Posts by DCBCauchi
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
You might then enjoy The Revolving Boy by Gertrude Friedberg (1966).
Yes, I might well. I've never heard of it before. Cheers!
Speaking of neglected sf, has anyone read 'Floating worlds'? By Cecelia Holland. Also I think 1966. Classic anarchist sf.
Great scene at the start when people come to complain cos they're not getting their way and she tells them what for.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to BenWilson,
I just hope the focusing goes somewhere useful.
I don't think it's something you merely watch and hope about. It's something you play a part in. You have something to contribute. Something important.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Lilith __,
No offence, DCB, but how do you know this?
I don't know this. That's what makes sense to me, based on what I do know.
However, I do know that their paintings haven't changed in any kind of radical way. Nothing like the way ours has. And I know that, if you sit next to an Australian painter and ask them what they're doing, they'll tell you all about it. I haven't done it myself, but I've watched people do it, and a friend of mine has.
I don't think the contemporary Australian painter's either lying or mistaken about what they do. They simply tell you like it is.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Lilith __,
I don’t see why Aboriginal culture and technology would not have changed radically over that 20,000 years: if it hadn’t it would surely be unique in the world. It’s just a pity that history with all its changes and nuances is lost to us.
Because it visibly demonstrably hasn’t. They paint their pictures the same way. The same pictures. Tell the same stories.
They developed their technology and way of living with their land a long time ago. At least a couple of ice ages ago. It doesn’t change at the same pace and in the same way as ours does. It’s ancient, not modern. (I’m using ‘them’ and ‘us’ specifically here.)
For most of the time humans have been around, we used the same tools the same way no matter where or when we lived. Then, around 40,000 years ago or so, there was a cultural explosion of innovation, one still working itself out today.
The Australians are one result of that. We're another. Who's way of living makes more sense now?
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Bart Janssen,
for a culture not meant to be able to count past 5 is interesting.
One interesting thing connecting some (possibly all?) Australian and American cultures is the way their languages are oriented around space.
You don't say 'in front of me, behind me, above, below'. You say 'south, west, north, east'. What you say depends powerfully on what direction you're facing when you're saying it.
Spatial orientation to the stars. It's a big thing.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to BenWilson,
It was a source of profits.
It was a way of dealing with scarcity.
But everything else you say is spot on, I reckon. The last thing we need are cult-like leaders. You say scattered. I say focusing. From a whole variety of perspectives.
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How to start building Stonehenge
1 Take two sticks.
2 Place one stick in the ground at a good vantage point for watching the sun rise.
3 Place the other stick in the ground so that, when you're standing over Stick 1, the sun rises in a line with Stick 2.
4 Watch where the sun rises in relation to Stick 2.
5 When it has gone as far in one direction (along the horizon) as it will go and starts moving back towards Stick 2 again, take another stick and place it in the ground so it is in a line where the sun rose at its furthest extent.
6 Repeat steps 4 and 5 for the other direction.
7 Replace your sticks with stones.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Lilith __,
I hope they manage to date the circle, if it were older than Stonehenge that would be awesome.
Of course they’ll date it, thanks in part to Bruce’s work on radiocarbon accuracy no doubt.
My point was that it hasn’t needed to change since before Stonehenge. You can’t date it stylistically, because the style works as is. It hasn’t needed to change in 20,000 years, because it’s fully developed and resolved. It works. All of its development is lost in the wilds of time.
It is older than Stonehenge, and made the same way as Stonehenge (not to mention many other things), no matter when that particular one was made.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I think there are a few people at Creech AFB who do just that every day.
Ha! Quite. Difference between spears and bombs eh?
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Lilith __,
and the Conquistadors had cultural contact with the Americas? England had cultural contact with Australian aborigines?
For the first at least, when the Conquistadors rocked up to America, they found a couple of shipwrecked European sailors who’d already been there for a while.
One had acclimatised, wore native clothing, had a native wife and home, and spoke the native language. He told anyone who would listen not to believe a word that Cortes guy was saying. The other couldn’t get over the Mayans being human-sacrificing devil-spawn and was still rotting in jail, gibbering mad. That's who everyone listened to.
Not that long before the Conquistadors showed up, on the other side of America, Polynesian sailors were trading chickens with a people related to the Maya for kumera. (Speaking of going gibbering mad, is that spelt right?)
As for the second, and more generally, you can’t make war on someone you have no cultural contact with, by definition.