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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Why is permaculture more about selling books, DVDs and training courses?

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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Why is permaculture more about selling books, DVDs and training courses?
  • Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:34:19 -0400

Suraj Kumar wrote:
I get the feeling that the permaculture movement has morphed into a
market place to sell books, DVDs and training courses related to
permaculture than a platform for sharing techniques and allowing
humans to live closer to nature in a simpler way. Many a material I
find on the internet are incomplete and keep referring to "Stuff to
Buy" or "Courses to Take". Just search for permaculture on youtube and
that's what you find. Any site claiming to be a "permaculture" site
talks about doing a course.

Or am I mistaken? I'd love to be corrected if I'm mistaken.


I remember some noble soul here who had setup permaculture.info - that
is great! WTG! But, why do the 'experts' end up locking themselves
into seclusion and not share their knowledge?

Very good question, one that has been asked many times in the past. One
answer given: they need to retain
a certain amount of proprietary material, their own knowledgebases, their
information resources collected over
the years to use to earn a living through teaching appointments, workshops
PDC training courses they offer.
If they gave it all away noone would need to pay for coursework, consultation
and workshops they offered.

Personally, I have always thought that more in-depth sharing of information
and resources through mailing lists
and wikis such as permaculture.info would stimulate business rather than reduce it. Course they could always say "we're not geting paid to share this material so why do it". Because it stimulates business opportunities that would result in greater income for them and add to their personal knowledgebase.











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