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  • From: dhondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] [OT] My Vision of the Future (now!)
  • Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 22:24:36 +0100

After I sent my mail out to the list yesterday I was thinking I had missed some interesting points. Nature is not that red in tooth and claw. Apex predators take just what they need even if they could kill a lot more than that. Animals in one species seem to have exactly the same morals as us humans. They avoid killing one another and even help one another. And there is serious cooperation between different species on many occasions.
The thing with apex predators is that they restrict their offspring numbers by slow breeding.

Except for mankind. We are a cancer of an apex predator on the planet. Toby from this list explained it very well in a video about the history of mankind. As soon as agriculture came into play we sacrificed ecosystems for our agriculture and through agriculture we convert low grade food into ever more of us.

http://www.nextworldtv.com/page/5680.html

I think this gives a few very essential ideas for the future. Of course it would be good if we could restrict our birth rate. I am not very hopeful that this will happen in a time that the pendulum is swinging back against the female half of our species and every sperm is held to be sacred again and every microscopic spec of snot (fertilized egg cell) is looked upon as a valuable living human.
Of course it is lethal to allow resources to be ever more concentrated in the hands of ever fewer human beings. But that is unavoidable with a capitalist system that works like a monopoly game. Once one player has everything the game is over and in reality all ends a lot sooner than that. At the moment some 50 families own 75 % of the planet and the system is cracking. Even the pope preached about this the other day.

I have been feeling our society has been in free fall for a good while now. Falling does not hurt. Only impacting on the bottom of the abyss does. And the only way to survive that is to start with permaculture and self sufficient communities yesterday.
The crash is coming, nothing more sure than that and it takes a good while to get a system set up that is shock resistant. We can only hope that will be enough.
John

On 04/08/16 15:23, Michael Elvin wrote:
I get your point, John-- and it's an important one. Nature is red in tooth
and claw-- but it's necessary. Otherwise we have no way of weeding out the
weak, and making the world a comfortable place for the strong. In time we
would be crowded out by weaklings and misfits, who should not be taking up
space better used by the winners in life.
This is a perfect justification-- when transferred to the social plane-- for
fascism. How much better for the world if the true winners (the most heavily
armed and organized among us) were to crush the losers once and for all. Then
liberty and justice could reign for all time. America-- that being the nation
that's the current contender for global overlord-- would inherit the planet.
And tell everyone how to live.
It's a very deep question. I think it would be equally correct, in the Darwinian sense,
if all those "little people" were to organize and rise up against the big
ones, neutralizing their power to destroy and command. But either way, we're talking
global catastrophe-- the war of all against all, in a heavily armed world. It would be
nice (although just a pipe dream) if we were able to reason with one another
rationally, and create a society where all the controllers, the intolerant and the
demagogues, could agree to coexist with all the live-and-let-live people. But I doubt
there are debating skills that would cause that just world to come to fruition. Even in
a democracy, the system is subject to being gamed by the most devious among us.
Meanwhile we're living in a world somewhat like the one where all the top
predators have died off. The wolves we have are unable to keep up with
population increase, so no matter how many terrorists the authorities bomb,
or how many citizens the terrorists blow up, every year there are more and
more elk. And all these elks tend to be increasingly poorly fed, as they eat
down the rest of the forest. The endgame is starvation for all, as the
planet's resources get used up and the remaining wolves control a greater and
greater share of it.
That scenario makes real solutions easier to see. More acceptance of the need
for birth control, and greater redistribution of concentrated wealth. Those
would be my own starting priorities. John, you have good ideas about all
this. What do you think?
And the rest of you on the list... does this conversation belong in a
permaculture discussion forum? It has little to do with farming-- although in
a broad sense I think it addresses preserving the planet in a nourishing and
productive state. But please, it's your list and I'm just a newbie. Tell me
if I'm being out of line.

On Wednesday, August 3, 2016 5:32 PM, dhondt <dhondt@eircom.net> wrote:

It is not as simple as the big ones eat the small ones in nature
Michael. The big predators are necessary for the health of ecosystems.
Take out the apex predators and often you see everything collapsing with
some of the smaller ones that were kept in check now exploding and
pushing out several entire species. In other words, making the whole a
lot poorer.
Nature is not simply amoral. It strives for maximal biomass and that
means maximal diversity. And that means lots of eating and getting eaten.

Then some new species like our own comes along with one new trick that
nature had never seen : long distance weapons. At first spear throwers
and bow and arrow and shortly afterwards rockets and rifles that can
kill from more than a mile distance. And bing a new species that not yet
fits in to nature we are causing the sixth extinction and maybe the
destruction of the world.

Our ideas of justice or injustice only cover our own species up to a
point and when there were very few of us that made survival sense. Now
it is lethal.
And no, I do not know what to do about this except think about it.
John

On 03/08/16 14:12, Michael Elvin wrote:
I don't like to put a kink in the consensus, but this seems to be a common view:
""Figure out a better solution," says the mind, forgetting that there are no
problems in the natural world and thereby making conflict."
That's only true if you posit that the natural world has no morality. Because in
reality, everyone eats everybody else. The big ones eat the little ones, always
have. The thing that's different about people, they have ideas about things like
justice & injustice... and these ideas upset the natural amorality.
Hope I'm not being too out of line.

On Tuesday, August 2, 2016 12:56 AM, Vaidila Satvika
<vaidila@gmail.com> wrote:

Well said, Scott! I'm happy for you and the direction you are guiding.

There is no such thing as "understanding" consciousness because that's all
beyond the little mind's capacity. Conceptualization and thinking on this
level are part of the chatter that miss the deeper understanding of love
that you're pointing to. On the level of thought we can seek and we will
never find. The mind's reaction to this email is to judge these statements
as pointless: "Figure out a better solution," says the mind, forgetting
that there are no problems in the natural world and thereby making
conflict. Our culture--Me and You--are too materialistic because we give
too much of ourselves to thought--the most prevalent form dominating every
human being. The natural world doesn't think--it's in harmony with itself.
In this sense the natural world operates as a perfect invisible structure.
(Title for your upcoming book?)

And this all points to the direction that you seem to imply: inward focus
for a more harmonious external reality. (But on a deeper level it's all
internal to and not separate from you/me because there is only one
connected life in constant play.)

Thank you!

P.S. The only sane vision of the future is now. Future only exists as a
thought, based on the premise that tomorrow is better than today, leading
to a perpetual craving that has led to the dysfunctional human state. And
the mind cannot exit that problem, which is the most essential problem,
because it itself is the barrier. And that realization is healing.



On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 1:42 PM, <scott@permaculture.org> wrote:

I personally think that a separate group for this would attract little
attention and soon die. To this mix is a good solution, in spite of some
pleople signing off ever now and then. -- Georg Parlow

Therein lies the problem, Georg. I have been teaching permaculture for
the past 30+ years and for half of that time I have been insisting on the
importance of invisible structures. Mollison taught that visible
structures were those that showed us "what" to do and invisible structures
taught us "how" to do it. Without the how too we are just an encyclopedia
of techniques and methods of dealing with the material world. Once we dig
deep into the invisible structures we find we are able to dance around the
legal, financial, and social structures that are the primary impediments to
realizing our dreams.

I also include permaculture ethics in the invisible structures though they
are mostly poorly taught in the Permaculture Design Course by many teachers
who are not engaged in the ethics themselves. Care of the Earth, Care of
People and Return all excess yield to the Care of the Earth and People
sounds simple enough but if one truly applies ones thoughts to deeply
understanding these three ethics it leads us deeper into the realm of the
unknown. I, personally, think that "Care" should be replaced with the word
"Love" to get the deeper significance of these ethics.

I have been living on a yoga ashram for the past year seeking a deeper
understanding of the invisible and have been humbled by my ignorance of the
necessity to understand consciousness. Physicists, philosophers,
theologians, and gurus of all stripes have sought to understand
consciousness and the deep appeal of materialism for hundreds of years but
few have actually reached that pinnacle of understanding. After a year of
sitting on a zafu in meditation twice a day, 7 days a week find myself no
closer to understanding anything except that I know that there is an answer
and that meditation, prayer, contemplation, and altered states are all
methods that are directed at self realization. It is a difficult process
to overcome the incessant chatter of the mind whose primary purpose in life
is to keep us tethered to the material plane.

We no longer have the Wisdom Schools of the past to provide us with direct
knowledge of this process. We have become so embedded in the materialistic
plane that we all are narcissists to a greater or lesser degree. We
currently have a candidate for president of the USA who is the ultimate
narcissist, while the other candidate is a narcissist in denial. Our
hunger for stuff/things has led to the destruction of our biosphere and to
wars to steal the stuff from other cultures and places. We are engaged in
the final spasms of destroying ourselves and the planet to feed an
insatiable appetite for something to fill the void in our existence. As
permaculture designers it is incumbent upon us to find our way back to the
garden.

When I haven't been meditating I have been trying to write a book titled
"Dharma of Permaculture". Dharma being the law of the cosmos as it is
reflected in us. This was what the ten commandments were attempting, and
the beatitudes of Jesus Christ was trying to articulate. Buddha, Lao Tsu,
Mohammed, Yogis, and other avatars throughout the ages have sought to
articulate humans role in creation and have offered rules of behavior to
guide us to that understanding.

I believe that permaculture ethics are an outline of how humans should
survive and that the "natural principals" show us the dharma of the natural
world around us. It has been through permaculture that I have slowly come
to realize that I am here to caretake or husband this incredible creation
that we no longer recognize the beauty and stunning intelligence of.

I would love for other to join me in seeking better solutions to life than
the ones we currently worship.
-------Original Message-------
From: Linda Ray <lindaray@att.net>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] [OT] My Vision of the Future
Sent: Jul 31 '16 18:21

I'm with Georg on this.JMHO.

Namaste,
Linda :-)


From: Georg Parlow <g.parlow@gmx.at>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2016 11:49 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] [OT] My Vision of the Future

Lawrence,

>>> someone can create a Google Group PISS (permaculture invisible
systems
>> and
>>> structures)
>>
>> ROTFLOL
>>
> ...
> …
> You might disagree with me Georg.

please do not get me wrong - sorry when I was unclear here. I
personally feel that a discussion of invisible structures is a highly
impoertant part of why I am on this international list. Nut’n’bolts info is
valuable, and I think none of us can ever have too much of that, but I feel
that for the visible structures there are plenty of good solutions around,
locally and beyond. Even 50% of what I know about them right now and my
design training and experience would be ample enough IF I could and would
apply them unhindered by the current invisible structures in place. So
discussion on HOW we can design and implement WHICH invisible structures is
highly needed.
I think we can also all agree on the notion, that interlocking our
horns on our favoured propaganda-fed belief systems is something we could
do without - BUT in order to grow in our inner freedom from those
influences it might need some of that. It might be helpful in realizing or
discriminating between, what are original thougths and what are
propaganda-driven emotional reactions to distorted perception of reality.
This is tricky business, and I appreciate these discussions.
I interpreted that naming the invisible structures group PISS as a
Freudian sign of you being pissed about said confrontations.
I personally think that a separate group for this would attract little
attention and soon die. To this mix is a good solution, in spite of some
pleople signing off ever now and then.
Georg
(Vienna, Austria, EU)
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