[FatherOfTwo]

To followup on Ludi's post, johnmarko's made the following comment in another thread:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')IRC, processed veggie products require even more energy to produce than meat. If you really want to eat sustainably, you have to eat unprocessed stuff (unless it's Quorn, maybe). That means you're soaking beans for protein, eating lots of nuts, and spending hours preparing your veggies. You can't just grab some Boca burgers from the freezer section and call your diet sustainable.

[holmes]

Looks like Ill be putting in more Fava beans.
Im not giving up on soy. If you steam or cook the beans they are more digestible. endamame is the little soy bean and seems to be more viable for humans. I grow em and the big ones. have had some health issues with the big beans. not with the endamame tho.

[Pops]

X has quite an encompassing vision but I’d like to argue that an increasing use of telecommuting is most important to making a transition because: a) currently we pay a tiny percentage of average income for food and b) a large percentage of our fuel use (and an increasing percentage of our income) goes to personal transportation.

Ludi’s question of an imposed or spontaneous transition, at least as it applies to telecommuting, is moot since it is already happening – albeit to this point for different reasons than cost. (I had a couple of good sources but lost the links in shutting down for a T-storm; a downside of telecommuting in Tornado Alley) Anyway, before last year it was about employees wanting to have a more flexible and home/family oriented lifestyle and managers becoming more comfortable with the idea. I would assume if the current fuel prices continue, next year it would be more about cost of commuting.

Point being; the US makes a whole lot of food, does it very cheap and will continue to do so for quite a while before it impacts peoples wallets or waistlines because there are much cheaper alternatives to the average American diet, OTOH gasoline prices are apparently impacting people now and their commutes aren’t nearly as easily changed.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '
')
Point being; the US makes a whole lot of food, does it very cheap and will continue to do so for quite a while before it impacts peoples wallets or waistlines because there are much cheaper alternatives to the average American diet, OTOH gasoline prices are apparently impacting people now and their commutes aren’t nearly as easily changed.

[Pops]

I haven’t a clue where the burger flippers go. Ludi. Like any other solution this one doesn’t address every problem as x seems to think. But that doesn’t mean the folks in the cubicles can’t work from their spare bedrooms and save a couple of barrels of oil does it?

My point was in reference to your question regarding whether x’s plan to have everyone telecommuting would be imposed or voluntary. I think, as I said before, the option has many qualities attractive to folks today and which may be more attractive tomorrow. So there won’t be a need to impose anything - it is already happening as you and I know and will only increase, at least in my view.


Regarding food processing, even though I have previously railed about eating pre-processed food – stared a thread about it even, I have since read a study proclaiming that due to the ever-present economies of scale, pre-processed food nuked for a couple of minutes in the microwave actually uses less energy than home cooking from scratch. (sorry, again I don’t have the source)

[xerces]

Ok, first of all I'm not IMPOSING any type of future on anyone.

I'm merely saying that current market trends may lead to a future of this sort. A place where telecommuting becomes more important than actual travel. This is not a future set in stone, it's simply, imho, the future of least resistence,and the most likely of many futures to become reality.

Now what will the burger flippers do? I don't know. But it seems to me that entire virutal worlds can be created within the internet with very minimal inputs of energy. There seems to be enough "virtual" space to encompass a huge number of service jobs, far more than what we currently have now.

[xerces]

"Soy the way it's currently grown isn't sustainable, as our current agriculture isn't sustainable. You can grow soy in a sustainable way, but most people who are growing it, don't grow it that way. "


I've never said anything about creating a sustainable agriculture or a sustainable society. I don't share your view of the need to create such sustainable systems.

My take on it is that such a society will allow us as a species to survive long enough (with our hi-tech civilization intact) to discover a more potent source of energy and rebound.

[xerces]

"Oil is not our only usustainable activity, almost everything we do is unsustainable. Oil is just the one that gets covered here."

Why do you guys want sustainable systems? Sustainable=stagnant => lack of growth or innovation. The point of all this is to prolong the collapse long enough to figure out new ways of obtaining massive amounts of energy.

I have no intentions of seeing a "sustainable" society of farmers. I like humanity to be a star-trek type of civilization with teleportation , flying cars, and dyson spheres. And if it means we need to be cyber-agrarians for a couple of generations inorder to get there, then so be it.

This cyber-agrarian society is not an end in itself, it is simply a means to a greater end(infinite energy, infinite growth society).

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('xerces', '"')Oil is not our only usustainable activity, almost everything we do is unsustainable. Oil is just the one that gets covered here."

Why do you guys want sustainable systems? Sustainable=stagnant => lack of growth or innovation. The point of all this is to prolong the collapse long enough to figure out new ways of obtaining massive amounts of energy.

I have no intentions of seeing a "sustainable" society of farmers. I like humanity to be a star-trek type of civilization with teleportation , flying cars, and dyson spheres. And if it means we need to be cyber-agrarians for a couple of generations inorder to get there, then so be it.

This cyber-agrarian society is not an end in itself, it is simply a means to a greater end(infinite energy, infinite growth society).

[Ghog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'ve never said anything about creating a sustainable agriculture or a sustainable society. I don't share your view of the need to create such sustainable systems

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('xerces', '
')This cyber-agrarian society is not an end in itself, it is simply a means to a greater end(infinite energy, infinite growth society).

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')As much as I like technology, how do you intend to clean up the environment? Tech is not very eco-friendly. We have air polution, GW, species extinction and diminishing fresh water.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'C')onsider an organism that represents the entire human race. This organism, like all organisms, needs to constantly consume and grow. If it were to strive for “sustainability” and succeed, it would die.

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'C')onsider an organism that represents the entire human race. This organism, like all organisms, needs to constantly consume and grow. If it were to strive for “sustainability” and succeed, it would die.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', '
')The point of my example is trying to show that we must always strive to grow. At the moment – this period – we have been in a process of unsustainable growth. We must aim for sustainable growth, but this is still growth.

A shift to the knowledge economy will help give us the time we need to develop the necessary technologies to not only solve our various problems, but also eventually achieve sustainable growth.

[xerces]

The purpose of life is to grow and evolve into ever greater degrees of complexity.

These things are hard-wired into us as a species.

[Omnitir]

Xerces said it nicely. Life grows, that’s what it does. The opposite directing is death, wether you are talking about simple organisms or complex societies.

There are big advantages to be had in increasing complexity.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')I think our population is probably plenty big, I'm not convinced a much larger population could be sustained.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', '
')Not if we stick to the finite resources currently available to us, no. If we don’t increase our resources, no population can be sustained indefinitely. The only way we can increase our resources, the only way to ensure our future, is to increase our complexity.

[Ghog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')irstly, less people today are cut off from each other then ever before, thanks to the growing cyber economy.

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')Why do you think increasing our social complexity would increase resources? Can you explain this process?