Vegans vs. The Omnivores~ Survival

@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

Big difference.

not in the hunting/trapping equation (I've been reading a lot of Farley Mowat lately).

@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

That's something to clarify with Joe I think -- he said "fifty miles square." That could mean that it's a square(ish) shape that's 50 miles long and 50 miles wide (for a total of 250 sq. miles) -- or that it's more like approximately 7 miles long and 7 miles wide (49 sq. miles). I took him to mean the latter but I'm not sure.

Haha, that would be 2500 square miles, not 250. That would be a lot bigger!

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

Yeah I edited that off for that reason. (It's a big difference in size but for the purposes of what's being discussed not that different.) (Love Farley Mowat.)

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@Cycloptichorn,

Gah. Never mind me. My clarification is not very clarifying!

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Uh, Yellowstone is somewhere around 70 times as large as this island.

Arithmetic --- you're doing it wrong. "Fifty miles square" means 50 miles x 50 miles, which is 2,500 square miles. According to your source, Yellowstone is 3,472 square miles, larger by a factor of 1.36. Long Island is 1,401 square miles, smaller by a factor of 1.8. So my comparisons were correct, at least within the normal margin of hand-waving; yours are off by one or two orders of magnitude. Moral of story: Never confuse miles square with square miles. They are not the same.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
Uh, Yellowstone is somewhere around 70 times as large as this island.

Arithmetic --- you're doing it wrong. "Fifty miles square" means 50x50 miles, which is 2,500 square miles.

Do you have an independent source confirming that this is a recognized distinction? I ask, because I've never once seen the usage that you are claiming here. Serious question.

Though, this is a distraction from the overall point: harvesting and preparing wheat for consumption with no modern tools is likely incredibly difficult, and I have a hard time seeing how the people in question would be able to survive the lean times between harvests without resorting to some sort of animal consumption.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

So my comparisons were correct,

but they don't matter for the hunting/trapping part of the vegan/omnivore comparison

1913 hunting grounds of the Timagami tribe

http://temagami.nativeweb.org/map-hunting-grounds.shtml

http://temagami.nativeweb.org/

4 000 square mile [survey, U.S. statute] = 1 035 999.4 hectare
http://www.onlineconversion.com/area.htm

14 families covered the entire territory

our omnivores can manage 1/10th of that

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To clarify: when I said 'fifty miles square' I imagined I was talking about a place that was blockish shaped with fifty miles sides. (50 x 50) . I wanted the folks to have plenty of room.

Fifty square miles is more the size of Nantucket (I looked it up). That would be a fun place to have this fight.

http://www.new-england-vacations-guide.com/images/nantucket-map.gif

But no, fifty miles square is about the size of Puerto Rico.

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQo9ThoOZ1xSHsMJBXPFeAQn0LLGSUJydU4oqGGLJ3x51CI3flK0A

Joe(I need a bigger picture of PR)Nation

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Do you have an independent source confirming that this is a recognized distinction? I ask, because I've never once seen the usage that you are claiming here. Serious question.

How about the very first paragraph in this Wikipedia article? If Wikipedia isn't good enough, just Google it and take your pick. Your error is a fairly common one.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Though, this is a distraction from the overall point:

If so, that would make it your distraction. I merely responded to it.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

harvesting and preparing wheat for consumption with no modern tools is likely incredibly difficult, and I have a hard time seeing how the people in question would be able to survive the lean times between harvests without resorting to some sort of animal consumption.

"No modern tools" cuts both ways. Have you ever tried to set up ehBeth's 50-mile trap line without modern tools, and with only 20 co-omnivores to set it up? Have you ever tried, without modern tools, to dig a deep-enough pit to trap a wild pig in? Have you ever tried to hunt down a wild animal with a hand-made spear? (That spear would also have to be tooth-sharpened --- no modern tools to sharpen it, remember?) Have you ever made a fishing net without modern tools? To make for a sustainable source for food, these things take an incredible amount of effort and energy! You're fantasizing if you think that vegans would be the only ones having a hard time without modern tools.

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Spears can easily be sharpened using a fire and a rock with a sharp edge.

1 Reply

@Joe Nation,

Puerto Rico is 3,515 sq miles.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Thanks for the correction. Next, have you ever hunted a wild animal with one? How would you compare the calorie expenditure with picking nuts off a tree?

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@Ceili,

Right.
I was looking for something squareish and about 2500 miles......so we will cut off the East end of Puerto Rico and have it.

Joe(so long San Juan)Nation

1 Reply

@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

Right.
I was looking for something squareish and about 2500 miles......so we will cut off the East end of Puerto Rico and have it.

Joe(so long San Juan)Nation

Go ahead. They won't mind. Especially if the cause is for science!

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@Thomas,

Quote:

"No modern tools" cuts both ways. Have you ever tried to set up ehBeth's 50-mile trap line without modern tools? Have you ever tried, without modern tools, to dig a deep-enough pit to trap a wild pig in? Have you ever tried to hunt down a wild animal with a hand-made spear? (That spear would also have to be tooth-sharpened --- no modern tools to sharpen it, remember?) Have you ever made a fishing net without modern tools? To make for a sustainable source for food, these things take an incredible amount of effort and energy! You're phantasizing if you think that vegans would be the only ones having a hard time without modern tools.

The answer to all your questions here is yes. I took a month-long survival course one summer during my time in the boy scouts, in which we were given nothing - not even a knife - and sent out to survive. We had adult supervision who would step in with tools and food if things got grim, but we had to build stone axes and tools ourselves. It took three days to get a stone ax that would cut worth a damn. But only a two days after that to build a functioning trout box that would catch all that we could eat. We lived like kings for the rest of the month.

I will say that hunting animals with the spears we made - not tooth sharpened, but sharpened with a stone knife, c'mon man - was definitely not easy. We caught nothing the entire time. But, hunting - instead of building pitfall traps and corrals - is a fool's game.

Cycloptichorn

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Have you ever tried to set up ehBeth's 50-mile trap line without modern tools, and with only 20 co-omnivores to set it up?

It's still being done in some parts of Northern Canada (without modern tools in some cases), although you'd likely have one or two people on a 50-mile trap line, not 20.

make your own fishing net - I'm sure you can tie a knot or thread a needle (even make a needle if you need to)

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Handmade-Fishing-Net

http://www.trails.com/how_39682_fishing-net-scratch.html

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

Question is - would these individuals have a computer with them so they can look up "How tos..."?

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Beth and Cycloptichorn, I stand educated. In your experience, how much easier are these things compared to picking berries and nuts, and --- later in the 10-year period --- farming beans and wheat?

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@Linkat,

I didn't have a computer when I learned to tie the knots required to make a net - hamburgboy's an expert on knot-tying - but it's not hard to figure out - which is why people around the world figured it out centuries (millenia?) ago.

Similarly, it's not that difficult to figure out how to make different types of ground traps.

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People netted birds, too. All agricultural labor is hard labor. It's stoop work, it's backbreaking, and that's why Americans hire Latinos to do it for them.

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Vegans vs. The Omnivores~ Survival

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