I realized, sometime during the past two months, that people really like to refer to humans as "pack-animals." They like to say that we operate best as a community, and that we are genetically designed to seek communion with each other. They say that isolative people die younger, and have greater rates of depression. They often compare humans to wolves, which is weird because, as far as I know, wolves only exhibit the frequently referenced wolf-pack hierarchy (alpha, beta, omega) in captivity. In other words, people love to say that wolves exist in highly structured packs that are run by the dominant or "alpha" male. Second in line is the beta, who acts sort of like a servant to the alpha. Last in line is the omega who apparently is just everybody's bitch. In reality though, wolves only do that when they are packed together with wolves that they are unaccustomed to (like they would be in a zoo or a refuge or something). In the wild, wolves travel as families. Father, mother, kids. Cousins? I don't know, I'm not some wolf expert. My point is that the "wolf pack" that everyone loves to reference so much is actually an artificial construct that is sort of a due directly to the meddling of man, or possibly to extraordinary natural circumstances (disasters, famine, etc).
I've been thinking about this concept for a while though. Before I learned that about the wolves. It seems to me that the people who insist that humans are pack animals are generally members of the pack. They aren't the Alphas. They aren't the leaders. They are people who are confident in their incompetence, and know that without a strong leader guiding them, they would not survive. They may not be stupid, or weak. But they are afraid. And furthermore, it seems that the leaders generally look at the pack as a group of pitiful creatures. People who can not care for themselves. And so the leader is there. To make the decisions, and to save people from their own backward instincts. We are so firmly modernized that we say things like "Without air conditioning, he could die!" Granted, people die all the time in Phoenix (where I currently am) from heat related issues, but think about how long we as a species survived in all sorts of environments without air conditioning. Cars. Sunscreen. Rectal exams. Flavored yogurt NOW! with Fiber! It seems that we are this weird accident that inexplicably continues to propagate, and the rest of creation is just waiting for us to go away so that they can get on with it.
Monday, July 12, 2010
We Are Not Wolves, Though We Should Wish To Be
Monday, April 5, 2010
Preparedness
Preparedness is a concept that I have been thinking about a lot lately, especially with all of the recent uncontrollable natural disasters. The most important question is simply, "Are you prepared?" however the other side of that question is, "What is preparedness?"
I am attempting to separate out the various arenas of preparedness. I am not talking about being prepared for slight changes in the weather, or being prepared for a job interview. I am mostly talking about survivalism in the face of sudden catastrophic disaster. Something along the lines of a nuclear war, I suppose. In this instance, there are a few key areas that I think I should consider, and maybe try to improve on.
Mental Acuity
Strength
Endurance
Orienteering
General Usable Skills
Hunting/Trapping
Cooking
Water
So let's just start at the top, and try to describe each one. Then, I will try to come up with a series of questions that should give you an idea of where you fall in the spectrum of preparedness, as observed by myself. I am not talking about becoming the ultimate warrior, so most of the markers that I am creating are applicable to both men and women.
Mental Acuity
This is your ability to analyze a situation and come to a logical and rational conclusion. You don't need to be trained in most areas of survivalism if you are just a generally sharp person who can use rules of science and logic to figure out a problem. Additionally, this also encompasses your ability to keep a calm head during times of extreme distress. If you lose it, and start acting like a fool, you will certainly die.
Can you use science and rational thinking to examine a situation?
Strength
Quite frankly, strength will be extremely necessary if you find yourself suddenly thrust into the wilderness. There may be situations in which you have to be able to pull yourself up off of a cliff. Or maybe a boulder has rolled on to a companion, and you need to be able to move it. Now, some lack of strength can be offset by intelligence (lever and pulley systems), but there may still be situations in which you have to act immediately and with great strength.
Can you do 15 chin ups?
Can you lift a two foot diameter boulder off of the ground?
Can you press at least 135 pounds over head?
Endurance
This would be the other half of the athletic spectrum. All the strength in the world will prove itself quickly useless if you suddenly need to run far and fast. I think that this domain is obvious, as many natural predators may be willing to chase you for more than a mile. Additionally, in the event of something like an erupting volcano, you may just need to flee. I suppose it is true that if a predator that is wildly faster than you (think cheetah) is coming upon you, you're sort of screwed. But if you're being chased by a group of roving cannibals or something, you may stand a chance if you can respond affirmatively to the following questions.
Can you run 6 miles without stopping?
Can you run 6 miles without water?
Can you climb a 30 foot rock face?
bonus: Can you run 100 meters in under 15 seconds?
Orienteering
Orienteering is really the ability to use a map and a compass to determine your location and a route to get where you want to go. In the case of a sudden disaster though, I assume that you won't have a local map and a compass on you, so this is more about the ability to use geographic landmarks and astronomical figures to determine your bearing and present location.
Can you draw a rough topographical map of everything within sight?
General Usable Skills
This encompasses all areas of survivalism that you ought to know beforehand, instead of trying to figure out on the fly with your mental acuity. Things such as how to use available materials to braid a rope, how to create an arrow head, and how to carve a spear using rocks. In the event of complete societal collapse, this may expand to include simple things such as how to build a chair, or dig a latrine.
Can you braid a 15 foot rope using grass and plants?
Can you create a temporary shelter using found wood?
Hunting/Trapping
This one is pretty obvious. If you find yourself living in wilderness, you'll need to be able to acquire food. You can get by for a while by foraging berries and edible plants (although, if you don't know how to choose edible plants, you can get yourself in trouble quickly), but eventually you will need to hunt or trap some game. Some of the other areas come in to play here as well, as you will probably need a spear or boomerang type thing in order to hunt.
Can you track game?
Can you accurately throw a boomerang device?
Can you create a trap for small game?
Cooking
If you manage to capture yourself an animal, do you know how to make it ready to eat? Some of cooking will depend on the availability of water. In the greater Phoenix-Tucson area, you can mostly assume that you won't have a great supply of water, so you'll have to cook everything on fire (instead of boiling).
Can you gut and dress an animal?
Can you build a fire using natural materials?
Water
Without water, you will die. Relatively quickly, too. There is a certain art to finding water in the desert, or maybe even in a place like a tropical island. On an island that gets rain, but does not have any real lakes or rivers, you will have to look first for plants that are designed to capture rain water in their leaves. If you can't find that, then you better know how to convert salt water to fresh water without the benefit of fire (assuming you don't know how to make a fire, or don't have a vessel to boil water in). There is a cool distilling method that involves one large tub with salt water, a small cup standing up in the middle of that water, and then a plastic sheet over the top of all of that with a small rock directly over the cup. You end up creating a very humid type atmosphere inside, and fresh water will condense on the ceiling plastic. Then, it will congregate and roll in towards the middle (due to the weight of the rock), and ultimately will drip in to the cup in the middle. Additionally, if the island gets rain, you can use certain obvious capture methods (mental acuity comes into play again). In the desert, finding water is significantly more difficult, and requires some basic common sense. The only hint I'll give you is you find a wash. After that, you're either going to be hiking forever, or digging forever. Your choice. There are also a certain few plants that can save you from immediate lack of water death, but I wouldn't count on them as a major source of water supply.
Can you find or make water?
More later...
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Duh, lil' 'piph'nies
Sometimes I have "duh" moments. Moments when super obvious things finally occur to me in real time and in real words. The latest is the concept of "worth."
A person's worth is directly related to the amount of time one is willing to spend with or on them (notice the use of the words 'worth' and 'spend' which are obviously linked). This means that a person's worth can be consistently quantified in units of time. In other words, what a man's worth is may be answered by "2 hours." A person is worth time. People who are especially valuable (for one reason or another), remain present in timespace far beyond their actual living time. Think of any now-dead historical figure. They will be worth the aggregate total amount of time ever spent with or on them. I think that I would like to add the personal caveat that time defined by negative energy (time spent bad mouthing a person, or perhaps planning and executing their assassination, just to give examples) is akin to negative time. So here is a concrete example in super basic time:
A ruler of a land.
Total amount of positive time spent on this person DURING their lifetime: 50,000 hours (remember, this would include time spent willingly WITH the person, as well as ON the person, which may include buying gifts or doing favors, or whatever).
Total amount of positive time spent on this person during all time AFTER their lifetime: 100,000 hours (students doing proud history projects in school, people debating this ruler's creative ruling style, et al)
Total amount of negative time spent on this person DURING lifetime: 65,000 hours (this person may have been a despot and a tyrant, which a large group of people constantly wishing them death and a few actually planning his assassination).
Totaly amount of negative time spent on this person AFTER lifetime: 750,00 hours (his legacy was well known by history).
This would mean that total positive time equaled 150,00 hours, while total negative time was worth 815,000 hours. This human being's net worth was -665,000 hours. This was not a worthy person. This person COST existence that much time.
The fun part about this line of thinking is that it begs the question: How much time are you willing to spend on YOURSELF? How long can you stand to be alone, without feeling the need to obtain company? Your answer will apparently be directly related to your concept of self-worth. Your self worth should always be a positive amount. If you spend your time hating on your looks and your abilities, you are depreciating your own value. You are devaluing your most abundant resource. Stop it. Start investing in your self, and your self worth will increase in value. USUALLY, this translates into other's worths of you, as well, which will help give positive time back to creation, in turn helping to make up for the massive empty hole left by the aforementioned cruel leader. Anyways, this is sort of rambling, but I do believe that I've made my point. Let's start reinvesting positive time into the universe in order to increase our worth and expand timespace. Or, at the very least, let's start being honest about how we rate the worthiness of our friends and family. How much is that person ACTUALLY worth to you in measurable units?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Hey Leslie, Good News
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223001/Great-White-Shark-bitten-nearly-half-BIGGER-monster.html
Aren't you excited that a shark big enough to bite a 10 foot great white in half exists?
Monday, July 6, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Ecological Disaster That Is Dolphin Safe Tuna
http://southernfriedscience.com/2009/02/16/the-ecological-disaster-that-is-dolphin-safe-tuna/
This is an interesting article about how "dolphin safe" techniques cause significantly more damage than "non dolphin safe." Here's the big highlight:
Dolphin Safe:
“Ten thousand sets of purse seine nets around immature tuna swimming under logs and other debris will cause the deaths of 25 dolphins; 130 million small tunas; 513,870 mahi mahi; 139,580 sharks; 118,660 wahoo; 30,050 rainbow runners; 12,680 other small fish; 6540 billfish; 2980 yellowtail; 200 other large fish; 1020 sea turtles; and 50 triggerfish.”
NOT Dolphin Safe:
“Ten thousand sets of purse seine nets around mature yellowfin swimming in association with dolphins, will cause the deaths of 4000 dolphins (0.04 percent of a population that replenishes itself at the rate of two to six percent per year); 70,000 small tunas; 100 mahi mahi; 3 other small fish; 520 billfish; 30 other large fish; and 100 sea turtles. No sharks, no wahoo, no rainbow runners, no yellowtail, and no triggerfish and dramatic reductions in all other species but dolphins.”
And the math:
"If you work out the math on this (and you don’t have to, because the environmental justice foundation did) , you find that 1 dolphin saved costs 382 mahi-mahi, 188 wahoo, 82 yellowtail and other large fish, 27 sharks, and almost 1,200 small fish."
Weird.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Blow to the Old Account
Got a speeding ticket today, by the way. Going 43 in a 30 on Chaparral. I guess I can take an online class for it. TCB.
Simpsons Wisdom
Moe: "It's so nice to be with someone who can't understand the horrible things I say."
I hear ya.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Girl Picture Reference: Ashlee
Ashlee = Bratz Cloe + Christina Aguilera + (Lady Gaga X 3) + Christina Ricci
Girl Picture Reference: Roadrunner
For your viewing convenience, I will try to post some pics of celebs that the girls commonly referenced here sort of resemble.
Roadrunner = Vanessa Hudgens + Lilo
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Current favorite website
http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/
I told Girl #2 that we'd end up on this site.
