permaculture

["Scott Pittman" <scott@permaculture.org>]

Surely you can see, Paul that you have created a perfect example of your
proof!  You are talking about two totally different things design without
ethics and with ethics and they are going to be very different.

I recently encountered a Permaculture University in Latin America which had
no one involved who had studied Permaculture but they were teaching
Permaculture.  How does one ethically teach what they don't know? The short
answer is they don't!, leave out the "ethically" and it then becomes a
matter of good marketing strategy.  As it turns out that is exactly what it
was a scam to sell real estate to people drawn to the "word" Permaculture.

Is it ethical to use professional video productions to show how beautifully
Permaculture works in order to build ones reputation for consulting work and
design jobs even if the video and voice over are in large part fantasy?
Some would argue that if it gets big jobs out in the world then its fair
game.  I argue that any projects built out of integrity are equivalent to
the feet of clay story.

I wish that you had more examples of the "bad guys" being good and the "good
guys" being bad.  It is a powerful use of rhetoric but in my experience has
little base in reality.  

There are loads of examples of disastrous design failures and while most can
be marked up to inexperience, or a case of the alligator mouth and the coon
dog ass, it is still unethical to present yourself as knowledgeable when you
aren't.  Adding ethics after the fact just doesn't make it a good design or
"right as rain".

As for the billions "laying around" being just fine as long as you didn't do
any damage getting it, I guess I will take that as you being ironic - surely
you're not serious!?

  

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. 
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." 
~Arundhati Roy


-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of paul wheaton
Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2012 2:01 PM
To: permaculture
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Toward Financial Permaculture: New Farms in
theOldSystem

Yesterday we recorded a podcast review of Geoff Lawton's Introduction
to Permaculture DVD.  In the beginning was a bit about the ethics.
And I had to wonder:  where are there examples of people doing
permaculture, but because of the lack of ethics, things didn't turn
out.  Things were bad.   The person is still calling it permaculture,
but it is now awful due to the lack of ethics.

So then that situation can have "care of the earth; care of the
people; return of surplus to the first two" and everything becomes
right as rain.

I have yet to fathom even one realistic scenario.

I do see people using the three ethics (and mostly, twisted
variations) as a weapon to get other people to comply with ...
whatever.  But in those scenarios, my impression has been that the bad
guys are the ones screaming the ethics, while the decent folks are
being screamed at.

Granted, there are bad guys out there doing bad things.  And most of
the worst have never ever heard of permaculture.  And I feel like a
bit of ethics could help the situation.   But I doubt I will ever get
a chance to talk about ethics with them.

As for billionaires:  I guess I'm in a weird position where it doesn't
bother me that somebody has a billion dollars lying around.  What
bothers me is if a person got a billion dollars through unethical
behavior.   I usually think of John Stewart.  I doubt he has a billion
dollars - but he is far closer to a billion dollars than I am.  I
don't see him as a bad person.  I see that he did a cool thing and got
a lot of money for it.

I suppose there are many schools of thought around the permaculture
ethics.  And around the billionaires thing.   I suppose it is possible
that I am even the only person that is keen on permaculture that feels
this way on these two topics.  I am grateful for the opportunity to
express my position.
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