Is the stock market Which through many calamaty, trends ever upward What is the appreciation appreciating?
~
“It feels like the markets are more irrational then ever and driven by tens of trillions in capital moving around, this is money is cash in hand and insulated from real consequences in the world so not reacting as it should.”
“A few years ago I heard an economist talk about “excess money sloshing around in the system, chasing a profit”. The image has stuck with me, seems to fit really well”
“The stock market is unrealistically insulated. We’ll likely never see a true depression again but just a series of recessions propped up by the 1%.”
“Passive investing has taken perhaps too large a share of the market, making flows less reactionary. When you have XX hundred billion(s) flowing in every month on loop not hard to see where appreciation comes from.”
Drink lots of water Drink so much that it flows through you So that you often have to pee – with glee, release your wastes So that you calibrate to thirstiness – yes, thirst, drink deeply of life
Drink so much water that you remember “I am mostly made of water” “I am a water vessel” “I am a flowing being, not a rigid body”
No thing is static Everything flows All vibrates
Water passes through you You are not a rigid body You are a flowing vessel Passing by Passing away This too shall pass
Drink lots of water Flow Grow Go, drink deeply of life
(A short essay – tl;dr vote harris walz, minimize harm, which ‘worst’ you want to be making the best of with our precious time?)
Happy Halloween. I’ve come out of months long social media posting break to offer something scary for you. Trigger warning: political opinions, environmental catastrophes, collapse of safety critical systems.
Dear many friends who see that things cannot go on as they are, The supply chains too brittle, The relationships too strained, Many of you plan a 3rd party vote in this most polarized presidential election of “the most powerful nation in the world”, or you might even be following RFK’s lead, or you might skip it altogether for any number of defensible reasons. Many of you, dear friends, I see sympathize with a kind of accelerationist approach Accepting how bad things are and responding with willingness for it to get worse, just to break out of terrible trajectories – is that minimizing harm? WIth all the harm caused by the hour in the over-developed world… The sooner this self destruction grinds to a halt, the safer, some say That’s the gist of conclusions I’ve heard from more than one thoughtful, experienced and educated person – active environmental stewards, tactful business people, balanced martial artists, all kinds of folks I write this mainly to you, accelerationists and “never status quo”ers, especially those in swing states
This perspective is understandable. The status quo is very bad, and it is adapting very poorly overall to immediate catastrophes hammering away at itself and then some Habitat loss, resource depletion, biodiversity catastrophe…the heavy grief of wars, of power abuses, I cannot even speak it, and yet overshadowing it all is -an extinction crisis- The disregard for life My heart is heavy. The world is heavy. And the systems that sustain us are, … It is hard to fathom or accept Most of you reading this live better than most animals *ever* in terms of basic needs and safety and freedom and potential and Yet we are struggling, in astonishing debt despite ¿ever?-growing profits, in chronic illness, in an alarming fertility crisis!, inoculated ¡¿forever?! with microplastics and >forever< chemicals Depressed, anxious, angry, outraged at the systems that … What sustains us?
What sustains us?
This question has burned before me for a long time What sustains us, And how can we reciprocate?
OK Let me get to the point, to why I do this emotional labor to try to establish some same pageness, for you to at least entertain if not accept
I will vote for Harris Walz, not because I want them as president, or want to validate and further a severely broken 2-party system, the DNC, etc etc But because I do not have a workable alternative to this democracy-esque experiment And not because I can accept the horrors of investment in the military-industrial complex, Or petrochemicals, Or over-development, Or disrespectfully degrading rather than lovingly regenerating that which sustains us I cannot accept that But if I must face that If we face these realities, and if we have a finite amount of time before safety critical systems fail under their many strains Then what is in my power to really refuse is doing anything that could hasten or exacerbate harm Using what little time we have, struggling under a politic that is actively agitating, suppressing environmental regulation and investment, violating women’s rights, taking an isolationist nationalist and what else *ist path to destroying the world that sustains us A world that begets many worlds, vs. a world that devours and homogenizes I cannot vote in any way that risks obstructing deep adaptation And the only choice this election season that puts my puny power against 4?+ years of Trump, is the democratic ticket I’ll do what I can to keep a chaos agent from making it harder to deeply adapt and build alternative safety-critical systems, /while we still can/ The more time we buy, the more harm we can minimize, before the next storm, the next fire, the next pandemic and supply chain collapse and What is it that sustains us, and how do we relate to it? We have so much important work to do I cannot waste time and attention on a power hungry pedo friend of Jeffrey E and corporate cosmophagia I cannot accept wasting the time we have with this historic level of capacity, of ways and means as a whole, historic When we need more than ever to build capacity Forestablishingaliveablefuturity
Adapt in place, live in the here and now, and truly make the world a better place whether times are good or . . .
This post summarizes the defining features of ‘The Adapters Movement’. I hope this post fills a gap, offering a healthy framework to respond to the critical time we are living in. As it becomes clearer that many systems we rely on will not suffice or survive in the future, I hope this and similar movements will serve as popular and robust alternatives to inaction or to isolationist (and sometimes extremist) forms of preparedness and survivalism. Let us lessen, not worsen, inevitable harm.
This movement was first introduced to me in the form of a long, winding thread that was posted by a widely appreciated blogger Ross Raven aka Category5 on Permies.com: C5 Defines The Adapters Movement – Acceptance and Triage. Permies is the world’s largest permaculture forum (or so I’ve heard from them), and this Permies post was being discussed in an online community of the Deep Adaptation movement (which I introduce below).
I read the long thread introducing The Adapters Movement over a few days, and I found a lot of gems in it, representing the best of the ‘prepper’ and ‘survivalist’ movements, while explicitly revising many of those movements’ most off-putting and self-destructive problems. To help make the Adapters movement more accessible, I am sharing this relatively-short write-up introducing it and outlining its key themes. A heads up about what’s ahead: This post prints as four pages, which is much shorter than the many essay-length posts in the original Permies.com thread that this intends to summarize.
A little more context. This ‘Adapters Movement’ fits the wisdom of Deep Adaptation well. Here is Deep Adaptation in a nut shell: What are the chances of catastrophic natural disasters? Practically certain. What about the collapse of safety-critical systems? Very likely. Could humanity go extinct? Possible but not probable. Many systems we rely on for basic safety and well-being (e.g. food, housing, medicine, water, wood, ‘waste’, wildlife, social systems) are in the process of collapsing and some will fail. The way to adapt to these realities, according to the Deep Adaptation movement, can be summarized with the “Four R’s framework for inquiry“:
Relinquish what we need to stop to avoid more harm
Resilience is a priority for what we have that we need to preserve
Restore what we need from the past to live in ways that remedy and reduce harm
Reconcile relationships to remedy and reduce harm
With that introduction, here is a summary of key points I took from that long Adapters Movement post linked to above. I hope this helps inspire and clarify paths forward that are well adapted to grow bright, solarpunk futures out of collapse and change.
“Throughout the industrial age and now in the information age, the Amish have adhered to the long-standing tradition of making as a primary form of work.”
…
“Thus, in contrast to an economy in which purely rational logic drives buying decisions, in this case spiritual, political, and ideological motivations guide buying decisions and determine the economic success of a proprietor.”
Crafts have so many co-benefits. Creation: offer and receive the gifts of inspiration.
This post offers step-by-step instructions on adding trees to the Eastern Agroforestry Conservancy (EAC) project on iNaturalist. This same approach could be useful for other public planting projects.
Note that the latest instructions for this effort have been moved to a different format. While I kicked off these instructions with an interest in mutualism with trees + digital commons, the project and instructions are moving into the hands of a broader group of public servants and practitioners. You can find the latest version of instructions in the project description at https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/eastern-agroforestry-conservancy
For reference, the original instructions are offered below.
Project Description
The EAC is a collection of precious tree crop genetics that have been planted for observation, propagation, and respectful enjoyment by the public. This project is centered in Northampton County, PA where county parks embraced the idea, honoring and extending the work of the Hershey Tree Nursery in Downingtown, PA.
Trees in this multi-generational project are documented in 3 ways: labeled where they are planted with a unique ID, in paper records matching ID, and in a digital iNaturalist project with matching ID. Digital record-keeping of trees in iNaturalist has a few benefits. In short: it is a robust platform with a broad like-minded user base; it allows commenting and updating/adding observations to record seasonal effects; and it can be accessed by anyone, anywhere.
Observations of trees can be added to the EAC project by anyone, anywhere. The project is moderated, so that observations unsuitable for the project will be culled. The project welcomes observations of new plantings and additional observations of existing trees in the project.
Thanks first peoples for simply living so that others may simply live. Thanks Jono Neiger for sharing this 1984 paper on indigenous agroforestry to the Northeast Permaculture Listserv.
Some Ecological Aspects of Northeastern American Indian Agroforestry Practices
This paper was written in 1984 while I was a student of Professor Arthur Lieberman at Cornell University. Professor Lieberman was then Director of the Cornell Tree Crops Research Project and taught landscape ecology in the Department of Landscape Architecture. This version was submitted to the international journal Agroforestry Systems in 1988, but never published there due to its length. A somewhat condensed version was later published in the 1994 Annual Report of the Northern Nut Growers Association (Volume 85). For a broader perspective on Native Americans’ land management practices, see this online article by Doug MacCleery.
Diverse hazel coppice example in bloom, with flowery understory
These relatives of birch, ancient and awesomely rugged, adding golden bark and kindling salvation to tree lines around the world These shrubs with long flexible bows These fruits from charming hot pink flowers that greet the spring and stay
These nuts that come in energy-dense compostable packaging, shelf-stable for years, made by arboreal solar panels These nuts that are easy to eat raw and one of the healthiest snacks I have These nuts that are even tastier roasted; simply apply fire and enjoy a sweet, earthy, ancient gastronomic ally
These branches, that have been warmth in peaceful and desperate times These branches, that have been homes in peaceful and desperate times These branches, that have been the crux of countless wooden items
These gifts, that have come from ancient hedges, woven into the fabric of lives over time These gifts, that host the humans and other kin, who enjoy them and who need them These gifts, that can make the giver better as they enrich the recipient, when given and received in good relations Ancient hazels, though we face harshly changing times, Your past and present company comforts me, knowing you have helped my ancestors through ice ages and then some And so, knowing we work together even where we are not in touch, I wish peace upon you, and I love that in that, peace may be upon me too.
Here are a couple of drawings from this past winter, inspired by cooperative and integrative tree crop happenings throughout the Mid-Atlantic. I would like to draw a series in honor of the ‘five branch’ vertically-integrated nut supply chain pursued by Keystone Tree Crops Cooperative. For now, I am sharing two early drafts in honor of that same cooperative effort kicking off its first fundraiser (for gatherer payments and some basic equipment).
