 
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 92 20:23:54 EST
From: wce@hogbbs.scol.pa.us (Bill Eichman)
Subject: Re: Hello
In-Reply-To: 
To: "Jon C. Slenk" 
Message-Id: 
Organization: The Heart of Gold BBS, Lemont PA
Comments: Validated



>   >>energy from the sun wind and the waves,
>   >>and the freedom of international waters.
>   >>And of course the roof full of amateur radio and satellite links,
>   >>a cinema in one of the tanks, and a FM-pirate :-)
[more]       >
>C"S>I'd really like to help answer these questions, but we need more data.
>   >How does one acquire a tanker?  How much does it cost?  Who would pay
>   >for it?  Who would be "invited"?  Are there some selection criteria,
>   >like occupation, or is interest and commitment enough?
>
>Apparently my feed site has been missing posts-- I never saw the
>original to which Colin is replying....
>
>Rather than spend a lot of time typing, I'm going to append some
>excerpts from other letters on another net. Start skipping through the
>next few pages if you are not interested in this topic.....


The original posting was mine, and seems slightly silly to me now, if any of
what you just posted is from previous posting on alt.cyberpunk.tech,
but I have read the  group for at least 6 months.....

On the other hand I posted a reply to Colin several days ago, and I haven't
seen anything of that yet. So maybe the net have taken its share :-)

[more]       About that other net, where is that? I want to be there!
Silly me, I thought I had an original idea ;-)
Are there other sources? I want to find out more!

And.. since you seem to be interested I think I wil just include
the original posting and the lost reply to.


-------------------------------------------------

About self sufficient "sustainable tech"/utopias.

Since this conference seems to be the one
most interested in this kinds of questions...

As I have understood it the central question is if the right combination
of tech that exists today or that will exist tomorrow would make
forms of society possible that have never existed or
never been "evolutionary sound".

I had this idea the other day that I think has some relevance to this.
[more]       
Central to this idea is that I think humans have a number of
very deep needs and instincts that can never be satisfied
outside a very close knit community, or in other words a tribe.

As long as you are so many people in one "unit" that you
have to have an organization, that you can't solve problems on a more or less
personal basis, these needs will manifest themselves in many ways
like personal ambitions, wish for status, for material comfort or
for "security in possessions",
there will be more of "the scum that floats to the top" and
there will be problems like the dictatorship of the majority,
abuse of power and so on.

In fact I wonder if not a great deal of the mess the earth and we are in
now are caused by this kind of "organized society".
Until now there have always been ways of letting off steam,
laying the burden on somebody else or or compensating by applying
new resources, expanding in new directions, consumerism, tv, and of course
"the technological fix".

[more]       In other words, will organized society as we know it be a desirable thi
ng,
will it work at all or will it lead us inn to disaster when mother nature
forces us to realize that we live in a closed system?
That we are all in the same boat.

I AM getting to the point :-)

How would we know-?  Have any reasonably advanced culture ever
lived in anything like a closed environment? The closest thing
I can think of is the japanese...

So considering all this and taking that line
about "the same boat" quite literally, why don't some body, say 25 -100 people
get hold of an old super-tanker and start a self sufficient floating village!

They could grow their food on the deck, super-tankers are HUGE,
have fish from the ocean, algae and fish farms in the tanks,
energy from the sun wind and the waves,
and the freedom of international waters.
And of course the roof full of amateur radio and satellite links,
a cinema in one of the tanks, and a FM-pirate :-)
[more]       
Sounds like a wacky idea?

Yeah, I think so to, but think it over...

You would be like an always changing tribe tribe wandering the oceans
traveling from port to port and with the weather, trading gods and knowledge,
making your own products and services, taking on new people, others leaving,
trading culture. Spreading alternative agriculture in the third world,
learning.
All the time in contact with the networks.
With a basic self sufficiency even a 3 knot by sail power would do,
then their would be no fuel to pay for ( only for emergencies ).

And imagine if it caught on, if more "villages" were started!
What a culture it could be....

And there can only get less oil and stricter safety standards, which means
cheaper ships, don't they even just sink many old ships today...


[more]       Now I guess I could go on about this for quite some pages,
covering all the details and possibilities, I think they work out.
But for the sake of BW, I will leave that to you.
Just don't give me trivial criticism.

What about the big picture, the idea? Do you think it would be worth while?
would it work at all?

Gaute

-------------------------------------------------


In article , colin@Cayman.COM (Colin "Atilla
" Steele) writes:

> In article <1992Mar12.231238.16933@ifi.uio.no> gauteam@ifi.uio.no (Gaute Amundsen)
 writes:
>
> >So considering all this and taking that line
> >about "the same boat" quite literally, why don't some body, say 25 -100 people
[more]       > >get hold of an old super-tanker and start a self sufficient floating
 village!
> >
> >They could grow their food on the deck, super-tankers are HUGE,
> >have fish from the ocean, algae and fish farms in the tanks,
> >energy from the sun wind and the waves,
> >and the freedom of international waters.
> >And of course the roof full of amateur radio and satellite links,
> >a cinema in one of the tanks, and a FM-pirate :-)
>
> How many people?  25-100?  I thought these tankers were HUGE.  Like,
> you could easily fit 3 or 4 times that many people on board.  So, how
> many people?  We really need to frame the scope of the issue before we
> start debating it.

The limiting factor would be how much food you could grow, or "gather" from the
sea, not how many people there would be room for. A fairly large tanker has a
deck of about 300 by 60 meters. How many square meters you need to feed one
person, using the most effective biological methods is a question I had hoped
some of you might be able to answer.
>
[more]       > >What about the big picture, the idea? Do you think it would be worth
 while?
> >would it work at all?
>
> I'd really like to help answer these questions, but we need more data.
> How does one acquire a tanker?  How much does it cost?  Who would pay
> for it?  Who would be "invited"?  Are there some selection criteria,
> like occupation, or is interest and commitment enough?
> --
What the juridical procedures are I don't know, but considering what you
hear about the wheeling & dealing going on in places like the cayman islands
and liberia it should be easy.

The loads on the hull by this kind of project would be much less than normal,
so if you started a small company pretending to "get rid of" old boats
(the environmental damage and so on) for shady  post box shipping companys
you could perhaps be paid for it!

Or you could wait for the next shipping crisis. During the last one the
norwegian government paid millions a week to keep NEW ships idle to keep the
bottom from falling out of the market...

[more]       The only questions are if tankers are in that category of ships that ar
e
uneconomical to cut up for the iron, and if a ship unfit for
commercial purposes still would be fit for "habitation".

Compared to the indonesian campongs, extended families living on poles
miles from the shore, that get blown away in every hurricane,
I think it is.
Just why I think they are among the people that ought to be invited.
Apart from that one would need some people with experience in running
large ships, some un employed and adventurous philipino crew with
families should not be that hard to find, and perhaps some welder,
and then a couple of rastas to run the radio station :-).

Seriously I think that interest and commitment should be enough and
that usable skills would coincide with this in enough cases to make things
work. There would probably be an initial core of enthusiasts, and part of ether
work would be to "plug" any holes with the right people.
With a use-net connection one could have a large support group of
"armchair participants" and all the expert advise one needed
only keystrokes away.

[more]       >
>
> -------------
>  Colin Steele

Gaute Amundsen

PS.
If you have read "crystal express" or "islands in the net" by bruce sterling
I think you will have a better idea of the spirit I am thinking about this in.


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