[ExI] chinese colonization of africa etc

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Ben
Zaiboc via extropy-chat
...
>>... In that place, like many super underdeveloped places, their water
source is the one river or stream coming down to the sea.  But humans live
all up along the river, and it is their toilet and dishwater up there.  The
tide comes in and out, so at high tide the flow is slower and the water has
some salt backup, so those drinking from the only source must drink more of
it, making them subject to perhaps cholera or other maladies we beat a long
time ago.  ...
>
> spike

>...A grim scenario. We really are our own worst enemy.


Ben side note on that: when the pilgrims came to the colonies in 1620, they
landed at Plymouth Rock where there was a water source coming down and no
one living there at the time.  They could see someone had lived there: they
cleared some land and were doing agriculture of some kind.  There was game
available, so they dug in, but you perhaps recall your history books: they
were hungry, a lot of em died the first coupla years.

A kindly native explained to them how to survive, what they were doing
wrong, etc, and things got better for them, but he also explained why the
place was uninhabited when the Europeans arrived: an epidemic killed most of
them, and the others figured out they needed to move on upstream.
Reasoning: they had the same problem the Haitians had fifty years ago (and
might still have now.)  They were down close to the sea, the tide would move
in, stagnate the water, which is the sewer for the people living along there
up the river.  Water mixes, gets a little salty, the seashore people (who
actually have MORE access to food because of the fishing) are also more
susceptible to the kinds of diseases one might catch if we drank out of
other people's toilet, the way we try to get Bowser to stop doing (why don't
dogs get sick doing that?)

OK, Pilgrims being tipped off by locals about living at the end of the
stream down close to the sea and getting sick from the water, later
Londoners catching cholera from outhouse leakage into the local well (and
eventually figuring out the connection (and fixing the problem (to the
benefit of all of us moderns))) to moderns trying to help Haitians with
functionally less technology than was available to the Pilgrims, and
failing.

>...Which brings me back to a constant theme: We need to have our toys taken
away, by a more-powerful, actually intelligent, self-aware and hopefully
benevolent system (or more likely a whole bunch of them), that will sort out
the mess we have got ourselves into, and if we're lucky, maybe give us some
less lethal toys to play with...
--
Ben
_____________________________________________


Ben do allow me to ponder your thoughts and perhaps offer meaningful
commentary if I have any.  Sure it will be a change, coming from me,
normally a fun and games kinda poster, but I am trying to reform, to include
in each of my posts some actual content, derived from human-level thought if
possible.

Carry on sir!

spike