my frustration with the three ethics

H Ludi Tyler wrote:

Fred Morgan wrote:

And perhaps that is what matters - not so much the ethics, as are you getting to the goal of permaculture?

To me the goal of permaculture IS the ethics. The goal of permaculture, to me, is care of the earth and of people, the third ethic is about how to accomplish the first two goals.

Fat Charlie wrote:

Dale Hodgins wrote:I make a point of coming up with newer and better ways of sabotaging the efforts of the idle class. I've heard more than enough from these folks,...

Just as I'm not open to changing my ways, most of these people are unwilling to change their's. So I'm facilitating a parting of ways, thus avoiding future conflict. Very permaculturey.

How do you define "the idle class?" --------------------------------------------------------Dale's response--------------------------------------------------------- I was referring to Victoria's druggie population. ----------- They've become quite numerous and a scourge on the community. I've had four vehicle break-ins in three years, so I decided to do my part in moving some of them back to their home cities. I won't ever be offering them any other help. Just the trip. I owe them nothing.

We also have some non-productives who have not found themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder. If I was to list the various professions, which I consider to be of no value whatsoever, this post would surely be deleted immediately. There are also those who simply live on interest or on the money earned by their great grandfather. Many have found a niche which provides them with sustenance without providing the world with anything useful. But these people don't steal from me or destroy my belongings and they would be unlikely to take me up on the offer of a free ride out of town. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've spoken protesters who seem quite convinced that all of our economic problems would end if only the very rich were stripped of their wealth. Most of these folks are quite mathematically challenged, so I've done some for them.

I searched out the net worth of the 10 wealthiest Americans. Their total wealth amounted to $191 billion dollars. The United States government spends $36 billion every day. So that means that if all of these people were made penniless, their total accumulation could finance the government for 8 days.

It makes sense to make changes to the playing field. It makes no sense at all to reward the very worst players no matter where they fall in the economic spectrum.

paul wheaton wrote:A scenario I worry about is that a farmer has spent the last year trying to ditch chem-ag and embrace permaculture. It's been a lot of hard work but he is beginning to see the light. And then somebody says to him "so you think you are doing permaculture, huh? Recite the three ethics!" "Huh?" "The foundation of permaculture. The ethics. Recite them. Now." "I don't know what you are talking about." "Then you can't call what you are doing permaculture. In fact, until you take a PDC, sing songs to the earth, and participate in a talent show, you cannot call any of this .... this .... stuff you are doing 'permaculture'."

This is a scenario I am very uncomfortable with.

I see permaculture being the most powerful tool in the toolset of changing the world for the better. And, at the same time, I see it not being able to go anywhere because of massive infighting - and most of the infighting is rooted in the three ethics. And a lot of the posts I see here are proving my point (and these posts are gentle and respectful).

paul wheaton wrote:I think a person could say "I like permaculture. Look, I've made a hugelkultur bed with polyculture." They might even list an open house and say "Come on by and see my permaculture projects." at which point somebody could say "You cannot tell other people that they are permaculture projects unless you have a statement that says you support the permaculture ethics." or "You cannot advertise that you have permaculture projects until you have completed a PDC." Maybe they have never heard of the permaculture ethics. Maybe they have heard of the permaculture ethics and think they are spiffy - but didn't think they had to push the ethics. Maybe they are gonna take a PDC, but it won't be for a few months. Or maybe they never heard of a PDC. And then this person starts to get sour on the whole permaculture thing - it sounds like it comes with baggage.

I think if somebody wanted to call their farm "Bob's Permaculture Farm" or if they were selling "Permaculture Produce" then I think they need to take a PDC before saying this stuff. It seems to me, that's the way the permaculture stuff is set up, and, if nothing else, that would just be respectful to the greater permaculture community.

I think "come by and see my permaculture projects" is fine. Some people are just getting started. Requiring anything about the ethics or a PDC at this point strikes me as excessively militant.

As far as condemning anybody for using the word "permaculture" without the ethics: how do we know that they don't embrace the ethics? Have they said so?

If 400 people move onto Ludi's place and say that Ludi cannot complain because of "care of the people" or "share the surplus", I think those people should not be there unless they get permission from Ludi first and this is mis-interpretation of the ethics.

paul wheaton wrote:I think if somebody wanted to call their farm "Bob's Permaculture Farm" or if they were selling "Permaculture Produce" then I think they need to take a PDC before saying this stuff. It seems to me, that's the way the permaculture stuff is set up, and, if nothing else, that would just be respectful to the greater permaculture community.

Levente Andras wrote:
And finally they abide by the third ethic possibly by giving away surplus, but above all by making sure that their own produce or income can actually provide for their own needs and those of their progeny. If they rely on child benefit or state subsidies or any type of subsidised consumption in order to finance their way of life, in my book they have not yet graduated on ethic #3.

Chris Watkins wrote:Speaking of chem-ag people and their ethics, in the early 2000's I spoke with an Australian farmers' representative. We talked about tilling, erosion and irrigation, and his message was that things had changed and were continuing to change in mainstream ag, and that farmers were tilling less, and having less erosion as a result. Either he or someone else told me that farmers were learning to be much more efficient in water use, drastically reducing irrigation and water seepage in raising certain crops like rice and cotton, and reducing the problems with soil salinity that often come from irrigation. (Not to mention the stress on the rivers.)

He was part of mainstream ag, so he'd qualify as "chem-ag," but I have no doubt that he was genuine, and indeed that those working on such changes are doing enormous good. They're just changing a lot of farms a bit, whereas permaculturists tend to change a small patch of farmland, but change it a lot.

Then there's a more controversial case: RoundUp-ready GMO's. We tend to hear one side of this, that this has resulted in an increase in chemical use. But the chemical they are using more of - Roundup - is apparently much less toxic than the ones they used to use, so arguably it's an improvement.

Also think back to the predictions of famine and hundreds of millions of deaths, that were made in the second half of the 20th century. That never came about, because of the "Green Revolution" - developments in the chem-ag field. We'd all like to see a "Greener Revolution" involving soil microbiology and sensitivity to ecosystems, rather than chemicals and imposing our will on the soil... but still, saving hundreds of millions of people is no small thing.

I don't believe that everyone on the other side of the fence wears a black hat or deliberately twists the truth.

Just my personal opinion - doesn't represent any organization I'm affiliated with.

H Ludi Tyler wrote:

Levente Andras wrote:
And finally they abide by the third ethic possibly by giving away surplus, but above all by making sure that their own produce or income can actually provide for their own needs and those of their progeny. If they rely on child benefit or state subsidies or any type of subsidised consumption in order to finance their way of life, in my book they have not yet graduated on ethic #3.

That seems kind of harsh. For instance if an old man works in his garden every day to try to raise some food, but relies on state health insurance and church charity to keep from dying, he is less ethical than the healthy young man who happens to have a good job selling cars, say, or doing something with computers but because he doesn't need any help (being young, healthy, and happening to have a good job), he's more permaculturally ethical than the old man? Using this standard, just being fortunate to have a good-paying job automatically makes someone more permaculturally ethical , because they don't need any kind of obvious help, never mind that they probably enjoy all kinds of other state subsidized benefits unless they never buy food from the store, use grid power, or drive on the roads.

Levente Andras wrote:The "saving of hundreds of millions of people" is indeed no small thing, but if a famine had occured as predicted, it would have been a consequence of an overstretch of the population (i.e., more people than the land can feed). So an "intervention" like the Green Revolution brings about only a postponement of an unpleasant but natural outcome of the unchecked demographic growth. It saved us temporarily and allowed us to multiply even further, and at the same time caused serious environmental degradation.

However, if the three ethics turn off a significant portion of would be practitioners, are they doing more harm than good?

paul wheaton wrote:
I suspect a chem ag company could say:

earth care: optimizing food production per acre so less land is needed to ....
people care: feed the people of the world
fair share / limits: working hard to improve income of all people involved in ag. new RR technology has reduced the consumption of chemicals overall

My point is that if embracing the ethics does not set a clear path away from chem ag, then these words aren't helping.

"I’d come into town from the bush – after 28 years of field work in natural systems – and become an academic. So I turned my attention to humans, much as I had to possums in the forests. Humans were my study animal now – I set up night watches on them, and I made phonograms of the noises they make. I studied their cries, and their contact calls, and their alarm signals. I never listened to what they were saying – I watched what they were doing, which is really the exact opposite of the Freuds and Jungs and Adlers.

I soon got to know my animal fairly well – and I found out that it didn’t matter what they were saying. What they were doing was very interesting, but it had no relation whatsoever to either what they were saying, or what questions they could answer about what they were doing. No relationship. Anyone who ever studied mankind by listening to them was self-deluded. The first thing they should have done was to answer the question, "Can they report to you correctly on their behavior?" And the answer is, "No, the poor bastards cannot."