For God's sake, Jim, what about the Prime Directive.

God, I'm a nerd.

Also, I think this is a classic example of the "every response will be problematic" - to "leave them alone" is to arbitrarily decide to shelter these individuals from certain political and economic forces, while to "contact them" is to arbitrarily decide Western culture is right - even if you just want to give them the choice, well, you're being very Western if that is your perspective. A genuine conundrum.

I just wanted to throw in my two cents. I'm not an anthropologist, but a political scientist who studies conflict, regime change, and political-economic development, so my social scientific background is a little different (oh, and I would assert any field based on scientific principles of inquiry is, by its nature, science - social sciences, when properly conducted, are essentially primatology of humans . . . but I digress), but I can say I find Diamond quite interesting. Specifically, I find him interesting because he does assert that at any give time the technological and ecological bounds of a society do limit its choices - both its ability to choose certain goals and its ability to choose certain methods of accomplishing those goals. That is deterministic to a point, but it doesn't deny the fundamental importance of human volition and political-economic-social machinations and interactions. In this sense Diamond is really just digging into the turf of realism, be it classical (Machiavelli/Hobbes), Malthusian (Malthus/Hardin), or neorealism (Waltz and 10 jillion other folk). Indeed, I like to think of Diamond as a Malthusian realist who is integrating the classical realists' understanding of political decision-making and the conservative liberals' (e.g. Burke) understanding of the significance of culture on decision-making. Now, does he pick his cases or work in quantitative terms? Nope. So sure, his methods imperfect. And, since he is picking his cases (usually extreme ones) to demonstrate this theories, it is easy to argue that he is (1) a determinist and (2) throwing his net entirely too widely. But then, I don't see Diamond as trying to revolutionize social science, so much as trying to remind the rationalists that rationality isn't merely culturally bounded, something realists tend to ignore or forget - it is physically bounded as well, something non-realists have a tendency to ignore or forget.

In other words? Cultural and material bounds don't constitute inflexible, permanent bounds divorced from history, nor do they constitute moral bounds - rather they are structural bounds that are inescapable until the structures are changed, either through the development of new technologies, cultural patterns, or other factors; yet their flexibility renders them no less bounds.

Does anyone know of a similar site for regional, American or global, blogs? I help edit one on Appalachia and would be very interested in participating in such a site, or its creation if one doesn't exist.

Argh. What kills me isn't the modern architecture - the building itself looks impressive, like a soap bubble and a hunk of quartz had an ill-conceived but advantageous liaison. What disturbs me is that obviously this sort of thing will not, as Mr Shuttleworth asserts, "reinstate a more coherent plan of the square as envisaged by Wren". The monument was designed as an open-air object, the core of a space, an intentional absence. The absence of development, indeed, implies the sacredness of the site itself; this emptiness was created by one of the three greatest tragedies this city every experienced (along with the Plague and the Blitz) and we have rebuilt everywhere but here - this place is to remember. Not to mention the fact that Wren designed the monument to be an astronomical and meteorological instrument, uses, while neglected presently, reflect the crafter's intention. Finally, it hardly needs to be added this action will steal one of the most memorable public spaces from Londoners - but ah, I'm sure the City needs a few more offices. Sigh.