Anarchy Radio 03-26-2019

LISTEN HERE: http://archive.org/details/AnarchyRadio03262019

Peter Bauer of Rewild Portland for the hour. Theory and practice of reconnecting with the earth. Many aspects discussed, challenges and ways forward. One call. Excellent episode.

There are 181 Comments

This is what anarchy radio SHOULD be. Great guests discussing important issues with each other, bringing up excellent points, with interesting callers.

Not JZ reading reading mainstream fucking news articles.

I hope that many of us reaching that age are that active.
The gentlemen is 75 and still writing and does his show weekly.. I don't see others given a similar slant on the news (rise in loneliness, death in community and face to face interactions) So the news commentary plays an important role in this person's opinion.
I listen each week with no expectations. He can cover whatever he feels like. If there is no audience, then it will get cancelled.

Wow, finished off with Led Zepellin, LSD band from before the age of computers, stuff Badkitty grooves to.

But does JZ know how to start a fire by friction without modern firelighting flints and iron, and can he cook paleo? These are the pressing questions people ask if he wants to put himself out as the primitivist spokezperson par excellence!

radio shows on a regular schedule are a lot of work. whatever let jz do what he wants.

We will let JZ do what he wants IF AND ONLY IF he unconditionally accepts nihilo-prims into the larger anprim tendency!!
If he fails to do so, we shall consider this the act of a civilized materialist!

JZ will accept nihilo prims into the larger anprim tendency IF AND ONLY IF nihilo prims can specifically and coherently define what in the actual fuck 'nihilo prim' is.

Failure to do so will result in further sactions against the nihilo prim community.

Nihilo-prim is being completely naked and being able to rub 2 sticks together to start a fire, simple.

I am NOT a troll, I'm just stating a fact, everything not naked and rubbing sticks for fire is civilized industrial produce. Let's at least be honest and realistically review sustainable 21st century objects de anprim.

I am a Sasquatch, and we do not use fire. Nor am I naked, but in fact rather hairy. According to your weird definition, I should be "civilized industrial produce". I am no such thing.

He's dedicated a big chunk of his life to anprim, has had an amazing dance with it and still going strong, and sharing it with us along the way. Anarchy Radio has played a vital role in not just helping me find my path, but helping me not feel so alone. It's an empowering force for anti-civ and anprim.

JZ makes real effort to give to the audience, he's open to recommendations, but can't please everyone all the time. How 'bout sharing your ideas, listen when you want, and give gratitude when his gift has meaning for you.

Amen

air out your differences? JZ, are you holding back letting loose your years of experience on origins? You both did a great job getting along despite the glaring disagreement. Could serve as a model, gives a sense of optimism.

Talking about origins doesn’t really matter in the real world, but Ria seems to have experience with tending nature, something most anprims know nothing about, and some want to know about. She’s right to be concerned about what will happen to nature when governments collapse, because at this rate anprims and survivalists will hunt it, exploit it, trash it to death. And then what? Anprims need to learn how to do restoration themselves, not get grants to have some agency do it for them.

Get off the vegan topic and redirect to something that matters.

Anprims need to know how to freakin light a fire from scratch so they can COOK FOOD. During winter, hot food is better than hot primsex!

Here's something I wrote on my restoration methodology.
https://mekwamooks.wordpress.com/ecosystem-recovery/

And here's an email thread of us volunteers planning a restoration work party. Gives a little taste of both the work and the level of mutual aid. I've shortened the names to first letters. (To get the humor, I'm currently nursing a broken shoulder in a sling - that's why I've had time to write that essay, and hang out here)

On Mar 26, 2019, at 22:07, P. wrote:

*** group wants to come back for a third year in a row. I will change Friday the 26th of April to a 10 to 3 private ***volunteer event.

I have three things going on that Friday. I am hoping W. will be able to make this event. I figure Ria might be able to come by then if she just walks and sun bathes.

Take care,

P

On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 10:31 PM W. wrote:

Remind me who ***group is. I’ve worked with them before but can’t quite recall the organization. I am free that day. I would love a fellow steward to host the event with me. If anyone knows another steward that would like to join me, I’d appreciate it.

W.

On Mar 27, 2019, at 12:02 AM, P. wrote:
They work for a *** company. I will have to choose which 26th event I go to based on who needs my help the most. There are stewards we could try recruiting.

From: B

Sorry. Friday’s are out for me
B
Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 27, 2019, at 17:18, Ria wrote:
I'll do it, but will still be in tight sling & my left fingers have even been banished from doing anything more than holding a cell phone.

Will there still be plants by then? If so, we can put them in & water deeply. Other ideas? Aren't they a group of like 20?

Ria

"We are dreaming of a time when the land might give thanks for the people."

-Robin Wall Kimmerer

On Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 07:26:40 PM PDT, W. wrote:

P. and I were talking about having them carry wood chips. The Triangle has really benefited from wood chips. I want to continue with that success.

On Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 4:37 PM Ria wrote:

Cool. So the surplus planting will be done? P., you ordering the woodchip drop? They prefer weeks worth of notice. And buckets & wheelbarrows? How many people? Let me know if you need me to do any prep work.

Since it's a full day with a lunch break, we could plan a 2 part event. I have a bunch of wetland plants stashed up the makeshift trail above J's house. We probably have enough shovels (depending on how many people) but could use maybe 6 trowels.

Other ideas/backup plans?

PS W. did you ever get that plant ID'd? I'm yet to make it to my books.

Ria

"We are dreaming of a time when the land might give thanks for the people."

-Robin Wall Kimmerer

On Mar 28, 2019, at 16:59, P. wrote:
Thanks. I am ordering wood chips, buckets, but also shovels and invasive removal tools. More than one activity is good and there is also bedstraw sweeps

W. and I should have bareroots and the MTN2SOUND plants done in a week or so. We have been planting fools.

I think they are about 20, as I recall.

On Mar 28, 2019, at 17:51, W. wrote:

As for the mystery plant in the Triangle, several stewards have commented it looks like a lupine based on the photos. One of my plant nerd friends is convinced it’s a broom. I’m hoping A. can clear things up by reaching out to people.

As for the Earth Day event with ***, I definitely want a carpet of wood chips 6 inches deep in the dry southern tip of the Triangle. I propose moving onto the other spots near there which are dry and sunny, ie the cut-off unofficial trail near J’s wooden bench, the island of new natives leading to the south meadow, and the south meadow. Hauling up wood chips is an activity I’d rather have lots of bodies for, and invasive removal can be left for small workparties.
W.

That's all fine with me as long as you're mindful about wood arsenic pollution.

But what does this "rewilding" thing do in context of continuous sprawling suburbs or logging industry? This appears to me like yet more small-scale symbolic feel-good rituals that bear little change on the long run, or maybe I'm wrong.

Forest health is under attack and in decline. It sounds like this is something wild animals would appreciate. I think Ria admitted in a previous show that stopping logging, etc was more important, but probably all nature is under attack in other ways. This sounds like something most everyone could do, and I see that as a good thing.

It sounds like she’s blending rewilding and restoration ecology. Like if you are connected with nature and nature is suffering, do something about it.

I’m interested in getting involved with this just by myself, and one reason is to learn more about nature in my area so I understand not just the condition of it and if I can help, but how to not harm nature when I’m in it.

And no one knows what else anyone does.

The big hidden surprise apocalyptic event could be the disappearing globsl insect speciez populations, while everyone worries about mammals. Every plant requires germination by insects to produce food for animals. Mass famine is a real fast possibility. I've noticed in sometime there are no more swarms of moths around street lights at night.

"Every plant requires germination by insects to produce food for animals. "

actually, many plants germinate via wind, not requiring insects. i don't mean to dismiss your point about disappearing insects, just pointing out a fact that you left out.

From looking at her website link it sure seems like Ria has an understanding of the entire habitat picture. She actually calls it habit restoration, and she has info on pollinating and decomposing, which heavily involves insects.

Compare her impact on nature to anprim hunters. They really need to learn how to give back. It seems like a gaping hole.

I think Ria admitted in a previous show that stopping logging, etc was more important, but probably all nature is under attack in other ways."

It is, and that narrative old-school focus on logging industry is plain stupid and distracting. Vast GMO monocultures and suburbs are doing a LOT more damage to ecosystems on a large scale than logging, which at least has in several areas some basic forest regrowth policies (ever hear of THREE PLANTING maybe? tons of hippie workaholics been doin' that routine very summer), while these two other industries got zero plan for cleaning up their mess.

Not saying industrial logging is cool.... it's green slug-baiting to steer away from other pressing issues.

is that the only issue with eco-restoration is that it doesn't involve destruction of standard corporate practice. Attacking industry is of course not a bad idea but is more effectively done when people are working in team, not just for strategic reasons, but for social support because the state is going to hit you with everything they got when they see you as a threat. I like the idea of not getting butt-raped. I also like the idea of continuing with my life and all of its egoistic enjoyments (and miseries, for that matter...)

I was already really interested in eco-restoration, and i praise Ria for all the help and encouragement with stuff i was planning to with summer *cries joyous tears of solidarity and kisses her feet in submission*

*you’re* ffs

"but is more effectively done when people are working in team, not just for strategic reasons, but for social support because the state is going to hit you with everything they got when they see you as a threat."

Not sure that's *objectively* a great idea... or where were u during Green Scare? Teams, at least of people who don't know each other too well (or aren't accountable to each other in some way) are way too easy to infiltrate and snitch, snitch, snitch. And yeah there's way many more agencies than cops or the FBI who'll fill-in, like the lowest-bidder private agencies, when it comes to some big business having a small part of their budgets allowed to secure their asse(t)s. Lone wolves can achieve just as much while being completely covert. But sure it's preferable to be with others, as long as these others can be relied upon. Trust is like the gold currency. As expensive and hard to get...

...and you didn't exactly get what I was saying.

What I'm asking is what does it mean to be walking westward on a train that goes East? Why not instead finding a way to stop the Snowpiercer?

Make no mistake... I used to be trying to get rid of phragmite colonies in some small areas in the fall, in order to protect endangered cattail swarms. Cattails are very important for marsh lands yet are threatened by the non-native phragmite, which may have benefits against pollution yet is ultra-invasive and nearly-impossible to get rid of. But they catch fire easily, being similar to straw, and are often found in vast colonies by the highways.

That's futile anal obsessive intervention on the inevitable migration of species. Its soooo contradictory to hear leftists complaining about feral animal species invading their space yet openly welcoming other political human species into an environment. Go cut down all the eucalyptus forests outside of Australia, or lets immunize against ebola, let's ban vivisection and meat eating, yet your whole existence would not be possible if it was not for the State and its health services. Get real and stop fighting against things which are your personal projections of obsessive conrol syndrome and just live for the Now. If a feral kitten crosses your path, don't exterminate it as an alien species as the fanatical green activists do but accept it as the inevitable power of life. Once all the co tinents were joined and in 2 billion years the South Pole will be in the equator, GET OVER IT!

It's one thing for a species to migrate on its own terms, but civilized human ethos of supreme right to shuffle species out of and into places they do not chose is the 'obsessive intervention' you condone - through a lens of anti-civ and primal anarchy. Once species are brought out of their natural habitat to which they've adapted, they no longer have long established relationships within their home living communities, and their behavior matches civilized humans, that is, out of whack.

Almost all species movements initiated out of their natural ranges today are controlled by civilized humans. Primally inclined people want to undo this hyper-controlling oppression of species and degradation of bioregions, facilitate species return to their homes where they were before hyper-controlling civilized humans moved them.

Check out Yi Fu Tuan's "Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets"

or David Nibert's "Animal Oppression and Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism, and Global Conflict"

I am the 15:30 commenter , ooohhh, so everything shuffled around by domesticated humans is sooo unnatural! OK, Read some Diamond and if in America live on bison , deer and corn, potatoes, tomatoes and chillies, BUT NO bananas, pineapple , apples, citris, dates, pears, apricots, wheat bread, pasta, peas, beans, watermelon, chicken, beef burger, lamb, pork, etc,
The nature of gaiea is eternal change and adaption, there is no room for the sentimental attachment to local parochial realities, sorry Ria to break your warm yet misled heart sweetie pie.

15:30, Are you anprim? Your rant doesn’t even come across as anti/civ.

Seattle is similar, but the pictures on Ria’s website are more diverse. And there are little kids and what appears to be teenagers participating, and at least some look happy doing it. How and why did this diversity happen.

It is an inspiring thing, but I agree that caution should be taken that this not turn into a greenwashing thing. It’s not enough to do this and go home la di da.

There's cute kids in there... was not at up good idea to bring that up here as SE might get way too interested into your project, but not for the reasons you think!

Doesn't JZ consume and wear the flesh of non-human animals? How do you forgive this in a person wise enough to know better?

Because he is so handsome and very popular! I think the animals would understand.

lives in the context of civilization. It saps too much of my energy, and it's misplaced, distracts from the root. I try to direct my energies into constructive activities toward wild. The blame is virtually everywhere. Almost all vegans harm wildlife by buying cultivated crops. Do I have to forgive them too?

And btw, I'm not opposed to hunters shifting their hunt to invasive nonnative species to assist indigenous habitat recovery. Not the kind of rigged game where civilized humans remove a top predator and then 'have' to hunt overpopulating prey deer, or hunting wolves to prevent livestock killings. To that, I say reintroduce top predators to the extent still possible and let human's domesticates die out as we rewild ourselves. I'm talking about eastern grey squirrel's advantage with spread of civilization extending it's range probably continent wide, decimating population numbers of other native squirrels, having a cascading impact on habitats.

Are you gonna forgive me?

Wild nature will never forgive you but maybe the other human supremacists will accept you into their fold of destroying the Earth through so-called stewardship. How civilized!

that's why I started using the words 'facilitating ecosystem recovery', but what I want to say instead is 'undoing a bit of harm civilization has caused wild communities', or something like that. Then there's 'wild tending', but that seems more in line with the ways earlier peoples interacted in wild through their lifeways that created and were generally helpful to wild (increased biodiversity, etc.), some time after the initial encroachment.

But I don't know if you're critiquing the specifics of what you perceive I do, no matter how it's labeled. If you want to say more on what you're thinking, perhaps we could chat more.

I think you are starting to realize how big of a deal your insight is on green anarchy. I told you long ago I thought you were an incredible animal. I think these people are right. You should get a podcast going. Invite other green vegan savages to speak on it. Perhaps this is an avenue for people to hear all the anti-civ anarchist vegans who don't fuck around much with technology and the interwebz. Just sayin'.

If so, I've been trying to find you ever since you dropped out. You're the one who got me in this hot fire, so to speak. I still check my old email address waiting to hear from you.

I'd co-podcast with you, if you email me.

sorry people, but I have no other way of contacting this person

stewardship, and 'undoing a bit of harm civilization has caused wild communities', do not seem all that different to me. there is still an underlying sense of being the savior. the earth doesn't need "help", it has far more capacity for healing itself than any human could be self-important enough to consider. the earth merely needs to be left the fuck alone; it will heal just fine. do-gooders from folks like ria and layla, to the scientific and technological gurus that claim to have the answers, are imo more of a problem than part of a solution. even though i sincerely believe their heart is in the right place.

If you google ‘eat invasives’ there’s information on nonnative plants and animals that help natives to forage and hunt. That should be doable for anprims, could be incorporated into whatever they’re doing. Some of them might have to get over civilized programming that it’s fine for animals and plants to be wherever we put them, or nature will heal itself. They might have to learn natives and nonnatives where they’re at, but if they care enough about wilderness then they would have motivation for it.

This seems like a problem with a rather easy solution. Maybe I’m wrong, it’s got to be too simple.

Some people here do ravel in gross intellectualization attempts to explain things as trivial as non-native plants...

Not all non-native plants are invasive or have devastating effects on the ecosystems balance. Ya gotta look at the context in which they were introduced. Plantain herbs, found more in the northeastern NA, were introduced by early settlers as survival food due to their lack of knowledge of plants found here. It used to be cultivated, but abandoned in favor of other (lesser sustainable) plants. They do not appear to have threatened any other native plants around.

But there's been plenty of mindless fools bringing exotic plants just out of some intent to show off, while the governments have also introduced the phragmite to the side of the highways, for one or two reasons. So yeah it's important to be replanting native plants like cattails as not only they are very useful, underrated plants, but also appear to be contributing to the richness of moist environments.

"I'm not opposed to hunters shifting their hunt to invasive nonnative species to assist indigenous habitat recovery"

perhaps consider this quote from Layla when you think about your position:

"the problem—all the problems—economic, speciesist, sexist, misogynist, wars, everything, goes back to that decision to hunt"

the singular greatest thing humans can do to help habit recovery is to cease being and stop meddling until that time.

The problem is that civilized humans have set off a downward spiral of ecosystem collapses, and no matter how stupid and selfish we've been and still are, there are actions we can take to undo some of our harm, slow or even stop some of the spirals.

I agree with Layla that the root of the problem is organized hunting, under the umbrella of colonization (she sees it as predation). That points to a huge need to return to our ethos of mutualism along with our lifeway embedded in wild, but we're living in this messed up world and the practicalities of Return are immediately limited. In cases of remaining habitats, most often nonaction is nothing or worse, it will continue to degrade because that's the motion we've set it in. If I saw someone harming you more & more, I'd try to intervene if I could. Likewise with other life.

I totally agree with Layla's quote on the root of the problem, but that doesn't equate to nonaction. I've been restoring wildlife habitats for a decade now, and I see the life coming back and thriving. Action away from harm and toward healing.

On the other hand, I agree that hunting is a part of the problem, and trying to place a problem as part of the solution often leads astray.

Can you sense the desperation, the urgency in my tone? My grief, my shock in how humans are harming other species has no other place but to be channeled into learning and helping, doing what I can to return their homes, and take part in ways I can resisting, slowing, and bringing down civilization.

Where do you end up standing on hunting invasive species? It sounds like you’re waffling in your answer above.

Are you unsure? I don’t really know much about restoration, but it sounds like there are hard choices to be made, life versus life. Even nonaction is a choice that must be made. Sounds intense.

That quote from Layla only represents some bad, lazy analysis on the cause of these issues.

How about agriculture-based civilizations like, say, Ancient Greece? They were also all of these things, especially some brutal misogyny for the Greek society, especially those kingdoms in the north starting with Athens. Some of the other greatest militaristic civilizations of the ancient world were based on agriculture and mining. It's like... try harder.

"Human relations not only changed with other species, but within our own. For example, men shifted their focus from foraging to hunting, providing periodic meat, while women continued foraging and gathering, providing the steady sustenance of cooked vegetation. While men went out on risky killing quests, women were tasked closer to the hearth. Cooking was susceptible to pilfering, so a ‘primitive protection racket’ formed pairing cooking women with stronger male counterparts to control food distribution. Hence cooking instigated the cultural practice of food as property and men’s subjugation of women through pair bonding, an ownership-of-women patriarchy continuing to this day. (And yes, some women have hunted; imitating and adopting oppressive ways happens. Generalities in cultural analysis tell a generalized story.)

With men’s shift to hunting specialization resulting in not only predation upon other animals but domination of female mates, one might question if women’s later shift from gathering specialization to joining men in adopting agriculture might equalize the power imbalance. But agriculture further polarized the sex power imbalance. Researcher on gender and technology Deborah Spar is wrapping up her latest project with the book: The Virgin and the Plow: How Technology is Changing Who We Are, and How We Live and Love. She finds that agriculture settlement needed children to both work and to inherit accumulated property. For men to know who their children were, as their rightful laborers and heirs, they began controlling women’s fertility. Agriculture honed the notions of adored female virgins and monogamous wives. As humans domesticated themselves and others, this desire to establish paternity intensified a patriarchal hierarchy with men at the top, and women, children and other animals leveled beneath as property to exploit."

So yeah, okay, uhms.... that totally refutes Layla's incredibly dumb claim that patriarchy and sexism and etc came with hunting-centered social arrangements. But it's proven that some hunting-based native societies in southern Africa and Turtle Island were hardly sexist and partriarchal, even if there were defined gender roles/ghettos.

But that's not even the important question here. We're still talking about long-gone cultures... that likely won't be coming back. You're talking about some imagined past, and trying to applying to ID pols narratives to it, in order to go... where, with that?

That’s the limitations of telling general narratives about any group, especially trying to tell a story of an entire species over a long time. There are many varieties and differences. But it is possible to tell a general story, and there is some value to it, so long as you keep the limitations in mind.

There's gonna be hell to pay in JZ's kitchen tonight!
Why sooo serious at the dinner table?

I'm much more agreeable with that.

But the origins of authoritarianism and patriarchy appear to be way more complex, and maybe contextually-defined, than something about "hunting", or "controlling fire", or "delayed return". But there's also something fallacious or at least distracting with this perpetuating anthropological investigation... it's that it fails to address how authority dynamics take place in our society in the first place.

Did controlling fire led to the first control/exclusion dynamics? I'm dubious of this. The priest classes, on the other hand, are present in many primitive or less primitive societies, and they all had to do with hierarchies (the term itself refers to some "guardians of a secret"). If we also go back to the much-underrated studies of Levi-Strauss, what he found out in primitive societies was this whole ritualism and "trickeries" (like the mechanical "animated" totems) aimed at enforcing make-beliefs, not just about the Afterlife, but also about issues related to food scarcity, the weather, etc. But it gets way more complex when you look into ancient Mesopotamia...

I'm dubious of historical grand narratives, as they always get disproven after a while. Human history leads to an interrogation point, more than anything else.

Since ‘man’ is such an adaptive species and so big brain smart, why does he have to replicate from the past? To reconnect with nature he needs to stop harming, unless you think man is empty of compassion, or an odd sort of narcissistic kamikaze. Converting all crops to organic vegan and ending killing animals is a really big step away from harm. Not the end goal, but a way for humans to stay alive while we’re giving earth back. I think Ria might not be nearly as ‘turned off’ by that as permaculture. When you think about what permaculture is and does, it has civilization at its core. Some twisted shit.

And above it, suburbs. That are related to cars anyways.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-really-need-to-cull-dee...

There is still is afaik a deer overpopulation in several regions of US and Canada, due the disappearance of wolves and mountain lions. Deers are eating several kinds of plants in the forest, including the tender young offshoots from tree branches and buds, some plants that provide share for greens to grow, therefore impoverishing ecosystems, only due to their high numbers. Ideally it'd be better if big predators be allowed back into the forests (or if you can find a way to breed some clandestinely, then release them... but good luck with that).

But for all the hurt that a few hunters can do, you got 100x hurt done by cars on a daily basis (like you didn't notice all the road kills on a daily basis or what?), and by residential sprawls to cause a PERMANENT, usually unrecoverable damage to ecosystems, while being intimately related to a consumerist, polluting lifestyle.

Currently, we are in the middle of mass extinction that rivals the wiping out of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But this time, it isn’t a giant meteorite doing all the damage — it’s humans.

Over the past century, we have accelerated extinction rates 100 hundred times greater than what would naturally occur without human impact. As we continue to destroy habitats with construction and invade wild areas for hunting, 301 species of land mammals are now critically endangered and have made their way to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List.

The list includes 168 primates, 73 hoofed animals, 27 bats, 26 marsupials, 21 rodent species and 12 carnivores. There are also 1,414 species of fish on the Red List.

“There are plenty of bad things affecting wildlife around the world, and habitat loss and degradation are clearly at the forefront, but among the other things is the seemingly colossal impact of bushmeat hunting,” said David MacDonald, professor at the University of Oxford and part of the international research team.

Bushmeat is a traditional food source for rural people in societies across the globe. That is starting to change because of large-scale commercial hunting and road construction in remote areas. MacDonald said that the number of hunters continues to increase, and the roads are being built in the most remote places, so there is no place left for wildlife to go.

Not only does this mass extinction threaten food security, but it also upsets ecosystems....

https://inhabitat.com/these-5-animals-are-being-consumed-into-extinction...

Another example hunting harming nature is how the Predators beat the Aliens in “Aliens vs Predators”.

"how the Predators beat the Aliens in “Aliens vs Predators”.

A much better argument than the comment above you!

Or you may be trolling here... hard to tell. But in no way hunting has gone industrial-scale in any developed countries where it can have such a huge impact.

"bushmeat" is hardly the meat source that's industrially produced on a mass-scale. Cattle meat is. Pork... beef... chicken... lamb... (and duck in China), to which we add sea food that's produced through industrial scale fishing by parasitic economies (Portugal, Japan, Thailand, China for the most part).

There's native people in Canada who still rely partially on hunting for a living. The winters are long and food is scarce... some berries can be found but beyond that, hunting and fishing are the main survival food in these conditions. People like Layla are living in some fantasy world where fruit trees still produce in February at -40 C and you can heat your shack... oh wait who needs to heat their shacks? Just find a deep cave like where Layla lives, for fuck's sake! Dem AnPrim eco-devastators... they keep consuming and polluting all over! :s

It’s her choice to not live as a predator.

If you’re going to select which natives to justify your actions... that’s exploiter thinking.

"Ria is native" is not an argument in itself, and anyway, 6%? 12%? 50%? That is soooo idpol.

The point was clear that sometimes people use native people to justify their own actions, and they choose which native people and which native traditional practices based on what they want to justify.

At least anon gave a real life example of a native individual person and not some overgeneralized ideological notion.

Since it’s brought up here and she made the decision to let it be public last week , Ria’s father is Lakota and it seems like a good idea to not use that in an argument, unless she brings it up.

and furthermore it's scapegoating as a logic fallacy in order to derail away from a really bad argument you were making about "hunting hurts nature (tho let's forget all the industrial/consumer practices that hurt it 100x more)". I never hunted any damn non-human animal. I do hunt some human chicks tho but not for *literally* eating them... just figuratively. But yeah that too is predatory. l-)

I just don't see where's all the drama about a few people hunting a few games a year... in a sea of cars killing how many hundreds of thousands wild (or domesticated) creatures a year? If you were serious, that's poorly-sighted, or just way too focused on specific much-demonized practices. Cars kill, you know? They kill a lot.

Just to put some perspective on meat eating - ABBATOIRS KILL 8 BILLION ANIMALS GLOBALLY PER YEAR.
That's a lot of methane also.
BRING ON THE SELF-INFLICTED TOXIC MASS PATHOLOGIES.

Since humans as a whole can convert to neither hunting nor foraging, and hunting is harming nature, because we’re so overpopulated, local organic vegan feels like an easy next step while we rewild ourselves and nature.

holding ears and going "No-no-no-no-no-no... hunting is killing nature STOP THE ONSLAUGHT!!!"

Which is actually the best way to win an argument. Just:

1- ignore any attempt at refutation of what you're saying, then

2- keep repeating the same bull crap

3- join ITS

We didn't become overpopulated due to hunting (that doesn't harm nature, unless it's culling predators like wolves) but due to mass-production through the industry.

and jysk, I know a lot of liberals supporting "local organic vegan" yet keep procreating and riding their cars around. Coz you know the problems if dem right-wingers who keep hunting. Dem baad, us, gooood!

13:37, it's like... the argument above was about HUNTING, not meat consumption through industrial production (i.e. with the help of abattoirs). Who/what are you debating? Are we hunting on a massive scale? No. Are you dense? Perhaps.

13:37 here respondiong. Abbatoirs are the symbolic extension of hunting in the industrial capitalist world. E erything has been encapsulated, categorized, concealed or exposed depending on prevailing ethical and moral values. Hunting and slaughtering animals in suburban streets has been deemed cruel and ugly by the majority of sheeple but its ok if someone else does it behind closed doors so we can have our disgusting BBQs squaffing down dead animal flesh and baby sheep while at the same time claiming to be god fearing Xtians worshipping gentle Jesus who made lions and sheep love eachother.

"Abbatoirs are the symbolic extension of hunting in the industrial capitalist world."

So I see I was arguing with a commenter who can't tell a bird from a plane, just because they both fly and the latter slightly resembles the first, from a distance.

But no, abattoirs are nowhere near an extension, even symbolic, of hunting. They're a division of meat production within an industry of mass-production of meat based on cattle herding. Herders send *their* super-domesticated cattle to abattoirs because they won't go through the dirty work of killing them. It's a completely other system than hunting, which in the first place involves killing the animal on the spot, into a natural environment, and most often not in captivity (tho there are hunring parks where animals are being chased and killed within enclosed environments). It's dying in captivity among a dense crowd of panicking animals, often in a puddle of shit.

Is hunting a violent practice that can easily involve suffering of the target creature? Totally. But many hunters, even among your White cis oppressors, are respectful enough people to be looking at minimizing suffering, by hunting with adequately-powerful rifles in order to kill instantly. It makes even less bloody painful murder than cutting the throat.

Is hunting proper as the single mean of meat production of a mass-consumer industry? Unlikely. But maybe as the only way to get meat in a context where the industrial meat production has been abolished, where still only a small part of the population would be hunting. Wild meat tends to be way healthier and tastier than cattle meat, has near-zero risks of containing bad toxins and hormones...

But the current social development model goes anyways in anothet direction that defavors it. Didja read the article I linked?

"Didja read the article I linked?"
What the hell is that meant to mean? Your sarcasm precedes you. Your pedantic rant has done one thing beneficial to my wellbeing, it has converted me into a vegetarian-nihilist who refuses all animal confinement enslavement and segregation, whatever definitions and splitting hairs you cut, a chicken in a cage is still hunting, a hotdog machine squeezing mince into a plastic sheath IS STILL HUNTING !! within the timid society with its invisible weapons of slaughter. Lattes and fillet mignon is still a shiv severing the neck of a bleeting lamb or piglet!

Now that was better trolling. You pass the test 7.8/100, which is marked as "quite good".

Keep improving those quality levels, comrade, and you'll be meeting our ISO 9200 standards thank you!

Oooh the invisible slaughtering shivs of the latte-fillet mignon hordes are slicing!

Monday 11:30

Why is this not reported anywhere, including on Anarchy Radio. This shows the importance of not having pro-meat bias.

If we as a species don’t acknowledge our predatory problem the future is written on the wall. This is why Ria’s AnPrim On Fire is so vital, and why JZ removing his blinders is vital too.

What percent of hunters today are tending nature? What percent are degrading ecosystems? Hell, AnPrims don’t know the first thing about wild tending or restoration.

Even consumer vegans don’t cause nearly this level of harm as hunting entire species to extinction, and not talking trophy hunting.

Is playing caveman worth it? Really?

Now watch them make silly jokes or reveal how misinformed they are. It’s depressing.

Let’s start giving back to the soil, to complete the cycle by making compost out of our refuse, and mulch out of fallen tree branches and leaves, putting wood chips to good use from the trees that sadly were fell. Let’s remove asphalt and concrete slab, let’s arid patches and restore the topsoil! It’s simpler work than knowing all the nitty gritty of gardening or botany, and you do the heavy lifting that paves the way for the people that do know.

maybe if we put "bush" in front of horrible things it makes it better?

murder is _bad_ but bushmurder… not so much.
torture is deplorable but bushtorture is a traditional practice therefore ok!
don't get me started on bushrape and bushanalelectrocution…

we are the world

"bushtrolling"?

Sounds better and more sophisticated too! Which means "good" in trollprick vocabulary.

bless your heart rfa, but what about the mining for the rare metals for the car battery so I can electrocute my own anus in the traditional way?! Check MATE. Indigenous identity FAIL.

stay real and fresh, senileoldtroll ; )

I'll try. What happens if you don't read all the comments? Rift in space/time?

Not all of us have to high-five ourselves, every time ;)

Also I'd like to hear your opinion about the Rephaim from the ancient Ugarit tablets.

like the nephilim, offspring of the coupling of human women with angels or anunnaki. An alien intervention would explain some quantum leaps in technological innovations although this is highly speculative there is mounting evidence.

a big problem with hunting in today's world is that many animals and plants are getting poisoned with led. I've heard about this killing of birds in some parts of the world since they indiscriminately eating whatever they can find in trees and on the ground. This makes me sad...there's also the uranium issue with military firearms.

i never knew who ria was til' i saw this comment thread. now, i am a ria fan. i don't call myself an anprim tho. just anti-civ green anarchism. but everything this person is saying is on point. i've been thinking about going vegan for a while, and now going to take on this journey. thanks for the support ria and other vegans on here. death to civ!

A star is born. Can't even post comments critical of them. Where's Bellamy when he's so badly needed... No wait.

There's a chance this charismatic pair could take the global social media networks by storm, and really boost the anprim cause into a global political force to be reckoned with. PR should really get some make-over and speech experts onto this, you only get one shot at fame when that time comes, have to look good on the red carpet and talk show circuit.

From the restoration methodology piece she wrote:

“Ecosystem stewards come to know idiosyncratic ‘things’, what’s found in the scat of coyote or owl, the depth of pileated woodpecker holes, particular plant and animal species indicators, that the most important butterfly host plant is stinging nettle, that prevailing winds are NE so plant SW for seed spread, and that certain ant species disperse seeds for certain plant species (e.g. bleeding heart and trillium). They experiment with things like putting clear plastic on top of rocks or bare ground to encourage moss, and laying sheets of woodchips or piles of removed weeds on top of weak nonnatives to not just serve as a weed control methods but wildlife habitat. They do things like use sticks as natural markers, plant with ‘community connectivity corridors’ in mind, place split logs flat side down for good surface contact to make habitat wildlife cover, and peek under dead fern fronds to observe what organisms take advantage of that cover, and study those organisms to understand their role in the natural system. They are emotionally invested in things like encouraging cow parsnip (Heracleum lanatum) because it is a host plant for the anise swallowtail butterfly (Papilio zelicaon), or introducing the one of the three native thistles, the short-styled thistle (Cirsium brevistylum) because the rare, migrator butterfly painted lady (Vanessa cardui) prefers it and the ‘lost’ butterfly mylitta crescent (Phyciodes mylitta) requires it. Ecosystem stewards understand how little they know, but trust that these sole ‘things’ likely lead to a complexity of beneficial community outcomes, and gradually come to see the connections.”

This is all very fine, intelligent-looking, elaborate excrements, Ria & gang. Very compatible with petty bougie academics willing to give themselves more cred and resume entries for their future green jobs. Still didn't see you reporting on guerilla tactics of vandalizing development panels, burning construction sites, burning yuppie cars, messing up with land survey ribbons, freeing caged animals, etc.

a single person doesn't have to do, and can't do, everything themselves.

flying around the world to destroy tech-industrial civilization, 20 attacks-a-day... zapping nuke power plants n shit. I just threw in a few examples of stuff that can be easily done to fight mass society. Like illegalist shit a municipality couldn't be supporting, save being even put online with the authors' faces and official names.

Like I said already... noting wrong with above-ground practices that also provide with a job, maybe. But doing green activism along with the illusion that you're changing things for the better, while natural ecosystems are still being devastated under your nose?

Btw, for those skinny Rambo Atassa idiots, there's a regime in Brazil you could totally go assassinate, like RIGHT NOW, with the non-deluded motive of saving the wild. You could also legally do fundraisers for it in your northern countries, without attracting any State suspicion.

It's like where are those ecoextremists when we the whole world needs them? Probably licking their wounds from Atassa being banned at some @ bookfair, and preparing their Ultimate Revenge at the Green Scare bookfair... Fucking posers.

that's why there's nothing wrong with just enjoying your life whether that means destroying shit, being a "civilized" normie, doing eco-restoration, doing art projects, killing people, working, WHATEVER. You just have to feel alright with it at the end of the day so you can get some sleep at night. I just liked Ria's insights into eco-restoration because it's another possible tool for people to get out and do something that's fulfilling for them.

Ultimately primitivism is just inherently puritanical and can't even be accomplished, and even JZ knows that. In the natural world there were ways that all life forms could live in a mutualistic/predatory balance but that's over. The human race is entirely insane and it deserves it. We all just need to learn how to live in harmony with ourselves to the best extent possible. Guilt and blame doesn't have much of a role to play in this, while "dancing in hell" like was stated in Attassa #2 does.

I feel good about doing pilates 3 hrs a day and watching Dr Phil. it makes me feel better, and that's what we should all do according to you. Thank you sooo much for supporting my lifestyle.

Do what your heart desires! I don't have any experience with pilates but Dr. Phil is a nice laugh and has totally dytopian feel to it. Change your life! J/k, I'm saying the exact opposite. Dr. Phil and the army of idpol capitalists and ideologists tells you to change, replacing your wild nature with routines and shopping lists. Let your creative self unfold and don't take orders from anyone...including me!

Its too late, I cannot un-hear what you said, it is implanted in my personal agenda, just as Dr Phil's directives are. But I am content.

It's whatever disgusts you and doesn't disgust you at the end of the day. What matters is willed harmony through owness and not representative harmony at the end of the day.

Ironically it was the electromagnetic fractal patterns in the world that found an aperture of awareness in the hominid that made all this shabang possible. On some level you have to accept the results and just find away to detourn as creatively as possible parallel to facilitated psychologies. This can be the Masterless Men of Eastern Canada, it can be aesthetes or it can be primitivist asceticism. Just keep things interesting as diffuse as possible on the entropic road.

This is the first I’ve heard of any self-declared AnPrim actively taking care of natural area. I’ve only heard them talk and write about ways they live off nature. Their only focus seemed to be exploitation, which always felt quite civilized to me. You figure that nature health would be a top priority for them, so why did it take so long? Hopefully there will be more of this kind of action.

"White men on the top of civilization’s hierarchy are takers, others givers. "

holy shit, i doubt it is possible to generalize any more than that. so you only have 2 boxes into which you shove every individual, eh? why not 3, 4 or 5? i guess 2 makes it easiest: typical binary thought. good/evil. love it.

Well, how about this highly accurate statement then? White takers on top, olive complexioned people in the middle, including asian and mixed with trailer trash whites in with them, and then black people at the bottom, though occasionally like Mandela and Obama, they sneek to the top in democracies where the whites are outnumbered.

Too busy reading how to a caveman no doubt? Gotta wonder if he and JZ ever put anything back to Nature or just whine on? And don't get me started on their indigenous fetishisms!

any written/oral work of Ron's regarding racism outside of civilisation as he mentioned on your show; I couldn't find anything. The fact that no one bothered to comment about it on @news doesn't necessarily mean no one is interested in such matters. Peter Bauer discussing outsider, 'mental illness' etc with regards to current life was articulate and prescient. How to avoid the mess while living in it is where I'm at and have been for a number of years. It is getting harder to live in it. It's is one's face: the noise, the consumerism, the 24/7, the me me me of it all, the screen zombies, truly the idiocracy is here.

There is at least some substance mixed in with all these comments. And diversity within anprim is discussed with an underlying cause and possible solution. Anarchy Radio hardly ever gets comments on ANews. This recent phenomenon quite obviously has nothing to do with anyone else, but something about Ria. Not that that’s a bad thing, just so Ron knows this isn’t some sort of racist slant against him. To see it that way is being too sensitive.

It’s nice to have comments on the show, even at the price of sifting through. It was a great show.

and his perspective that fighting racism is appearing to be an utter waste of energy is realistic. In the UK, White racism simmers just below the societal surface occasionally peering above the surface, typically football racist chanting gets public notice. I'm sure Ron will continue to call in. It is revealing that people not responding to what Ron had to say

Just because Ria lit this thing up doesn’t mean anyone else was oppressed. It was just a timing issue. If he had called the week before and no one commented no one would be trying to make some ridiculous point of how ARadio listeners oppressed him. What you’re saying comes across as using racism as a fuel for some strange jeolousy or something.

i have a question for ria (and maybe layla):

do you have a problem with animals hunting other animals? if not, why would you have a problem with a human animal hunting another animal for food? forget about game/trophy hunting, or even hunting with high tech weapons; that is not even worth addressing. i am talking about the fundamental act of feeding oneself as a living being in the wild. why should humans limit their nutritional intake to species approved by some moralistic measure that doesn't even make sense? i am honestly curious.

Some animals hunt, most forage, each playing their roles, Layla and others make a strong case that the human primate’s nature and function within living communities is as forager. I’ve always intrinsically known I’m a forager. Look at my finger nails. These are not the sharp claws that slash open skin. These are the fingers made for picking berries and mushrooms. These are the hands for pulling up roots. Look at my teeth. These are not the teeth that rip chunks of raw muscle from bone. Our species has grown so very far away from itself that we can no longer even see our obvious nature right in our own bodies. This has nothing to do with morals, but who our biology, our being is. If we were meant to hunt, we wouldn’t need all the weaponry, or the rituals and indoctrination convincing our body and mind to behave outside its nature.

Read Layla AbdelRahim’s “Wild Children - Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education”
Or her “Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness”
Or listen to any of her youtube video presentations
Other Books:
Jim Mason’s “An Unnatural Order: Uncovering the Roots of Our Domination of Nature and Each Other”
David Nibert “Animal Oppression and Human Violence: The Vulnerability of Success”
Matt Cartmill’s “A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature Through History”

suggests that at some time in the future we can make the animals vegan using nanotechnology and genetic engineering. This would mean an unprecedented paradise on earth fulfilling the old prophecy that the lion would lay down with the lamb.

I've seen a domesticated cat inside prison forced to eat vegetable scraps out of desperation waste away and become a sad depressed bag of bones, and then, when given access to the meat processing section in the prison, suddenly blossom and look like its been doing bench presses in a gym and regained its cheerful aggressive demeanor in just a few months.
THAT'S WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS, FOR THE MAJORITY TO WASTE AWAY AND BECOME DEPRESSED BAGS OF BONE, WHILE ONLY THE ELITE AND POWERFUL EAT MEAT.
VIVA LA HUMANE MEAT EATING!!

Ria and Layla both are putting out ideas that totally undercut much of the foundation for your thinking.

Is anybody going to refute this? This deserves a serious response.

There will always be this element of losing perspective of one's social relativity when lecturing on morality and calling for active participation from others which places them outside of their capabilities and desires.
This is why being a nihil-esque organic amoralist with an iron green thumb is the most sensible path to take.

look at our teeth: they are meant to consume plants.
look at our fingernails: they are meant to forage.
look at our hearts: they are meant to show compassion.
look at our sex organs: they are meant to do it like: this
look at our brains: they are meant to understand nuclear science and invention that allows us to destroy worlds! behold!

look at how highly we think of ourselves: naked ape, master of the world, savior to all, a consciousness like a god.

we matter so much!

buy my book. become my patron. solidarity. amen.

they're made to dab *dabs* like this *dabs dabs*

I'm a meat eating *jab jab* combination *jab hook* and * uppercut* ;)

But it doesn't help solve the riddle of how we've come to think of ourselves as gods. Was that just out of the thrill of successfully using our wits (science, reason, intelligence) to over come the natural conditions of our suffering, making ourselves gain some godly luxury and comfort provided by culture? Or there's one little additional detail nobody here even dares to address?

The supreme patriarchic figure of the ancient world, Ba'al, a.k.a. Marduk or YHVH, were described as lesser sky gods serving as *stewards* for a cosmic supreme entity (An, or El, or Ahura Matsuda, or the Latin-Germanic "God the Father", or "Zeus-Peter", Jupiter) that is beyond the physical realm and above all. They were the "king of kings" getting around in mysterious "cloud chariots", hence likely being able to communicate with the kings of the numerous city-states, possibly all over the planet... Beyond the Greco-latin, eurocentric cultural distortion lies an elephant in the room, that even anthropologists are hesitant to be addressing. So the bi disks and cong "bowls" of jade also used by early kings of China to purportedly communicate/connect with cosmic entities or energies (possibly the Qi). That is the question of the Other, and its true nature, beyond the culturally-defined representations.

the source was me right here Sun, 03/31/2019 at 09:29. unfortunately i'm not sure i understand the rest of your post

Your first points related our now-to-early-human connections. Then you jumped ahead to after our predatory brain emerged.

a new voice on the block to ravage to pieces in the only way anonymous commenters know how...it's just a matter of time. I hope I'm proved wrong: there's a reason why Layla AbdelRahim doesn't do much 'social' media...so keep your wits about you Ria and remember why you do what you do :-)

i think that what she's currently doing and her daily life cannot be tarnished by any silly string of characters with an anon tag on a screen

on a topic some might experience as controversial in light of Palestinian’s plight. Still, analyzing with an anti-civ lens grows insight.

He works off Layla’s definition of civilization
"…the term “civilization” refers to the social and material cultures that issue from a specific socio-environmental system, which in human animals is legitimated by a perspective that sees the world as existing for a utilitarian purpose. In this view, all living and non-living beings are bound together in a predatory food chain, their reason for existence being to serve as a resource for someone else[emphasis mine]. This food chain is hierarchical rather than circular, with the human animal emerging as the top predator…Before everything else, therefore, civilization is about “breeding,” that is, the selective breeding of crops, animal husbandry, and human resources."

The last sentence calls consumerist vegan and meat eating alike into question, among others. With the entire definition, she goes into greater depth in her books and video presentations on youtube. Highly recommend.

He has JZ in there on patriarchy:

“It’s no coincidence that the majority of this vitriol and violence in our society originates with men. In his essay ‘Patriarchy, Civilization, And The Origins Of Gender,’ John Zerzan explains how civilized societies emerged with the advent of patriarchy. To bolster his case he quotes Ursula K. Le Guin who blessed us with this insightful gem:
“Civilized Man says: I am Self, I am Master, all the rest is other — outside, below, underneath, subservient. I own, I use, I explore, I exploit, I control. What I do is what matters. What I want is what matter is for. I am that I am, and the rest is women and wilderness, to be used as I see fit.”

My favorite quote of his:
“We should also entertain the idea that a managed collapse, or a managed retreat from ecocide, institutional racism, perpetual warfare, patriarchy, etc, might be preferable to hoping we can tinker around with an inherently destructive engine… Solutions will not be discovered by focusing entirely on political ideology and economic systems, but in re-imagining what it means to be a human being and rediscovering our true place in the world and its community of diverse life. In part this means rediscovering the value of wilderness and making space for other beings who deserve a chance to live and thrive.”

Not sure what you mean by "anti-Palestinian analysis via civilization".

This message runs throughout her writings and talks.

It’s as in your essay Ria, the analogy of the graph hockey stick someone gave earlier works well. Humans becoming predatory with hunting as she puts it, or colonizing with controlled fire as you put it, was the beginning of the hockey stick that touches the ground , things very gradually worsened until domestication of plants and animals when the stick rises into the handle. That’s the theory on how humans lifted themselves out of nature, becoming predatory colonizers, ever so gradually then intensifying.

It seems like this author chose to stick with the more popular point of agriculture, but that’s too simplistic.

If humans hadn’t controlled fire and hunted, we likely would have remained foragers and never made it to domesticators.

So now that things have gotten so messed up, the question is how to stop our blundering, and it’s so clear that hunting and animal agriculture in particular are first things to let go. Both in actions and attitudes.

"If humans hadn’t controlled fire and hunted, we likely would have remained foragers and never made it to domesticators."

It's completely untrue. The domestication of dogs is assumed to have appeared very early among the troglodytes who did not control fire.

This whole insistence on hunting being like the roots of civilization is also ridiculous. Plenty of non-human animals are hunting as well... so are they, too, "civilizing"? Def not, as far as I know.

You need more than that in order to have a civilization. You need particular organized modes of reproduction of living conditions, i.e. a social organization of sorts. In such, Ria's definition rings true. But Layla's views keep making me doubtful.

How would humans actually survive as vegan gatherers, and, relatedly, why are there literally zero known vegan gatherer indigenous groups?

our earliest diet, for millions of years. When we became hunting colonizers we forced our predatory ways onto others, like the parable of the tribes. There’s so much bias that even when there were and are vegans living apart from civilization they get suppressed.

How do you think our earliest ancestors lived as foragers for millions of years? Same way we could again. Would take some learning and deprogramming.

"How do you think our earliest ancestors lived as foragers for millions of years? Same way we could again. Would take some learning and deprogramming."

Here we go again... *sighs*. So which of these timelines you identify with...

- Gillistroll/anarcho-transhumanists: go FORWARD 500 years!

- Rev Left: see ya in 50-200 years!

- an-nihil: there is no "time" there are only clocks DESTROY ALL THE THINGS (but later I'm reading an essay)

- ancoms: go back 100 years.

- anprims: go back 15,000 years.

- green veganarchist academics: go back one million years.

- dino-trots: go back 66 million years...

- WILD anticiv fire maniacs: go back +/- 3 billion years DESTROY ALL THE THINGS!!!

You forgot nihil-esque Stirnerian: cool contented don't fuck with me and I won't fuck with you, live and let live, don't tell me how to live and I wont tell you how to live etc.

I never poke fun at nihilo-Stirnerians. Self-preservation dude! ;)

i felt called out by the an-nihil blip, i've literally shot at a clock, and postponed things cuz of reading essays, including writing.
but i was glad it still seemed like the most sensible option of the bunch. granted, anprim are not advocating time travel (that'd be u/acc wingnuts) they're like doing stuffs with plants, which is cool by me ; )

but co-adapting together?

As Ria said, some animals are natural hunters and some are foragers. Human primates are foragers, and when they started behaving as predatory colonizers that was a catalyst towards civilization.

In her piece AnPrim On Fire she spells out how controlling fire was a huge change that triggered organized social order with division of labor between the sexes, etc that correlates with Layla’s predatory theory.

Dogs were domesticated in the way of being accommodated, fed and somewhat disciplined (when not educated) by humans. The theory, that doesn't come from AnPrims, is that the dogs were useful to guard the caves where humans sheltered. There's hypothesis that the early dogs were domesticated wolves, yet there's also plenty of proof of the existence of dogs (like the small dogs found among PNW natives) that were very different to wolves. The genetic split between wolves and dogs was dated as far back as 100,000 years ago... So some breeds had a "natural" predisposition to live along with humans. Perhaps the same story with cats.

As for the control of fire being used in support of hierarchies, that's highly questionable, unless you get me instance where there was some intense ritualization of fire-making... and exclusion from it. There were countless rituals around the fire of course, yet making fires didn't appear to be such an expertise kept for a small number of "L337" people, who also used this status to gain influence over the clan/tribe. I'd like to be proven wrong, but it doesn't stick to anything I've seen/read... Starting fires was a pretty social activity where people used to be gathering around, so it must have become a basic skill learned since childhood.

And there's one thing I find tiring... it's that endless noise about stuff that happened 10k, 50k, 1 M years back and how people are living back then. We know jack shit about it, beyond a few scarce clues that don't mean a lot in themselves. People should quit making all these bold claims about shit that happened before like 3000 years ago because we're in fact mostly in the dark about it. What the fuck is wrong with claiming ignorance? Just say it... "I don't know." or "I ain't sure." It's easy!

Like is there really a distant past origins to authoritarianism? Or is it something that is rather ingrained in the social norms and representations inculcated to people at every new generation? What is real? Is the past still a living reality weighting upon all of us? Not sure!

But for some reason, like the fascists and racists have been doing for quite a while, we gotta draw these big historical narratives to fit our own politicized worldviews. Which maintains the fear of the unknown, instead of accepting the unknown, and building understanding out if this awareness. This is also what it means to be "abolishing ideology".

It’s relieving to air all this out. Many of these issues have been lingering under the surface for a long while. Times are a changing, time to adapt.

So much ado about this anthrocentric narrative, when all weighed up, 'tis an ephemeral incident in the grand play of things!
Shall I compare thee to a t-bone steak?
Billy. Shakes a Spear at a Cow.

I really don’t understand why, but JZ has always downplayed the impact of controlled fire on human evolution and social structuring. For some reason he’s willing to analyze cave drawings and first words, symbolic thinking, but he won’t touch fire.

When he talks about it (his denial) on his show Ria is not alone in noticing this obvious flaw in his thinking. Finally someone said something about it, even wrote a whole essay about it almost directed it exactly at him, and some of those of us who see it too were amped up enough to add to the comments.

Ria has her own perspective on it, but if JZ would take a harder look at it he could develop his own perspective.

Nobody’s perfect. Not even JZ

JZ simply asks where is the evidence for widespread use of controlled fire? If there was evidence, he would consider it. I have asked Ria on a couple of these threads for her evidence; she hasn't responded thus far. Yes, Wrangham speculates on the impact of controlled use of fire but not dating way back before widespread hunting; but there is no widespread evidence of charred earth etc, just sporadic hearths over the globe. There is evidence of widespread controlled hunting leading to massive declines in large mammals.

for him to say civilization started way back then. I agree that organized hunting caused widespread mammal decline. So couldn’t organized hunting go hand in hand with widespread controlled fire?

human social organization, or however he put it. Fire obviously resulted in enormous changes, Ria just stated the obvious that almost all can see. I just don’t understand why he has this blind spot. It has to be something subconscious, because he really does believe what he’s saying. So what would it mean to him if he accepted the truth on fire? When that question is answered you’ll find his barrier.

He’s telling a story, based on reality, but one central piece isn’t. How does that one piece contradict his story? Ria is really demonstrating that he doesn’t want to accept that hunting played a role leading to civilization, both in actions and mind. I’m starting to sense that’s about right. If he saw it that way, that would have enormous consequences on his life’s work, his friendships, his reputation. That’s enough to build a barrier in almost anyone’s mind. Too much affect on his own social organization.

Nothing against the man. He’s one of the best anti-civ gadflies. But I don’t think he’ll overcome whatever his barrier is. If he reads this, his mind will already be spinning its spin to protect his narrative. He’s a prisoner of his own mind.

prometheus gave fire, not pandora! also pandora opened pandora's "box," not jz! geez!
jz is not blind but polyphemus the cyclops was after odysseus punished him.
therefore: time travel is possible.

OMG huddling in a cave on a cold winter's night 10,000 yrs ago WITHOUT A FIRE would have been aweful, omg I hope there was a comedian in every clan of Neanderthals otherwise they would have been depressed and wouldn't have evolved into cheerful modern people with sitcoms and standup comedy everywhere.

amoebas ruined everything when they began to eat diatoms...i think we need to go further back

Aaargh! But don't you see JZ, you ARE a nihilist in denial. YOU are the one who wishes to annul civilization and negate comforts and the primitive BBQ. The contradictions are becoming too loud to ignore!

I’m sure he will.

Confronting oppression is challenging, but some of these comments show that change must feel like death the way people can cling to ideology.

No wonder Ria stopped commenting.

Seriously hoping Ria is all the anon comments because this has got to Be the dumbest most irrelevant conversation I have seen. The only reason ria says anything Is to serve a vegan agenda. Vegabism is for kids, not adults. Vegan is for people as they try to do the right thing before realizing fhat there is no right thing in consumerism. I hope she is all the anon accounts otherwise...damn

I’m not vegan, but to say that it’s simply (and only?) a consumer choice is pathetic. If you declare yourself an anarchist, then you are beset by any number of ethical issues when residing in a society that promotes exactly the opposite of anarchist values. What to do? Each of us makes personal ethical decisions based on our particular principles. Some of those decisions revolve around consumer choices, most do not. Sometimes they overlap, which leads moral absolutists like to to point exclusively to the consumerist facet as a way to dismiss all of the ethical and philosophical issues that went into that decision. Asshole

It's a pretty damned exclusive club where dietary choices aren't almost totally a consumer thing.

I wouldn't call an argument pathetic when it's pointing out how 95% of everyone who lives in the developed world is primarily making consumer choices with their food and assigning way more moral agency to that choice than it probably deserves. BUT this topic is getting trolled all the way to the centre of the earth so I doubt most of these comments are sincere.

I'm so done with anprims sticking the 'consumer' label on vegans when a breakdown of their per person average real consumer impact on wild habitat is much higher than even consumerist vegans, I'd put money on it. Not just shopping, but driving into fast food, ordering pizza, etc. And those who are living closer to within nature seem unaware of their direct impact. (No, nature just doesn't magically heal herself after you've exploited her to death)

Here's what it comes down to:

Are anprims going to exclude people who are anti- killing & eating animals, or as Layla might put it, anti- predatory? Based on what grounds? Are you aware how you beat up on us? I can tell you that it doesn't feel like a very welcoming place to me as a vegan. If anything, anprims need to step off their pedestal and start learning how to give back. What if when you look at earth's current condition, hunting doesn't fit into the mix as a helpful way to be? Does that matter to you? Are you capable of adapting to a lifeway in sync with earth today?

Now go to your room & think about what you've done.

Just had to vent that out.

Tho I'm not 10:35 and neither totally disagreeing with you, especially on that first paragraph, but ...

"Are anprims going to exclude people who are anti- killing & eating animals, or as Layla might put it, anti- predatory? Based on what grounds?"

I find Layla's concept of "predatory" to be questionable, as I said before (and as you and others seem unwilling to read & consider... likely because I ain't some eminence that gives lectures and sells books?), humans are much better parasites than predators. There's a few dozen millenia of human history in support of this. The ruling classes has never been disinterested benevolent dictator; it was always about profiting from the larger numbers. Human societies, even when they look like it, are not ant colonies. Yet ants also share the dual nature of being both parasites and occasionally into warfare, just like they got a primitive form of "livestock". https://antark.net/ant-life/ant-feeding/ant-farming/ But does that make them predatory? I dunno. But for a (parasite) human pov, ants are pretty obvious household parasites. Predators are another kind. Felines, sharks, eagles and orcas... that type of creatures, that rely exclusively on preying and hunting, and they're so damn good at it they don't require any additional craft, or "techne", for it.

The techno-industrial society does hardly fit with any predatory mindset or behavior, yet it conveniently serves large-scale parasitism. "Wars"? Yes. There is a predatory aspect with today's militaries, yet also their underlying driving forces involve financial parasitism (the corporate defense contractors who've been making billions out of R&D, including wars, as well as the self-interested military officers who're more using the military to their own benefits). This is the common trait, from peace to war time. Is this a equally common trait among all cultures? That is debatable, but let's look at the true motives behind warfare... is this really for eating other people? Naah. Actually for going after anything that others have, preying upon their resources and energies. And/or securing their own. Which is the goal of human warfare. It is, in so, directly connected to PROPERTY... no matter the form of property.

"What if when you look at earth's current condition, hunting doesn't fit into the mix as a helpful way to be? Does that matter to you? Are you capable of adapting to a lifeway in sync with earth today?"

How about driving cars/trucks more than necessity allows? How many people are still driving alone in cars with 3+ passengers capacity? Why are people still buying land and houses in countryside development projects, where they can afford living spaces in city centers that are much less destructive? Any relationship with... hunting?

*scratching my head*

This obsession with hunting as the core bogeyman appears to me as outdated and off the mark (or if this is some elaborate trolling effort, well, ok, honest congrats).

As I wrote before, it's ridiculous to be equating (even symbolically) mass-consumerism of meat with "hunting", as they are completely different systems of production, and industrial mass-production is the reason why we've lost balance with nature in the first place, whereas hunting relies -like fundamentally- on this balance for people to sustain. A hunter-gatherer society would still be the best way to restore balance with nature. Yet let's be also clear that this cannot be achieved with such a massive, mass-based society, unless governments suddenly develop space exploration programs for the millions of lay proles to staff (which ain't gonna happen soon unless alien contact or whatev).

So why do I insist here? Simply because this whole narrative as hunting being the root cause of all civilizational destruction and oppression appears even more distracting to me as Climate Change TM as the main ecological antagonist. It is casting a shadow over modes of production that we CAN help abolishing if we avoid being double-blinded by these enforced grand narratives. Let's put it more simply.... there is a failed, devastating development model we've been unwillingly supporting. It can be stopped, or at least slowed down, yet keep focusing on over-specific, arbitrary issues like "hunting" and you're throwing it off your radar screen.

Aside from this, I'm totally fine with your ongoing restoration project. It's a good praxis for several reasons and I'd hope that in my own social context (not the PNW), it wouldn't be mostly highly-educated liberals who don't give a damn about a deeper analysis of our current social development model, even less how to force it to change.

It's so nice to have a dialogue like this.

I think I can agree that today's humans are parasites, that seems at least very close to colonizers. Our difference may be that you think we've always been that way, and I think through a series of early catalysts we became that way.

I see ants much more as polinators and soil tenders and prey and decomposers within thriving wild than parasites. Maybe civilized people living civilized lives in civilized homes see them that way, but since I was 2 I've observed them, and I never saw that in them.

You said anti-hunting critique is 'outdated'? From an anprim lens, or other lens, I don't get it.

How can hunting restore nature with no awareness of how nature is restored? That sounds like a very shallow popular narrative with no backing.

How can the current model be stopped or slowed with no change in our current parasitic ethos?

How do you disagree with my quote:

"...anprims struggle with defining human habitat ranges – they don’t want limitations experienced by wild animals as homes, they are trapped with desiring a destructive sham freedom to colonize, they are accustomed to the entitlement to roam so extensively and fearlessly that they no longer sense total belonging within a bioregion’s community of life. This is why anprims laud hunting, justifying it in the wings of more recent indigenous people’s cultures and mythology of earlier humans’ primal ventures in predation – they don’t want to live as foraging primates, they have been conditioned to hunger the hunt of animals, unwittingly craving civilization’s catalyst. This is why anprims mock veganism, dismissing it with invalid claims of being nothing more than leftist drivel – they don’t want to acknowledge their own innate compassion for animals suppressed by predatory indoctrination."

"I see ants much more as pollinators and soil tenders and prey and decomposers within thriving wild than parasites. Maybe civilized people living civilized lives in civilized homes see them that way, but since I was 2 I've observed them, and I never saw that in them."

Yes, yet also from the pov of law-abiding, hard workers, the people who decide to shoplift or dumpster dive and live off the dole and other easy money are perceived as parasites. I'm also perceived as something alike by proud, "tax-paying, law-abiding" car drivers who'll keep whining at bikers like me for just riding on the road (coz I don't pay for a stupid license plate). Doesn't mean that, in fact, themselves are parasites as well, or taking part in a mass-parasiting scheme (the oil/energy industry) where they are the foolish, servile slaves of some world-class parasite billionaires. Like I said before, it's just how you assume yourself as parasite, and also maybe look for ways to make a contribution to the non-humans that are, indeed, being fucking oppressed and destroyed.

This society does not value or even recognizes the existence of life. It is anti-vitalist, it is materialist, but falsely so. Living beings are reduced to be territorialized things, with imposed identities. This is a psychopathic worldview in itself.

There's a gap between "lauding" the practice of hunting (which I'm not doing), and just stopping to see it as the roots of all evil, which is a misguided or at least a pretty superficial and wrong-headed analysis. I accept it would be necessary in some contexts where there are no alternatives to survival. Of course, most of those who hunt today are doing it more as a sport, a macho brutish social club, but also as a way to have the finest quality of meat for a few weeks/months without having to pay Costco for the worst, toxic crap filled with hormones and that also supports the even more awful meat industry.

If I'd be living in survival mode in the forest, as I said there are very few things to forage in the winter that's nutritious enough to make me survive. Some bays... but forests are not vast monocultures of bays; their availability is limited. Hence why native peoples of northern Turtle Island were relying on hunting and fishing during their winter days in the more comfy forest/mountainous environment, in addition to some dried fruits, nuts and greens.

You're calling them "primates"? A primate's a monkey. Precolombian natives were well-developed humans with similarities to Chinese and Mongol people. Was that intentional wording?

"You said anti-hunting critique is 'outdated'? From an anprim lens, or other lens, I don't get it. "

Any? How is hunting such a widely-spread practice as to be a primary subject of social critique, today? Look around you. Most people live in urban/suburban areas... how many among these go hunting during the weekend or holidays? Not saying there aren't, but it doesn't seem like any more than a niche subcultural activity among a limited number of White people living in the countryside. Some native people still do hunt, some even have hunting exclusive rights in some unpopulated areas of Canada, but that was their ages-old way of survival... are u saying they should go instead to the supermarket to get vegan food?

Beyond that, anprims do this, anprims do that... dunno where's the truth behind these claims. I'm pretty sure that the tiny few anprims I've known were were hardcore vegans. I don't get why, suddenly, anprims should be about paleodiet meat-eating. There's a bunch of assumptions and generalizations that you could spare.

...and again, please, consider abandoning that demented notion that "hunting" is the basis of our civilization's oppression. You thank me for this in a few years, I swear! This is 2019... the vast majority of humans on the planet have been "civilized" out of the practice of hunting, in favor of interdependence on the industrial society. Keep going after "hunting" if you like... but I feel that's chasing a ghost.

"How can the current model be stopped or slowed with no change in our current parasitic ethos?"

The ethos appears to change way better when confronted with contradictory realities. The current model can be stopped or slowed by means of deteriorating its spectacle (representations) of progress, or growth, and anything else that supports it. I stopped on my own a few development projects, just by vandalizing ad panels. Those were threatening very fragile humid ecosystems with a huge diversity of wild plants, insects and animals, starting with some endangered reptiles. When yuppies see panels with shit-colored enamel paint over it, or a graf that tells them to "fuck off" upfront, they're very likely to go look elsewhere, or go back to the city. That also eventually made the speculators and authorities freak out in the area where I've been doing that, as by good grace, other people I didn't know picked up on these tactics. Sometimes any appearance of controversial business or filth/stench can quickly push people out of their induced pipedreams.

But for sure there are many other means that exist, and they deserved to be explored, experimented and maybe spread.

"...doesn't mean themselves aren't parasites..."

I don't think humans have an innate anything Ria. What there is that is observable is oxytocin and the evolutionary habits and expression that comes out of it.

I don't think anprims laud hunting, hunting just is as is the totality of sufferability in physical reality. Humans aren't really breaking in rules in the big picture. You can dislike developments and create an arbitrary set of ethics and egoistic preferences but there is no qua reference for what is 'innately' correct. You've clearly gone down the path of a kind of asceticism which I actually find somewhat noble and am not opposed to it as. I prefer the Kaczynski approach(minus the murder) to simply take things as they are within a power process continuum. I go with the instincts(as Nietzsche would say) and not with an ascetic correction towards physical reality.

I always thought that Kaczynski's isolation from civilization was an ascetic detachment, like a Shaolin assassin on missions from his monastic lair in the mountains.
Maybe I'm projecting some romanticism into his murderous methods?
Yeah, the Nietzschean instinctual existent has precedence over any moral or ethical hesitation, and therefore intrinsically more genuine, thus more just, because empathy is a reaction to the hardships after birth, but can sometimes be mistaken as an innate tendency because infants are so honest.

anarchist ethos demands that ria’s anarcho-vegan lobbying be diy. no shame in it. it made a buzz, didn’t it.

Anyone can "be done" with reality and it will persist … that's why it's reality.

... I'm not an anprim, nor am I bullying anyone. Wtf is the deal with this discussion? Wow folks...

I think some of you new arrivals to @news need to learn to get less wound up by the trolls here.

Some Leftie trolls are continuously trying to derail the argument instead of fucking reading. I guess I should use the name @critic or Ria in order to be read, next time. So much for "death of the author"!

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