Society

Life without electricity

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“Actually, it takes more time to develop low-tech than it does to develop high-tech although we tend to think of advanced scientific technology when we say ‘technology,’ while we take low-tech lightly,” says Fujimura. On this misplaced assumption, we tend to desire the products of excessively advanced science and technology that promote convenience and comfort, and thus we have placed a huge burden on the environment, leading to the energy crisis and other critical situations.

Pay at the top: to each according to results? to social contribution? … or to systemic privilege?

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Are high executive and banking pay related to results? Or to social value added? Or does executive compensation simply ratchet upwards, irrespective of either? Jeremy Fox reviews work from the High Pay commission, the New Economics Foundation and Ha-Joon Chang suggesting the answers are “No”, “No” and “Yes”.

Announcing a revolutionary leap forward in the Transition model…

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Today sees the launch of three exciting new developments and outputs from Transition Network, the results of many months of work, that finally emerge blinking into the daylight. We are sure that they will greatly deepen your understanding of Transition, bring depth and richness to your work, re-inspire and energise you. They represent a radical shift in how Transition is understood and communicated.

The trouble with binary thinking

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Robert Anton Wilson pointed out some years ago that people who say “you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution” are usually part of the problem. The habit of thinking in binaries–that is, in hard oppositions between antithetical concepts–has deep roots in the human mind, but it leads to certain predictable difficulties, among them a particular kind of vulnerability to the sorcery practiced by the advertising and marketing industries. If we’re to see past the haze of arbitrary binaries to a less polarized future, a glance at other ways of thinking is probably worth our while.

Occupy to self manage

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As they first formed, the assemblies were invigorating and uplifting. We were creating a new community, I was told. We were making new friends. We were hearing from new people. We were enjoying an environment where dissent was the norm. But as days passed, and then weeks, it got too familiar. And it wasn’t obvious to folks what more they could do.

To grow, the occupations need to very explicitly conceive themselves in ways that address immediate needs, are aimed at viable and worthy long term goals, and develop modes of participation that cause normal folks, enduring normal harsh conditions, to feel that giving their time makes good sense because it can eventually lead to a new social system with vastly better outcomes than those presently endured. Occupations that began in response to economic insanity need, as well, to broaden and adopt a more encompassing focus taking into account not only the economy, but also, and equally, matters of race, gender, age, ability, ecology, and war and peace.

Where does permaculture now sit within Transition?

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Transition was created, as I say, as a kind of Trojan Horse, into which one could stuff permaculture, the psychology of change, etc. etc, and then manage to simply wheel it into the wider consciousness, sidling it past people who would glance over their shoulders and say “oh, it’s just Transition”.

#Occupy – BACKGROUND – Oct 23

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– The Economist: Leaderless, consensus-based participatory democracy and its discontents
– Intellectual Roots of Wall St. Protest Lie in Academe
– Athenian Democracy
– A brief history of consensus decision-making (Quakers and pirates)
– Naomi Wolf:The First Amendment and the Obligation to Peacefully Disrupt in a Free Society

#Occupy – Oct 23

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– Barbara Ehrenreich: Why Homelessness Is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue
– At Zuccotti Park, Conflict Arises Among Occupiers
– Michael Kinsley: Four Iron-Clad Demands for OWS
– Global indignation inspires Spanish movement
– Chinese web censors block terms related to “Occupy,” to stamp out movement’s spread in China