permaculture

[Thilo Pfennig <vinci@linda.alternativ.net>]

John Schinnerer <John-Schinnerer@data-dimensions.com> writes:

> I am critical of the assumption that putting something on the net makes it
> available "worldwide," which may be true in terms of counting countries or
> even bioregions where at least one person out of millions can access it but
> not in terms of "most" people worldwide having access.  TV seems the most
> far-reaching media at present (and it does not require literacy...).

You missed the point. I did not mean the direct accessability of
households to any information sent by a medium. I ment the
accessability of my or your information to theoretically
everybody. And access to information does not mean that the one who
gets the info in the end is sitting on the computer. It is enough if
anybody in the village or nearby has access to the internet gives
this information in his own words. I often tell friends or relatives
what I read on the internet (as well as what I saw on TV,...) if it is
interesting. The bandwidth of information with TV depends on the
program-structure of the TV-station. The bandwidth on the internet
depends on what the user is searching for. So if he is a local
ecologist, he can search for helpful infortmation, without the need
that one of the TV-station will send it while he is watching (very
unlikely). So internet can very easily be conducted to a given social
structure if there is just ONE contact, who uses the internet. Did you
never searched the internet for anybody else? This is indirect
internet-usage !

I am not saying that the internet itself is a solution or that
everybody uses it more opr less directly, but there are many
opportunities and the _possible_ content is unlimited (everything that
is on the net).



> >There were many cultures who had that oral element. Many of those oral
> >cultures lost there information, because of the changes of the modern
> >world. If nobody who is living can give his knowledge to others, the
> >kownledge gets lost.
> 
> Everything changes, everything gets lost and "rediscovered" (like what we
> currently call "permaculture," for example...).  I am simply pointing out

I am not so sure. I think many things got lost and will never be
rediscovered. Also many plants and seeds got lost forever. Ans
"permaculture" is not an oral culture, but the try to save oral
knowledge on books and other media (and than re-teach it orally). Some
permaculturist may have got there information directly from natives,
but this are surely very view.

> Hawaiians and numerous other peoples are still transmitting parts of their
> oral culture, and reviving and reinventing other parts, despite centuries of
> concerted efforts to destroy all traces of it.  Had they entrusted it all to
> computers (if such had been available then), it would have been easily
> erased beyond recovery, whether intentionally or accidentally.

If I look on black culture in america it seems to me that that the
spirit got lost on the most part. Or look at China an Japan - there
still exists some buddhist or taoist oral culture. But many things got
lost. Tibetan buddhist are heavily trying to preserve their oral
culture by printing books. They used oral culture for thousands of
years. And this culture also told them that knowledge would get
lost. This is the reason why they send their teachers to the western
world. It is naive to beliebe that every bit of knowledge can be
preserved in our times and that nothing will get lost. Many things
will need thousands of years to get rediscovered (if ever).



 
> Robust systems of knowledge storage and transmission, like robust ecological
> systems, gain robustness from diversity. 

It doen´t help them if some woodworkes kill all the trees. I mean:
ecological robustness is one thing - surviving against modern
culture/technology another...




> So what I am really suggesting is
> that since our cultural bias seems to be towards a very few fragile
> electronic and printed media, often very centralized (consider that fire at
> Alexandria... ;-), it may be wise to revive and *incorporate* (literally,
> embody) other, more robust and decentralized ways of storing and
> transmitting essential knowledge.


What is robust? 



> It's also a lot more fun to learn a variety of things by direct experience
> in collaboration with other human beings, as far as I'm concerned!

Other humans are ALLWAYS involved within culture. The directness is a
quality.

-- 
Thilo Pfennig 
<http://Alternativ.Net/homes/vinci/>