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Ignorance like the above underscores exactly why cultural treasures/knowledge need to be preserved.
Treasures, schmeasures. You are talking about garbage. These are simply "things". Life is about time and action and productivity and love. "Things" don't matter. "Cultures" come and go and are ultimately irrelevant and forgotten, which is as it should be.
We have too much concern for the idle nonsense of culture, which is why we get locked into stupid primitive religions, racism, ethnic cleansing, and other "cultural" nonsense.
We need less culture, less "treasures", less silliness, and more common sense and the realization that the ONLY precious thing is time and the life you have to spend it.
The rest is akin to hoarding and attempting to circumvent the reality that life is very, very temporary.
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OH one thing we should carry on is cursive handwriting. Not exactly what you're looking for here, I know but it's a discipline that our youth doesn't seem to have time for.
It's relevant to this discussion. There are books on penmanship and they belong in library resources along with writing instruments.
Children have plenty of time to learn this skill. The problem today is the government schools and their good-for-nothing teachers who can't be bothered educating students. However, people who home school as well as their students seem to find time for everything.
Mr. Spencer's method has been widely acclaimed for more than a century and a half.
Treasures, schmeasures. You are talking about garbage. These are simply "things". Life is about time and action and productivity and love. "Things" don't matter. "Cultures" come and go and are ultimately irrelevant and forgotten, which is as it should be.
We have too much concern for the idle nonsense of culture, which is why we get locked into stupid primitive religions, racism, ethnic cleansing, and other "cultural" nonsense.
We need less culture, less "treasures", less silliness, and more common sense and the realization that the ONLY precious thing is time and the life you have to spend it.
The rest is akin to hoarding and attempting to circumvent the reality that life is very, very temporary.
"civilisation" should be about people, not art, religion or culture.
once we can all come together and not start wars over land, resources or religion then we will truly have "civilisation", i'm afraid we have a long way to go as human beings before we will achieve that, and probably never will.
Treasures, schmeasures. You are talking about garbage. These are simply "things". Life is about time and action and productivity and love. "Things" don't matter. "Cultures" come and go and are ultimately irrelevant and forgotten, which is as it should be.
We have too much concern for the idle nonsense of culture, which is why we get locked into stupid primitive religions, racism, ethnic cleansing, and other "cultural" nonsense.
We need less culture, less "treasures", less silliness, and more common sense and the realization that the ONLY precious thing is time and the life you have to spend it.
Maybe you think being a real estate agent (take % off top of every transaction for essentially having a pulse, being able to fill out a document or open a door) and spending your life with your family is what is important. Thank God others have dedicated themselves to science, art, music, writing books, inventing great things etc. These are lives well spent because they add to the sum total of human existence, culture, civilization etc. Your family may remember you for a generation but in essence most of us a pretty unimportant. What persists is the work of the few that make their mark for time to come. People still play Mozart after hundreds of years and people still use electricity hundreds of years after Tesla (don't forget you are able to participate in these discussions because of his work) - those things need to be preserved. To call them nonsense and tell everyone how we need to focus on our time spent on Earth and our families - well, that's just ignorant.
These things you talk about are only important because there are people like you to talk about them, if the human race was to be wiped off the face of the earth tomorrow, these things would still exist but without anyone to talk about them and pontificate about them, would it matter?
The history buffs among us certainly know that civilizations rise and fall; empires come and go. I recently read of a group of monks who escaped to a remote island off the coast of Ireland in the 5th century A.D. and set up a monastery, bringing along a great number of books that would otherwise have been lost, after the fall of the Roman Empire:
If something catastrophic were to happen to our world as we know it today, what would you feel was important to save, so that it might be replaceable when society was rebuilt? And where would you place it, for safe-keeping? I think I would like to save a lot of old hard-copy photographs, and movies of life as we know it now, and as our parents and grandparents knew it. I'd seal them in a time capsule at the corner of a small building I plan to construct myself, of concrete blocks. I'm pretty sure it would survive most events.
Back to the OP, agriculture, farming techniques and raising livestock, have allowed our farmers to go from basically subsistence with just a little to sell, to the point where only a few people are in agriculture and feed the world.
I saw a statistic not too long ago that said the average farmer today now feeds around 130 people. That's a lot of food.
Svalbard is great for keeping seeds, but knowing what to do with them is another matter. Agriculture is a lot more than just putting the seed in the ground and hoping for the best.
Knowledge of strip cropping to avoid another dust bowl, rotating fields to rest them and not deplete the soil, irrigation, how to avoid or treat various plant and animal disease, rotating crops, enriching the soil and fertilizers, all of these make for a healthier population, and if you can avoid famines, then there is less war over food.
Makes sense to me that a compendium of our agricultural sciences would be worthy of adding to the time capsule as well.
A book detailing how to handle water, how to move it, how to find it, efficient use, how to purify it for consumption to avoid disease would also be helpful.
The Romans and the Minoan civilizations both had running water in homes. Aqueducts in ancient times provided water to cities so that agricultural land wasn't wasted because it allowed people to live in closed in settlements for defense and kept them from building on arable land, but with large population centers comes disease, so being able to provide safe potable water would be a huge benefit.
Now we use huge underground culverts or manmade rivers to run the water in, but the principals are the same.
If you control disease, keep your population fed and they have clean water, it reduces the chance of war over resources.
Then a new civilization would just have to fight over treasure or politics, kind of like we do today.
Last edited by MTSilvertip; 12-28-2015 at 08:25 AM..
i'm not sure I want to save "civilisation" anyway, not in its modern, money grabbing, politically corrupt, present condition.
i'd like a clean sweep, start again from the beginning, sort of event.
not that many here would agree with me i'm sure, " we must save civilisation at all costs!"...even if it morally bankrupt?
nice thought about agriculture, shame most farming these days is "mono" cropping.
It doesn't have to be, it's just easier due to the requirements for equipment and resources. Growing multiple crops means you need specialized equipment to harvest. For instance, you can't use a combine set up to thresh wheat to dig spuds or turnips.
Mono crops also mean you don't have to have as much knowledge of the specific characteristics of multiple plants, just one or maybe 2 or 3, but usually if you grow wheat, you can grow barley or rye on the same ground with the same equipment.
But if you're growing cabbage or onions, you have different requirements.
Mono cropping is basically the assembly line of agriculture. Each farmer does one thing, just as a guy working on an assembly line just puts one piece on the product.
Many folks in my area grow cattle or sheep as their primary product, but will have to grow hay to feed them through the winter, and most will have some grain, or perhaps an oilseed like safflower as well.
I have friends in Illinois who farm, and they have corn and soybeans. Depending on the futures market, they increase the acreage planted in the one that is worth more.
Modern agriculture is a business. Farmers and Ranchers raise the crops that maximize their income potential. Cutting overhead by reducing the amount of equipment needed to handle their crops is just good financial planning.
Most vegetable and fruit crops are more labor intensive requiring human hands to thin or harvest, and require specific climate and a lot of water. Grains can be raised on dry land with a lot less human labor, but it depends on where you are as to what you can grow.
I agree, having more diverse crops on each property would be nice, but this is a business, and just like any business, you go for the most efficient way of doing it.
Small holders are different as they are basically subsistence farming, not industrial. They can have a garden plot, a few chickens or turkeys, a milk cow or 2, maybe some sheep or goats, a couple fruit trees, some rabbits, whatever because they eat what they grow as well as sell surplus on a small property. It's a different dynamic from a full agribusiness farm consisting of thousands of acres and millions of dollars worth of equipment.
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