 
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 16:57 EST
From: BLUECANARYINNAOUTLET 
Subject: lots o' things
To: +dist+~js9b/Public/camc.dl@ANDREW.CMU.EDU
Message-Id: <7837F96A40001B0D@YANG.EARLHAM.EDU>

Hi everyone.
 
   It's Friday afternoon, a dog-hard week is over, I am in rather a good
mood altogether. :-)
 
   Responses to responses to responses!  My god, a dialogue!  Lessee...
 
>From:  IN%"wce%hogbbs.scol.pa.us@CARNEGIE.BITNET"  9-APR-1992 01:01:53.91
>Subj:  the flow of response
>
>>Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 15:16 EST
>>From: BLUECANARYINNAOUTLET 
>>BE>
>>>The ideal starting combination, as I see it, is an urban compound type
>>>of place in a type of sister-relationship with a more rural community.
>>>In effect this creates a micro-model of a traditional city-- a
>>
>>   Uh... this sounds like a bad idea to me.  We need material
>>self-sufficiency in these communities, not chains of dependency-- and why
>>on earth would we want to create an anythingcosm of a traditional city??
>>Access to a marketplace? Get thee behind me, Satan! :-)
>
>Well, I've said this before-- we can't expect to acheive material
>self-sufficiency. I've read hundreds of books describing experiments in
>back-to-the-land type communities, and talked with many people involved
>in such experiments. Based on these reports, and over ten years
>personally of work gardening, running small businesses, keeping animals,
>and a broad variety of self-sufficiency crafts and skills, I am as
>certain as I can be that we can't hope to have material self sufficiency
>and a lifestyle that wouldn't leave us worse off then the crudest
>peasant-- even the poorest of third world peoples, including such native
>peoples as the yanamamo and the !kung depend far more than we might
>expect on trade.
>
>But, despite the fact that I'm convinced we can't acheive it, it's
>certainly OK with me if you _try_ to do so, or discuss the possibilities
>of the same.
 
   I know that without magic or (possibly) nanobotic assembler-type
thingies, utter, complete material self-sufficiency isn't possible... with
riders.
   It isn't possible for an individual to achieve it.  And it isn't
possible if you're talking about maintaining a lifestyle such as the one
we are living right now, each of us on this list.  (I assume!!)
   But it is possible to achieve a maximum of disentanglement for a maximum
number of people, especially in terms of community organization, and
probably a lot more so for people who are climbing slowly up from the
bottommost rung of existence.  I think.  And I admit, I haven't studied
this stuff as thoroughly and scientifically as you have, Bill.  But it
seems to me like it's moderately achieveable, and we ought to try our
damndest, or I fear it's for nothing.
   One thing that gives me hope is the fact that Prince Peter Kropotkin,
a Russian biologist and anarchist of the 19th century (you probably have
read him already Bill-- but I don't know if others have heard the name)
who thought a lot about these kinds of things-- mapped out in thorough,
grueling detail plans for the decentralization of industry and agriculture
into small, self-sufficient units... with 19th century technology!  Well,
it's something cheerful to think about on rainy days. :-)
   (There's a lovely essay about his ecological theories, by the way, in
Stephen Jay Gould's book... drat, I can't remember for sure, but I think
it's a collection called *Bully for Brontosaurus*.  Entitled "Kropotkin
Was No Crackpot.  I love Gould...)
 
>Remember, a central issue for me is women and children-- we're all males
>here, and many people interested in these ideas are males. If we can't
>create a community where women are happy living and raising children,
>all we've done is created a little monastic retreat for ourselves, or
>perhaps a type of retirement home.
 
   Good point.  We should create a community where men are happy raising
children. :-)
   How about separatist feminists? I'd miss seeing women, but
I can buy some of the arguments that they'd flower apart from us.  And I
think that they would almost certainly need to attain a maximum of
self-sufficiency to avoid entanglement with males.
 
>As far as the "microcity" ideas are concerned-- I admit to being
>influenced by Paolo Soleri's arguments about the city. Originally, in
>fact, I was intensly opposed to cities, and still am opposed to our
>types of cities, which are strongholds of oppression and inhumane
>living, in my opinion. However, after condsidering Soleri's arguments,
>in which he claims that the city is the machine-for-living which created
>the leisure time and resources that led to science, technology, the
>arts, almost all of the advances that we take for granted, I was forced
>to reform my thinking.
 
   Hmmmm.  Soleri I haven't yet read (Kropotkin neither, though I mean to
read both sometime soon), but I have read much about him.  Fascinating
man, interesting architecture, nice bells.  You have to keep in mind he's
batty as a bedbug about some things.  Sun worship's one of them.  The city
is another.  This is a man who regards crowding, despite all evidence of
experience and experiment, as a positive virtue.  I have to learn more
about his arguments for the city, though, before I render final judgement.
Maybe you could pass some wisdom along in this respect.
 
>Now, as I see it, the problem lies not with the "function" of the
>cities, which I think we still need, but the application of the
>principle of city-building, which I see as being based on a master-slave
>model arising from thousands of years of religious and cultural
>oppresion and a dependence on violence that started when agriculture
>became successful enough to support warfare.
 
   I still don't see how they could function without much of the same
social and technological machinery, which would generate the same problems
eventually...
 
>So, what I'm suggesting is that we "miniaturize" the functions of the
>city, as Fuller and Soleri suggest, and incorporate them within the
>structure of a dectralized village-style economy and lifestyle.
 
   Hmm.  The more I learn about your ideas, the more I make that sound,
which signifies any number of things, but right now mostly interest.  I
could almost picture little feisty city-states springing from your ideas.
 
>>   Specialization, centralization, concentration-- you're practically listing
>>the principles that Alvin Toffler identified with the grand, dying Second
>>Wave (i.e. industrial) civilization.  Phooey!
>
>I tend to think that real progress works by incorporating the great
>ideas of the past, integrating them, and transcending them.
 
   Nothing wrong with that.  Of course, taking down the master's house
with something other than the master's tools isn't something that's been
tried too often in human history, as far as I can see.
 
>>   Again-- let us try to think *more universally* about what is applicable
>>and practiceable.  Who by and who for.  Who benefits and why.  Think Cat
>>not Corp. :-)
>
>Well, perhaps you could write a bit of descripton of a cat-style effort,
>how it got started, how the folks live, what the women would think of
>it, and so on?
 
   Like as in fiction? Well... actually, that is something I'm doing, in
an indirect way.  Completion's a long way off, though.  But I'll think
about condensing some ideas and trying it.  Hey, I appreciate the
interest!  Hold On to That Thought.
 
>>   And it's true: a concrete benefit of the hightech/planned approach (can
>>I shorten it as "ht/p"?) is added security.  You take much less of a risk
>
>I just can't believe that the majority, or even anything but a
>microscopic minority, will accept these ideas unless we can offer them
>at least the security that they expect as a minimum from a more ordinary
>lifestyle.
 
   For some, security would be enhanced by not having to worry about where
the next meal was coming from.  Or whether they would freeze and contract
pneumonia in the winter.  My little maxim again: TCa,NCo.
 
>>jon>I agree with the idea that we should try to get the tools out as quickly
>>>as possible. My brother has a book that discusses building houses
>>>title of the book is, or who the authors are. It does serve to indicate
>>>what kind of tools are available, though - even if we can't get hardware
>>>into people's hands, we could start with information.
>
>As far as getting tools and information into peoples hands, I'll refer
>you to the 'university' idea I mention below. I see the New Alchemy and
>Farrallones Institute as having much to offer here.
 
   What's this Farrallones Institute? I've never heard of it before!  I
love New Alchemy, though.  Wonder if I could intern with them sometime.
 
>>   Hmm.  This does sound interesting, and thank you for making the
>>connection.  I think that the kind of approach I think I'm advocating,
>>emphasizing less planning and more speed/ubiquity of action, would
>>naturally follow such a pattern.  Settlements built in this style would be
>>done without officially approved safety features, insurance, etc.  This
>>obviously could lead to a lot of irresponsibility, and I'd expect to see a
>>good number of people die from fires and so on in poorly designed and
>>built shelters of this kind.  I imagine that eventually, various
>
>Well, they won't let you do this in america-- you'll with certainty
>find yourself severly harassed by the local governments. Zoning and Code
>restrictions have been used again and again as weapons against these
>kind of community efforts.
 
   Alvin Toffler suggested legislation that would make that kind of
harrassment unnecessary, allowing loopholes in zoning laws and so on.
Possibly the kind of thing a government might feel like issuing in, say, a
time of national economic crisis, with people getting hungry and itchy.
 
>You might get away with it by choosing a county that is so totally rural
>that zoning and code regulations don't apply, or are enforced laxly
>(with the help of a little bribery). You might also be able to do it
>with a mobile or nomadic style community. Also, you should be able to do
>it in other, poorer countries.                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
      absolutely
 
   Yes, yes, yes.  Thank you; you are starting to do what I begged people
to do last time, thinking more universally.  I'll try, too.
 
>My hope is that we can go to the government of a county and bargain
>somehow for a special exemption from zoning and codes. But this is a
>planned approach that requires money and lawyers (hopefully in-house
>lawyers), so it might be tough.
 
   The thing about the master's tools comes to mind again.  Sigh.
 
> ...whatever you're planning, take the hostility of local governments
>into account.
 
   It might be interesting to imagine types of resistance to that...
 
>>>>    And what is this about being part of a "globally competitive economy"? I
>>>> thought that was something worth *avoiding*! [etc.]
>>>
>>>I understand your desire to avoid the rat race, however, I think it is
>>>important not to totally remove ourselves from the world. We must be
>>>sure to keep up to date with "outside" developments, so we can take
>>
>>   I suppose, although I can see some value in village-scale isolationism
>>*sometimes*...
>
>If I am unable to get these communities really started in the next
>fifteen years, I have vowed to myself that I will move to the US Virgin
>Islands, to enter into something like a mystical retreat of
>contemplation and study of the oceans. Isolationism may be sanity in a
>world going through such rapid changes as our own....
 
   Sigh.  You know it.  And you know that when you envy people as
repressed as the Amish, things are pretty low.
 
>Still, I expect to be able to connect to the net through the university
>outposts studying the coral reef and tropical forest national park
>there, and perhaps communications technology will have advanced enough
>by then for me to have a small private satelite uplink. I expect to
>write there, if I can.
 
   Sounds beautiful, actually...
 
>Isolationism vs Connectivity. A tough problem, one that depends a lot on
>how grim the rest of the world get's to be...
 
 
>>   Ah, but that's a problem I have here.  It may begin with us, but it
>>should *not* end with us, or we are a selfish elite, worthless to the rest
>>of humanity-- in which case, no one *should* support our efforts.  Do you
>>see what I mean? We have an obligation to the world.
>
>I've gone back and forth, from commitment to service and obligation
>to the world, to a sense that all the great new things were started by
>those who left the world behind seeking new edges, and, as a side
>effect, ended up transmitting great new discoveries back to the rest of
>the race.
>
>In a sense, I see these community ideas as being most effectively and
>significantly implemented in the third world--
 
   *YES*
   (an idea I really like a lot, if you can tell)
 
>                                              --perhaps we should help
>them skip the ravages of industrialism, and help them jump to a
>energy-efficient, decentralized energy solar/wind/and biomass
>information economy. Help them to skip the consumer goods phase, and
>move into the ultimate consumer wealth-- access to education, artwork,
>and travel.
>
>Then again, maybe we would fuck them up as did any other missionary.
>Maybe they would eventually shoot us, or hang us, or in other ways drive
>us out. It's a tough call. But, it still seems like an avenue that must
>be tried.
 
   I think we'd be doing something a lot different than they did, not by
dint necessarily of the word-content of our help, but in the fact that
we'd be giving them tools which can simply best be used in a positive,
humanistic way.  They wouldn't have to appreciate it, but I can't see them
rejecting it.  It would also mean an end to the humiliation of being world
basket cases, owing to substandard, bureaucratically-dispensed charity for
their survival.
 
>In a sense, by trying these experiments, and transmitting what we learn
>back to the race, are we not more than fulfilling our planetary
>obligations, even if we appear to be acting selfishly?
 
   Maybe.  But let's toss the experimentation and the results thereof as
far and as wide as possible, so we can sleep at nights without hearing the
howl of hungry people outside our walls.
 
>(Then we start about a half dozen different community efforts, some very
>cheaply, simply, with the unplanned approach, and some more slowly,
>expensively, and planned out. And see what happens, communicate, in
>effect start our own little university studying specifically these
>subjects, practically and theoretically.) (Hmmmmm--- Formalizing this
>University, incorporating it, giving it the power to give out degrees
>might be something important pretty soon. Hey, the Biosphereians did
>it-- we should be at least as clever, though ideally much more
>forthright and scientificically sound.)
 
   True.  If a group as flaky as they can do it, so can we!
   Tell me some more about this University idea, by the way.  You're
imagining the business of one of these ht/p communities being education?
That I find highly exciting!  (If you need an English prof a few years
down the line...)
 
>>   Yes.  I thoroughly agree.  I hope there's a technological compromise
>>that can be made between high-tech luxury and low-tech drudgery.  We don't
>>want a repeat of the Brook Farm experience, for instance.  Nathaniel
>>Hawthorne's letters sketch out the end of *that* experiment: he couldn't
>>write or read or think anymore, because he was too busy shoveling shit.
>
>I think I would describe my goal as a high-tech simplicity-- I want the
>greatest luxury of all, life close to nature and wildness. (But many
>people can't handle the bugs and the isolation....) I'd also like access
>to good medicine, and access to the information stream, for I am an
>artist, scientist, writer and researcher as well as a mystic and a man
>who loves women in his life and community in his heart. I want to have
>the ability to extract from, and add to, the flowing stream of words and
>ideas that may be humankinds greatest acheivement.
 
   It's up in the top 10, anyway.  That's a nice vision, Bill.
 
>Avoiding a fuedal peasants lifestyle of 16 hour work days is an
>absolutely essential business for me-- I won't let myself become
>involved with a community effort that Is headed in that direction.
>
>(I'll take this oppurtunity to suggest that the communities that are
>most eager for self-sufficiency are going to be the communities where
>the physical work is the gardest and most primitive.)
 
   Really depends on who and how.  Remember, there are also degrees and
ways of self-sufficiency.  Food and energy, as far as I can see, are the
simplest; after that, it's tough.  People may make compromises in the
short term, with some of their needs fulfilled in their own community and
some not.
 
>In other words, we can try to work inside the system or outside the
>system. Both efforts will be needed, on a planetary scale.
 
   My comments exactly.
 
>I am 100 % certain, for myself, that trying to wake people up is not
>only going to provoke indifference, but active hostility. Let history
>wake them, as we are being wakened. Maybe we are a type of vanguard,
>explorer scouts for the species....?
 
   I prefer to think of my comrades as fellow alienated freaks of nature.
To avoid the Ubermensch delusion, and put it in perspective.  "Life moves
in clades."
 
   Things to do now.  But I got more where this came from.  Courage, all!
 
 
   --Jesse.
 

 prev message 
 next message