The Mundane Details of Daily Life

[dweebus]

 

There is an old saying: “When Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.” Thus, when the washing machine went on the fritz this week and I found a reconditioned washing machine and a re-conned dishwasher at the store, I killed two birds with one stone. When we were first married, we didn't have two dimes to rub together, a pot to piss in, or a window to throw it out of. Mrs. Dweebus had an antique washboard she hung on the wall as a conversation piece (it was her great grandma's). The washing machine died and we couldn't afford a replacement, so the washboard came off the wall and we did laundry in the bathtub. It was a full day affair, once a week, and it involved Mrs. Dweebus, myself, and my brother-in-law. Of course, we had the benefit of a water heater and prepackaged laundry detergent.

 

Recently, I noticed several posts lamenting the lack of traditional skills. The most recent episode with the washing machine got me to thinking. How many of you have actually done laundry by hand? How many of us, even the most ardent environmentalists, gladly use washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, self-cleaning ovens, lawn mowers and so on? Is it realistic to expect families in the West to forego these conveniences voluntarily? Is it realistic to expect families in the developing world to forego acquiring the same level of convenience? Is it realistic to expect the corporate world to sacrifice monopoly and profit and allow for such things as a distributed grid?

 

So, have we crossed the event horizon?

[Pamela Joy King]

Hi Dweebus,

 

I read the Olduvai Theory.  It was good reading and I can see how Duncan got depressed.  I mean, in my studies, we went over all the peaks for oil and gas and even coal, which we have a lot of here in Alberta.  In the Crowsnest Pass, there was a terrible rock slide that pretty well took out an entire town (Frank Slide 1903).  They wondered if it had been instigated by all the mining activity in the area.  We took an underground tour thru one of the shafts in Bellevue - pitch black and very eerie.  Since the discovery of oil, that coal mine has been allowed to fill up with water but it is still a huge reserve sitting there.  Tar sands or coal eh? 

 

"Backward to the future. Forward to the past. Almost perfect symmetry"

Duncan's Olduvai Theory http://dieoff.org/page125.htm

 

Back when I was reading "Heat" by Georges Monbiot, I was all fired up on stopping global warming.  But more in-depth studies made me realize that the debate (a false debate) between the scientists and the climate-change deniers pretty well quelled any hope of changing our fossil fuel dependencies.  Like finding out that a loved one has cancer, I was angry and confused.  But now, I accept what is happening and I have no judgement any longer because really, look at how hard it is to even say, cut back on coffee or sugar or booze for many people.  North America is getting very fat from all the junk food and until some responsible leader steps in and pushes more healthier alternatives, most will keep on consuming bad things for us. 

 

I love in the manifesto where it says that we all walk around in a kind of doubt and worry deep down.  So true.  I see it in every conversation, glance and whisper when I listen to others.  I see all the distractions and self-convincing that life, as we know it, will never change or not in our lifetime anyway.  For me, I just try to use less of everything and gently encourage others to discover the beauty in their immediate surroundings so as to slow down and really get in touch with what life is at this very moment.

 

When reading Lovelock's book back then, fellow greens thought he was an extremist.  But I loved his practical look at it all.  His work made me feel less 'outside' because he confirmed what I felt in my heart to be true.  As sad as it was to get that affirmation along with many other books and articles I was reading at the time, I began to see that my visions were not craziness but just intuitive.

 

 It's a giant struggle is it not?  Monbiot wrote about the good old days when he was free of the knowledge and I could relate so well.  I think back to how carefree I was as a teen with those perfect worry free moments. 

 

I use the University and local libraries so much.  I never thought of it.  Now that you mention it, I am more appreciative of this luxury.  I also loved the city social life and all that but after awhile it gets too much.  I have found that as I get older all that stuff kind of fades away.  It is the people I value the most in any situation. Similar to you, where I live now, I am very close to the Rocky Mountains and extreme wilderness or prairie in the other direction.  We can see the mountains from here. But you know how it happens when you get 'busy' and you can let the important stuff take a back seat. Also, I suppose I am a bit timid to take that step into the wilds.  I love reading about it (the adventures of Ian and Sue Wilson for example or all the mountain climbing books), but at night, in my bed, I love that din of the city and the lights.  I know it is so weird to admit that I am a city dweller by choice.  Yet, I truly lament that part of me. 

 

I admire those who can leave it all behind and live naturally.  You are lucky to be the way you are.  When the time comes, you will be already where you need to be.  I will either be ash or in a forever long line-up out of the rubble.  Did you see the Road.  I read the book first. You know, I can sort of deal with mitigation but it is the sudden runnaway climate disruption that can get me thinking, eeek!!!  And yes, I too have noticed the trend away from human reversal of GHG's.  And you know how we in Canada are faring :(  OMG, I lived in Fort Macmurray in 1976 and witnessed the expansions of the tar sands.  It was surreal to see those giant earth moving machines and the money flying around the place$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.  I fell in love with the giant ravens all tough and weather beaten, missing body parts and hanging about the back of the A & W burger joint in -50 degree weather. 

 

I was particularly interested in your last paragraph on Genesis etc.  But I did not understand it.  Could you please explain it a little more to me. 

 

Thanks!  and have a great day  or week,

 

Pam

 

 

 

 

Pamela Joy King said:

Hi Dweebus,

 

Thanks for your message and I am gonna check out that link.  I will be back with more words soon....

 

Pam

dweebus said:

Hi Pam,

 

If I may interject...

 

 Inside of me is a person who loves the wilderness but all the tugs have led me to this place in my life.  I listen to the hum of the city at night and I am ashamed to admit that I find it soothing.

 

Don't be.  we are all who we are because of where we came for.  The city has many things going for it.  My small town for example has a library that is one room.  The collection is geared to children and adults with a median age of 70.  Generally speaking, I have to have them order a book.  Their sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, or poetry collection is abyssmal.  However if you want a murder mystery or a romance you are in business.  There is a library in the small city north of us, and the collection is better, but still.  If I want to see a movie, or a play, or a muscial, well thats a 1/2 hour - 2 hr drive on the highway.

 

I work with a fella who was born and raised in Montreal.  He moved here because of his wife's work.  He laments the loss of a vibrant social life, sidewalk cafe's, playing chess at the coffee shop while drinking strong coffee, smoking strong cigarettes and talking strong politics.  I can dig it.

 

I am a lucky man.  I have my feet in both worlds.  I was born and raised in the city on the front range in CO.  You could go to the downtown coffe shop or jazz bar or drive and hour or two and be in the midst of an endless prairie or in the mountains.

 

I lived ten years in WY and that killed my affinity for the big city.  Within 15-mins or 1/2 and hour you could be in the banks of the North Platte surrounded by sagebrush and shortgrass pairire with not a soul in sight.  Did you know you can "read" a river.  By watching the current and ripples you can determine a hole where that trout may be hiding, behind a snag or a boulder.  After that I have no desire to live in the city, but that's just me.

 

Again, economics dictated a move to the Midwest.  (those dang kids do eat ad they wanna see the doc when they're sick), but even here, given the first opportunity, I skedaddled to the country.  Different strokes and all that.

 

In my heart, I have always known it to be true.  How long do we have, I don't know.  From my studies, it seems that 2050 will be a telling time.

 

I think that most people, when you talk to them quietly, know in their heart of hearts that this cannot continue.  However, our propensity for willful ignorance seems boundless.  I am a little more pessimistic on the 2050 timeline.  It occurs to me that no matter the issue, the evironment, finance and debt, population,  you shake the old magic 8-ball and it keeps coming up "outlook not so good."

 

The way I see it, we may have 10 years or so to put the pieces in places to engineer a soft landing.  Barring that, a variety of feedbacks and pressures will come into play (and may be already...financial crash anyone)and will dictate the new rules of the game and severely limit our options.  In the past year I have noticed a marked change from "stopping" or "reversing" to "mitigation" and "apaption".  Meanwhile leaders like Obama (who are supposedly our allies) do shit like open thousands more acres in the Powder River Basin to coal exploration and entertain a tar sands pipeline. Of course it's all about creating jobs.  Can you imagine the reception a environmetal initiative would get in the tea soaked house?

 

Assuming we are in for a hard landing, all we can do is to try and give our children the skills necessary to negotiate a much tougher world.  This is where things like alternative currencies, guerilla gardening, electric tractors, rain barrels, and such come in.  Meanwhile, keep the pressure on the powers that be.

 

 One day, I pictured the giant Earth ball, our home, our mother, (or father), being sick with cancer and I cried and cried.  After that, I got so darn depressed that I began to sink.

 

Richard Duncan writes that he became deeply depressed after formulating the Olduvai Theory.

 

http://dieoff.org/page125.htm

 

I think that is a normal reaction, and one I struggle with.   All we can do is to keeps fighting and make preparations in our own communities in the event that it starts to come apart.

 

As to the stories that we tell, I firmly believe that there is a fundamental overemphasis on the dominion theology of Genesis 1 and a de-emphasis of the dependancy theology of Gen 2.  This has become ingrained in Western (particularly fndamentalist) thinking.  That is one place the arts come into play in my mind.

 

     "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living."

                                                        -Mother Jones

 

Regards,

 

Dweebus

 

[Alan Durant]

Hi Dweebus, I've mentioned this before but in case you missed it the country houses here in Hungary are interesting. They are long single story built on a brick and rubble plinth with thick Viog (mud muck and straw)  walls. About two feet thick. They always face south, with no windows or doors in the north wall. There is a veranda to maximise heat gain in the winter and provide shade in the summer. We need it at the moment with temperatures pushing 40C. I wish I could afford geothermal etc. as it is I make do with things that can be home made.

 

BEST  Alan

[Alan Durant]

Hi Wolfbird, I'm impressed that you would be able to make a chair from scratch. I might manage a stool but I'd be a little cautious about sitting on it. The problem is that althoug these old crafts are explained in books its so much better to see it done and there are always tricks of the trade.

 

Best  Alan

[Alan Durant]

Hi Wolfbird, I suppose these rather excellent chairs originate from a time when you often couldn't  afford to buy it so if you couldn't make it you did without. Now you buy it on HP and after five years its only fit to be thrown away.

One of the phrases you don't seem to hear much anymore is appropriate technology. I'm in favour of making things easier within the confines of sustainability. I do, Im afraid, feel I need my little rotor tiller tractor and my old grass cutter, (like a giant barbers shears on wheels). Unfortunately they all need petrol so by definition are unsustainable.

More people of course could and I think should work on the land. My bit and bigger should be workable by a single person, but I'd struggle to do it without mechanicle aid.

What would be a huge help is some sort of coperative scheme, sharing equipment and labour. There is only one person in the village who still has horses and he dosen't plow with them. All the young people want to move to the cities and there is no alternative model for them to aspire too. What happened to the back to the land movement of the 60s and 70s? Having said this we won't get people back to the land, and an appreciation of what is real, if we expect them to live like medieval peasants or for that matter cave men. At some point in the past I asked people what they thought of LETS schemes and was met by a deafening silence. Sorry I slipped back into, what's wrong with people.

 

Best  Alan

[Pamela Joy King]

Hi Wolfbird,

 

I have wondered that myself.  Like say, the seahorse male who carries the babies around.  I might read up on that a bit.  Thanks for the interesting info.  I enjoy learning about stuff.

 

Pam

wolfbird said:

 

Hi Pam,

 

That one is a male. They can be distinguished by the black on their necks and chests. The males make the nests and incubate the eggs and raise the chicks. The females take no interest in the procedure, other than to lay the eggs.

It's thought that the original ratite ancestor lived on Gondwanaland, and as that super-continent broke up, they got separated, leading to the emus, ostriches, rheas, cassowaries. It's interesting to wonder why the rheas should have evolved that behaviour, the males doing all the parenting, and what advantages it has for them.

Pamela Joy King said:

Hi Wolfbird,

 

How could anything be more beautiful than that?  I have popped your Rhea pic up on my desktop just to say hello to her when I am on my computer.  My lineage is from Great Britain but I have never been there, sadly.  Maybe one day if I get mega-rich from one of my occasional lotto tickets eh?  Speaking of birds, my daughter just left for college and I only have one egg left in my nest.  Life carries on....

 

So true what you say about facing the future objectively.  I try to imagine how we could change things.  Like traffic lights that get added only after someone gets killed, I foresee much of the concrete jungle being abandoned when the issue is forced by necessity.  As things unfold, people will begin to see life differently.  My hope is that they will begin to realize that bigger and faster does not always work.  Everything will unravel as it will in time.  There are days when I drive myself crazy thinking about how everything is connected and that even the smallest thing we do has all these implications. 

 

That is quite interesting about the killing and cooking of the Rhea.  Even if I could never do that myself, I don't mind it at all because it seems a fair thing to do between species.  Not like hunting for your meat in the grocery story at all eh?

 

Pam

 

[dweebus]

Hi Wolfbird,

 

"I don't think that there is anything wrong, with the idea that we, as animals, should use labour-saving devices...

The industrial revolution gave us the idea of scaling-up as being efficient, moving bulk quantities of materials meant that some individuals could make bulk quantities of cash profit, although, invariably, the accompanying burden of harm, damage and devastation, gets inflicted upon wider soceity and the environment and future generations. Capitalism means privatising the profits, socialising the losses."

 

I think we are accustomed to using devices.  We have been using them since pre-historic times.  Of course then it was just human muscle, manipulation of wood, stone, then metal, and principles such as leverage.  It think that part of what you wrote is encapsulated by White's Law  - culture is a function of energy and technology.  I imagine that the Industrial Revolution allowed us to break out of the Malthusian Trap, for the time being at least.

 

Most people cannot imagine a life without their gadgets.  I think they simply can't.  Therefore we see this burning desire for a techno-fix, a widget that will make it all better (cold fusion or some shit), or alternatively, we see complete denial of the problem in the first place.  Renewable energy won't get it.  It is expensive and everything I've read indicates they can't supply the required level of energy for our current lifestyle.  Nuclear?  After the Fuk plant, fat chance of that, not to mention liquid fuels. If just follows that major energy conservation would be required.  Are "the people" willing to sacrifice.  To give up some goodies.  To wear that sweater Carter talked about.  I suspect not,  at least not until a crisis slaps them in the face, by which time it will be too late. 

 

The timing, hell I don't know.  2050 seems awfully optimistic to me.

 

 "What will vanish is most of the stuff which distinguishes us from the rats."

 

Well said, I am not sure that a population chokepoint similar to the Toba eruption would be out of the question if the ecosystem completely crashes.  Sorry, kinda having a downer of a day. :(

 

Regards,

 

Dweebus

[dweebus]

Hi Pam,

 

 When the time comes, you will be already where you need to be.

 

I might be.  I am not sure anyplace will be ideal.  The intermountain West and High Plains are awfully arid.  Water will be a major issue.   Here in the Midwest, it will depend alot on what happens to the weather patterns over time.  This last winter was unusually snowy, then this spring it rained and rained and rained.  Now it is hot and dry.  We havn't had decent rain since June.  Of course there will be pressures from the populations in the major cities within driving distance.

 

There is alot to be said for a network of family and friends I think.  No matter where you are, they are who you will depend on.

 

  

I was particularly interested in your last paragraph on Genesis etc.  But I did not understand it.  Could you please explain it a little more to me. 

 

Sure.  I think the predominant narrative from this point of view (Gen 1) is that God created to world and gave us dominion over it.  Dominion is defined as "to rule over wisely".  But it has often been interpreted to mean whatever in in the earth is ours to use as we see fit.  This point of view was exemplified in an interview I heard recently on NPR regarding mountaintop removal.  The exec said (I am paraphrasing) "the Good Lord put the coal here for us to use."

 

Gen 2 however is often seen as a second or alternative creation story.  Man is created from the dust, the mud, the earth.  We are part of the world, connected to it, and make our livings by tilling (serving) it.  We are dust and to dust we will return.  We are part of the whole.  I think this narrative has been de-emphasized in modern times as it did not fit the progressivist view of the world.  Perhaps it is time to revive it and artists are well positioned to do so.  Here is an interesting piece on the subject.

 

http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?922

 

Regards,

 

Dweebus

 

 

[dweebus]

Hi Alan,

 

Is the Viog like Adobe?

 

We can't afford geothermal either.  We live in an old farmhouse (the insulation ain't great) and the furnace is powered by propane.  At some point I want to get a woodburning stove as a back up.  I found plans for converting the tank of an electric water heater into a stove, so I may try that.

 

Regards,

 

Dweebus

[Alan Durant]

Hi Wolfbird, as to the riots and looting, it seems to me that this is a response largely to the lack of prospects for much of our youth.  They are constantly bombarded with the idea that status equals material possessions, possessions that they can't have. Unfortunately the understandable anger also leads to putting people lives at risk. OK a simplification.

You said:

"The 'live like mediaeval peasants' is interesting to think about. Malcolm mentioned foreseeing 100 people working on a farm. This seems to be The Plan. The mega-rich elite think that they can rob the middle classes back into poverty, and then we will have the frequently mentioned Neo-Feudalism. If you want to eat, you'll have to work, for the elite, on their terms.

 

So the 100 farm workers will be handed shovels or hoes and told to do their shift, much like slaves in the American and Caribbean plantations. They will probably have GPS tags or implants so they cannot abscond, and will have a generally wretched existence, with no way out. That's one way forward into the future. Something like Margaret Atwood's Hand Maid's Tale.

 

e GPS tags or implants so they cannot abscond, and will have a generally wretched existence, with no way out. That's one way forward into the future. Something like Margaret Atwood's Hand Maid's Tale.

 

What would be preferable, to my way of thinking, would be for those hundred people to get together and own their own farm, and work it on their own terms. But then we have the Animal Farm scenario. How do you stop the pigs taking over ?

 

y of thinking, would be for those hundred people to get together and own their own farm, and work it on their own terms. But then we have the Animal Farm scenario. How do you stop the pigs taking over ?

 

wolfbird said:

 

Hi Alan, 

 

"I suppose these rather excellent chairs originate from a time when you often couldn't  afford to buy it so if you couldn't make it you did without."

 

I think it relates more to the post that Dougald did, a few weeks back, concerning the vernacular. I'd re-read and get the link but DM blog site seems to be offline at the moment.... anyway...

 

I'm not sure about the 'couldn't afford to buy'. We have to imagine rural Wales 200 years ago. I don't think there were any shops in the modern sense. I'm sure there were shops in urban centres. High Wycombe chairs were mass produced, started in the woods by bodgers, then finished in workshops in the town, then taken as wagon loads to sell in the London shops.

The written records of daily life in the Welsh countryside are fairly sparse, lots of holes that can only be filled by guesses.

 

What I find really interesting is that those are the chairs of the poorest people. They have immense character, charm, grace, a zen-like refinement and simplicity, any decorative elements are very subtle, hardly noticeable. If you look at the chairs of the rich people, the big mansion houses of the estate owners, those chairs were made by more sophisticated professional furniture makers, and yet they tend to be ugly, clumsy, with unnecessary applied ornament, often crude imitations of the popular fashionable stuff of the time, Chippendale, Hepplewhite, all that 'posh' crap. 

 

There's a lot of people making new Welsh stick chairs these days. Plenty can be seen on websites. Hardly any of them come anywhere near the exquisite old ones. Something has got lost. It's very hard to pin down what that missing element is. Use of machines is one factor. 

 

But yes, this modern culture seems to have given up on the idea of worrying about future generations. 'Let's have a big party and trash the place' seems to be the dominant cultural ethos, exemplified by the recent looting-riots, but the same all through soceity... disposable everything, because that's the most profitable way, planned obsolescence.

 

Those chairs are about as close to green perfection as it gets. The ash tree gets cut, but rapidly grows back, because it already has an established root system. And then you have a chair which will provide everyday use for a couple of centuries.

If all that humans wanted was a comfortable seat, then they are the answer. But we are seduced by fashions and that word 'NEW !'

 

I've given a lot of thought to the appropriate technology thing. Most of my life I've been doing physical work of one kind or another. I quite enjoy the exercise, but there's a limit where it turns into drudgery and stops being pleasant, and the older I get, the sooner that limit seems to arrive. I don't have any objection at all, in principle, to using some sort of mechanical assistance. The trouble is, that most power tools and machines are not at all eco-friendly. The noise and fumes of petrol and diesel engines is ridiculous. Yes, I also have a rotovator, a Husqvarna made in Florida, imported by a Farmer's Co-op which bought a load when the pound/dollar rate was very advantageous, so the very low price tempted me and it is a good thing for what it does. Yes, I know those Allen-type motor scythes, I've used them.

 

To my mind, what would be perfection would be a very compact, light, eco-friendly power source that put out a few horse power and didn't cause any pollution, something that could be completely recycled without causing harm. The closest I can get at the moment is stuff powered by electric motors and batteries. I have a couple of Chinese electric wheelbarrows, Bosch hedge clipper, few other things like that...

 

The little grey Ferguson tractor was really as much mechanisation as most farmers ever needed, and there are plenty still being used that are 60 0r 70 years old. I've had one myself. But I don't even need that much power ( 20 HP ), they're too big for my garden paths, that little Ransomes market garden tractor is nearer to my requirements. All that stuff, things like the Lister CS diesel engines, was built to last for eternity, absolutely incredible design and ingenuity and quality. But just like the chairs, the companies and marketing people discovered that there was more money to be made if they brought out a 'bigger and better' model every year... that soon fell to pieces so you have to buy more spares, and then they found out that they could stop making spares so you're forced to buy a new model...

 

The 'live like mediaeval peasants' is interesting to think about. Malcolm mentioned foreseeing 100 people working on a farm. This seems to be The Plan. The mega-rich elite think that they can rob the middle classes back into poverty, and then we will have the frequently mentioned Neo-Feudalism. If you want to eat, you'll have to work, for the elite, on their terms.

 

So the 100 farm workers will be handed shovels or hoes and told to do their shift, much like slaves in the American and Caribbean plantations. They will probably have GPS tags or implants so they cannot abscond, and will have a generally wretched existence, with no way out. That's one way forward into the future. Something like Margaret Atwood's Hand Maid's Tale.

 

What would be preferable, to my way of thinking, would be for those hundred people to get together and own their own farm, and work it on their own terms. But then we have the Animal Farm scenario. How do you stop the pigs taking over ?

 

Yes, it is 'what's wrong with people' all over again.... :-)

 

 

 

 

Alan Durant said:

Hi Wolfbird, I suppose these rather excellent chairs originate from a time when you often couldn't  afford to buy it so if you couldn't make it you did without. Now you buy it on HP and after five years its only fit to be thrown away.

One of the phrases you don't seem to hear much anymore is appropriate technology. I'm in favour of making things easier within the confines of sustainability. I do, Im afraid, feel I need my little rotor tiller tractor and my old grass cutter, (like a giant barbers shears on wheels). Unfortunately they all need petrol so by definition are unsustainable.

More people of course could and I think should work on the land. My bit and bigger should be workable by a single person, but I'd struggle to do it without mechanicle aid.

What would be a huge help is some sort of coperative scheme, sharing equipment and labour. There is only one person in the village who still has horses and he dosen't plow with them. All the young people want to move to the cities and there is no alternative model for them to aspire too. What happened to the back to the land movement of the 60s and 70s? Having said this we won't get people back to the land, and an appreciation of what is real, if we expect them to live like medieval peasants or for that matter cave men. At some point in the past I asked people what they thought of LETS schemes and was met by a deafening silence. Sorry I slipped back into, what's wrong with people.

 

Best  Alan

What would be preferable, to my way of thinking, would be for those hundred people to get together and own their own farm, and work it on their own terms. But then we have the Animal Farm scenario. How do you stop the pigs taking over ?"

 

 I must say that I completely agree with you. Unfortunately  organisations tend to hierarchies in my experiance. Prhaps a little anarchy? 

 

Best  Alan

 

 

[Malcolm Ramsay]

Wolfbird,

Thank you for reminding me that my 'particular experience and expertise may be of somewhat limited relevance', but I think it's something I'm generally more conscious of than you are. You've filled in some details of your background, but that's actually more or less the picture I had of you anyway. Your breadth of experience has been fairly obvious from your posts over the last few months, and I'm happy to respect you for it. But breadth and depth do tend to be mutually exclusive, and you would perhaps post with a little more humility if you made a list of all the things you haven't done.

Also, if you want respect you have to be prepared to give it; that means being willing to put aside your own prejudices, and it means taking the trouble to think about what other people say. You started this discussion by jumping to a ridiculous conclusion, which you seem to be clinging to even after I explicitly told you it was wrong:

 "As I recall, you were proposing to replace the agri-industry, where we are all eating petrochemicals, or fossil sunshine, so to speak, with human pedal power.... I think I am entitled to question your realism, no ?"

If I really was proposing that, then yes, that would be reasonable. But in my first reply to you, I told you "I meant that we can probably step down to something considerably better than the subsistence farming that was practised in the past", and I talked of going back to eighty percent of the population working on the land. I have no illusions that we could maintain our current system, or anything like it, with human pedal power - but then I don't even have any wish for us to maintain our current system. And, strangely enough, the few sentences I've written in this thread don't (and weren't intended to) give a full picture of what I envisage.

 

I'm not primarily thinking about what we should do in the short term, I'm trying to imagine what would be viable in the long term. You think that something like that little Ransome tractor would make a good basis for the kind of agriculture we should have. I'm happy for other people to pursue ideas like that, but what I'm interested in is maximum resilience - and that certainly wouldn't be based on a machine whose work-rate drops to nothing if there's no fuel for it. The one power source which we know we'll always have is ourselves, and as far as I'm concerned, that means human-powered equipment should be the foundation for a resilient society.

But that doesn't mean we have to restrict ourselves to that - it only means we must be able to fall back on it easily. That requires that we avoid the mistake we've made over the last few decades, of creating ways of doing things which displace the simpler ways and cut us off from them. So my goal would be machines which are human-powered in their basic form, but whose output could be increased with an external power source - either directly by increasing it's speed (where that's feasible); or through linkages which would allow a person to operate more than one at a time. But the mode of operation would be the same for the human-powered version as for the enhanced version, so if fuel was unavailable it wouldn't mean suddenly having to use unfamiliar methods and tools, it would just mean that you'd get less done for a given amount of labour.

"I'm proud of my skill and knowledge. I can walk into the woods with a few hand tools and return with a chair I've made. You [....] can't argue with that accomplishment."

I'm happy to respect you for your accomplishments, Wolfbird, but if you demand respect on the strength of your experiences for opinions they don't qualify you to give, then you're going to be disappointed. If you tell me something is farming, when I know perfectly well it's engineering, then I'm going to think you're being silly. Questions of what operations need doing on the land, and the actual carrying out of them, are farming; questions of what kind of mechanism would best achieve those results, and the manufacture of those mechanisms, are engineering. There's a certain amount of overlap, but they are distinct spheres, and you don't seem to recognise that.

I don't want to give the wrong impression here. Most of what I was doing involved liquid systems, rather than mechanical engineering, and most of the design work I did was only secondary; modifying existing designs, or working out fairly simple assemblies. I didn't have any training for it - I found myself doing it after my father died, because there wasn't anybody else to do it - and I floundered with it for quite a while (not least because I didn't actually want to be in mainstream agriculture). But I did end up doing enough primary mechanical design to find my feet with it, and to feel comfortable with the fundamentals of it - and it's clear to me that you don't have much grasp of what it involves.

You can very likely take a mechanical device apart, and understand how it works. But that's a very different thing from understanding something which does not yet have any physical existence - it certainly doesn't qualify you to pronounce on whether or not something is viable, when you've heard next to nothing about exactly what purpose is envisaged for it, and have seen no details on how it might work.

"If you think that what I say is silly, it's likely because you have not understood. That much seems obvious from your previous reply."

Some of what you've said hasn't left much room for misunderstanding. I asked "Have you really spent so much time thinking about how all those tools might be improved, that you have considered every possible way in which those jobs might be done? ". You replied "Yes, of course I have". I'm sorry, but I can't think of any sensible interpretation that such a claim might have.

Subsequently you said "Doesn't matter about the route, so long as you arrive at the destination". You know as well as I do that turning over the soil with a trowel would take very much longer than with a spade, and that cutting with a sickle is very much slower than with a scythe - it's blindingly obvious that the route does matter. In the context of this discussion, what sensible meaning do you expect me to find in your statement?

"If you think I find you irritating, you're right. This isn't the first time someone on this forum, and others I've been on, has decided that they have the brilliant techno-fix that gets us out of the mess we are in."

What do you think the purpose of this forum is? If I were posting speculative stuff on a site focused on what is currently practical, it would be quite reasonable for you to be irritated; but as far as I can see, imagination is central to the whole Dark Mountain project. I regard the kind of superficial realism that you indulge in as inimical to imaginative thinking, and I think it probably puts a lot of people off posting here. If you actually had some idea exactly where the line runs between what is possible and what is impossible, you might add some useful ballast to other people's dreams - but all you seem to think is relevant is what has and hasn't been done. Understanding what might be possible takes a lot of imagination, and no-one can do it without being willing to see their vision fall apart under its own weight. From that perspective the kind of realism that you're trying to impose here is quite worthless.


In a reply to Alan you wrote: "Malcolm mentioned foreseeing 100 people working on a farm. This seems to be The Plan. The mega-rich elite think that they can rob the middle classes back into poverty, and then we will have the frequently mentioned Neo-Feudalism. If you want to eat, you'll have to work, for the elite, on their terms.

So the 100 farm workers will be handed shovels or hoes and told to do their shift, much like slaves in the American and Caribbean plantations."

Where on earth do you get that picture from? It certainly bears no relationship to anything I'm thinking, and I can't think of anything I've said that would have given you that impression.

"What would be preferable, to my way of thinking, would be for those hundred people to get together and own their own farm, and work it on their own terms."

Yes, Wolfbird. Personally, I take it for granted that nearly everybody who comes to this site would regard that as preferable. Some of them might even have given some thought to what changes might be necessary to make it possible. After all, I have - land ownership was the subject of my first blog post here - so it would be strange if others hadn't.

[Alan Durant]

Hi Malcolm, I'm a little in the middle of this question. At a market gardening level of course you can do everything by hand. You can also adapt what you do, for instance I made a temporary hay store near where my hay field is. This allows me to bring it in by hand whereas before I used my little two wheel tractor and trailer. However I'd doubt how much can be achieved with human motive power without lives that consist of nothing but work? Perhaps with cooperatives etc. it would be possible to achieve a lot.  I use a lot of hand stuff, even some machinery and I just about manage to do everything how I'd mange without my power machinery I find it hard to visualise, even though I know these machines will become redundant.

Best  Alan
Malcolm Ramsay said:

Wolfbird,

Thank you for reminding me that my 'particular experience and expertise may be of somewhat limited relevance', but I think it's something I'm generally more conscious of than you are. You've filled in some details of your background, but that's actually more or less the picture I had of you anyway. Your breadth of experience has been fairly obvious from your posts over the last few months, and I'm happy to respect you for it. But breadth and depth do tend to be mutually exclusive, and you would perhaps post with a little more humility if you made a list of all the things you haven't done.

Also, if you want respect you have to be prepared to give it; that means being willing to put aside your own prejudices, and it means taking the trouble to think about what other people say. You started this discussion by jumping to a ridiculous conclusion, which you seem to be clinging to even after I explicitly told you it was wrong:

 "As I recall, you were proposing to replace the agri-industry, where we are all eating petrochemicals, or fossil sunshine, so to speak, with human pedal power.... I think I am entitled to question your realism, no ?"

If I really was proposing that, then yes, that would be reasonable. But in my first reply to you, I told you "I meant that we can probably step down to something considerably better than the subsistence farming that was practised in the past", and I talked of going back to eighty percent of the population working on the land. I have no illusions that we could maintain our current system, or anything like it, with human pedal power - but then I don't even have any wish for us to maintain our current system. And, strangely enough, the few sentences I've written in this thread don't (and weren't intended to) give a full picture of what I envisage.

 

I'm not primarily thinking about what we should do in the short term, I'm trying to imagine what would be viable in the long term. You think that something like that little Ransome tractor would make a good basis for the kind of agriculture we should have. I'm happy for other people to pursue ideas like that, but what I'm interested in is maximum resilience - and that certainly wouldn't be based on a machine whose work-rate drops to nothing if there's no fuel for it. The one power source which we know we'll always have is ourselves, and as far as I'm concerned, that means human-powered equipment should be the foundation for a resilient society.

But that doesn't mean we have to restrict ourselves to that - it only means we must be able to fall back on it easily. That requires that we avoid the mistake we've made over the last few decades, of creating ways of doing things which displace the simpler ways and cut us off from them. So my goal would be machines which are human-powered in their basic form, but whose output could be increased with an external power source - either directly by increasing it's speed (where that's feasible); or through linkages which would allow a person to operate more than one at a time. But the mode of operation would be the same for the human-powered version as for the enhanced version, so if fuel was unavailable it wouldn't mean suddenly having to use unfamiliar methods and tools, it would just mean that you'd get less done for a given amount of labour.

"I'm proud of my skill and knowledge. I can walk into the woods with a few hand tools and return with a chair I've made. You [....] can't argue with that accomplishment."

I'm happy to respect you for your accomplishments, Wolfbird, but if you demand respect on the strength of your experiences for opinions they don't qualify you to give, then you're going to be disappointed. If you tell me something is farming, when I know perfectly well it's engineering, then I'm going to think you're being silly. Questions of what operations need doing on the land, and the actual carrying out of them, are farming; questions of what kind of mechanism would best achieve those results, and the manufacture of those mechanisms, are engineering. There's a certain amount of overlap, but they are distinct spheres, and you don't seem to recognise that.

I don't want to give the wrong impression here. Most of what I was doing involved liquid systems, rather than mechanical engineering, and most of the design work I did was only secondary; modifying existing designs, or working out fairly simple assemblies. I didn't have any training for it - I found myself doing it after my father died, because there wasn't anybody else to do it - and I floundered with it for quite a while (not least because I didn't actually want to be in mainstream agriculture). But I did end up doing enough primary mechanical design to find my feet with it, and to feel comfortable with the fundamentals of it - and it's clear to me that you don't have much grasp of what it involves.

You can very likely take a mechanical device apart, and understand how it works. But that's a very different thing from understanding something which does not yet have any physical existence - it certainly doesn't qualify you to pronounce on whether or not something is viable, when you've heard next to nothing about exactly what purpose is envisaged for it, and have seen no details on how it might work.

"If you think that what I say is silly, it's likely because you have not understood. That much seems obvious from your previous reply."

Some of what you've said hasn't left much room for misunderstanding. I asked "Have you really spent so much time thinking about how all those tools might be improved, that you have considered every possible way in which those jobs might be done? ". You replied "Yes, of course I have". I'm sorry, but I can't think of any sensible interpretation that such a claim might have.

Subsequently you said "Doesn't matter about the route, so long as you arrive at the destination". You know as well as I do that turning over the soil with a trowel would take very much longer than with a spade, and that cutting with a sickle is very much slower than with a scythe - it's blindingly obvious that the route does matter. In the context of this discussion, what sensible meaning do you expect me to find in your statement?

"If you think I find you irritating, you're right. This isn't the first time someone on this forum, and others I've been on, has decided that they have the brilliant techno-fix that gets us out of the mess we are in."

What do you think the purpose of this forum is? If I were posting speculative stuff on a site focused on what is currently practical, it would be quite reasonable for you to be irritated; but as far as I can see, imagination is central to the whole Dark Mountain project. I regard the kind of superficial realism that you indulge in as inimical to imaginative thinking, and I think it probably puts a lot of people off posting here. If you actually had some idea exactly where the line runs between what is possible and what is impossible, you might add some useful ballast to other people's dreams - but all you seem to think is relevant is what has and hasn't been done. Understanding what might be possible takes a lot of imagination, and no-one can do it without being willing to see their vision fall apart under its own weight. From that perspective the kind of realism that you're trying to impose here is quite worthless.


In a reply to Alan you wrote: "Malcolm mentioned foreseeing 100 people working on a farm. This seems to be The Plan. The mega-rich elite think that they can rob the middle classes back into poverty, and then we will have the frequently mentioned Neo-Feudalism. If you want to eat, you'll have to work, for the elite, on their terms.

So the 100 farm workers will be handed shovels or hoes and told to do their shift, much like slaves in the American and Caribbean plantations."

Where on earth do you get that picture from? It certainly bears no relationship to anything I'm thinking, and I can't think of anything I've said that would have given you that impression.

"What would be preferable, to my way of thinking, would be for those hundred people to get together and own their own farm, and work it on their own terms."

Yes, Wolfbird. Personally, I take it for granted that nearly everybody who comes to this site would regard that as preferable. Some of them might even have given some thought to what changes might be necessary to make it possible. After all, I have - land ownership was the subject of my first blog post here - so it would be strange if others hadn't.

[Alan Durant]

Thinking about hand tools. All traditional tools have evolved over time by trial and error. This process often makes the best design.

 

Best  Alan