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t1_itrbxci wrote

Again, I find this perspective quite Euro-centric. When evaluating a system, the degree to whether people intentionally created it or not, whether it comes from a coherent philosophy or not, is irrelevant. For example, humans evolved through an unintentional process over millions of years, and yet somehow our brains, at least as far as we know are among the most complicated things we know about. Is the fact that the process was unintentional even remotely relevant to its complexity or capacity? Of course not.

Indigenous systems often do evolve unintentionally because their users are focused on outcomes, such as surviving---and by definition any surviving indigenous group/culture possesses such systems. There are classes of knowledge valued by scientists called Local Knowledge that encapsulate how indigenous people happen to, through just surviving on the land for generations---develop sustainable practices, an understanding of the thousands of relevant species around them, and their major interactions with themselves, other species, and the environment itself. It isn't that this came from some noble philosophy given to them by some religion---it came because they survived and they needed that knowledge, which is often passed down from generation to generation to do so. Learning about it, specifically from a scientific perspective and how to integrate those systems of knowledge which weren't developed intentionally into an intentional practice that CAN be done intentionally, IS super important.

Yes, you are right, not every indigenous group has Local Knowledge and not every group has ideas or conceptions of reality that different from the ones that modern humans have, but their history of survival and the adversity of their experience has shaped them in a way that the majority of people living in Western consumption oriented societies can learn from and given that so much of that history is colored in the evils of colonization and rampant exploitation SHOULD learn from.

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