"It’s because they realize—either consciously or at some gut level—that there’s something fundamentally flawed about a system that has a prime directive to churn nature and humans into capital, and do it more and more each year, regardless of the costs to human well-being and to the environment we depend on."
https://www.fastcompany.com/40439316/are-you-ready-to-consider-that-capitalism-is-the-real-problem
This loop but for the ever widening grip of [capitalism/"the state"] as it reaches out to colonize existing social resources. https://mastodon.social/media/bv55vUABZ4lvXN07c3g
Actually, we can go more general? Can a series of those looping systems lead to a version of anacyclosis - where the informavores explore frontiers where the old systems have since receded? http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/125-restless-genes/dobbs-text
Sporiate http://bit.ly/2tLwdje
"Ant"isocial theory of gentrificaiton / frontiers are colonized.
People who make beachhead for gentrification are running away from "the system". In doing so they also do enough bushwhacking for the collective to follow?
A reformulation of: "What if ants explore in spirals b/c they get grumpy of the hungry ones complaining in the anthill?" - me
"Usually, it is adventure-seeking explorers who discover/map new territory, but refuge-seeking exiles who settle it. Very different types" - VGR 🤔
"Under-appreciated risk of being social catalyst: causing pain by connecting people who are bad for each other or worse, one victimizes other" - VGR
What if the "colonization" of the internet by capitalistic forces is a result of people trying to build out communistic/socialistic wateringholes? https://mastodon.ar.al/users/aral/updates/380
The commons only gets stolen because it's valuable.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130108201515.htm
Battle for the frontier. https://mastodon.social/media/68G902DpJteJil8jUzY
Don't worry everyone. The freemarket will fix it; just pray harder to the gods of capitalism and the invisible hand.
What if the environment is just another unfortunate externality?
The gods of content beckon. Prostrate yourself on the alter to receive the holy token of worship. The great bringer of advertising will bless you with holly mammon. The economist prophets aren't lying to you at all. I don't know what your talking about
https://vimeo.com/162039610
Capitalism is an ecosystem built on bubbles of life and death over the whalefall we call earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall
But maybe that's ok?
I mean, 'we're just fucking monkeys is shoes'...
https://open.spotify.com/track/2Y8QB1jEYl9b4uMBM07CLH
"The Truth? You fools! [...]
There are only Perspectives.
There are only Narratives."
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/182
"Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!"
Me? I'm learning how to avoid eating.
"You don't just create evil, you create and help to perpetuate sustainable ecosystems of evil."
Did you know: a policing wavefront ensures tit-for-tat's survival in it's wake.
"If you don’t have Tit for Tat but some other strategy, it cannot do it. It must be a very strict retaliator. But then after you have the switch toward cooperation, it is not Tit for Tat that profits. Its frequency goes up, but then it yields to Generous Tit for Tat. Tit for Tat is not the aim of evolution, but it makes it possible. It is a kind of pivot."
http://discovermagazine.com/1993/may/forgivenessmath212
"For a mathematician, says Sigmund, whether you study molecules or the behavior of animals doesn’t matter. It all reduces to the same differential equations. Mathematically this is really one field: the population dynamics of self-replicating entities. They can be RNA molecules or reproductive strategies or animals preying on each other or parasites or whatever. Success determines the composition of the field, and the composition determines success. It is not easy to predict where this may lead"
Worms are actually bad for forests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icGV8bJRkkg
Wax worms (not actually worms?) eat plastic bags.
https://qz.com/967215/scientists-have-discovered-a-worm-that-eats-plastic-bags-and-leave-behind-antifreeze/
As humans colonize the earth, we bring along interlopers who pave the way.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0102_030102_earthworms.html
This google alert for bee semen I have setup is paying off in spades.
"Honeybees aren't native to America, We brought them here. But the U.S. closed its borders to live honeybee imports in 1922, and our honeybee population has been interbreeding ever since."
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/13/536884827/no-offense-american-bees-but-your-sperm-isnt-cutting-it
"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question..." 🤔
Accidental Genocides, Invisible Oil Spills: The rise of road as a self-colonizing distributed microbiome; The destructive peopling of earth. From Cow Farts to Dust Bowls: how we are poisoning ourselves.
The consumer consumes.
A choose your own adventure game for ideology of peopling.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/09/is-britain-full-home-truths-about-population-panic
http://www.npr.org/2016/08/18/479349760/should-we-be-having-kids-in-the-age-of-climate-change
Fringe ideologies also have a stance, but It's a little more aggressive.
"Capitalism led to incredible strides in living standards…It also added several billion people who would have otherwise been eaten by lions."
https://nishikiprestige.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/the-emergence-of-capitaldeath-and-punk-rock-21st-century-gas-chamber/
"Kill all humans" - Bender
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qBlPa-9v_M
"We need to confront an irony here. Gentrification is a pacification process that takes the wild and puts it in frames. I believe that hacking is the reverse of that, taking the ordered rules of systems and making them fluid and wild again. Where gentrification tries to erect safe fences around things, hacker impulses try to break them down, or redefine them. These are two countervailing forces within human society."
https://aeon.co/essays/how-yuppies-hacked-the-original-hacker-ethos
"In the 18th century, Adam Smith was the greatest advocate for the view that replacing monopolies, primogeniture, entail, and involuntary servitude with free markets would enable laborers to work on their own behalf. His key assumption was that incentives were more powerful than economies of scale."
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/7/17/15973478/bosses-dictators-workplace-rights-free-markets-unions
Ignoring Elephant in the room due to branded guilt complex.
"On its face, conscious consumerism is a morally righteous, bold movement. But it’s actually taking away our power as citizens. It drains our bank accounts and our political will, diverts our attention away from the true powerbrokers, and focuses our energy instead on petty corporate scandals and fights over the moral superiority of vegans."
https://qz.com/920561/conscious-consumerism-is-a-lie-heres-a-better-way-to-help-save-the-world/
"Altruism cannot be learned without selfish rewards, but once learned it can perpetuate itself without them" - @the_lagrangian
Moles tho. Moles are actually good for the trees. They kill the worms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fio1NUxszhY
"The mole runs are in reality "worm traps", the mole sensing when a worm falls into the tunnel and quickly running along to kill and eat it."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_(animal)
Not to be confused with the treekin. Voles are actually assholes: http://blog.pennlive.com/gardening/2015/12/how_to_stop_voles_from_chewing.html
"But while that may be true for vegetable gardens - and I emphasize may be true because my next guest may even question that knowledge that we think we know about - earthworms are not so good for other types of ecosystems."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9105956
Moles are adorable by the way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toARdZKs-IE
I am now adding them to my head cannon as "dirt fish".
Apparently this will get rid dirt fish, and voles.
https://www.amazon.com/Vekibee-Powered-Repeller-Repellent-Repels/dp/B01LZLVHSJ
I bet this is just a timer circuit, a dc motor+weight and the guts of a solar powered stake lamp.
Direct causal links between my current anxiety and the colonization of the Americas.
This noise is driving me loopy.
http://bit.ly/2uI6F8I
"Conservatively, American lawns take up three times as much space as irrigated corn. The authors mapped the entirety of the nation's turf grass, below. You'll notice that it's basically a population density map of the U.S."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/04/lawns-are-a-soul-crushing-timesuck-and-most-of-us-would-be-better-off-without-them/ https://mastodon.social/media/hV7JKZ17qMe4UCdynos
Landscaping is cheaper with slave labor...
"The goats "had a barnyard aroma" and cost $20,719, including $4,203 for drinking water and a workers' toilet, and $2,560 for monitoring, city staff said in a report to the city council this week.
The cost was nearly five times the $4,245 for a normal parks maintenance man backed by a prison inmate work crew to do the job, the report said."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oregon-goats-idUSKCN0W002D
"Then again, given the alternative of sitting in a jail or prison cell all day, being able to leave – even to do manual labor for little or no pay – is seen by many prisoners to be an improvement. Corrections officials rarely mention the monotonous and sometimes onerous conditions of confinement that contribute to prisoners’ “eagerness” to participate in work programs."
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2012/may/15/prison-slave-labor-replaces-freeworld-workers-in-down-economy/
Direct-to-Household lawncare workers in USA: 533,810
Annual Mean Wage: $28,200
"Workers typically perform a variety of tasks, which may include any combination of the following: sod laying, mowing, trimming, planting, watering, fertilizing, digging, raking, sprinkler installation, and installation of mortarless segmental concrete masonry wall units."
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes373011.htm https://mastodon.social/media/QTtiYhCoIaebDP62GCU
Another study [2017] on worms vs maple trees: talks on why they were overlooked. Notably mentions rise of sedges (grass/field) as consequence.
"Biotic soil disturbance (mainly by earthworms) have likely occurred in other areas reporting maple dieback, but the impacts by these organisms are usually not the study focus. [...] Earthworms have long been established in areas
of the eastern U.S. and therefore may not have been considered as an exotic species"
https://sci-hub.cc/10.1007/s10530-017-1523-0
via @AChimera
QuackGrass.... Invasive unless you wanna grow cattle. And guess what causes it's rhizomes to spread? Biotic soil disturbances (by worms?).
https://newfarmerproject.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/outsmarting-quackgrass/
This stuff is all connected.
"Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour,"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam 😦
"Looking at these land, water, fertilizer and soil costs together, you could argue that the corn system uses more natural resources than any other agricultural system in America, while providing only modest benefits in food. It’s a dubious trade-off—depleting natural resources to deliver relatively little food and nutrition to the world. But it doesn’t need to be that way."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-rethink-corn/
"Furthermore, it would include conservation tillage and organic farming practices that improve soil conditions by restoring soil structure, organic content and water holding capacity, making farming landscapes much more resilient to floods and droughts. The overall result would be a landscape better prepared to weather the next drought, flood, disease or pest."
"Sheep were brought to graze in the White House lawns in order to save the manpower required to mow the expansive grounds. Wool from the sheep was sold as a fundraiser for the Red Cross."
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/photos/sheep-graze-on-the-white-house-lawn
@ultimape ......
They acted like goats and smelled like goats? I mean…
@aldersprig have you ever smelled a goat? It's really bad. Even have to keep the male goats away from the females because their musk will taint the milk.
My personal vote is for solar powered autonomous lawn mowers. Or just not having lawns.
@ultimape Yeah, one of my best friends is a goat farmer. I’m just thinking “why were they surprised when their barnyard animals smelled like … barnyard animals?”
@aldersprig Ah yeah. Growing up in Vermont the idea of barnyard smells doesn't really phase me, but definitely a head-scratcher. I did live next to a pig farm once and it wasn't the most pleasant of experiences.
I suspect it was a complaint or myopia on the city's part for not asking the locals. Most of the success stories I found are in situations away from people where they can let the goats roam free - avoids the headache of keeping a herding dogs and paying a full time attendant.
@ultimape I spend the first 5 years of my life next to a dairy farm. I don’t even notice that one.
@aldersprig Seems like an interesting question. I found a survey from the UK that says
"Some 12% of 18- to 24-year olds have never seen a cow, 16% have never visited a farm and 17% have not visited the countryside at all"
http://www.princescountrysidefund.org.uk/downloads/research/whod-be-a-farmer-today.pdf
Apparently the older demographic is more in-line with my expectations. Couldn't find anything on USA though. I often wonder how much of an outlier VT is.
"The freedom of these corporations to pollute – and the fixation on a feeble lifestyle response – is no accident. It is the result of an ideological war, waged over the last forty years, against the possibility of collective action. Devastatingly successful, it is not too late to reverse it."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals