Survival of the Fittest

[Kathryn]

It was that bad when I went, but I was 10 so maybe that had something to do with it. It may have been due to how they were lined up head to tail, pushed through the line to meet their end. The squealing was just part of it. The methods back then seemed harsh to me. Boar tusking was quite an experience, just before shooting a plug in the jugular to bleed them. Cattle prods weren't so bad to get the cattle moving, but watching the actual end of these beasts haunted me for years. I can't clean a fish anymore without first depriving it of its life.

I don't blame you a bit. Interesting tidbit - my daughter watched a pig slaughter recently and she said the thing that freaked her out was that the pig shuddered and shook for a long time after it was killed, which would freak me out too. I agree with you by the way about the fish, in theory, because as you know, I have never cleaned a fish, dead or alive.

 

[Kathryn]

Do you have a fig thief in your neighborhood ? LOL

Yes, birds.

 

[Spice]

TRUE STORY TIME:

When I was a teen, my parents decided to raise rabbits for meat, but my dad couldn't kill them because they would snuggle up to him before he did so, and my mom was NOT game for any of that killing bidness, so she was out. So we sold the rabbits.

However, we did raise chickens to eat. I have two terrible memories of chickens. In the first memory, that whole phrase "running around like a chicken with his head chopped off" is real. It really happens, and it's terrible. The second memory is of actually plucking a chicken. A chicken has two layers of feathers, apparently - the outer layer and then the down. So anyway, to make the chicken easier to pluck, one has to dunk the chicken in boiling water, after the head is chopped off and the chicken runs around for a bit. This smells GREAT. Kidding. So, after dunking the dead chicken in boiling water, my parents hung the chicken body from a CLOTHES LINE and I sat on a stool, in the rain, as a teen, plucking this chicken. I thought I was about to freaking die. After that, I always bought chickens already plucked and all that, from the grocery store.

My first job on chicken kill day was lid sitter. We'd put a bushel basket next to the chopping block so when my dad axed the head he'd drop it in the basket and I'd throw the lid on and sit on it until it stopped rocking and bucking. I felt grownup when I was prompted to chicken plucked--but no close-in. Feet held in one hand, plucking with the other, redipping as necessary. I never had to gut, but I took the butcher position after my stepmother gutted.
Now fish? From start to finish, literally. Catching to washing the dishes and every step in between.

 

[Kathryn]

My first job on chicken kill day was lid sitter. We'd put a bushel basket next to the chopping block so when my dad axed the head he'd drop it in the basket and I'd throw the lid on and sit on it until it stopped rocking and bucking. I felt grownup when I was prompted to chicken plucked--but no close-in. Feet held in one hand, plucking with the other, redipping as necessary. I never had to gut, but I took the butcher position after my stepmother gutted.
Now fish? From start to finish, literally. Catching to washing the dishes and every step in between.

I have caught many a fish but never had to clean one thankfully. That lid sitter job sounds horrible by the way!

 

[We Never Know]

TRUE STORY TIME:

When I was a teen, my parents decided to raise rabbits for meat, but my dad couldn't kill them because they would snuggle up to him before he did so, and my mom was NOT game for any of that killing bidness, so she was out. So we sold the rabbits.

However, we did raise chickens to eat. I have two terrible memories of chickens. In the first memory, that whole phrase "running around like a chicken with his head chopped off" is real. It really happens, and it's terrible. The second memory is of actually plucking a chicken. A chicken has two layers of feathers, apparently - the outer layer and then the down. So anyway, to make the chicken easier to pluck, one has to dunk the chicken in boiling water, after the head is chopped off and the chicken runs around for a bit. This smells GREAT. Kidding. So, after dunking the dead chicken in boiling water, my parents hung the chicken body from a CLOTHES LINE and I sat on a stool, in the rain, as a teen, plucking this chicken. I thought I was about to freaking die. After that, I always bought chickens already plucked and all that, from the grocery store.

Boiling water? Its been many years but I think boiling water was a little too hot

 

[The Hammer]

No ...

I'm speaking about the basics of life. Defense and self-preservation is something that comes quite natural to every species to ever become a species in life, including you and me.

Yes but that is not what *survival of the fittest* means. Is the problem. That's also what I think @Jayhawker Soule was referring to and why I asked.

 

[Balthazzar]

Yes but that is not what *survival of the fittest* means. Is the problem. That's also what I think @Jayhawker Soule was referring to and why I asked.

It's part of the equation, despite your disagreement with the premise.

 

[Kathryn]

Boiling water? Its been many years but I think boiling water was a little too hot

I don't know the exact temperature of the water but it was very hot. Thankfully I wasn't involved in that part of the whole ordeal.

 

[Quintessence]

You don't need to do hunting, per se. You can also just learn wildcrafting and being a naturalist. It's something a lot of Pagans do because it synchronizes with the whole reconstructing indigenous religions thing. Even in pre-industrial human societies, humans had specialization of who did what - you do not have to be the hunter, you can be something else that serves a need. But everyone started by knowing the non-human peoples around them - an indigenous wisdom that was cultivated over generations and passed on through stories and songs and shamans. How many tall standing ones (trees) can you identify in your area? Do you know what wisdom they have to teach? What they can provide, what they do for an ecosystem? How to harvest, but not too much, to sustain it for the future? No? Those are important need-to-know things in a human society that hasn't crutched itself on technology.

 

[The Hammer]

It's part of the equation, despite your disagreement with the premise.

No it's not part of the equation

All that matters is did you pass on your genetic material. That's it.

It doesn't matter if you had a child at 15 and then subsequently died during its birth.

That's still considered "survival". Because you procreated.

Edit: In Darwinian terms, the phrase is best understood as "survival of the form that in successive generations will leave most copies of itself."

 

[Spice]

You don't need to do hunting, per se. You can also just learn wildcrafting and being a naturalist. It's something a lot of Pagans do because it synchronizes with the whole reconstructing indigenous religions thing. Even in pre-industrial human societies, humans had specialization of who did what - you do not have to be the hunter, you can be something else that serves a need. But everyone started by knowing the non-human peoples around them - an indigenous wisdom that was cultivated over generations and passed on through stories and songs and shamans. How many tall standing ones (trees) can you identify in your area? Do you know what wisdom they have to teach? What they can provide, what they do for an ecosystem? How to harvest, but not too much, to sustain it for the future? No? Those are important need-to-know things in a human society that hasn't crutched itself on technology.

Forging would be a fun and useful activity for nature walks, but unfortunately, even with all the books available, it could be dangerous as well.

 

[Balthazzar]

No it's not part of the equation

All that matters is did you pass on your genetic material. That's it.

It doesn't matter if you had a child at 15 and then subsequently died during its birth.

That's still considered "survival". Because you procreated.

Edit: In Darwinian terms, the phrase is best understood as "survival of the form that in successive generations will leave most copies of itself."

I can't argue the latter portion of your post, but survival depends on many factors, some of which involve dietary capabilities, such as ability to eat both meat and vegetation. These things develop over large spans of time and they become encoded in our genetics, hence your portion of understanding the concept. It doesn't hurt to hunt and fish and develop skills in life either. It helps equip us and better enables us to meet certain challenges successfully. So, if survival of the fittest is isolated to genetics and large spans of time, I'll suggest these aren't simply random sequences but rather that they are encoded over many, many generations of necessitated survival necessities.

 

[Balthazzar]

Forging would be a fun and useful activity for nature walks, but unfortunately, even with all the books available, it could be dangerous as well.

I have a phone app, but my battery drains too quick to last much more than a couple days. Do you think I should buy a book? Maybe I should practice identification and preparation methods of edibles.

 

[The Hammer]

It doesn't hurt to hunt and fish and develop skills in life either. It helps equip us and better enables us to meet certain challenges successfully.

I've never disagreed.

I only commented here about the fact that you are using the term you titled your OP as incorrectly. It is a scientific term and process, and by using it as you did you are muddying the waters on the actual process you are discussing, and making non-scientists confused who may be trying to learn from you.

Scientific literacy is important.

 

[The Hammer]

I have a phone app, but my battery drains too quick to last much more than a couple days. Do you think I should buy a book? Maybe I should practice identification and preparation methods of edibles.

Apps are nice, books are better. Plenty of foraging and woodcrafting books out there.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Where does hunting fit into this paradigm? In modern society, we really have no need to hunt or fish or anything like this. Also, what about dietary needs and capabilities? The future is uncertain, and from what I gather we developed an ability to eat both meat and vegetation. Some swear by a no meat diet, and others swear by an omnivorous one. I'm in the latter group and I've added to this diet spicy peppers and dairy. I think it broadens my chances of survival as well as those who develop from this type of food intake. Anyway, I haven't been hunting since I was twenty something. I'm thinking about reintroducing myself to the more primal basics of survival.

Do you think these capabilities are important enough to pursue?

Survival of the fittest doesn't mean what you seem to think. It isn't about food -- in fact it's more about sex. Survival of the fittest doesn't refer to individuals, but to genes being passed on from parent to offspring. The more offspring a parent can bring to adulthood, the likelier that particular allele (gene version) is to spread to future generations.

Being good at hunting might favour that in predators, but more than likely not in humans, who are more typically hunter/gatherers (and these days, I'd flip that to gatherer/occasional hunters).

 

[Spice]

I have a phone app, but my battery drains too quick to last much more than a couple days. Do you think I should buy a book? Maybe I should practice identification and preparation methods of edibles.

I have several books that have wonderful information with very clear photos, but I haven't put them to the test. There are a couple of survivalist, lost knowledge, types of books I'm considering for my sons' Christmas. Things like digging root cellars, building smoke houses, and how to use them with what provisions would also be handy.

Even here in the country few continue these basis in community stability. There is a significant showing of interest however in your age group and a decade or so younger. They have their backyard chicken coops, gardens they can and pickle from, and some have experimented with goats for milk and lawn care, though the goat experiment was a no-go. Too much work I gather. LOL

Hunting and fishing has been a standard, of life though not at the same levels of my childhood. In my early childhood if mom didn't grow it or dad didn't kill it, we didn't have it -- for the most part. We still went to town once a month for coffee, flour, sugar, spices, etc. But my generation admittedly let go of so much of that kind of knowledge and now we regret not having to pass on.

 

[Balthazzar]

Survival of the fittest doesn't mean what you seem to think. It isn't about food -- in fact it's more about sex. Survival of the fittest doesn't refer to individuals, but to genes being passed on from parent to offspring. The more offspring a parent can bring to adulthood, the likelier that particular allele (gene version) is to spread to future generations.

Being good at hunting might favour that in predators, but more than likely not in humans, who are more typically hunter/gatherers (and these days, I'd flip that to gatherer/occasional hunters).

These things are simply part of the dynamic. Parents passing genes after having evolved over large spans of time via environmental necessities is how it works, so food is part of it, physical characteristics another, sex, attraction, etc, etc. I've read that the development of adhd was attributed to foraging techniques when environmental factors necessitated the gathering food over other types of dietary demands.

 

[Balthazzar]

Apps are nice, books are better. Plenty of foraging and woodcrafting books out there.

I'll probably use my phone app and practice identification and preparation before heading out on my sojourn into the wild.

 

[Spice]

I can't argue the latter portion of your post, but survival depends on many factors, some of which involve dietary capabilities, such as ability to eat both meat and vegetation. These things develop over large spans of time and they become encoded in our genetics, hence your portion of understanding the concept. It doesn't hurt to hunt and fish and develop skills in life either. It helps equip us and better enables us to meet certain challenges successfully. So, if survival of the fittest is isolated to genetics and large spans of time, I'll suggest these aren't simply random sequences but rather that they are encoded over many, many generations of necessitated survival necessities.

Maybe just edit the title to Survival of the Prepared. I understand your choice in title as alluding to the fight for survival such as in the gladiator forum. "Fit" can mean able, prepared, IMO. And titles are often played off of others with other meanings.