[ExI] "an aboriginal human from 70,000 B.C."

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 21/03/2008, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

>  Lee, do you think an aborigine from 2008 could make those adjustments
>  (unless he'd been brought up to them), without being crushed or often
>  stranded fatally in a world he'd never made, a stranger in a strange
>  land? Read about the outback communities in Australia if you maintain
>  this airy notion: the ruinous failure to adapt even after 200 years
>  of European penetration and remaking of the land, even after
>  schooling and policing by this alien culture. The very bases of
>  traditional culture are all but gone; the land and animals and plants
>  are either obliterated or held under lock and key by aliens; the
>  languages have all but perished--and, far from nipping out to K-Mart
>  to buy a replica drum, the kids sniff petrol until their brains rot,
>  while the adults beat each other brutally and fuck everything that
>  moves, including the petrol-sniffing kids. Yes, that's an
>  exaggeration, but it's real to a bitter extent.##

I might add (somewhat damaging my own argument with Lee and Rafal on
this topic) that although Australians overall have among the best
health in the world, Aboriginal Australians have among the worst. They
were probably healthier before the disaster of European occupation
than they are now with all the benefits of high quality, freely
available 21st century medicine.




-- 
Stathis Papaioannou