>You could rediscover all of that knowledge using the scientific method, but why bother? The local cultures have already done the heavy lifting
No. The heavy lifting is determining whether a specific practice is ecologically beneficial or not. The people who built those mounds did not document how they arrived at the practice of building them (although it's safe to assume it wasn't a scientific process), so someone had to evaluate whether they are ecologically beneficial or not. The same would have to be done for any other practice, same as you'd do for any other idea someone comes up with. A proposal for action is worthless is there's no indication that it suits the desired goal.
>I don’t see why it’s surprising that indigenous peoples end up building more ecologically appropriate structures.
Because everyone is indigenous to the place they're from, and people routinely build structures in their homelands that are environmentally destructive. Do you think, say, Roman aqueducts were not at least disruptive? This implicit distinction you're making between "indigenous" and "not indigenous" is exactly what the idea of the noble savage is.
People are people. They'll build the things that suit their needs and in the process they'll destroy some things they don't care about, and some that perhaps they should.
>Quite frankly, Europe/science has just been through an extend period of believing that humans are capable of overcoming nature
I don't see any non-Europeans doing anything differently. Do you? It seems to me that the only people not trying to massively transform the environment are those who don't have means to do it.
> No. The heavy lifting is determining whether a specific practice is ecologically beneficial or not. The people who built those mounds did not document how they arrived at the practice of building them (although it's safe to assume it wasn't a scientific process), so someone had to evaluate whether they are ecologically beneficial or not.
I would hardly call that heavy lifting. Validation of an idea or process is substantially easier than creating one (although I don’t claim that validation is easy, just easier).
> This implicit distinction you're making between "indigenous" and "not indigenous" is exactly what the idea of the noble savage is.
No I don’t make any claim that indigenous designs are inherently more ecologically sound. But I would claim they’re more likely to be ecologically sound given they’re developed by a culture that presumably also had to deal with the consequences of their designs. Cultures that completely destroy their environments aren’t known for their longevity.
> I don't see any non-Europeans doing anything differently. Do you? It seems to me that the only people not trying to massively transform the environment are those who don't have means to do it.
Sure, but few other cultures have demonstrated such a propensity for environmental destruction so far. Even if it just a lack of means, it doesn’t change the fact that designs will also be constrained by their lack of means, forcing them to innovate within a much narrower envelope that doesn’t allow them to simply bulldoze their local environment.
Ultimately the underlying intention behind the designs of any particular culture are irrelevant. I’m not making any claims that indigenous cultures are inherently less destructive, simply that their culture will have been shaped by their local environment, and thus will inherently be more sympathetic to their local environment, simply out of necessity. As our entire species is slowly discovering, cultures that don’t respect their local environments tend to die off as food, water and other required resources start disappearing.
So to more succinctly summarise my argument. Indigenous designs have the wonderful advantage of survivorship bias, the humans and their intentions are almost irrelevant.
>I would hardly call that heavy lifting. Validation of an idea or process is substantially easier than creating one (although I don’t claim that validation is easy, just easier).
Creating an idea takes practically no effort. I can do it right now: let's fix global warming by lassoing passing ice comets and dropping them in the ocean. What takes effort is filtering the useless ideas from the useful ones. If a past culture had some practice that just tells you they came up with something and determined that it was useful for their purposes. We still need to know if it'll be useful for our purposes. There's not reason to think the purposes are the same, and if they're entirely unrelated the idea in question is not likely to be more useful than my astronomical rodeo.
>Sure, but few other cultures have demonstrated such a propensity for environmental destruction so far.
So, for example, the Chinese don't have some of the most polluted cities in the world, right? They're not Europeans, so their propensity to destroy the environment (including their own living spaces) is lesser.
>designs will also be constrained by their lack of means, forcing them to innovate within a much narrower envelope that doesn’t allow them to simply bulldoze their local environment.
So if you agree with that, then it follows that anyone who has access to bulldozers will use them to solve at least some of their problems, right? Regardless of whether they're European or not, right? Then I don't understand what you're arguing and why you're singling out Europe.
>So to more succinctly summarise my argument. Indigenous designs have the wonderful advantage of survivorship bias
That's only because they had been doing the same things for hundreds if not thousands of years, and at small scale without powered tools. There was practically no chance they could have screwed the environment to bad they would have died out; I can't think of a single historical example like that, other than possibly Easter Island. If your argument is "returning to a pre-industrial lifestyle will be good for the environment" then I agree with you, but I don't think that's in the cards. I imagine people are looking for solutions that fit into our existing society, not to tear everything down and start over.
> Creating an idea takes practically no effort. I can do it right now: let's fix global warming by lassoing passing ice comets and dropping them in the ocean.
Right, so we’re just going to ignore the fact that all of these ideas had to be tested in field, and work well enough to ensure the society that builds them continues to survive, including preserving its local environment so it isn’t forced to continually move as it forever strips its local environment of useful resources. I guess you also believe that borrowing any ideas from nature is also a waste of time because evolution doesn’t bother documenting its design process?
> There's not reason to think the purposes are the same
If the goal is ecological sustainability then I’ve already outlined a number of reasons why the incidental purposes would meet that goal. The intended purpose is irrelevant if environmental conditions force designs to be ecologically sustainable (and I’ve already outlined why that might be the case).
> So, for example, the Chinese don't have some of the most polluted cities in the world, right? They're not Europeans, so their propensity to destroy the environment (including their own living spaces) is lesser.
I never claimed that non-European cultures don’t damage the environment, that seems to be something you’re intent on reading into my words. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can really do to help you there.
Obviously other cultures damage the environment, and if you read my comments you’ll notice I even agree that reduced environmental damage is probably a consequence of lack of means, rather than a deliberate attempt at preservation. But European cultures have the longest and best documented history of environmental destruction, not because Europeans are special or evil or any other crap you've accused me of implying, but simply because they’ve had the most time and means to damage the environment. Simple consequences of the Industrial Revolution starting in Europe, nothing more.
> That's only because they had been doing the same things for hundreds if not thousands of years, and at small scale without powered tools. There was practically no chance they could have screwed the environment to bad they would have died out
Yes, that is literally the point I’m trying (and apparently failing) to get across.
> If your argument is "returning to a pre-industrial lifestyle will be good for the environment" then I agree with you, but I don't think that's in the cards.
Close, but not quite. More like we shouldn’t simply dismiss designs and practices created by less developed cultures, or pulled from the annals of time simply because they lack documentation and weren’t built following the scientific method. Those designs clearly solved useful problems, and did so in innovative way that were sympathetic to their environment out of necessity. Just like biomimicry is a valid design approach (and I note that evolution is legendary for its lack of documentation, and well understood goals), copying and borrowing designs and practices from indigenous cultures, where those cultures have co-evolved with their local environment over hundreds to thousands of years, also has huge value.
I really don’t understand why you’re finding it so hard to believe that a cultures designs and practices might be heavily influenced by its local environment, and likely achieves some level of equilibrium with its local environment given time. And that maybe, just maybe there might be something to learn.
> I imagine people are looking for solutions that fit into our existing society, not to tear everything down and start over.
We’re talking about whether or not indigenous structures and designs might be a good approach to long term conservation of a local environment, not “are we all just doing life wrong and need to start again”. If we’re looking for way to conserve what’s left, then why the hell would we blanket ignore the approaches developed by people who were forced to conserve simply to survive?
No. The heavy lifting is determining whether a specific practice is ecologically beneficial or not. The people who built those mounds did not document how they arrived at the practice of building them (although it's safe to assume it wasn't a scientific process), so someone had to evaluate whether they are ecologically beneficial or not. The same would have to be done for any other practice, same as you'd do for any other idea someone comes up with. A proposal for action is worthless is there's no indication that it suits the desired goal.
>I don’t see why it’s surprising that indigenous peoples end up building more ecologically appropriate structures.
Because everyone is indigenous to the place they're from, and people routinely build structures in their homelands that are environmentally destructive. Do you think, say, Roman aqueducts were not at least disruptive? This implicit distinction you're making between "indigenous" and "not indigenous" is exactly what the idea of the noble savage is.
People are people. They'll build the things that suit their needs and in the process they'll destroy some things they don't care about, and some that perhaps they should.
>Quite frankly, Europe/science has just been through an extend period of believing that humans are capable of overcoming nature
I don't see any non-Europeans doing anything differently. Do you? It seems to me that the only people not trying to massively transform the environment are those who don't have means to do it.