Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 4070 Location: Graceland
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 11:36 am Post subject: Re: neighbors
Ludi wrote:
There's no reason my neighbors would need to go a week without eating! After all, they live next door to me.
I appreciate your optimism very much.
Perhaps everything will be okay.
I don't know where you are on the die-off issue, but it's hard to argue with the general idea that populations growth at its current rate cannot continue and that a die off at some point is likely. What will cause a die off? Probably starvation or disease. In such a scenario, the zombies will be the hungry ones and the sick ones.
I note that your neighborhood will be a zombie free zone because you will have the all you can eat buffet set up for all people at risk of becoming a starvation zombie.
Maybe I should start a new thread entitled "If you believe in PO do you have to believe in Zombies?"
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12015 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 11:50 am Post subject: neighbors & zombies
My locale is not heavily populated, certainly well within the carrying capacity for permaculture. I expect those of my neighbors who choose to stay after economic collapse instead of going to the city or towns, will be interested in working together to make a better life for ourselves here in our valley. There's no reason why any of us would go hungry while any of us have food to eat.
I've been very clear about my own personal prospects for die-off. I fully expect to have a shortened lifespan because of not very good health and dependence on medications. *shrug* I hope the work I'm doing here on my place will live on after me and benefit the more fortunate.
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5141 Location: Oklahoma
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 11:57 am Post subject: Re: new Edens
BigTex wrote:
Are you suggesting that the resource mindset is less problematic if it's only applied to needs instead of wants?
The definition of "resource" implies wealth accumulation and/or drawdown. We don't need wealth, and we don't need drawdown to live - when we aren't in overshoot.
I believe language has a lot of power. If you think of forests as a "resource," you immediately start trying to figure out ways to use them.
Does that make sense? I'm trying to be clear but my son keeps distracting me so it's hard to maintain my train of thought... _________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 4070 Location: Graceland
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 12:51 pm Post subject: Re: new Edens
Shannymara wrote:
BigTex wrote:
Are you suggesting that the resource mindset is less problematic if it's only applied to needs instead of wants?
The definition of "resource" implies wealth accumulation and/or drawdown. We don't need wealth, and we don't need drawdown to live - when we aren't in overshoot.
I believe language has a lot of power. If you think of forests as a "resource," you immediately start trying to figure out ways to use them.
Does that make sense? I'm trying to be clear but my son keeps distracting me so it's hard to maintain my train of thought...
You're touching on the very interesting idea of the difference between "the thing as a tool" and "the thing in itself."
This idea is applied to people in teaching how to disengage from seeing oneself as a tool and simply seeing oneself as existing.
Ultimately, however, the purpose of the exercise is not to completely disengage from being a tool, a gear in the machine, but to simply balance it with being a human being without a complete preoccupation with what you "do."
Likewise, with the forests for example, the purpose of the forest is both to be a forest, manifestation of nature, etc. as well as to be a member of the ecosystem of which it is a part. Being part of the ecosystem may mean that sometimes the forest gets burned up in a fire, gets blown away in a volcanic eruption, gets washed away in a flood, gets eaten by insects, cut down by a beaver, or possibly used by a group of humans for something like building a house, building a fire, making a weapon to hunt, etc. The forest is both a "thing in itself" with intrinsic value, as well as a tool for doing things, in the same manner that the person whose body is buried provides fertilizer to grow more trees. There is a symbiosis there between forests and humans that doesn't trouble me.
If what I am saying is true (nature is part tool, part thing in itself), then aren't we back to the question of "who decides" regarding what trees to cut down, when to cut them down, and what to use them for.
In other words, I can't imagine anyone saying we shouldn't cut down ANY trees (unless maybe the person lived in a cave in a mild climate).
Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 4070 Location: Graceland
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 12:59 pm Post subject: Re: the marauding weak
Ludi wrote:
Incidentally, I don't think the starving and sick will be very effective at marauding miles from home and attacking the wellfed and healthy.
Not to be too contrary, but aren't you describing the typical refugee, who has a tendency to keep roaming until he finds someone who will take care of him or someone from whom he can steal?
Note that the sick will attack the healthy merely by being in the same area.
Note that when a person is starving, almost all of the normal human laziness that you can usually depend on to make people quit when things get difficult is neutralized. A hungry person, like a hungry animal, can be quite dangerous. Obviously, feed them if you have enough food, but if you don't have enough for everyone there may be a problem.
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5141 Location: Oklahoma
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 1:05 pm Post subject: Re: new Edens
BigTex wrote:
In other words, I can't imagine anyone saying we shouldn't cut down ANY trees (unless maybe the person lived in a cave in a mild climate).
If we see ourselves as part of a whole, then I think the issue resolves itself. It's the difference between the dominion paradigm vs. a more connected one. There's no reason we can't eat or build shelter without being dominionist. I don't really have the words to articulate what I'm trying to say very well right now, but I'll try to look through a couple of my books in a little while and then restate it more plainly.
I think the word "connection" is key, though. Civilization, especially industrial civilization, disconnects us from each other, our ancestors, our food, the rest of nature, etc. _________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 4070 Location: Graceland
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 1:22 pm Post subject: Re: new Edens
Shannymara wrote:
BigTex wrote:
In other words, I can't imagine anyone saying we shouldn't cut down ANY trees (unless maybe the person lived in a cave in a mild climate).
If we see ourselves as part of a whole, then I think the issue resolves itself. It's the difference between the dominion paradigm vs. a more connected one. There's no reason we can't eat or build shelter without being dominionist. I don't really have the words to articulate what I'm trying to say very well right now, but I'll try to look through a couple of my books in a little while and then restate it more plainly.
I think the word "connection" is key, though. Civilization, especially industrial civilization, disconnects us from each other, our ancestors, our food, the rest of nature, etc.
Is it the difference between the way the Indians killed the buffalo and the way the Pale Faces killed the buffalo?
Joined: Mar 20, 2007 Posts: 37 Location: Toronto, Canada
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 1:37 pm Post subject: Re: We'll go down fighting!
threadbear wrote:
It's an increasingly chaotic world, where truth is hidden by competing and conflicting agendas. The rich lord it over the poor and the strong inflict pain on the weak, but we're not giving up. You can beat us, insult us humiliate us, but we're not giving up.
"Die off" is a loaded term and defeatist. It helps nobody, but the oil companies, as it implies that it is hopeless to invest time or money into alternatives.
This is a core issue on this site, but people kind of dance around it. I'd like to see it addressed.
What do you mean by "go down fighting?"
Fighting how?
The whole thing is well worth reading, but here's an excerpt:
Quote:
Liminally focused consciousness is very different from the supraliminal type that has almost entirely replaced it. Within the preconquest cultures observed basic sensibilities (such as of identity, number, space, and truth) shape up in unexpected ways. So does human integration. Preconquest groups are simultaneously individualistic and collective - traits immiscible and incompatible in modern thought and languages. This fusion of individuality and solidarity is another of the profound cognitive disparities that separate the preconquest and postconquest eras. It in part explains why even fundamental preconquest cultural traits are sometimes difficult to perceive, much less to appreciate, by postconquest peoples.
From the Latin language underlying our Western heritage we can understand that liminal awareness, by definition, occurs on the threshold of consciousness. This concept, though abstract, provides a useful term. In the real life of these preconquest people, feeling and awareness are focused on at-the-moment, point-blank sensory experience - as if the nub of life lay within that complex flux of collective sentient immediacy. Into that flux individuals thrust their inner thoughts and aspirations for all to see, appreciate, and relate to. This unabashed open honesty is the foundation on
which their highly honed integrative empathy and rapport become possible. When that openness gives way, empathy and rapport shrivel. Where deceit becomes a common practice, they disintegrate.
Where consciousness is focused within a flux of ongoing sentient awareness, experience cannot be clearly subdivided into separable components. With no clear elements to which logic can be applied, experience remains immune to syntax and formal logic within a kaleidoscopic sanctuary of non-discreteness. Nonetheless, preconquest life was reckoned sensibly - though seemingly intuitively.
_________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Joined: Nov 28, 2004 Posts: 12028 Location: Neither Here Nor There
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:52 pm Post subject: Re: We'll go down fighting!
threadbear wrote:
I can't public speak
That was a very difficult issue for me to deal with in becoming a teacher. I don't just mean speaking to school kids, I had to speak before groups of adults as well. Somehow I got past it. It's got something to do with getting used to it. Phobias, we've all got them. Currently I've got peakoilphobia.
Last edited by PenultimateManStanding on Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:56 pm; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 8:18 pm Post subject: Re: We'll go down fighting!
JohnFarson1973 wrote:
threadbear wrote:
It's an increasingly chaotic world, where truth is hidden by competing and conflicting agendas. The rich lord it over the poor and the strong inflict pain on the weak, but we're not giving up. You can beat us, insult us humiliate us, but we're not giving up.
"Die off" is a loaded term and defeatist. It helps nobody, but the oil companies, as it implies that it is hopeless to invest time or money into alternatives.
This is a core issue on this site, but people kind of dance around it. I'd like to see it addressed.
What do you mean by "go down fighting?"
Fighting how?
I'll go down the depletion curve, fighting. When power begins consolidating in fewer hands, and oppression of the masses accompanies the general dispiriting of same, I'm not going to bend under it. Because there IS another way. People who promote the idea that it's all hopeless don't realize what kind of Hell they're helping to usher in.
Joined: Nov 28, 2004 Posts: 12028 Location: Neither Here Nor There
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:47 pm Post subject: Re: We'll go down fighting!
threadbear wrote:
People who promote the idea that it's all hopeless don't realize what kind of Hell they're helping to usher in.
Do you mean people like Sir Fred Hoyle and Jay Hanson? In my opinion, the elites are just as screwed as everybody else. The fossil fuel era was a one-shot deal and we blew it. I'm not ushering in anything, it's coming anyway.
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:11 pm Post subject: Re: We'll go down fighting!
PenultimateManStanding wrote:
threadbear wrote:
People who promote the idea that it's all hopeless don't realize what kind of Hell they're helping to usher in.
Do you mean people like Sir Fred Hoyle and Jay Hanson? In my opinion, the elites are just as screwed as everybody else. The fossil fuel era was a one-shot deal and we blew it. I'm not ushering in anything, it's coming anyway.
I wasn't actually referring to the elites. I'm referring to people with your mindset who also invest in oil companies to profit from doom.
In fact, perhaps it's not a foregone conclusion that we are doomed and they are helping to perpetuate a dangerous system.
It could turn out to be an elaborate exercise in "co-creating reality" given a certain set of parameters and physical constants. The only dynamic piece of the equation is human input based on belief. In that case we just might sway what seems to be the inevitable negative a tiny bit in our and the planet's favour. We may be able to effect tipping point.
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