I think they did a study in the Amazon, and found that actually the Amazon is strongest when defended by indigenous populations. In fact basically all around the world, all nature is stronger when protected by humans.

I think you could make the case that before capitalism, this would also have been the case in the west. There are clear links between the growth of capitalism and witch burning.

They do it in some places in Australia, but in supermarkets and not in greengrocers.

Apparently misting veggies like this reduces their life, it’s mostly to make the veggies look more saleable rather than having them last longer (IIUC).

Liberals will break the law, or create new laws, to stop the left, but think the law is enough to stop the right. The reason is that the Liberal cause is a “nice to have”, but the protection of neoliberalism is a “must have”.

I learnt that from Shaun’s video about JK Rowling, which is eye opening. Basically, nothing bad in her universe ever changes. Slavery remains, because the slaves like it, for instance. Maintaining that status quo is a “must have” for her. Having the heroes fight for what’s right is a “nice to have”, despite being the main story.

Wonder why conservatives are all neoliberal tho? Wonder why history in their books goes back to a certain time and no further?

Conservationist?

The forces at play are far greater than you realize in scope and scale

I know it’s a turn of phrase but you don’t know me. I realise the scope and scale of how the world works, thanks.

Your pitching

The future you want

You’re assuming a lot given what I’ve said. It’s not an “in effect” thing either. You talk about actual systems in a way which invokes Gandalf magic when they work like Penn and Teller magic. You assume the article and any defense of it is naive, but you’re missing the simple reality that sometimes you can simply remove huge amounts of complexity and get a better result.

The internet, for example, is not magic. There were several competing communication protocols, from circuit switched systems to fax to pagers. The internet is able to do all of those jobs, and it is a simpler system than the ones which existed in the past. It moved some complexity around, and therefore removed a bunch of complexity which was unnecessary.

This increase in simplicity is also called the second industrial revolution.

Simplification is always regressive and backwards.

Perhaps you prefer the term decomplecting? Complexity is an overloaded term, but you literally follow up “simplification as a regressive thing” with a bunch of simplification which is effective. Since we are sharing reading lists, perhaps a bit of Dr Fatima and Think that Through on Youtube might help you. It’s clear you do not understand the article nor my points.

The world without complexity was only able to feed around 2 billion humans

Bold claim. Why do you think complexity itself can improve efficiency? I can easily tank efficiency by adding complexity. Complexity also necessarily destroys resilience. Every time we’ve tried adding complexity, all of those societies disappear, from ancient Egypt to Rome to the Incans.

Often it’s a bit difficult to make an abstract point out of examples. You seem to be countering those examples with today’s zeitgeist, the exact thing the article is looking to counter.

The person decided this was the normal they wanted and where they chose to live.

This would be true if all else were equal, but it isn’t. Society built roads. It had to tear down housing to build the roads. The house prices went up because corporations bought up the housing stock and are using it to manipulate rents. None of that was the “choice” of the farmer. One cannot just opt out. “oh no thanks. I’ll just take efficient public transport and we can just rip up the road network. Just give me one of the houses we build through more dense development.”

Things are going to increase in complexity unless civilization collapses

Why? Many folks today are talking about making society resilient over efficient, with respect to COVID and supply chains. This is a direct ask for reducing complexity. The 15 minute city is an ask to reduce complexity. Complex societies fail.

Ultimately, the issue is cultural.

The issue is hegemony. Every company claiming to benefit you are building a fiefdom and you are the bricks. You can work around it but you have to beat the products and services you buy into submission. This is true of phones, computers, cars, TVs, subscriptions, AI, and increasingly how it asks more and more of us. People say “the things we own end up owning us” but no one says that about a fridge, or a washing machine.

mmmm Tomacco…

To pierce the veil a bit, yes, the meme is that somehow the podcast is amazing and insightful, even though in reality it’s pretty meh.

It’s called “Talk Tuah”.

They’re green growth. Relevant Think that through video.

Loved her quantum mechanics episode. Mostly went over my head but very interesting.

Voting isn’t going to do shit.

Convince the people around you to protest and vote.

Which is it?

The issue is, the “wisdom” isn’t “don’t worry about personal emissions”, it’s “take voting extremely seriously. Become a single issue voter, that issue should be climate”

But there’s a psychological thing where people take the discount today and the payment later.

but you expanded the example with food availability

No, the example is always about “moving the problem elsewhere” which is the essence of colonialism, so when coming up with a neat solution, one must always ask “is there a problem I’m moving elsewhere?”. The food needs to be grown somewhere. The land is effectively in permanent use by your stomach. You can’t pretend it doesn’t exist just because it’s somewhere else.

Are you advocating that houses would be better for farming and animal rearing given the lesser land availability?

I’m saying apartments do not solve a problem here. Villages have collections of small houses and then some farms. Some of those houses are a bit further out, and some are in a cluster. That’s required because of the different job roles of the individuals in that society. Perhaps we should design with respect to those different job roles and optimise for internalities, bringing our lifestyle in line with our usage.

that septic tank would need to be routinely emptied somewhere

You can use it in biofuels and treat it with nature, then turn it into fertiliser. It is a resource. See how that internalises the usage? You are taking the big loops of “I need big government to solve this problem” into a “my community or family can solve this problem?”

would it be inconceivable for the much greater surrounding land to be co-opted for farming and animals?

That’s not how it works. It ends up being a wash due to just how much land is used for farming vs just living. I’m not arguing for McMansions here. I’m arguing for single storied, sometimes detached housing in a “community configuration”. Shared gardens and farms, and a mix of earthships and townhouse style developments. Keep the sustainable “loops” small.

Because land in villages is typically owned by several different families who are unwilling to share it

Even pre-capitalist and non-capitalist communities have a village like structure. Even nomadic tribes have a village like structure. They know how to share. We don’t need multiple stories.

Overall, the problem with advocating for higher density is often a statement of denial, similar to the “zero waste” people. Pretending that you are only using the space you sleep in and discounting all the space you use for food, and treating your problems as “waste” which is just thrown away and forgotten or left to some big government to deal with. This is the opposite of Solarpunk.

What are you talking about. It’s an island. Where are the animals for the kebabs? Where are the “groceries” coming from? How much power does it take for the “single” sewer line? Who said the houses would have a sewer line and not septic tanks? What roads? I’m not arguing for the thing on the left, I’m saying there’s a reason why we have been building villages in village shapes and not in apartment shapes.

If you draw those things, the actual land use becomes apparent, and then you have to draw the infrastructure to bring the food in and take the poop out. Eventually you’ll start to see that there’s an enormous amount of land use just for living, it consumes the island either way, and there’s an argument to be made for living like a village (as they do in actual villages) because of the decentralisation of resources and lowering the land use of infrastructure.

Humans turn food into poop. They don’t just sit in an apartment. An apartment is a tool to bring in food and take out poop (and other waste).

You can draw a building like that, but to portray the apartment system correctly, you need to show where the poop goes, and where the food comes from.