breakfast with spiderman

I got up this morning and made coffee. While the coffee was brewing I sat in the kitchen and processed about 50 emails. Good news! Only three snarky youtube comments while I slept. They were actually pretty borderline. Not quite sure what I want to do about them.

I got caught up in some conversations at the table, so by the time breakfast rolled around I had not made my customary trip to the office to mend some issues that can only be mended at my computer. Like youtube comments.

I thought I would share these three borderline comments to see if people had any good ideas on what to do with them.

The feedback was that I share far too much of the negative stuff I encounter and it is wearing on others. As much as I feel like I share less than 10% of the ick I experience each day, I do see the validity of the point.

About a dozen years ago, a woman I knew asked me to advise her son in how to build a career in software engineering. I visited with the young fella for about three minutes. Three minutes seemed to be the most he could tolerate of me. Apparently, all on his own, just for fun, he once wrote a bit of software. He never finished it. He never shared it with anybody else. But he did have the expectation that software companies should be banging on his door to pay him millions for his obvious genius. Therefore, there was nothing to talk to me about. After all, I had spent decades doing software engineering and if I were raking in the millions then I would drive a better car and live in a better house. So whatever it was that I was doing was flawed, and his plan was clearly superior.

This morning I learned: Accomplishment often comes from hundreds of struggles. And if you intent to accomplish a thousand things, then you need to work through hundreds of thousands of struggles. And permaculture is hundreds of bits and bobs all working together in a symbiotic symphony.

In my very first corporate whore job, I sat at a desk in a sea of desks. I was an accounts payable clerk in an office with 70 other accounts payable clerks. In a building with all of the other accounting offices and executive offices and marketing offices, etc. of a large company. The other desks were rich with personal trinkets to help the clerks feel a little culture and life in their otherwise banal job. I had almost nothing like that. But I did have a tiny piece of paper that I had taped up where I could see it and others could not. On it I wrote "fat, dumb and happy." I had heard it once as an insult to somebody. But I thought it was a noble goal. One possible interpretation of this is that the pursuit of being attractive, or intellectual pursuit leads away from "happy." As the weeks and months passed as I read this little note dozens of times per day, I came to the conclusion that apathy was an ingredient that would allow intellectual pursuit. But it had to be a very special flavor of apathy. Something where you could care about a spec of knowledge, but not care about what others thought. But it gets much richer than that. And to this day I still try to refine what that special flavor of apathy smells like so that I can pursue the philosophies I enjoy and simultaneously pursue happiness.

When you see a thing that can be accomplished, you can see a dozen obstacles that will need to be resolved along the way. And during the work involved, a few hundred new obstacles present themselves that you had not considered. So you plow through and make the best of it.

Back to breakfast this morning .... after being asked to shift my sharing ratio toward something more positive, I threw out "I would think it would be really hard to share three meals a day, every day, with spiderman." Sure, he saved that busload of people, but the guy that caused the bus to go off the road is still out there - and you kinda get the impression he is probably going to do something really rude again.

I was topped when somebody suggested that sharing meals with batman would be even harder. That guy is just so dark.

So, on the bright side .... discussion at permies is great. There are lots of excellent threads from the last 24 hours. Information rich. Lots of healthy discussion. And it would seem like no big deal, except for the start contrast of the comments at youtube and a lot of the rest of the internet.

I think the problem of being a downer at meals is a real thing. Again, I go back to the value of the potato village and a few other changes in the works for the future here. It seems that people value my presence and comments, and at the same time, I appreciate that that same presence would be difficult to live with long term. So I think the community would be happier if I shared meals about half the time rather than every meal.

Here is my observation about this. I think that unfortunately for you (and perhaps those of us who live with you) though fortunately for everyone else on the internet, you are a protector, and yes, a superhero of sorts.

You search out and 'destroy' the negative comments, the spammers, the icky posters. It is your focus, your role, your responsibility in creating a good space for permaculture to infect brains on the empire and interwebs. In that sense, it is likely more of your focus, more of your experience than the lucky rest of us who get to enjoy all the upsides with far fewer downsides.

Plus, from the stress you have of running wheaton labs, kickstarters, and the online empire in general, complaining about icky youtube comments is probably much easier, and less stressful to you (while still perhaps being a bit of cathartic release) than some of the other stresses coming at you these days.

Like this! But with coffee, not tea.

Jocelyn Campbell wrote:Like this! But with coffee, not tea.

In the first second I thought spidey was copping a feel. Took me a second to realize that he was about to pour hot water on the woman.

First some background. I've lurked these forums for years, then RMH kickstarters have enticed me to support, and now I've finally joined the forums. I was trying to remember how I had come across this spot on the internet yesterday and was looking at the articles on richsoil that Cas had re-done.

Cast Iron Pans...that was how I had found Permies. I was looking for information on the use and care of old iron. I went and re-watched the cast iron pan video last night and then read every single comment. The amount of snarkiness on the internet is unbelieveable. Some people must plan on being snarky with St. Peter! Anyway, your responses haven't been drug down by the haters and you are doing a really good job of keeping the crap of the internet from settling on the forums. (think free range chickens...)

p.s. stainless steel spatula and bacon grease have made my pans glassy smooth and a slip hazard for eggs!

People dont like to hear about all the bad stuff. I think alot of it is each persons unique areas culture.
Example: if you eat breakfast with a family in urban NYC i think their conversation would be what everyones plan for the day is. Goals and things people are looking forward to. Things that are happy or exciting within the last week or coming up soon. With few comments like "and i hope that road construction is finishing up so i wont take ages going to (insert place) today/tomorrow". They dont feel a need to have a conversation about the road work, how long its taking, who is paying for it, the weather the poor construction guys have to deal with for the time of year,.... They want their happy. Their happy doesnt involve road work so avoid it or thinking about it as much as possible. They dont have any reason to deal with it so dont make em, in a way i guess.
Example two: if you ate breakfast at the home of a family in very rural ohio with a decent size farm. The conversation would go more of who is doing chores where. Did little sister emma gather the eggs like she was supposed to before coming to breakfast? She didnt? Well then get yer butt movin girl, yes i know its 4*F and snowing. Too bad your share of things is gathering the eggs so get goin.
Did mom milk the goats on time this morning? She did well thats terriffic and we can share jokes on mom was actually done with milkin before emma could gather up the few eggs and speed miking becoming an olympic sport.
You get a mix of the ups and downs and everyone knows if you want milk and eggs etc that everyone has to deal with stuff. The good stuff, the bad stuff, the sad stuff, the teriffic stuff,...


Pauls job is like 20 jobs and most of them are the boring jobs, the grumpy jobs, the take up the slack of everyone else jobs, the squeeze pennies farther and farther job, the deal with what the rest of the world thinks job,...

I think its only obvious that everyone at breakfast shares the happy of their jobs and a sprinkle of the bad stuff they are working through. Pauls many jobs make his sprinkle much larger than everyone elses but thats still his sprinkle to share just the same as everyone else.

I dont think the alternative people are basically saying to do is much of a choice. That being no one brings up bad stuff. If no one brings uo bad stuff, no one else knows about it, and now most of the problems wont be fixed because there would be lots that cant be resolved or improved with only one person.

Excuse the rambling. I hope it makes sense (: haha.

I don't know. People have opinions and like to share them. People need other to talk to. I guess the problem could be turned into a solution by finding people who might be interested in solving the ick.

The story of the computer programming kid brings to light a message I think is relevant: nothing happens unless somebody or something gets the rolling. If no one knows about something/someone, nobody is going to do anything about it. Likewise, some people may wonder why some governments are the way they are, there really is only one place to blame, I think: the people. People aren't exercising their right to vote as much as they could be... That idea is applicable to many areas in society: who is speaking, how loudly, to whom, and about what?

In my house an awful lot of the friendly time-filling conversation takes the form of "Hey, get a load of this latest idiocy I encountered on the internet!" We both run websites and there is a lot of idiocy out there. It would never occur to me that such conversation was negative in tone -- for us it's humor and comic relief.

So now I'm stuck with my new mental image of an imaginary crew of old-school hippies hanging around Paul's breakfast table. "Hey man, why do always bring, like, this negative vibe to the table, dude? You're not mellow, man. Maybe you should spend some time in the woods talking to Momma and letting that mountain breeze wash the bummer out of your aura..."

I'll be willing to bet that once the weather begins to break, more people would want to sit with spiderman at the table. February can be a really tough time for folks in the northern climates where everything is either brown, gray or white. I know that -for me- this is the time of year when it's too early to plant anything, it's not good for anything that's giving birth and there's still at least a month more shitty weather to look forward to before I can start the "season" right. I've been inside or cold for a few months now and really... I just wanna go out and lie in some green grass and soak up some sunshine. This makes for a little stress for everyone and fuses get shorter. As much as I feel I'm being dumped on, others are feeling it too and eventually *snap*.

There's been a significant snow storm every 5 days for the last month and I'm just sick of moving snow. Drifts are over 8 ft deep and there's no place to put any more snow safely. On Monday we had a blizzard over night and the deepest areas that had to be cleared were over 3 feet deep. And... the snowblower refused to budge so... I couldn't clear my car out to get to town. Normally I'd just go get the tool box but I just had no patience for it. I was just sick and tired and DONE with it. The thing worked fine two days earlier and now.... GODDAMNIT!!! I came inside, waited complained to my family for an hour, then sat in the corner feeling sort of defeated and sipping a cup of cool coffee. I just wanted it to go smoothly so I could have a normal day and now it's all fudged up. It took me some time to get my head back on straight and get the tools and shit to get inside the snowblower. After farting around with it for a small eternity I found the problem. A little blob of ice had frozen a small spring in place and all I needed to do was thaw it off. Really... Really!? It's -20F out but OK. Thawed it off and got to work clearing things up.

If this had happened in the early winter it probably would have been a normal day but now after all the little winter nasties and such, it was more of a big deal than it needed to be and I was the one who made it that way. I guess what I'm saying is that plants, animals and our patience all are weather dependent. Don't worry spiderman... springs coming soon.

Just want to offer the old adage "Joys shared are doubled, and sorrows shared are halved." And I know from personal experience, in times of very great stress, that just having 'listeners' (not 'fixers' ... the problem couldn't be 'fixed', hence the stress.. just had to wait..ugh!), i.e., being able to share this 'sorrow' was very, very helpful. And I'm an independent loner by nature, so this came as a revelation to me.

I think that letting someone share their stresses, worries, gripes, etc can be a very loving act... and very useful ;) And Paul deserves at least a little love!

After writing this yesterday, Seth told me that he was in contact with "the naked balcony women". Two women that shared our house at voices last year. One of whom I wrestled over morning coffee.

Well, wrestling, nudity and balconies aside.... the thing I said to Seth is that we could use a half dozen of such people here. These two women .... did things .... all day, every day. Dozens of little, tiny things. Sharing small, happy thoughts. Little bit of help here and there. A perpetual fountain of small good things. And it seems like all the heavy from spiderman (or batman) would be largely diluted with the levity from the naked balcony women.

"I always try to remember that half the people I meet are below average IQ"

I hear you on Youtube wearing you down. I only had a small YT following. It was wonderful when someone told me how fandiddly-asticly brilliant I was. Then some stupid comment would send me into a low. I eventually took down my vids because others comments kept getting me into fights. It was effecting my mental health. Same with the last Board I was a regular on. Over several years, I came to the conclusion that this constant fighting was slowly adjusting my personality into myself becoming a complete dick with other people.

Some day I will go back and remake the Youtube vids. But if I do, Ive made the decision to turn off the comments section. Just hit the option that turns it right off. I don't need others approval. I don't need youtube friends, fans or stalkers. So that's my advice, Paul. Just turn off the comments section.

And if I can quote Joe Rogan, "The survival of the human race rests entirely in the hands of perky hippy chicks. If not for them, its just a bunch of agro dudes hanging out in the woods together and that's not a future worth surviving"

Ross Raven wrote:
And if I can quote Joe Rogan, "The survival of the human race rests entirely in the hands of perky hippy chicks. If not for them, its just a bunch of agro dudes hanging out in the woods together and that's not a future worth surviving"

Three apples for this.

Yes, but the "turn off the comments" advice is also worth an apple.

The videos stand for themselves.

Maybe if people can't ask questions in the comments section (about the only worthwhile use of YouTube comments) they will be more likely to come on over to permies.com, where we talk about "X," homesteading, and permaculture, all the time.

And then, maybe somebody other than you can address the question! And you'll lose out on some virtual high fives, but most importantly the haters will lose an outlet.

I think this is a personality thing. I get offended and upset about very little. You can call me names, yell at me, whatever. None of it bothers me. I just don't care. I could really care less about what other people might think. So if I saw snarky YouTube comments on a video I had done I'd shrug it off. It is not at all worth the energy of thought. So I guess I don't understand it when it is worth the energy to other people. I don't understand why others care, since I do so little.

Anyway, Paul, perhaps you should think of it in terms of energy. You can think about those stupid people on the internet or you can think about how amazing you are going to make your fence. Choose your energy deposits wisely!

The only thing about turning off the comments on the yt videos is that it's a behavior that often associated with channels that pedal a lot of woo. It suggests that the claims made don't hold up to even the mild scrutiny of a comment section and so the channel owner has disabled comments to appear more credible ( by crushing decent). In my personal opinion I'd just ignore the crap comments or see about getting some more permies involved in monitoring the comment threads so that we can help spread the word. A little note in the video about "rate comment and subscribe" would also help foster more permie involvement. I think a lot of us watch the videos and them come back here to talk about them. We probably should try to be a little more active in the YT comment section to help you out in combating crap. If you have a video that getting lots of hate, just have it mentioned in the daily-ish email and some of us can do something about it.

Solution.... BOOOM

I'm making a one time offer here, and this is a "no shitter" - you can call me any time (I may be in a part of the world that isn't the same as you, but I'll live) and tell me all about the ick. I'll make appropriate comments like, "What a fucker!", "I can't believe some of the shit people say!", "Did that asshole watch the same video I did?" - you know, uplifting shit. This saves the, and I'm gonna quote Dan'l Boone here, "...an imaginary crew of old-school hippies hanging around Paul's breakfast table.", from catching a downer. I'm thinking that is some win-win shit, right there.

On a more serious note (even though I'm dead serious about the phone part), I think you do a fantastic job of keeping the ick away from this place and the various ventures you touch. That is all fine and dandy, I like that a whole lot. The other side of it, as Tim Coleman put in his post about his son Litha, "If you want to eat lamb on the farm, you need to be prepared to see blood." Everyone needs to enjoy the feeling of acceptance for what they do, sometimes it just isn't pretty, but most of the time it works. Do your thing, we listen and approve of what you do - not that it really matters in the end, it still feels nice.

Last, I also thought for sure that Spidey was copping a feel on the oddest shaped breast I have ever seen in my 53 years on this planet, thank goodness he was only pouring hot water on that lady - or was he going for a spot of milk? It's the InfernalNet, so we shall never be sure.

You know... there's no easy solution to this.

I first remember seeing your name some years ago when you started a thread in the Homesteading Today forums about something... I think growing tomatoes without irrigation in an arid climate. Keyhole garden maybe?

But what I remember was watching the video and thinking WOW how cool is that - this could really work! And then I read the rest of the thread and it was nothing but disparaging remark after disparaging remark. And then you basically threw your hands up and left. I was appalled. This was one of the first times I really realized that I didn't fit in with the culture of that forum. I imagine the comments in that thread are similar to the snark-omments you get on Youtube. If I remember right, I don't think you had the Permies forum at that time but I don't think I could ever express my complete and utter glee when I found this place. Likeminded folk need to stick together.

The truth is, and this is pretty much what people told me here when I was venting about my family members being overly critical of my lifestyle - there are just some people who are going to find fault in things that are new and innovative. You know, like we're going to grow tomatoes the way we always have - in ROWS, and we'll use MIRACLE GRO. None of that weirdo hippy dippy hugelkultur stuff.

It's hard when you put yourself out there because the meanies generally tend to be more verbal than those who were like me, and thought "wow that is really cool!" And yeah it probably doesn't mean shit when you are feeling down but for every snark comment there are probably like 100 people who saw the video and thought it was great and they walked away deep in thought about what they just saw. I know it happens to me.

And for what it's worth, I like Bill Erickson's idea... maybe you can have a secret army of Youtube Permies that keep an eye on your vids and take care of the snarksters so you don't have to? To me, it seems like a waste of your time. Most of the time, these people don't even want an actual answer, they just enjoy being critical.

Bethany Dutch wrote:
It's hard when you put yourself out there because the meanies generally tend to be more verbal than those who were like me, and thought "wow that is really cool!" And yeah it probably doesn't mean shit when you are feeling down but for every snark comment there are probably like 100 people who saw the video and thought it was great and they walked away deep in thought about what they just saw. I know it happens to me.

And for what it's worth, I like Bill Erickson's idea... maybe you can have a secret army of Youtube Permies that keep an eye on your vids and take care of the snarksters so you don't have to? To me, it seems like a waste of your time. Most of the time, these people don't even want an actual answer, they just enjoy being critical.

Maybe try the secret army thing but if the results are unsatisfactory, just kill the comments section. I do think that most of the snarksters or naysayers or complainers aren't looking for useful feedback. It's true, they just enjoy being critical. Haters gonna hate. Put something in the description about going to permies.com with questions or complaints (Ha!)

You could even have a dedicated thread for each YouTube video (with the video embedded in the first post) and link directly to that page in the description. I hear there's even some fancy way to have clickable links in the actual video. . .

I think the key point to this is:

22) some people have a few things on their mind, and life is, generally, a lovely thing. Time together is when you set your challenges aside in favor of discussing art, literature and philosophy.

23) some people have taken on a massive task (or maybe several massive tasks) and discussing art, literature and philosophy seem small, trivial and insignificant until these larger things are solved.

24) Here at wheaton labs, the house at basecamp is sometimes called "grandma's house". The idea is that if you are living up on the lab, you need to focus on getting the wood in, getting food, building, animal systems, etc. And all tasks take 10 to 20 times longer until you have built your infrastructure and then optimized that infrastructure. The promise of permaculture is to create that infrastructure so that you can spend big heaps of your time contemplating art, literature and philosophy. Of course, people wish to take a shortcut to that end without the work. It's good to wish for things.

25) So, I come to grandma's house and I bring a lot of heavy shit that people don't want to hear about. It's ... heavy shit! After hearing heavy shit three meals a day for several months, I think most people would, indeed, get sick of it.

26) I think that somebody doing the ant village thing would also bring heavy shit to the table three times a day. After all, by doing so, it is possible that somebody would have a suggestion to make the load lighter.

27) I think a lot of people want to have a job, or be a gapper or travel a path that is lovely and light. The food keeps showing up on the table and there is music and everything, everywhere is fine. They have things in their life to deal with, but, in time, they will work them out. But if the food keeps showing up and the money keeps coming in and there is music and good company, why change anything? Frankly, this sounds really good to me! I want some! Why suffer through heavy shit, when there is an easy path full of hearts, flowers and rainbows?

28) Of course, if I stop, then the money and food stops and people just go elsewhere. This is why the ant village thing looks so good to me. Those are people that understand that the time for hearts, flowers and rainbows comes later.

29) I think that if somebody is on a lovely path where they don't have to worry about food and shelter, then sharing a hundred meals with me or with an ant in the first year would probably be a bit unbearable. I think there is a lot to be said for the other permaculture places where the landowner lives in the house and the interns/wwoofers do all their stuff in the barn. Some people are ready to build some experiences to better understand what they want to do with their future - a gentle exploration. Other people are ready to take on the challenge of building your own home and raising your own food - something far more intense.

30) Another thing: for any "job" a person might have, do they really want to share three meals a day with their boss? especially if their boss keeps talking about work through all of the meals? And the meals sorta become a daily performance evaluation?

31) I do think having me share meals with gappers should probably be limited. It is a bit stressful to them. Whereas, if there were ants here at basecamp, I could imagine sharing the table with ants and my presence would not be as heavy.

paul wheaton wrote:I think the key point to this is:


30) Another thing: for any "job" a person might have, do they really want to share three meals a day with their boss? especially if their boss keeps talking about work through all of the meals? And the meals sorta become a daily performance evaluation?

From my experience - places that work like that are awesome! Everyone is on the same page working towards the same thing and that's all they talk about... all the time...

The most functional farms I have ever been on are basically like that. Meals and breaks are mostly taken together and everyone always talking about what's up. What's good, what's bad, what's next, what they may have noticed that other people didn't have an opportunity too.

Personally I like that sort of gig. But that's just me.

Landon Sunrich wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:I think the key point to this is:


30) Another thing: for any "job" a person might have, do they really want to share three meals a day with their boss? especially if their boss keeps talking about work through all of the meals? And the meals sorta become a daily performance evaluation?

From my experience - places that work like that are awesome! Everyone is on the same page working towards the same thing and that's all they talk about... all the time...

The most functional farms I have ever been on are basically like that. Meals and breaks are mostly taken together and everyone always talking about what's up. What's good, what's bad, what's next, what they may have noticed that other people didn't have an opportunity too.

Personally I like that sort of gig. But that's just me.

That's how I work best as too. One caveat : If I'm listening to people explaining problems, I'm sort of expecting that they are going to want some feedback when they are done talking. If they are just yapping to hear their own voice or to simply complain... I politely excuse myself from the conversation.

I'm getting the feeling that Paul is speaking to a captive audience in some way and that might not be optimal considering the number and frequency of "issues" to be discussed (ranted). They have to eat and mealtime is when people commune and have time to talk. I think rants or observations might best be spread out through the day and divided up among the different people on the property. In this way nobody is experiencing all of the negative at one time and not every meal is time for a "talking to". Maybe visit each gapper/ ant and have a chat. Leave each person or group with a little negative nugget and let them chew on it for a time. Then maybe at dinner time you'll have solutions instead of a tired hungry bunch who are not really in the mood for another pile of shit.

One other idea is to shoot some video of typical mealtime and throw it up on YT to give people an idea of what it takes to keep shit working.

One last thing... Thank you Paul for doing all that you do. I have a lot of knowledge, skills and critters now that I didn't have when I first became a member here. You're hard work and the work and dedication of others has has a huge impact on my life and that of my family as well. If you ever need an ear from outside the day-to-day folks let me know. I give good pep talks... sometimes. And I swear A LOT.

On this particular day, I was talking about how the three youtube comments were something that were edge cases: were they so bad that I should delete them? I thought I was sharing a bit of a thought exercise.

There are other meals where I am talking about projects and how they are taking far too long. So I could see how that discussion would be a downer.

It seems like, unfortunately, the answer is once again the need of more people.
A pile of Pauls grumpy thoughts and frustrations and complaints and worries etc. Say a pile is about 1000 individual things like this.
Currently its like this where the glorious Paul beseats himself for pie time and to unwind. Gappers have their .02 grumpy bits and surely some are a bit frivolous comparably. Then Paul drops his pile of 1000 on 5-15 people....
**sirens sounding** warning warning gapper overload!

But once there is more people there...
Paul can find some people to entrust certain jobs to. 1000 now down to 800. Paul can entrust certain people to overlook certain projects and they are the ones to break out the horsewhip Now 800 down to 600. And so on.
Then there is more gappers and ants and potatoes etc for Paul to release the remaining pile onto. So like 300 to 700 onto 30+ people.

Craig Dobbelyu wrote:
Personally I like that sort of gig. But that's just me.

Craig Dobbelyu wrote: One other idea is to shoot some video of typical mealtime and throw it up on YT to give people an idea of what it takes to keep shit working.
And I swear A LOT.

I think having lunch or brunch or dinner or whatever meeting on youtube would be a spectacular idea for someone trying to get shit done with a diverse crowd. I don't know that I know to many people other than Ossy Osborn who'd be willing to do that, but it's a good idea and has the potential of providing insight for people of inclined mind to infer some.

kadence blevins wrote:the answer is once again the need of more people.

I think that is part of it. With more people, everybody gets more of what they seek and time with any flavor of "spiderman" (including me) can be reduced. Or maybe some people are more into batman or aquaman or something. So, with more people comes more opportunity to find the perfect meal companions. And maybe people will enjoy a bit of spiderman once in a while.

- -

And I think I need to add something more to this thread. I think that the negative that I was bringing to the table was quite a lot. Jocelyn and I have had an empty house for the last ten days or so (people are either spending all their time at the lab, or they are at voices, or they have moved on to their next adventure, and ... all the planets have aligned and we now have a nearly empty house).

Ignoring all of the online stuff, and focusing just on the work happening here, and the people living here, and people sharing a table three times a day. There are some things that end up being heavy/negative. And the solution ALWAYS seems to be "tell the person that is doing it wrong to stop doing it wrong." Which smells a lot like "being angry at bad guys."

So now I'm thinking that when there is a problem, that it could be rooted in something where we are not following the natural flow well enough. And human psychology is part of nature.

Granted, we are still in a "getting started" phase. So brute force is still a big player. But I think that we need to transition to the permie being the seed. Place a permie on a piece of good land and permaculture will grow. Naturally. As opposed to the idea of having a list of tasks for gappers to go do.

Isn't there a process for expressing one's 'disatisfactions' with what another is doing/saying etc., without the 'getting angry at the bad guy' part? I forge the name..hasn't it been brought up here somewhere? "Non Violent Conflict Resolution" or something like that. I've thought I could use the training... and to really deal with any kind of 'perceived bad guy/behavior', it could be critical in achieving the "instead of getting angry" part of Paul's motto.

Jocelyn !!! (Maybe a podcast with Diane Christian Leafe -?sp - didn't she say it was critical in the survival of int. comm.s?)

paul wheaton wrote:

Jocelyn Campbell wrote:Like this! But with coffee, not tea.

In the first second I thought spidey was copping a feel. Took me a second to realize that he was about to pour hot water on the woman.

Probably just getting his own back, don't women pour hot water on spiders when they invade the sanctum of their pristine home?




As far as offloading goes, that's a normal human means of destressing, amidst others. some hippies go smoke a joint sitting on a rock with the wind rustling through their greying ponytails, others break out the mountainbike and try to knock 10 secs off their best time round a hilly trail, others (me included) grab the rifle and go stalking wee furry edible critters.

Dang, now you have my hungry for a nice braised rabbit, and my .22 is 500 Km away in the rack on the farm!




If you have a likeminded passionate crowd surrounding you, your offloading woes will usually be met with responses of similar woes and how they were overcome or avoided, if you have a bunch of people who think differently and have different passions, they just here a lot of irrelevant whining.

So yeah, meals with ants would be more productive than meals with tourists and rootless drifters methinks!

Rhys Firth wrote:If you have a likeminded passionate crowd surrounding you, your offloading woes will usually be met with responses of similar woes and how they were overcome or avoided, if you have a bunch of people who think differently and have different passions, they just here a lot of irrelevant whining.

I surmise part of this is in how the topics are delivered. I live with people who complain and rant about things they have no intention of fixing they just enjoy complaining about it.

I suspect Paul is actively attempting to solve the issues he brings to the table, rather than just offloading them.

I think we all ate at my table because we were getting things started. A dry place with a full kitchen.

But ... I am trying to pull off something really massive. And while people are willing to hear me out, there are very few people that I can really talk to about this stuff. And, yes, as I bring my shitstorm to the table, it is not pretty. At the same time, when we talk about something that is not a shitstorm, I dominate the conversation too much. Some people eat it up and find value in it, but after a few months, I would suspect that anybody would be utterly sick of sharing a table with me. So far Jocelyn seems rather immune.

On top of that, I've pushed myself too hard too long and the people of the last year have had to pay the price. First I was working to muscle through it and force things to go the way they needed to go. And then came the effort to work less to get back to a bit more peaceful.

For a lot of reasons, I think it would be wiser to have a weekly shared meal rather than three meals a day, six days a week.

It's all about the infrastructure, isn't it?

A dining hall. OK, we'll put that on the list!

And reference to the Jerry thread, while the bunkhouses can be small classes niche interest classrooms, the dining hall outside of meals can be a large group auditorium. Build a lecture podium/platform in the end opposite the chow line and a multi-function hall ensues.

Seems to me that 'discussing problems' can be done a few difference ways, and the same subject broached in slightly different ways can be 'boss is pissed cuz we suck' and 'team effort to solve these problems! go us!'

paul wheaton wrote:And the solution ALWAYS seems to be "tell the person that is doing it wrong to stop doing it wrong." Which smells a lot like "being angry at bad guys."

How about "teach the person how to do it right"? Sometimes just a difference in phrasing/tone.

paul wheaton wrote:There are other meals where I am talking about projects and how they are taking far too long. So I could see how that discussion would be a downer.

For me, this particular example is a particularly frustrating conversation to be on the receiving end of. When, for example, I've been doing my best to compromise between competing imperatives such as 'FASTER FASTER!!!' and 'too expensive, scrounge more buy less' and 'let's have a chicken tractor that doesn't need to be repaired every fucking week, with a door that is actually mink proof, and a latch that doesn't cost an extra 30 seconds of fucking with it 4x a day'... "X's taking too long" is not constructive feedback. If I knew how to do X faster, I'd be doing it faster; the only result from this statement is a deterioration in morale, and maybe a decline in production because my concentration goes downhill when I'm pissed off.

"It's taking longer than we'd thought; let's go over the challenges we've seen so far, brainstorm how to streamline them for the next time, and see what else we still need to deal with on this project" is a very different conversation.

"Build it shittier, I'd rather have it last half as long but take 1 less day" isn't a great thing to hear, but it's something actionable at least.

"Let me show you some tricks to speed things up" is good to hear.



On the youtube front... I've heard a number of times that many people become like an amalgamation of the people they spend the most time with. I certainly notice myself absorbing traits from people I spend a lot of time with. I think that forums have personalities/flavours, and can influence people in the same way. If I was building a list of people/forums that I would deem acceptable to be influenced by, I certainly wouldn't include 'youtube commenters' on that list!

Dillon Nichols wrote:
On the youtube front... I've heard a number of times that many people become like an amalgamation of the people they spend the most time with. I certainly notice myself absorbing traits from people I spend a lot of time with. I think that forums have personalities/flavours, and can influence people in the same way. If I was building a list of people/forums that I would deem acceptable to be influenced by, I certainly wouldn't include 'youtube commenters' on that list!

Oh yes, THIS.

This is why I'm for closing comments on YouTube. I don't think there's any way for a non-sociopath to deal with the ick that is YouTube commentary without it bringing them down. If you are a gentle soul, it's pure poison.

The gains do NOT outweigh the losses. Loss of time, loss of energy, loss of spark. . . . OK, somebody please tell me some reasons to keep YouTube comments open. One I can recall is that somebody thought that it was signifier of authenticity--that if comments were closed he'd be less likely to believe what was in the video.

I would counter: that's the point of video, isn't it? LOOK! You can see the egg sliding around on the cast iron pan, no teflon involved. You can see the chickens eating the slugs (after they've been cut up with scissors). You can see the fire burning sideways and upside down.

If your YouTube video is just you as a talking head, making various arguments on the power of your persuasiveness and personal magnetism, then sure! Open up the comments so the debate can continue. I say if people have questions about what they saw in the video they should just follow the tag line and come on down to permies.com where we talk about XXX and homesteading and permaculture, all the time. (Then if they are an asshole we can just make them go poof! And if they are adding to the conversation, then the conversation gets that much richer.)

And we all end up spending more time in a positive and constructive place, which improves our mood and our productivity. Win - win!

It's hard for nice guys to build empires
maybe instead of breakfast with spiderman...

it could be be "breakfast with Blofeld"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Stavro_Blofeld

Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a fictional character and a supervillain from the James Bond series of novels and films, who was created by Ian Fleming. An evil genius with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond. Blofeld is head of the global criminal organisation SPECTRE and is commonly referred to as Number 1, an official numerical position given to members of SPECTRE. The character was originally written by Fleming as a physically massive man, standing around 6 foot 3 and weighing 21.6 stone (about 300 pounds), and very powerfully built


I bet when he brings down the heavy shit
one either does something or gets off the pot

do you have a cat?

Julia Winter wrote:
The gains do NOT outweigh the losses. Loss of time, loss of energy, loss of spark. . . . OK, somebody please tell me some reasons to keep YouTube comments open. One I can recall is that somebody thought that it was signifier of authenticity--that if comments were closed he'd be less likely to believe what was in the video.

I would counter: that's the point of video, isn't it?

I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me some reasons to keep YouTube comments open. . .

Here are some reasons that might work:
-See the next shitstorm from hell!!!
-Allows people to debate topics right there below the video
-Incite a revolution
-Discuss issues directly with your viewers
-The LOLs and ROFLcopters (seriously, some of the stuff people say on YouTube is just silly)

*sarcasm intended if not already understood*

I was reminded of this thread when reading a tribute to a Seattle area tree hero. Seriously good works that include founding Plant Amnesty among other things.

I thought these two paragraphs (from https://www.westsideseattle.com/ballard-news-tribune/2017/01/30/large-ballard-cass-turnbull),  were especially pertinent here.

No photo exists, or could capture, the power generated last February when arborist Cass Turnbull learned chainsaws had started on Japanese Cherry trees at the former Loyal Heights substation. She stalked toward the security officer and yellow hazard tape with the force of a bull. She was afire with anger. I saw steam coming from her nostrils. She was the mother bear of a whole forest of cubs, from sapling to giant. I have never seen anyone so passionately, eloquently, powerfully outraged.

Hearing disappointing news regarding Seattle Green Space Coalition’s urban land bank planning, Cass emailed from Hawaii mid-month, “I spend a lot of time being devastated. Goes with the territory of trying to get something big done.”

I think Cass Turnbull  (may she rest in peace and may her work continue) is another example of how it takes a forceful bear of a personality to power through naysayers and complacency and detractors to get things done.

It's a rare personality type that can tolerate the feelings of devastation (futility at times?) and more and keep on doing things to make a difference.

Thank you Cass. <3 <3 <3

And thank you Paul.

And thank you permies folks for all of your support!