by MonteQuest » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 23:31:42
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', ' ')I'm with you; I too think we can make a big step towards fixing everything. Call me a dreamer, a non-scientific, a hippie, whatever you want, but please make sure you call me hopeful.
You hope that an unsustainable paradigm doomed to failure will persist?
There is no techno-"fix" for this.
Read this by Sharon Astyk
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')I tend to be an optimist, at least by the standards of peak oil activists (which isn't very hard). By that I mean that I believe in individual action and I believe that we could overturn the system that we live within and make better choices. But I also think this is less likely than that we'll do the wrong thing, and part of it is that our brains are trying to kill us (or at least our kids).
That is, we've gotten into habits of thought so destructive and so automatic that we don't even recognize their basic failures. And if we don't recognize the failures in our own heads and overturn them, we're in big trouble. One of those problems is that we can't stop looking for a quick fix.I liked this essay by James Kunstler quite a bit, and I recommend it to you, because he has a useful grasp of essentials,
" It only made me more nervous, because this longing for "solutions," strikes me as a free-floating wish for magical rescue remedies, for techno-fixes that will allow us to make a hassle-free switch from fossil hydrocarbon power to something less likely to destroy the Earth's ecosystems (and human civilization with it). And I think such a wish is, in itself, at the root of our problem -- certainly at the bottom of our incapacity to think clearly about these things.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') would suggest that the "find a short term solution solution" even if it were feasible (probably not) is morally bankrupt, ugly, inelegant and in part responsible that each generation's children seem to want less to do with their parents than the last one. The notion that there's a techno solution out there is probably wrong, but even if we could find one, Kunstler's right, would we want it? Would we want to be people who said, "Let's just put it off a little longer so that someone else has to deal?" Would we want to be the opposite of the generations who made huge personal sacrifices so their kids wouldn't have to?
The thing is, there is a solution, and like most good solutions is really, really simple, and equally elegant. Stop being rich...You take a lot of wealth from poorer people (ie, you buy cheap things manufactured by virtual slaves that are cheap because of that), also like lords in castles.
The answer is really simple. Get off your ass, and dump the castle, or at least move a few more people into it. Get rid of most of the servants. Start doing for yourself without using power. Stop buying anything you want and eating like a king. Live like a peasant. Wear peasant clothes. Do peasant work. Eat peasant food. Get comfortable with it.