permaculture

[Jocelyn Paquette & Bob Ewing <sixdegrees@baynet.net>]

greetings, there is no such thing as a free lunch, everything has a 
cost, an exchange, In our society. the exchange  is money,  yes there 
are other options, LETS, or trade/barter, but try paying your mortgage 
or rent or the doctor/dentist with beans or bunny rabbits.  Permaculture 
can provide the transitional strategies and design methodologies that 
create a society where the role of money "may' be significantly 
lessened. After all if you can grow your own food and own your own home 
because you built it and kept the cost low and have your own energy 
system, then you have little need for money.

Permaculture design is right livelihood and a designer has a right to be 
compensated for their skills and work.
Also not everyone needs to be a certified designer. If you just want to 
apply the ethics and the principles to you own life, read a book, surf 
the net, experiment, talk with people, get out there and do.

another thought, the real currency we use and waste is energy not the 
paper money we exchange for goods and services.

Bob Ewing






Toby Hemenway wrote:

> On 9/10/04 4:50 AM, "neotern-1@yahoo.com" <neotern-1@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>  
>
> > I agree that one should not loose money passing the
> > information (costs must be shared by everyone), but
> > can't see why one should gain money either in this
> > way.
> >    
>
> How can you pass information without there being some cost? And why is it so
> bad if some of that cost is money, or if the information passer decides they
> would like to be paid in money? If the "passer" sets too high a price, no
> one will buy, and they'll learn to be reasonable. If they're just
> photocopying easily available work, they can't charge much, although even
> the work involved in copying and posting on a web site is worth something,
> yes? It's not free.
>
> Stewart Brand says he regrets ever having said "information wants to be
> free," since it's become the justification for piracy and theft. Basic
> physics (information theory) says information is not free: there is an
> energetic cost for assembling a coherent message, a cost for preserving it
> from corruption, plus transmission and equipment costs. Cost decline with
> more users, but they never go away.
>
> To put that in human terms: Writing and posting an article on my web site,
> even if I'm just rehashing someone else's ideas, takes my time and energy,
> the cost of my years of experience, plus a bit of cash to my web host, some
> of my computer's cost, ISP, phone co., etc. So it's not free. I do it
> because I want the information to be out there, but also because I hope
> someone might notice my book or go to one of my workshops, which in turn
> will give me the cash to pay my mortgage so I can then write more articles
> in my home office. I could, I realize, live further down the food
> chain--live in a squat and do my writing at the library, etc, but who's
> funding the library? Why should the other taxpayers support me? I'd rather
> live in a way that allows me to see and pay for as much of the true cost of
> my own lifestyle, rather than sucking resources out others as though they
> owed me; they don't. A resource is like right-of-way: it is offered, not
> forced out of someone. That would be called theft, yes?
>
> If someone wants to Xerox part of my book, it's illegal but it's fine with
> me. I want the info out there (but please credit me; that's how you can pay
> me back). If someone can't afford the book, go ahead and Xerox the whole
> thing (though if you are stealing your employer's photocopier, where are the
> ethics in that?). But if wholesale piracy meant that I didn't receive much
> compensation for the 6 months of research, year of writing, months of
> editing and design, and weeks of book tours, I would never write another
> book again--I couldn't afford to. So there'd be a lot less information out
> there if too many people regarded it as "free," meaning they just take it
> without offering a quid pro quo. Most creators can't afford to create
> without some sort of return. (Copyright law was enacted to give creators a
> monopoly on their work so they would be rewarded and go on creating; read
> the legal decisions.)
>
> Why would anyone ever think they don't need to pay for something they
> receive? What entitles them to freeload? Where is the possible logic or
> social justice in "I think X should be free"? Will someone explain that one
> to me?
>
> Alternative rant: Miekel referred to "yuppies from the city" taking those
> expensive design courses. Let's watch our prejudices here. Yuppies don't
> take design courses; I don't see them there. Farmers, students, non-profit
> staff, hippies, new college grads--they take design courses, getting money
> from parents, loans, jobs, wherever. I've had maybe 3 yuppies in my hundreds
> of students, and they all wanted out of yuppiedom (real yuppies take $2500
> shamanism workshops, if I may let my own prejudices show).
>
> I'm grateful to all the many contributors to this thread who have shown how
> many different ways there are to learn permaculture. My one addition is that
> it's best if you learn or practice it with other people--it's not "culture"
> if it cannot stand up to social interaction. Otherwise it's just sandcastle
> building.
>
> Toby
> www.patternliteracy.com
>
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