Subsitutes are Competitors

Things that can replace you, compete with you as effectively as- often more effectively than- your direct competitors.

Industries are replaced, not by direct competition but by substitutes. As the song says "video killed the radio star", and computer killed typwriters, and mp3 players killed cds and also brick and mortar music stores. 

In order to destroy a bad idea, we must make it obsolete.

Food Preservation and Burying the Dead

Salt. Salting and drying and preservation in alcohol or vinegar have all been used to preserve food into the winter season prior to the advent of hot canning or freezing.  Salt was also used to preserve Egyptian pharoahs, as was drying and so we see a strange connection between preserving food past the growing season, and preserving humans past their growing season.

The difference between traditional preservation of food and preservation of a human corpse is utility. The food will one day be eaten and thus its energy will be imparted back into the ecosystem. The preservation of a human being is an attempt to cheat decomposition, to stop time and to render humans immune to the laws of all other living things.

A simple law. All things that live do so by obtaining nutrients, and practically all of them other than green plants do so by eating. And everything that lives is, in turn, food for other living things.

When we preserve food we are not denying this truth. When we preserve our corpses we are attempting to pretend that we do not decay, that the worms do not have the right to feast upon us as they feast upon everyone else. We attempting to pretend that death does not exist.

Although one technology, food preservation, may have inspired the other; food preservation is a technology borne of a need to work with the facts of decomposition, whereas the preservation of a corpse is an act of war declared against biological law.

We are attempting to defy all of creation with our preservation of bodies after death. When I die, I wish my body to feed worms and flies and the living black earth itself with its microbes and bacteria. I wish to be the earth that my descendants walk and play upon. I wish to be the world in which unborn elders make their home.

Energy Input: The Hidden Price of Progress

I love my computer. But I think that I will be using something simpler in the future. I love my digital watch, but I am looking into a wind up pocket watch. I have a radio alarm clock, but also a wind up one. Why?

Energy Input.

I can wind a windup clock with a very nominal amount of elbow grease. My clock radio requires an electrical grid that would be outside my ability to create without the infrastructure of civilization.

How much of your life depends on systems that require magic energy imported through means you neither understand or control?

Giant Kelp, Red Laver, Fish Eggs and Popcorn and Olduvai Theory

In the Pacific Northwest, Giant Kelp and Red Laver are two species of edible seaweed that have been used historically as foods by the Native Americans living here. Red laver is eaten in some form or another in practically every culture that has access to it. And seaweed have been used as food all over the world as far back as pre-historic times.

In the pacific Northwest, tribal cultures discovered a delicacy by combining the spawning practises of local fish with the Giant Kelp. Pacific Herring lay their eggs on the Giant kelp leaves and the local tribes would harvest the leaves, dry them and store them for the winter months. The spawn and kelp was normally then boiled and eaten with grease; and was considered a delicacy that had trade value to other tribes.

Red Laver was often pressed into 'cakes' or rolled into 'popcorn' and then dryed- sometimes after a brief fermentation period. Red Laver has also been used by traditional cultures to treat iodine deficiency. And like the Giant kelp can be served by boiling it with grease.

This is interesting information, but most people might fail to see a point in adding this to their brain. There are other things to learn like walkthroughs of HALO and cocktail mixes and Sports statistics and music and movies and celebrity scandals.

But this is practical information on how to live with your landbase. Such adhoc nutritional supplementation can be valuable to smaller agricultural communities. Tribes and homesteads and communes and ecovillages need not rely entirely upon what they grow and raise themselves. The important thing to consider here is the depth of the impact that your supplemental hunting or gathering can have on the landscape. How much do you take from the ecosystem? How much do you give back?

World Population from 10,000 BC to Present

Much has been made of the fact that the modern world population could not be supported on small scale farming or hunting and gathering. This is true. 

Modern agriculture is wonder of technology, logistics, coordination, and overclocking just about every part of the system. Fertilizer allows farmers to avoid resting fields and to grow crops on other wise non arable land. Pesticides allows farmers to grow vast mono-cultures without having them decimated by insects like the potato bug. mechanization allows us to transport food from areas with cheaper labor, better land and longer growing seasons. Refridgeration increases the shelf life and transport time and distance food can be moved. Hormones grow animals faster for slaughter. An on and on and on. We have maximized the efficiency of our food delivery system. And any shift away from that will result in a drop in food production. And much has been made of that.

Much less has been made of the fact that the modern world population cannot be supported on large scale farming without supplemental aid from fossil fuels in the form of pesticides, fertilizers, mechanization, transportation and reduced need for manpower.

Short of discovering a magical new fuel that can be used as fuel, pesticide, and fertilizer; we are not going to be able to support a world population of this size for too much longer.

No species is immune to the laws that govern population size. A species that outstrips their food source will dwindle, often faster than they grew. As the locust swarm swells when it devours the savannah and then dies off en masse once the grass is gone, so to do other species who grow beyond the environments capacity to provide die of en masse until the numbers are low enough that the environment, itself likely now reduced, can support the numbers.

We should not be planning to feed the population we now support, we should be planning to feed the population that will be left when all is said and done. And we should be planning so that we are amongst those few that remain.

This is of course morbid talk, and may be alarmist, and may even be wrong. There are ways that we could prevent catastrophe, perhaps turn a potential mass die off into a gentle slow decline. Working towards this gentle decline is noble work. However this noble work is being actively opposed by those gaining significant short term benefit from the current situtaion.

The gentle decline cannot be achhieved without massive concerted change. On the other hand, small groups could conceivably remove their support of the current paradigm by moving to a small scale agricultural model or another more sustainable option.

Emo Teens and Something Fishy

We can look and still not see. We can listen and hear nothing. Why then are there no comparative words for smell and taste and touch? Do we value these other senses so little? Is this because visual and auditory messages are the primary methods of human communication? If we communicated more be smell like a wolf or dog, would we have a word for investigation by smell?


And what about sniff? Can we sniff, and smell nothing? Is feel the touch equivalent? Can we touch, but not feel?


Perhaps then the words exist, but we do not value them. Perhaps we have become smell and touch atrophied. Perhaps those senses have fallen out of use in a world of televisions and phones and computer screens- devices designed to serve only two senses.


There are problems, of course. I can imagine that smell-o-vision is not a good enhancement to television or movies.


Perhaps then, the problem is progress. Perhaps, once again, I must recommend that we immerse ourselves in the world to re-familiarize ourselves with the living black earth and the rich teeming world it supports. We are the emo teenager of Planet Earth. Hiding in our bedrooms listening to angsty music.


Perhaps we need somebody to kick us off the couch and tell us to play outside in the mud.

Pay Day Loans

We, as a civilization, are paying our grocery bills with payday loans. We are buying our furniture with nothing down for the first six months, even though we don't have the money to make even that first down payment.  We are paying our rent with our credit cards, and living well beyond our salary's ability to pay. We can't afford all the child we have, and our wife is pregnant again. We are the yuppy white trash of civilizations. And we are in serious trouble.

Oil is a non renewable resource. Because we use a lot of oil, we are able to grow exponentially in our production and construction. As we grow, we need every greater amounts of oil.

Population is a function of food availability and space availability. Given enough of both, population will grow until it reaches the new limits of both.

If we use 10 liters of oil to double our food production, we will then double our population to match the new limit imposed by the increased food production. We must then use more oil to feed the new normal and even more if we wish to grow again next year.

Since we define success as growth, we will seek growth. And whether that growth is population or economic, we will still require more oil to fund the growth.

Constant growth based on a finite source is automatically unsustainable. The fact that our society can no longer survive without that finite energy source does not change that reality and is not a valid counter argument, but is in fact a dire warning that success may not be a valid option any longer.

If we have a pile of 100 1 dollar bill, and if on the first day we take 4 dollars, and every day we take 25% more from the pile. On the first day the pile has $96 left. On the second day we take $5 and the pile has $91. On the Third day we take $6 and the pile has $85. If we continue to round down, then on the fourth day we remove $7 and have $78. On the fifth day we then remove $8 and we have $70 in the pile. On the sixth day we remove $10 and have $60 left in the pile. On the seventh day we remove $12, and we have $48 left in the pile. On the eighth day we remove $15 and have $33 left in the pile. On the ninth day we then remove $18 and have only $15 left in the pile. We are now supposed to remove $22, but there is only $15 left in the pile. And on the tenth day we owe the pile $7 dollars.

If we have on a finite amount of stuff then constant increases, no matter how reasonable, will always be unsustainable.

We can also note that the Peak of the money pile, that is the point where we had used up half the money, was on day seven. Despite half the money being left, we only had two days left where we able to withdraw the full amount needed. While we were only half way through the money, we were 70% of the way through our time with access to that money.

If we increase how much we use every year, then the peak of supply will naturally occur- not at the halfway point with regards to the time where we may use the supply- but significantly closer to the end of the period when we may make use of the supply.

"There would be no surplus if EROEI approaches 1:1. What Hall showed is that the real cutoff is well above that, estimated to be 3:1 to sustain the essential overhead energy costs of a modern society. Part of the mental equation is that the EROEI of our generally preferred energy source, petroleum, has fallen in the past century from 100:1 to the range of 10:1 with clear evidence that the natural depletion curves all are downward decay curves. An EROEI of more than ~3, then, is what appears necessary to provide the energy for socially important tasks, such as maintaining government, legal and financial institutions, a transportation infrastructure, manufacturing, building construction and maintenance and the life styles of the rich and poor that a society depends on.

The EROEI figure also affects the number of people needed for food production. In the pre-modern world, it was often the case that 80% of the population was employed in agriculture to feed a population of 100%, with a low energy budget. In modern times, the use of cheap fossil fuels with an exceedingly high EROEI enabled 100% of the population to be fed with only 4% of the population employed in agriculture. Diminishing EROEI making fuel more expensive relative to other things may require food to be produced using less energy, and so increases the number of people employed in food production again." - from wikipedia

EROI is the energy return on investment, and this is the other side of the problem. All energy, such as oil, is not created equal. The early oil, such as Texas sweet crude that bubbles up from the soil like in the Beverly Hillbillies was found first and use first, because it was easy to get at. As a result, the amount of energy put in was small compared to the energy received.

But ass time goes by, we run out of Texas crud. USA oil production peaked in the 70s. And so we go looking for more oil. And a lot of it is in politically unstable countries, where we have to spend a lot of money to get the oil from the area to where we want to use it. And a lot of it is trapped under miles of ocean and ocean floor requiring difficult and delicate operations with crude and enormous machinery to extract for even more money and effort. And a lot of it is trapped in tar and oil shale where the amount of energy required to obtain the oil is sometimes as much or more than the amount that is received.

Just like scraping the last peanut butter from the corners of the jar on the Monday morning when you're running late, finding oil after the easy stuff is gone is a pain in the neck. And, even if there is oil left, we may not have the energy available or economic incentives strong enough to extract it.

There is a legend, related in the movie "Rush Hour 2" of a great Red Dragon that lived in a cave and demanded that the locals bring gold to it. The treasure eventually blocked the exit and the dragon could not leave the cave and thus starved.

In other words, our time is almost up.

Feel Good Architecture

I have noticed that there is a new rash of stores and shops that cater to the 'green' sensibilities. These shops look quaint and homespun- but they look (paradoxically) professional quality quaint and homespun.

I have walked through malls that seem more like Disneyworld. I have looked at Starbuck's carefully hand chalked advert signs. I have prowled through cheesy organic logos that were specially designed by high priced design companies intentionally to look homespun and amateurish.

These shops are cashing in the the big money available for those willing to pull the guilt string of middle income first world families that don't want to make an effort, but want to feel like they are helping the environment.

And profits are good.

I feel sick.

The Tribe

We are born weak and helpless, and as strong as we try to make ourselves, we will die weak and helpless if we live alone. No man is perfect. No woman is perfect. No person, child or adult, saint or buddha is without flaw- without weakness and doubt and moments when the walls fall in.

We train ourselves, strive to be stronger, but we are weak. No matter how strong our arm, or capable our mind- we are weak and helpless in the face of a world that does not care if we live or die. We are weak and pitiful and terrified in the face of the colossal monstrosity called civilization who seeks to bend us to its purpose and make us cogs to serve its own design.

We cannot break this, not alone. We, and I say again ‘WE’ cannot stand alone against so vast an enemy. One is always one, but two is twice as strong as one, and three is twice as strong again. As long as each person added is a warrior, is of the tribe and of the people, each person makes the tribe worth twice as much.


To be of the tribe, we must commit ourselves to the tribe. This alone is the tribe’s strength and why WE are so strong, while YOU and I are so weak. Whatever I can do alone, I can twice as much with another tribe member and four times as much with two others and eight times as much with but three more committed members to my little tribe.

But it is not my tribe, it is your tribe, if you would have me as part of it. No member owns the tribe, no member runs the tribe. Anyone may rise to lead at any time in a tribe. You make a tribe your own and you invest yourself in it. You bleed for it. You cry for it. You kill for it. You die for.

Some try to find the tribe in a church, or a suit, or flag. The tribe is older than cities and has withstood the beating of ten thousand years. It yearns to be free and we need it so that we too can be free.

Mystery as a Source of Wonder

The men of religion speak to us, and they tell us that science and skepticism reduce our wonder and thus reduce the glory of creation. They tell us that we are attempting to diminish god, as though a phantom could be diminished.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old. That is 13 thousand and 700 million years. Imagine a dot. Now imagine a box of ten. Now imagine ten of those boxes in a crate. now imagine ten of those crates in a rail car box. Now imagine ten of those rail car boxes on a tanker ship. Now imagine ten tanker ships. We are only up to one hundred thousand.

The subtle interplay of simple rules, variation and time allow miracles that we cannot comprehend- not because they are withheld from us, but because our perception witholds itself from them.

The size of the universe. The scale of geologic time. The effect of small genetic changes on a population over time. The movement of plate tectonics. The interplay of prey and predator upon the ecosystem. Millions of millions of small interactions, and large but painfully slow interactions over vast stretches of time and space.

There is a mystery there that defies conventional religion, and mocks it as simple and trite.

The Preamble

What is written here is observation, and tradition. What is written here is not gospel. Everything must be tested and replaced if it no longer works or is no longer true- even this. This is not revelation. This is not divine. There are no gods or enlightened masters guiding this work.

Some of this may contradict. Some of this may seem obscure or unclear. Some or even many things may need to be reappraised or reinterpreted. This is as it should be. Everything is a product of its time and must be understood anew

This is the work of humans. This is a work of synthesis, not inspiration. This is the work of many years observation, investigation, study, research, and integration. This is blood on the page as ink, but from effort not martyrdom. This is work of flesh and blood. Follow this if you find it to be true, ignore it or change it if you find it to be false.

Beware false prophets. Anything, even this, should be scrutinized. Anything that does not bear scrutiny should be corrected or discarded,

More On living like Dwarves

One of the biggest problems with planning to use earth sheltered homes in an area like the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. 

I was looking into this and discovered that the stone walled, earth sheltered home was a staple building style in Shetland, Orkney, the Faroe Islands and many other northern Scottish and Nordic islands. 

Shetland averages around 40 inches of precipitation per year, whereas Vancouver in the PNW averages just over 60 inches of precipitation per year. Although amount of precipitation is higher, the difference isn't jarring. 

This suggests that such buildings can stay dry by taking measures, such as a raised floor, double walls with aggregate between the inner and outer stone walls to drain leakage, aggregate under the floor from drainage, and an aggregate ditch/moat around buildings to funnel rain away from the interior of structures.

Of course at this point, the objection could be raised that this is a lot of extra work for such a building type. Wouldn't it simply be easier to build something resembling the local long houses? The answer to this is that the advantages of stone walled, earth sheltered buildings are many and worth the work.

For more details, have a look at the previous article on earth sheltered homes.