Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 4:48 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
MonteQuest wrote:
MrBean wrote:
That may be so. But the difference I'm trying to outline is that if ecovillages become survivalist communities of military fortresses, then they are no more powerdown communities of the "paradigm shift" but just parts of the same old paradigm..
Welcome to the ever changing reality of the 21st Century.
Ecovillages will be targets for those who did not prepare.
And back to being yeast on a petridish and no hope of paradigm shift... unless an Instant Global Enlightment happens and everybody transforms into a pacifist hippie.
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 4:55 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
Narz wrote:
Hating technology is just a form of self-hatred. Homo sapiens sapiens are tool (technology) using creatures. No getting around that.
C'mon...In all the other civilizations before the machine age, technology was limited in the functions it performed. It was a tool, but not a way of organizing life.
Quote:
So. What are those?
Besides just learn to cope and adapt...off the top of my head:
1. Get prepared to lose your job.
2. Get prepared for more physical labor.
3. Get prepared to give up your car.
4. Get prepared to grow more of your own food.
5. Get prepared to move where you can grow more of your own food.
6. Get out of debt and stay out of debt.
7. Get prepared for continous inflation.
8. Get prepared to rent your guest bedroom.
9. Get prepared for a war footing.
10. Get prepared to not live as long as you had hoped.
edit: Get prepared to share. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 5:04 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
Narz wrote:
The use of technology is hard wired into us and we can no more give it up than fish can stop swimming.
Some make a distinction between "tools" and the the fancy g(r)eek word "technology", by which they actually mean technocracy, dependent slavery from and rule by the extremely complex system of making fancy technotools that no McGyver can even in principle make just by himself from stuff that nature has to offer.
For example, computer is technology, fishing rod is tool. In other words, computer is yeast, fishing rod is perma.
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
Wow Narz... a point-by-point rebuttal! That may be one of the first ones I ever received here.
I'll concede this point to you. Yes, homo sapiens sapiens does rely on "technology" to live. However, the caveat here is that said technology was for a very, very long time sustainable. This was one of the hallmarks of pre-civilized man. I'm not sure why this point is so hard to get your arms around, but I have no hatred of technology -- I simply understand that it is completely unsustainable. Period. Our current population levels are also unsustainable.
Your thinking seems to be completely centered on the here and now with little or no consideration as to future generations. I'm not going to do the point-by-point back with you because it seems you have already made up your mind.
What I am doing, trying to grow food in as sustainable a way as possible, is born out of a desire to see what I am capable of, how possible it is, and to learn everything I can along the way. Your assertions that I am "doing it wrong" and "teaching people the wrong way" are misguided and offensive. You can pick apart the way I am doing this, call it melodramatic, etc. I honestly don't care. The fact is I am actually doing something where most others are just arm-chair quarterbacking.
Yes, trade has been a part of many pre-civilization ways of life. Salt is one of those things that is vexingly hard to come by. This has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. I didn't propose some xenophobic island culture where no one ever intermingled or traded. What I did say is that the way modern civilized human beings think of community is not sustainable except under very specific circumstances of energy and technology abundance. As a corollary, when technology fails (and it will), said communities will fail. I'm really not sure where you get the idea that post-stone age technology is permanent or sustainable at all. Even something as simple as a hammer can become much less usable once the handle breaks.
I eat a 95+% local diet, 100% seasonal, put my food up for the winter, etc. so I am no stranger to this. I've been doing it for over 3 years. The difference this year is I am trying to grow more of it myself instead of relying on my friends. How does this compare to your lifestyle? _________________ Dismantle globally, renew locally!
Joined: Nov 25, 2006 Posts: 1442 Location: Columbia, South Carolina
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 5:15 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
MonteQuest wrote:
Narz wrote:
Hating technology is just a form of self-hatred. Homo sapiens sapiens are tool (technology) using creatures. No getting around that.
C'mon...In all the other civilizations before the machine age, technology was limited in the functions it performed. It was a tool, but not a way of organizing life.
Care you elaborate a bit more on that.
Quote:
So. What are those?
MonteQuest wrote:
Besides just learn to cope and adapt...off the top of my head:
1. Get prepared to lose your job.
I'm a step ahead of you.
MonteQuest wrote:
2. Get prepared for more physical labor.
Good. I'm very restless when I've not enough physical things to do.
MonteQuest wrote:
3. Get prepared to give up your car.
Again, step ahead of you. Got two bikes though.
MonteQuest wrote:
4. Get prepared to grow more of your own food.
Looking forward to it!
MonteQuest wrote:
5. Get prepared to move where you can grow more of your own food.
Probably when my father passes away I'll be able to move up to my mother's country house (sounds horrible I know but he doesn't really like having me around, long story, not for here).
MonteQuest wrote:
6. Get out of debt and stay out of debt.
Working on it. Despite less work (did get some winnings from a chess tournament) I've shrunk my debt considerably. It helps living in my girlfriend's mom's house where we don't have to pay rent (she owns it ).
MonteQuest wrote:
7. Get prepared for continous inflation.
I have very little money to "inflate". But I know what you mean, it will effect quality of life across the board. I do have some silver but silver prices rose sharply and then dropped sharply. I demand compensation from roccman!
MonteQuest wrote:
8. Get prepared to rent your guest bedroom.
If I ever move up the my parents place in the country I'd be happy to hire people more experienced & knowledgable than me in regards to permaculture and give them free board. My father would never have this but my mom might, especially if it's a slow but undeniable decline where we have time to prepare (which is what I think will happen).
MonteQuest wrote:
9. Get prepared for a war footing.
They can't draft me. I'm mentally ill.
MonteQuest wrote:
10. Get prepared to not live as long as you had hoped.
I plan to hit 80 or 90.
MonteQuest wrote:
edit: Get prepared to share.
I like sharing. As long as people don't try to force me to.
MrBean wrote:
Narz wrote:
The use of technology is hard wired into us and we can no more give it up than fish can stop swimming.
Some make a distinction between "tools" and the the fancy g(r)eek word "technology", by which they actually mean technocracy, dependent slavery from and rule by the extremely complex system of making fancy technotools that no McGyver can even in principle make just by himself from stuff that nature has to offer.
For example, computer is technology, fishing rod is tool. In other words, computer is yeast, fishing rod is perma.
Computers are made without slavery?
Without computers (the Internet specifically) probably 80-90% of people here wouldn't even know about peak oil. _________________ My PO Amazon store (shameless plug).
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 6:10 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
Narz wrote:
Without computers (the Internet specifically) probably 80-90% of people here wouldn't even know about peak oil.
And ain't we glad that PO is happening in the post-Internet days and not pre-? Too bad these things are not really sustainable, but during powerdown I hope these and Internet are among the last tech to ditch.
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 8 Location: Bay Area, California
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 6:44 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
MrBean wrote:
And back to being yeast on a petridish and no hope of paradigm shift... unless an Instant Global Enlightment happens and everybody transforms into a pacifist hippie.
Theoretically, an instant global Age of Rational Thinking could do the trick. It would require unprecedented education.
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 6:45 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
In consumer sciene I learned that technology does not at all only apply to gadgets or even basic water mill machines.
It is simply making objects to make life easier.
The hammer is a form of technology.
If we live without technology we will basically become fish.
We should really put a distinction between Uneeded technology and needed technology.
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:08 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
Quote:
So. What are those?
Besides just learn to cope and adapt...off the top of my head:
1. Get prepared to lose your job.
- check. Positioned to be one of the last to be "let go" and part owner of company. Also making the office "virtual" so people can work completely from home to save on gas.
2. Get prepared for more physical labor.
- check. I am in better physical shape than ever in my life. Plus doing tons of manual labor every single day.
3. Get prepared to give up your car.
- check. Live half a block from work. Walkable distance to farmer's market.
4. Get prepared to grow more of your own food.
- check. See above.
5. Get prepared to move where you can grow more of your own food.
- check. Moved from Portland, Oregon to Tennessee largely for this very reason.
6. Get out of debt and stay out of debt.
- check. Zero debt. Own 5 acres of remote, arable, riverfront acres. Own my car outright.
7. Get prepared for continous inflation.
- check. I don't shop at the store and have a large monthly surplus of cash. Soon to be even higher as I move to a duplex 4 doors down that costs half as much per month. And, I can still walk to work.
8. Get prepared to rent your guest bedroom.
- check. I am renting it to myself.
9. Get prepared for a war footing.
- check.
10. Get prepared to not live as long as you had hoped.
- check. I'm very happy with the life I have. Besides the nice thing about being dead is you're always the last to know.
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:42 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
Narz wrote:
MonteQuest wrote:
C'mon...In all the other civilizations before the machine age, technology was limited in the functions it performed. It was a tool, but not a way of organizing life.
Care you elaborate a bit more on that.
Sure.
Montequest wrote:
Newton used Descartes mathematics to describe mechanical motion. It was a world view made for machines, not people. It was a short journey from the cold, inert universe made up of pure dead matter in motion to the world of pure materialism. The answer, it was assumed, was to use the principles of mechanics to rearrange the stuff of nature in a way that best advanced the material self-interest of human beings: The more material well-being we amass, the more ordered the world must be getting. Progress, then, is the amassing or ever greater amounts of material abundance which leads to a more ordered world. Science and technology are the tools to get the job done. Reduced to its simplest abstraction, progress is seen as the process by which the “less ordered” natural world is harnessed by people to create a more ordered material environment.
Though we are largely unaware of it, much of the way we think, act, and feel can be traced back to the fragments woven together into the historical paradigms of our not too distant past. I find it quite ironic indeed that only now as the fabric is starting to fray and unravel is it possible to really see the stuff we and our modern world are made of. The mechanical world view is losing ground every day as the energy base upon which it was nourished declines. If there is a history to look back on post-peak, future generations will shake their heads in disbelief at the 300 years we call the machine or modern age, for they will be living under an entirely new world paradigm. They will call our Machine Age, the Age of Illusion.
_________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: Nov 25, 2006 Posts: 1442 Location: Columbia, South Carolina
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:52 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
jdumars wrote:
Wow Narz... a point-by-point rebuttal! That may be one of the first ones I ever received here.
Glad to be of service.
jdumars wrote:
I'll concede this point to you. Yes, homo sapiens sapiens does rely on "technology" to live. However, the caveat here is that said technology was for a very, very long time sustainable. This was one of the hallmarks of pre-civilized man. I'm not sure why this point is so hard to get your arms around, but I have no hatred of technology -- I simply understand that it is completely unsustainable. Period. Our current population levels are also unsustainable.
I agree that our current population is almost certainly unsustainable but I don't see technology in & of itself as the problem.
Is there a particular reason why would we couldn't have at least a few laptops per ecovillage for intervillage communication? Or is even a few hundred factories churning these things out too much for the world? How about if it's all from recycled parts & zero-energy & grows parsley on the roof?
I find the all-or-nothing but unrealistic & somewhat of a turn-off and I think it makes the peak oil people in general look bad (despite the fact that we may have good intentions).
I do not think technology will ever cease. As long as creativity & the desire to make life easier survive we will pursue technology. Technology is not the problem. The use of heavily polluting technology (as well as creating a world around unsustainable technology, like for example, the automobile) that is the problem. Technology is no more the fatal flaw than sex is (one could argue sex is at the core of overpopulation & by golly, on a simplistic level they'd be right).
jdumars wrote:
Your thinking seems to be completely centered on the here and now with little or no consideration as to future generations. I'm not going to do the point-by-point back with you because it seems you have already made up your mind.
That's somewhat condesending, don't you think? If I'd completely made up my mind why would I be here engaging with people. To decide that was true you'd have to look up my posts from a year ago (if you really wanted to be sure you could look at my posts on various other forums over the past 6 years). You'd see that I am a pretty flexable individual and I change my mind all the time. I think you're merely being lazy here & believing what you want to believe about me. Somewhat ironic I'd say.
As for future generations. On what basis do you speculate I am not considering them? Please enlighten me.
jdumars wrote:
What I am doing, trying to grow food in as sustainable a way as possible, is born out of a desire to see what I am capable of, how possible it is, and to learn everything I can along the way. Your assertions that I am "doing it wrong" and "teaching people the wrong way" are misguided and offensive. You can pick apart the way I am doing this, call it melodramatic, etc. I honestly don't care. The fact is I am actually doing something where most others are just arm-chair quarterbacking.
It's not meant to hurt your feelings. It's meant to spurn you on & perhaps get you to reexamine your approach. You seem to have good intentions and I'd like to see you succeed and not hold yourself back by limiting yourself in unnecessary ways. I can see the value in "wanting to see what you're made of" and also in wanting to make sure you can maintain what you've created should the power go out. But not in making it as hard as humanly possible for yourself to prove your thesis correct.
jdumars wrote:
Yes, trade has been a part of many pre-civilization ways of life. Salt is one of those things that is vexingly hard to come by.
Depends where you live. For coastal people it's no problem. Also salt isn't necessary for human consumption. It's a luxery not a necessity.
jdumars wrote:
This has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. I didn't propose some xenophobic island culture where no one ever intermingled or traded. What I did say is that the way modern civilized human beings think of community is not sustainable except under very specific circumstances of energy and technology abundance. As a corollary, when technology fails (and it will), said communities will fail. I'm really not sure where you get the idea that post-stone age technology is permanent or sustainable at all. Even something as simple as a hammer can become much less usable once the handle breaks.
New hammers can be made. Do you really think society will crumble to the point where hammers can no longer be produced. Very worst case we'll fall to medieval standards and people will relearn about smithing. But in the meantime you can feel free to stock up. One hundred hammers @ the dollar store for $100. Not bad value.
jdumars wrote:
I eat a 95+% local diet, 100% seasonal, put my food up for the winter, etc. so I am no stranger to this. I've been doing it for over 3 years. The difference this year is I am trying to grow more of it myself instead of relying on my friends. How does this compare to your lifestyle?
In California I'd say I was eating about 70-80% local. I'm mostly vegetarian and CA is famous for an abundance of vegetables, fruit, nuts, etc. (of course this is all made possible by mass-irrigation to a mostly desert state). Here in New Jersey I'd say my local consumption is near zero.
I'm certainly not ready for complete & utter collapse just yet. And in the meantime I plan to prepare myself as much as possible and take advance of all cheap energy has to offer (like buying flashlights & emergency power generators with free shipping).
If "TEOLAWKI" came tomorrow you'd probably fare better than I. But I don't think it will.
Regardless, I didn't mean to be a bee in your bonnet, just trying to provoke thought. I wish you the best. _________________ My PO Amazon store (shameless plug).
Joined: Nov 25, 2006 Posts: 1442 Location: Columbia, South Carolina
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:52 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
MrBean wrote:
Narz wrote:
Without computers (the Internet specifically) probably 80-90% of people here wouldn't even know about peak oil.
And ain't we glad that PO is happening in the post-Internet days and not pre-? Too bad these things are not really sustainable, but during powerdown I hope these and Internet are among the last tech to ditch.
Why would we ever ditch the Internet if we can help it? It's perhaps the greatest technology we've ever created.
Re : Monte
I still do not understand what you're getting at.
Nor do I understand the belief that science (knowledge of the world) is necessarily bad? Perhaps we should not have eaten of the tree of knowledge & remained as animals?
And technology doesn't have to necessarily be bad. Are you saying that any technology that can create beyond the moment is bad? Is writing bad? If you believe that do you really think people will give it up? I'm sorry but your essay did not really help make things clearer to me. _________________ My PO Amazon store (shameless plug).
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 8 Location: Bay Area, California
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:16 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
Montequest wrote:
Newton used Descartes mathematics to describe mechanical motion. It was a world view made for machines, not people. It was a short journey from the cold, inert universe made up of pure dead matter in motion to the world of pure materialism. The answer, it was assumed, was to use the principles of mechanics to rearrange the stuff of nature in a way that best advanced the material self-interest of human beings....
IMHO:
Newton was interested in pure science, not designing a theory to support the use of machines or any specific approach to living, and personally I haven't found a better way to describe the universe than one based on materialism. The self-interest of human beings is a separate scientific subtopic.
Edited to add:
Montequest wrote:
Though we are largely unaware of it, much of the way we think, act, and feel can be traced back to the fragments woven together into the historical paradigms of our not too distant past.
I submit that we can trace them back to the ameba and beyond.
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:21 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
Narz wrote:
MonteQuest wrote:
9. Get prepared for a war footing.
They can't draft me. I'm mentally ill.
That isn't what I meant. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:27 pm Post subject: Re: Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options
Narz wrote:
Also salt isn't necessary for human consumption. It's a luxery not a necessity.
Man....The human body requires between five and ten grams of salt a day. Humans need a daily intake of salt. Unlike other chemicals that the body requires, sodium chloride, or salt, cannot be reproduced by the body. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
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