When does it stop being primitive?

You never take a trip? Never travel? Same time, every single day? Okay.

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Originally Posted by WalkingTree

^ Out in the wild, what I said would be irrelevant. A stone and some water would be the order of the day.

See previous posts, to remember the conversational context. I wouldn't bother taking T.P. into the wild, because I don't even use it now.

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I like toilet paper, it's light weight, and it's better than rocks and corn cobs. If I ever run out I will use whatever I have to! Ever heard of a person that used poisen ivy for toilet paper?

See post #10......

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Originally Posted by WalkingTree

^ Out in the wild, what I said would be irrelevant. A stone and some water would be the order of the day.

See previous posts, to remember the conversational context. I wouldn't bother taking T.P. into the wild, because I don't even use it now.

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Note to self: Do not allow WalkingTree to use the bathroom at my house...shower curtains look bad enough the way it is....:w00t:

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Originally Posted by Sarge47

While I admire those who can start a fire with a bow drill and the like I find that they are really not an applicable fire-starting method in any given survival situation unless you have lost your ferro rod, mag block, matches, lighter, etc.! Why? Because in a true survival situation you need to conserve as much energy as possible, and the primitive methods seem to take a lot more energy than the others....:1:

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I completely agree. Mostly I use a lighter when camping because it is very fast and I am so busy doing so many things then socializing or watching wildlife when done with all the chores. It seems foolish to waste time with practicing primitive fire starting methods that I can and do practice in my backyard or at a local park. Exception may be if some other people want to do it because we started to talk about it, and/or found some interesting wood for drill or tinder materials, i.e. natural accelerant etc.
However, I never rely completely on a lighter because they are relatively fragile, a larger diameter fire-steel/ferrocerium rod in a protective tube/cover/sheath is my preferred backup unless it will be raining a lot then a large magnesium block. Mag blocks are a pain to use but good if only accelerant you can find, i.e. not much juniper or birch bark around.

But if a person practices with bow, spindle and fire-board, once it is all made and tinder-bundle and twigs and other firewood is all ready it can take as little as 10 minutes if air is not super humid and you gathered and keep tinder and some twigs while it was still sunny and relatively dry. A few times I have gotten out of car and started a trip when it was raining and it never stopped for over 24 hours. THEN I really needed mag block!

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Originally Posted by WalkingTree

I don't use my hand. Solves that problem.

Not nasty at all, and isn't really that hard to imagine even if it’s new to you. In fact one should imagine that water and soap gets you cleaner than some wads of dry tissue-strength paper:

1 - Go by the rhythm of doing #2 then showering in the morning, and/or in the late afternoon/evening. Your body quickly begins to go by that rhythm, unless you’re always eating spicy chili at random times of the day. I never even need to go during the day. Have used public toilets for #2 away from home maybe 5 times in two decades, approximately (and in such cases I use paper just fine). If I were going to visit you at your house, you wouldn’t have to worry...know how you tell the kids to wee wee before a little trip? Same thing.

2 – If stool is good, there’s nothing to even wipe – though I’m still getting in the shower anyway. If stool isn’t so good and wiping would be needed, then a wad of paper isn’t going to get it nearly as good as water and soap.

3 – Do the doo. Then enter shower. Shower as usual with water and soap. Let water run down and between buttcheeks. Use hands to move each cheek up and down against each other, for a scrubbing action while water is running. Employ other creative yoga body positions during shower if desired and able.

4 – During the normal soap application stage, bend slightly over and let ample amounts of soap run down your lower back down between your buttcheeks. Scrub buttcheeks against each other once again.

5 – Do the same for rinsing, including rinsing other parts of your body as you would normally do anyway.

6 – (A different method may need to be used by females.)

So, upon closing…no, I never have toilet paper in my house, and haven’t bought any in forever. No, it’s not nearly as nasty as using paper. No, there are no problems created by your wash running down the shower drain. Plenty of water gets flushed through it as usual, and it all goes to the same place within a few feet of the plumbing. No, the hands don’t even come in contact with any stool. No, there are no problems with me having to “go” during the day. The idea of that need is a bit alien to me.

Hard to believe? Shouldn't be. Nasty? Who's bum is cleaner...a paper user, or someone who uses water and soap every day like they already are doing with showers?

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A agree with you that paper is not very effective at cleaning especially for people who have hair back there. And PHS (Poopy Hand Syndrome) is a well documented issue especially among campers in low water areas, but in all areas and as many men as I have noticed leaving a restroom, the stall and not using the sink, I suspect in normal office environments as well. I don't like the handshake part of our western culture.

Here is one of many outdoors articles that talks about PHS (paragraph on illness):

http://www.rapidmedia.com/canoeing/c...dventure-spots

I guess I kinda sorry I brought up TP, to start with.....being primitive or not.....LOL

Oh well,
"In days of old,
When knights were bold,
and toilets were not invented....

They laid their load,
beside the road,
and went on there way contented"

or
"In days of old
When the Knights were bold
And toilet lights were dim
You'd hear a crash
Then a splash
OH GOD! He's fallen in!"

or
"In days of old,
When knights were bold
And paper weren't invented.
They'd wipe their arse
On clumps of grass
And walk away contented"

Well, this thread has gone to crap.

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Originally Posted by Rick

You never take a trip? Never travel? Same time, every single day? Okay.

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Weeell okaaay. Ya got me. I just wasn't counting atypical instances. Wasn't going to be anal and explain everything. Hehe Arg!

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Originally Posted by crashdive123

Well, this thread has gone to crap.

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Hehe. Crap. Anal.

Sorry for my part.

Though...we're not really getting anywhere if we just concede that Wilderness and Primitive should only be relative. And I'm thinking per the wording of the original thread question.

The words are used relatively and flexibly, and this isn't wrong, but words can also have a more objective, versus subjective, formal definition. Otherwise, words can begin to become useless. A word is meant to differentiate one thing from another thing for which we therefore use another word.

Wilderness and Primitive can be used relatively...correctly. But on the other hand, I myself had the impression that we were looking for a more objective fundamental definitive as it applies to camping and survival.

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Originally Posted by crashdive123

Well, this thread has gone to crap.

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Semantically or literally.......?

Oh boy, this is a hard discussion to step into.

I look at it like this:

People tend to define primitive as any thing that is better than not having anything, I mean we can all agree that primitive people had sophisticated ways of living comfortably. Way before that we were basically animals trying not to die all the time, it sucked. The way people live today even with all the fancy gadgets still live only a little better than animals. Wouldn't you agree?

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Originally Posted by hunter63

Semantically or literally.......?

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Yes................

It's all relative in this way I believe.......

I don't think anybody would argue that the Neanderthal Man lived primitively.

I don't think anybody would argue that the Cro-Magnon Man lived primitively.

Fast forward a bit to the early Native Americans. Yep, living primitively.

Early Colonial America? I would say yes, they lived primitively.

Pick any period you like. We tend to evaluate things based on our own experiences, so those that came before us are often considered to be living primitively. Just ask your teenage daughter about life with black and white TV's, rotary phones and no computers. You lived primitively in her eyes.

The thing is (IMO) that all of these primitives used the most modern means at their disposal. They would embrace advances in technology or materials to make their lives easier. To them, those that came before them were primitives.

Today, we "live primitively" for periods as a form of enjoyment or entertainment. Maybe its a hobby? Maybe a way to learn about those that came before? For some it is a desire to disconnect I suppose.

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Originally Posted by crashdive123

Well, this thread has gone to crap.

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Like Neandrathal.


Take what you are comfortable with - Personally a Bic lighter as apposed to a flint stone.

Neanderthal didn't think any of those others were primitive and that the kids were taking the world to heck in a handbasket. Kids were more interested in painting on the walls than tracking and hunting mammoths. Some of them wouldn't even move out of their mother's cave.

......and would have waited in lines for the latest Bic lighter.....
I see what you are doing there.....

I myself am "guilty" of using PRIMITIVE in relative fashion. I've said that I want to live deep in a wilderness primitively, even ultra primitively. But what I have in mind includes taking a good armload of items with me.

My attempt at an answer to the thread question was using the approach of stripping away all of the denominators which make it arbitrary and relative. But I wouldn't want to do it that way. Alas, it has a relative element in it indeed.

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Originally Posted by crashdive123

It's all relative in this way I believe.......

I don't think anybody would argue that the Neanderthal Man lived primitively.

I don't think anybody would argue that the Cro-Magnon Man lived primitively.

Fast forward a bit to the early Native Americans. Yep, living primitively.

Early Colonial America? I would say yes, they lived primitively.

Pick any period you like. We tend to evaluate things based on our own experiences, so those that came before us are often considered to be living primitively. Just ask your teenage daughter about life with black and white TV's, rotary phones and no computers. You lived primitively in her eyes.

The thing is (IMO) that all of these primitives used the most modern means at their disposal. They would embrace advances in technology or materials to make their lives easier. To them, those that came before them were primitives.

Today, we "live primitively" for periods as a form of enjoyment or entertainment. Maybe its a hobby? Maybe a way to learn about those that came before? For some it is a desire to disconnect I suppose.

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Right on Crash! Native Americans used knives & axes made from flint and stone until white traders came into their camp and traded them steel knives and axes. They hunted with bows and arrows until they could score a nice rifle. They made their canoes out of Birchbark yet never lost one of those rifles out of it...oops!...:innocent:

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Originally Posted by Rick

Neanderthal didn't think any of those others were primitive and that the kids were taking the world to heck in a handbasket. Kids were more interested in painting on the walls than tracking and hunting mammoths. Some of them wouldn't even move out of their mother's cave.

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This Neanderthal thought it was cute to make the kids lips wet and stick them to the stone wall for fun and entertainment. It was all good until one sucker came off the wall while attempting to text help and lost an eye.


Oh wait ....nevermind...http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iFCku1zPoA...x225_Front.jpg

I used to be a purist. Rock tools, bone and stone points on self bows, sinew string, whew! Then I got married, had three kids and realized sleep was important. Somewhere an evolution of the skills occurred and included recycling roofing rubber in the absence of giant trees to peel bark from and adding windows to Passamaquoddy trappers lodges to offset the dark, depressing, and all too short days of winter. Now we are making rocker stove radiant floor heating systems and using perlite to prevent conduction from robbing the heat from our thermal mass. Those of you who are primitive purists, I can only say in my defense that last winter we stayed warm for six months with night time temperatures in the twenties and colder and we did so with just over half a cord of wood no bigger the throwing stick size. Primitive by it's very nature IS efficient, but with modern materials on their way to the dump, evolutionary processes dictate that we remain flexible and (in the importable words of Bruce Lee) absorb what is useful. I carry a lighter and a ferro rod, but feel like I just passed gas at a funeral when I have to use them because of a self imposed value system of keeping my skills sharp. This might change in twelve to fifteen years if I end up with arthritis of old injuries dictate otherwise. In this context, Primitive is working ones edge with minimal gear to remain self reliant and in a mutually beneficial relationship with the landscape and what it provides for as long as it is sustainable. Just my perspective.

Primitive is whatever I have on hand, because that is how people have always lived. If I have matches, fine. If I have a rifle, fine. If I have to make a bow and use a bow drill, fine. It's what you have on hand, which usually dwindles over time. That is why us humans invent things and make factories, so we don't run out.

It stops being primitive when it no longer connects you to the land and the wisdom of your ancestors. It stops being primitive when you depend on something out of a big box store more than the hours of dirt time in the outdoors engaging in meaningful hard work to achieve life giving skills. If you can shape it with your own hands, produce a result without spending a cent, work your edge, and a byproduct of the experience is that you know yourself and your landscape a little bit better, it's most likely rooted in primitive skills.

It stops being primitive when you can go to a store and buy things you need. When other people do something you need for you, and you exchange it for something you made.

Does room service messing up your order count as primitive?

Maybe not, but having the whirlpool broke down does for sure......
Or am I the only one that packs a swimming suit in the GrAB.

Oh, no. I've got my speedos packed too.

Oh, NO......NOT going there......
TRHis is leading down THAT path.

Kyratshooter, my own personal opinion, if it's primitive enough for you, that's all that matters.

I get both sides of the coin but it's really all relative. One could argue your flint wasn't foraged in the hills and the steel was forged in the 21st century. Doesn't matter to me, you're starting your fire like the old ones did so that's what matters. Now I'll be a hypocrit, it chaps my butt raw for any "primitive arms" season to allow scoped, synthetic stocked, primer fired, pellet powdered rifles to participate in the season but undeniably the basic operating principle remains the same. It's all relative.

Just saw this one -

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It stops being primitive when you can go to a store and buy things you need

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That one isn't bad.

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Originally Posted by kyratshooter

When do the skills and activities stop being "primitive"?

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When I can plug into Ethernet instead of having to crack somebody's WiFi password.

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Originally Posted by kyratshooter

When do the skills and activities stop being "primitive"?

When metal enters the picture?

When synthetic fabric shows up?

When flint and steel replaces the fire bow?

When a ferro rod replaces the F&S?

When someone starts blowing up an airbed?

Now remember, we all got to the camp ground or trail head riding in an automobile!

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When do the skills and activities of "what" stop being primitive?

Outdoors activities? Bushcraft type things?

Or your ride to the woods?

What exactly are you asking about?

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Originally Posted by NightSG

When I can plug into Ethernet instead of having to crack somebody's WiFi password.

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Don't forget having to hear and wait for the dial up modem :)

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Originally Posted by MOSTBCWT

When do the skills and activities of "what" stop being primitive?

Outdoors activities? Bushcraft type things?

Or your ride to the woods?

What exactly are you asking about?

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I am not asking about "exactly" anything, so do not overcomplicate your thought process.

The question is to promote discussion and not to get anyone "straightened out" over a misconception or definition of "primitive".

Sometime we talk about things here. We throw a question out with no expectation of a right or wrong answer simply because we wish to converse about our thoughts on the topic.

If you have no thoughts on the topic do not converse, and if no one has a thought on the topic the thread will die naturally only to be revived by a newbie 6 years from now. Probably after my passing when my ashes have been scattered and I can not reply, which will probably also pi$$ them off.

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Originally Posted by Manwithnoname

Don't forget having to hear and wait for the dial up modem :)

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That's going a little too far. Next you'll have me lugging along the daylight tank so I can process film too.

(Actually did that in NM once. Waited to get to the motel to drag out the film scanner, but the water at the campsite was exactly 68F, so I took advantage of it.)

Some anthropologist/psychologist might get a paper published about when people ask, " What's primitive", a lot of conversation goes to TP or the lack of. I've got some theories...

First I would like to say....was fun re-reading all the fantastic posts, as a blast from the past.......
I have quoted a good friend that has passed........ to recall his humor and common sense.....
Sarge, this is still funny ....I don't care who you are.....Bhohahahaha

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Originally Posted by Sarge47

Note to self: Do not allow WalkingTree to use the bathroom at my house...shower curtains look bad enough the way it is....:w00t:

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So WT have you gotten past the "No TP pooping" phase?.......

PS Nephews think I'm am primitive as I don't text.

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Originally Posted by kyratshooter

I am not asking about "exactly" anything, so do not overcomplicate your thought process.

The question is to promote discussion and not to get anyone "straightened out" over a misconception or definition of "primitive".

Sometime we talk about things here. We throw a question out with no expectation of a right or wrong answer simply because we wish to converse about our thoughts on the topic.

If you have no thoughts on the topic do not converse, and if no one has a thought on the topic the thread will die naturally only to be revived by a newbie 6 years from now. Probably after my passing when my ashes have been scattered and I can not reply, which will probably also pi$$ them off.

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So basically you ask BS unclear questions to promote drama and debate and arguments. Gotcha!!

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Originally Posted by MOSTBCWT

So basically you ask BS unclear questions to promote drama and debate and arguments. Gotcha!!

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If you want to put it that way then yes, we do.

Apparently if makes people think, even if they don't want too, or are not use to it.

Would you prefer "What's the best survival knife?"

How about "the .22lr sucks!"

We could do "Why would anyone buy a down sleeping bag in 2016?"

Just a few days ago we did "The Blast Match sucks!", and some said it did and some said it did not!

This place exists for discussion to take place, if that stops we will become a blog.

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Originally Posted by MOSTBCWT

So basically you ask BS unclear questions to promote drama and debate and arguments. Gotcha!!

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Guess you missed the sarcasm.........

well, what primitive ai'nt is cellphones,4x4's,take out food anything bear grylls, ect...