Australia Bushfires

[Gman]

Both articles were addressing that the locals with history in those areas probably know better how to address the issue.

California doesn't allow clearing around the power lines. When the situation gets dire, the only solution is for the electricity to get shut off. That still doesn't address that the fuel is still there waiting for lightning, an arsonist, or an idiot to create a bigger and hotter fire than a managed solution. It will burn, one way or another.

[davsel]

Australian Aborigines have an average IQ of 64. I doubt they were as advanced in land management as the above articles assert. More likely, just as in the US, frequent fires started by lightening were allowed to burn out - keeping the forests free from excessive amounts of fuel.

Then there's the fact that 2019 is the driest year on record for Australia.

Then factor in the number of arsonists, 24 arsonists charged since November, and 160 more charged for being stupid

Just as in California, the "environmentalists" are to blame for the severity of these fires.

[Irving]

Do the Aboriginies have three little bumps on their skulls too?

[Aloha_Shooter]

Australian Aborigines have an average IQ of 64. I doubt they were as advanced in land management as the above articles assert. More likely, just as in the US, frequent fires started by lightening were allowed to burn out - keeping the forests free from excessive amounts of fuel.

I'll agree that enviroNazis and their Bambi-like policies bear a huge amount of the blame for the severity of these fires -- that's sort of the point of the articles cited by @Gman and @Jayhawk -- and that the arsonists and the dry conditions of 2019 play a huge role in these fires BUT ... that article you cited is one of the dumbest pieces of trash I've read since Michelle Obama's thesis (or what was claimed to be her thesis anyway). I obviously have only met an incredibly microscopic fraction of Australian aboriginals but for the mean or median IQ to be 64, it would mean there'd have to hundreds of thousands of aboriginals with sub-50 IQs to make up for the aboriginals I've met or seen who clearly had IQs near or exceeding 100.

The article you cited claims that lost knowledge about how to build long-distance sea-going canoes is evidence of this moronic-level of intelligence. So I guess loss of knowledge about how to forge genuine Damascus blades means the Arabs are morons too. The fact that Hawaiians hadn't built canoes capable of going to Tahiti for over 200 years meant they are morons too? How many "lost arts" have there been in Europe and the US?

I've been to Australia exactly 3 times but all 3 times, what I saw was that the Australian aboriginals are very analogous American Indians. Both sets of people did in fact have deep knowledge of their environment, including land management practices (although they probably didn't have a formalized term for it like that). There is a big difference between cultural knowledge and formalized academic practices (and I tend to think the latter preserves as much bovine fecal matter as anything else). Australian petroglyphs aren't Newton's "Principia" but they also aren't "50 Shades of Gray" or Marx's "Communist Manifesto"; they're more like a long-term Farmer's Almanac. As much as I hate the SJW war on the West/Christianity/Democratic capitalism, there is a kernel of truth in the fact that the social travails of both the American Indians and Australian aboriginals (and for that matter native Hawaiians) have deep roots in colonial practices.

That article reads like crap made up specifically to make conservatives look stupid or racist by citing it.

[Gman]

I've known people with IQs at the genius level that had difficulty dressing themselves in the morning. IQs and common sense, or being able to observe and understand how the environment functions where you and your people have lived for millennia, are very different things.

[davsel]

https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=62907
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intell...s_and_Unknowns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainst...n_Intelligence

It is what it is.

[Aloha_Shooter]

I am well aware of the difference between IQ and actual practical intelligence or common sense. However, the article in question is based on a study that flies in the face of basic knowledge of statistics. Nice job with the Google-fu and Wiki-fu to try to cover a crappy citation.

[Justin]

So a bunch of people with zero knowledge of Australia or what they're dealing with aren't able to solve the problem from a far by reading an article or two? Weird. Heh.

I was unaware that the purpose of this forum was to solve real world problems.

TIL.

[Irving]

I was unaware that the purpose of this forum was to solve real world problems.

TIL.

But you were fully aware that when people spout complete nonsense as some simple overlooked fact, it's going to get called out.

[Duman]

It's about time to watch Quigley Down Under.....