I appreciate the earth. I am a landscape painter. I go to yellowstone almost every summer. Ive stood on the shores of the lake during an earthquake. There is little predictability as to when and where that caldera will spike to life. Geysers open in the middle of roads sometimes.

Because its the height of stupidity Leth. Its like arguing that women never needed the right to vote because of breast cancer. its just nonsense.

Geologically speaking, there's no predicting a single geyser, but a massively abnormal eruption or explosion would be preceded by massively abnormal behavior within the Earth. It would be quite predictable for at least a short range of time, but likely long enough to get people out of the immediate area.

"Nuclear bunkers, tinned food, space flight, flight, breath masks, power stations... Seriously, there are countless inventions that make western culture far more likely to survive a Yellowstone eruption than what we'd have is native indian culture was all the world had."

Wait, what part of not fucking over the Native Americans involves making their culture the only one on Earth? I must have missed this course in logic. Are there not alternatives between "western culture fucks over Native Americans" and "Native American culture is the only thing left on earth"?

Also, your ability to draw a straight line between Native American culture pre-conquest and hypothetical modern Native American culture without conquest must astound historians. You should change careers from whatever you're doing straight away.

The concept of the passage of time and needing to measure life hour by hour was a european innovation that Native Americans never adapted too. Why wod they? Theres a store called pilgers in omaha where a member of the Omaha Souix sells authentic handmade clothes and tools still. His hours are...

whatever the hell he wants. theres literaly no hours listed you could go there at 3pm on a tuesday and if he feels like it he just closes up shop.

I find that beautiful

"Wait, what part of not fucking over the Native Americans involves making their culture the only one on Earth?"
For someone with logic in your name you really missed the logical flow of the conversation.

I would love for someone to explain to me how the Inca roads for example and Maccu Piccu indicate a civilization that was,stagnant. also how again were the iriquois a stagnant race? didnt they technically develop longhouses and advanced whaling techniques?

also the military techniques used by the native americans in the French and Indian war forever changed guerrila warfare. It forced the british to literally commit atrocious acts of bio warfare.

Or an even more interesting innovation being the windtalkers in the pacific war who helped crack the japanese radio codes. (Native Americans)

Im not convinced the earth and the Americas were a sickly dying entity that was saved by the grace of European brilliance. If you feel that way; why is it that our so called innovations are destroying the way of life of people in yukon and nunavut (climate change) or to use,a non american example isnt the habits of your so called innovators basically putting the culture of the maldives into virtual extinction in the next 10 years?

this debate is the very definition of ethnocentrism.

"For someone with logic in your name you really missed the logical flow of the conversation."

No, I got the gist: apparently Native Americans had an inferior culture because they disdained progress or some bullshit. Disregarding that this is an incredibly myopic view of what makes a culture valuable, and that nobody making these claims has provided any semblance of support for them, what makes anyone think this justifies conquest and cultural destruction? As if that's the only way to influence a culture. There was a time when the Middle-East was the inheritor of the wisdom of the Greeks and had a culture far superior to anything in Europe; that this state of affairs did not last should be ample evidence that essentialistic statements about inherent cultural qualities projected over centuries should be viewed with skepticism, a quality completely absent from this discussion.

That Octavious decides to prop up this position with nonsensical hypotheticals does not reflect *my* lack of understanding of the conversation.

Also anyone who has these opinions about the inherent value of Native American contributions to the human race is neglecting to mention that European innovations also included Slavery, Panzer Tanks, Concentration Camps, Mustard Gas, Trench Warfare, Serfdom, The Crusades, the list goes on...

yea Ill take a benign "stagnant" civilization over those things.

Any civilization that becomes isolated to some degree will become stagnant. Europe during the Middle Ages was not huge about interacting with people outside of Europe, but after they did (Crusades), they had access to new ideas and innovations in thought, which made them more capable of progressing. Machu Picchu and the Incan roads, and a considerable amount of Mayan and post-Mayan cultures (like the Aztecs) weren't stagnant or signs of stagnation because those cultures weren't isolated. Octavious and a fair amount of this discussion does not revolve around these societies though. Natives of North America had a very different culture and civilization, many of which were not prone to interacting with one another. North America has an expansive inland which can be very unforgiving in many parts, so the people living in those parts are less likely to find others with whom to interact. Meanwhile, Europe is geographically primed for that sort of interaction. Russia and the Middle East as gateways to Asia, and North Africa just across the Mediterranean, as well as not being hard to reach a coastline from inland meant Europe was prone to this sort of thing. History points to Europe being a hub for ideas, not necessarily by Europeans being inherently better at innovation, but because they could trade to collect the innovations of surrounding societies and use those to expand society as they knew it.

Modern western culture is all about capital. It is called Capitalism for a reason, but it really started out about 200 years ago when the industrial revolution kicked off. Growth rates boomed, jobs for thousands outside of agriculture, and a new class of wealth powerful people appeared. Not the previous land owners who kept up a steady income from rent/farming.

They could build their wealth in trade or banking, and then invest in capital projects, railways and factories. The US followed a very different route than the UK - which very quickly exploited all the low lying fruit and cover the UK in rails... The US invested inward while the UK decided they could make money from building rails in the colonies, in China and India, across Australia and Africa. The had the capital, but nobody else had the money to pay, so the great British banking tradtion got sorted out and lent money to a variety of power. But since the needed to make sure they were paid back they needed a hand in local governance. So the British Empire expanded to influence and control economic decisions across the world in order to protect their capital investment.

Capitalism, trade and Imperialism all combined, in rder to explpit and extract resources from the 'less developed' cultures.

When the Germans, Americans, and Japanese got in on the gig it was little surprise that war erupted, because they were all competing for being the ones to exploit the most, the fastest.

Nothing particularily noble about our cultural heritage. Americans colonised the continent, invaded Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and Cuba? Took Alaska from another Imperial power, and eventually defeated Imperial Japan to dominate the Pacific. (And took Panama to make sure their fleets could connect between the Atlantic and Pacific) All the behaviours you expect to see from a Capitalist Imperial Nation.

Im not sure that we can consider the Apache, Navajo, Blackfoot, and Hopi to be even remotely inferior to the Inca or Aztecs. Anyone who can endure life in the American Southwest for over a century or more is a culture that cannot be ignored. The innovations and adaptability of Native peoples worldwide astounds me. From Aboriginals to Eskimo I have always been fascinated with their cultures and the things they hold dear.

Or in the case of the Blackfoot the ability to trek over the glaciers of western montana is amazing.

But how probe was their culture to change or progress?

Prone****

Eskimos are aboriginals, surely? Well, not my lot obviously as they moved to England almost a century ago :p. As to what we hold dear, test cricket, science, Christmas, apple and blackberry pie, fishing, dIplomacy of course... I should probably mention family...

I meant indigenous people in Australia and peoples living in the Arctic. vastly different ecosystems

I'd make the suggestion that you should avoid the two "extreme" views or myths when discussing the cultures of ( for example ) aboriginal nations. ( there were many distinctly different aboriginal "nations" in Australia prior to European "invasion" / settlement, not a single collective aboriginal nation....similar to the many distinctly different Indian nations in North America )
But getting back to the two "myths" to be avoided...I'll call them the " noble savage" myth and the "ignorant savage" myth for want of better descriptive terminology.
The "ignorant savage" myth is easy to dispense with.. It's the patronising view rooted in a sense of cultural superiority.
The " noble savage " view has made something of a comeback.. it's the erroneous falsehood that tends to present an image of a mythical perfection in the culture being discussed.
The best way to discuss, present analysis of a culture is, I would suggest, what I'd describe as objective realism, and that's a difficult thing to do.

You don't have to believe the noble savage myth to know how plain as day it is that indigenous cultures had and have healthier cultural values than our corrupt society does, with only a few possible exceptions through history.

Zero shock here. Trump has ties to Dakota Access Pipeline.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/in-case-you-were-wondering-donald-trump-has-multiple-ties-to-the-dakota-access-pipeline/

http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-dakota-access-pipeline-1998966014.html