More saved comments from January 2015

[neonvincent]

I found another mirror of The Archdruid Report, complete with comments, so I can save comments I thought were lost forever.  Here is my comment from The One Way Forward, the recovered first entry from January 2015.  I did save it before, but didn't save the responses.

 

I see you took my observation that the future might see "reverse innovation" seriously, although I meant the phrase originally as importing low-tech inventions from the economic periphery into the high-tech core to cope with less energy and other resources, not "a great leap backwards." Even so, the term works equally well for both. The result would look a lot like the Agenda 21 "FEMA villages" portrayed satirically in Wonkette just after the U.S. general election. That association, along with the only country that I can think of that deliberately did what you describe being Cuba, might just make all the people who want to go back to the 1950s socially reject the idea of going back technologically. The irony might escape them, as they like technological progress, even if they despise the results of social change.

On another note, people are noticing that things are getting worse. For starters, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists advanced the Doomsday Clock to 11:57, the closest it's been to midnight since 1984. They invoked nuclear proliferation and climate change, not resource depletion, but they are definitely responding to the situation.

Greer: Pinku-sensei, yes, it's much the same idea, but the different focus is crucial. The thought of becoming a third world country doesn't shake most Americans as forcefully as the thought of going back to the past.

Frank Hemming: Pinku-Sensei wrote about importing low tech from the periphery to the core, and Chris Farmer mentioned charcoal making. Rocket stoves were originally developed for places like Guatemala, and have been adapted as rocket stove mass heaters for colder climates. Here's a link to an excellent rocket stove charcoal maker which seems to avoid much of the pollution created in traditional charcoal making.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txSD9i0R1Hs

Here's another that I missed completely from "The March of the Squirrels."

"[T]urn the back lawn into a vegetable garden with room for a chicken coop."

That's a good idea, although one should be careful not to tick off local governments where they are still powerful. When she lived in Oak Park, Michigan, a friend of mine made the mistake of planting a vegetable garden in her front yard. The result was Oak Park Woman plants vegetable garden; city objects, which ended up becoming a legal battle that lasted all summer. She and her family have since moved to Seattle, where she hasn't had any run-ins with the authorities over her chickens and garden.

Speaking of backyard chickens, that's another project that should wait until either local government weakens or the zoning regulations change. People find them even more objectionable than replacing lawns with vegetable gardens. Fortunately, some municipalities are starting to see the wisdom of allowing them. I hope your readers live in some of those.

Greer couldn't keep up with the comments.

Next, A Camp amid the Ruins.

"[S]quare-jawed rapists out of Ayn Rand novels"--I see you haven't forgotten what you wrote on Christmas Day of 2013 about the GOP being full of crypto-Satanists who hide their worship of Anton LaVey's idea of The Devil behind an adoration for Ayn Rand. As for Ms. Rand herself, her ideas on love and sex can be summed up by a diagram on how to succeed as one of her characters where every "good" choice leads to rape.

As for the main topic of your essay, how to "collapse now and avoid the rush" by coming to terms with LESS, I tell my students about one dozen ways they can reduce their demands for energy, food, and water, the majority of which are about reducing energy, along with examples of how I've done each of these myself. In addition, I try to break down their blindness to whole systems endemic to today's Americans. My students have to research all of the materials and processes required to manufacture a common item such as a cup, towel, diaper, or bag and identify all the steps that involve energy. The point is for them to realize that every step requires energy, including use and disposal. That's one way to make them think about less energy.

As for less stuff, my students are already getting the message about the wastefulness and other hazards of bottled water and might see how others deal with less stimulation by creating instruments out of salvaged materials and then play them in an orchestra. They and I found that last example inspiring.

Just the same, when they determine their environmental footprints, most of them end up with life styles that require five or more Earths if all seven billion humans lived the way they do. Too bad there is only one Earth.

Greer: Pinku-Sensei, the diagram's great -- thank you. As for your students, in my experience, the step from seven earths down to six, or even six and a half, is a lot harder than the steps from there to three, or two, or one, or less than one; once you get started, the road becomes easier.

daelach: 
@ Pinku: You'd be astonished how many (though by far not all, of course) quite average, healthy and well-emancipated women actually like "soft games" with the right partner, with being tied (but not including pain, that's much less common). Not because of "Shades of Grey", that selling success just made it obvious. However, the basis is not "his" strength, but "her" trust to "him". While "he" may have the dominant position within the game, "she" decides whether there is a game at all - an interesting dominance inversion. Actually, "he" may lead, but only because "he" serves, which is why "she" allows "him" to lead. So the big difference to rape is that "he" knows perfectly well that in order to repeatedly have such a game with "her", "he" has to take care that "she" enjoys it as to be inclined for another round. And "she" knows that "he" knows that, that's trust. I used quote marks because the whole story works the same way if the roles are exchanged.

No wonder Rand never understood this delicate twofold matter; the narcisstic, selfish psychos she adored were never trustworthy to begin with. That's an important point because our whole current elite (of the very Rand type) doesn't get what being an alpha is all about, namely making the best decisions for the whole and therefore enjoying the trust of the people and thereby earning a somewhat bigger share. As in the small scale example above, leading and serving must go hand in hand. As soon as an elite looses track of that, their decadence begins, preparing their fall.

For the LESS thing.. given how much basically useless waste of resources our culture is indulging in, there is also a positive aspect: how really much we can drop before things get really ugly. However, it's hard to make some car-addicts understand that their heads will not explode if they don't turn the ignition key every day. Or to tell the always-on smartphone addicts that their lives will not end if they cannot see what their "friends" are doing any moments.

Strange, isn't it - e.g. cocaine is outlawed although it ultimately destroys just the consumer himself. Oilaine destroys whole regions as seen with fracking. Cheap consumoine gratification shots as co-addiction destabilise the whole global ecosystem. And yet, the latter two drugs are legal.