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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. Maybe permaculture and subsistence farming aren't the same thing?
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# ? Aug 26, 2017 22:34 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 04:36 |
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NewForumSoftware posted:Maybe permaculture and subsistence farming aren't the same thing? Permies calls subsistence farming "food self-sufficiency", and makes it sound a lot easier than it is.
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# ? Aug 26, 2017 22:37 |
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Thug Lessons posted:Permies calls subsistence farming "food self-sufficiency", and makes it sound a lot easier than it is. 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.
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# ? Aug 26, 2017 22:39 |
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. 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.
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# ? Aug 26, 2017 22:43 |
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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. 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.
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# ? Aug 26, 2017 22:48 |
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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. 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. Thug Lessons fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Aug 26, 2017 |
# ? Aug 26, 2017 22:49 |
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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. Just because more human labor is involved doesn't make permaculture subsistence farming. It's pretty disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
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# ? Aug 26, 2017 22:57 |
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Show us on the doll where Integrated Forest Gardening touched you, Thug Life.
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# ? Aug 26, 2017 23:08 |
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NewForumSoftware posted:Just because more human labor is involved doesn't make permaculture subsistence farming. It's pretty disingenuous to suggest otherwise. If you look at what permies actually want to do, which is abolish industrial farming and replace it with permacultural smallholdings, what you effectively have is subsistence farming. Or are you saying that permies want to keep some industrial farms, which can produce a surplus to allow some people to move off the farm? I haven't really heard that at all. Mainly what I hear is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy that these smallholdings will be ultra-productive.
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# ? Aug 26, 2017 23:17 |
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This thread has gone on a weird tangent so imma take off the shitposter mask for a moment and say that some of you should read Kyle Chamberlains blog, start way back when he was just getting started as one of those back-to-the-land dreamers if you want to see the decline that brought him to today:quote:In a Skype interview with a casting director, I was asked, "What 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.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 00:03 |
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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. My grandfather is a well-known horticultural engineer who has worked with the UN in Afghanistan/Pakistan/India to help those countries switch from subsistence farming to industrial farming so that they can actually feed their populations. Again I don't know anything about permaculture. But industrial farming is absolutely necessary to feed the world. I'm all for individuals growing their own veggies and following practices that make more efficient use of private land, but stuff like that has never been and won't ever be feasible at scale.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 00:04 |
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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. Note that this statistic actually includes a lot of people who don't derive any income at all from agriculture. 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. i.e. a lot of these 'farms' are just large suburban lots in Texas, or a nurse practitioner who lives in Atlanta's family lot which is rented to a neighbor for cotton production. 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.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 02:01 |
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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 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.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 02:16 |
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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. 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.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 02:52 |
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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
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 02:55 |
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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. 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.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 03:08 |
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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. The study I posted that prompted this whole thread identified livestock as by far the biggest problem in agriculture, which is absolutely true. They're easily the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the sector and 70% of all agricultural land, (and about 25% of all land on earth), is devoted to pasture, mostly cattle. As far as I'm concerned ending the consumption of red meat is right behind fighting climate change as the biggest environmental issue.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 03:18 |
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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. 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...
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 03:31 |
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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... Fair enough. YMMV and the course varies a lot depending on who's teaching it. I don't think I'm out of line criticizing their ideology though.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 03:39 |
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i will tell you guys my world-saving life plan because i trust and love you: i'm going to domesticate the kangaroo
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 04:04 |
But how does it taste?
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 05:27 |
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it's like venison
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 05:50 |
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lmao i just googled the kangaroo methane situation and found out the studies got debunked back in like 2015 gently caress my life
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 05:51 |
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i was wrong, friends. i was wrong about the kangaroo farts. my life's work, my masterpiece, built on sand - just shifting sand
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 05:54 |
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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.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 09:21 |
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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. Nice meltdown. You know you're off the deep end when you unironically use phrases like "mitigate reliance on global capitalism". (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 09:31 |
enraged_camel posted:Nice meltdown. What's meltdowny about that? Come on, engange its arguments and stop your useless platitudes and polemics. 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? 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. 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....and strangely there is nothing individuals can contribute to these projects but to shut up, sit down on their hands and consume as usual. SavageGentleman fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Aug 27, 2017 |
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 10:07 |
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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? Subsistence farming has existed for much longer than "global trade politics" and has always resulted in a wretched existence. Since there is no surplus grown for trade, you completely miss out on the benefits of specialization and economies of scale. It is incredibly inefficient and can support only very low population densities, and (since we're talking about climate change) it is very, very vulnerable to fluctuations in local weather patterns. You are only one, maybe two bad harvests away from starvation. I mean there are still many people in Asia who engage in nomadic herding (which is a form of subsistence farming) where they migrate with their animals from place to place in search of fodder. It's not exactly a great lifestyle and the standard of living of those people is very, very low. 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. 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. 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... Slow News Day fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Aug 27, 2017 |
# ? Aug 27, 2017 10:34 |
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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.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 10:44 |
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That... I don't think it means what you think it means.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 10:46 |
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enraged_camel posted:That... I don't think it means what you think it means. 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.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 10:55 |
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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. Yeah, so you do in fact not get what that comic means. 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".
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 11:03 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O3InwwKnXA look at these poor wretched souls. look at the privations that has been wrought upon them. We must do anything to avoid the miserable fate that befalls those who grow food
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 12:17 |
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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.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 12:36 |
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NewForumSoftware posted:I don't think anyone is advocating that though? SavageGentleman is. Maybe you should pay some attention: quote:Have you processed the fact that global trade politics are a big reason why subsistence farmers are having such a bad time?
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 13:02 |
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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. It's obvious why you're a reactionary. Right here you're advocating to keep the poor poor. In fact everyone has to be poor, because not being poor is unsustainable. Add to that the fact you're perversely salivating over the prospect of global economic collapse, which would represent an absolute holocaust for the world's most vulnerable people. This isn't anti-capitalism. It's just anti-human.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 13:04 |
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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
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 13:10 |
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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 Clearly you haven't been to Cuba.
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 13:17 |
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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 dude, I've been to Cuba. It's poor as gently caress and if your message is "live like a third world shithole* to save our planet" then you've already lost. Because no-one wants to live like that when there are other alternatives. The Cubans sure as gently caress don't want to live like that. Also, Cuba exports a lot of commercial agricultural goods (sugar, tobacco) in order to import foodstuffs. Self-reliant my rear end. quote:In 2015, Cuba exported $1.4B and imported $6.82B, resulting in a negative trade balance of $5.42B. *not a statement on the people but only on the living conditions
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 13:22 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 04:36 |
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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 🎵🎶Playing ethnicky jazz To parade your snazz On your five-grand stereo Braggin' that you know How the niggers feel cold And the slum's got so much soul It's time to taste what you most fear Right Guard will not help you here~🎵
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# ? Aug 27, 2017 13:29 |