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.

Friday Book Review: "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond

This book won a Pulitzer Prize, and remains provacative and contentious today. For the Free Pather, the book is a useful piece of advice- a road map on how interactions between high impact and low impact cultures tends to play out. Though time is starting to where on some of the information in Diamond's book- the information on the differing tactical and technological advantages imparted by different geographies and different moral systems remains instructive.

The lesson of Polynesia, where one culture fragmented into many related cultures due to the differing demands of their environments is something all Free Pathers should consider. The lesson of Atahualpa is critical to the survival of any low impact culture facing an armed and militarized high impact culture (and nearly all high impact cultures are armed and militarized). The lesson of germs, population dense societies are breeding grounds for micro organisms- do your best to isolate groups exposed to such cultures and do not accept their gifts.

This book may not be the definitive work that its proponents have called it, but any Free Pather should learn its lessons.

Two Sides to Every Argument

When somebody tells you that there are two sides to every argument. I recommend that you back up and take a careful look. An argument is by definition multiple views being asserted and contested, so saying that there are two sides to every argument is redundant- like saying a circle is round.

So unless you suspect that the person reminding you of the obvious believes you to be an idiot, something strange is occurring here.

Does the central point of the argument hinge on factual data, evidence, facts? If so, then there may be multiple arguments, but only one will be 100% correct. When police and courts and experts attempt to reconstruct the events of a crime, there is only one way that the events of the crime actually occurred. It is possible that this one correct chain of events will be discovered. It is also possible that none of the arguments presented and argued over will be the one correct chain of events. But unless all the arguments presented are all the same argument, it is impossible for all the arguments presented to be fully correct. If there is variance between the arguments, and the arguments concern facts, then some or all of the arguments will be wrong to a greater or lesser degree.

By using the phrase “there are two sides to every argument” the person making this assertion is leading listeners towards the false proof of false equivalency. And arguments are not all equivalent. 2+2=5 is not an equally valid method of adding two and two.

So be very careful of the statement “There is two sides to every argument.”

The person may have meant any of the following:

“I do not think you have properly evaluated the facts. And have reached an incorrect conclusion.”

“I think that both of these arguments may be partially right, and therefore also partially wrong.”

“I do not like people disagreeing with me, and will push you psychologically rather than lose.”

“I don't like people arguing and just want a solution where everyone stops yelling at each other.”

“I do not understand basic logic and the realities of physical laws.”

“I have a liberal arts degree or was raised by a mentor figure who taught me that winning the argument meant I am right, regardless of the facts.”

Added Resource Page

Next piece of our little ongoing New Year's Resolution. We have added a resource page on the bar. Have a look. It's pretty sparse right now, but we'll be building on it.

Not much else today, but if you haven't seen our Pinterest and Pearltree accounts, we've found some pretty great resource sites and organized them in there. So have a look.

Oh, and here are some interesting Web links I've been reading lately...

• The 8 Steps To Creating A Great Storyboard 
• re:publica 2012 - Rick Falkvinge - Working swarm-wise
• The Paiute Tribe’s Food System Project restores control of food system

Page Redesign: Simple and Open and Direct

We've been quiet for a while, and it's time to start warming up our engines and get ready to begin taking dramatic action. We aren't ready yet, but you have to start before you're ready.

It's important that we take steps towards our goals, even small ones.

Our old website layout was a disaster. It was a pile of marketing hype and overcomplicated nonfunctional detritus. And so it's going going gone.

The new layout may change further from this, but this new layout is very simple, very 'zen' in a word. We want our message and our goal to be the primary message of our website and the organization itself.

So, no more busy cluttered website.

You can expect that we will be shuffling around the page configurations a little bit and possibly a lot in the coming weeks. So if things seem really weird for a while, that's why. We apologize for the confusion, but since we're still pretty small and unknown, we figured this was a good time to clear this up.

So welcome to the new layout, it will change further.

The King is Dead, Long live the King.