>I'd suggest H-G [hunter-gatherer] problems stem more from massive
technological
>inferiority and more deadly, massive immunological inferiority leading
>to societal wipeout, with which few people will deal well
Those little bug buggers have a lot to answer for. First sex, then
genocide. I wondered idly one day if
the horror of single-generation mass deaths by infection caused by
bacteria and viruses introduced into long-isolated places such as Australia
and various islands is not the time-compressed equivalent of a very
stretched-out Great Dying in other places. Leaving aside the matter of
bugs evolving commensal forms - but even then, what is mild in populations
exposed to bugs from birth is hideously lethal otherwise. Fences (and
rivers and oceans) might make good neighbours, but the better they are the
more of your kids die in the long run. (This fact, BTW, presumably
falsifies Hoyle & Wickramasinghe's bugs-from-space theory.)
>clear ability to redundantly destroy biosphere. Suspect US success in
>Iraq related more to tendency of Iraqis to run away.)
>
>(Suspect am beginning to write like Eugene.)
:) Think maybe Manny, gospodin.
Damien Broderick, the Tall Golden Poppy (sorry, an Australian reference)