic by comparison).
> The American were into plant breeding and crossing.
>  Corn (on the cob) could not exist-or reproduce- without them.
>  They had over 200 varieties of Chilli plants.
>
> How come it is so difficult to accept that 1,000 years ago people knew
> more about their environment and ecology than we do now?
> We are such clutzes.  We have Union carbide, Monsanto and Dow Corp. to
> lead the charge into ignorance.
>
> The annihilation our diseases gave American natives was unprecedented in
> human history.
> Even the European plague killed only 30% of the population.
> The American Indian annihilation was 90% ++ over and over again.
>
> As someone has already mentioned their immune systems where different.
>
>  (Guarding against parasites -malaria?- rather than bacteria.
> Perhaps we could even find a cure for malaria in the Amazon?)
>
> Another 2cents worth
> m
> _______________________________________________
> Terrapreta mailing list
> Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
> http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
> http://info.bioenergylists.org
>



-- 
http://lougold.blogspot.com
http://flickr.com/visionshare/sets
http://youtube.com/my_videos
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /attachments/20080416/f7187122/attachment.html