about main()

[Jim Lee]

On 07/06/18 12:57, Terry Reedy wrote:
> On 7/5/2018 9:40 PM, Jim Lee wrote:
>
>> On 07/05/18 18:25, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>>> On Thu, 05 Jul 2018 11:27:09 -0700, Jim Lee wrote:
>>>
>>>> Take a village of people.  They live mostly on wild berries.
>>> Because of course a community of people living on one food is so
>>> realistic. Even the Eskimos and Inuit, living in some of the harshest
>>> environments on earth, managed to have a relatively wide variety of 
>>> foods
>>> in their diet.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_cuisine
>>>
>>>
>> Pedantics again.  Didn't even get the point before tearing apart the 
>> *analogy* rather than the *point itself*.
>
> The irony of both Steven's interruption and your reaction is that the 
> Inuit story somewhat supports your point:
>
> "There has been a decline of hunting partially due to the fact that 
> young people lack the skills to survive off the land. "
>
> -- because they are 'growing more accustomed to the Qallunaat ("white 
> people") food that they receive from the south.'
>
> If 'white people' food stopped coming, they would starve where they are.
>
> But change scenarios that assume that everything else remains the same 
> are flawed.  Maintaining traditional skills comes up in every culture 
> that is changing, which now is most all.  But the same dynamism tends 
> to generate new solutions where needed.
>


Finally, a person with sense enough to contribute a rational thought to 
this thread!


 >"But the same dynamism tends to generate new solutions where needed."

Yes.  However,  technological evolution happens at a blindingly faster 
rate than cultural evolution.  Because of this, there are many of us 
still alive who have been here "from the beginning" of the computer era.

That gives us a unique perspective, in that we have seen first-hand many 
cycles of these "solutions" being invented, re-invented, and 
re-re-invented.  We lament the continual re-emergence of bad ideas that 
have failed in the past (and applaud the good ones).

People like that, in a cultural context, are treated as wise elders;  in 
the technology context, they're treated as doddering old fools.

Somehow, we've adopted the notion that old == obsolete == useless when 
it comes to technological ideas.  I've seen more than one person refuse 
to consider some software application (even though it fit their 
requirements perfectly) simply because it hadn't been updated in 9 
months.  That's too "old".  You'd think they were shopping for a gallon 
of milk.


-Jim