How will laws be changed just by the existence of self-sufficient people?
Heath Matlock
changed just by the existence of self-sufficient people? making
whatever you want, whenever you want isn't reality. this is not even
close to reality, as in, MOST of the world finds this idea laughable.
who the hell makes airplanes in this system?" This happened to me
recently, and I'm curious what others might have said...
--
Heath Matlock
+1 256 274 4225
Edward Miller
scarcity of basic necessities is done away with via a Basic Income or
Open Source production, the fact is that we would simply not need all
sorts of laws that are meant to deal with scarcity. The incentive
structures would make people inherently less frenetic about creating
artificial scarcities, and more people could focus simply on doing
what they love and collaborating in a nonzero way with other like-
minded individuals. To the delight of libertarians, there would be
virtually no philosophical justification for people to push for price
controls, farm subsidies, and many sorts of financial regulations. To
the delight of the left, there would be no need to participate in
capitalism at all.
Who would produce planes? Whoever wants to produce planes. I have no
doubt that a capitalist system (and/or socialist system) would exist
alongside an open source post-scarcity society for all those goods
which are not currently being produced in an open source fashion. The
big difference is that participating in that capitalist system would
be on a purely voluntary basis, since the necessities of life would
have become free, and if your investments don't turn out well you
wouldn't have any reason to ask for a bailout that could possibly seem
legitimate to anyone.
For things like land, there are certain things we can do to keep it
from becoming too scarce. Since 75 percent of arable land is used to
feed or raise domesticated animals, In Vitro Meat would free up much
of that. We can live more densely and build skyscrapers. We can work
to contain our population levels. We can outsource most of our lives
to virtual reality to reduce our demand for physical space. We can
move to the sea, Antarctica, the Moon, or space. Yet, the fact of the
matter is, we aren't making more land, and not all land is equally
desirable. Thus, some sort of scarcity-based distribution system has
to manage it, be it capitalism or socialism.
Other things like breathable air or carbon atoms might be technically
finite, but each unit is roughly equally desirable, and there is more
than we could ever hope to use. So there is no need for a distribution
mechanism. RepRap's long term goal is to be able to use PLA feedstock
that can be fermented locally from any waste biomass you can find.
That isn't exactly a scarce commodity. Nanotech will likely allow us
to use versatile and abundant carbon atoms for all sorts of purposes,
from graphene electronics to buckyballs to nanomachines to nanotubes
to carbon fiber.
Plants, on the other hand, aren't even theoretically scarce since they
are self-replicating and work in a mutualistic fashion with other
organisms (animals). We should be able to construct ecologies, edible
landscapes, decentralized in vitro food vats, vertical farms,
permaculture systems, or some other technology to make food with such
abundance that going hungry becomes unheard of. Even in our current
system, people like Jeffrey Sachs have commented on how trivial of a
fraction of the world's resources it would take to eliminate extreme
poverty, though certainly ecological sustainability issues would
become even more intensified.
We have more than enough energy, matter, land, and sunlight to power
an advanced civilization of many times our size. All we need is more
digitally-enabled cooperation and less scarcity-based dogma.
John Griessen
self-sufficient people? making
> whatever you want, whenever you want isn't reality.
it already is to some....
this is not even
> close to reality, as in, MOST of the world finds this idea laughable.
> who the hell makes airplanes in this system?" This happened to me
> recently, and I'm curious what others might have said...
I know a man near Lockhart that makes his own planes. I sold him
a Danly four post die set for hydraulically forming aluminum ribs
over wood forms with urethane blanket to transfer press force compliantly
so the forms can be one-sided, single or several use and quick-to-make.
He grows/sells pecans by owning land bought from savings in a research support career
tied to U of H (Houston) after he bailed from Houston-style rat racing.
So some of the laws are adaptable enough already for the strong of heart.
The laws work best for land owners. I think it's some leftover unchanged
land owner protections from colonial plantation days that help a lot. The
laws requiring difficult-laborious-bookkeeping-and-benefits to employ
others will probably stay in place even when mostly robots are "employed".
The main "new" laws needed are simply re-emphasizing the individual
rights laws that have been eroding lately.
John
CubeSpawn
necessities, and this were true for a significant portion of the
populace, would you still keep paying taxes? or would you agitate to
pay less? will a local level barter economy take root, if the day job
is self directed? How receptive is government going to be to reduced
revenue, how will they compensate? I don't think this revolution will
be totally without conflict, though the battles might be in
court....or not, hard to predict....
On Jan 3, 3:09 am, Heath Matlock <heathmatl...@gmail.com> wrote:
Heath Matlock
> An interesting point is, if you were self sufficient in basic
> necessities, and this were true for a significant portion of the
> populace, would you still keep paying taxes? or would you agitate to
> pay less?
So this is something my friend hit on, and it's where he started to
dislike the theory: taxes. Roads, plumbers, engineers, and scientists.
He didn't think real work could be accomplished in hackerspaces, I
disagree, there's very little limiting community labs/hackerspaces
from doing real work. And the best thought I could come up with the
rest is either a robot does it (wasn't concrete/in the now enough for
him) or the the community uses a form of metacurrency to exchange
wealth.
> I don't think this revolution will
> be totally without conflict, though the battles might be in
> court....or not, hard to predict....
Certainly agree with this.
CubeSpawn
than detailing my own views - worth a read - not the end all viewpoint
on the matter, but interesting...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear
I recommend the book over this synopsis, since its a richer discussion
of some practical and hypothetical aspects of the issues...
On Jan 3, 11:55 pm, Heath Matlock <heathmatl...@gmail.com> wrote:
wulfdesign
and if not.
being self sufficient
gather people around you with a like mind,
strike out on your own
(either on the ocean, or in space)
and form your own 'set of laws'
Personally I think we need better examples (and more options) in the
world.
possibly the best being self-sufficient (or mostly so) island nations.
with an overall set of world human right laws (following UN
guidelines?)
and each have their own set of self formed local laws.
some may do do better than others,
but there would be more diversity and evolution in systems.
especially if people could come and go as they pleased
vote with your feet. currently it's hard to do that in our world.
Kevin Carson
> You could just say that many laws would be made obsolete. Whether
> scarcity of basic necessities is done away with via a Basic Income or
> Open Source production, the fact is that we would simply not need all
> sorts of laws that are meant to deal with scarcity.
I think the causality in most cases is just the reverse: the laws are
used to *create* artificial scarcity and *prevent* self-sufficiency by
imposing artificial fixed costs and overhead on small producers and
increasing the size of the revenue stream required to service that
overhead.
My hope is that technological change is not only rapidly decreasing
the capital outlays and overhead required for production, but making
legal mandates of artificial scarcity unenforceable.
The more physically dispersed open design communities become, the
smaller their customer bases, and the smaller the production
facilities, the less cost-effective it will be to enforce industrial
patents on them and prevent things like reverse-engineering of
proprietary designs, production of modular components and generic
spare parts for proprietary platforms, etc.
As you suggest, it need not be an all-or-nothing transition.
Technologies for self-sufficiency will gradually reduce the fixed
costs of subsistence and the amount of outside work needed to service
them, and reduce the portion of the population engaged in full-time
wage labor. A lot of things will still have to be purchased in the
money economy with money obtained through wage labor, but many more
people will be able to live off their own resources for longer periods
of time and work sporadically on their own terms.
There's probably not going to be a low-capital chip fabber anytime
soon, for example, so even if most of a new computer can be built in a
microfactory the microprocessor will have to be bought on the money
economy. That means people will occasionally have to do a stint of
work for "real" money to be able to pay the portions of a new
computer's cost that come from outside the local barter economy. But
when you own your shelter free and clear, and get most of your staple
food and many basic services by bartering your labor with neighbors,
you can ride out a pretty long period without wages if you have to.
That increases the bargaining power of labor enormously, renders a
great deal of the propertied classes' idle capital and land useless,
and drives the rate of rent and profit down to the basement.
That's the situation colonial theorist E.G. Wakefield lamented in the
early 19th century, in surveying the labor markets of America and
Australia. When sufficient land for comfortable subsistence is freely
available, he wrote, most wage employers are unable to compete with
the possibility of subsistence farming. Employers weren't able to get
as much help as they needed, to impose workweeks to their liking on
what help they did have, or to earn an acceptable rate of profit with
the wages they demanded. Same thing in Britain before the Enclosures,
when it was possible for a poor laborer to subsist on the common and
only take wage work when he felt like it and needed some extra income.
The propertied classes agitated for Enclosure, arguing that the only
way to get sufficient work out of the laboring classes at a profitable
wage was to give them no alternative but starvation.
--
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
Paul D. Fernhout
> That's the situation colonial theorist E.G. Wakefield lamented in the
> early 19th century, in surveying the labor markets of America and
> Australia. When sufficient land for comfortable subsistence is freely
> available, he wrote, most wage employers are unable to compete with
> the possibility of subsistence farming. Employers weren't able to get
> as much help as they needed, to impose workweeks to their liking on
> what help they did have, or to earn an acceptable rate of profit with
> the wages they demanded. Same thing in Britain before the Enclosures,
> when it was possible for a poor laborer to subsist on the common and
> only take wage work when he felt like it and needed some extra income.
> The propertied classes agitated for Enclosure, arguing that the only
> way to get sufficient work out of the laboring classes at a profitable
> wage was to give them no alternative but starvation.
This is a great thread exploring many interesting themes.
On this one, the land and the nature on it is truly the original and still
essential "means of production" for human life support. Well, or the oceans.
Or the (someday) space habitats. :-) We don't need most technology to be
happy, but we all need clean water, clean air, some organic food, some
sunlight, some shelter to keep warm and dry and otherwise safe, some
community, some shared music and arts, and some related education for skills
appropriate for that setting. All the rest is optional (even if some
specific technology may improve some individual lifespans some in some
specific instances).
The big problem is the 20th century (and before) ideology of scarcity that
continues to drive economics. A post just a few minutes ago by me on that:
"Re: We need a basic income to fund arts, not copyright"
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1496284&cid=30653574
"Well, are you lazy because you are leaching off of 5000 years (and more) of
innovations made by our ancestors? Do you reinvent the science and
technology from scratch when you want a new computer? At what point after
all that hard work by so many will we be able to stop working so much? ..."
--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
Paul D. Fernhout
> I tout this book as a better discussion/presentation on the matter
> than detailing my own views - worth a read - not the end all viewpoint
> on the matter, but interesting...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear
> I recommend the book over this synopsis, since its a richer discussion
> of some practical and hypothetical aspects of the issues...
Yeah, I second that! And third it! :-)
And here is a related earlier work also by James P. Hogan available online
that shows a world of advance technology in a space habitat (and related
issues they need to deal with about AI):
"The Two Faces of Tomorrow"
http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/0671878484/0671878484.htm
One chapter with a great (very inspiring to me as a teenager) example of a
self-repairing manufacturing system and the larger social (and symbiotic)
implications of such ideas, from around 1979:
http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/0671878484/0671878484.htm
"""
He cast an eye around the group to invite suggestions and began moving
slowly toward the end of the lab, where a demonstration of some kind seemed
to have been set up. On a bench was a stripped-down electronics mounting box
which contained a battery of standard honeycomb blocks�the high-density
receptacles used universally for holding the scores and often hundreds of
molecular-circuit cartridges that were interconnected to form computers and
practically every other kind of complex system. A second bench about ten
feet to the right carried a smaller assembly of honeycombs held in a metal
frame and coupled to an elaborate mechanism of shafts, cylinders, linkages
and motors. Three sections of Janus-style wall module stood edge to edge to
provide a backdrop for the display, presumably affording a connection
between its two parts via Datastrip.
"Well, if you found you couldn't control the net, you'd have to start
isolating sections of it until it lost integrity," a short, balding,
pink-faced man offered in reply to Hayes's question. His name was Eric
Jassic. He was one of Schroder's CIM scientists from Washington, a
specialist in communications techniques who had made significant
contributions to ultra-high-frequency optical multiplexers.
"Why screw around?" Ron demanded. "Just go to where the goddam processors
are and unplug 'em there."
"Very well," Hayes agreed in a pleasant voice. "Let's try." A few heads
exchanged quizzical looks as the group formed a loose gaggle between the two
benches. Hayes tapped a rapid command into the touchboard of a flatscreen
panel hanging on an arm at one end of the left-side bench. At once the
mechanism on the other bench came to life, with a flurry of whines, clunks
and hisses. After watching it for a few seconds they realized that it was
nothing more than an automatic component-forming machine, the kind used in
thousands of manufacturing plants around the world. An injection moulder
ejected cast blanks at the rate of one every couple of seconds, which then
passed through a series of cutting and drilling operations, eventually
finding their way through to a spring-loaded magazine in which the finished
parts were being stacked. The magazine would normally convey them onward to
the next stage of whatever assembly process they were intended for.
"It doesn't really matter what those widgets are," Hayes commented
cheerfully. "But if you want to know, they're part of the end-bearing for a
room-temperature superconducting clutch. You're all probably familiar with
this kind of machine, at least in principle." He indicated the right-hand
bench with a vague gesture of his arm. Most of them were. It was just one
example of many types of general-purpose machining robots in widespread use.
Such machines were general-purpose in the sense that they were programmable
and could produce a virtually unlimited variety of parts depending on the
commands loaded into them. They were descended from the specialized machine
tools that had been used for many years in mass-production plants, but were
far more versatile. Presumably the small honeycomb next to the machine was
the local computer that stored and interpreted the programs.
"The large computer here on the bench is the remote supervisor," Hayes
informed them, tapping his fingers against the larger honeycomb. "It's
coupled into the machine's own processor in the usual way, except that to
make things a little more authentic we've used Datastrip � la Janus. The
supervisor downline loads the programs of what's wanted and the local
processor does the rest. Also, the supervisor performs remote diagnostics
via the link to make sure that all's going well at the other end. Okay?"
Nobody had any queries or comments. Everything that Hayes had described was
standard practice. They waited, curious to see what would come next. The
machine clunked and whirred, churning out its widgets with obvious contentment.
"If the machine packed up, the normal thing to do would be to get a
diagnosis from the supervisor and send someone to fix it," Hayes continued.
"At least, if it happened today it would. But that takes time and people
would rather be doing more interesting things, so probably in years to come
we wouldn't bother. What we'll probably have is something like we're putting
into Janus today." His eyes twinkled as he looked from face to face around
him, as if he were enjoying some joke and were waiting for them to see it.
He was evidently amused, but at the same time he seemed to be waiting for a
response to some implied challenge that he hadn't voiced. "Well?" he asked
after a while. He caught Dyer's eye for an instant and winked almost
imperceptibly. Dyer had seen this demonstration about a week earlier. He
didn't want to spoil Fred's fun, so said nothing.
"Aw, quit the fooling around, Fred," Ron exclaimed at last. "What the
hell are you waiting for us to say? Okay, we're making widgets. So what?"
Hayes couldn't contain a smile any longer.
"You're not supposed to say anything," he replied. "You're supposed to
stop it."
"Stop what?" Ron looked confused.
"The machine," Hayes said. "See if you can stop it making widgets. In
other words put a fault into it. That's the game." Dyer grinned to himself
as he saw a crimson tide of exasperation boiling up out of Ron's collar.
Chris was standing next to him, frowning thoughtfully and looking from Hayes
to the machine and back again.
"""
From an Amazon review by T. D. Welsh:
http://www.amazon.com/Two-Faces-Tomorrow-James-Hogan/dp/0671878484
"""
Jim Hogan is one of the most underrated SF writers that I know of, although
I suspect that many people have read and enjoyed his books. His vision of
tomorrow's technology and where it might take us is second to none, making
some famous authors like Arthur Clarke and Isaac Asimov seem foolishly
optimistic in some of their predictions. One reason for this is that Hogan
is a qualified engineer with very wide knowledge of the computer industry,
which he extrapolates very convincingly. (I think more SF writers fail in
their expectations of future computing than in almost any other department -
Heinlein, for instance, has recognizably 1950-1970 computers in many of his
stories set centuries in the future). Some of Hogan's other books contain
similar ideas - notably "Code of the Lifemaker" - and several of his later
novels deal with virtual reality.
The core idea of "Two Faces of Tomorrow" is one of the fundamental
dilemmas facing humanity today and in the coming years. Namely, if a
computer system is not more intelligent than we are, it cannot (in
principle) achieve anything we can't. But, if it is more intelligent than we
are, how can we trust its recommendations? Let alone its actions if we equip
it to control machinery directly? In this book, a team of scientists, with
military backup, are charged with running a full-scale experiment to find
out whether an executive AI could resist all efforts to shut it down, and if
so how. The outcome is very surprising, in both positive and negative ways.
As other reviewers have noted, Hogan does not put much effort into
characterization, preferring to linger over engineering details. That's a
stylistic choice, however, and a writer cannot do everything in the scope of
a normal-length novel. This book should definitely be on your reading list
if you're an SF devotee, and I think that all politicians and
decision-makers should be aware of its core ideas. One day we are going to
have to do something similar, although it may not be quite as dramatic as
Hogan's story.
"""
It's funny how he tosses away so much of what we are working on with a
couple sentences. :-) This part: "It was just one example of many types of
general-purpose machining robots in widespread use. Such machines were
general-purpose in the sense that they were programmable and could produce a
virtually unlimited variety of parts depending on the commands loaded into
them. They were descended from the specialized machine tools that had been
used for many years in mass-production plants, but were far more versatile."
But we might have something different. Look at the first video here of
Kawada Industries' NEXTAGE robots, with three humanoid-like robots working
together to do a manufacturing task that involves one of them using a
hand-held carving tool:
http://singularityhub.com/2009/12/22/a-review-of-the-best-robots-of-2009/
I can think that for my how, having a couple of those NEXTAGE's around a
work table would be nice for picking up and sorting LEGO, as well as doing
open manufacturing tasks with cutting tools or deposition tools (subtractive
and additive 3D printing). Of course, specialized cubes by CubeSpawn might
be nice too. :-) So, there are at least five different related (and
overlapping) paths to flexible manufacturing:
* humanoid robots using manipulator-held tools
* An ecosystem of Cubespawn cubes
* Dedicated flexible manufacturing machines doing machinging
* generalized 3D printing
* Humans following instructions from the web using hand tools and less
flexible machines.
But, I agree that laws are going to be changed in relation to all this
eventually. And it is a very insightful question to ask (thanks, Heath).
--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
Paul D. Fernhout
> I can think that for my how, having a couple of those NEXTAGE's around a
> work table would be nice for picking up and sorting LEGO, as well as doing
> open manufacturing tasks with cutting tools or deposition tools (subtractive
> and additive 3D printing). Of course, specialized cubes by CubeSpawn might
> be nice too. :-) So, there are at least five different related (and
> overlapping) paths to flexible manufacturing:
> * humanoid robots using manipulator-held tools
> * An ecosystem of Cubespawn cubes
> * Dedicated flexible manufacturing machines doing machinging
> * generalized 3D printing
> * Humans following instructions from the web using hand tools and less
> flexible machines.
>
> But, I agree that laws are going to be changed in relation to all this
> eventually. And it is a very insightful question to ask (thanks, Heath).
Oops, left off DIY-Bio as a sixth path forward, sorry Bryan and so on. And
that's likely to be a whole different set of related laws because it could
in theory impact human health so directly (good and bad).
--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
P.M.Lawrence
wrote:
I believe it's subtler than that, and consequently harder to cure.
While laws and similar artificial interventions certainly pushed in
that direction (and still do), I suspect that many of the effects then
became locked in, which means that simply stopping them might not be
enough to undo the harm, at any rate on a time scale short of
generational; in a sense, it is now "natural", a continuing effect of
past distortion. For instance, I doubt if I could learn to operate a
vegetable garden at my age since I wasn't brought up knowing how, and
I couldn't find an allotment anyway since suitable land isn't
available in areas that were built on without setting allotments
aside.
The situation may be more open in the parts of the world where you and
many of your readers live.
.
.
.
But
> when you own your shelter free and clear, and get most of your staple
> food and many basic services by bartering your labor with neighbors,
> you can ride out a pretty long period without wages if you have to.
> That increases the bargaining power of labor enormously, renders a
> great deal of the propertied classes' idle capital and land useless,
> and drives the rate of rent and profit down to the basement.
>
> That's the situation colonial theorist E.G. Wakefield lamented in the
> early 19th century, in surveying the labor markets of America and
> Australia. When sufficient land for comfortable subsistence is freely
> available, he wrote, most wage employers are unable to compete with
> the possibility of subsistence farming. Employers weren't able to get
> as much help as they needed, to impose workweeks to their liking on
> what help they did have, or to earn an acceptable rate of profit with
> the wages they demanded.
That's doing Edward Gibbon Wakefield an injustice. His thinking went
further than that. It wasn't so much that employers couldn't get
employees then, it was that the economy would remain locked into a low
level, extensive pattern. What he had in mind as normal was the more
sophisticated pattern he was used to, and he deliberately wanted
temporary artificial intervention of the sort I covered above as a way
of kick starting that so it would become the normal with what he saw
as advantages to everybody flowing from that pattern. We can see that
he wasn't after rent seeking from what he did with the captured rents
in South Australia where his ideas were adopted and land was only
released to buyers at a (temporarily high and artificial) premium: the
funds that yielded were used to build roads, bridges and railways
owned by and returning revenue to the colony, instead of letting those
be built and maintained by private efforts or funded from taxes in
what was then the usual way. (Unfortunately, colonial ownership and
operation turned out to be inefficient enough that the retained gains
were lost fairly quickly and weren't enduring after all.)
Same thing in Britain before the Enclosures,
> when it was possible for a poor laborer to subsist on the common and
> only take wage work when he felt like it and needed some extra income.
Actually, it wasn't "possible for a poor laborer [sic] to subsist on
the common", rather it was possible for commoners' rights to provide
an adequate top up to what people could get from land they owned or
leased - or to what they could get from occasional outside work paid
in cash or in kind (enough of which was available for the smaller
number needing it then, and on better terms, of course). Commoners'
rights tipped the balance.
> The propertied classes agitated for Enclosure, arguing that the only
> way to get sufficient work out of the laboring classes at a profitable
> wage was to give them no alternative but starvation.
That's true enough, of the later phases of the Enclosures, though you
should distinguish those people who wanted cheap labour, the
commercial and industrial sort, from the landed interest who wanted to
increase the cash returns of their rent rolls by downsizing and
consolidating the tenant base rather than wanting to get cheap labour
as such. However, the earlier (Tudor) phases of the Enclosures were
driven by the same thing as the Highland Clearances and Irish
evictions: a more profitable use for the land than using it to support
people, raising animals which gave products marketable for cash.
P.M.Lawrence.
Eric Hunting
As people approach self-sufficiency in progressively smaller and flatter social networks laws won't change. They will just begin becoming irrelevant, in the way that the Internet has made copyright laws largely irrelevant and unenforcible for certain kinds of casual copying activity or the way increasing automobile use made those silly old laws that still sit on some state books about preventing cars from scaring horses irrelevant. Consider patents. The patent is intended as a means for protecting the inventor's option to profit on his invention. It's designed to prevent companies from profiting on his technology without his consent and without sharing that profit with him. (of course, in practice, the patent system tends to work the exact opposite, with patent offices functioning largely as a smorgasbord for corporate patent theft... but that's a another story) It can't pre-emptively prevent people from using a technology because the government isn't about to spy on every engineer in the world to make sure everything they do doesn't infringe on someone else's patents. That's just not possible. The law only preserves the inventor's right to sue if a company starts selling something and he thinks he's being infringed upon -which is only as useful as you have money to pay for lawyers. Already, patents only matter for the corporate upper-class. They're utterly worthless for the poor solitary inventor, who would actually protect his rights far better by formally declaring his inventions public domain, making IP ownership impossible for anyone. As people increasingly make things for themselves the concept of the patent starts to become irrelevant because the commercial value of intellectual property goes away when production is no longer for the purpose of profit. In other words, as long as you're not selling what you make, patents don't mean anything. If you use someone else's technology to make something for yourself, you're not profiting on its sale. It might be annoying to the inventor, but the patent rights aren't infringed. He might try to sue you out of spite anyway, but he can't sue everyone everywhere. And it's really impossible for the government to become IP police and spy on everyone everywhere to determine whether or not everything they think or do is kosher. Take profit out of the equation and the concept of intellectual 'property' starts to dissolve.
Eric Hunting
erich...@gmail.com
> How will laws be changed just by the existence of self-sufficient people?
> Heath Matlock <heathm...@gmail.com> Jan 03 03:09AM -0600 ^
Kevin Carson
> I believe it's subtler than that, and consequently harder to cure.
> While laws and similar artificial interventions certainly pushed in
> that direction (and still do), I suspect that many of the effects then
> became locked in, which means that simply stopping them might not be
> enough to undo the harm, at any rate on a time scale short of
> generational; in a sense, it is now "natural", a continuing effect of
> past distortion. For instance, I doubt if I could learn to operate a
> vegetable garden at my age since I wasn't brought up knowing how, and
> I couldn't find an allotment anyway since suitable land isn't
> available in areas that were built on without setting allotments
> aside.
>
> The situation may be more open in the parts of the world where you and
> many of your readers live.
I don't doubt that the learning curve will be significant, but I
suspect it won't be quite generational. The takeoff in victory garden
output in WWII was pretty rapid. In any case, there's considerable
underutilized capacity of people who already have some knowledge of
gardening, who either gardened in the past and don't now, or who have
relatively miniscule plots. The economic incentives of rising
supermarket prices and underemployment will likely be sufficient to
bring this capacity back into play, as people who know how to garden
but don't decide it would be a good idea to get back to it, or people
with tiny gardens decide to see how much of their store-bought produce
they can replace.
I also expect a pretty rapid growth curve in micromanufacturing as
underemployed people look for ways to barter their skills in the
informal economy, and as corporate distribution chains are disrupted.
> That's doing Edward Gibbon Wakefield an injustice. His thinking went
> further than that. It wasn't so much that employers couldn't get
> employees then, it was that the economy would remain locked into a low
> level, extensive pattern. What he had in mind as normal was the more
> sophisticated pattern he was used to, and he deliberately wanted
> temporary artificial intervention of the sort I covered above as a way
> of kick starting that so it would become the normal with what he saw
> as advantages to everybody flowing from that pattern. We can see that
> he wasn't after rent seeking from what he did with the captured rents
> in South Australia where his ideas were adopted and land was only
> released to buyers at a (temporarily high and artificial) premium: the
> funds that yielded were used to build roads, bridges and railways
> owned by and returning revenue to the colony, instead of letting those
> be built and maintained by private efforts or funded from taxes in
> what was then the usual way. (Unfortunately, colonial ownership and
> operation turned out to be inefficient enough that the retained gains
> were lost fairly quickly and weren't enduring after all.)
Thanks for the clarification. I'm inclined to believe Wakefield was
overly pessimistic about alternative paths to industrialization. The
problem is that the world had not experienced a society in which not
only the majority of people had free access to vacant land and
self-employment, but all legal barriers to self-organized money and
credit were removed--all in an environment that included the technical
knowledge of Wakefield's day. A society of producer-owners who kept
their full product for themselves, and with free diffusion of
knowledge and no barriers to organization, would likely have pursued
technological development out of the producer-owners' own felt need to
make their work easier and improve their lives.
> That's true enough, of the later phases of the Enclosures, though you
> should distinguish those people who wanted cheap labour, the
> commercial and industrial sort, from the landed interest who wanted to
> increase the cash returns of their rent rolls by downsizing and
> consolidating the tenant base rather than wanting to get cheap labour
> as such. However, the earlier (Tudor) phases of the Enclosures were
> driven by the same thing as the Highland Clearances and Irish
> evictions: a more profitable use for the land than using it to support
> people, raising animals which gave products marketable for cash.
True. The prerequisites of a capitalist wage-labor market were
already a long way toward having been established by the earlier
enclosures of open fields and nullification of traditional rights like
copyhold tenure.
But in the late 18th century there was a class of capitalist employers
who clearly saw the benefits of continuing the process for their own
interests as employers.
Eugen Leitl
> I don't doubt that the learning curve will be significant, but I
> suspect it won't be quite generational. The takeoff in victory garden
> output in WWII was pretty rapid. In any case, there's considerable
The problem is land ownership, plot proximity to owners' residence,
and availability of irrigation. In a collapse scenario you'll also
have to consider outages in municipal water supplies and looting
of the produce.
It seems you'll need some land redistribution and possible resettling.
This won't happen politically unless you're in a deep crisis mode.
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
SallyMorem
scarcities. Imagine a society based on nanobot replicator tech. A
society in which any individual or family could "grow" anything they
wanted in their own "nanotech vats." A society in which billions of
recipes for growing what you want are freely available for download on
the Internet.
Such a society would be radically decentralized. No corporations,
very little in the way of regulations, shipping, jobs, money, banks,
or any other institution we normally attribute to modern economic
systems. I foresee a time (probably a delayed reaction to already
commencing decentralization) when all government levels will have to
repeal massive numbers of then outmoded laws and regulations in order
to keep a modicum of the people's respect.
One set of laws will have to remain, and be strictly enforced: No
tampering with the underlying nanotech programming. No gray goo
scenarios allowed. :O
Think of it as libertarianism achieved through technology, instead of
through political action.
John Griessen
> One set of laws will have to remain, and be strictly enforced: No
> tampering with the underlying nanotech programming.
No tampering? Where's the fun in that?
No gray goo
> scenarios allowed. :O
The Blob.
JG
Kevin Carson
> The problem is land ownership, plot proximity to owners' residence,
> and availability of irrigation. In a collapse scenario you'll also
> have to consider outages in municipal water supplies and looting
> of the produce.
>
> It seems you'll need some land redistribution and possible resettling.
> This won't happen politically unless you're in a deep crisis mode.
My hope is that as the economic crisis progresses, as real estate
values plummet and foreclosures and evictions increase, and as large
tracts of commercial real estate and residential construction projects
are just abandoned because they're not worth the cost of upkeep, local
law enforcement will adopt a realistic attitude toward enforcing
property titles.
P.M.Lawrence
<free.market.anticapital...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/5/10, P.M.Lawrence <pml540...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I believe it's subtler than that, and consequently harder to cure.
> > While laws and similar artificial interventions certainly pushed in
> > that direction (and still do), I suspect that many of the effects then
> > became locked in, which means that simply stopping them might not be
> > enough to undo the harm, at any rate on a time scale short of
> > generational; in a sense, it is now "natural", a continuing effect of
> > past distortion. For instance, I doubt if I could learn to operate a
> > vegetable garden at my age since I wasn't brought up knowing how, and
> > I couldn't find an allotment anyway since suitable land isn't
> > available in areas that were built on without setting allotments
> > aside.
>
> > The situation may be more open in the parts of the world where you and
> > many of your readers live.
>
> I don't doubt that the learning curve will be significant, but I
> suspect it won't be quite generational.
But my own remaining life expectancy is materially less than a
generation - certainly my remaining potentially productive years are
shorter than that - and the situation would be similar for quite a
large group no matter when a transition occurred, unless it were on a
generational scale.
The takeoff in victory garden
> output in WWII was pretty rapid. In any case, there's considerable
> underutilized capacity of people who already have some knowledge of
> gardening, who either gardened in the past and don't now, or who have
> relatively miniscule plots. The economic incentives of rising
> supermarket prices and underemployment will likely be sufficient to
> bring this capacity back into play, as people who know how to garden
> but don't decide it would be a good idea to get back to it, or people
> with tiny gardens decide to see how much of their store-bought produce
> they can replace.
This is missing my point, that past land use patterns have led many
dwelling areas to be impractically remote from potential growing
areas. There is a path dependency at work. Either dwellings would have
to be torn down or new ones built, or some combination. And see my
other reply.
>
> I also expect a pretty rapid growth curve in micromanufacturing as
> underemployed people look for ways to barter their skills in the
> informal economy, and as corporate distribution chains are disrupted.
That would only avoid the problem if it ended up supporting - at the
end of the trade chain - the same land use patterns as now, which
implies agribusiness. P.M.Lawrence.
P.M.Lawrence
<free.market.anticapital...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/15/10, Eugen Leitl <eu...@leitl.org> wrote:
>
> > The problem is land ownership, plot proximity to owners' residence,
> > and availability of irrigation. In a collapse scenario you'll also
> > have to consider outages in municipal water supplies and looting
> > of the produce.
>
> > It seems you'll need some land redistribution and possible resettling.
> > This won't happen politically unless you're in a deep crisis mode.
>
> My hope is that as the economic crisis progresses, as real estate
> values plummet and foreclosures and evictions increase, and as large
> tracts of commercial real estate and residential construction projects
> are just abandoned because they're not worth the cost of upkeep, local
> law enforcement will adopt a realistic attitude toward enforcing
> property titles.
It's not the ownership issue, it's the pattern of use. Just as it was
impractical to rebuild London on a seriously new city plan after the
Great Fire of London in 1666, because surviving buildings and streets
dictated the locations conveniently available for rebuilding, past
developments have put residences close together in many areas without
nearby space that could be used for farming. A major shift would need
major capital work, tearing down residences and building new ones in
different places. And see my other reply. P.M.Lawrence.
Sam Kronick
Here's something happening today: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/us/01braddock.html and http://www.15104.cc/ .
Hunched on the eastern edge of the Monongahela River only a few miles from bustling Pittsburgh, Braddock is a mix of boarded-up storefronts, houses in advanced stages of collapse and vacant lots.
The state has classified it a “distressed municipality” — bankrupt, more or less — since the Reagan administration. The tax base is gone. So are most of the residents. The population, about 18,000 after World War II, has declined to less than 3,000. Many of those who remain are unemployed. Real estate prices fell 50 percent in the last year.
“Everyone in the country is asking, ‘Where’s the bottom?’ ” said the mayor, John Fetterman. “I think we’ve found it.”
Mr. Fetterman is trying to make an asset out of his town’s lack of assets, calling it “a laboratory for solutions to all these maladies starting to knock on the door of every community.” One of his first acts after being elected mayor in 2005 was to set up, at his own expense, a Web site to publicize Braddock — if you can call pictures of buildings destroyed by neglect and vandals a form of promotion.
He has encouraged the development of urban farms on empty lots, which employ area youths and feed the community. He started a nonprofit organization to save a handful of properties.
This is as close as you'll get to an open invitation by a government to experiment with some of these ideas in the real world. What could be done in the next week/month/year/decade?
And I have to say, despite the optimism of this list about new fabrication technologies, I think most of the legwork that needs to be done towards any of these dreams is social in nature. People in a place like Braddock aren't likely to spontaneously adopt a set of "post-scarcity" ideals just because you give them new tools. An outsider like their mayor had to tattoo the town's zip code on his arm before he was accepted in their minds as anything but an opportunistic passerby. In short, the idea that anything will change "just by the existence" of some new device or tool seems to me a fallacy of technological determinism.
That said, while what's happening in Braddock has nothing to do with self-sufficient manufacturing as of now, how could a community fablab/hackerspace affect a place like this in the short term? Who's willing to get moving on such a venture?
~kronick
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John Griessen
An outsider
> like their mayor had to tattoo the town's zip code on his arm before he
> was accepted in their minds as anything but an opportunistic passerby.
> In short, the idea that anything will change "just by the existence" of
> some new device or tool seems to me a fallacy of technological determinism.
>
> That said, while what's happening in Braddock has nothing to do with
> self-sufficient manufacturing as of now, how could a community
> fablab/hackerspace affect a place like this in the short term? Who's
> willing to get moving on such a venture?
Not me, not in Braddock. The article depicts closed minded attitudes that have been
there in the northeast since I lived there as a child in the 60's.
If they're vandalizing things it's an uphill battle. I function
much better at Texas latitudes and think the outlook for co-ops
and barter even in affluent cities like Austin are good.
why move to Braddock just to avail empty buildings?
Taylor TX near Austin has some cheap buildings. Lots of other small Texas towns too...
I'm going to be looking for a cheap lot right in Austin -- there are some that were
sliced off by road widenings that can't effectively be redeveloped, so
owner built and repaired is all the offer and are cheap.
John
PS How close to the Amish land is Braddock? Amish land is going up. There's beauty
in PA, I just don't see why anyone would go in where there's vandalism.
Paul D. Fernhout
> You all sure like to argue about the speculative future a lot.
>
> Here's something happening today:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/us/01braddock.html and
> http://www.15104.cc/ .
> This is as close as you'll get to an open invitation by a government to
> experiment with some of these ideas in the real world. What could be done
> in the next week/month/year/decade?
>
> And I have to say, despite the optimism of this list about new fabrication
> technologies, I think most of the legwork that needs to be done towards any
> of these dreams is social in nature. People in a place like Braddock aren't
> likely to spontaneously adopt a set of "post-scarcity" ideals just because
> you give them new tools. An outsider like their mayor had to tattoo the
> town's zip code on his arm before he was accepted in their minds as anything
> but an opportunistic passerby. In short, the idea that anything will change
> "just by the existence" of some new device or tool seems to me a fallacy of
> technological determinism.
>
> That said, while what's happening in Braddock has nothing to do with
> self-sufficient manufacturing as of now, how could a community
> fablab/hackerspace affect a place like this in the short term? Who's willing
> to get moving on such a venture?
Sam-
I agree with you in that situation the social issues are probably most
important. Here is a letter I just sent to the mayor and two people working
with him.
However, technology and society are in some sense multiplicative, as I
outlined here:
"Getting to 100 social-technical points (was Re: a Change)"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/a7abadb8867dae79?hl=en
I suggest you multiply social points times technical points to get to 100.
So, 1 * 100, or 5 * 20, or 10 * 10. If social points are near zero, even
with 100 technology points, you still get zero. Jane Jacobs writes a lot
about the importance of social connections in cities as well as the rest of
society; her last book was this (not a prediction, but a warning):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Age_Ahead
In some ways, Braddock is the worst place to start because it has such a
scarcity of active community and a scarcity of intact useful buildings
(because of all the neglect). Much of a post-scarcity future is about
building on abundance, rather than trying to rebuild from scratch. Jane
Jacobs talks in her books about how hard it is to get a factory running in
the middle of nowhere. Granted, many on the OM list hope to improve on that,
but you'd be right to point out we are not there yet.
With that said, the proximity of Braddock to Pittsburgh is a big asset in
many ways and so is the mayor's commitment, but it is offset by pollution
and crime:
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A28774
Also, there is a lot of cheap housing nearby Pittsburgh, so really cheap or
free housing (given you still have upkeep expenses and utilities) is not a
huge draw to move there, especially if it is offset by the stress of crime
and related costs. As I mention in my letter, there are strategies people
have successfully adopted to get locals to care more about their communities
and regenerate them. After locals succeed in moving a place forward, a place
then becomes more of a draw to others, and you get a positive spiral. While
fictional, "The Man Who Planted Trees" is an inspirational story in that
direction too. But it starts with years of dedicated social efforts.
Anyway, I agree with the theme that social things are important. And so is a
healthy ecology (I wonder about the steel mill pollution left over, for
example, and how polluters got off without remediating things). At least
they don't seem to have any toxic Superfund sites in town:
http://www.eredux.com/people/profile.php?zipcode_submit=15104
Technology by itself is not enough. And, you still need assets to have a
working community. Land is important, as is good relations to the
surrounding government hierarchy that can put a stop to changes, but so is
technology, energy, resources, and for now, even fiat dollars to interface
with the surrounding area. But essential to all of that is "social capital".
Braddock seems to have a very low level of social capital at the moment
(even if it is rising due to the hard work of the current mayor). In some
sense, this OM list and many other lists like it are really about building
social capital as well as intellectual capital. What Braddock would have (or
any other hackerspace) is the potential for face-to-face interactions,
especially around building physical things, which is lacking through the
web. (Virtual worlds are a half-step perhaps.)
One faces the same set of issues thinking about helping Russian Villages. I
wrote on that here:
http://globalvillages.ning.com/profiles/blogs/pictures-of-life-in-a-russian
Another issue is just the ethics of intervening in a way of life coming from
the outside.
Iceland faces some of the same issues as a result of the recent economic
crisis, but, they have a few bigger advantages:
* they are sovereign country and can change their laws (abandon the Berne
convention, create new forms of official currency, create countrywide zoning
law changes, etc.);
* they have a lot of electricity and heat from geothermal resources, and
lots of accessible basalt for agriculture;
* they have an intact culture and social network;
* there is a mix of people there already who want to make things work out.
Example:
http://thjodfundur2009.is/english/
So, for a place like Iceland, a bigger project might be feasible like this:
"Getting Greece and Iceland to be 99% self-sufficient by mass; international
consortium "
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_thread/thread/6336f30458de0648/e009aac004f3ad9d
One of the first problems in a place like Braddock is that the place is no
doubt infested with scarcity memes and competitive memes. The future is
about cooperation; likely in Braddock one will find much of the worst
extreme of neoliberalism (including uncritical acceptance of the US social
order and nationalism and so on).
From a story about the UK being the worst place to grow up as a child in
the industrialized world (the USA in number two from the bottom):
http://web.archive.org/web/20080119001830/http://www.adbusters.org/the_magazine/71/Generation_Fcked_How_Britain_is_Eating_Its_Young.html
"�The reason our children�s lives are the worst among economically advanced
countries is because we are a poor version of the USA,� he said. �So the USA
comes second from bottom and we follow behind. The age of neo-liberalism,
even with the human face that New Labour has given it, cannot stem the tide
of the social recession capitalism creates.�"
People in Braddock may realize something is wrong, but part of what is wrong
is the very basic ideas of competition and waiting for authority to speak
that have been drilled into everyone in the USA through media and schooling
for more than a century. A functioning community may be able to overcome
those somewhat, a dysfunctional community may have a much tougher time and
require massively more social investment. As with the UK comment above,
expensive gated communities in the USA may not have much real community,
"The Culture of Affluence: Psychological Costs of Material Wealth"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950124/
but at least they have a lot of interesting material stuff to help deal with
that loss a bit (ultimately it fails to replace community, but it is at
least something to get good food and soma-style big screen TV entertainment
and have big cars etc. as distractions as we go about "amusing ourselves to
death" as Neil Postman suggested). In a place like Braddock, it sounds like
they have little either of community or stuff (given all the crime and the
abandoned and decaying buildings). But, that is not to say that there is no
community in Braddock, or that what is there could not be kindled to become
stronger and stronger over time. Just like Marty Johnson did in Trenton,
based around the idea of community gardening in that case, with patience and
commitment, in ten or twenty years one can see real change. Ultimately, one
has to choose between a police state with a police officer at every street
corner and passes and so on, with a strict hierachy that may be
dysfunctional in its own way,
"Pittsburgh Riot Police Trap University Students on a Staircase and Deploy
Chemical Weapons"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bopZT_zhwj4
or one needs to have a Jane Jacobs' style many eyes-on-the-street type of
community where people care about the community deeply. One always have
aspects of both, but there is the issue of balance, as well as cycles of
things (too much police-state may destroy community through informants,
until things get so bad, out of desperation people build alternative
networks like happened in the USSR etc.).
Someone has to tell that student who threw something early in that video
there about this:
"Social Movements and Strategic Nonviolence"
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html
Stuff about the evolution of police robots, because in a decade no doubt
riot police robots will be a big thing:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005323.html
This is an irony, since all the technologies that go into riot police robots
could bring abundance to everyone, remove the need for compulsory labor and
compulsory schooling, and remove the cause for many riots.
Anyway, you raise important issues. But I don't find it inconsistent to say
that in communities with an abundance of physical resources and social
capital that a transition to post-scarcity is quite possible and maybe even
*required* for survival, whereas a place like Braddock is going to need
massive resources poured into it from outside to get to that point given it
has already been exploited to the hilt and then discarded by distant
economic actors that parasitized it for their own gain. A big problem is
that to even begin to have that discussion in the USA goes against much that
people have had pounded into their heads for decades about the importance of
rationing, artificial scarcity, and competition as a way of life, even when
they are living the disaster first-hand. The natural human inclination is at
first to think that the problem is there is not enough rationing, artificial
scarcity, and competition, rather than to think those things could be part
of the problem. The same is true for schooling, by the way:
http://www.greenmoneyjournal.com/article.mpl?articleid=195&newsletterid=1
"""
Nevertheless, there is an education revolution going on, and it is long
overdue. It is moving in the diametrically opposite direction of the
"testing" push. The latter comes from the bureaucrats from within that dying
system, who do know there is something wrong. But since they can't think
"out of the box," the only remedy they can come up with is longer hours,
more homework, and "teaching to the test," in other words, more of the same.
The education revolution is coming from people who have created alternative
schools and programs, thousands of them, and from others who have checked
"none of the above" and have decided to home educate.
"""
For places of abundance, I suggest a transition in ideology is likely
required for survival because the power of the technologies of abundance if
used as weapons fighting over perceived scarcities, like using nuclear
missiles to fight over earthly oil field. This is ironic because nuclear
energy could supply electricity for electric cars (I prefer renewables,
personally for various reasons) and rockets could give us access to
resources in space like lunar ore or the asteroids. We've outgrown our nest
in that sense. Braddock could be made an example of a post-scarcity
transformation, but only with at least as much resources put into it that
the rest of the world has sucked out of it, leaving mostly the negative
externalities like pollution and social decay behind. Does Braddock have
seeds of regrowth there? Of course. And I hope they continue to sprout and
grow, same as in Iceland and Russian villages. There are also many Braddocks
around the USA, if one is looking for one -- likely there is one within tens
of miles of anyone on this list who lives in the USA. That is one thing that
is so sad about the current situation, to have so much potential for
abundance everywhere, and so much real abundance of stuff in
I think now I should have included this link to a book by Thomas Moore about
personal self-transformation as part of that "care package": :-)
"Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals"
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Nights-Soul-Finding-Through/dp/1592400671
Thanks for bring this to the attention of the list. It is interesting to
think about.
My last suggestion would be that Braddock do this, but I know it would sound
too crazy: :-)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
"""
New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child
per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the
same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled
child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this
amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is
suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a
win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children,
teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school
administrators :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger
vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and
looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan
incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot
programs to see how it works out. This may seem like an unlikely idea to be
adopted at first, but at least it is a starting point for building a
positive vision of the future for all children in all our communities. Like
straightforward ideas such as Medicare-for-all, this is an easy solution to
state, likely with broad popular support, but it may be a hard thing to get
done politically for all sorts of reasons.
"""
But, seriously, at about 400 students:
http://www.localschooldirectory.com/city-schools/Braddock/PA
I'm guessing the school budget is about US$6,000,000 per year. That is a
nice bit of money that could be redirected to rebuilding the town. The kids
would learn a lot more and get a lot more from participating in such a
rebuilding effort than getting a diploma from Braddock school system IMHO.
So, maybe half goes to the parents so they can stay home and home educate,
and half goes to the town rebuilding effort? (o doubt there are many
dedicated teachers in Braddock, this in not a personal slight on them, just
about the system they are enmeshed in:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
Seriously, within ten years, with that one change, Braddock might be a
wonderful place to live, full of well maintained buildings and educated
people. :-) But see, that's part of the discussion one can't have in the
USA, because of course "school" is the ticket out of Braddock for some lucky
few, even if it is being in reality another parasite on the community and
keeping it from regenerating itself.
--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
====
The biggest challenge of the 21st century is technologies of abundance in
the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.
======
Jeb, John, and Pat-
I saw your effort mentioned here:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/8014b08692f05f8e
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A28774
I helped put together a list of possible solutions various people have
suggested to the current socio-economic crisis here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery
The last paragraph there at the moment: "Dealing with a jobless recovery
presents global society with some difficult choices about values and
identity. A straightforward way to keep the current scarcity-based economic
system going in the face of the "threat" of abundance (and limited demand)
resulting in a related jobless recovery is to use things like endless
low-level war, perpetual schooling, expanded prisons, increased competition,
and excessive bureaucracy to provide any amount of make-work jobs to soak up
the abundance from high-technology (as well as to take any amount of people
off the streets in various ways). That seems to be the main path that the
USA and other countries have been going down so far, perhaps
unintentionally. Alternatively, there are a range of other options to chose
from, whether moving towards a gift economy, a resource-based economy, a
basic income economy, or strong local communitarian economies, and to some
extent, the USA and other countries have also been pursuing these options as
well, but in a less coherent way. Ultimately, the approaches taken to move
beyond a jobless recovery (either by creating jobs or by learning to live
happily without them) involves political choices that will reflect national
and global values, priorities, identities, and aspirations."
Anyway, if you want a hopeful big picture, that is a start.
Some more resources below.
For improving the physical health of those in Braddock (including some
related mental issues like depression and schizophrenia), adequate vitamin D
because most of the USA is deficient and that as causing a lot of physical
and mental health issues:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
For improving the social health:
"Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and
Community in a World Gone Crazy" by Bruce E. Levine"
http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Americas-Depression-Epidemic-Community/dp/1933392711
That book has some examples of communities regenerating themselves. An
implication from there is to get people who already live there to regenerate
their relationships through cooperative projects, rather than bring new
people in.
For a previously somewhat successful model of urban transformation, started
by Marty Johnson (a Princeton alumnus who decided to help out Trenton rather
than go create new towns in remote islands):
http://isles.org/main/
Here are some more links to stuff by me and others if you are trying to
think outside the box of mainstream economics for Braddock's futureh as "a
laboratory for solutions to all these maladies starting to knock on the door
of every community":
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1512608&cid=30785106
All the best with your efforts.
--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
====
The biggest challenge of the 21st century is technologies of abundance in
the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.
Paul D. Fernhout
Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> But, seriously, at about 400 students:
> http://www.localschooldirectory.com/city-schools/Braddock/PA
> I'm guessing the school budget is about US$6,000,000 per year. That is a
> nice bit of money that could be redirected to rebuilding the town. The
> kids would learn a lot more and get a lot more from participating in
> such a rebuilding effort than getting a diploma from Braddock school
> system IMHO. So, maybe half goes to the parents so they can stay home
> and home educate, and half goes to the town rebuilding effort? (o doubt
> there are many dedicated teachers in Braddock, this in not a personal
> slight on them, just about the system they are enmeshed in:
> http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
> Seriously, within ten years, with that one change, Braddock might be a
> wonderful place to live, full of well maintained buildings and educated
> people. :-) But see, that's part of the discussion one can't have in the
> USA, because of course "school" is the ticket out of Braddock for some
> lucky few, even if it is being in reality another parasite on the
> community and keeping it from regenerating itself.
I misplaced a parentheses there; that should have read: "No doubt there are
many dedicated teachers in Braddock, this in not a personal slight on them,
just about the system they are enmeshed in:"
--Paul Fernhout
Paul D. Fernhout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fetterman_%28politician%29
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A62881
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBaYZhlSVQ
While I don't agree that much with those comments on YouTube (I think a
carbon tax is a great idea, for example, with the money being redistributed
to all as a basic income), the comments do bring up a deep issue about jobs
that I've talked about before. Whether for Braddock or elsewhere, overall,
they are not coming back. Braddock may win more jobs, but with overall
limited demand and rising productivity, work as we know it is coming to and
end -- it will be either abundance or endless make-work. So, a focus on,
say, green job creation may actually work well for Braddock for a time,
since we do need more green jobs, but ultimately, we need to move beyond
that somehow, since for every green job created over the next decade, we
probably at the same time will lose others.
This next article really shows the benefits of urban gardening being
realized in Braddock, and suggest they probably must know about the Isles
work already and related things:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08213/900714-34.stm
"Imagine that an area the size of a football field has been planted as a
garden smack in the middle of a town along its main street. Imagine that it
is more than just a garden. It is an organic farm, jammed row after row with
50 raised beds, 12-by-4-feet each, and lush with produce, herbs and flowers.
The skyline behind this farm is dominated by a working steel mill. ... The
farm is well on its way to a dream fulfilled for Braddock Mayor John
Fetterman, too. As he explains, at its peak in the 1950s and '60s, his town
boomed with businesses and 20,000-plus residents. "Today, it is almost a
ghost town with about 2,800. Because many buildings had to be torn down, we
have an abundance of vacant land in the borough and not much use for it. We
also have young people here who need employment. We've taken a situation
that could be considered blight and turned it around. The net result is, we
have job opportunities for our young people, we are transforming vacant land
into attractive green space and we are increasing local access to fresh,
nutritious foods." ..."
And I had not realized John has been at it for almost a decade. It really
seems like, from that last article, his hard work and dedication, along with
that of others in the community, is producing increasingly better results,
same as Marty Johnson's with Isles in Trenton.
Also, I had also not realized how really bad off some of the buildings were:
http://www.15104.cc/ruins
That is probably worse than a lot of town in the USA.
One thing I also see there is one of the downsides to so much private
property ownership when things go wrong. I know in Trenton it was a problem
with people owning buildings on speculation and just letting them run down,
blighting the neighborhood, with the owners basically hoping somebody else
would put in all the hard work to make the property valuable again by
improving the neighborhood. So, some speculators can just make the situation
worse.
Those photos remind me of a little of these abandoned Russian towns,
although Braddock was not abandoned, just massively neglected:
"Dead Towns of Kola"
http://englishrussia.com/?p=2451
"Kadikchan"
http://englishrussia.com/?p=2389
As I've said before, but the USSR and the USA lost the cold war. :-( I've
said my mother during her stay in a nursing home was indirectly one of the
uncounted casualties of the current Iraq war because there was less
resources to care for her due to the war (and government cutbacks to nursing
home care at the same time where the dots were never connected). In that
way, Braddock could be seen as yet another casualty of the Cold War and
diverting spending from domestic needs to military spending. Just the
spending on the nuclear weapons program alone I read somewhere (Brookings?)
was by one calculation enough to tear down and rebuild every house in the
USA -- twice. Let alone half a year's US defense spending is more than we
need to shift entirely to renewables coupled with energy efficiency.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
So, total up the military spending for that zipcode, and there is another
huge parasitical cost on Braddock. According to this site:
http://costofwar.com/
the cost of US wars since 2001 for just Allegheny County, where Braddock is,
is roughly US$3.6 billion dollars. So, Braddock buildings fall apart, and
what does Allegheny have to show for 3.6 billion dollars but, frankly, an
*increase* in the number of people that want to harm the US than when the
wars started? Of course, that is part of the point of war:
"War is a Racket" by by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient
Major General Smedley D. Butler - USMC Retired
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
Anyway, it's really impressive that despite all that neglect and diversion
of funds to school and war that so much has been accomplished by the
Braddock community in the last few years, from reading those articles.
--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
====
The biggest challenge of the 21st century is technologies of abundance in
the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.
P.M.Lawrence
> You all sure like to argue about the speculative future a lot.
I thought I was pointing out some of the harsh realities that are in
the way of that speculative future. P.M.Lawrence.
Sam Kronick
Sam Kronick
"Much of a post-scarcity future is about building on abundance, rather than trying to rebuild from scratch." I think to write off a place like Braddock as merely "scratch" reveals your biases and the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes "abundance." This, in turn, makes me skeptical of how a path to post-scarcity could be egalitarian if it required leaving behind communities we don't understand at face value.
John Griessen wrote:
Not me, not in Braddock. The article depicts closed minded attitudes that have been
there in the northeast since I lived there as a child in the 60's.
If they're vandalizing things it's an uphill battle. I function
much better at Texas latitudes and think the outlook for co-ops
and barter even in affluent cities like Austin are good.
why move to Braddock just to avail empty buildings?
Taylor TX near Austin has some cheap buildings. Lots of other small Texas towns too...
I'm going to be looking for a cheap lot right in Austin -- there are some that were
sliced off by road widenings that can't effectively be redeveloped, so
owner built and repaired is all the offer and are cheap.
John
PS How close to the Amish land is Braddock? Amish land is going up. There's beauty
in PA, I just don't see why anyone would go in where there's vandalism.
Vandalism is, I would argue, a key indicator of abundance or, put more simply, "free time." Vandalism can be an outlet for creativity and intelligence (and I don't just mean artistic graffiti. Some tend to venerate the bourgeois urban explorers with their ropes and headlamps and cameras but not the kids who risk arrest or injury climbing buildings or billboards to throw up a quick tag). I won't argue that you /should/ move there because of this, but try to understand how useless or upsetting your own pasttimes might seem to others. Buying cheap distressed property can lead to what many might call "gentrification," a prospect some find more terrifying to their way of life than broken windows and scribbles on the walls. It's a matter of perspective.
But I will not digress further; I will attempt to sustain my disbelief that this mailing list isn't really just a thin guise for endless theoretical musings on Utopia and return to the subject I originally asked about: what implications could "open manufacturing" have in a small town that is actively seeking out new ideas?
I have not been to Braddock yet (I have a ticket for late March; I'll share what I learn when I return), so I can't argue about specifics, but what I see and hear leads me to believe that it is a small community that would provide (brutally?) honest and immediate feedback to questions like whether or not people will want to make things for themselves given new fabrication tools.
What might the priorities be in a Braddock communal workshop? An army of Repraps? A few old Bridgeports? A safe, sound building that can be used year-round? Community show-and-tell nights to get the whole town interested in what's being built? Connections to the schools? Connections to local manufacturers? Initiatives that would bring in government "green jobs" money? Production of profitable items to bring cash into the community? Production of necessary items for people in the community? A focus on urban gardening, bicycle transportation, alternative energy, building rehabilitation, permaculture, electronics, EV's, biodiesel, art, music, etc etc etc?
I guess I see plenty of options and directions that the tools of "open manufacturing" could bring (though I appreciate those working on creating more/better tools, more options); now I want to know how their application would fare in a place that would provides both clear challenges and opportunities. I think this is what people like the openfarmtech people are doing already, but why not experiment in another situation?
I don't want to attempt or even suggest that what I'm talking about is building Utopia or testing a grand ideology for how I think the world will work in the future. That's setting oneself up for failure. I guess I'm talking about a fun challenge doing something I and I presume many of you enjoy (making things) with a potential for a very positive impact. Honestly, I understand that most of you aren't going to be in the same position as I am - finishing school in a few months and looking for "what's next" - but I'd like to get serious about this if things line up right, and I'd appreciate insight and help from some of you with more experience in certain things than I. That's all.
~kronick
Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
"“The reason our children’s lives are the worst among economically advanced countries is because we are a poor version of the USA,” he said. “So the USA comes second from bottom and we follow behind. The age of neo-liberalism, even with the human face that New Labour has given it, cannot stem the tide of the social recession capitalism creates.”"
Paul D. Fernhout
> Paul, It sounds as though you've made the case for Braddock as the
> prototypical challenge to many of your ideas. If your post-scarcity dreams
> don't have a chance there, I don't know how much hope I have for them in the
> rest of the world.
>
> "Much of a post-scarcity future is about building on abundance, rather than
> trying to rebuild from scratch." I think to write off a place like Braddock
> as merely "scratch" reveals your biases and the inherently subjective nature
> of what constitutes "abundance." This, in turn, makes me skeptical of how a
> path to post-scarcity could be egalitarian if it required leaving behind
> communities we don't understand at face value.
Sam-
Some clarifications and then some suggestions.
I don't see the connection you suggest, although I'll agree "from scratch"
is too strong. I must not have been clear in my points (that abundance
creates its own challenges and builds on itself). I also did point out
successes in Braddock and links to books and organizations that were good at
nurturing the seeds of social renewal. I have said there are the seeds of
abundance even in Braddock, but, like John says, it would take vastly more
effort to nurture them there than many places elsewhere because of lots of
social problems.
As I see it, it is unfair to place all the burden for dealing with the very
worst results of a century of capitalistic exploitation on the backs of
people trying to do something new in open manufacturing, when the people who
got the benefits of that proprietary exploitation won't lift a finger to
help and still continue to exploit what they can (speculation on vacant
properties?). Of course, life is often unfair, but we still have to choose
our struggles in life.
In my own case, why should I personally throw away the social capital I have
where I am now to start over in Braddock just because I can get run down
buildings for cheap rent with the expectation what I do in them will be
vandalized or worse? Even in Braddock, the mayor is facing disagreements
with the head of the city council, so there may well be lots of restrictions
on alternatives related to zoning if you really pushed things (so it is not
the case as you try to paint of the best invitation anyone will get). By
contrast, Texas, for example, has little zoning in most places because of
its history, so that is another reason John is right about places near
Austin being good choices. Not to mention there is a university and a few
people on the list are around Austin. There are also other small countries
like Iceland and so on that might be interesting choices. Smari has pointed
out an old US Air Force base in Iceland that is being rebuilt to showcase
sustainability and other things as part of a university.
Your point, to caricaturize it, is that we on the open manufacturing list
should pick the most terrible war zone in the world right now and move there
to prove some point. I mean, why pick Braddock that has functioning
electrical power when you could help out some people in the mountains of
Iraq? Or maybe try to build a new civilization in Haiti right now in the
midst of the worst earthquake in their history, with people so angry they
are putting piles of corpses to block roads?
"Haiti earthquake: Looters, machete gangs and fights for water as aid STILL
struggles to get through"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1243561/Haiti-earthquake-Furious-survivors-pile-corpses-road-blocks-demand-emergency-aid.html
I mean, why pick an easy place like Braddock when there are so many worse
disaster areas to choose from? And why not add in not speaking the language too?
Well, sure, for someone with lots of resources, maybe they can prove a
point, if they have the resources to overcome all the problems that were
created by disasters as well as exploitive outside actors. But I'm not
trying to prove a point so much as help to make a barely possible thing
happen because I think we need it to happen to survive and it also is just a
really cool thing to do (to have a sustainable abundant etc. society on
Earth with a capacity to build space habitats). Someday open manufacturing
as a movement may have those resources to move seemingly effortlessly into
the areas like Braddock and Russian Villages and help them be what they want
to be. That had been part of my plan here twenty years ago:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/sunrise-sustainable-technology-ventures.html
Certainly the US government has that money -- we could have spend US$30
billion on Braddock instead of a "surge" in Iraq, but the US government
chose not to.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
For another example, there is a bridge near where I live that there is not
enough money to repair and has been reduced to one lane at a time traffic
and is likely soon to be permanently closed (a big problem as half the town
will not have fire and ambulance service), but the county I am in, with a
US$10 million annual road budget, has had the equivalent of a billion
dollars sucked out of it over the past decade for two wars (beyond regular
"defense" spending).
http://costofwar.com/
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
I can't say much for our "defense" priorities when there is a local bridge
my wife won't drive over anymore (30% of the steel is rusted away or
something like that) that could collapse catastrophically at any moment.
Does it really matter if the bridge collapse because a "terrorist" blows it
up or because it fails out of neglect because our own
government-military-school-prison-media complex has terrorized us so much we
hand over all our money to the war machine instead of rebuilding our
bridges? The bridge collapses in either scenario due to terrorism, just
different sorts of terrorism. Should I prefer one set of terrorists to
another when both destroy bridges? :-(
It seems more sensible to me to focus on the easier situations and spread
out from there. I can find unemployed people and empty buildings within a
few miles of my own home without very much trouble. I can walk less than a
mile to an abandoned one room schoolhouse, for example. In a way, where I
live (the Adirondack Park) is what Braddock would look like one hundred
years from now if nothing is done to it (a reversion to wilderness). A
hundred years ago, where I live now had farms and tanneries. But the
tanneries close after they chopped down all the hemlock trees, and the farms
failed after they mined all the topsoil. Now the forest has grown back on
thin wasted soils. So, there is a lot to do wherever we are.
There is also vandalism everywhere if you look for it. There are kids
growing up lost and sick everywhere. There are broken dreams everywhere.
There are disconnected and lonely people everywhere. You don't have to look
very hard to find it, even in the most affluent of homes. The USA was rated
by the UN as the second worst place in the industrialized world to be a
child. Anywhere broadcast TV is on advertising junk and making people feel
bad about themselves or amusing them to death, anywhere violent media is
domininating lives, anywhere compulsory schooling is boring children,
anywhere people are vitamin D deficient and suffering needless health
problems, anywhere people are burning fossil fuels, anywhere people are
depressed due to social craziness, anywhere those things are happening,
there are things to be done. And those things are happening across the USA.
Related link, by the way:
"Dr. John Cannel interview on vitamin D deficiency; mentions the role of the
cosmetics industry in causing it for their own profit"
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/audio/dr-cannell-one-radio-network-interview-11-12-09.mp3
In that sense of blooming where we are planted, meaning no big disrespect to
a big hearted mayor, the part of his actions of trying to attract outsiders
to Braddock are in a way more disrespectful to the people already there then
what I advocate of people doing stuff where they are, or picking somewhere
easy to do new stuff from. For example, why did the mayor not try to help
York, PA, which his father is connected to, which has the one of the highest
crime rates in the USA? (I know, a prophet is without honor in his or her
own country. :-) I understand he wants to bring resources into the
community, and probably has accomplished some of that, but if you build a
great community internally, it tends to attract people fairly naturally. And
I think the mayor of Braddock has done that somewhat, from seeing the news
articles like on the local organic farm and so on, and on his work with
local youth education and recreation programs outside of school, and so on.
If people move to Braddock now, it will be because of his years of hard work
working mostly with the people who were already there. Otherwise, the issue
just becomes rich outsiders moving somewhere and ignoring the people who are
there to get cheap land, which seems *more* the kind of attitude you are
decrying. Really, helping people already in Braddock do open manufacturing
or in other ways build a better life (like the mayor is doing as a labor of
love and caring)
"On Caring" by Milton Mayeroff
http://www.amazon.com/Caring-Milton-Mayeroff/dp/0060920246
is a completely different thing that getting a whole bunch of people to move
to a place and essentially take it over for their own ends. That's what
caused many of the problems in Braddock in the first place, whether in the
last century. Even earlier, if you go way back, there was probably some
Native Americans who lived there and got killed or pushed off for the land.
Anyway, I think it would be great to have a "Rodale Institute" of open
manufacturing (a group based in Pennsylvania). But, rather than Braddock, if
I was footloose and fancy free (I'm not :-), I'd be thinking about moving
near Austin as John recommends, to be near Bryan and fenn and other people
they are interacting with.
There are at least four reasons to move:
* To run away from something;
* To prove some point;
* to help someone specific;
* To move towards an existing community.
I'd say the fourth one is generally the best as far as personal happiness if
you are going to move (although number three is good too). Moving to
Braddock to escape from something or to prove a point seems more likely as
not to cause heartbreak.
As far as open manufacturing goes, there are a few places that could more
naturally serve as such hubs that already have people living there
interested in the topic. Austin is one. Cornell might be another (because of
the Fab@Home project). Boston around the Center for Bits and Atoms might be
another. Durham, NC to be by ShopBot and also How Stuff Works, might be
another. Probably somewhere around Stanford in CA might be another (but much
less affordable than the previous ones). Or in the UK around the people
doing RepRap. So, there are some much more obvious places to have such
communities. Obviously a success in Braddock would be more impressive, but
it would also be much riskier.
Still, for anyone who already lives near Braddock, sure the town could be a
rallying place perhaps. There are already millions of people who live within
twenty miles or so of Braddock (in the Pittsburgh area).
I had once been thinking of going to live around the New Alchemy Institute
in MA about twenty two years ago. About sixteen years ago, I was somewhat
thinking about moving to Trenton, NJ to be around Marty Johnson's Isles,
Inc. and maybe work with them somehow (my wife and I visited him in his
office at one point). But in both cases, it was not to create some place
people would move to so much as to work with the people who were already
there around New Alchemy in Cape Cod or around Isles in Trenton. In the end,
family and job issues trumped that possibilities. (In retrospect, New
Alchemy might have been a great choice if I had understood more about free
and open source stuff then.) In Trenton, you could just feel the tension on
the street then; even while we were just arriving there and parking on the
street a woman came up to our car as a kind of refuge from some guy she
seemed to not know following her. My wife was comfortable in rural areas,
and I was more comfortable in smaller towns. There is only so much anyone
can do; often we can do more than we think, but it is also just foolish to
stretch so far beyond your comfort areas and resources that you break
yourself. There are usually layers of interwoven issues why communities (or
people) are dysfunctional, and it can take a lot of effort to unravel all
that (assuming the people are even amenable to change). And, twenty years
later, I understand better now how external forces that are difficult to
control for can damage communities through exploitation and speculation.
Jane Jacobs has also detailed what it takes to make urban areas work, and
there are whole sets of issues to deal with that take a lot of effort to
bring together to make the social dynamics work (and some densities are more
problematical than others). In that case in Trenton, problem number one with
that woman's situation was simply not enough "eyes on the street" to deter
problems; she came straight to the eyes (ours) that were around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs
Still, that's an example of how just being there, even as an observer, can
sometimes have a beneficial effect.
If you are going to Braddock, as for the questions you raise below on things
to do, you could start by finding out who knows how to make what in the
area. Maybe you could make up some kind of inventory of peoples skills and
tools, and maybe focusing on building some sort of "Maker" social network
there? That is something that could be started in even just a little time
talking to people. (Of course, some people may be reluctant to talk at
first, or might fear data collection or theft.) If you spent much time
there, you might as you mention create a workshop where people meet
regularly and discuss stuff they are doing and show each other what they can
do and teach each other new skills like welding and masonry and painting and
ceramics and soldering and electronics and so on. So, someplace that is like
a FabLab or a Men's Shed or hackerspace or something like that.
Sure, all the other things you suggest are good, but that core issue of
connecting up local people who already make things seems to be a good idea
-- and connecting them outside of a common business (the way people who make
things are usually connected). Definitely old machine tools like Bridgeports
and so on would be a good thing to start with in some area (immediately then
insurance and security becomes a concern, so you have to connect that with
local people who would keep an eye on that).
Depending on the relationships with the local school, having some sort of
after-school space in the school basement related to industrial arts might
be a way to go (considering, as I said, that millions of dollars are being
poured into the school every year as a representation of hierarchical
authority in Braddock; the people might as well get something out of that.)
However, it is likely the school will plead poverty or liability.
Another alternative is to check out that first Carnegie Library building and
see if a workshop could somehow be placed there in the basement or somewhere
next to it.
http://braddockcarnegie.blogspot.com/
The library could also extend its operations to a lending library of tools.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tool-lending_libraries#Pennsylvania
The one example in PA you could talk to them about:
http://westphillytools.org/
"The West Philly Tool Library loans tools to community members so they can
perform simple home maintenance, tend their yards and gardens, build
furniture, start projects, and learn new skills in a safe and affordable
manner. We aim to be a community resource to provide home owners, tenants,
long-time residents, and newcomers with the tools (and the knowledge to work
the tools!) they need. "
Since there is an existing artists space in Braddock, you could also look at
putting a shared facility there if the library won't help.
Points to emphasize is creating a space might be both access to tools and
access to community, and to give teenagers as safe place to be after school.
So, the mayor could consider it as a sort of extension of his other
after-school programs. But really, you don't need fancy machines to get
started. Just some basic hand tools and some ready materials. The community
is the key in a situation like that. If you can build a growing Maker
community there, then bit by bit people might contribute to improving it, an
old set of tools here, a disused Bridgeport there, and so on. Kids could
learn how to remove rust and repair tools, and then they might feel more of
a sense of ownership of them. Discarded material could be liberated from
buildings facing demolition and rebuilt into new things. It would help a lot
if you could get some retirees to volunteer to staff the place in the
afternoons and evenings. Maybe some retiree from the steel plant might be
willing to show people how to do welding and so on? Anyway, bit by bit, you
would be helping the community regenerate itself until, after a few years,
it was the well known place to go to in the larger area when you wanted to
make something or get local advice and instruction.
Of course, I've suggested the US goverment do that in 21,000 places across
the USA and people voted it down: :-(
"21,000 Flexible Public Fabrication Facilities across the USA"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_thread/thread/6f6fa0606eaba502/fcee2a8a4dc4117a?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=fernhout+21000#fcee2a8a4dc4117a
It might help to have some computers there, but the also might be a
distraction at the start and more security worries at a few levels. On the
other hand, probably you could get a bunch of computers that were several
years old and used heavy CRT monitors that people were not likely to steal
and replace them with the same if they got vandalized. You could just make a
boot CD running some version of GNU/Linux and have kids store their stuff on
USB keys. A big advantage of GNU/Linux is it running well on older hardware,
and even if stuff was stolen, you could see that as part of the educational
outreach. :-) You've got to think positive about some of that stuff. I
remember when I ran a university computer lab and something got stolen (just
a box of diskettes). I was so upset. But then I calmed down and rethought
the labs overbearing security policies I had inherited and increased the
time it was open by a factor of three. So, sometimes a bad seeming thing can
be a catalyst to something good happening. A related story and the moral:
"Motivation: Good Luck or Bad Luck, Too Soon to Tell "
http://ezinearticles.com/?Motivation:-Good-Luck-or-Bad-Luck,-Too-Soon-to-Tell&id=66578
"""
Responding vs reacting
At each turn of events, the son reacted. Reacting usually involves not
thinking things through, operating with out enough information to make a
good decision. The farmer, on the other hand responded to each event using
his brain and the power of perspective. This allowed him to be �response -
able, able to respond� to the events, both good and bad, that came his way.
Attitude
The son�s attitude was �things happen to us, and there is nothing we can
do about it.� The farmer�s attitude was �things do happen, and then we
happen to them. What we do with what happens is the difference that makes
the difference.�
"""
Anyway, key is to find the sprouting seeds already in the community, as well
as the old trees that still have some life in them, bring them together, and
with a little luck and a little social magic, hope for the best. :-) It has
been done before. There are books about aspects of it, but obviously much of
it is probably just being there, building trust, finding shared interests,
and so on. It sounds like the mayor already is doing that, so building on
those efforts for after-school efforts where kids could relearn how to be
express their natural creativity in a positive way might be the best way to
go. It's a worthwhile thing to do, and if that is your calling, then I wish
you the very best of luck with it, and I would hope this list or others like
it would be a useful resource to you.
>>> "�The reason our children�s lives are the worst among economically
>>> advanced countries is because we are a poor version of the USA,� he said.
>>> �So the USA comes second from bottom and we follow behind. The age of
>>> neo-liberalism, even with the human face that New Labour has given it,
>>> cannot stem the tide of the social recession capitalism creates.�"
>> openmanufactur...@googlegroups.com<openmanufacturing%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
Sam Kronick
To explain where I am coming from: Personally, I am not interested in open manufacturing technologies as a path to some distant post-scarcity future nor do I really have a desire to make 3D printed plastic gizmos for myself. I see potential for new tools to enable new ways of making and learning about making for people and places that have been forgotten by or excluded from the current technological productions paradigms. So that probably means I'm not really motivated by working directly /for/ the benefit of most of the people on this list, but I'm more than willing to work /with/ you all to symbiotic ends. My choice in actions will reflect that attitude. At some point in my life I will probably just want to surround myself with a like-minded community and build cool stuff. Maybe such a situation would even serve as a helpful precedent for others (and I'll cite openfarmtech again as a good example of that) or be a model in some way for the future of humanity. But right now I'm looking to try to make myself immediately useful to some group of people that hasn't had the opportunities I've had. Please don't read that as a pretense to superiority over anyone else' choices, but I'm hopeful that I might find someone who can relate. I don't know if Braddock is even the right situation for me. (As an aside, I think a multiplicity of values can be important if your objective is the development and adoption of some new technology.)
More specifically, I have a good friend in Braddock who's been bugging me to get myself there and my core interests are in buildings and architecture, so it holds some elevated status above my other options.
~kronick
At each turn of events, the son reacted. Reacting usually involves not thinking things through, operating with out enough information to make a good decision. The farmer, on the other hand responded to each event using his brain and the power of perspective. This allowed him to be “response - able, able to respond” to the events, both good and bad, that came his way.
Attitude
The son’s attitude was “things happen to us, and there is nothing we can do about it.” The farmer’s attitude was “things do happen, and then we happen to them. What we do with what happens is the difference that makes the difference.”
"“The reason our children’s lives are the worst among economically
advanced countries is because we are a poor version of the USA,” he said.
“So the USA comes second from bottom and we follow behind. The age of
neo-liberalism, even with the human face that New Labour has given it,
cannot stem the tide of the social recession capitalism creates.”"
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to openmanufactur...@googlegroups.com.
Kevin Carson
> "Much of a post-scarcity future is about building on abundance, rather than
> trying to rebuild from scratch." I think to write off a place like Braddock
> as merely "scratch" reveals your biases and the inherently subjective nature
> of what constitutes "abundance." This, in turn, makes me skeptical of how a
> path to post-scarcity could be egalitarian if it required leaving behind
> communities we don't understand at face value.
Your description of Braddock ties in with political discussions of
economic development in the "Delta" region here in Arkansas (largely
rural/agricultural southeastern half of the state, largely composed of
black sharecroppers or former sharecroppers--if you've seen the
original In the Heat of the Night movie, you get the idea).
It also ties in with discussions I've had with a guy who's writing a
dissertation on community-building centered on a low-overhead
counter-economy in depressed areas of southern Illinois.
It seems to me that the Arkansas Delta and a good many Rust Belt
communities in the former Ohio Valley have a lot in common with the
economic problems facing Indian villages, as described by Neil
Gerschenfeld in Fab. Gerschenfeld's description of rural hardware
hackers reverse-engineering homebrew versions of proprietary tractors
for a small fraction of the cost, or of village cable systems using
cheap reverse-engineered satellite receivers, seems like something
that would be relevant to American communities with high unemployment,
collapsing asset values and eroding tax bases. Those villages in
India that Gerschenfeld describes couldn't exactly be described as
building from abundance, except in the sense that imploding fixed
costs are creating potential abundance ex nihilo everywhere.
Kevin Carson
I think (FWIW, coming from a micromanufacturing fanboy with zero
engineering/shop skills or geek cred) that micromanufacturing will
benefit communities like Braddock and the Arkansas Delta a lot sooner
than most people think. But the fastest way to get from here to
there, from the perspective of those currently involved in the
movement, is for them to develop and expand the technology as fast as
they can from where they are right now. The faster fab labs, hacker
spaces and garage factories proliferate and drop in price, the more of
a demonstration effect they'll create. And the cheaper and more
demonstratedly feasible the technology becomes, and the more it shows
itself as benefiting local economies where it exists by filling the
void left by deindustrialization and offshoring of old-style mass
production industry, the more attractive it will be in places where it
hasn't yet been tried. The more this happens, in turn, the more
people there will be like your friend in Braddock who are eager to
experiment with it locally, and the more people in the existing
fab/hackerspace movement who are willing to take a gamble in acting as
micromanufacturing missionaries in the Rust Belt. Likewise, the more
prominent a part of economic life it becomes in areas where it already
exists, and the more public awareness it creates as a credible path to
economic development in depressed levels, the more people like the
mayor of Braddock will be toward trying it out.
I think this all gets back to the stigmergic organizational approach
Eric Raymond described in The Cathedral and the Bazaar. It's a
revolution that doesn't require One Big Movement to coordinate, or for
everybody to get on the same page and receive all the required
permissions before they take one step forward. The people who are
best suited to tackle particular problems do so, and put all their
effort into doing what they're best at where they are. These
contributions create a demonstration effect and go into the network
culture's pool of common knowledge, for free adoption by anyone who
finds them to be what they need. So the more everybody does their own
thing, the more they're facilitating the eventual adoption of the
benefits of their work in areas like Braddock.
Paul D. Fernhout
Sam Kronick wrote:
> To explain where I am coming from: Personally, I am not interested in open
> manufacturing technologies as a path to some distant post-scarcity future
> nor do I really have a desire to make 3D printed plastic gizmos for myself.
People consistently underestimate what can be done right now as well as how
fast this exponentially growing open manufacturing revolution is picking up
speed:
"Jay Leno�s 3D Printer Replaces Rusty Old Parts"
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/jay_leno_garage/4320759.html
For me, I see this change happening in a big way over the next two decades
(assuming regressive social forces under the banner of mainstream economics
don't destroy our country instead or lock us into some absurd Kafkaesque
system of endless war and endless schooling and endless makework).
> I see potential for new tools to enable new ways of making and learning
> about making for people and places that have been forgotten by or excluded
> from the current technological productions paradigms.
Sure, that is one aspect of all this. If that's what you want to focus on,
great.
> So that probably means
> I'm not really motivated by working directly /for/ the benefit of most of
> the people on this list, but I'm more than willing to work /with/ you all to
> symbiotic ends. My choice in actions will reflect that attitude.
These were some of the goals I listed a decade ago:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/goals.htm
"The Oscomak project is an attempt to create a core of communities more in
control of their technological destiny and its social implications. No
single design for a community or technology will please everyone, or even
many people. Nor would a single design be likely to survive. So this project
endeavors to gather information and to develop tools and processes that all
fit together conceptually like Tinkertoys or Legos. The result will be a
library of possibilities that individuals in a community can use to achieve
any degree of self-sufficiency and self-replication within any size
community, from one person to a billion people. Within every community
people will interact with these possibilities by using them and extending
them to design a community economy and physical layout that suits their
needs and ideas."
That is one of the biggest values of openness, the ability to design your
infrastructure to suit your values.
I like these writings by Albert Einstein which reflect some ideas I
struggled long and hard to reach myself through other paths:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
"""
For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are
related to, and conditioned by, each other. The aspiration toward such
objective knowledge belongs to the highest of which man is capabIe, and you
will certainly not suspect me of wishing to belittle the achievements and
the heroic efforts of man in this sphere. Yet it is equally clear that
knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One
can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be
able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations.
Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the
achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing
to reach it must come from another source. And it is hardly necessary to
argue for the view that our existence and our activity acquire meaning only
by the setting up of such a goal and of corresponding values. The knowledge
of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a
guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the
aspiration toward that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the
limits of the purely rational conception of our existence.
But it must not be assumed that intelligent thinking can play no part in
the formation of the goal and of ethical judgments. When someone realizes
that for the achievement of an end certain means would be useful, the means
itself becomes thereby an end. Intelligence makes clear to us the
interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of
the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and
valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual,
seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to
perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives the
authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and
justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy
society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations
and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something
living, without its being necessary to find justification for their
existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through
revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not
attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly.
The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us
[in the dominant US American religious sphere?] in the Jewish-Christian
religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we
can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our
aspirations and valuations. If one were to take that goal out of its
religious form and look merely at its purely human side, one might state it
perhaps thus: free and responsible development of the individual, so that he
may place his powers freely and gladly in the service of all mankind.
...
At first, then, instead of asking what religion is I should prefer to ask
what characterizes the aspirations of a person who gives me the impression
of being religious: a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to
be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the
fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings,
and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonalvalue. It
seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal
content and the depth of the conviction concerning its overpowering
meaningfulness, regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this
content with a divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count
Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly, a religious
person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and
loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor
are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and
matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old
endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these
values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If
one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a
conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain
what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments
of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with
evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of
facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the
well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be
ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described.
...
Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are
clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two
strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be
that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science,
in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the
goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are
thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This
source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this
there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid
for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason.
I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The
situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame,
religion without science is blind.
"""
In that sense, aspects of open manufacturing are religious. :-) They are
aspirations towards truth and beauty. They are aspirations towards altruism
and community. They are aspirations towards joy and happiness for ourselves
and those around us.
> At some
> point in my life I will probably just want to surround myself with a
> like-minded community and build cool stuff. Maybe such a situation would
> even serve as a helpful precedent for others (and I'll cite openfarmtech
> again as a good example of that) or be a model in some way for the future of
> humanity. But right now I'm looking to try to make myself immediately useful
> to some group of people that hasn't had the opportunities I've had. Please
> don't read that as a pretense to superiority over anyone else' choices, but
> I'm hopeful that I might find someone who can relate. I don't know if
> Braddock is even the right situation for me. (As an aside, I think a
> multiplicity of values can be important if your objective is the development
> and adoption of some new technology.)
How can people develop freely and responsibly and grow as complete human
beings when almost everything they are surrounded with seems to be things
which they have very little choice about or control over? Would not a
natural human reaction to being locked out of having almost any say about
what happens around one (like living in a literally falling apart town like
Braddock was) be either depression/withdrawal or unfocused rage (flight or
fight)? People need some balance in what they have to put up with for
whatever reasons to be part of a community and what they can positively
change for themselves and the community. They also need some sense of shared
abundance in their lives and their surroundings to feel secure on many levels.
But there are many more examples in our society where the buildings are
intact and beautiful but what goes on in them is awful. Example:
"The Culture of Affluence: Psychological Costs of Material Wealth"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950124/
"Kasser, Ryan, and their colleagues (Kasser & Ryan, 1993, 1996; Ryan et al.,
1999; Sheldon & Kasser, 1995) established poorer mental health and lower
well-being among individuals who disproportionately valued extrinsic rewards
such as fame and wealth over intrinsic rewards such as interpersonal
relatedness, personal growth, and community service. Perkins (1991)
similarly showed that adults with Yuppie values�preferring affluence,
professional success, and prestige over intimacy in marriage and with
friends�reported being fairly or very unhappy twice as often as did others.
... Extant studies with adults have also suggested psychological costs of
material wealth. At the individual level, inordinate emphasis on material
success can limit attainment of other rewards critical for well-being, such
as close relationships. At the community level, material affluence can
inhibit the formation of supportive networks, as services tend to be bought
and not shared. At the systemic level, the subculture of affluence
emphasizes personal autonomy and control, with the associated dangers of
blaming oneself when control is not achieved. ..."
In that sense, the mayor of Braddock is quite insightful if he is using
Braddock in some sense to make obvious to everyone that which is usually
hidden in the USA.
Open manufacturing could help rebalance a society where a mass-produced
capitalistic industrial system has shaped our surroundings in many ways that
are not in accord with fundamental human and ecological values. The current
system that has moved out of a balance between the individual aspirations
and collective aspirations. The USA has been too individualistic; but the
USSR was too collectively authoritarian; much of Western Europe is a happier
middle ground for creating a better balance of meshworks and hierarchies.
(Note that isolated competitive individuals don't necessarily form much of a
healthy meshwork.) It is hard to imagine, say, a town looking like Braddock
being twenty miles from Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Braddock as it was ten years ago was an obvious explicit example of a place
that represents many true values of capitalism and individualism expressed
whatever the stated values are, with crumbling buildings as the result of
years of neglect and exploitation even amidst great wealth hoarded nearby.
Still, the toxic waste dumps of the USSR and its abandoned cities are
likewise a statement about too much authoritarian collectivism in various
ways. But both extremes can be wrong, or can be lacking in upholding some
key values. And there is also a lot more totalitarianism in the
free-wheeling USA then is made to appear, even if it is more elitism and
plutocracy than dictatorship:
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/
The USA seems to be moving to the worst of both worlds in some ways with its
politics. It has a ever growing "self-defensive" gun-based culture of
individualism and competition at the local level (even the schools talk
continuously about being "competitive"). But there is a culture at the
collective level of pumping trillions of dollars of money (much from taxes
or tax subsidies) each year into effectively collective vast enterprises run
mostly for the profits of a few like the defense establishment, the
pharmaceutical/insurance system, huge banks, huge fossil fuel industries,
proprietary media industry (benefiting by laws keeping billions of dollars
of copyrighted material out of the public domain by expanded laws), and
probably a few others (some huge retail distribution chains, some huge
information companies).
Anyway, I'd suggest reading Jane Jacobs' writings on cities for the
beginning of a notion of how distant powerful economic actors can shape the
fates of regions like Braddock that have been deemed "supply regions".
Like a sick person, a sick community may have direct immediate needs for
care or nutrition, and those make a valid claim on all of us. But why and
how the person or community got sick in the first place is another issue of
"holistic medicine". The same patterns of behavior or toxic environmental
exposure might lead to a relapse if not understood and dealt with somehow.
There is tons of aid pouring into Haiti now, but how much of it will ever
address the core problems of Haiti, that after Columbus and others destroyed
the gift economy there and established an economy based on slavery, that
Haiti was one of the few successful places where the slaves revolted and set
up their own country, and so, like Cuba, it has been despised and attacked
by the Western elite ever since.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Haiti
Like everywhere, I have no doubt Haiti has its own share of other problems
too. But all the aid pouring in now is going to do nothing about why the
people there were so poor (including slaves trying to copy the behavior of
the ex-masters because other models of success have been hidden from them.)
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html
"""
"The Indians [of Haiti and other nearby islands], Columbus reported, "are so
naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed
them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say
no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone...." He concluded his
report by asking for a little help from their Majesties, and in return he
would bring them from his next voyage "as much gold as they need ... and as
many slaves as they ask." He was full of religious talk: "Thus the eternal
God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent
impossibilities." ...
Las Casas tells how the Spaniards "grew more conceited every day" and
after a while refused to walk any distance. They "rode the backs of Indians
if they were in a hurry" or were carried on hammocks by Indians running in
relays. "In this case they also had Indians carry large leaves to shade them
from the sun and others to fan them with goose wings." Total control led to
total cruelty. The Spaniards "thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and
twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their
blades." Las Casas tells how "two of these so-called Christians met two
Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for
fun beheaded the boys." The Indians' attempts to defend themselves failed.
And when they ran off into the hills they were found and killed. So, Las
Casas reports, "they suffered and died in the mines and other labors in
desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn
for help." ...
When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, "there were 60,000
people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to
1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the
mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a
knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it...."
Thus began the history, five hundred years ago, of the European
invasion of the Indian settlements in the Americas. That beginning, when you
read Las Casas-even if his figures are exaggerations (were there 3 million
Indians to begin with, as he says, or less than a million, as some
historians have calculated, or 8 million as others now believe?)-is
conquest, slavery, death. When we read the history books given to children
in the United States, it all starts with heroic adventure-there is no
bloodshed-and Columbus Day is a celebration.
"""
That is part of the true history of Haiti. Is it any wonder the place is
still so susceptible to economic problems? And is there any wonder the same
sorts of forces operate even in places like Braddock, as a supply region?
Bill Gates could make Braddock look shiny and new in one year by putting the
headquarters of Microsoft there and pouring a lot of money into it that he
has gotten from proprietary software and other ventures. But what would that
prove? Ultimately, making Braddock "competitive" for jobs and
community-minded people and their economic spending so that two towns down
the road can fall apart into economic decay and social collapse might be a
step backwards. We need a model that does not just work for Braddock but
everywhere. And that means people in Braddock saving themselves (granted,
with some outside help to make up for all the previous exploitation and
extraction).
As I mentioned here:
http://groups.google.com/group/virgle/web/openvirgle-commons-surman-vs-virgle-philanthrocapitalism-edwards
"""
As a last comment. on Philanthrocapitalism/Edwards:
http://www.famousquotes.com/show.php?_id=1009329
"If I knew...that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of
doing me good, I should run for my life." -- Henry David Thoreau
Versus on the Free and Open Commons/Surman approach to philanthropy:
http://djterasaki.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/lila-watsons-quote-well-sort-of/
"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have
come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
"""
So, if you do go to Braddock, please keep that last quote in mind. :-)
Again: "If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you
have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work
together."
> More specifically, I have a good friend in Braddock who's been bugging me to
> get myself there and my core interests are in buildings and architecture, so
> it holds some elevated status above my other options.
That's a great reason to go to Braddock, to be around your friend and a
growing community of like-minded individuals that person is connected to.
Kevin Carson
> This is missing my point, that past land use patterns have led many
> dwelling areas to be impractically remote from potential growing
> areas. There is a path dependency at work. Either dwellings would have
> to be torn down or new ones built, or some combination. And see my
> other reply.
There's certainly some truth to this, but there's enough available
land for a significant share of the population to create a sizeable
amount of slack: gardening on suburban plots, urban rooftops and
vacant lots, etc. You're right that land use patterns favor the big
operators, but this can be mitigated to some extent by the little guys
making much more intensive use of what land they have. The big
agribusiness interests make relatively inefficient use of their
enormous tracts of land, because of their privileged access to it.
The idea is for people to start making such efficient use of the small
plots of land they have access to that the enormous tracts of the
agribusiness interests become less and less profitable to them.
Thomas Fledrich
> On 1/16/10, P.M.Lawrence <pml5...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > This is missing my point, that past land use patterns have led many
> > dwelling areas to be impractically remote from potential growing
> > areas. There is a path dependency at work. Either dwellings would have
> > to be torn down or new ones built, or some combination. And see my
> > other reply.
>
> There's certainly some truth to this, but there's enough available
> land for a significant share of the population to create a sizeable
> amount of slack: gardening on suburban plots, urban rooftops and
> vacant lots, etc. You're right that land use patterns favor the big
> operators, but this can be mitigated to some extent by the little guys
> making much more intensive use of what land they have. The big
> agribusiness interests make relatively inefficient use of their
> enormous tracts of land, because of their privileged access to it.
> The idea is for people to start making such efficient use of the small
> plots of land they have access to that the enormous tracts of the
> agribusiness interests become less and less profitable to them.
>
The human body runs at approximately 100W power. This amount is in the same
range as the mean solar power on one square meter somewhere on mid latidute
Earth surface.
Of course it is less efficient to actually make edible food with all the
ingredients (vitamins etc.) that we need, but still there is a lot of room
between this and the average size of the area on which the food for one human
is produced today.
P.M.Lawrence
> On 1/16/10, P.M.Lawrence <pml5...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > This is missing my point, that past land use patterns have led many
> > dwelling areas to be impractically remote from potential growing
> > areas. There is a path dependency at work. Either dwellings would have
> > to be torn down or new ones built, or some combination. And see my
> > other reply.
>
> There's certainly some truth to this, but there's enough available
> land for a significant share of the population to create a sizeable
> amount of slack: gardening on suburban plots, urban rooftops and
> vacant lots, etc.
Not really, in many parts of the world. Don't forget how limited that
slack was in Britain during the Second World War, when serious efforts
along the lines of allotments etc. were made - and the slack is much
less now (as is the population with ready to go skills of that sort).
Even here in Australia there is a large URBAN population in URBAN
areas without ready access to land of that sort - and even if they
(we) could struggle through the years of relocation and dislocation
involved, the useful area of Australia is actually quite small;
despite the apparent large land area, there really isn't much slack.
That's what caused a large part of the slow failure of the soldier-
settler schemes after each World War.
You're right that land use patterns favor the big
> operators
That wasn't my point at all. My point was and is that the people and
the land they would need aren't in the same places, so there would be
massive dislocation sorting it all out on the necessary scale - if
indeed it could be done at all in the time frame allowed by a real
crisis.
, but this can be mitigated to some extent by the little guys
> making much more intensive use of what land they have.
Er... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Australian_Dream describes
"Typically the Australian Dream focused upon ownership of a detached
house (often single storey with a solar hot water heater on the roof)
on a quarter acre suburban block, surrounded by a garden, which
featured in the back a Hills Hoist and a barbecue". This is accurate,
and many attained that - forty odd years ago. These days much less is
available per family on average, and I would say that (just) a
majority live as I do without gardens at all. It's really down to
using local parks - and, of course, nearly everywhere land is less
productive per unit area than in Europe or most of the USA and Canada.
What I have been trying to bring out is that your advice is sound -
but only in some parts of the world. It wouldn't work in most of the
UK or Australia. For the former, emigration would be necessary, and
for the latter, transmigration - serious stuff, and probably too slow
even if it could be done at all.
The big
> agribusiness interests make relatively inefficient use of their
> enormous tracts of land, because of their privileged access to it.
You're talking about current artificial constraints; I'm talking about
current constraints that are the long term result of artificial
intervention, but which by the same token wouldn't turn around very
fast if those were stopped and so are, in a sense, "short term
natural" constraints. PML.
Thomas Fledrich
> but only in some parts of the world. It wouldn't work in most of the
> UK or Australia. For the former, emigration would be necessary, and
> for the latter, transmigration - serious stuff, and probably too slow
> even if it could be done at all.
One could team up with others and buy one of these. But in the end I guess it
all comes down to how to make yourself mostly self sufficient on it. Which is
then a matter of DIY production...
Andrii Zvorygin
A segmented judicial system that allows for local override.
For instance in the USA, some states have overridden federal laws,
such as marijuana use.
If this is extended to much smaller communities,
we could have a much more diverse society,
with different "tribes" living with different rule sets,
typically those they selected themselves.
Traditional "government services" can be either locally produced,
or a nearby tribe can be hired.
For instance a tribe might specialize in security, or education.
With the "local override" ability,
both libertarians and puritans can be satisfied.
As each can find a tribe community which has a set of beliefs
compatible to them.
by lowki
Kevin Carson
> What I have been trying to bring out is that your advice is sound -
> but only in some parts of the world. It wouldn't work in most of the
> UK or Australia. For the former, emigration would be necessary, and
> for the latter, transmigration - serious stuff, and probably too slow
> even if it could be done at all.
> You're talking about current artificial constraints; I'm talking about
> current constraints that are the long term result of artificial
> intervention, but which by the same token wouldn't turn around very
> fast if those were stopped and so are, in a sense, "short term
> natural" constraints. PML.
Fair enough.
P.M.Lawrence
> > What I have been trying to bring out is that your advice is sound -
> > but only in some parts of the world. It wouldn't work in most of the
> > UK or Australia. For the former, emigration would be necessary, and
> > for the latter, transmigration - serious stuff, and probably too slow
> > even if it could be done at all.
>
> http://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/search/searchresults.asp?Region1=0&Minprice=0&MinLandSize=&PropertyType=0&Region2=0&Maxprice=50000&MaxLandSize=&PropertyStatus=1&Submit=Search&newsearch=1
>
> One could team up with others and buy one of these.
There's a fallacy of composition there. ONE could, teaming up with a
FEW others, certainly - but there are physical constraints stopping
that being realistic for ENOUGH of the U.K.'s population, since that
is above the carrying capacity of the British Isles.
But in the end I guess it
> all comes down to how to make yourself mostly self sufficient on it. Which is
> then a matter of DIY production...
No, since that WOULD NOT CUT IT. Either some people would have to
emigrate, or trade would have to bring in enough to make up the
shortfall, or some combination of those (I'm assuming overseas
conquest and tribute etc. are unrealistic, which is no great
assumption these days). A proportion of production would have to go to
exports to bring in imports, which might involve DIY but not self
sufficiency - at any rate, not for everyone.
That doesn't mean it would be unrealistic to try, as every little
helps and anyone who became self sufficient would be better off
individually and would reduce the outstanding problem. Indeed,
realistically attainable levels of local production for personal use
could easily bring the balance of trade into an indefinitely
sustainable range. But it is unrealistic to think that it could solve
the whole problem on its own, for the U.K.; it would only reduce
outside requirements to a point where export prices could be bid down
enough to sustain the balance of trade and still make it up in volume,
as only top up amounts of imports would be needed - but they would
still be needed, and the result would in no sense be self sufficiency
across the board. P.M.Lawrence.