I don't understand

[RonW]

@ Locum76; As far as the Dutch government vaccinationprogramme goes; at first it was indeed meant to erradicate those highly infectious childdiseases (I guess), but nowadays it is more about vaccinating just to vaccinate, which means a big profit for a third party, the farmaceutical industry. There are reports the doubt the use of all these vaccinations and even point out that some are probably more dangerous then the disease they aim at!
On top of that they do absolutely nothing about the fact that people think they are obliged to use that programme (far from), whilst in reality they are not.
Take the Mexican flew-panic for instance. Dutch government and many others spent tens of millions on buying a vaccin, without decent studies proving they would work and some even showing the vaccin to have very harmfull side-effects! Do you hear or read about that in the media?? Only if you look really hard....
Because I have a very high cholesterolrate, I had to take high doses of anticholesterolmeds, which made me sick. I have been reading about the impact and infueance of the billiondollar farmaceutical companies and it scared the hell out of me. They sell us often harmfull drugs and medication, knowingly riscing our health!!! Anyone pointing this out is quickly picked out, silenced or ridiculed, so these companies can keep on selling their drugs and make profits! The public health is their least concern!
Do I want to bet my life on that? I stopped taking these drugs, despite socalled experts telling meit would kill me! Why? I did my research and there is absolutely no evidence that supports the theory that high cholesterol gives you cardiacproblems. It was told the public years ago that it did, but there has been no decent research in that area. The bit of research that has been done has been initiated and financed by......... the farmaceutical industries and which predictable results...

I for one am very sceptical and critical when it comes to modern day medical sience.
Yes, they have achieved great things and yes, many of us own their lives to that and I am gratefull that we can. But I also firmly believe that this field too has been taken over by earlier mentioned sharks with only personal gain in their minds... Birdflew, Mexican flew..... where did these come from all of a sudden??
On the other hand there is a noticeable tendency in the medical world to see themselves as gods, playing with the lives of others.
IFV, keeping people in a coma for many years, gen-tech, stamcellresearch etc....
Now many cry in outrage if a 60-year old woman gets pregnant again, but these cries will silence over time. People do the same with gen-tech, but in 10 years you can order your baby to be big, blond and blue-eyed.....
It used to be the same with plastic surgery, but nowadays 16-years olds (!!!) can have it, because they have been convinced by the media that they don't look good. Anorexic and/or bolemic girls.... boys on steroids.....
Do I really need to go on??

My 2 cents on realityshows; they show a highly distorted form of reality, but if shown frequently people start to accept them as real and start to live them, making them real.
Over here in the Netherlands there are a number of those too, showing people on vacationlocations, behaving like retarded animals..... and these shows are massive hits!!! Over here antisocial behaviour is regularly glorified. Taking complete social misfits and making them heroes. People love that stuff! Ask anyone in Holland about the Tokkies, New Kids (being a series, not reality...yet) or oh oh Tirol and watch what happens!!
I heard about these shows and wanted to see for myself....... Now I am truely ashamed of being Dutch.

 

[rik_uk3]

Ah well Rick - there you go again, generalising the whole of Bushcraft and all bushcrafters as being the same as you - for me it is not just a hobby - it IS a way of life... and a large part of my living as well!
So lets not go taking the pee out of bushcrafters who cannot understand Jo Public, what the heck makes us special? - one heck of a lot compared to that mass!

"for me it is not just a hobby - it IS a way of life" So my son, from this day forth you shall be known as Obijohn Bannoncky, go forth and bake.

Way too serious John, how a way of life, because you use a wood burner and only use a van twice a week etc. "special compared to that mass" what an elitist and very snobbish load of tosh to come out with, shame on you Mr Fenna, I thought better of you.

 

[John Fenna]

"for me it is not just a hobby - it IS a way of life" So my son, from this day forth you shall be known as Obijohn Bannoncky, go forth and bake.

Way too serious John, how a way of life, because you use a wood burner and only use a van twice a week etc. "special compared to that mass" what an elitist and very snobbish load of tosh to come out with, shame on you Mr Fenna, I thought better of you.

Ah - now the insults ...
That I DID expect from you!
I hope you like the company on my ignore list - bye!

 

[Hoodoo]

"for me it is not just a hobby - it IS a way of life" So my son, from this day forth you shall be known as Obijohn Bannoncky, go forth and bake.

Way too serious John, how a way of life, because you use a wood burner and only use a van twice a week etc. "special compared to that mass" what an elitist and very snobbish load of tosh to come out with, shame on you Mr Fenna, I thought better of you.

Cut the childish insults rik. You've been warned.

 

[Andy BB]

Interesting points on here.

On the one hand, I can sympathise with the damage done to the environment, but until governments put population control at the top of the to-do list instead of climate change, then everything else is simply whistling in the wind. And if anyone wishes to lead a simpler life, then why not? I also wish the world would use antibiotics more carefully so that resistance to them didn't develop so quickly. Because one day someone in my family might need an effective antibiotic, and there might not be any that work.

But I do get a bit tired of hearing all the old rants against the pharmaceutical industry and their profits. Sure it would be nice if lots of new medicines appeared out of the blue, cost nothing to clear government safety testing etc and could be produced so cheaply that governments could afford to give it all away for free. But life's not like that, and for every product brought to market, there have been hundreds that have fallen by the wayside during their development and testing. And money for that has to come from somewhere. Not surprisingly, therefore, it comes from selling the one in a hundred/thousand products that actually works and has passed the various FDA etc tests to make sure it's safe for humans to use - or at least safer than the alternative.

As far as the alternatives go - eg herbal medicine and homeopathic treatments - I'm not holding my breath. Of course plants, herbs, venoms etc have been found to be beneficial in many cases, and scientists have tended to find the active ingredients in them so that you can now buy them in pill form in measured dosages, rather than gnawing on a willow-bark for your headache (apologies if that isn't where aspirin came from, but you get my drift!). As for homeopathic medicine, lets just say that I remain to be convinced; a solution that has been so diluted with water that it contains precisely NO molecules of the apparent active ingredient doesn't float my boat. The logic that it somehow retains a "memory" of the "good stuff" is pure babble - presumably therefore it also retains a memory of everything else it has come into contact with too - not a pleasant thought when you find out that pretty much everything out of a tap has passed through a sewage works several times.....................

 

[locum76]

Yup, I have to agree with all of that Andy.

RonW: I'm sorry but stories about pharmaceutical industry profiteering just do not convince me that the eradication of polio and whooping cough by vaccination is a bad idea.

 

[ged]

... stories about pharmaceutical industry profiteering just do not convince me that the eradication of polio and whooping cough by vaccination is a bad idea.

Don't forget smallpox.

 

[John Fenna]

This thread is getting interesting - but a bit heavy as well!
The main thrust seems to be - we do not understand the mindset/jargon etc of the, as some one called them, "norms" and they do not understand us, or indeed other subsets of "norms" - as the OP pointed out.
The trouble is that the whole of humanity is broken down into multiple special subsets and with multiple cross overs between subsets and each special subset has its own special jargon which - especially if your own special subset and crossovers have no relation to the special subset or close relatives of the special subset you suddenly interact with (ie special subset 1 - city bred girl main cross overs - diets, gossip, clubbin' meets special subset 2 - rural bred male main crossovers - shooting, motorcycles, hedge laying she is not going to understand what he is on about when he says that he bent his full floater when he pranged his beezer in a Midlands lay of quickset and he will not understand when she says that Snoop dropped a stone on the Atkins while still spinnin' every night!)
Each special subset has a special jargon only they can fully comprehend with references that other subsets of norm find a closed book.
Those that control the mass media naturally chose the subsets that have most cross overs at which to aim their sales (maximising return) while specialist media use their special subsets jargon to atract a more specialised subset audience.
Out on the fringes of the norm come the subsets that have very specialised and to some extent discrete and individualistic interests with crossovers into again quite discrete specialist subsets so that the crossovers into more "mainstream" specialised subsets are tenuous at best and not existant in some cases.
Once you get to a situation where the subsets have no direct crossovers or even 10th degree contact with each other then you have no way of comunicating between specialised subsets as the jargons and reference points have no commonality whatsoever...
An example of this would be Member of Special Subset X (Rural bred male late middle age main crossovers ethnology, archeology, shooting, welding) would have next to no commonality with Member of Special Subset Y ( City bred female early teens main cross overs music, fashion, gossip, soft drugs) so meaningful communication would be impossible and any attempt at such an endeavour would just result in incomprehension and frustration.
Both would find difficulty comprehending Member of Special Subset Z (Foriegn bred male early middle age main crossovers ethnobotany, microcrystaline physics, early C20th Russian novels)
So the things that cause the lack of understanding between the Special subsets is not that they are ignorant, stupid, self absorbed freaks (well sometimes it is if you include politicians, bankers and the willfully awkward twonks of the world) but a lack of commonality between subsets of "norm".
Those with crossovers to small minds, big egos, fear of exposure often build jargons to exclude all but the closest of subsets and crossovers to bcome more specialised while those with crossovers including fear of litigation, product delivery, greed, will stick the most obvious warnings on products to build a secure basis for expoiting other subsets that have crossovers with greed, persuing litigation etc.
Unfortunately the subsets with crossovers to common sense, self relience and reason are few and becoming more isolated!
What separates those special groups and subsets with a main crossover with bushcraft with those that have no cross over with bushcraft - masses of stuff!

It would seem that subsets of the norm that have a crossover with both bushcraft,sociology/group psychiatry irony and pedantry can be some of the most isolated of all the subset members and due to the cross over with ego and a keyboard end up boring the Swannis off members of Subsets with crossovers including bushcraft, being out there and doing it not talking about it.

So I will stop now as the sun is out and the woods are calling!

 

[sandbender]

This thread is getting interesting - but a bit heavy as well! ....So I will stop now as the sun is out and the woods are calling!

When you get back from the woods you should pop some more paragraphs or line breaks into that post, I was going cross eyed while reading it.

Maybe a venn diagram too.

 

[Andy BB]

Nice one, JF

However I'l like to point out one thing missing from the followin

"An example of this would be Member of Special Subset X (Rural bred male late middle age main crossovers ethnology, archeology, shooting, welding) would have next to no commonality with Member of Special Subset Y ( City bred female early teens main cross overs music, fashion, gossip, soft drugs) so meaningful communication would be impossible and any attempt at such an endeavour would just result in incomprehension and frustration."

And that is sex!

 

[Ronnie]

Here's some more grist for the mill:

Modern life is 'producing a generation of weaklings', claims research as physical strength declines in 10-year-olds

 

[ex member mick sturbs]

Blimey!! I know what a badger set loks like , i have 6 kids ranging from 11 to 22 and only one, the 11 year old girl is into bushcrafting and wild camping , at every given opportunity, the others shudder at the thought . There is every chance as she fast approaches teenager hood that it might wain , i hope not . Its good that we are all not the same ,but i think everybody should spend at least one night in the woods, before saying its not for them.
As long as i dont have to spend one night discussing celebs/soaps/makeup etc . Is that fair ?

 

[John Fenna]

When you get back from the woods you should pop some more paragraphs or line breaks into that post, I was going cross eyed while reading it.

Maybe a venn diagram too.

Home again... watched the young of Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers and Tree Creepers being fed - same tree, different nests, looked for badger sign, chilled, did a bit of flintknapping (made a reasonable tanged arrowhead), threw a couple of Thong Arrows (Swiss Arrows - whatever name you want ) looked at Ransoms and Alexanders to see if the seeds are ready for collection (...not yet), did a bit of arbiculture (sp?) in bending a couple of branches to a more convenient position over a path....walked home while twirling a bit of willow cordage between my fingers...

Got home -read this post - realised I belong to a very small special subset with crossover to " cant be bothered editing posts if it means I have to reread them" and "which one is a Venn diagram - is that the one F. Nightinggale invented or is that the pie chart..."

 

[Ronnie]

Venn diagrams work like this:

And can be used to illustrate such bushcrafting conundrums as this:

And I thought I'd throw this one in, just because it seemed to resonate somehow with this entire thread:

 

[John Fenna]

Venn diagrams work like this:

And can be used to illustrate such bushcrafting conundrums as this:

And I thought I'd throw this one in, just because it seemed to resonate somehow with this entire thread:

Ahhh - so it was the Lady with the Lamp that invented the Pie Chart (mmm pie chart mmmmmm)
I love your illustrations of the Venn Diagram ...but still do not understand how to use them constructively

 

[Ronnie]

Neither does anyone else - they are used mostly by people trying to justify their jobs:

And by idiots who think they're being clever.

I suspect I might have derailed this entire thread - apologies to all people who don't like Venn diagrams:

 

[shaggystu]

Neither does anyone else - they are used mostly by people trying to justify their jobs:

And by idiots who think they're being clever.

I suspect I might have derailed this entire thread - apologies to all people who don't like Venn diagrams:

absolutely love it mate, thanks for the chuckle. hope you don't mind but i intend to steal the "ecology" diagram for the purposes of explaining what my girlfriend gets up to at college (they call it "level 3 extended diploma in countryside management", or some such wonderfully convoluted title), i feel i may be in trouble soon.

stuart

 

[sandbender]

"...Neither does anyone else - they are used mostly by people trying to justify their jobs..."

Its all geek to me...

 

[John Fenna]

Oh thanks be!
I am not alone
I think we aree now back where the OP started - total lack of understanding of anything except how the experiencing of the woods can be a calming influence on the psyche of the average bushcrafter!

 

[RonW]

Are we going around in circles now???