programs

I found out about peak oil (the theory that global oil production, like what happens with individual oil wells, has a bell-shaped curve) back in 2007. That led me indirectly and many years later to the Ishmael books, but there's a more direct connection I want to talk about today.

Reading the discussions about what should be done about the situation (yes, situation, as peak oil production happened sometime either in 2005 or 2008, depending on what statistics you use) sometimes is interesting, sometimes boring, but this last time it made me laugh. Not because that article is particularly funny, but because its basic premise is so flawed.

If you want, you can go read the article, but the underlying assumed premise is that living in a civilization is a given, and if we do various things then we can continue to do so pretty much the way as we do now, just maybe "conserving" or something.

It's the first time an article of this nature has hit me as so laughable. It brought to mind B's saying: the world won't be changed by programs, but by changed minds without programs.

Until people get sick of the madness, all the programs and "intervention" in the world won't do a damn thing.

And it's making me think that maybe I've changed more than I thought I had.

The unforeseen cost of civilization

I watched this video today, and I think you'll find it interesting.

An encouraging thought

I'm reading The Story of B again, and I think I have a lot in common with Jared, in that I tend to hold off making conclusions about things for a long time. And that I've pretty much lost my faith a while ago, but I come at it not with a naivete like he did but with a cynicism borne out of being shanked over and over again through the years by people who only thought of me as a disposable tool for their agendas.

I hold off making conclusions to the point of not trusting my gut, which is something I've worked to overcome.

And I'm starting to see where DQ is coming from here, because while Jesus came to save souls from the "world", I'm thinking that B worked to save the world (and us as part of that world) from the depravities of the Taker so-called soul. I wrote the "human" soul at first before I remembered that we are not humanity.

Which is an encouraging thought.

Cocoon

I was watching a sort of reality TV video series on Victorian farming (link is to the first one), and what struck me about the whole process was 1) how much personal growth these people went through and 2) how each one commented on how much work it was to live this way.

The personal growth part I think came about from spending so much time doing things they had no clue as to how to do before, btw, but what I want to focus on is the work involved.

All the innovations of the past 150 years or so since the days this series tried to emulate make perfect sense to me now. If people believe that civilization and agriculture and all is the way humans were meant to live (as Takers do), then labor-saving devices are the natural progression to a life of ease, very much like the life of ease we used to live before all this work became the cool thing to do (about 10,000 years ago).

Used to be that labor-saving was only for the rich, and slaves were your way to lounge about. In every era, the desire to not have to work all day all your life seems to be the norm. I think people naturally have it deep in their hearts that the way we live is unnatural, which is why they try constantly to improve upon it. The issue is that "ease" (as in walk a bit and your food is there) and "comfort" (where you are wrapped in cocoons of clothing and house and car) have been conflated to the point where we don't know how to live in the very way we were designed to live, like the Leavers do.

It occurs to me that like the butterfly in its cocoon, a period of struggle awaits us in order to get to the life that we're intended to live, but not a struggle to dominate all life but a struggle to finally grow up and leave the swaddling behind.

Still not so sure

I sort of disagree that B was the Antichrist. To me, it shows that DQ has a fundamental misunderstanding of what Jesus actually taught. For example, Matthew 6:

²⁴"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
 ²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?  ²⁸"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The whole Bible is an exhortation to reject the events leading to the Fall and trust God again with the knowledge of good and evil, instead of taking it for ourselves. But Mother Culture has twisted this, as usual, and now Christianity has basically nothing to do with Jesus.

Why improve ourselves?

It seems as if a huge part of Taker culture involves "getting ahead", aka getting more money for the most part. But it also seems to be that we never are happy with what we have, do, or are. We always have to be messing with it, trying to improve on things somehow.

If things were working, would we continually do that?

I read this yesterday:

Roadmap to Sustainability: Interpreting Daniel Quinn, by Doug Brown (free pdf download or you can buy it at that site)

Overall, a good critique of Daniel Quinn's works (some of which I haven't read yet). It definitely has an academic tone to it, which makes it hard to read at times. The author gets a bit leftist and twee for my tastes at the end, as he seems to think all we need to do is tweak a few things and we'll all turn into a Leaver utopia. But it's nice to see that someone has a vision at least for returning to our roots that doesn't involve Stone Age technology.

One of the best things about this book was a diagram which he uses to discuss some insights that Quinn hinted at but never fully fleshed out. It's worth reading just for that.

You really have to read the text for the explanation to the "second aberration", because the diagram is a bit simplistic and I don't think capitalism per se is the actual problem. But I think the author is on to something here.

In any case, if you have an interest in DQ's work you'll find this book interesting.