I’ve been thinking about your last comment and I think we agree that evolution is alive and well.

Michael Irving

My point is we ought not to get carried away. There’s more to blaming one’s own side all the time. Or taking the high road to deliverance (pun intended, see movie). The picture is wider. Evolution is underway (don’t read ‘eugenics into it, I’m speaking of good old evolution, the kind nature promotes, homegrown and hearty and likely unstoppable). Can we embrace the fact, or accept the possibility, that ditching all knowledge and every achievement we have made so far may not be the way forward? Can we entertain the thought of expanding our horizons and discovering new New Worlds? Is that so ridiculous… so Star-Treky techy stupid? Dissing it as such is hardly the response and attitude one would expect from belief systems associated with opening one’s mind to the truth and seeing the wood for the trees, engaging in groundbreaking change, changing the world, setting the foundations for a new one etc etc.

In my opinion all options are on the table. Walden is just one of many. Being monolithic about civilization and wishing its destruction is, well, monolithic, and as reprehensible as the monoliths we are criticizing and trying so hard to circumvent. I’m offering alternatives (with sarcasm, yes — I felt the thread and its author could take it, he seems tough enough to me and no fan of mollycoddling or bland political correctness, so I used none). I’m looking to point in the only direction left: straight ahead (I hope this covers the direction puns and everything that can be read into them, and that we can now proceed to dealing with the issues at hand), with mind open — and less vitriol toward our legacy, warts and all. A safer and more healthy way to go, one that does not involve so much acerbity — which, as everyone knows, serves to only invite more of it, corrupting the way ahead. Self-hatred is not an attribute that fares well in the avenues of progeny. It has a way of tainting the waters and biting its own ass. If a new world we will make, let’s make it with more respect for the achievements of all those whose spoils we are now enjoying in varying degrees. Don’t wear the clothes but curse the weaver — and the art of weaving, and the business of it, and the transportation that brought it to you, and you see where this is going. Let’s just mind the millennia that have preceded us, and be aware of what they have taught us — so that we may mind the ones ahead. All in good order and balance — balance being the key word. And respect. Those who teach it ought to display it — for more than just one position. They ought to display it for the bigger picture. For the totality of existence, our legacy included (no I am not making undercurrent allusions to totalitarianism, although… here’s a thought: I cannot envision a more totalitarian system than a natural organism, where the brain is supreme boss, the boundaries set, the roles assigned; where health and harmony is upheld with measures that includes ruthless tactics and collateral damage of the body’s own cells — as I mentioned in the previous comment). Now that’s a thought that troubles me: if earth is to be an organism (as many support), and we on organ on it, cells that live in harmony within it, are we prepared to do anything it commands us to so as to maintain its body in good health and shape? Just a thought.

Here’s what I propose: brace for the worst but don’t glorify the trigger, or the kill — lest you condone it. Our civilization may be faulty, but it’s our platform, our roof and fortification in this jungle of an organism. It’s our identity within it — and perhaps the only means to define ourselves and not be swept away under a savagely totalitarian natural regime that ruthlessly minds the health of the body to the expense of the cells that make it up. I do not like watching nature abused as it is, nor do I condone it, but I don’t want to overshoot — in the name of correcting an overshoot, of all things — and hand human (my / our) existence and self-determination to the earth on a platter. Not unless I truly embrace the earth as such and accept Gaianism as the natural step to evolution: Earth as the new multicellular super-organism rising from the slop, made up of a variety of cells, among which are we, for her to do as she pleases on her long way to developing herself into a fully fledged life form.

Nicolas

I think you’re right about teeth. I can’t find the reference, but I can remember reading in an archaeology journal that sepsis from tooth infections was, at some time in human history, what killed most people. As it was, the Wiki article about impacted wisdom teeth convinced me that a set of 19th century dental tools and a dental textbook might be the path to becoming a valued and protected member of any post-collapse community.

Extending that logic further, paramedic or PA or vet-tech training might be a relatively quick way to increase the odds for one’s family or affinity group when the medical system either is unavailable or counterproductive (soon if not now).

The discussion of walls and boundaries reminded me of a summer I spent gill-netting in Alaska, where you had dozens of single-minded anti-communitarians in boats, all trying to get more of the catch than anyone else–until someone got into trouble. Then a temporary community would flash into existence. Mortal enemies would risk their lives for each other.

If you got into trouble in those circumstances, your final dreaded option was to ask a bunch of extreme individualists for help, and they came, knowing that next time it could be them. The tribes in those circumstances were the massed crews of the anchored tenders, who were never asked for help because they didn’t understand the ethic and weren’t able to imagine themselves in your circumstance, didn’t have the equipment, and so on. But you never asked for help except as a last resort, and there was a strong sanction against those people who called for help more than once because they were damned fools. Forgiveness didn’t exist for them.

John

First, I *think* history suggests that during times of decline/collapse, the authorities do just about everything humanly possible to keep the cities civilized – even at the expense of rural people’s welfare.

I don’t worry about everyone “getting it” and moving to the country.

I suspect that emigration from city to country-side might become a trend, and it might be a good trend in terms of employment (human labor replacing at least some mechanized agriculture due to rationing/shortages of fuels).

In an emergency, if your locale experiences acute shortages of fuel, necessity might require unskilled city folk to work fields manually (heaven forbid !! .

City gardens might be useful in some locales. Places like Detroit may be blessed by the relatively slow decline they have experienced, allowing time for a somewhat clumsy transition to urban agriculture. But in many urban areas “gardens” just will not be able to produce nearly enough to feed everyone, and might attract (human) pests.

Some cities in geographically strategic places (e.g. water ways) might be relatively healthy or even prosperous during much of the collapse/transtion.

The good thing is we have time now to consider options and begin to act – to become less “at the mercy of” the markets and governments. But as Guy points out so well in this post, we also have time to fiddle, time to be distracted and entertained and complacent.

I must have a thing about my teeth. You said, “Much (hopefully most?) of today’s scientific and technologic knowledge might be preserved in the hope of modified use through low-tech application in the future…” When I read that the first thing I thought about was “germ theory” and then, “What about the dentist?” I think it’s because I hate going to the dentist and the depiction in movies of dentistry in the mid 1800’s makes me shutter (this from an old guy with, according to his dentist, great teeth). Civil war era surgery was not pretty either.

I can only second your hopefulness. I too hope for the retention of knowledge. However, when I review the techniques of farmers living in this area about 100 years ago, I find that much the knowledge they’d amassed has been misplaced over time. Maybe replaced would be a better term. They had a lot more respect for gravity back then, understanding it as a power source as well as a potential problem. Hence, gravity flow irrigation systems and flat winding roads along the edges of the valley floors (avoiding swamps and hauling horse-drawn wagonloads of freight over hills). Only the advent of unlimited cheap energy has allowed us to ignore gravity (skyscrapers, deep wells, straight roads, etc.). We’ve lost much from the past that could have been used in the near future. I’m afraid there is much from our present that will be lost to mankind’s far future.

Your wonderful comments about fences, overshoot, and sin generated multiple thought pathways for me. I agree and disagree with your statement. Yes, there is “ignorance” but I would suggest that in the case of overshoot much of that has been “willful ignorance.” One of the principles of the “Eightfold Path” is “Right Action.” If there is right action (not harming sentient beings) there must also be wrong action (murder, stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, dishonesty). When overshoot comes to our door we will each have some deciding to do. Do we just roll over and allow the maladaptive characteristics to have their ignorant way with us? Or do we struggle to maintain the integrity of our boundaries? I’m reminded of Robert Frost’s Mending Walls: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Thanks for your thoughts.

Michael Irving

Characteristics adaptive to longer term survival, even if acquired in such an overshoot & dieback, were not necessarily lost, nor need they be lost now. Much (hopefully most?) of today’s scientific and technologic knowledge might be preserved in the hope of modified use through low-tech applications in the future..

Forgiveness occurs when even the perception of something to be forgiven does not arise. Otherwise the idea that “something was “forgiven”" remains as a scar on the individual or collective psyche. There are no such things as “sins”; only maladaptive characteristics (in an ecological sense) or ignorance (in the Buddhist / Jain / non-dualist Hindu view).

It seems to me one should be encouraging steps to be taken within the city limits to prepare the populace for the collapse. The city is already a “community” which is important in this upcoming world event. I look at my city block and see the tremendous gardening potential. I ponder the question of “just how much food could this neighborhood grow if everyone got together to do it.” I don’t have any answers on how to get it done, nor do I have the desire to invest the energy into getting the ball rolling because my thoughts and desires urge me to flee this place of mass humanity and oppressive government control to a place where my neighbor isn’t looking over my shoulder to make sure that I am not bringing down his property values because I want to have a huge humanure compost pile and 100 rain barrels. Of course I am just echoing comments by Jan and Navid. It is my opinion that the cities are doomed because of aesthetics. Of course I will admit that there is a lot of things that I don’t want my neighbor to be doing either!!!

Carrie

Live and learn. Or, for most of us, just the former.