PeakOil is You
We'll go down fighting!
Re: new Edens
by BigTex » Mon 27 Aug 2007, 13:26:04
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'I')n fact, if you think about it in terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's only after we have the necessary resources secured that we can even begin to think about enlightenment, self-actualization, the meaning of life, and so forth.
Resources <> needs.
No comprende.
Are you suggesting that the resource mindset is less problematic if it's only applied to needs instead of wants?
If that's true, aren't we simply putting off the day we run out?
This is probably a cheap point, but even if we did limit resource allocations to needs, the question becomes "who decides?"
When you identify your decision makers regarding what's a need and what's a want, there you have your elite (see Communism).
Great discussion.
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BigTex - Intermediate Crude
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Re: neighbors
by BigTex » Mon 27 Aug 2007, 13:36:09
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')here'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?"
"The future aint what it used to be."
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BigTex - Intermediate Crude
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neighbors & zombies
by Ludi » Mon 27 Aug 2007, 13:50:50
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.
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.
- Ludi
the marauding weak
by Ludi » Mon 27 Aug 2007, 13:53:44
Incidentally, I don't think the starving and sick will be very effective at marauding miles from home and attacking the wellfed and healthy.
- Ludi
Re: new Edens
by BigTex » Mon 27 Aug 2007, 14:51:59
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'A')re 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).
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BigTex - Intermediate Crude
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