Technology

[springer5]

humm, it seems that the lives we live force others to live as savages or slaves, not sure which is worse but our civilised laws are condoning this around the world so who is the savage really?

That's a very good point Big Beast, and well expressed.

I also think that we individually must also take SOME responsibility for the consequences of our actions. Whilst it is perfectly correct and valid say that governmentsshould be involved (yes, they certainly should) and that we don't have control over how these goods are made (true we don't).

However, on the first count govts througout history have often shown no morality whatsoever in their behaviou, therefore govt approval of something and its associated legality don't automatically make it a morally reposnible thing to do, and on the second count it is we who are the reason why these items are made in the first place - a bit like the slave owner blaming the slave trader for the existence of slavery - the word pot, kettle and black would come to mind in that case. It is we consumers who fuel the market, we are the reason for all this, not MPs or electronics design engineers.

 

[Jakata]

I don't see that there is anything wrong with taking gadgets out with you, the beauty of bushcraft is that you can do whatever your skills allow you to do. You shouldn't feel you have to follow some sort of rule book where you must start a fire without matches or you must build your own shelter etc. Do what you can and learn the rest as you go along (if you want to)

Bushcraft is about relaxing and enjoying yourself while learning to respect your surroundings, its not a competition to see who can get the closest to nature. I am not sure why it seems to bother people what other people do though, it all seems very pop culture.

All I can say about the cost of technology to developing nations is that its the cost of global capitalism, they also take advantage of it too, the population now is much larger than it was before we started taking advantage of them (knowingly or not) A populations success is measured by its population.

Edit, thats not to say its a good thing, its just the way it is. If everyone decided to down tools as it were, the global population would collapse, not just here but in the poorer countries too.

 

[springer5]

Bushcraft is about relaxing and enjoying yourself while learning to respect your surroundings.

Do you think that should include respecting our wider surroundings as well, or just the bit where we're camping on that day?
If somone else's surroundings have to be deliberately disrespected in order to provide some of our Bushcraft "toys", should we all be rethinking the way we do Bushcraft in order to try to minimise that as much as possible?

Surely to pursue one whilst ignoring the other would be a self-contradiction ??

I'd appreciate your thoughts on that

 

[Jakata]

Its a fair point actually and not something I have ever given much thought to. Generally speaking I try to buy local produce when it comes to household stuff, food etc but with the vast majority of electrical goods and cloths will come from abroad, even the old fashioned local brands tend to import goods.
With regards to my bushcraft equipment, a lot of it is actually 2nd hand or recycled. I have a few other bits too that I can't get locally or can't really make myself, tent (I am a ground dweller!) sleeping bag, bag.

I suppose given enough time and enough effort I probably could make a sleeping bag ot a rucksack, but even then the materials would have to come from somewhere, doubtfully locally.

I think its just something we can't really get away from, we want cheap available products therefore others have to pay a premium, though like I said above, they benefit from it too.

 

[springer5]

Generally speaking I try to buy local produce when it comes to household stuff, food etc but with the vast majority of electrical goods and cloths will come from abroad, even the old fashioned local brands tend to import goods.
With regards to my bushcraft equipment, a lot of it is actually 2nd hand or recycled. I have a few other bits too that I can't get locally or can't really make myself, tent (I am a ground dweller!) sleeping bag, bag.

Well it sounds like you're doing a better job than I am, probably. Most of my stuff was bought new and I've never had much success at making stuff (just ask my wife about my DIY skills !!).
I do try to buy the most expensive I can stretch to, partly in the hopes that it will be better quality, but also in the hopes that it MAY be less likely to be "sweatshop" produce (not a guarantee of course, but it makes me feel I've "done my bit" to try to avoid that - i.e. if someone is ripping them off, it's not because I'm a skinflint but rather it's despite my best efforts).

As far as electronics go, I have some basic stuff; a work issue mobile phone which is about 5 years old and I'll try to carry on using until it drops (or until I do !), a GPS which is a couple of years old and no intention of replacing it anytime soon, and a handful of other small items - about 4 or 5 in total I suppose - probably average, but I'm trying hard to resist replacing stuff everytime some new feature or other appears on the latest model.

I agree with you it is very hard to avoid being a part of the problem to some extent. On a brighter note, I suppose that one of the advantages of there being so many of us is that small efforts we each make in our own way, can all add up

 

[Chinkapin]

A parallel to all of this can be seen in the Industrial Revolution. It started in Great Britain and rapidly spread to the U.S. and to the Continent. It reduced the price of many goods dramatically and made life vastly better for most people in the long run.

The catch was that, in the short run, the factory workers and the miners that fueled the factories were exploited terribly. We have all read enough Dickens to know a bit about what it was like. It took something like a hundred years for conditions to dramatically improve.

Now, lets all remember that these were the conditions that existed in "enlightened" democracies. Every emerging nation is going to have to go through something similar, I'm afraid. Hopefully, it won't take so long, but in many of these cases, these countries have a history of being miss-run by colonial powers and then abruptly abandoned with no infrastructure in place. Then the colonial government was replaced by some local "strong man." Many of their successors being still on the job.

As much as we despise these conditions, there is really nothing we can do about it. The people living in the country have to take control of their own destiny. A look at recent history shows the futility of intervention (at least in areas that don't want it.)

 

[ged]

the OP was intended as a starter to a discussion on a forum which is what appears to be happening. I was also hoping the discussion would enlighten people at the same time, the TV show was meant to be controversial, most BBC3 shows are.

Whenever I've had personal experience of an item in the news, and that's happened quite a few times thus far in my thankfully fairly long life, the truth of the events themselves as I saw them and the news reports which purported to describe them were so wildly different that I began to think that the reporters were just writing whatever came into their heads. It's my belief that the only thing that drives them is ambition. So I threw out the television over 30 years ago, I don't read a newspaper, and I no longer even listen to the news on Radio 4 which for a long time was the only thing I did listen to. I'm not a big fan of controversy anyway.

My education has had a bias towards science and engineering and I can speak with authority on some subjects. For many people in these fields, the term "BBC science reporter" is used to describe someone with not even the slightest grasp of his subject. Nothing in the reporting that I now see on the Web makes me think things have improved in those or any other fields. If anything I think it's worse.

Nevertheless I do consider myself enlightened. I don't need to be told that people are suffering unnecessarily, I know that. I also know that there are twice as many people on the planet now as there were when I was born. That sure as hell isn't _my_ fault. When I wrote to Mr. Blair just after he first got into Number Ten, asking him what he was going to do about it, he completely ignored me and got his wife pregnant again.

We are all children of Nature, no matter that most of us - present company in large measure excepted - will do our best to deny that Nature is even relevant to our everyday lives. If we don't do something about the way we behave, and pretty soon, then Nature will do it for us. Most of us - again with deference to this audience - do not know that Mother Nature treats her children very harshly. If we aren't careful, the suffering that we see now will be like a Sunday school picnic compared to what we're all going to see at first hand by the middle of this century.

But to be honest there are things which bother me a lot more than that. I don't feel the urge to don a sandwich board proclaiming The End Of The World. You might say that I probably won't be here then to share the suffering, and you'd probably be right, but I don't think that's the reason for my lack of concern. I think the World might well decide it's better off without us. If it did, I don't suppose that there'd be anything at all that we could do about it and I for one wouldn't argue the point. Which is why I give a lot more money to the RSPB and the WDCS than I do to Save The Children. But I give to the children's charity by standing order, and that way I feel I'm doing something about something, and that makes me feel better. Not a lot better, unfortunately, but to those of you saying it's somebody else's responsibility, or agonizing about it (whatever 'it' is), I say if you would actually get off your butts and do something about it then maybe you'd change your tune and/or feel a bit better. By all accounts discussing it on a forum is only going to add to the woes of those unfortunates who hand over their resources to allow us to continue our very fortunate way of life. And as someone almost said, I'd bet that this discussion wouldn't make _them_ feel a whole lot better even if they knew about it.

To be brutally honest once more (I've been told that I have a talent for brutality in my honesty) I still have days when the pain and shame that I feel on behalf of my species is almost too much to bear. On those days I think about the hundreds of sacks of food that I've given to the birds, and how many bullfinches there are around here now; or the 85% reduction in albatross killed by longline fishing that in a small way I've helped to bring about; or just a single hungry animal that wouldn't have made it without my help (there are a few of those); and that gives me all the determination I need to get out and wrestle with unreasonable customers, recalcitrant suppliers and ungrateful employees for another few days. They're all just people. In small doses they're fine, but en masse, I'm afraid, I'm not too fond of them.

 

[*Big Beast*]

on this subject of our electronic toys and the minerals used, this makes interesting reading;
http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/27/news/international/congo.fortune/

 

[Mr Adoby]

To me the problem isn't technology, but very cheap and fast transportation that allow us to ignore and/or hide the negative side of our consumption and technology.

Cheap transportation means that it is easy to have a very large distances between production, consumption and disposal. Typically most negative stuff happens during production and disposal. And the pleasant ones during consumption.

At the same time as we import cheap stuff, food, clothes, gadgets, we have a hidden export, at least as large, of the negative side effects. Most likely a lot larger because of less rigorous legislation and protection of the environment in the country of origin. In some instances there is flagrant corruption to keep this up, and allow cheap production. This is one of the reasons for water shortages, pollution and other environment problems in third world countries.

One way to counter this is to try to buy more "fair trade" stuff. Also to buy more locally produced stuff. But is it enough? I suspect that the consumption as a whole grows faster than the fair trade part of it. Tax on transportation? I don't know ...

When it comes to technology in bushcraft, I think it is only a question of time. What is traditional and old-fashioned today, was modern and leading edge a few years ago. What is modern today, will be quaint and nostalgic in a few years time. Some like it old-fashioned. Some like it up-to-date. Most use a comfortable mix. Not all new stuff is better than the old, but some are ...

 

[rik_uk3]

To me the problem is that we are told not to buy this or that and yet we lay no blame at the governments/people in control actually doing the killing and rape etc. To me they are a bunch of animals; so how about laying some blame and guilt on the nutters doing the nasty deeds instead of trying to lay a total guilt trip on the rest of us?

 

[Mr Adoby]

It is good to lay the blame on them. But why should they change their ways if you at the same time keep rewarding them by giving them your money?

 

[Dougster]

Whenever I've had personal experience of an item in the news, and that's happened quite a few times thus far in my thankfully fairly long life, the truth of the events themselves as I saw them and the news reports which purported to describe them were so wildly different that I began to think that the reporters were just writing whatever came into their heads. It's my belief that the only thing that drives them is ambition. So I threw out the television over 30 years ago, I don't read a newspaper, and I no longer even listen to the news on Radio 4 which for a long time was the only thing I did listen to. I'm not a big fan of controversy anyway.

My education has had a bias towards science and engineering and I can speak with authority on some subjects. For many people in these fields, the term "BBC science reporter" is used to describe someone with not even the slightest grasp of his subject. Nothing in the reporting that I now see on the Web makes me think things have improved in those or any other fields. If anything I think it's worse.

Nevertheless I do consider myself enlightened. I don't need to be told that people are suffering unnecessarily, I know that. I also know that there are twice as many people on the planet now as there were when I was born. That sure as hell isn't _my_ fault. When I wrote to Mr. Blair just after he first got into Number Ten, asking him what he was going to do about it, he completely ignored me and got his wife pregnant again.

We are all children of Nature, no matter that most of us - present company in large measure excepted - will do our best to deny that Nature is even relevant to our everyday lives. If we don't do something about the way we behave, and pretty soon, then Nature will do it for us. Most of us - again with deference to this audience - do not know that Mother Nature treats her children very harshly. If we aren't careful, the suffering that we see now will be like a Sunday school picnic compared to what we're all going to see at first hand by the middle of this century.

But to be honest there are things which bother me a lot more than that. I don't feel the urge to don a sandwich board proclaiming The End Of The World. You might say that I probably won't be here then to share the suffering, and you'd probably be right, but I don't think that's the reason for my lack of concern. I think the World might well decide it's better off without us. If it did, I don't suppose that there'd be anything at all that we could do about it and I for one wouldn't argue the point. Which is why I give a lot more money to the RSPB and the WDCS than I do to Save The Children. But I give to the children's charity by standing order, and that way I feel I'm doing something about something, and that makes me feel better. Not a lot better, unfortunately, but to those of you saying it's somebody else's responsibility, or agonizing about it (whatever 'it' is), I say if you would actually get off your butts and do something about it then maybe you'd change your tune and/or feel a bit better. By all accounts discussing it on a forum is only going to add to the woes of those unfortunates who hand over their resources to allow us to continue our very fortunate way of life. And as someone almost said, I'd bet that this discussion wouldn't make _them_ feel a whole lot better even if they knew about it.

To be brutally honest once more (I've been told that I have a talent for brutality in my honesty) I still have days when the pain and shame that I feel on behalf of my species is almost too much to bear. On those days I think about the hundreds of sacks of food that I've given to the birds, and how many bullfinches there are around here now; or the 85% reduction in albatross killed by longline fishing that in a small way I've helped to bring about; or just a single hungry animal that wouldn't have made it without my help (there are a few of those); and that gives me all the determination I need to get out and wrestle with unreasonable customers, recalcitrant suppliers and ungrateful employees for another few days. They're all just people. In small doses they're fine, but en masse, I'm afraid, I'm not too fond of them.

I'd just like to thank you for that post. One of the best I have read anywhere on the net and cannot find fault with.

I'm not going to comment on the discussion, but I'm off upstairs to look at my 5 year old daughter asleep and think of Chloe and her siblings.

 

[rik_uk3]

It is good to lay the blame on them. But why should they change their ways if you at the same time keep rewarding them by giving them your money?

Good point, but I try not to give money directly to Africa, I support home charities in the UK and will give to Africa when they stop spending money on weapons and start looking after their own.

 

[Hoodoo]

i agree with you about the forum keeping skills alive, don`t get me wrong, i have a GPS, a lap-top,etc and a mobile phone, the programme just opened my eyes to something i had never given a thought to before, what makes that phone in your pocket buzz when you get a call? The programme educated me on that one in more ways than one. I will think now when my mobile rings about those suffering so i can have the technology in my pocket. What i can do to change it i have know idea yet.

My cell phone is always turned off. I only make outgoing calls. I'm a bushcraft purist.

 

[springer5]

Whenever I've had personal experience of an item in the news, and that's happened quite a few times thus far in my thankfully fairly long life, the truth of the events themselves as I saw them and the news reports which purported to describe them were so wildly different that I began to think that the reporters were just writing whatever came into their heads. It's my belief that the only thing that drives them is ambition. So I threw out the television over 30 years ago, I don't read a newspaper, and I no longer even listen to the news on Radio 4 which for a long time was the only thing I did listen to. I'm not a big fan of controversy anyway etc.

I agree, with you an that ged, and I second what someone else said about that being an excellent post; honest, sincere and refreshing.

I haven't gone as far as actually chucking the TV out, but I don't watch the mainstreamnews progs anymore, or read newspapers; haven't done for many years. I am convinced (conspiracy theorist that I am) that they are all just mouthpieces for one organisation or another to shape public opinion in a way that suits one politics/business cause or another at the time. I think they have also managed to condition many of us by showing us so many awful things going on that we really do have little or no control over, so that eventually we end up just assuming that's the case with everything and not even bothering to try, even when there are some things we can do.
I do just try to catch headlines online or on teletext or something, but I find I have to take some news items with a pinch of salt, feeling fairly sure that they are just another form of spin for someone or other.

Just regarding your point about feeling bad about letting your species down putting food out for the finches, or saving albatrosses. I don't think you should have any reason to feel bad about that. What have a bunch of strangers with two legs done to make them any more (or less) deserving of your help than a bunch of strangers with two wings? Personally I would prefer to try to help whoever needs it most and whoever I most can, regardless of whether they look like me or not. I wouldn't favour my own race or gender over another when it comes to dishing out help; why my own species ??
Doing anything you can to minmise suffering (or even just trying to) is something you should be proud of, regardless of who it is.

 

[springer5]

To me they are a bunch of animals

Ironically, from a motivation and awareness perspective, they are behaving uniquely human.

As far as I'm aware (please do correct me on this someone, if I'm wrong) the capability to carry out deliberate intraspecies exploitation for greed is one of the diagnostic features of being a human.

I've often wondered why, when humans are being at their most human, they are referred to as "animals" (in an "as opposed to humans" context). I suppose we've used it historically as an insult to those humans who should, rightly, be insulted for behaving badly. Yet in reality we are unwittingly only insulting the non-humans, none of whome have ever been known to behave in that way

I hope no one minds me mentioning it (slightly off topic I know), but it seems unfair to use "animals" to describe the worst aspects of uniquely human behaviour. It's something I've been guilty of myself many times before, but as I've thought about it more recently, I've realised it just isn't true

 

[V4V]

Maybe we should come up with an approved cruelty free product list, restrict ourselves to ethically produced stuff and buy all electronics second hand.

If people are aware of the cruelty associated with the product - (like they have been made aware with fur, tuna, cfc's) they will then choose what is ethical to them. Not everyone is going to care of course, but if there was some easy way to guage the cruelty associated with certain products at least we could choose to a level we were comfortable with.

If you care about cruelty, then you're probably in a minority anyway, and that minority may well be to small to economically affect the behaviours of large commercial interests, but it was successful with the above mentioned products - we dont need more Guardian readers telling the world about how cruel all products are - we need hollywood actors, David and Victoria Beckham and the spice girls to take a stand - the stupid and easily led own the economies of ethics, now - utilise that sheep-like response, and you'll get change.

Then it would have something in common with every other economic, military and political revolution, our species has managed, to date.

 

[Mr Adoby]

... or you could just reward the good guys now and then. Sometimes buy fair trade or locally produced. Ask for it in the shop. Let that side of the economy grow a little. It is something YOU can do. Today and every day. It isn't even difficult.

The world isn't black or white. More a dark shade of passive gray.

 

[maddave]

I just watched the documentary and it's a real eye opener. Living in a western society we are somewhat insulated from the hardships in third world countries. Like the freedom enjoyed by us all... Freedom is never free, it's paid for in blood, sacrifice and courage. luckily most of you will never experience war in your lifetimes, these people are constantly at war from within. I have a phone, a laptop and several PC's I never thought for a second where the components come from. In the UK we are a consumer society and it's big business that makes us this way. A recent example... I had a printer for my computer that cost £39.95 Just a basic printer, no bells and whistles. It came with all the cables cartridges etc and worked a treat. When I came to replace the ink, the price was £44.95.. So it would be cheaper for me to buy a new printer that came with ink than just buy ink.... Now thats insane and I now do my homework before buying anything that has consumables. I recycle anything and everything and in the true bushcraft spirit, If I can make "owt fer nowt" I'm a happy bunny..... The less we use, the less pressure is put on not just the people of the developing countries but the planet as a whole. We are lucky to live in a golden age, If you want it, and you can afford it, you can have it....... 100 years from now I really don't think it's going to be that easy.. No more oil, limited power, polluted landmasses and oceans. I won't be around.... But someone will

 

[helixpteron]

I have no doubt that the same type of acts being carried out now will still be carried out then.

For the same reasons!

And they will still be discussed...