philosophy

"Blue Girl, Red State" discussed the principle of anonymous blogging the other day (actually pseudonymous blogging as she explains in her follow-up post), citing some very good reasons for avoiding self-exposure:

I don’t write behind a pseudonym because I am embarrassed by my opinions. I use a pseudonym because I have tangled with the rabid right before. They are scary. They use a form of terrorism to try to silence their opposition. They send fake anthrax to Keith Olberman, and mutilated dolls to the young daughters of pro-choice politicians and healthcare workers who work in reproductive medicine. Tech blogger Kathy Sierra received so many death-threats that she was forced to cancel a keynote speech at a tech convention and go into seclusion. Doctors who provide abortions get gunned down. Remember that a Liberty University student was arrested for making pipe bombs to use against anti-Falwell protesters at his funeral. I find all protests of funerals outrageous, but the first place this kids mind went was to make a few pipe bombs and just go violent right out of the gate.

We are not talking about sane people with whom you can reason.

While PeakOilDesign in general stays away from politics, the topics here challenge most people's ideologies -- which can bring out the same psychopathic behavior Blue Girl describes. It is for those reasons, and the fact that the powers-that-be probably don't like having one of their own discussing some of the country's most sensitive issues, that I use my nom-de-plume. I may choose to publish my name in the future (particularly if I leave government service), but for now it feels much safer that I remain unknown. Of course, if you find the material I contribute useful and credible, hopefully knowing my real name should make little difference to you. :)

Too often our society equates quality of life with quantity of energy consumption. Something I discovered as I learned of how to prepare for the future was that I longed for a life not of monster televisions and fast cars, but of abundant nature and slow community. Through most of my life I believed the opposite: that true happiness would be found with vast riches and endless energy. I have yet to see anyone articulate my own internal feelings on this as clearly as Jeff Vail in his recent post entitled "The Design Imperative".

Vail works to quantify the meaning of "quality of life" as a measure independent from energy, although often enhanced by it. As he says, quality of life is demonstrably improved by things such as localized food production, self-sufficiency, indigenous architecture, and strong community. From the article:

Allow me now to suggest a new term, borrowing (loosely) from Jacques Ellul: Technics. While “technology” converts work into any product, “technics” is a more specific term that I am using to denote the design process of converting work into human quality of life.

It seems axiomatic that the goal of humanity is to optimize quality of life. There are nearly endless debates that can begin here—how is quality of life defined, do we measure the mean, median, mode, or selfish-individual level, etc.—but I think that we can all agree that IF we can answer the question “what is quality of life,” then we all share the goal of optimizing it.

This leaves us with a simple equation: Quality of Life = Work * Technics

In pursuing the goal of optimizing quality of life, there are two (non mutually-exclusive) options: improve the availability of work, or improve technics.

The fact that Al Gore consumes a great deal while advocating reduced consumption is hypocritical. But so am I -- while I’m working toward improving my environmentally damaging lifestyle, I’m still relying on coal-produced power, the city water system, and a sewage treatment plant. It takes time and resources to transition to a sustainable lifestyle and both Gore and myself (and hopefully all of you!) are working toward the same goal. Yes, he still uses far more electricity than the typical resident, but he’s also installed far more renewable electricity sources than most residents. He is among the most affluent people in the world, which just means he has farther to fall and it could take him longer than the rest of us to transform the way he lives his life.

I take a certain satisfaction when I notice that our house is the only one on the street without a garbage can out on garbage pick-up days because I know that we are by far the greenest family in the neighborhood. Yet it also saddens me a bit because I know that since even we are a long ways from reaching sustainability, there is little hope of getting the rest of our neighbors to reach the same goal.

I've heard a great many bloggers refer warmly to Sharon Astyk's work, but I had only dropped by her site briefly here and there. As we are soon expecting the birth of our baby boy, one of her recent posts (via Energy Bulletin) really struck me as incredibly insightful and well-conceived. She really hits on some major points on the structure of our society and its effects on the happiness of both parents and children. An excerpt:

Until 200 years ago, a vast majority of all children spent most of their lives with both parents every single day. In hunter-gatherer societies, the tribe often travelled together, and since hunting was generally a less common activity than gathering, male hunters often had considerable time to spend with their children. In most such societies in existence today, they do a considerable amount of parenting. Once agriculture came to predominate, again, children spent their days with their parents. Young, nursing children were often with their mother, but by the age of weaning (four or five in most traditional societies, unless a younger sibling pushed it ahead), children might work or play alongside their fathers for part of every day. Boys would join their fathers in traditionally male work, but even daughters would often help in the barn or around the farm. Everyone would recovene for regular meals, and the family would spend all sabbaths and festivals together. Many agricultural societies had much more free time than we do now - 11th century serfs worked only 178 days per year. Helena Norberg-Hodge has documented that the people of Ladakh, one of the harshest climates in the world, were able to feed themselves by working intensely only four months of the year, spending much of the winter in celebration and parties, and described the integration of children into the lives of both parents and grandparents as well.

Back in college I had a friend who was convinced the only utensil she needed in life was a spoon. She lived by that assertion – hacking away at dry dorm steak, deftly balancing leaves of lettuce, and smoothly buttering her bread, all with a spoon. The rest of us would laugh or shake our heads, wondering to one another about what a quirky girl she was.