enraged_camel posted:

I don't know anything about this perma stuff. But subsistence farming results in a wretched standard of living. Anyone who advocates for it or anything like it shouldn't be taken seriously.

NewForumSoftware posted:

Maybe permaculture and subsistence farming aren't the same thing?

Thug Lessons posted:

Permies calls subsistence farming "food self-sufficiency", and makes it sound a lot easier than it is.

enraged_camel posted:

I don't know anything about this perma stuff. But subsistence farming results in a wretched standard of living. Anyone who advocates for it or anything like it shouldn't be taken seriously.

NewForumSoftware posted:

I don't think anyone is advocating for that though? Mr 5 acre forest with goats is probably creating a surplus, it's just still not "profitable". I don't think anyone unironically suggest we should all return to the fields ala Pol Pot but I imagine that's a beautiful picture to paint if you want to make "permies" seem as dumb as possible.

SavageGentleman posted:

You a farmer, from a farming family or from a farming village? Because if not, thanks for the truism. Even then, there is not "subsistence farming" as a monolithic entity. There are many ways to do this and many possible socioeconomic conditions. If you said "subsistence farming in a country in the global south whis is currently being exploited by neoliberal resource markets / First world price dumping is not fun and makes for a wretched standard of living", you might be right. But there was no qualification there.

Thug Lessons posted:

Permies aren't Pol Pot, but I don't think it's unfair at all to say they believe the future of agriculture involves a much larger proportion of our population working in agriculture, as well as almost everyone producing a significant portion of their own food. Also I don't understand the rejection of the word "permies". It's what they call themselves! The largest permaculture website is permies.org.

NewForumSoftware posted:

Just because more human labor is involved doesn't make permaculture subsistence farming. It's pretty disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

quote:

In a Skype interview with a casting director, I was asked, "What
advice would you give to someone who wants to be completely
self-sufficient?" My response- "That person suffers from psychosis and
should seek counseling."

My private home, my property, is a tipi in the woods. TV people love
that. They want to hear all about how difficult and dangerous it is.

You know what? I loving hate living alone, in a tipi, in the woods.
Living in a tipi isn't necessarily more exhilarating or challenging than
living anywhere else. It can be downright boring.

You know how I ended up living alone in a tipi in the woods? I'm there
largely because I felt deeply wounded by my childhood and my failed
marriage. I've been depressed for most of my life, without anything to
contrast it with. I've been caught in a vicious cycle of floundering
social confidence. Living in the woods is really convenient when you're
socially anxious, and prone to ugly bouts of depression.

You know where I prefer to spend my time? My refuge is a boring house
in the suburbs where my girlfriend and her daughter live. Because when
I stay there, I feel like part of a family, and part of humanity. We
play board games and do the dishes. It's beautiful.

Do you think anyone will make a television show about a dejected
outsider finding emotional healing? Do you think they'll make a show
about the honest trajectory of the loner impulse? I doubt it. A novel,
maybe.

Rugged individualism is not the antidote to civilization's
discontents, but an equally toxic mirror-image. Pioneering
individualism is the origin-myth of industrial consumerism. Americans
descend from paranoid pioneers bent on an anti-social utopia. Stories
of mountain men and isolated families against the wilderness are
essential to the justification of the antisocial way we live today.
Television is ravenous for that narrative. The mob doesn't want a way
out. The mob wants to feel feel justified in its desperation.

quote:

Even if industrial civilization somehow collapsed, organic farming could still devastate the planet. Easter Island was rendered treeless and nearly uninhabitable, by farmers with stone axes. Entire mountain ranges in the Andes were cleared and terraced under the rule of a brutal communistic Inca empire. China's fertile Loess Plateau became and eroded wasteland. Some scientist believe global warming began thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution, as forest fell to multiplying farmers. How does our land use guard the future against such nightmares?

quote:

"Food security" has become a hip term. No doubt, hunger causes a good deal of suffering and conflict in the world. But at the root of famine is the quest for a guarantee- the entitlement to consistent fodder in an unpredictable world. This has been the problematic aspiration of farmers for thousands of years. If "food security" means a small scale version of the commercial farmer's gamble, it is an oxymoron. The supermarket food system, as it exists, was predicated on a false notion of security and comfort. Perhaps "food freedom" is a more worthy pursuit. The forager exemplifies food freedom. She knows how to take what comes, with an eye for the alternatives. Her knowledge and capacity for judgment must be extensive. She recognizes and prioritizes hundreds of edible species. Rather than exert herself over-managing the environment, she manages human needs first. She would not confine her family to any narrow enterprise. She knows when to move on. When plagues of crickets devour the crops, the forager has a cricket roast.


It is ironic that relatively affluent 'green' folks are devoting their lives to food production in the global north, where food scarcity has always been artificial. One can hardly give a squash or an apple away in the rural U.S. In this fat land, where the waste stream alone could feed multitudes, a resourceful traveler could leave dining entirely to chance, and be much healthier for the occasional fast. The real dilemma, for any half-friendly Westerner, is declining excessive offerings. Yet, there are still well-meaning zealots bent on growing all of their own food, as if it were the good old-fashioned thing to do. But old-fashioned hunter/gatherers had friends instead of freezers, and potlucks instead of cash or canning jars.

SavageGentleman posted:

You a farmer, from a farming family or from a farming village? Because if not, thanks for the truism. Even then, there is not "subsistence farming" as a monolithic entity. There are many ways to do this and many possible socioeconomic conditions. If you said "subsistence farming in a country in the global south whis is currently being exploited by neoliberal resource markets / First world price dumping is not fun and makes for a wretched standard of living", you might be right. But there was no qualification there.

Thug Lessons posted:

There are plenty of subsistence farmers in the West and basically none of them can afford a humane standard of living without welfare. It's hard enough to be a conventional farmer, to the point that 80% of their income comes from jobs they get outside the farm.

quote:

USDA’s broad definition of a farm is any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products are produced and sold, or normally would be sold, during a year.

That includes many people who are not engaged in production agriculture and would not consider themselves to be farmers, Weber said.

Squalid posted:

anyway, most of the ideology built up around permaculture/organic farming/homesteading/urban farming is so obviously nonsensical I don't see much point trying to refute it. It's not based in reason anyway so you aren't going to reason anyone out of it. So far as I've seen it is mostly harmless much like an anarchist coop bookstore. It doesn't really accomplish much but it helps get people active and involved in the environmental movement.

It's so politically marginal as to be pretty irrelevant to serious policy making. The one exception I"m aware of is the EU's ban on GMO food. That's a pretty egregious example of course, though I suspect it's real motivation is to protect EU farmers from American competitors.

Thug Lessons posted:

It's obviously not relevant to policy-making but it's definitely relevant to environmentalism and therefore this thread. Also see collapse theory, doomerism, etc.. They all serve as ridiculous excuses for ecologically-minded people to do nothing.

Squalid posted:

Yeah. It kinda makes me squirm when it comes up. However unlike collapse theory and doomerism organic agriculture/permaculture is its one of the few ways people can get personally active and engaged in the environmental movement and for that reason I can't bring myself to poo poo it.

What someone eats is just much more personal and immediate to them than an abstracted unit of carbon emission equivalents. I believe the more someone is directly engaged in stuff like community farming and home composting the more likely they are to also support meaningful action on climate change. That's probably somewhat cynical of me but for the most part these ideas manifest in ways that are harmless so there's little downside.

the old ceremony posted:

yeah please understand that i have nothing against industrial farming. currently it has huge issues especially with pest control and waste disposal, and it is urgent that we find a better way asap because obliterating soil organisms and poisoning the ocean is going to accelerate the loss of arable land - everybody knows that we're trading short-term surpluses for long-term stability, and the question is how do we switch from short-term unsustainable farming to long-term sustainable farming without millions of people in the short term starving to death? (the answer is that we don't, because we needed to start working on this in the early 1900s if not before, but you must always aim for the most optimistic outcome.) i don't mind my tomatoes being grown in greenhouses if that's the best way. any solution we come up with is going to involve intensive enclosed systems for fruit and vegetables that can't be integrated into an outdoor system. i do think the way we farm animals in the post-industrial world is totally hosed, and that's mostly what i'm focusing on - while understanding that the root of the problem with animal welfare, methane, megatonnes of poo poo being dumped into the sea and so on is and always has been that red meat is the number one signifier of social status in about a thousand different cultures, it always has been, and it always will be.

incidentally: kangaroo meat is delicious, it tastes just like beef, and kangaroos, for whatever reason (studies are ongoing) produce only a fraction of the methane that cows and sheep do.

i am actually barely involved in the permaculture community, because like i said, these guys are artists. they're just having fun and making pretty things. it's a lovely thing for them to do and every backyard food forest has a small positive impact on the atmosphere, definitely much more than a patch of lawn and concrete. but none of their techniques are feasible for what we need, which is large-scale carbon sequestration, because for large-scale carbon sequestration what you need more than anything is trees. and you can't just make a giant wheat field lined with corridors of eucalyptus trees that spans the whole of new south wales - you need the bush, because native bugs and birds and animals are also essential to soil microsystems and most of them require very specialised habitats to live in. if i could sum up what i'm trying to do, it's not building farms, it's creating national parks that also happen to produce food for humans

Thug Lessons posted:

It's getting them engaged in exactly the wrong direction. It's a deeply conservative philosophy that I would honestly count as part of the far-right. Anyone who actually develops an interest in permaculture has already accepted the reality and urgency of climate change, and permaculture destroys any potential there by telling them they will survive it by becoming a self-sufficient homesteader, while opposing actual environmental solutions like nuclear power plants and GMO crops.

WrenP-Complete posted:

I took a permaculture class and thought it was neat and kind of pretty. I got more interested in plants. I haven't become a homesteader or against environmental solutions. I really love gardening and I'm applying to do a master gardener program through the university near me. I also don't remember learning any of the really egregious stuff you linked to before. That's my experience, anyway...

Digiwizzard posted:

It’s pretty rich to claim that Permaculture is fueled by deep reactionary forces. It’s just a theoretical framework about designing gardens and storing energy. There’s nothing Conservative about it except in the Conservation of resources sense. Permaculturalists actions are generally modest and small scale and limited to things like growing food and storing rainwater, while they may not achieve total self sufficiency they tangibly reduce consumption, mitigate reliance on global capitalism, and demonstrate actual willingness to change and redress the problems we’re facing.

Contrast this to Liberal shitheads like Thug Lessons, who are Conservatives in the truest sense of the word, because they’re only concerned with conserving the existing social order. For them, change is antithetical because they refuse to even acknowledge that there even is a problem. They’re not living unsustainable lifestyles, it’s just that the correct energy source that can sustain them hasn’t been invented yet. It doesn't matter that their economies are supplied by a multitude of exploited slaves, because those slaves are simply temporarily embarrassed westerners going through necessary transitional poverty before they can be elevated to unsustainability. There’s no thought about where the resources would have to come from to allow this level of consumption, or how to mitigate the subsequent environmental damage before it drives humanity extincts, because those are problems for someone else who is cleverer and smarter to solve. For them, change is something that comes from elsewhere. Preferably with no disruption to the economy or their way of life. Because that’s non negotiable.

If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice this same abdication of responsibility has hit every single segment of society. The public, growing increasingly anxious of a terrifying future, are begging governments of the world initiate urgent action. Governments of the world, aware of the devastating economic turmoil that would be caused by acting, are confident that the Free Market will come up with a satisfying solution. Corporations, aware that having to contain even a fraction of their externalities would instantly bankrupt them, patiently await for researchers and academia to invent a way to make saving the planet affordable. Researchers and Academics, aware of the scale and urgency of the problems facing us, are baffled by the inaction of Governments and Corporations. Many of them quietly growing gardens and storing rainwater.

enraged_camel posted:

Nice meltdown.

You know you're off the deep end when you unironically use phrases like "mitigate reliance on global capitalism".

SavageGentleman posted:

What's the problem with the term "mitigate reliance on global capitalism"? Have you processed the fact that global trade politics are a big reason why subsistence farmers are having such a bad time?

SavageGentleman posted:

Also it's fascinating to see how much derision the thought of local improvements in environment and food production outside of the mainstream dogma can generate in some people.

SavageGentleman posted:

Instead of welcoming any step that individuals and groups can take to improve the ecological problems we face, ThugLessons et al. point to "GMO crops and nuclear" - once again options dependant on massive capital influx, global trade chains and monopolistic corporations...

enraged_camel posted:

The flip side of the coin is that a lot of people get these nostaljic notions about how things were better back in the day and push for policies to go back to those days without a thorough, nuanced understanding of why our society and its systems evolved into what they are today.

Of course things aren't perfect under capitalism, and there are huge problems with sustainability especially when it comes to managing and benefiting from natural resources. But the solution absolutely does not involve a big push for going back to subsistence farming. Ultra-local projects where people grow some of their own vegetables in their backyards are great. To suggest that such practices can make a demonstrable and appreciable dent in the grand scheme of things is laughable.

Hello Sailor posted:

enraged_camel posted:

That... I don't think it means what you think it means.

Hello Sailor posted:

You're responding to someone benefiting from the existing system by explaining that their position fails to take into account an understanding of how they got to the point where they could promote a return to subsistence farming. That's exactly the point I was making with my previous post.

enraged_camel posted:

There is a big difference between "you are posting on the Internet, created by our current system, talking about how the current system sucks, lol!" and "subsistence farming is unscalable and inefficient and cannot support the population at scale, you should understand why that is so".

NewForumSoftware posted:

I don't think anyone is advocating for that though? Mr 5 acre forest with goats is probably creating a surplus, it's just still not "profitable". I don't think anyone unironically suggest we should all return to the fields ala Pol Pot but I imagine that's a beautiful picture to paint if you want to make "permies" seem as dumb as possible.

NewForumSoftware posted:

I don't think anyone is advocating that though?

quote:

Have you processed the fact that global trade politics are a big reason why subsistence farmers are having such a bad time?

Digiwizzard posted:

It’s pretty rich to claim that Permaculture is fueled by deep reactionary forces. It’s just a theoretical framework about designing gardens and storing energy. There’s nothing Conservative about it except in the Conservation of resources sense. Permaculturalists actions are generally modest and small scale and limited to things like growing food and storing rainwater, while they may not achieve total self sufficiency they tangibly reduce consumption, mitigate reliance on global capitalism, and demonstrate actual willingness to change and redress the problems we’re facing.

Contrast this to Liberal shitheads like Thug Lessons, who are Conservatives in the truest sense of the word, because they’re only concerned with conserving the existing social order. For them, change is antithetical because they refuse to even acknowledge that there even is a problem. They’re not living unsustainable lifestyles, it’s just that the correct energy source that can sustain them hasn’t been invented yet. It doesn't matter that their economies are supplied by a multitude of exploited slaves, because those slaves are simply temporarily embarrassed westerners going through necessary transitional poverty before they can be elevated to unsustainability. There’s no thought about where the resources would have to come from to allow this level of consumption, or how to mitigate the subsequent environmental damage before it drives humanity extincts, because those are problems for someone else who is cleverer and smarter to solve. For them, change is something that comes from elsewhere. Preferably with no disruption to the economy or their way of life. Because that’s non negotiable.

If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice this same abdication of responsibility has hit every single segment of society. The public, growing increasingly anxious of a terrifying future, are begging governments of the world initiate urgent action. Governments of the world, aware of the devastating economic turmoil that would be caused by acting, are confident that the Free Market will come up with a satisfying solution. Corporations, aware that having to contain even a fraction of their externalities would instantly bankrupt them, patiently await for researchers and academia to invent a way to make saving the planet affordable. Researchers and Academics, aware of the scale and urgency of the problems facing us, are baffled by the inaction of Governments and Corporations. Many of them quietly growing gardens and storing rainwater.

Digiwizzard posted:

Cuba is the one of the only countries that lives within its carbon budget. And yet, to live like them would be a state of intolerable inhuman cruelty, according to moronic hot take generator thug lessons

Digiwizzard posted:

Cuba is the one of the only countries that lives within its carbon budget. And yet, to live like them would be a state of intolerable inhuman cruelty, according to moronic hot take generator thug lessons

quote:

In 2015, Cuba exported $1.4B and imported $6.82B, resulting in a negative trade balance of $5.42B.

The top exports of Cuba are Raw Sugar ($378M), Rolled Tobacco ($213M), Refined Petroleum ($148M), Hard Liquor ($98.8M) and Nickel Mattes ($89.7M)

Its top imports are Poultry Meat ($219M), Wheat ($196M), Refined Petroleum ($174M), Concentrated Milk ($165M) and Corn ($148M).

source

Digiwizzard posted:

Cuba is the one of the only countries that lives within its carbon budget. And yet, to live like them would be a state of intolerable inhuman cruelty, according to moronic hot take generator thug lessons