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128 comments on Is Sustainable Development sustainable?

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airdale on July 11, 2009 - 2:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

To further refine what I was trying to convey but perhaps missed, in the above comment I offer this.

"Hopefully some will be able to wake up in time, leave the intoxicating dreams behind and face reality, however grim. Because then they'll be able to devise a New Future. A Better Future. A Future founded on the real physical entities that run through our Economy, not in abstract, growth dependent, illusions. A Future where each man and woman have their place and are not enslaved by a spiral of virtual accumulation and spending."

Directly above is a quote from the essay. Note the 'intoxicating dreams'. Note 'where each man and woman have their place'...and 'are not enslaved'....note this.

And realize that in a high density city you are not FREE. You are controlled. You MUST rely on the food markets or distribution systems. On the water you do not control. On the sewage systems you have no control over. On who is living right next to you and what is he possibly up to?

This is very different from a rural setting.
I rest my case.

Cities will entrap one. Open farmland will not. Even quite small towns where trademen can barter and serve a useful purpose and everyone knows everybody, are worthy.

I have seen all of these and the worse was the cities. Blighted, crime ridden, wasteful and full of danger and very little one could do about any of it.

So at least to me the path is very very clear. Do you wish to control yourself or let others dictate?

Airdale

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SwordsOfDamocles on July 11, 2009 - 4:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Airdale,

I always enjoy reading your post. This thought occured to me a few months ago actually. Freedom is not a result of the country you live in or the laws in your area, but almost completely a result of your population density.

Moyers: What happens to the idea of the dignity of the human species if population growth continues at its present rate?

Asimov: It will be completely destroyed. I will use what I call my bathroom metaphor. Two people live in an apartment and there are two bathrooms, then both have the freedom of the bathroom. You can go to the bathroom anytime you want, and stay as long as you want, for whatever you need. Everyone believes in the freedom of the bathroom. It should be right there in the Constitution. But if you have 20 people in the apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in the freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person, you have to bang at the door, "Aren't you through yet?" and so on. The same way democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are the less one individual matters.

If you lived in Canada's Yukon or northwest territories or the plains of Mongolia, no one can tell you what to do, because there is no one around to tell you to do it. People are always bound by constraints either from nature or from other people, this is, the ones from people are the only ones you can avoid.

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Ignatz on July 11, 2009 - 5:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

what ho Airdale I think you speak my thoughts: that for a thing to be sustainable it must be worth sustaining. We have, for a moment, bought the potage and have sold the simple joys of making, doing and being with each other. That potage - the corporations and governments that offer a false sense of security in return for a servile life filled with commuting, mechanized meals, structured days and virtual human contact are not sustainable for other than the docile or slavish.

.......................... Are we not men?

Well I don't say that the return to sustainable society will be easy, but on the way it is becoming interesting!

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airdale on July 11, 2009 - 9:32pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hey Ignatz,

In the above I gave two examples of life. This was in an era of very much difficulty and very hard times EXCEPT that I didn't know that living on the farm. Hadn't a clue.

But when whisked to the big city? It was overpowerin. No more sitting out in the lawn at dusk and listening to the hoot owls. Slow talk by my uncles,aunts and grandparents,winding down the day until full dark and bedtime.

I attempted to show others how it was in both lifestyles for a young child. And my younger brother.

So to me there is no decision on this. My past settled that before I even considered it hard. No decision. I aleady had been living this way for some years. Many years even though I traveled extensively working on mainframe systems. The farm was always my touchstone.

Any way...to each his own..this is my way.

Airdale-peace be upon you

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128 comments on Is Sustainable Development sustainable?

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