"It has also been suggested that the fall of the Roman Empire was due in no small part to their plumbing and the intellectual retardation toxic effects of the lead construction. Could there be something similar happening today? "

absolutely.
Internet gossip is dumbing down the entire global population :-)

Pete2

Where do I sign up?!

Oh I could run with that one. But would be better to advocate simply to pursue those aspects of civilization that amplify our better qualities, and avoid those that do the opposite.

Through civilization, we isolate ourselves from nature, separate ourselves from what is real, while we attempt to mold reality to fit our own notions. There has to be a better way to go about it, but we seem to keep coming back to the same old ways of doing things.

We know what good is, we just choose to go the other way a lot.

"Through civilization, we isolate ourselves from nature, separate ourselves from what is real, while we attempt to mold reality to fit our own notions"

It is a bit ironic that the Native American societies, who I consider to be some of the most "in touch" with nature, did not fare well when they came in contact with our predominant "white persons" civilization. Whatever our current civilization is ... it tends to be very intolerant of peaceful coexistence with Planet Earth and is rather exploitive in nature.

But anyway, setting those thoughts aside, I sense that you are trying to piece together what is happening to the world today? My observation is that the human race is "fracturing and dividing" across many different lines. I beleive the basic cause is due to stress. It is interesting to me that these "lines of division" do not just separate people on obvious belief systems, such as Democrats vs. Republicans, Jews vs. Christians vs. Muslims, or rich vs. poor. YES, arguments between all those groups do exist. But i have noticed a lot of fighting and bickering WTHIN these groups - there are inner divides forming. So it seems more like civilization is "breaking up" along many different lines.

Pete2

If you haven't already done so, a recommended read is "Guns, Germs,and Steel" for an explanation of why Europeans prevailed. Introduced diseases like measles and smallpox killed far more Native Americans than bullets did...

Don't be too sure that all NA societies were all that much in touch with nature. Archeological research shows many situations where localized overuse of resources caused disruptions and collapse, or at least adjustments in lifestyle. The Aztec Empire, you will recall, had a thing about human sacrifice - at the time of European contact, somewhere between 80,000 and 20,000 were sacrificed to dedicate one temple in 1487.

After all, our society would be considered pretty touchy-feely if all you cited were Muir, Thoreau, and Rachel Carson. We all have the problem of forecasting the long-term consequences of apparently innocuous measures.

Archeologists (and hikermor will know more about this than I do) state that the population of the Americas could have been as high as 100,000,000 at the time when Europe was being ravaged by the plague! The plunder of the Americas was probably the worst genocide humanity has ever seen. Fully 95% of all the native peoples died.

I kind of wonder, philosophically, if humans are or even could be cut off from "nature". When a beaver dams a river, is he cutting himself off from nature or expressing the nature of a beaver? Is our civilization and technology someone foreign and alien to the world or simply or version of what it is to be a beaver? Or an ant? When a bird builds a 500 lb nest, is that alien?

It's very surprising to read a claim of 100M in the Americas before the Europeans came -- I'm a technologist, not an anthropologist, but weren't the natives all at a Stone Age level of technology?

100M is on the high side of estimates of pre-Contact population levels, and metal working was not yet in vogue. Groups like the Aztecs were working copper and precious metals, but stone tools were generally in use elsewhere. That doesn't mean that groups weren't highly developed.

The Mayas were adept astronomers, with a calendar even more accurate than our own,and along with a mathematical system that included the concept of zero and writing, together with monumental architecture. Similar systems were in use throughout Mexico,Central America, and much of South America.

There were large cities in many areas, including some in the United States, like Cahokia,near St.Louis. In many cases,disease spread in advance of Europeans making the first contact with many groups, and population levels were already declining.

Agriculture was well developed throughout the Americas. Native American groups first domesticated maize, and tomatoes, among others - plants that were readily adopted by Europeans.

What was lacking were wild precursors of any critters suitable for domestication like the horse (alpacas and llamas were rather palid substitutes), very unfortunate when Cortez came calling. At first the Aztecs did not realize that the horse and rider were separate entities, although they learned fast.

The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, was larger and cleaner than any city in Spain, according to the comments recorded in journals kept by the Spanish themselves.

And yet human sacrifice was common, and justified by the internal logic of their religious system - so who is "civilized" and who is "barbaric"? If you ask me, we are all just dreadfully, and unpredictably, human....

I am not a college professor, nor have I played one on TV. I have stayed at Holiday Inn a couple of times, however...

phaedrus - I have never seen a claim that the Native Amnerican population was 100 million. i did see one idea - more of a conjecture - that the Native American population was significantly higher before European cilization arrived. However, it wasn't right before white people came. it was many centuries before. and i think the anthropologists beleived that many Indians died at that earlier time because of some sort of epidemic. it will probably take a long time for people to work out if these theories are true. maybe we will never know.

Pete2

Let's just say that the data for the basis of population estimates is pretty crappy, and that many estimates are basically wild speculation. Much more work is needed.