permaculture

[paul wheaton <paul@richsoil.com>]

> Paul, to me it is the ethics that distinguishes permaculture from all the 
> other groovy design methods that humans have used to loot, bomb, torture, 
> and enslave.

Oh man.  Toby, I was so sure you were gonna say things so that this
stuff made sense.

But then you open with this.

I cannot fathom a "groovy design method" that features looting,
bombing, torture and enslavement.

So:  baffled.

> Is a prison with a green roof permaculture? No.

Saywhat?  I mean, I've seen some lame excuses for a green roof, but
.... if somebody has taken a PDC, puts it on a building and says
"permaculture", then ... it is.  It sucks that people can do that, but
that's the way the system is set up.   And I don't get the connection
to what the building is used for.  So are you suggesting that somebody
is putting a green roof on a building, rounding up good people and
locking them in the building.

So, again:  baffled.

>So let's reverse the question: if a hip design with guilds and sheetmulch 
>harms people and the earth, and concentrates wealth, can it be called 
>permaculture? No.

I am trying to wrap my head around "hip design with guilds and
sheetmulch harms people and the earth" --- like the sheetmulch goes on
top of the people and the suffocate?

"and concentrates wealth" so if John Stewart tries permaculture, that
would be a bad thing?

I am seriously baffled.

>  That's why the ethics matter. It's that simple, and that obvious.

Apparently what is obvious to you is not obvious to me.

> Just as the principles insure that we are designing a whole system, the 
> ethics guide us to design a moral system, something likely to do good and 
> not harm. Without  principles and ethics, it's not permaculture. It's just 
> a bunch of cool techniques, and we use cool techniques to do shitty things 
> all the time when we lack the ethics to guide our actions. Maybe the ethics 
> seem tangential to you because you are an ethical person and naturally 
> follow them. Try violating them and see how well those designs work.

I could really use an example.  Do we have an example where there is a
person that said "look at my permaculture thing!" and it is currently
in violation of the ethics?  I seem to be struggling with even a
plausible fiction.

And I have that podcast I recorded with you where we talk about how
monsanto can believe the three ethics to the core and continue doing
what they are doing.

I think ethics are uber important.  At the same time, I have seen some
horribly unethical behavior done in the name of ethics.  Pretty
awkward.

> I think you are seeing so few examples of the ethics magically correcting 
> wrongs because most of the people attracted to permaculture are ethical. 
> Ethical work is the norm for us; our designs almost never do harm, and if 
> they do we fix it because we are ethical, and if our clients or employers 
> aren't ethical--and I know this--we quit.

Yuppers.  I know of a lot of people that have quit a gig because the
people on the other end were icky.

> So from this highly skewed sample, you can't conclude that the ethics don't 
> matter.

I didn't know I was concluding that.  I'm pretty sure I am not
concluding that.  I'm really sure I'm not concluding that.

I think ethics are important.  And I think (and I need to point out
that I am allowed to have thoughts) that the three permaculture ethics
are doing the movement more harm than good.

If nothing else, right now we are talking about the ethics instead of
talking about which woods are good in hugelkultur and why.

>  If I pay crap wages to the workers on my sexy "permaculture" farm, I am 
> not using permaculture.

I know of some sexy permaculture farms that are a huge draw to people
that pay to work on them (rather than the normal "get paid").
Everybody seems very happy.  And they call it permaculture.  And I am
now baffled at how it is not permaculture.

> I could do a great design for Monsanto, and reduce their energy footprint, 
> have them develop new GMO strains

Gah!

See, the idea of any of us doing that is abhorent to me.  At the same
time, I could see Monsanto create new gmo stuff and say it was created
with the three ethics and they would actually believe it.

Granted, we could line up the top 100 permaculture experts that would
tell them no, it violates the ethics, but if they took a pdc ....
plus, there is room for them to come up with an interpretation for the
three ethics to justify their actions in their own minds.

So icky.

I wish the three ethics were something that when people spoke them,
the path was clear.  But they are so vague that folks seem to find
them mighty handy weapons:  "I declares the the three ethics on you -
so you must now do as I say or suffer from ethics violation
shame-a-roo!"

I remember deleting a post off of permies that would give people a
link to a pirated copy of GG - they complained that I clearly did not
understand the third ethic, how dare I refer to myself as a permie.

I think there have been damn near a dozen instances that people have
done something like that:  used the third ethic to justify their
unethical behavior.  Yet I have yet to see a case where things were
icky, but somebody came along and uttered the three ethics and then
things were right as rain.

If I ever decide to teach a full PDC, I will have to have a different
instructor come in and teach the ethics - because I would feel
powerfully compelled to respect the spirit of the PDC that the ethics
must be taught; while at the same time I don't want to teach something
that I have seen only used as a weapon against ethical folk.

I wish that talking about the three ethics would help us all feel
uplifted.  But every time I seem to get to talking about it, I find it
mighty depressing.

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