Throckmorton Blowfart Esquire IV, 33° An(archist) ([info]bitches_tyrone) wrote,
@ 2006-09-18 15:27:00
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sooner than lose the things he owns he will destroy the world

You pride yourselves on your creativity,
by which you set yourselves above the rest of creation.
Yet you alone of all creatures
destroy more than you create.

Wildness facing impending doom, homogeneity:



What is your name?
Nameless wildness
Where does your insight lead to?
Into untrammelled freedom.
[Heinrich Suso of Cologne]



How small can we make the margins?


A subject is presented with a set of choices. They are all bad. Under these circumstances the subject will consciously choose that he feels is the lesser evil. The aim of the controller is to keep the tension surrounding the choice at a high level, so that no alternative choices outside those proposed are offered or conceived. It is the equivalent of locking someone in a metal box; the perfect controlled environment.
-Lonnie Wolfe



Genocide, the rationally calculated extermination of human populations designated as legitimate prey, has not been an aberration in an otherwise peaceful march of progress. Genocide has been a prerequisite of that progress.
-Fredy Perlman, The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism

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Take deep breaths
[info]restless_coder
2006-09-20 03:43 pm UTC (link)
Honestly, Chad, your posts are getting weirder and weirder. I don't think it's a good thing. Unfortunately, they don't come off as coherent enough for me to feel confident that you have good reasons for your beliefs, rather than nebulous emotionality, much less rationally discuss philosophy.

You alone destroy more than you create.
That is utterly dependent on the definition of "more," which is defined by values. The statement is completely loaded. I understand that the quote is supposed to be an artistic expression designed to make people think and question their assumptions, but it still bothers me that many people think a forest is necessarily better than a city, for example. I would be inclined to agree with you that humans often go too far, but your prose, in both style and content, just begs for me to argue with you about it.

Genocide...has not been an aberration in an otherwise peaceful march of progress. Genocide has been a prerequisite of that progress.
This statement is just ridiculous. I suppose you could say "has been" in the sense of "there have been instances in the past where one could argue that genocide of one race accelerated another's progress" but to claim that no progress can ever take place without genocide is insane.

Unrelated to anarchistic rants, I am almost done with your Lucifer books, and will try to get those back to you ASAP. Thanks for those; they are awesome!

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Re: Take deep breaths
[info]eyelidlessness
2006-09-20 06:03 pm UTC (link)
your posts are getting weirder and weirder. I don't think it's a good thing.
I think it's an excellent thing. His posts (along with [info]beeblism's and a few that get posted on [info]so_very_doomed) keep me reading my friends list. So few people are articulating the dangers of our culture in an explorative and honest way. Depressing though it may be, the honesty and exploration are refreshing and motivating.

That is utterly dependent on the definition of "more," which is defined by values. The statement is completely loaded. I understand that the quote is supposed to be an artistic expression designed to make people think and question their assumptions, but it still bothers me that many people think a forest is necessarily better than a city, for example. I would be inclined to agree with you that humans often go too far, but your prose, in both style and content, just begs for me to argue with you about it.
Human civilization alone creates more that is uninhabitable or toxic to the vast majority of heretofore indigenous species than that which fosters cohabitation with other natural life. The result of this is that humans in civilized societies live (for the most part) isolated from other life. With complex ecosystems separated like egg from white, disease and sterility are fostered. We're beginning to see this in a global sense, but it has been true in local senses as civilizations "progress" time and again. Technological innovation may solve yesterday's problem, but it never seems to keep up with its own.

This statement is just ridiculous. I suppose you could say "has been" in the sense of "there have been instances in the past where one could argue that genocide of one race accelerated another's progress" but to claim that no progress can ever take place without genocide is insane.
The point is to critique the dominant culture's conception of "progress", a progress that leaves death and destruction in its wake.

Never has a civilization not come from the ashes of indigenous humans and non-humans. And never has a successful civilization not continued to violate in an outward fashion. The first civilization meant the destruction of Middle Eastern forests and the murder or enslavement of all the free peoples of the region. Every society that wasn't civilized was eliminated, either by death or by other means. That is genocide.

The enslavement of the vast majority of people (and growing) to civilization is the only proof needed to the claim of genocide. Most of the world's peoples are enslaved to chauvinism, "progress" and this global death culture.

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Re: Take deep breaths
[info]bitches_tyrone
2006-09-20 08:24 pm UTC (link)
Hey Curt, I was wondering what happened to those Lucifer books. Last I recall Lucas had them, and they were maybe making their way to Anna (Hampshire Anna, that is). Good to know their whereabouts and that you enjoyed them, gotta pick up #10 yet now that the bling is in my possession.

You alone destroy more than you create.
Yeah, I'll agree that's a loaded statement, yet no more than the notion of progress, I'd say. The way I look at it is we take more from the environment than anything else, and what we put back tends toward toxicity, or if not, it is something that'll take a long time to break down. Civilization tends towards homogeneity, not diversity/heterogeneity as wildness does; by homogeneity one can take it two ways, Homo as in the genus of which modern humans are a part of, and also homo in its greek roots, meaning "same".

And yeah, I've no problem with becoming weirder and weirder, but mind you, it's by no means an attempt to freak people out, nor to convince anybody of anything. Yes it's emotional, nebulous perhaps, but I've been finding it increasingly important and helpful to be honest and express what I feel, as opposed to rationalizing away said feelings. And when I see news report after news report of destroyed ecosystems, extinct or dying out species, native americans (though not just the american variety) kicked off their land, still, for uranium or to do nuclear weapons testing I think it's healthy to be pissed off instead of accepting it as necessary, or even an aberration in how progress has worked. As Derrick Jensen has said, "It's not the writing that must change, but the reality."

As for the genocide quote, yeah it's a little extreme, for sure, but if one looks at history time and time again you'll see civilization ('Etymologically, the origins of the word "civilization" lay in the Latin word civis, often translated as "city," but perhaps more accurately translated as "city-state."') encountering wilder more nature based peoples and these encounters ending up in genocide and/or slavery (or forced settling and subsequently forced labor, forced schooling [indoctrination]) of those whose land is being invaded. Wherever resources are to be had (and then turned into commodities) then exploited. "The colonists demanded the best land for farming and grazing; they rationalized their greed by pointing out that Maori possession of the land was an interference with the industrial and commercial progress of the colony." (Bodley) Has this stopped? Self-determination is not extended to those on the frontier.

Fredy Perlman (the guy quoted) wrote a book titled Against His-Story, Against Leviathan which chronicled the spread of civilization, from its roots in the Fertile Crescent all the way to North America. I know you've likely not the time, but reading that book of his very well could change your stance on how "ridiculous" that statement is. Then there's the book 'Victims of Progress' (I've transcribed some, suggest checking it out) by anthropologist John Bodley which picks up around 1800 and documents case after case of this, and what's more, shows complicity of the state with those who exterminate natives. Look at the plights of the Aboriginals of Australia, the !Kung San of Kalahari, the Mbuti of Zaire, the remaining bands and tribes in South America. Trail of Tears, smallpox blankets. Every time others are rationalized away one way or the other, then civilization expands its control and takes over; I don't see how this can be argued against. And this is only the anthropocentric part of it, it doesn't touch on the mental fucked-up-itude a society must have to engage in thse actions and the effects this has on our psyches (the domination of all other life, the feelings of responsibility for doing the right thing, whatever), never mind what happens to the land and animals afterwards, but pollution and extinction are not abnormal in these circumstances.

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part two
[info]bitches_tyrone
2006-09-20 08:24 pm UTC (link)


The idea of complex society being further along a linear scale of societal progression has been debunked by anthropology; that agriculture was and is a step forward from hunter-gatherer and nomadic bands has also been done away with [pdf]. Humans in turn were domesticated by their domestication of others, our brains too became smaller. I believe that so long as one holds to the Hobbesian lies of pre-civilized persons having lives that were "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", in addition to brandishing notions of the dominance of man (top of the foodchain and the sort), it will be nigh impossible for them to agree with any of the ideas presented above. I don't blame anyone who is a follower of Hobbes (whether knowingly, though likely unknowingly) for thinking me crazy. I would have too thought myself crazy (in this regard) two years ago (if these ideas hadn't been so well deconstructed by the likes of various authors.

Five Facets of a Myth by Kirkpatrick Sale, a look at progress
The Original Affluent Society by Marshall Sahlins, one of the first new lines of thought on hunter-gatherers, a highly influential piece in anthropology.
Future Primitive by John Zerzan
These three (or something else their equivalent) are pretty much necessary reading to understand where I'm coming from (particularly the latter two), very succinct. I've also had them on my links section on my journal ever since I made it.

All in all, thanks for taking issue. It's been a long while since I've received honest criticism.

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Re: Take deep breaths
[info]bitches_tyrone
2006-09-20 08:57 pm UTC (link)
Ooh, forgot one link (sorry for all the replies [stupid 4,000 char limit]).
Jason Godesky from Anthropik and his Thirty Theses argue quite well many of the points I agree with (though not necessarily all of them).
Derrick Jensen is one of the most well argued and moving writers concerning these subjects, and highly accessible. I've got almost all of his books if you'd have interest. And no, I'm not trying to proselytize.

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Re: part two
[info]restless_coder
2006-10-08 09:32 pm UTC (link)
Thanks a lot for the link to the Thirty Theses. Of the links you have mentioned, I find it by far the most comprehensive and logical overview if the anarcho-primitivist philosophy.

I'm not sure how much I really have to say about the whole affair. I am largely in agreement with Godesky on many of the points, though there are exceptions (I am curious which theses you disagree with compared to mine; we could talk in person some time). I do not believe diversity is necessarily the ultimate good (thesis #1). And I find his ultimate conclusions compelling but not inevitable, as he seems to. For example, he fails to take into account technology that could change the very nature of humanity such as genetic engineering, or artificial superintelligence. Such things challenge many of his assumptions, such as the necessity of agriculture to continue technological development. The longer we hold on to civilization and maintain the complexity spiral upward, the more control we win, and the greater chance we have of defeating the system itself.

Lastly, I find his bizarre conclusion that collapse is imminent (2012: WTF?) to be ill-supported and rather crazy. His only evidence for such a timeframe is essentially a collection of prophecies and shared mythologies (see the final paragraphs of thesis #30). It's weird, because in earlier articles he indicates that though eventual collapse is inevitable, it's hard to say how much longer things will continue upward. He also mentions the possibility of colonizing space but strangely discounts it (something like "humanity cannot seed life throughout the universe"). His argument seems to be that the positive feedback loop of complexity will doom any sort of space colonization to eventual failure when we exhaust all the resources of the universe. I'm not actually sure, but right now we aren't even sure if there *is* a limit to the total resources of the universe. Maybe we will eventually reach a saturation point, but it certainly seems premature to claim 2012 as that point, despite the current state of affairs.

Going back to my original comment on your post: as you are probably already aware, I was mostly criticizing the brevity and tack you sometimes take, rather than the subject matter itself, to a large extent. But I understand that it is not your intent to rationally argue your perspective to the people on your friends list, but rather more to vent your frustrations at the trials and tribulations of our society. As such, I will try to resist responding to any future incendiary statements you post.

The main divide between Godesky and myself seems to be in values. He has concluded that diversity is good, and that human happiness should be our ultimate goal. He believes that hunter gatherer societies can still amass knowledge about the world, and create a wealth of art, and that doing so should be sufficient for them (few ends, an abundance of means). I, on the other hand, value the pursuit of knowledge and truth, and am willing to see humanity suffer for it. As a corollary, I think we will eventually better humanity beyond the (fairly desirable) level present in hunter-gatherer societies. In some ways, I think we have already done so, but agree with Godesky that there have been some terrible tradeoffs thus far. Still, it seems reasonable to believe, for example, that we can eventually achieve immortality, something that would not realistically occur in a primitive society.

Maybe it all comes down to ambition. We can settle for what we have and be quite happy, or play the gambit that is civilization to reach for the stars. At this point, though, as Godesky points out, our ancestors have already made our decision for us, and played the gambit. I sure as hell am going to do what I can to push as far as we can go; maybe we can't escape the collapse, but if we can't, it doesn't really matter if we try to do so. And if Godesky is wrong and we can overcome it, we would be fools not to keep trying.

Ignorance is bliss.

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[info]bitches_tyrone
2006-10-29 12:02 am UTC (link)
Sorry for the delay in this, been adding to it off and on. Some of this is likely tangential.

"Do you believe that our culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living?
      For the last several years I've taken to asking people this question, at talks and rallies, in libraries, on buses, in airplanes, at the grocery store, the hardware store. Everywhere. The answers range from emphatic nos to laughter. No one answers in the affirmative. One fellow at one talk did raise his hand, and when everyone looked at him, he dropped his hand, then said, sheepishly, "Oh, voluntary? No, of course not." My next question: how will this understanding--that this culture will not voluntarily stop destroying the natural world [...] --shift our strategy and tactics? The answer? Nobody knows, because we never talk about it: we're too busy pretending the culture will undergo a magical transformation." --Derrick Jensen, Endgame

Yeah, the theses I agree with the least are that it will be impossible to rebuild civilization (though to the level of complexity at which we are at, I'll agree that won't likely come again), and with you, that diversity is the primary good, don't really care for a hierarchy of universal values. And that collapse is immanent. Thought there were others that seemed more outlandish last time I checked them out, but this doesn't seem to be the case now.

he fails to take into account technology that could change the very nature of humanity such as genetic engineering, or artificial superintelligence. Such things challenge many of his assumptions, such as the necessity of agriculture to continue technological development. The longer we hold on to civilization and maintain the complexity spiral upward, the more control we win, and the greater chance we have of defeating the system itself.

Understood, but I've a feeling that collapse is nearer than than the liberation of humanity by technology. The gap between what countries are doing to address climate change and what scientists say they should be doing is widening, Britain's Environment Minister David Miliband, said on Friday.
A book I'm reading (Patterns in Prehistory) says both cultural and civilizational evolution occur in fits and starts, that it is not continuous and cumulative. Here's a portion from it:
in most cases the collapse of civilizations seems to involve not a collapse and mass extinction of people and their cultural ideas, but rather adaptation, sometimes in the form of a process--to use Mark Kenoyer's terms--of decentralization and localization, in which political authorities lose their ability to control people and economies. These periods of decentralization can in fact involve periods of population growth, rather than decline, and in many cases decentralization was followed by a larger, more politically potent polity in the same area.

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[info]bitches_tyrone
2006-10-29 12:03 am UTC (link)
America hit 300 million persons some time last week, making it the "world's third most populous country behind China and India", yet we consume a quarter of the world's natural resources, while being the home to only five percent of the earth's human population. Due to climate change (i.e. global warming, at least in part) land-based glaciers are melting, making it harder for many of those in which clean water is already difficult enough to come across. As I linked to before, "One third of the planet will be desert by the year 2100", over half of the world's arable land is being used at present for agriculture (can't recall [or find] a source for this after a brief skimming around), of which we're losing over "38,610 square miles" a year. Populations in many parts of the world are burgeoning, there's so many estimates of what the population will end up by 2050 or 2100 (be they 9 or 12 or whatever billion), more and more of these persons are desiring a modern style of life (and, as [info]jasexavier will tell you, there's not enough copper to wire China). Half of humanity now lives in cities, though some'll tell you this will occur next year (at least half of the world's population is said to live in poverty [don't know how many of these are city dwellers or not]). "Of the 15 major oceanic fisheries, 11 are in decline." (Beyond Malthus, 1999). "Another decade of business-as-usual carbon emissions will probably make it too late to prevent the ecosystems of the north from triggering runaway climate change." There's so much more that could be said along these lines, but I'm sure you get the point.

Then there's issues of water. Australia's most important river system, the Murray-Darling Basin, is in its sixth year of drought, and much of the continent's agriculture is dependant on this area. I've mentioned China's problems with the same in the past. "The level of Lake Superior is currently 11 inches lower than it was a year ago." "Central Asia's second largest lake [Balkhash], could meet the same fate as the devastated Aral Sea as heavy metals seep into its once pristine waters and nearby China diverts more and more water, environmentalists warn." The aral sea was "Once the world's fourth-largest inland body of water, the Aral has lost three-fourths of its surface area and 90 percent of its volume since the 1960s."

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[info]bitches_tyrone
2006-10-29 12:04 am UTC (link)
And energy, too. The U.S. throughout the 40's and 50's was the world's largest oil exporter. This has reversed, we are now the greatest importer. Have you familiarity with Peak Oil? If so, awesome, if not, here's an informative video, The End of Suburbia, a good introduction (that's a link to a low quality version of it), though I feel their solutions are too optimistic and not critical enough. Peak Oil: Gas Prices, Oil Supply Depletion & The New Energy Crisis is another vid that goes into it some. A number of pipelines in Alaska were built in/on permafrost, but now this permafrost is melting, new ones are called for. "Attacks on energy facilities worldwide to hinder the delivery of gas and oil have been rising sharply, the head of Germany's foreign intelligence agency said on Thursday." "Change in climate will spur mass migration."
"We are about to experience the convergence of three of the great issues confronting humanity. Climate change, the peaking of oil supply and water shortage are coming together in a manner which will profoundly alter our way of life, our institutions and our ability to prosper on this planet. Each is a major issue, but their convergence has received minimal attention."

Got a bit sidetracked there, for sure. Back to the first part of the above quoted, of humanity being changed by technology. Yes, it is a possibility, so long as the above issues are either resolved, or ignored. By ignore I mean for some to continue along the path already being tread. That path, as I see it, is to look towards technological fixes for socio-economic ills, i.e. there is not too little food to feed the people of the planet, but rather how food is moved about based primarily on economics that leads to starvation, despite the surplus of edibles created by technology. Heart disease? Don't change your diet, take these pills.
Another part of that path, so far as I can see, is the identification of natural things as harmful and/or limiting and therefore to be transcended (that we have finite time in life, that ADD afflicts children, etc.).

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[info]bitches_tyrone
2006-10-29 12:07 am UTC (link)
"With the disappearance of the sacred, which imposed limits to the perfection that could be attained by the profane, arises one of the most dangerous illusions of our civilization — the illusion that there are no limits to the changes that human life can undergo, that society is "in principle" an endlessly flexible thing, and that to deny this flexibility and this perfectibility is to deny man’s total autonomy and thus to deny man himself." --Leszek Kolakowski

technology that could change the very nature of humanity such as genetic engineering, or artificial superintelligence.
A problem I've with this is again the same, it will be the affluent and rich which are allowed such benefits, all the while the striving towards these goals pollutes the habitats of countless others that will not benefit as much from said technologies; we want clean and healthy lives, so we shit in the backyards of others (be those others people in third world countries, peoples down the Mississippi, habitats of animals, whatnot). Even if humans do develop a means to nigh infinite energy and could synthesize all required resources for this transmogrification, the world will likely have still gone further to shit by then, which in the end will afford people little in the way of options: assimilate, or perish with your planet. Forcing change on people, especially so in which the options are to change one's essential nature, or to be cast aside, reek of something which I don't even know what to call it.

"For every soul there are a million harbors. Those who would have you see the infinite as a coin with but two faces are not your friends." --Duma, Mike Carey's Lucifer

Such things challenge many of his assumptions, such as the necessity of agriculture to continue technological development.
I agree by a huuuge transformation of the human body agriculture could and likely would be discarded. Would not something else rise in its place to become domesticated, harnessed, sought out and controlled at every turn?

The longer we hold on to civilization and maintain the complexity spiral upward, the more control we win, and the greater chance we have of defeating the system itself.
Who is this 'we'? What direction is 'upward' taking us? Why is control needed? This system that'll be defeated, what is it, and why does it need defeating?

Lastly, I find his bizarre conclusion that collapse is imminent (2012: WTF?) to be ill-supported and rather crazy. His only evidence for such a timeframe is essentially a collection of prophecies and shared mythologies (see the final paragraphs of thesis #30).
I recall him speaking of peak oil at some point, as a cause. Overshoot in another (check that link out). As for 2012 being the year, many claim peak oil will occur between 2010-2015, 2012 being selected is kinda cute as a choice, being the end of the Mayan calendar, and all (so long as one doesn't attribute to it some nonsensical mysticality).

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[info]bitches_tyrone
2006-10-29 12:08 am UTC (link)
He also mentions the possibility of colonizing space but strangely discounts it (something like "humanity cannot seed life throughout the universe").
Here's a response of his, excerpted, to a question of that type:
If civilization does not collapse, that’s something to be very afraid of, because that means that it is continuing to grow exponentially. That means that mass extinction will continue, and that the disintegration of our ecology will be accelerated. Civilization’s “best case scenario” is simply to escape this world and leave it bleeding at the side of the road until it dies. Of course, the nature of exponential growth being what it is, that generation will need two earths to satisfy its needs. The next, four; then eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two. The best case scenario for civilization—the alternative to collapse—is to become the aliens from Independence Day, hopping from world to world, stripping all of its resources, and then moving on, leaving a dead rock behind us. Of course, even that has an end point—collapse, with the whole universe dead in our wake.
Yes, I realize it doesn't take into account the possibility of an essential change in what mankind might become. Or perhaps it does.

[...] As such, I will try to resist responding to any future incendiary statements you post.
But I love responses, so long as people have the time for them (though I know you're often strapped for such), and as long as the responses are genuine (or are presented in a purely caustic or sarcastic manner).

The main divide between Godesky and myself seems to be in values.
I find this is often the case when coming to great divides in conversation or debate, it is uncommon when I see values stated in dialog.

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[info]bitches_tyrone
2006-10-29 12:09 am UTC (link)
He has concluded that diversity is good, and that human happiness should be our ultimate goal. He believes that hunter gatherer societies can still amass knowledge about the world, and create a wealth of art, and that doing so should be sufficient for them (few ends, an abundance of means). I, on the other hand, value the pursuit of knowledge and truth, and am willing to see humanity suffer for it.
That last sentence is where our values are most divergent, I'd bet, which is far from stating that I value ignorance and lies. The majority of humans have suffered (in varying degrees) at the hands of the minority in power since the civilized life became the dominant way millenia ago. I do not believe this situation has gotten better. My primary problem with your willingness to allow humanity to suffer is that humanity did not opt in for such. Would you disagree that you and I are both privileged, being white males, and moreso for living in a first world country? How many others can say this? How many live shittier lives than you and I? I cannot speak as to what you have or have not suffered, though I'm aware the life of mine has been quite devoid of the hardships billions go through regularly. There are over 250 million children are raped in the world each year.

I don't see much if any difference between people suffering now to get into heaven when they die, and people suffering today so that some people (which you've even said that it would be a stretch to think them so similar to us), generations from now at some undetermined point in time, can live in what people now think will be utopian then, which may not even come about.
What are your definitions of knowledge and truth? How do your conceptions of these differ from primitive peoples? More importantly, how does one justify the suffering of so many others in the pursuit of such ends? How much do you care for those others?

I've had conversations with people that've claimed The Holocaust as a necessary evil, an event that must happen so that we can have such a horrid moment in our past, to learn from it, then do without forever. Not only are these people assuming that humans, universally, learn from such history, but also ignores Stalin, Mao, and so many other mass inflicted deaths or democides.

"Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things." -- Russell Baker

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[info]bitches_tyrone
2006-10-29 12:17 am UTC (link)
Probably should've just made a new post with all the above and linked to this post, instead of cutting it up into 5 or 6 pieces; that might've generated some more conversation from more than just you and I.
I'll get around to writing an entry on my values one of these days. Have fun duder.

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[info]partycrashing
2006-11-15 06:56 am UTC (link)
you seem like an unbelievably interesting person to talk to.
here's my screenname, if you have AIM: ddaveyz

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