permaculture

["Robert Waldrop" <bwaldrop@cox.net>]

My first comment about this is why do you assume 
there will be a breakdown in "law, order, and 
civility"?  I'm guessing this is in response to 
"peak oil catastrophism", but the future is not 
determined and fixed as being "Mad Max 
Thunderdome".  The future is created, one decision 
at a time, by myriads of people over long periods 
of time. I know there are any number of people in 
the peak oil movement who are predicting the 
imminent arrival of a war of all against all, but 
I tend to think that says more about how they see 
themselves and other human beings than it does 
about what the future will really be like.

I think peak oil is a hazard, but the situation is 
much more complex than Kunstler and other 
doom-mongers make it out to be.  I am the 
moderator and listowner of 
runningonempty2@yahoogroups.com , which has nearly 
7,000 members, and has been discussing peak oil 
since 2001.  I have read every one of the 35,000+ 
messages in our archives on the subject, and I am 
not at all persuaded that the Lord Humungous is 
waiting in the wings to rush in and murder my 
pacifist self and steal my organic peaches.  I do 
not own any guns, and don't expect to own any 
guns.

I don't pretend to know how we are going to muddle 
our way through this, because I don't think it is 
the kind of thing that anybody can either predict 
or even design (in terms of the society as a 
whole).  I think individuals and small groups can 
design interesting and useful descent patterns 
that can be replicated elsewhere, and this can 
have an impact on our political arrangements.  It 
could go synergy or dysergy, and all that we can 
do right now is work as hard as we came to make 
the future intensification of energies be in a 
positive way.

I think there are some who are positively looking 
forward to the catastrophic deaths of five billion 
human beings, but I don't think that those people 
have really thought through the implications of 
the violent death of 80% of the human race, not 
only for human beings, but for all of the other 
creatures and living beings we share this planet 
with.  It would be much easier on them if we can 
manage to avoid a catastrophic die-off of the 
human species.

I believe firmly in self fulfilling prophecies, 
those are the best kind.  I am trying to make sure 
that the self fulfilling prophecies I am 
"self-fulfilling" are positive and full of life 
and beauty and wisdom and goodness and hope.  The 
endless preaching of catastrophic and violent doom 
is also a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I think we 
should beware of self-fulfilling those kinds of 
prophecies.

Bob Waldrop, OKC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>
To: "permaculture" 
<permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 1:04 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Culture vs. Mother


> I haven't been studying Permaculture very long, 
> so such discussions raise a question to my mind: 
> Will the probable breakdown of law, order, & 
> civility allow any of us to peacefully practice 
> what we believe?
>
> E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
> www.hillcountrynatives.biz