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Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

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Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#121

Post by hnhg »

trgn wrote: post #107
eloff wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country. The depth of history and culture in Europe never ceased to amaze me while I was travelling there, especially in Greece and Italy. I grew up on the prairies in Canada, there was pretty much nothing there 120 years ago.

At the same time, USA has the oldest constitution, and east coast cities for all intents and purposes are 250 years old. If Europe's imperial capitals are essentially 19th century inventions, so are America's (Paris, NYC, Barcelona, Philadelphia, ... all ballooned to their dominant feel during the same decades). The biggest difference is that the brand that the USA is not old or has little heritage, has been along fo…

I've spoken to people from some parts of the world where they have talked about a "recent" govt or king and then found out they were talking about 300 years ago, which was wild. Their collective sense of history goes back thousands of years. I would really recommend the chance to speak with people from Rome, Cairo, Damascus or Beijing (amongst many others, these are the first that come to mind) who love their local history, and you will get a sense of history that goes back a long way than a lot of people (myself included) can comprehend.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#122

Post by Broken_Hippo »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #50
rob74 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This technique doesn't really offer a solution: as a rule, the harder and better quality the wood, the slower it grows, so the possibility to supply more when demand is high is limited, which makes the wood more expensive, so the temptation of "poaching" it is greater.

Trees don't move; it's perfectly possible to guard them from poachers.

" it's perfectly possible to guard them from poachers"

This is completely overlooking the sheer size of the earth and the sheer numbers of people/tech devices it would take to guard them from poachers.

We can guard some trees (and some animals) from poaching, but it really is beyond us to guard them all, even if they don't move.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#123

Post by jimmaswell »

vanderZwan wrote: post #67
thaumasiotes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trees don't move; it's perfectly possible to guard them from poachers.

Perhaps you are in the forestry business, in which case, fine, but otherwise I would advise against speaking with the unearned confidence of a physicist looking at a different field and declaring it trivial[0]. Most of the time things aren't as simple/easy as they appear on the surface. [0] https://xkcd.com/793/

Funny, but I do feel like there's not much you couldn't throw a team of programming physicists at, if not just for their widened perspective and the fact that they have such a good springboard to study anything else - wouldn't work if they had the attitude of the guy in the xkcd comic of course.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#124

Post by slashdev »

thechao wrote: post #119
eloff wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country. The depth of history and culture in Europe never ceased to amaze me while I was travelling there, especially in Greece and Italy. I grew up on the prairies in Canada, there was pretty much nothing there 120 years ago.

The largest city in the "middle ages" was in the US. Europeans trot that "no history" story out because saying "... and then Europeans engaged in the largest genocide in human history" doesn't feel as good, I guess? There was definitely an interruption and a regime change — Europe's got a lot more of those a lot more recently than the US — but the history is there, if you care to look.

That's just factually incorrect. The largest pre-colonization city in the US was a piddling 20,000. Even Uruk in ancient Mesopatmia, was more than twice that size over 5000 years ago.

Presumably you're referring to Tenochtitlan where Mexico City is today, which is neither in the US, nor was it larger than European cities at the time (although it was up there with Paris and Naples!)

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#125

Post by eloff »

bluGill wrote: post #108
eloff wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country. The depth of history and culture in Europe never ceased to amaze me while I was travelling there, especially in Greece and Italy. I grew up on the prairies in Canada, there was pretty much nothing there 120 years ago.

There was a lot there 120 years ago. However the natives didn't have access to the types of materials that would last in that climate, and of course Europeans destroyed their culture.

I think we disagree on the definition of "a lot". Were there even any permanent settlements on the Canadian prairies? Most of the natives were nomadic.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#126

Post by rsynnott »

brutusborn wrote: post #110
rsynnott wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but like so much else in Japan to a westerner’s eyes, it’s appearance only. Eh. I'm not sure I'd call it appearance only. In some parts of "the West" (notably the Roman Republic and early Empire, but it went on a for a long time after that) adult adoption as a succession/continuity-of-business mechanism was commonplace. Notable Roman examples include the _first two emperors_ (Augustus/Octavian was adopted by Julius…

My memory was that the emperor adoptions were more pragmatic than anything, either because the emperor didn't have a son or as insurance against a power struggle caused by a single son dying. It's been a while so I could be mistaken. This is the same mechanism that business succession planning reduces risk. Failure to train and groom new talent for leadership roles is a good way to ensure a company dies with its curr…

> My memory was that the emperor adoptions were more pragmatic than anything, either because the emperor didn't have a son or as insurance against a power struggle caused by a single son dying.

Yeah, generally, but they're just the most famous examples (because emperor); this was standard behaviour for the time if you had something to pass on and didn't have kids. Adopting adult men was really commonplace in Roman society; Roman infant mortality was _astronomical_. The Japanese adoptions mentioned above were pragmatic, too.

Arguably, it's unfortunate that the custom died out for European aristocracy (though it did continue to some extent for normal people). A _huge_ number of wars were caused by failure to produce an heir.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#127

Post by stryan »

slashdev wrote: post #124
thechao wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest city in the "middle ages" was in the US. Europeans trot that "no history" story out because saying "... and then Europeans engaged in the largest genocide in human history" doesn't feel as good, I guess? There was definitely an interruption and a regime change — Europe's got a lot more of those a lot more recently than the US — but the history is there, if you care to look.

That's just factually incorrect. The largest pre-colonization city in the US was a piddling 20,000. Even Uruk in ancient Mesopatmia, was more than twice that size over 5000 years ago. Presumably you're referring to Tenochtitlan where Mexico City is today, which is neither in the US, nor was it larger than European cities at the time (although it was up there with Paris and Naples!)

> That's just factually incorrect. The largest pre-colonization city in the US was a piddling 20,000

FYI, Cahokia was thought to have had a population up to 40,000 around the (IIRC) 11th century in Illinois.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#128

Post by relaxing »

hattmall wrote: post #117
relaxing wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the US happened to be founded in the Age of Enlightenment that doesn't magically grant us heritage back to antiquity. And the argument isn't about the size of cities or political organization. But for reference, Philadelphia in 1790 had population 28k. That's on par with Paris around year 0 in the Roman era, or roughly year 1100 as the city recovered in the middle ages.

Would any of these have been the same people? Like is it conceivable the same family lineage in Paris 0-1100, or even 2k years to now or would the war, conquest, etc have changed the demographics considerably?

Lineage in terms of common ancestor and shared DNA? Of course. It’s pretty rare for invasions to result in the wholesale slaughter and replacement of a population.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#129

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

eloff wrote: post #125
bluGill wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a lot there 120 years ago. However the natives didn't have access to the types of materials that would last in that climate, and of course Europeans destroyed their culture.

I think we disagree on the definition of "a lot". Were there even any permanent settlements on the Canadian prairies? Most of the natives were nomadic.

The Prairies are there because of the First Nations.

Grasslands like Head-Smashed-In were maintained to attract buffalo, and timed to attract them in prime harvest season.

Burning was done to improve productivity of berry patches, etc.

It just doesn't match the European idea of agriculture / settlements.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#130

Post by scythe »

thechao wrote: post #119
eloff wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country. The depth of history and culture in Europe never ceased to amaze me while I was travelling there, especially in Greece and Italy. I grew up on the prairies in Canada, there was pretty much nothing there 120 years ago.

The largest city in the "middle ages" was in the US. Europeans trot that "no history" story out because saying "... and then Europeans engaged in the largest genocide in human history" doesn't feel as good, I guess? There was definitely an interruption and a regime change — Europe's got a lot more of those a lot more recently than the US — but the history is there, if you care to look.

The largest city in the Middle Ages was either Baghdad or Hangzhou, with neither European cities nor Tenochtitlan reaching half their size.
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