Smijernsnagler til trepanel

Nydelig med smijernsnagler til heltrepanel! Disse skal man definitivt ikke sparkle over!!! Klikk på bildet for en forstørrelse.

The Peder Balke Center

Peder Balke was a famous painter born at Helgøys Iceland in the middle of Lake Mjøsa. This is the Peder Balke Center at Billerud Farm at Østre Toten, where there's also a nice cafè in summertime, and sometimes concerts. Peder Balke decorated many of the rooms here with painting directly at the walls.

Click on the image for a magnification.

Painting by Peder Balke. See more of his paintings here. Photo: Oslo Museum.

Lake Mjøsa Panorama

Click on the image for a magnification

My First Thought is Probably Not My Best

In principle, my initial reaction - my first thought - is very rarely my best thought.
Often my first thought is absurd and shows me how not to react.

Like first brush strokes on a canvas, first thoughts provide a starting place for
more refined thoughts, for subsequent brush strokes. First thoughts, like initial
brush strokes, are rarely worth sharing. In fact, sharing first thoughts can be
deeply counter-productive to good group decisions.

Practical Tip: Just because I think something, doesn't mean I have to say it or
act on it. When we share first thoughts we run a substantial risk of offending others,
saying things we will regret, and requiring the group to spend time on issues that
turn out to be a waste of time. Best to sit with our thoughts until a clear picture
emerges of what we want to say. - Craig Freshley

Bislingen anti-naturhotell på ”Nordmarkas tak”

Bislingen "naturhotell" er et forsøk på å innkapsle biofilia under den nihilist-modernistiske kappe, i profittens og ideologiens tegn.



Fylkesrådmannen i Oppland karakteriserer Bislingen "naturhotell", beliggende på "Nordmarkas tak" bare få meter fra markagrensa, som et ambisiøst prosjekt når det gjelder miljøløsninger og arkitektur. Fylkesutvalget inviteres til å godta planforslaget ved behandling førstkommende tirsdag (Oppland Arbeiderblad fredag 20. september). Fylkesrådmannen har selvsagt rett i at prosjektet er ambisiøst, men dette med den hensikt å knytte modernistisk arkitektur opp mot begrepet biofilia, eller rettere sagt et forvrengt bilde av biofilia, hvor man frarøver begrepet sitt meningsinnhold slik dette er gitt av pionerene innen denne forskningsgrenen, for å gjøre det til sitt eget.

Biofilia betyr naturkjærlighet eller naturbevissthet. Sammen med Edward O. Wilson, grunnleggeren av begrepet, er arkitekturteoretikeren Nikos A. Salingaros å regne som en av verdens fremste eksperter innen fagfeltet biofilia. I siste utgave av New English Review skriver han følgende:

"Dyktige medlemmer av det nåværende "etablissementet" innser at et nytt marked utvikler seg, og ønsker "å ri bølgen" for igjen å etablere et nytt monopol (dvs. en fortsettelse av det gamle modernistiske monopolet). Disse personene begynner å omfavne vårt vokabular og våre ideer, men kun for å undergrave dem for slik å styrke sine egne helter og ideologi. Andre gjør skamløst våre ideer til sine egne, og benytter dem for selvpromotering. Arkitekturakademikere foreleser om matematikk og den nye vitenskapen anvendt på arkitektur; om algoritmisk design, tilpasning og bærekraft, natur og den menneskelige dimensjon, det hellige aspektet av bygd form, etc. Sådanne anstrengelser er uærlige vurdert ut fra deres konklusjoner: de fremmer det samme settet av nihilistiske arkitekurthelter. Å tilegne seg ideene til intelligensbasert design med den hensikt å forvrenge dem til det motsatte er simpelthen en øvelse i uærlighet og forføring"

For en som ikke er hjernevasket av modernismens forestillinger trengs det kun et raskt blikk for å slå fast at det foreslåtte hotellet i Nordmarka er reinspikket anti-natur. Jeg kan kort nevne at de 15 transformasjonene for helhet, som universet, naturen og evolusjonen utfolder seg gjennom, dokumentert i The Nature of Order av Christopher Alexander, glimrer med sitt fravær, og at hotellet mangler strukturell orden og et skaleringshierarki i samsvar med den universelle skaleringsloven.

Fylkesrådmannen vil neppe snu i sin anbefaling, da dette vil gi ham et ansiktstap og undergrave hans posisjon innenfor det rådende etablissementet. For andre vil jeg anbefale å følge publiseringen av professor Salingaros nyeste bok Unified Architectural Theory i en gratis e-versjon hos Arch Daily, med ett kapittel hver måned, i engelsk, spansk og portugisisk språkdrakt.

Under det rådende regimet skal det mye til for at Bislingen hotell ikke blir realisert. Men et naturhotell det blir det ikke, annet enn i navnet.

Publisert som leserbrev i Oppland Arbeiderblad tirsdag 24. september 2013.

Relatert

Just Another Failed "Tower in the Park" (at Grefsen Station, Oslo)

New UN Report Calls for Transformation in Agriculture

By Ben Lilliston, originally published by Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Transformative changes are needed in our food, agriculture and trade systems in order to increase diversity on farms, reduce our use of fertilizer and other inputs, support small-scale farmers and create strong local food systems. That’s the conclusion of a remarkable new publication from the U.N. Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The report, Trade and Environment Review 2013: Wake Up Before it is Too Late, included contributions from more than 60 experts around the world (including a commentary from IATP). The report includes in-depth sections on the shift toward more sustainable, resilient agriculture; livestock production and climate change; the importance of research and extension; the role of land use; and the role of reforming global trade rules.

The report links global security and escalating conflicts with the urgent need to transform agriculture toward what it calls “ecological intensification.” The report concludes, “This implies a rapid and significant shift from conventional, monoculture-based and high-external-input-dependent industrial production toward mosaics of sustainable, regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small-scale
farmers.”

Er Jeg-bevisstheten knyttet til materien gjennom en tilintetgjøring i JHVH?

Innlegget kommentaren er knyttet til kan leses her.

Min kommentar:

Målet er det personlige fellesskapet mellom Gud og menneskene; ikke slik en rekke newagere hevder - sammensmeltingen av disse to. - Ole T. Eriksen

James Kalb, en stor katolsk tenker, er i likhet med meg en stor fan av Christopher Alexander: http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/

I The Luminous Ground kommer Alexander til den konklusjonen at Gud åpenbarer seg i materien gjennom en intensivering av sentra ved de 15 transformasjonene for helhet: http://www.natureoforder.com/summarybk4.htm

Jeg kan ikke tolke Alexander på annet vis enn at Jeg-bevisstheten, som etter min mening er det diamentralt motsatte av selvbevisstheten, kommer til bevissthet ved en tilintetgjøring gjennom noe som kan sammenlignes med en forening av JHVH i materien, med Chartres som et svært godt eksempel. Dette har jeg kommet inn på i mitt siste essay Dei tre skapingstilstandane: http://www.kulturverk.com/2013/09/17/dei-tre-skapingstilstandane/

Jeg vil minne om at Nikos A. Salingaros, som spilte en stor rolle i arbeidet med Alexanders The Nature of Order, er rådgiver for den katolske kirkes arkitekturfakultet i Portugal og en av de fremste rådgivere for den katolske kirke i forhold til arkitekturspørsmål.

How Cooperatives Show Resilience to the Crisis

The Women's Kingdom

Ullern kirke i Sør-Odal

Science Fiction Provided the Civil Religion of Progress with the Necessary Promise of Salvation from the Human Condition

The civil religion of progress was arguably the most successful of all in coopting the forms of older religions. It had an abundance of saints, martyrs, and heroes, and a willingness to twist history to manufacture others as needed; the development of technology, buoyed by a flood of cheap abundant energy from fossil fuels, allowed it to supplant the miracle stories of the older faiths with secular miracles of its own; the rise of scientific and engineering professions with their own passionate subcultures of commitment to the myth of progress gave it the equivalent of a priesthood, complete with ceremonial vestments in the form of the iconic white lab coat; the spread of materialist atheism as the default belief system among most scientists and engineers gave it a dogmatic creed that could be used, and in many circles is being used, as a litmus test for loyalty to the faith and a justification for warfare—so far, at least, merely verbal—against an assortment of unbelievers and heretics.

What the civil religion of progress didn’t have, at least in its early stages, was the escape hatch from nature, history, and the human condition that the religious sensibility of the age demanded. This may well be why belief in progress remained a minority faith for so long. The nationalist religions of the 18th century, of which Americanism is a survivor, and the social religions of the 19th, of which Communism was the last man standing, both managed the trick far earlier—nationalism by calling the faithful to ecstatic identification with the supposedly immortal spirit of the national community and the eternal ideals for which it was believed to stand, such as liberty and justice for all; social religions such as Communism by offering believers the promise of a Utopian world “come the revolution” hovering somewhere in the tantalizingly near future.

It was science fiction that finally provided the civil religion of progress with the necessary promise of salvation from the human condition. The conceptual sleight of hand with which this was done deserves a discussion of its own, and I intend to discuss it in next week’s post. Yet one consistent result of the way it was done has been a reliance on overtly theistic imagery far more open and direct than anything in the other civil religions we’ve discussed. From H.G. Wells’ Men Like Gods straight through to the latest geek-pope pontifications about the Singularity, the idea that humanity will attain some close approximation to godhood, or at least give metaphorical birth to artificial intelligences that will accomplish that feat, pervades the more imaginative end of the literature of progress—just as the less blatantly theological ambition to banish poverty, want, illness, and death from the realm of human experience has played a central role in the rhetoric of progress all along. - John Michael Greer

Demoniseringen av Israel og jødene

Anmeldelse av boka "Demonizing Israel and the Jews" av Manfred Gerstenfeld. Det blir mer og mer tydelig at israelshat og antisemittisme går ut på det samme.

Les anmeldelsen av boka i New English Review her.

Fra anmeldelsen:

Gerstenfeld is acutely aware of what he deems non-selective Muslim immigration to Europe that has resulted in inflaming Jew hatred. He notes the murders of French Jews committed by Muslims in France chronicled by Nidra Poller, a New English Review contributor. He has particularly disdain for Scandinavian, Labor Party figures in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, who have fostered Anti-Israelism and intimidation of their Jewish communities. Intimidation brought about by tolerance of Muslim émigré anti-Semitic hatred.The most flagrant example is the Swedish City of Malmo that Gerstenfeld considers “the capital of European anti-Semitism.“ He derides the anti-Semitic statements by Malmo’s Mayor, Ilmar Reepalu. A US State Department expert on world anti-Semitism has called such attitudes “anti-Israel sentiment serving as a guise for Jew hatred.”

Malmø, den europeiske anti-semittismens hovedstad. Foto: Ärkan

Ved å flytte de lidende til Norge blir vi en del av lidelsen

Les artikkelen jeg har kommentert på her.

"Det er dessverre ingen løsning å flytte en håndfull eller et titalls millioner mennesker til Norge, det vil knapt merkes på verdens lidelser og fattigdom. Det norske samfunnet vil imidlertid dermed bli en del av lidelsen."

Min kommentar:

Jeg vil sitere fra en artikkel av Terje Bongard, som i sin helhet kan leses her.

Innvandrere utgjør nå 12 % av befolkningen. Adresseavisens leder 29.4. ønsker flere mennesker velkommen med en av de vanligste feilvurderingene: Vi trenger flere hender til å skape «verdier». Uansett hva man mener om fargerike fellesskap, solidaritet og medmenneskelighet er det er faktum at alle mennesker er netto forbrukere av begrensede ressurser. Mat, klær, bolig, fiber, vann, plass, energi og arealer forbrukes for at et menneske skal leve. Økosystemene må ikke tømmes, de må leve og omsette seg selv for å lage disse ekte verdiene. Dagens økonomi lever sitt eget liv, løsrevet fra virkelighetens ressursregnestykke. Markedsøkonomien er basert på en medfødt positiv følelse, «pengefølelsen», opprinnelig arvet fra lenge før det fantes attraktive byttemidler, da slaktet i treet og veden til vinteren ga overlevelse. Problemet er at menneskelige verdifølelser har kort tidshorisont. Verden har fram til nå i praksis vært uendelig, og vi har derfor ikke arvet bremser som tar opp i seg globale størrelser og grenser. Verdensveggene er kommet svært nær. FNs miljøprogram advarer med større tyngde for hvert år at det går feil vei med verdens natur- og ressursgrunnlag. Jorda er allerede full av folk. I 2050 er det minst 9 milliarder mennesker på jorda. En grønn revolusjon til er ikke mulig. Det er ikke mer brukbart areal igjen på kloden. Det er dessverre ingen løsning å flytte en håndfull eller et titalls millioner mennesker til Norge, det vil knapt merkes på verdens lidelser og fattigdom. Det norske samfunnet vil imidlertid dermed bli en del av lidelsen. Alle «hendene» skal ha mat, hus, klær og fyring om vinteren. Det kan ikke fyres med utgåtte pengedata. Adressas leder henspeiler på at «hendene» vil gi økt kapital, det som av hele det politiske og økonomiske systemet oppfattes som «verdiskaping», men som i virkeligheten er det stikk motsatte.

Å flytte en håndfull mennesker til Norge har ingen innvirkning på verdens samlede lidelse, men vil gjøre våre egne barn og barnebarn til en del av lidelsen

Norge vil rammes hardt når den globale pyramidespilløkonomien bryter sammen. Vårt land er allerede overbefolket. Vil minne om at mens danskene kun trengte to generasjoner på å gjenvinne folketallet etter svartedauden, trengte Norge 300 år. Dette fordi ressursgrunnlaget er så spinkelt i vårt karrige land.

Skal vi få bukt med lidelsen i verden må vi reversere befolkningseksplosjonen, som dette intervjuet i siste utgave av Orion Magazine viser: Crowded Planet: A CONVERSATION WITH ALAN WEISMAN.

Å ta imot alle disse menneskene er å gjøre både dem og oss selv en bjørnetjeneste, og vil gi våre barn en håpløs framtid nedsunket i elendighet. Det vi må satse på er familieplanlegging og utdanning av kvinner i fattige land!

Relatert:

• The Real Population Problem

Blåne over blåne fra Tjuvåskampen

Knapt noe utsiktspunkt i vårt distrikt slår Tjuvåsen. Selv om utsikta mot Mjøsa er heller dårlig, veies dette opp av utsynet mot Einafjorden og fjellene i det fjerne. Og ikke minst alle åsene på rekke og rad mot Hurdal, mest kjent er Bjørnåsen og Fjellsjøkampen (Akershus høyeste punkt og midt i et spennende barskogsreservat).

Klikk på bildet for en forstørrelse. For fullformat kan det lastes ned fra Wikimedia her.

Publisert som dagens bilde i Oppland Arbeiderblad mandag 16. september 2013.

Simone Weil om demokratiet

Christian Evensen says: september 9, 2013 at 8:19 pm 

Jeg var i skogen i helgen, og hadde med meg en bok av den franske filosofen Simone Weil, som jeg leste ved bålknitringen, helt alene, borte fra alt valgkjas. Hun har flere interessant tanker, skrevet ned i kjølvannet av 30-tallet og andre verdenskrigs erfaringer, som overraskende nok fortsatt føles treffende i dag. Jeg siterer noen utdrag, som kan leses i forbindelse med hvordan vi organiserer demokratiet i politiske partier: 

"Protection of freedom of thought requires that no group should be permitted by law to express an opinion. For when a group starts having opinions, it inevitably tends to impose them on its members. Sooner or later, these individuals find themselves debarred, with a greater of lesser degree of severity, and on a number of problems of greater or lesser importance, from expressing opinions opposed to those of the group, unless they care to leave it. But a break with any group to which one belongs always involves suffering—at any rate of a sentimental kind. And just as danger, exposure to suffering are healthy and necessary elements in the sphere of action, so are they unhealthy influences in the exercise of the intelligence. A fear, even a passing one, always provokes either a weakening or a tautening, depending on the degree of courage, and that is all that is required to damage the extremely delicate and fragile instrument of precision which constitutes our intelligence. Even friendship is, from this point of view, a great danger. The intelligence is defeated as soon as the expression of one’s thoughts is preceded, explicitly or implicitly, by the little word ‘we’. And when the light of the intelligence grows dim, it is not very long before the love of good becomes lost. 

The immediate, practical solution would be the abolition of political parties. Party strife, as it existed under the Third Republic, is intolerable. The single party, which is, moreover, its inevitable outcome, is the worst evil of all. The only remaining possibility is a public life without parties. [...] A democracy where public life is made up of strife between political parties is incapable of preventing the formation of a party whose avowed aim is the overthrow of that democracy. If such a democracy brings in discriminatory laws, it cuts its own throat. If it doesn’t, it is just as safe as a little bird in front of a snake."

Will Technology Overcome any Limits?

The rejoinder to Bartlett and others like him is that technology will overcome any limits, and that we'll use substitutes for resources that run low. It's hard to imagine what might be a good substitute for uncontaminated, potable water; but, in the cornucopian's mind anything is possible. It's also hard to imagine a modern technical society without metals. But, we'll think of something, right? However, please don't say that that something is made out of materials derived from oil, natural gas or coal which are also finite.

The problems posed by exponential growth mean we'll have to think of "something" at increasingly short intervals given the ever rising rates of consumption and the broad range of finite materials we depend on--especially fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal) and much of the periodic table of elements including the usual suspects such as iron, copper, aluminum, zinc, silver, platinum, and uranium and the more exotic ones such as lithium, titanium, the so-called rare earth elements, and helium.

It's not just one substitute we'll have to find. And, we may be faced with having to find many all at once. The idea that technological innovation will always and everywhere stay ahead of an ever increasing rate of depletion may be true or not true. But we cannot know this ahead of time. - Kurt Cobb

Crowded Planet (Orion Magazine)

- Crowded Planet

A CONVERSATION WITH ALAN WEISMAN

We’ve never had to manage our population before, and our economies were always a reflection of our natural increase. All of our conventional determining factors for the health of the economy regard whether it’s growing. Bill Clinton even turned economic growth into a transitive verb—We have to grow the economy—as if we were planting seeds and watering them.

It turns out that population growth and economic growth are inextricable. For an economy to keep growing, you have to have growing populations, because you need more laborers to produce more products, and then you need more consumers for those products.

If we have to start limiting our population, then we’re going to have to come up with a way to redefine prosperity that doesn’t involve perpetual growth. A shrinking population or a stable population can’t be a perpetual-growth society. - Alan Weisman

Fine kommentarer til artikkelen "Somletog"

Mange fine kommentarer til artikkelen "Somletog" på forskning.no. Selve artikkelen var ikke mye å skryte av, men når den avleder så mange gode tankerekker får dette stå til. Satte særlig pris på kommentaren til Halvor. Les kommentarene etter artikkelen her.

Vil si at dette er intet mindre enn en voldtekt av innlandets dronning, Mjøsa, og viser hvor perverst dagens samfunn er blitt. Vi er villige til å ofre alt i framskrittets navn!

Should you trust your first impression?

Leketrebåt

En av mange vakre små trebåter på Gjøvik Gård i dag

Must Gropius be Condemned by a Just and Wrathful God to Spend All Eternity in His Own Buildings

Øyvind Holmstad said...

"...while to the atheists, having the right beliefs brings salvation from the ignorant and superstitious past that fills the place of eternal damnation in their mythos."

A bright observation! This is also the very sign of modernist architecture, the architecture of progress, to contradict all traditional architecture. Except for Norman Borlaug, I can hardly think of anyone that has brought more damage upon our world than Le Corbusier.

Salingaros has a nice essay about this in last issue of New English Review: http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/142185/sec_id/142185

By the way, in Norway we have a party named "Fremskrittspartiet", which directly translated means "the party of progress." In the election this week they got close to 17% of the votes.

A pity not more people here read your blog, then not so many would have voted for a party with such an obscure name.

John Michael Greer said...

Øyvind, granted, Le Corbusier has a lot to answer for, but I'd save a share of the blame for the Bauhaus. My sister-in-law had to spend a year in a college dorm designed by Gropius, and ended up wishing that he could be condemned by a just and wrathful God to spend all eternity in his own buildings.

Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School. To be condemned to spend an eternity in his buildings is surely a punishment surpassing all of Dante's visions of Hell.

Read the article here.

Papilio Machaon (swallowtail butterfly)

I've only seen this butterfly once, in the main street of Halden in Southern Norway. Photo: Werner Pichler

To the Atheists, Having the Right Beliefs Brings Salvation from the Ignorant and Superstitious Past (this atheistic religion is by many given the name Modernism, and is visualized in modernist architecture)

Still, the contemporary quarrels between atheists and theists, like the equally fierce quarrels between the different theist religions of salvation, take place within a shared sensibility. It’s indicative, for example, that theists and atheists agree on the vast importance of what individuals believe about basic religious questions such as the existence of God; it’s just that to the theists, having the right beliefs brings salvation from eternal hellfire, while to the atheists, having the right beliefs brings salvation from the ignorant and superstitious past that fills the place of eternal damnation in their mythos. That obsession with individual belief is one of the distinctive features of the current western religious sensibility; in the heyday of the old temple cults, while acts of impiety toward sacred objects or ceremonies would earn a messy death in short order, nobody cared about what opinions individuals might have about details of religious doctrine, and thinkers could redefine the gods any way they wished so long as they continued to show proper respect for holy things and holy seasons.

The hostilities between Christianity and contemporary atheism, like those between Christianity and Islam, are thus expressions of something like sibling rivalry. Salvation from the natural world and the human condition remains the core premise (and thus also the most important promise) of all these faiths, whether that salvation takes the supernatural form of resurrection followed by eternal life in heaven, on the one hand, or the allegedly more natural form of limitless progress, the conquest of poverty, illness, and death, and the great leap outwards to an endless future among the stars. It’s precisely the absence of those common assumptions, in turn, that makes communication so difficult across the boundary between one religious sensibility and another. The gap in understanding that reduced an intelligent man like David Brin to spluttering fury at the suggestion that salvation might not be waiting for humanity out there among the stars is exactly parallel to the one that drove normally tolerant Roman thinkers to denounce the early Christians as “enemies of the human race.” - John Michael Greer

Den glade vandringsjenta

Den glade vandringsjenta på vei ned fra Tjuvåsen

Om skarv, stillhet og tilgjengelighet ved Huetjernet på Oksbakken

Her ved Nordre Huetjernet på Totenåsen så jeg skarv for første gang sist tirsdag. Tydeligvis et skarvetrekk over distriktet vårt for tida, da vi også så flere skarv etter Mjøsa når vi kjørte til Hamar for litt siden. Vet ikke om det er toppskarv eller storskarv? Vet bare at toppskarv er vanligst, men trekker denne over vårt distrikt?

En annen ting som ikke er så trivelig er at noen har plassert et dieselaggregat i skålen sin, så for tida ligger motorduren og ikke stillheten over Huetjernet, fra tidlig på aftenen ut i de sene nattetimer. Idyllen er brutt, det finnes ikke rom for stillhet, ettertanke og å kunne lade batteriene etter hverdagens mas. Forundres stadig over hvor sløve, likegyldige eller egoistiske mennesker kan være.

Klikk på bildene for en forstørrelse.

Noe annet jeg kom til å tenke på når jeg var nede ved tjernet er at også her har privatiseringen av strandsona blitt et problem, på lik linje som ved Oslofjorden. Har man etter strandsoneloven rett til å privatisere tilgjengeligheten til vannet slik ovenstående bilde viser? Nordre Huetjernet ligger midt i Totenåsens største hytteområde, og er også et av de best kultiverte ørretvannene på åsen. Mitt forslag er at man avprivatiserer strandsona og anlegger en fiskesti, med tilrettelagte fiskeplasser, rundt hele tjernet. De som allikevel har det privilegiet å ha hytte nede ved vannet bør avfinne seg med dette.

Her er ei annen hytte nede ved Huetjernet hvor man omtenksomt har trukket gjerdet 5-10 meter vekk fra vannet, slik at man kan passere uten å føle at man trenger inn på annen manns eiendom. Den beskjedne brygga oppfattes som offentlig, og fungerer også som en fin fiskeplass for allmennheten. Et eksempel til etterfølgelse.

Nå som den vakre klangen fra sauebjeller er forsvunnet fra Oksbakkvollen, er det kun den monotone, anti-biofile, angstfremkallende, deprimerende og nevrotiske støyen fra dieselaggregatet tilbake. Oksbakken er et meget lytt sted, jeg har fartet over hele Totenåsen i min oppvekst, men kjenner ikke til et eneste sted med et tilsvarende ekko som her.

La oss håpe og be om at freden og stillheten igjen vil senke seg over Oksbakken!

A Comment on the Need to Move from Darwinism to Zahavism

Published at P2P-Foundation here.

I just came to think about that we can name this new IGD (In-Group Democrazy) as Zahavism, after Amotz Zahavi. Darwinism is not what I’ll call evolutionary biology, as it was too linked with ideology:

“In this context it is important to notice that a political economist, Thomas Robert Malthus, delivered the crucial cornerstone for the modern concept of biology as evolution. Malthus was obsessed by the idea of scarcity as explanation for social change – there would never be enough resources to feed a population which steadily multiplies. Charles Darwin, the biologist, adapted that piece of theory which had clearly derived from the observation of Victorian industrial society and applied it to a comprehensive theory of natural change and development. In its wake such concepts as “struggle for existence,” “competition,” “growth” and “optimization” tacitly became centerpieces of our self-understanding: biological, technological, and social progress is brought forth by the sum of individual egoisms. In perennial competition, fit species (powerful corporations) exploit niches (markets) and multiply their survival rate (return margins), whereas weaker (less efficient) ones go extinct (bankrupt). The resulting metaphysics of economy and nature, however, are less an objective picture of the world than society’s opinion about its own premises.” – Dr. Andreas Weber: wealthofthecommons.org/essay/economy-wastefulness-biology-commons

See more on the subject in Weber’s essay Enlivenment: www.boell.de/publications/publications-enlivenment-publication-series-ecology-17364.html

The point is that today’s societies and economical thinking are built upon individualism and competition, ie. Darwinism. Only in the 70ies sexual selection and the two sides of the handicap principle were understood, after Zahavi’s study of the Arabian Babbler. So the Negev Desert and the Arabian Babbler have been just as important for understanding evolutionary biology as the Darwin Finches on the Galapagos Islands. Not many people have realized this.

Another point is that humans, unlike other animals, can choose which side of the handicap principle we prefer to utilize depending on the zetting. Modernism and capitalism have together designed a society which give us no choice, to grow only the “dark”, individualistic and egoistic sides of the handicap principle. An in-group society will become the exact opposite.

My Answer to Ross Wolf on Arch Daily

I post my comment here, as I'm sure it will not occur on Arch Daily.

My comment:

Wolf, you are too occupied with the past. Biophilia, as this book is about, is the future. But not alone. Biophilia has to be linked with the new in-group society: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/terje-bongards-democratic-ingroup-model-as-specific-form-of-p2p-democracy/2013/07/04

Actually I've just finished an article on this subject, but as I write for the Norwegian deep ecology blog Kulturverk.com now, you cannot follow my thoughts anymore: http://naturkonservativ.blogspot.no/2013/08/kapitalist-modernismen-det-siste-aket.html

With this unification Zahavism (from Amotz Zahavi), not Darwinism, will be the basic for democracy and production, which will be unified and given to the people.

I think I've managed to convince Salingaros` best man in Norway to join Bongard's research group, but I'm not sure yet. Anyway, Bongard was very enthusiastic when I showed him the Alexandrine pattern 37, HOUSE CLUSTER: http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/aplsample/apl37/apl37.htm

I will work hard to unify biophilia with this new in-group society, as I'm sure this is essential to its success, and this way we can transform to a new resilient civilisation.

You, and the rest of the world, will be stunned to see this transformation to a new civilization will start in Norway.

The transformation to a resilient civilization will start in Norway. Image: Júlio Reis and João David Tereso

On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, by David Graeber

Read the whole essay:

- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

Some quotas:

” the number of salaried paper-pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 40 or even 50 hour weeks on paper ”

” The answer clearly isn’t economic: it’s moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them. ”

” There’s a lot of questions one could ask here, starting with, what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call “the market” reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.) ”

” in our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. ”

” If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it’s hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc) – and particularly its financial avatars – but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value. “

NO DOUBTH WE NEED TERJE BONGARD'S IN-GROUP DEMOCRACY (IGD) MORE THAN EVER! THIS WAY WE CAN DEMOCRATICALLY VOTE TO DO AWAY WITH ALL BULLSHIT JOBS, ONLY HAVING TO WORK TWO, MAXIMUM THREE DAYS A WEEK. THE REST OF THE TIME WE CAN DEVOTE TO MEANINGFUL CONTEMPLATION, ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONSHIPS. IN ADDITION OUR JOBS WILL BECOME MEANINGFUL.

Our Technological Society of a Millennium before is Their Idea of Evil Incarnate

"Ten years from now:

Business as usual continues; the human population peaks at 8.5 billion, liquid fuels production remains more or less level by the simple expedient of consuming an ever larger fraction of the world’s total energy output, and the annual cost of weather-related disasters continues to rise. Politicians and the media insist loudly that better times are just around the corner, as times get steadily worse. Among those who recognize that something’s wrong, one widely accepted viewpoint holds that fusion power, artificial intelligence, and interstellar migration will shortly solve all our problems, and therefore we don’t have to change the way we live. Another, equally popular, insists that total human extinction is scarcely a decade away, and therefore we don’t have to change the way we live. Most people who worry about the future accept one or the other claim, while the last chance for meaningful systemic change slips silently away.

A hundred years from now:

It has been a difficult century. After more than a dozen major wars, three bad pandemics, widespread famines, and steep worldwide declines in public health and civil order, human population is down to 3 billion and falling. Sea level is up ten meters and rising fast as the Greenland and West Antarctic ice caps disintegrate; fossil fuel production ground to a halt decades earlier as the last economically producible reserves were exhausted, and most proposed alternatives turned out to be unaffordable in the absence of the sort of cheap, abundant, highly concentrated energy only fossil fuels can provide. Cornucopians still insist that fusion power, artificial intelligence, and interstellar migration will save us any day now, and their opponents still insist that human extinction is imminent, but most people are too busy trying to survive to listen to either group.

A thousand years from now:

The Earth is without ice caps and glaciers for the first time in twenty million years or so, and sea level has gone up more than a hundred meters worldwide; much of the world has a tropical climate, as it did 50 million years earlier. Human population is 100 million, up from half that figure at the bottom of the bitter dark age now passing into memory. Only a few scholars have any idea what the words “fusion power,” “artificial intelligence,” and “interstellar migration” once meant, and though there are still people insisting that the end of the world will arrive any day now, their arguments now generally rely more overtly on theology than before. New civilizations are rising in various corners of the world, combining legacy technologies with their own unique cultural forms. The one thing they all have in common is that the technological society of a millennium before is their idea of evil incarnate." - John Michael Greer

The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener, 2nd Edition (A Gardener's Supply Book)

With more than 45,000 sold since 1988, The New Organic Grower has become a modern classic. In this newly revised and expanded edition, master grower Eliot Coleman continues to present the simplest and most sustainable ways of growing top-quality organic vegetables. Coleman updates practical information on marketing the harvest, on small-scale equipment, and on farming and gardening for the long-term health of the soil. The new book is thoroughly updated, and includes all-new chapters such as:

• Farm-Generated Fertility—how to meet your soil-fertility needs from the resources of your own land, even if manure is not available.
• The Moveable Feast—how to construct home-garden and commercial-scale greenhouses that can be easily moved to benefit plants and avoid insect and disease build-up.
• The Winter Garden—how to plant, harvest, and sell hardy salad crops all winter long from unheated or minimally heated greenhouses.
• Pests—how to find "plant-positive" rather than "pest-negative" solutions by growing healthy, naturally resistant plants.
• The Information Resource—how and where to learn what you need to know to grow delicious organic vegetables, no matter where you live.

Written for the serious gardener or small market farmer, The New Organic Grower proves that, in terms of both efficiency and profitability, smaller can be better.

My Picture on Skibladner.no

My picture used on Skibladner.no

Salingaros` New Book UNIFIED ARCHITECTURAL THEORY Will be Published Free Online in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. One Chapter Every Month.

With great pleasure I can inform that Salingaros' last book “Unified Architectural Theory” will be published for free downloading at the internet. In addition to English language it will be translated into Spanish and Portuguese.

Arch Daily writes:

In the following months, we at ArchDaily will be publishing Nikos Salingaros’ book, Unified Architectural Theory, in a series of installments, making it digitally, freely available for students and architects around the world. In the following paragraphs, Salingaros explains why we’ve decided to impart on this initiative, and also introduces what his book is all about: answering “the old and very disturbing question as to why architects and common people have diametrically opposed preferences for buildings.”

ArchDaily and I are initiating a new idea in publishing, one which reflects the revolutionary trends awaiting book publishing’s future. At this moment, my book, Unified Architectural Theory, 2013, is available only in the USA. With the cooperation of ArchDaily and its sister sites in Portuguese and Spanish, it will soon be available, in a variety of languages, to anyone with internet access. Being published one chapter at a time, students and practitioners will be able to digest the material at their leisure, to print out the pages and assemble them as a “do-it-yourself” book for reference, or for use in a course. For the first time, students will have access to this material, in their own time, in their own language, and for free!

Read the whole introduction here: http://www.archdaily.com/419892/unified-architectural-theory-an-introduction/

The Best from Spain & Norway

A pavilion in the restorated Courtyard of the Lions (Aug.2012). The polished marble floor reflects the blue of the sky. Alhambra, Granada, Spain. Photo: Jebulon

A view to Geirangerfjord from Ørnesvingen, Stranda, Møre og Romsdal, Norway in 2013 June. Click on the image for a magnification. Photo: Simo Räsänen