From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Subject: Re: Population growth and cultural destruction (Re: Nasty ...)
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:25:40 GMT

In article <STEINLY.92Dec11104207@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
>In article <1992Dec11.174941.2844@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>
>
>   In article <STEINLY.92Dec10134815@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
>   >In article <1992Dec10.184439.8324@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>
>   The situations I have been describing are where the modernization is
>   brought from the outside.  The dynamics in western Europe would likely
>   be much different since it was home-grown - and also much slower.  I
>
>Just to note, the period I mentioned actually saw several major
>transitions, arguable the most significant took place in about
>30 years and was due to external causes - the Black Death.
>
>   don't doubt that the specifics vary for different cultures.  I would
>   certainly agree that cultural mechanisms break when they fail to
>   stretch but do we need to stretch them so much?  For example, 
> 
> ...
>
>   >   above implies that health care is the primary factor in population
>   >   growth in such societies.  I challenged this earlier and listed some
>   >   other factors that contribute to the problem.  If health care is just
>   >   one component of the problem, then the removal of other culturally
>   >   destructive practices that accompany "modernization" would certainly
>   >   help alleviate population problems.  
>   >
>   >Maybe; if the current cultural mechanisms are intrinisically incapable
>   >of coping with the magnitude of physical changes forced by technology and economic
>   >development, trying to stretch the old culture may simply prolong the
>   >agony. The alternative of course is to withhold the technology and
>   >economics, but few people are willing to do so, medical technology in
>   >particular, which is why I focused on that as a driving force.
>   >(Note: medical technology does not refer to CAT scans or heart
>   >transplants but simple points like vaccinations, septic theory,
>   >rehydration therapy for diarrhea and theory of infection...)
>
>   This is the common false dichotomy, IMO.  The choice between complete
>   cold turkey development or complete withholding of all advances.  There
>
>It is a false dichotomy, I have a habit of using extreme examples
>to illustrate the range of choices and consequences thereof.
>
>   are organizations that are bringing in health care and appropriate
>   technologies that help the people and soften the transtitions.  
>   Appropriate technology, a much maligned phrase, simply refers to
>   technologies that fit into the local ecology and can reasonably be
>   operated and maintained by local people without a huge dependence on
>   outside expertise and energy, which is difficult to get reliably
>   given hard currency conditions in the developing world.  Such
>
>I agree with this approach, although it should be noted that the
>"appropriateness" of a technology tends to be rather variable
>in hindsight :-(

So true.  The point is that local conditions need to be considered
when the choices are made.

>I do rather resent the "bringing in" appropriate technology concept,
>it is an approach that IMHO has done far more harm than good,
>coming from a society that industrialised almost entirely in my
>lifetime, I am of the opinion that the best choices should be
>made by the people themselves, not outside organizations, up to
>and including allowing people to make their own mistakes and recover
>from them.
>
Well, bringing in does not mean sending in.  I would be interested in
some examples of appropriate technology causing more harm than good.
I don't deny it, I would like to see an example.  I think of an example
of _in_appropriate technology as a large scale project that the local
country ends up not using because they don't have the hard currency
for energy and upkeep.  Another example would be projects that cause
great harm to the ecology because that ecology is different from the
one that exists where the technology was developed.  I would agree that
the local people should make these decisions, but with much
development controlled by World Bank loans and so on, that certainly
is not the case now.  Also, these local decisions are often heavily
based on information from the banks or the sources of the technology
and their information which may be correct for the US or Japan, but not
for the country getting the technology.  An expert on home
construction in the US cannot assume to know anything about the same
issue in other countries with different climates, materials, etc.

It sounds like we have some agreement here that more local input is
needed.  I think the information provided to these people, who are
usually ignorant about the technology being provided to them, needs
to take local conditions and limitations into account to a much
higher degree.  If this were done, I suggest that existing local
technologies and methods would end up playing a larger role since
they have evolved for local conditions.  Using Ladakh again, they
learned how to build large spacious houses from abundant and
essentially free local materials.  Is it better for them to pay
cash to truck in cement blocks from hundreds of miles away?
> ...
>
>   In a sense, we get back to the same issues of rate-of-change and rates of
>   adaptability that are central to so many ecological issues.  These
>   developments occurred much more slowly in Europe, and the people had
>   more time to adapt.  Also, the development happened in an evolutionary
>   way that fit the local conditions.  I would still challenge, on
>   sustainability grounds, whether development, called "progress" in the
>   west, is following an optimum path for us.  But it is not being
>   imposed from the outside.
>
>I think you underestimate the rates of change in the European 
>example I used - think of it as punctuated equilibrium changes ;-)
>some of the changes were certainly not evolutionary or slow.

There are new theories that biological evolution was not a linearly
smooth process so that is my "out" here :).  To say that most
development has occurred in your lifetime is myopic, IMO.  I would
say that "development" starts with the change to a cash economy with
wage labor, i.e., the start of capitalism.  This started in Europe
centuries ago.  The enormous rate of _technological_ development in 
the last two generations took place in societies that had already
transformed into capitalism.  
>
>*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
>*  steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
>*  I know people whose idea of fun				*
>*  Is throwing stones in the river in the afternoon sun		*
>*  Oh let me be as free as them					*
>*  				- BB 1986			*
>


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)