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[DnA9413]

I've been reading an archeology book about mankind from 20,000 to 5,000 BC and found a passage that seems to describe not just what seems to happen in these forums, but what happens between all generations.

From - After the Ice - A Global Human History 20,000 to 5,000 BC
Steven Mithen

Chapter 20 - Pages 178 - 179

At the Frontier
The spread of farming in Central Europe and its impact on
Mesolithic society, 6000-4400 BC

By 6000 BC the Mesolithic people of northern Europe were listening to fireside stories from visitors about a new people in the east, people who lived in great wooden houses and controlled the game. Soon they found their own Mesolithic neighbours using polished stone axes, moulding cooking vessels from clay and herding cattle for themselves. When farming villages arrived within their own hunting lands, Mesolithic eyes peered from behind trees at the timber long houses, the tethered cattle and the sprouting crops with mixed emotions - fear, awe, dismay, disgust.

The older generation must have struggled to understand what they saw. Although they had felled trees and built dwellings themselves, the new farmsteads were quite beyond their comprehension.' The farmers appeared intent on controlling, dominating and transforming nature. Mesolithic culture had been no more than an extension of the natural world. Its chipped stone axes were merely an elaboration of nature's work, her use of rivers and frosts to break stone nodules apart and make sharp edges. Wicker baskets and woven mats were merely extravagant forms of spiders' webs and birds' nests made by human hands.

The pottery of the farmers - a product of mixing clay and sand, firing, decorating and painting - had no precedent within the natural world. When the farmers ground and polished their axes smooth, they appeared intent on denying the natural angularity of stone. Building a Mesolithic dwelling required no more than promoting and combining the existing suppleness of hazel, the stringiness of willow and the sheets of birch bark that grew ready-made; a timber-framed long house, on the other hand, required nature to be torn apart and the world constructed anew.

The older men and women are likely to have retreated from the forests of central Europe, relinquishing their hunting grounds and insisting that even more time be spent celebrating the natural world. But they sang and danced against the tide of history: the younger generation had quite different ideas. Many were born into a world where farmers, pottery, cattle and wheat were as natural as wild boar and the annual harvests of nuts and berries. And so they made contact with the new arrivals. They worked for the farmers as labourers, trackers, hunters. They engaged in trade, learned to make pottery, to plough the land. Their daughters married the farmers and soon their sons became farmers themselves.

Those who continued with their Mesolithic culture in the northern forests had to adjust their traditional hunting-and-gathering patterns. Furs, game, honey and other forest products had to be procured for trade; the wild resources were fought over and further depleted. And as increasing numbers of women joined the farmers, perceiving agriculture as providing greater economic security for themselves and their children, there were fewer to maintain the Mesolithic populations. Both land and women became sources of tension that often boiled over into the violence so vividly documented within the Mesolithic graves.

[David Chin]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

No one forces anyone to read or respond to a thread here. If it annoys you to read the same old posts, then move on. You can even put the thread on ignore if it really bugs you.

I am new here; but it doesn't mean that I am also young. I do not use a cell phone at all. I use an old desk-top computer to read this forum. Apparently if the question has been asked before, I am not permitted to ask again. That is not reasonable because I cannot figure out how to find anything here. What is the harm if there are members here willing to answer all my [stupid] questions. No question is stupid; only answers can be [stupid].

CF is not Wikipedia after all.

[JPA Cate]

David, there are two Search modes here. One is the plain CF Search, the top of the menu that drops down when you click on the button. What it does is match words exactly, and then comes up with posts that have that word, which it obligingly highlights in red. That is useful, for instance, if you want to find if a brand x widget has been mentioned. It requires an exact match.

About the 4th or 5th option down on the menu, there is the CF Google Custom Search, and it is the type of search engine that tries to guess what you want by what you enter. So, if you enter something like "Daysailer sail boats under 20 ft.", it will come up with a bunch of CF threads having some mention of that, or "trailer sailer, etc." It is the CF Google Custom Search that is my friend, I can usually contrive to get it to find me what I want.

I'm not the best expert here at getting around CF, by a long shot, but I'm in your hemisphere, and once you have been active for a while, you can send PM's, but in the mean time, just start threads, even for questions about navigating this forum. You will never be the only one with the question, there's a heck of a lot more viewers than there are posters. Ignore all grumpy replies. Assume someone is having a bad hair day, and move on. Many here are quite content to answer old questions.

The same thing used to happen with sailing magazines, all the electric stuff had been done, then, once a year someone would write the same old thing about batteries. It's life. Repetitive threads are okay. CF isn't a library, although it has one, and it is hard to find the archives.

Oh, and don't believe Boatman 61. He hasn't run out of sea stories, not by a long shot.

Ann

[justwaiting]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

.

Oh, and don't believe Boatman 61. He hasn't run out of sea stories, not by a long shot.

Ann

But he would be run out of every country he has been to IF he ever told them.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by David Chin

... What is the harm if there are members here willing to answer all my [stupid] questions. No question is stupid; only answers can be [stupid]...

There's absolutely no harm in asking anything.

They say there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.

However, I believe there are questions (& answers) with varying degrees approaching stupidity.
For instance, both "Are you awake?" and "Are you asleep?" are pretty high on the stupid question scale.

Here’s an example of both a somewhat stupid question & answer:
Three weeks ago, I was sitting on our porch, having a smoke. I blacked out (momentarily), tumbled out of my chair, and did a face plant.
My daughter heard me fall, ran out, and asked: “Are you all right”?”; to which I answered: Yes, I’m fine.” Neither Q nor A were exactly brilliant ( they seemed to deserve each other ).
BTW: I spent eight days in hospital, discovering several serious medical issues - since, somewhat resolved.

[danielamartindm]

Originally Posted by rourkeh

I have been a member on here for about 7 years and have noticed a distinct change over the last year in the quality of the content in the posts. It seems it is veering away from the helpful type of posts about outfitting, repairing, and preparing cruising sailboats and has become more orientated towards new-bee's, cubicle dwelling daydreamers, and the geographically challenged. It may just be me, but I was wondering why the overall change in content.

The Forum reflects who is sailing and cruising, which is a melding of living generations; and as society changes, so do people. I see plenty of young people here in St. Pete sailing smaller, no-A/C/no bells-and-whistles sloops now, in the dead of summer. I see their posts here, and I see in them what I used to be before I had the means to purchase a six-figure yacht. IMO, if the pages of this forum reflect the current cruising community, it is alive and well.

[Sawbonz]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I’m always amused at this curmudgeony grumble coming from some old farts about using the search tool, and not asking the same old questions. You realize this is a discussion forum, not a database. People come here to discuss cruising-related topics. I’m not saying reading old threads is a bad thing, but if we insisted that only completely new topics be allowed to enter the pantheon of new threads, well, it would be a pretty quiet discussion area. There’s very little that is completely new under the sun … in any topic.

I know I am late to the party, but just had to say that this is one of the most well-written, most-pertinent posts I have ever read. I also belong to a bus owner's forum and can say that while most of the posters there are over 70 this attitude is NEVER manifest there. It's all about answering questions that have been asked a million times and joking in between.

By the way, their search function also sucks.

[sailorboy1]

This topic has been discussed numerous times in the 10 years or so I've been a member.

Please use the search feature! Afterwards please post a list of replies that are different from the old threads.


















I wonder how many people are going to get pissed off and miss the intended satire.

[Sawbonz]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

This topic has been discussed numerous times in the 10 years or so I've been a member.

Please use the search feature! Afterwards please post a list of replies that are different from the old threads.


















I wonder how many people are going to get pissed off and miss the intended satire.

I _almost_ did! I got an email notification that made the last line hard to read and thought "you pr!ck". Lol

[chris mac]

Originally Posted by GordMay

There's absolutely no harm in asking anything.

They say there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.

However, I believe there are questions (& answers) with varying degrees approaching stupidity.
For instance, both "Are you awake?" and "Are you asleep?" are pretty high on the stupid question scale.

Here’s an example of both a somewhat stupid question & answer:
Three weeks ago, I was sitting on our porch, having a smoke. I blacked out (momentarily), tumbled out of my chair, and did a face plant.
My daughter heard me fall, ran out, and asked: “Are you all right”?”; to which I answered: Yes, I’m fine.” Neither Q nor A were exactly brilliant ( they seemed to deserve each other ).
BTW: I spent eight days in hospital, discovering several serious medical issues - since, somewhat resolved.

Sorry to hear of your fall, but glad you are "all right"

[MartinMV]

I am one of the accused

I have no boat yet. I have no big money to spend on one. I have no pension plan. I have no big house to sell and buy a large boat.

But I have started to do my sailing and radio licences, learn to sail and trying to get enough money to get at least an inexpensive sailing boat. And I was a windsurfer when I was young.

Meanwhile I am reading in such forums. CF is excellent by the way. There is so much information available, read books about boats and hang around at the habor every so often.

For me it looks like, most boatowners never sail. It is allways the same boats lying around here in the marina that are owned by people living hundreds of miles away, just because its a bid cheaper to park them around here, then it would be in a larger city.

Maybe they come for a week or two of summer sail if their work loads allow.
A lot of these boats are expensive modern cruiser type with all the newest in sailtech equipment. But the boats allmost never get sailed.

And of course, you won't find sailors at the habor except for some sailing tourists, that make a stop for one or two days.

Now why are you angry about people who would like to sail but lack the means when there are so many with the best of boats that could, but do not?

[rognvald]

In an Age Of Instant Gratification, experience doesn't matter. Buy a boat, take a few sails, and you're an expert. You can pontificate about the proper anchor, best GPS, the use of a drogue, or anything even remotely related to cruising. When they sell their boat in a couple years, they will take up mountain climbing and, once again, will become experts in that field after a few climbs and will inform untold millions about proper technique, etiquette, and climbing apparatus. To deny this is a generational thing is patently untrue since the difference in generations over 50 and under are truly great. We are not all the same. We differ by intelligence, experience, culture, and generation. It has been this was since Man first descended from the trees and made a living on the African Savannah. Secondly, there is a perverse(my opinion) desire by entire world populations to become "famous." Their avenue is Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and internet forums. It has been generated by intellectually crippled personalities like the Khardashians who have fame, success and million dollar lifestyles generated by their insipid, brain-dead postings. We even see these people in sailing videos where the dramatic highpoint of a video is not some insightful experience, but rather waiting for a bikini clad girl to bend over in a cheesecake pose in pathetic a soft porn stance to the glowering eyes of their viewers. And, like the Khardashians, they are making a living doing it. CF once had a member who was the poster child of the New Gen of Cruisers who had many opinions and little experience. He was the last word on everything nautical and his generation of followers lauded his every post and sought to emulate this "experienced" cruiser. He even wrote a guidebook to Mexico after only one trip and railed against contributors differing from his own opinion about the proper way to cross an ocean--he had never crossed an ocean. But he was popular, well-liked and an icon. Sadly, for him, his story ended in disaster and I imagine he has "moved along" to other venues of expertise. I don't think there is anything wrong with CF Forum and believe they have actually evolved for the better since I have joined in their being more open-minded in heated/controversial discussions and content while still maintaining respectability. Much of what people are complaining about here is a natural progression for some to become involved in a pastime, gain knowledge/lose interest and move on. This will always be the case in these type of Forums. And, as far as repeating topics, this is only natural as new members come and go and ask "age old" questions for some that are new to them. Good luck and safe sailing.

[JPA Cate]

Martin, I think that for most people, their sailboat is one of many "toys". Can't play with it all the time, though, or they can't enjoy the other ones. That's one reason you see many boats no longer sailed.

Then there is the job issue, sometimes jobs move people to where they can't have their boat, there's time pressure, and they don't sell it.

Or, maybe, one of a couple no longer wants to sail.

Ageing can be a factor too. ..... A health condition that prevents use of the boat for long periods. That happened to us, 7 months each time. Yet, this boat is rarely in a marina and is used all year round by me and my husband, but it also sat 7 months in two different marinas, where a kind friend looked after it for us.

There are threads about this, too, one running now is titled something about an Athena 50 languishing.

Humans just aren't as tidy and logical as one might wish, sometimes.

Ann

[Diesel Bill]

I like the forum just the way it is. Still travelling vicariously through the posting of those of you in far off places. Hoping to join you. Finally the boat is ready for a few short shake down cruises. Small steps to start then maybe back down to La Paz and further.

[David Chin]

Originally Posted by MartinMV

I am one of the accused

I have no boat yet. I have no big money to spend on one. I have no pension plan. I have no big house to sell and buy a large boat.

But I have started to do my sailing and radio licences, learn to sail and trying to get enough money to get at least an inexpensive sailing boat. And I was a windsurfer when I was young.

Meanwhile I am reading in such forums. CF is excellent by the way. There is so much information available, read books about boats and hang around at the habor every so often.

For me it looks like, most boatowners never sail. It is allways the same boats lying around here in the marina that are owned by people living hundreds of miles away, just because its a bid cheaper to park them around here, then it would be in a larger city.

Maybe they come for a week or two of summer sail if their work loads allow.
A lot of these boats are expensive modern cruiser type with all the newest in sailtech equipment. But the boats allmost never get sailed.

And of course, you won't find sailors at the habor except for some sailing tourists, that make a stop for one or two days.

Now why are you angry about people who would like to sail but lack the means when there are so many with the best of boats that could, but do not?

I am just the opposite of you. I just bought my 12th boat this year. Instead of reading about it; I simply do it; using boats I can afford to buy at the time. Many prospective sailors wish to wait and save enough money first before they buy their first boat. Needless to say the boat they wanted has to be perfect for them. By the time they have the money to buy that perfect boat they are too old to sail.

Hence you see so many 50 footers at the marinas growing barnacles. The other 40 footers are owned by people with a bank loan. Their boats are also growing barnacles because the owners are too busy earning the money to pay the installments.

Many of the active sailors you see today are doing it on 20 footers or even smaller dinghies. These are the yachties who eventually upgrade to a bigger blue water boat and become cruisers. The barnacles growers have no time to learn to sail properly in a small boat. https://davidchin35.blogspot.co.nz/