Hi, a nitpick: I think the comment you quoted about the future fate of the Sun got it a bit wrong - it's not becoming a brown dwarf, but a white dwarf.
Thank you! I didn't think about that at all. I'm so upset that the sun is scheduled to explode at all that I normally avoid thinking about what will become of it afterwards.
We can radically increase the carrying capacity of the Earth by adopting food production and other methods that are far more efficient than the current state of affairs. Here's a primer on some of those methods: https://buildingabetterworldbook.com/
Granted, but, this really just pushes the need for colonization further forward. Ultimately life that is limited to a single planet is not secure; it depends upon that single planet, on that single solar system, for its survival.
It's also worth considering the evolutionary prospects for the species. Spreading into space will allow evolution to proceed at a greatly accelerated pace, particularly if there can be some kind of genetic exchange between habitats. Anti-transhumanists may regard this as immaterial, or even a bad thing, in which case it's best to *restrict* human population to very low numbers in order to greatly slow the pace of evolution. Still, humans didn't get to the point where we they are now by hanging around their natural habitat.
Modern cosmopolitans are not more happy than the Amish. At least, I've read the Amish are, if anything, happier than other Americans. How could we tell if humans were happier or if apes were happier?
At least I 'm convinced that I am happier than an ape. It is possible that the average modern human is less happy than the average ape. But there should also be millions of people like me. All of us are happy both of existing and about our living conditions. Meanwhile, there are only some tens of thousands of apes
While you're waiting for the book to come in, you might want to watch this video on the pitfalls of permaculture and how to avoid them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdY1gdzJgq4
No problem, I stole the book on Z-lib (if nothing else, a very environmentally friendly solution).
I think I can find 20 or 30 technical points where I disagree with Wheaton and Klassen-Koop. The book also clearly is not directed at families. But fundamentally I totally agree. First and foremost, I live as self-sufficiently as possible as they propose. I also totally agree with them that labor is the missing component in environmentalism. As long as we don't accept to put in more hours of our own labor, we can't save that much energy and resources. There has been a trade-off between land use and labor as long as life has existed. There still is. If people don't want to work to produce food and heat, a lot of energy has to be used to compensate.
Still, I have the feeling that my perspective is different from that of Wheaton and Klassen-Koop. I don't work to save resources for the sake of it, but because I want the resources to suffice for more family members. Frugality makes sense for me mostly because I like people more than I like resources. With Wheaton's and Klassen-Koop's (and my) methods, planet Earth can house way more people. But still, there will be a limit and I think we should start preparing for it already.
I feel like people are mostly unaware of or have unserious/uninformed criticisms about permaculture. If you have the time and energy, I and a lot of people on the permies forum would appreciate the opportunity to engage in a thoughtful discussion of the 20 or 30 technical points of disagreement that you have on the permies forum. For understandable reasons, there are fewer numbers of formally trained STEM folks involved in permaculture. And it certainly seems like family formation is only feasible once you have everything in place.
Anyways, would fertility increase if we turned away from civilization and returned to the more historically-prevalent way of living? From my naive point-of-view, it seems like we'll all go the way of Japan, demographically. But supposing otherwise, if it's a matter of throwing money at rockets now and solve technical problems vs. increasing the carrying capacity of the Earth to 50-100B people (which I think is feasible but requires solving social and institutional problems) and then throwing money at rockets later, I think it's cheaper to go with the latter option and it's unclear to me what, if anything, we lose out on by waiting.
Ha ha, I doubt that people would like to engage in a thoughtful discussion with me about why I think towels washed in cold water stink like overused dishcloths and that my husband avoided shampoo for two years in his rebellious youth and only got a scratchy scalp and dandruff. I'm also one of those uneducated people engaging in permaculture. The only serious disagreenement I have with Wheaton and Klassen-Koop is a climate disaster skepticism inspired by Steven Koonin and Anders L: https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/a-climatologists-view-of-climate
I think you have a very important point here. Manufacturing rockets will be cheaper for 50 billion tech-savvy people than for 10 billion people. I think that waiting with the actual launch into space could be a very good idea. But it requires that we remember why we are procreating so much. 50 billion peaceful engineers growing their own apples and building rockets and modules for space expansion is a good prospect. 50 billion humans who became 50 billion because they were so primitive would be a real nightmare for most people involved.
So when I say we should start now, I don't really mean that we should literally build a rocket today. I mean more like we should start the planning and thinking work, so we don't forget where we are heading.
Thanks for that article. I have now moved from being agnostic about climate disaster to being a skeptic. My angle on permaculture is that it's a way to have higher quality food and I think that having properly managed watersheds is just common sense (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qny4CDcftrI).
I can agree with the notion that we should start the planning and thinking work for space exploration now. Institutional memory and legible progress in research are good things and there are only relatively few people doing this in any case, so I have no objection.
Broadening the discussion, what do you think the path forward for us to get to 50B tech-savvy, rather than primitive, people? Education is broken, even though we've know the solution for decades (https://twitter.com/LamsonNguyen15/status/1620522505848107009?s=20 and https://psych.athabascau.ca/open/engelmann/bio.php); short-term vs long-term thinking; and not enough people are financially independent and/or homesteading. Part of this last problem is that civilization is where the people are and life on the farm is quite lonely.
Well Tove, you are definitely not the prototypical human being; this physical restless that drives you to accomplish tangible goals involving wet concrete is indescribably alien to the typical person. In fact, for many humans, work occurs for one reason and one reason only: to get paid. It does turn out that plenty of people do things for free that could be considered paid labor (baking apple pies, going to the grocery store three times a day, changing diapers, etc). But hauling freight, going to meetings designed to enhance productivity or build morale, putting up with unruly customers, and staying up late to meet deadlines are not things most people do to change their environment; they do all of that because if they don't, their economic and social prospects will be poor.
When Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living, I think he just told half of the human population that their lives were worthless. When Tove writes that "An existence of idle subsistence is not worthy of our species," I think she's doing the same thing. Or maybe rather she means what Nietzsche meant when he said: "Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman--a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal." To people trying to cross that bridge, 5 million years really does seem like much, much less than 5 billion years.
Hm, maybe I need to issue a Woke-ish apology: I don't mean that individuals who are not workaholics are not worthy human beings. Human society consists of several types of individuals. Some are more energetic, some are more patient. Those of us who are over-energetic need more patient people to cover up for our flaws. Since cooperation is a human speciality, individual difference is one of our strengths.
So I don't mean to argue for a Nietzschean super-man ideal (if nothing else, Nietzsche was not a well-known pacifist). Still, I think that on the aggregate level, expansion is the way forward. Everyone doesn't need to work hard. Everyone doesn't need to have children. But altogether, I think human beings will get healthier and happier in a society that encourages peaceful expansion.
The alternative, I think, is jealous bickering. I know I am more restless than the average person. But few people claim that complete idleness brings forth the best side of people. Work, regardless of how hard or energetic, takes away the feeling of a zero-sum game. I think that is the way forward.
Hi, a nitpick: I think the comment you quoted about the future fate of the Sun got it a bit wrong - it's not becoming a brown dwarf, but a white dwarf.
Thank you! I didn't think about that at all. I'm so upset that the sun is scheduled to explode at all that I normally avoid thinking about what will become of it afterwards.
We can radically increase the carrying capacity of the Earth by adopting food production and other methods that are far more efficient than the current state of affairs. Here's a primer on some of those methods: https://buildingabetterworldbook.com/
Granted, but, this really just pushes the need for colonization further forward. Ultimately life that is limited to a single planet is not secure; it depends upon that single planet, on that single solar system, for its survival.
It's also worth considering the evolutionary prospects for the species. Spreading into space will allow evolution to proceed at a greatly accelerated pace, particularly if there can be some kind of genetic exchange between habitats. Anti-transhumanists may regard this as immaterial, or even a bad thing, in which case it's best to *restrict* human population to very low numbers in order to greatly slow the pace of evolution. Still, humans didn't get to the point where we they are now by hanging around their natural habitat.
Yes, we can be happy there were a few transapeists some million years ago.
...Are we happier than apes?
Modern cosmopolitans are not more happy than the Amish. At least, I've read the Amish are, if anything, happier than other Americans. How could we tell if humans were happier or if apes were happier?
At least I 'm convinced that I am happier than an ape. It is possible that the average modern human is less happy than the average ape. But there should also be millions of people like me. All of us are happy both of existing and about our living conditions. Meanwhile, there are only some tens of thousands of apes
Thank you! That sounds like a good book. I read all books I stumble over on permaculture, so why not this one?
While you're waiting for the book to come in, you might want to watch this video on the pitfalls of permaculture and how to avoid them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdY1gdzJgq4
No problem, I stole the book on Z-lib (if nothing else, a very environmentally friendly solution).
I think I can find 20 or 30 technical points where I disagree with Wheaton and Klassen-Koop. The book also clearly is not directed at families. But fundamentally I totally agree. First and foremost, I live as self-sufficiently as possible as they propose. I also totally agree with them that labor is the missing component in environmentalism. As long as we don't accept to put in more hours of our own labor, we can't save that much energy and resources. There has been a trade-off between land use and labor as long as life has existed. There still is. If people don't want to work to produce food and heat, a lot of energy has to be used to compensate.
Still, I have the feeling that my perspective is different from that of Wheaton and Klassen-Koop. I don't work to save resources for the sake of it, but because I want the resources to suffice for more family members. Frugality makes sense for me mostly because I like people more than I like resources. With Wheaton's and Klassen-Koop's (and my) methods, planet Earth can house way more people. But still, there will be a limit and I think we should start preparing for it already.
I feel like people are mostly unaware of or have unserious/uninformed criticisms about permaculture. If you have the time and energy, I and a lot of people on the permies forum would appreciate the opportunity to engage in a thoughtful discussion of the 20 or 30 technical points of disagreement that you have on the permies forum. For understandable reasons, there are fewer numbers of formally trained STEM folks involved in permaculture. And it certainly seems like family formation is only feasible once you have everything in place.
Anyways, would fertility increase if we turned away from civilization and returned to the more historically-prevalent way of living? From my naive point-of-view, it seems like we'll all go the way of Japan, demographically. But supposing otherwise, if it's a matter of throwing money at rockets now and solve technical problems vs. increasing the carrying capacity of the Earth to 50-100B people (which I think is feasible but requires solving social and institutional problems) and then throwing money at rockets later, I think it's cheaper to go with the latter option and it's unclear to me what, if anything, we lose out on by waiting.
Ha ha, I doubt that people would like to engage in a thoughtful discussion with me about why I think towels washed in cold water stink like overused dishcloths and that my husband avoided shampoo for two years in his rebellious youth and only got a scratchy scalp and dandruff. I'm also one of those uneducated people engaging in permaculture. The only serious disagreenement I have with Wheaton and Klassen-Koop is a climate disaster skepticism inspired by Steven Koonin and Anders L: https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/a-climatologists-view-of-climate
I think you have a very important point here. Manufacturing rockets will be cheaper for 50 billion tech-savvy people than for 10 billion people. I think that waiting with the actual launch into space could be a very good idea. But it requires that we remember why we are procreating so much. 50 billion peaceful engineers growing their own apples and building rockets and modules for space expansion is a good prospect. 50 billion humans who became 50 billion because they were so primitive would be a real nightmare for most people involved.
So when I say we should start now, I don't really mean that we should literally build a rocket today. I mean more like we should start the planning and thinking work, so we don't forget where we are heading.
Thanks for that article. I have now moved from being agnostic about climate disaster to being a skeptic. My angle on permaculture is that it's a way to have higher quality food and I think that having properly managed watersheds is just common sense (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qny4CDcftrI).
I can agree with the notion that we should start the planning and thinking work for space exploration now. Institutional memory and legible progress in research are good things and there are only relatively few people doing this in any case, so I have no objection.
Broadening the discussion, what do you think the path forward for us to get to 50B tech-savvy, rather than primitive, people? Education is broken, even though we've know the solution for decades (https://twitter.com/LamsonNguyen15/status/1620522505848107009?s=20 and https://psych.athabascau.ca/open/engelmann/bio.php); short-term vs long-term thinking; and not enough people are financially independent and/or homesteading. Part of this last problem is that civilization is where the people are and life on the farm is quite lonely.
Well Tove, you are definitely not the prototypical human being; this physical restless that drives you to accomplish tangible goals involving wet concrete is indescribably alien to the typical person. In fact, for many humans, work occurs for one reason and one reason only: to get paid. It does turn out that plenty of people do things for free that could be considered paid labor (baking apple pies, going to the grocery store three times a day, changing diapers, etc). But hauling freight, going to meetings designed to enhance productivity or build morale, putting up with unruly customers, and staying up late to meet deadlines are not things most people do to change their environment; they do all of that because if they don't, their economic and social prospects will be poor.
When Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living, I think he just told half of the human population that their lives were worthless. When Tove writes that "An existence of idle subsistence is not worthy of our species," I think she's doing the same thing. Or maybe rather she means what Nietzsche meant when he said: "Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman--a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal." To people trying to cross that bridge, 5 million years really does seem like much, much less than 5 billion years.
Hm, maybe I need to issue a Woke-ish apology: I don't mean that individuals who are not workaholics are not worthy human beings. Human society consists of several types of individuals. Some are more energetic, some are more patient. Those of us who are over-energetic need more patient people to cover up for our flaws. Since cooperation is a human speciality, individual difference is one of our strengths.
So I don't mean to argue for a Nietzschean super-man ideal (if nothing else, Nietzsche was not a well-known pacifist). Still, I think that on the aggregate level, expansion is the way forward. Everyone doesn't need to work hard. Everyone doesn't need to have children. But altogether, I think human beings will get healthier and happier in a society that encourages peaceful expansion.
The alternative, I think, is jealous bickering. I know I am more restless than the average person. But few people claim that complete idleness brings forth the best side of people. Work, regardless of how hard or energetic, takes away the feeling of a zero-sum game. I think that is the way forward.
I think it was better before. Socrates never apologized; he drank poison. Nietzsche never apologized; he grew the biggest mustache in Weimar.
Socrates' suicide must have been one of the best PR stunts in world history.
...Yeah, actually! People still talk about it today.