[fuzzykoala]

Hi Nicole and Ilargi,
I’ve had the good fortune to connect with some people interested in starting a Permaculture-focused research institute/organization in the Canadian prairies. My question for you is whether such a project would be possible and worth pursuing in the medium/longer term, and if so, how could you structure it to endure through the coming contraction?
Thanks! (also thanks for the awesome articles!)
Calvin

[fuzzykoala]

Glennda:
I’m sorry if I wasn’t entirely clear, but I see laws and regulations AS a cage. In our case, when banks became self-regulating it was just another step as they escaped the laws put in place to keep the Great Depression from happening again.

I like to think of it like Jurassic Park, where the pessimistic mathematician expects that the dinosaurs will inevitably escape from their pens: “Life finds a way.”

Ashvin:
I see what you’re saying, but I worry that it’s too easy to forget. One or two generations might learn this lesson, but if they succeed in creating a better society, the generations that come after just won’t have the experience or the motivation to get them to understand.

I suppose there’s a possibility that with some obvious damage to the world and a good narrative we could change how we organize ourselves. It’s interesting reading Collapse and comparing how a number of North American societies would expand in a series of wet years – not remembering how dry things normally were in their area – compared to Iceland, where the moonscapes there are a permanent reminder that they need to take good care of their soil.

[fuzzykoala]

Wow. I just started writing an essay about this by accident so I’ll try and keep it short.

I think the thing that alfbell is looking for is that there’s a personality trait that makes it so that people want power. It’s good in moderate amounts, but like intelligence, beauty or natural athletic ability some people have more than others. As far as I can tell, it’s a very desirable quality people look for in a mate. People with a lot of this trait naturally accumulate as much power as they can, simply because they’re wired that way. Whether it’s a bank CEO or a big man in New Guinea, as a group they take all they can get. Again, I think that pretty much everyone has this trait to some extent.

The cage that Candace wants to build will always be broken by these people eventually. In our society, we try to restrict them from taking too much power with good laws, but those laws can only last so long. For me anyways, Plato’s ideal Republic was the first thought experiment to try and cage humanity in such a way as to rid ourselves of our troubles, but he also pointed out that this desire for distinction/money/power would ultimately be its undoing.

Building an artificial cage (natural ones seem to work on occasion) to keep anyone from getting too much power and subsequently wrecking society might be possible, but without taking this trait into account I feel as though we’re basically taking a shot in the dark. The only other solution I’ve been able to think of so far is to get enough people to really understand this, making them freely choose to limit the power they compete for and to act as a normative force whenever someone takes more than they should.

I’m not sure if that’s the clearest, but hopefully I’ve captured the gist of it. If you think I’m wrong or if someone’s done a lot of work in this area already please let me know: I often feel like I’m speculating in a vacuum.

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