2021-10-13 13:43:34
Overarching philosophy for being / acting in the world these days ...
Convinced by the argument in Smaje's Small Farm Future: generally, that we ought to prepare for disruptions in supply chain / climate, given our current trajectory. In general, I feel stymied when trying to decide on courses of action that have opportunity costs; the idea of putting a lot of energy into developing a 'prepper'-like form of life feels pretty silly if a disaster ends up being averted. Limiting the scope and changing the nature of one's life has real effects on happiness; one ought not to make sweeping changes on bad information.
For this reason, it's nice to find 'win-win' strategies that minimize opportunity costs. I think my first strong sense for this approach came from John Robb's presentation at Makerfaire 2012, in which he argued that a) there's a high risk of systemic interruption due to climate change, and we ought to prepare for it; but usefully, b) the things we ought to do to prepare for that risk are themselves things that can help reduce the risk.
Then, via anarchists and economists like Graeber, Ward, Carson, Chomsky, et al, I developed the sense that further, c) the structures, relationships, and forms of life that would help mitigate / reduce risk -- generally, relocalized, more decentralized, more cooperative -- might also server as useful correctives for the injustices and irrationalities of neoliberal capitalism and an 'infinite growth' approach to the economy.
Finally, via Soper and her 'alternative hedonist' ideas in Postgrowth Living, that d) these forms of life might themselves, rather than being experienced as losses or sacrifices, might be even more convivial and enjoyable than those they replace.
To all of this, I'll add: it nevertheless seems as though it's hard to get the interventions right. Lots of examples of folks attempting alternative ways of living that seem to have sputtered out. In some cases, they were poorly conceived; in others, they were ideas that were simply before their time.
One very general idea that helps here is focusing on 'research and pedagogy'. If the ongoing project is one of experimentation and learning -- especially if the learning includes principles that can be abstracted from particular projects / problems / solutions -- then it's much harder to see any particular project or solution as 'wasted'.
A sort of ideal here that I've held now since grad school: an ongoing, research-driven process of developing solutions ... where the solutions are either simply documented and shared, or documented and built for others in a 'cooperative / mutual aid' economics approach. The trick seems always to try to find ways of avoiding perverse incentive structures, where seeking profit and/or prestige leads the designer / builder to prefer their solution over others; from what I can gather, the best approach here is to a) ensure that everyone is provided for in ways that don't require additional profit from projects, and b) associated prestige with scientific / communal ideals that value truth, objectivity, and selflessness in pursuit of the collective good.
Measure, Intervene, repeat.
Examples: Farming. SARE interview w/ Chris Callahan. Resource mamangement (Hastings, Machta, et al). Neumann. The Corsi box.
Basic idea: if we don't measure and assess, we don't know a) what intervention to aim for, or b) whether it worked, or c) whether or how to course-correct.
From Bihouix's Low Tech Future: many technologies and processes in use today are unsustainable and risky -- e.g., the use of rare metals in electronics. Supply chains might easily fail when we start to run out, so infrastructure based on these devices is high-risk. Addressing this issue is an enormous, endlessly fascinating project: designing within constraints; salvaging and maximally leveraging what's already been built; and coming up with high-leverage designs that use what exists to maximal effect.
For example: cold storage might best be accomplished by using cellars as much as possible. This might be facilitated by temperature monitoring, via electronics. Such electronic devices use metals and energy and water and etc; but they might only be needed periodically, to assess / verify fairly stable patterns of temperature in a given cold storage space; they could be shared across such spaces; and their use would save lots of energy resources.
In general, one can be inspired by examples set by the Amish; by people who work and live in places in the world already hit by supply chain disruption; by 18th century, pre-steam technologies.
Relevant pedagogy and technology topics. This includes things like mapping, communications, environmental monitoring; but also organization-building, cooperative / mutual aid approaches to production, philosophy. Ecology, technology, sociology. Food production, food preparation, food sharing; festival (using the 'alternative hedonism' thesis of Soper).
Imagine a 'forest school' that includes the usual ecology-based activities, but also: radio; mapping, navigation, gps; off-grid welding; foraging, growing, cold storage.
(Carthage Missouri Cold Storage cave -- fascinating! And a small 'root cellar' using a buried trash can.)
2021-10-16 19:20:23
People are typically sufficiently stressed in a precarious economy that there's no ability, or even interest, to learn about e.g. the arithmetic of self-sufficiency ... how many acres to feed how many people ... survival skills.
There's that essay in American Georgics that is by a farmer / classicist who condemns the urban elite who he thinks consider themselves sophisticated and powerful but are in fact weak across core human aspects of life ... they don't know real work, real labor, they don't understand how to make provide or shelter for themselves ... they are beholden to others for their survival, which means that they are fundamentally weak, dependent, concerned always with their status relative to others.
It feels as though the Socialist / Marxist vision -- at least, the cartoon version with which I'm familiar -- enjoys the fruits of recent economic developments -- 'all the wonders of capitalism' -- and simply wants to convert / translate the infrastructure to something more democratic / equitable. Thus the idea of having workers take over the state apparatus, turn it to communal ends, and ultimately usher in utopia. I'd been familiar with the anarchist critique of this idea that says essentially "sure, nice, but it never works this way in practice; revolutions are always despotic in the end; better to follow a prefigurative approach ..." The core idea being: the hierarchical operations of the state, and of some vanguard that seeks to overthrow it, are so at odds with democratic process that you usually end up further away from utopia than you started.
But now I feel a more fundamental critique is in order. The operations of the state seem fundamentally at odds not just with democratic process and spirit; they now feel inadequate to provide the material processes and substrate for a democratic society.
I'm not sure how best to articulate this. An analogy: there are schools or democratic organizational theory that suggest that, to the extent possible, everyone in an organization should have some experience of working in any of the modes of work to be found in the organization. Coding, janitorial, cafeteria, accounting, visioning, etc -- if people are to collectively run an organization, it is best that they are able to speak from experience about any given special skill or task, even if their ultimate fate is to become highly specialized.
I've always been taken by the necessarily broad experience and skills of small-holding farmers. They must learn and become somewhat adept at all of the aspects of farming: horticultural, but also electrical, mechasnic, meteorological, statistical, economic, social, political. Speaking with such an individual about the world that they inhabit, one senses an active mind, with an enthusiasm for learning and understanding bred, again, from necessity -- from a sense that more knowledge will lead to more security, greater powers.
2021-10-16 20:18:55
What's the guide I wish I had to read now?
farming hospitality low-tech / high-tech hybrid mechanics agroecology ecology
2021-10-19 08:45:08
https://alexsteffen.substack.com/p/dispatches-from-an-unready-world
This article suggests a sort of 'intersectionality of risk' ...
It is critical to remember, as well, that none of these analyses of risk take the crisis seriously enough, because every place confronts multiple overlapping risks, some only measured and modeled with difficulty, some currently beyond our capacity to predict. As we’ve discussed before, the reality of discontinuity itself — and the loss of predictability it brings — is the single greatest cost of this crisis.
Spork!
Things to propose:
2021-10-19 08:53:53
Making air quality safery could be the public health intervention for this century https://twitter.com/j_g_allen/status/1450442346986983434?s=20
2021-10-19 11:14:46
https://enso.org/
https://www.reichelt.de/de/de/adafruit-nrf52-bluefruit-le-ada-fb-nrf52-p248597.html?search=adafruit+feather+m4&&r=1
How to organize all of these projects?
New approach -- start from interest / pedagogy.
Wire sculpture.
Tree climbing.
GPS / mapping.
Outdoor heating.
Water pumping / control.
A set of projects where the idea is to make 'fallback' relationships between various technologies.