This Is What I Think Motivates Some Relocalizers

Greg · Tar Sands Joined: Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 26

It appears to me that many people who believe that all societal power must return to self-sufficient local communities with little or no contact to the outside world ignore any information about alternative energy sources and say that technological civilization is doomed simply because they want technological civilization to fail, not because they know it will. A hatred of technology itself is not the root of their obsession. It is the subconcious belief that only through the collapse of technology will their twin enemies of government and corporations die out. Then, the only thing left will be various tight-knit cliques of people, of course each clique filled with others only like them, in their "lifeboats." They do not ever want to see any people not like themselves, which is why they so hate immigrants and also so love guns, in order to shoot away native-born Americans who do not happen to be local. Also, they loathe the idea of anyone they have not met in person, even the ones that they can see on TV, the Internet, etc., are like them, having any impact on their lives. So they want the government and corporations brought down. They just direct their lives around the proposition that "technofixes will never work," even though they prboably will. Just my thought.

pedalling_faster · Intermediate Crude Joined: Dec 10, 2005 Posts: 944

i don' know. one of the premier re-localizers, Jason Bradford in Willits, i think was just looking for a safe place to raise his kids, through turbulent times.

admittedly, there is some "circling of the wagons" that occurs, a mis-trust of strangers.

i tried to look at a land-locked parcel near the eel river. i talked with the guys at the County about how to get in there, real friendly helpful guy. you need people to open gates along roads, etc. had to wonder if showing up with a cooler full of ice cream would help. there's some medicinal plant production that occurs there and it affects how newcomers are treated.

But - i don't notice much, if any, racism in the California localizing-ish areas.

bshirt · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 23, 2006 Posts: 446

Greg;

Of your original post, the hatred of government and corporations is the only part that rings true. In other words, unaccountable bureaucracy is the highest of evils.

The accusations of hating technology is pure horsesh*t. As an electronic technician my whole adult life I can't imagine a more grossly untrue statement. My bother (Phd EE) and most of the people I know are hard science majors.

I assume the rest of the garbage you claim is only a copy of some "political correctness" magazine article you found somewhere.

keehah · Last edited by keehah on Wed Jun 13, 2007 4:13 pm; edited 2 times in total

So those not in denial are haters? Is that the message I am supposed to get from your hate?

Don't call me a hater just becvause I am aware that past applications of new technologies generally have unintended consequences. I am trained in, work in, and study the energy issues regarding many techno-fixes and they to not stand up.

Most are a form of denial and a tool for salesmen.
As for the other stuff: deal with your issues, you need a better map to understand what is happening.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, is better than hope for the consensus trance to become reality, call anyone building lifeboats treasonous haters!

steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2560 Location: MA

Listen 18, your post is both dumb and insulting; and I'll tell you why.

steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2560 Location: MA

roccman

A distain for technology..??

what hogwash!!

Newsflash - "technology" has only ever been made available throughout history because energy drove its development.

The availability of energy is a precursor to techno fixes.

No energy=no techno fixes.

You have quite a bit of reading to do.

Now then - back to my bunker and garden away from fools like yourself.
_________________
"There must be a bogeyman; there always is, and it cannot be something as esoteric as "resource depletion." You can't go to war with that." Emersonbiggins

"... hope is a rotten-thighed whore" Niko Kazantzakis

We are going back to roccland - me

steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2560 Location: MA

Pops

Heineken

Greg, goose me when those "technofixes" of yours start working. In the meantime, I cast my lot with the relocalizers.
_________________
"Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog

"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother

Windmills

Greg,

I think you're confusing relocalizing with intentional communities, the latter of which may very well have some of the traits you describe. Some of them are set up for some pretty fruity reasons. But you really need to read more and gain a better understanding of the important differences.

Relocalization is going to be a forced adaptation to the loss of energy in the economy. It's not about psychology or other bizarre issues and politics, its about physics. High energy systems that we now have are going to break down into smaller ones as energy depletes. It won't be a matter of choice or culture. The current systems are simply going to be unsustainable. Relocalizing is going to be inevitable. The main thrust of people wanting to relocalize now is to do it while we still have the time and resources to accomplish the task with as little suffering as possible. It's going to happen one way or another. The soon, the better.
Putting it off will only make the transition more calamitous.

Unfortunately, it seems that is the way it might happen. Too many people seem bent on living high off the energy hog for as long as possible rather than using the last of our one-time hydrocarbon gift to secure a better future. It seems a number of people are just crossing their fingers, hoping to live out their life and sneak on into the next one before things get bad without regard for their children.

Greg · Tar Sands Joined: Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 26

Greg · Tar Sands Joined: Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 26

jeezlouise · Heavy Crude Joined: Feb 05, 2006 Posts: 303

gg3

I call BS on this too, and about the smears of intentional communities.

I'm a telephone systems engineer; I work sometimes 16-hour days designing and building technology until it feels like I have it coming out my ears. In my spare time I tinker with various forms of conservation technology.

And I'm one of the ones around here who is vigorously in favor of nuclear fission. If I could get PG&E to build a reactor next to where my & mine intend to set up community, I'd do it in a flat second (though in all fairness this is a controversial position in my community). I also believe in major space exploration including sending humans to colonize other planets in other star systems: not to relieve Earth's overpopulation (which is not possible that way), but to establish new civilzations that will continue after the Sun goes nova and Earth gets vaporized.

In terms of cultural orientation about all this, I call myself an eco-industrial. And I've also got a spiritual streak, going back to single-digit age.

As for racism, I live in Oakland California which is majority black last time I checked, and I've done production work on albums by rap & hiphop artists whose names even you have probably heard (as well as punk rock and progressive and various other genres, but anyway...).

As for pulling up the proverbial drawbridge, my intentional community group was specifically founded to carry out the mission of establishing an education and skills-sharing network across the region in which we intend to settle. When we talk about relocalization we are talking about a couple of counties, not just our little plot of land and all our pals.

As for the decline & fall, as the woman in the Palmolive dish detergent commercial once said, "You're soaking in it." Just to take one example: Bush's rollback of Habeas Corpus undoes something like 400 years of Anglo-Saxon legal precedent. The anti-science religious extremists' brigade is seeking nothing less than a return to the 14th century, perhaps with a detour for Armageddon and the Second Coming (I should start referring to that as "the Second-Guessing," meaning these nutters are trying to second-guess God).

What I can do without is the "financialization of the economy" where people don't produce real things any more, they sell each other pieces of paper. And I can do without the reckless reproduction and idiotic consumerism that are trashing the planet, though frankly I wouldn't give a flying fig what other consenting adults do except that the multiplying & consuming are killing the planet, which makes me & mine & you & yours all non-consenting parties to the externalities of others' transactions.

And I can do without the creeping Franco-style fascism that's been taking over our government, and the bigotries and hatreds and violence it's unleashed. And I can do without the incompetence in the White House that's stretched our military almost to the breaking point and in general made a shitty mess of almost everything it's touched (GWB = "The King Midas of Poo," everything he touches turns not into gold but into stinking doodoo).

If it were up to me I'd be some kind of contemplative, designing technologies that interest me because they make peoples' lives better, and writing lengthy essays & fiction about abstract topics that inspire me and appeal to a few other kindred spirits, and living in the woods for the mere fact that to me the forest is the real house of God, and never having to worry about any of this decline & fall stuff.

But rather than sinking into some kind of terminal depression over all this decline & fall stuff, I've chosen to roll up my sleeves and take it as an engineering challenge.

I guess that makes me weird, huh?