William Hiers

Honestly I bought into all this about 10 years ago. I pursued a permaculture education and shunned college. Did it give me lots of life skills and prepare me for the future... possibly. The thing about the future is that its unknowable, I certainly don't see AI making many jobs go away in the next 6 months. The job I work at now will have layoffs but AI is barely adopted at all. They still do paper record keeping and this is a Fortune 500. AI just can't read the hand written and scanned PDFs. Don't get me wrong, ill be first in line to buy a robot but that is probably years to a decade away still.

For background I finally got tired of being poor and living with my parents and went back to school at 34. I now make double what my max salary has been at an entry level sustainability job (i know its a joke but it pays more than my apple tree ever did) but still can't find a way to climb out of my terrible social poverty. Land ownership seems like a cruel joke and though it seemed possible a few years ago, today it feels pretty unattainable, especially with a child and limited mobility. If I had gone to college, gotten the piece of paper and got an entry level job I might have my own homestead by now. Instead I waited for the permaculture skills to save me and they never have.

I agree that trades are more valuable than most college degrees, but society still rewards that paper. Get yourself the cheapest degree you can in something versatile. Scan job postings and see what the jobs in your area, theres a business phrase called 'going concern' which basically means assume these businesses will still be operating when you graduate. Governments arent going away either, those jobs arent what they used to be, but if you go on a job website and search 'permaculture' I guarantee the results will be zero. If youre passionate about permaculture and want to live the lifestyle then do that. I would love to do the Ant Village but I've never had the money or freedom to jump in to that experience. If you want to do permaculture design professionally, the minimum in Connecticut is a BS in Architectural Landscape Design. You can't not go to college if you want to pursue this path!
For millions and millions of kids out there, maybe college is a joke and permaculture is better for lots of reasons... but if the world is dying and you still have to get by in a crumbling society. Do whatever you love and think will be a good path for you. Try to have a positive impact (The world always needs more doctors!) and chances are you'll need the college paper for it. My advice is get the debt, have fun in college, try new things, learn new things, extend your childhood as long as you can. College is more than the sum of its parts. Poor without a degree is much worse in my experience than broke with a degree.

Look for my survey too!

Hi,
I'm William!
I live in central ct. Recently i went through a major life shakeup involving a split from my partner of many years and after months of growing and healing I'm ready to get on with my life. I'm looking for friends guys and girls and maybe some dates if anyone is interested. Just need some people who share my interests in my life and i won't find that at the bar or in my swales lol.
Please reach out if you feel the same need for connection,
williamhiers@gmail.com
Or 860-575-4176
Cheers

That aero art is cool, I'm going to have to look into that! When i think of this concept my first thought is the trompe from one of bill mollisons lectures. There are a lot of alternative technologies out there, that's why we are here isn't it?!?

Another is the chinese wheelbarrow. The idea is that it has one big wheel in the middle so the load is on the when instead of your back. I've wanted one of these for years but i don't think it's something you can buy and i would love for someone to show me how I'm wrong or how easy it is to actually make one!

I made a post in the singles forum years ago and connected with 2 people but nothing serious ever came out of it. I find myself contemplating my relationship status a lot right now and i do wish there were permaculture mixers I could go to. Even if they were on zoom it would be nice to connect with like minded people. I'm in a Permaculture dead zone which makes it even worse. (Insert insult aimed at the state of ct here!) Honestly I'm hoping to meet someone at a farmers market since I'm trying to cut back on the phone usage but the odds are slim, guess i better start hoping for fate to intervene lol

There is transition and there is Transition. To use the T you need to register with the non profit. But anyone can work to get their community more local and resilient.

Parts of your writing really remind me of videos I've seen by Toby Hemingway. I'm involved in some local wilderness schools based around the teachings of Jon young. There is some permaculture and I would say the difference is between the word living and the word being. Permaculture is living in/with nature and there is so much more life to have than just being, sitting and observing and communing. It's good to know about shelters but it's better to have a home. I'm reading a book about unschooling and nature connection so I'm very excited by this topic and your book!

I went to business school with the idea of starting a lermaculture business. The part I struggled with was the demographics of your customers. Who is your book written for. This is my opinion but it seems like it is written for people,who want an overview of solutions but not people who need the information to try something. Its vast but not chunky. A relevant example would be the section on feral beekeeping. I read that and it made so much sense to me that I wanted to try it, and well it left me empowered it hardly gave me the tools I needed. It did help me think critically about beekeeping and maybe that's all we really need. You could Market the book as a way to think critically about your lifestyle choices and as a way to overview many different choices your lifestyle could take. So for target audience it could people who are ready to respond to climate change through individual action and are just starting out and want to survey their options. Maybe future drafts could include a quiz and a challenge to get engagement between the reader and the material because that seems to be the weak link. Who is the target audience for your book? My professor always laughed at me when I said everyone was my target for permaculture...

Hi Paul,
The exponential function builds very slowly. My cousin wrote a book 10 years ago and only recently has it gotten him some recognition. I think one of the big helpers was the ted talk he did where he talked about his work. As always I think the problem is audience. I bought a dozen books and they are all gathering dust and I wish i had a dozen more but I would be crazy to expect a different result. I describe the book as a physical index of many topics on permies, the book itself is like an inbound marketing tool for the forum. It seems like you need to get out there on ted talks and podcasts and radio shows and talk up the book and use that to draw prople into the forum rather than the other way around. Maybe break the book up and rather than try to attract everybody all at once you could go section by section for that specific audience, people that want chickens might not care about bees and its a long way from chickens to composting toilets. I wish you luck but at the end of the day people either need to have the want or you need to manufacture it in them. Maybe try noam chomsky...

My email is williamhiers(@)gmail, so send me a message and lets connect!