Anarchoblogs

(You Cannot Buy Creativity. You Cannot Make Creativity. You Can Only Be Creative.)

Ironically, one of the things I love about transhumanism is its limitations. Transhumanism can never be a political movement, it can only ever be a matter of personal action. How do you stage a protest to call for more invention and ingenuity? You can't. As the statist transhumanists are learning, you can't even pass a law to make it happen. The only option you've got is to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Sure a lot of people talk about the accelerating pace of technological development. But that no more makes them transhumanists than talking about ninjas makes you a ninja. To be a transhumanist you have to do something to further the transhumanist ideal. "Converting" people behind some banner doesn't really count because numbers are irrelevant. You can't vote the Singularity in.

You can only do your part.

On a somewhat tetchy note of self-defense, Michael Anissimov at Accelerating Future has posted a list of transhumanists in high ranking academic and corporate positions. The implication is that they're actually applying themselves to open new possibilities for human growth. And that's all very fine and well. Some of those names are quite impressive. But I'm interested in the people that aren't professors or CEOs. Because frankly, those are the people least likely to have the eureka moments that count. The real transhumanists are the wide-eyed girls in the observatory and the stubborn boys splicing genes in the basement. I want to see a list of the hackers whose direct action is keeping the Internet open. Or the backyard engineers in the third world who are inventing monumental improvements to our infrastructure with scrapped bicycle parts. Those are the people bootstrapping us to the future. Not some blowhard in front of a podium or pedantic lab tech cranking through instructions.

From Anarchist Studies Volume 16, Number 1 2008 – By CHARLES THORPE AND IAN WELSH

ABSTRACT The authoritarian and ecologically destructive juggernaut of state-supported big science and technology in the twentieth century understandably fostered a deep pessimism and suspicion towards science and technology among many in the green, anarchist, and libertarian left milieu. This reaction has been [...]

Continue reading at @H+ :: Anarcho-Transhumanism …

I'm happy to say that I've eaten the first produce from the garden. In the past week I've eaten the first bell pepper, swiss chard and lettuce. This week I'll also be eating the first tomatoes and early next week I should have the first yellow squash and cucumbers! The zucchinis are in full bloom and will also be producing soon and some of the basil is also close to harvest.

I spent four days last week hauling water from the lake for the weekly watering of the 17 fruit trees as well as the daily watering of the new beds of lettuce, chard and broccoli. Eventually those little seedlings will be large enough to shade their surrounding soil and won't need as much watering.

I've also started an experiment with the very nutrient rich lake muck for watering. Another one of those aha! moments and something I probably should have been doing weeks ago. Just a few shovelfuls of the watery muck which I'm getting at the water's edge should be an excellent source of nutrients for the garden plants. My guess is that it would be very similar to composted manure. I do not know what the exact nutrient breakdown is so I'm going easy and only using it on two tomatoes, two peppers, a patch of basil and a patch of beets. Will use it again this week on the same plants and see how it goes.

Technorati Tags:
Conservation, Energy Conservation, Food, Food Production, Gardening, Living Simply, Natural Resources, Permaculture, Self Reliance

I had another one of those aha!! moments that is almost embarrasing because it was so long coming. As I've written recently I'm not using air conditioning as a part of my effort to reduce my personal impact on the climate. I'm also living in a cabin which is not completely finished on the inside. The ceiling is finished and well insulated with a ceiling fan installed. I've still got two walls that need the electrical wiring finished, insulation on two walls still to be installed and then pine bead board for all of the inside walls.

Much of my cabin is shaded at various times of day but it does get hit with a good bit of direct sun. About half of the east facing side gets full sun from about 9am to noon. I made it a point to insulate about half of this wall a few weeks back but a good bit of heat still makes it through. I would have done the whole wall but I have a good bit of temporary shelving nailed up to the other half and it is fully stocked with food so I stopped at the half way point.

Three weeks ago Greg brought down a truck load of used 2x4, 2x6, and 2x8 wood to be re-used for a variety of future projects. We stacked it into a neat pile where it has been sitting ever since. Meanwhile I've been working, observing and thinking about the design elements of the site and future projects. I decided very early on that I'd be putting a series of eight or so raised rain collection barrels along the back/east side of the cabin and that I'd put a lattice or similar structure on it for some sort of perennial fruit vine or an annual bean/squash vine to provide food and shade. I may also plant a couple fruit trees back there. But those projects won't be completed until early spring of next year.

Now, for that aha! moment. It's hot and humid outside. I'm hot. My dog is hot. My unfinished walls are getting direct sunlight and heating up outside and inside. Why not lean all those neatly stacked boards up against the east side of my cabin? So simple and obvious!! In ten minutes I've provided a solid wall of deep shade that should easily give me another hour or two of inside coolness. I'll be doing the same thing along the south side of the cabin which gets direct sun from about 3pm to 5pm.

Greg will be back down around the third weekend of August and we'll get the inside walls finished off but I'll be leaving those boards up until they no longer get the direct sun or until outside temperatures cool down, probably the middle of September.

It always amazes me how many people do not shade their houses with trees, bushes or vines. I suppose that the combination of cheap energy, air conditioning and fairly well insulated homes combined make it easy for folks to ignore or not realize just how much direct sunlight on exterior walls can heat a home. As energy becomes increasingly expensive and eventually as shortages occur I expect these details will become more important to more people.

Technorati Tags:
Climate Change, Conservation, Energy, Energy Conservation, Energy Crisis, Energy Shortage, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming, Living Simply, Natural Resources, Oil, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Permaculture, Self Reliance, The Long Emergency

This is a couple of weeks late but many of you will still be interested...

Consider me disturbed (and this an apology) if events that I am responsible for feel as uncomfortable as this one.

The concept of the ABSC is great, get together anarchists to talk about what anarchism means to them. The first event included music and the always delightful (and, apparently, delighted if the pictures on their site are any indication) Barry Pateman. Barry's presentation was on the history of anarchism in the Bay Area and while short it was exciting in that there is a real tradition in this are (even if it skips around an awful lot). The music was fine, a bit on the red/arty side, but just fine.

The crowd was decidedly -red-, the songs were all derived from workers struggles, there were even books for sale by AK, because clearly they can't help themselves. I kind of feel sorry for all the workerism of these people. They are sitting in the Mission with nary a Latino face in the crowd, mostly having just gotten off work at their service-oriented jobs, talking about the great workers movements of another day. I realize this is trite but I just can't understand the "historical re-enactment society" interest of these people.

Barry at the SF Bookfair



That aside, it was kind of nice to go to this kind of event, one that I would generally not feel invited to, with enough people to ignore the glares and glances from the mediocre people who Barry implored me (and the room) to consider myself in relationship, if not community, with. I am not feeling it. I really am not. And I am sorry if I alienate kindred spirits during events I host with the cliquishness, awkwardness, and sectarianism I felt from the crowd (short Barry of course) of the ABSC. Perhaps it would be better named the Barry Pateman Social Club?

A week or so ago I ordered Patrick Whitefield's "How to Make a Forest Garden" and have been reading it now for the past couple of days. It's an excellent book which serves as both an introduction to the concept of forest gardening as well as a detailed explanation for those that are ready to get their hands in the soil. While forest gardening is not technically permaculture it can be an excellent component in a larger permaculture design which is how I am planning to use it.

To put it simply, forest gardening uses fruit trees as the base in a layered design modeled after forest or woodland ecosystems. The fruit trees serve as the canopy with other layers of food such as soft fruit bushes such as Gooseberry which comprise the shrub layer and then an herbaceous layer of perennial herbs and vegetables. Annuals can be used but forest gardening places great importance on using perennials. By modeling our forest garden on nature we will see a variety of benefits such as less work (once the system is initially established) and more over-all production of a greater diversity of food in a smaller space thanks to the more efficient use of vertical space and time.

Think of it as an fruit orchard with a bonus. Rather than just apples, peaches, plums and pears why not also grow gooseberries, blueberries, currants, juneberry, ligonberry, pawpaw, and even kiwi all in the same space using a layered approach? Add to that a variety of herbs, perennial and annual vegetables along the outer edges and your orchard is now far more interesting, productive and less work. Less work? Yup. Remember an orchard either has lots of grass which is often cut and mulched to keep it from competing with the fruit trees. The forest garden's layers of berries and vegetables not only provide food but they help to mulch by shading out the grass. You may still need to mulch a bit but it should be significantly less than if you were just growing the fruit trees by themselves.

Technorati Tags:
Conservation, Ecology, Food, Food Production, Gardening, Herbs, Living Simply, Permaculture, Self Reliance, Forest Gardening

Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, is trying to raise funds to expand the Foundation’s activities. The quality of writing on the P2P Foundation blog is incomparable, and I have relied heavily on material in the P2P Wiki on peer production,…

Continue reading at Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism …

It was a great loss several years ago when the server went down and all the online issues of Jonathan Simcock's Total Liberty magazine were lost. But now the entire archive is available online. Issues 4-20 are available in pdf format. Issues 1-3 are no longer available in the original format, but are archived in html at Spunk Press (they're linked from the TL website). Check it out.