Technocrats and Factory Farms versus Permaculture and Intentional Living

There are two paths available to our technological society. When I say "technological" I mean a society whose population is entirely dependent on technology for survival, and when I say technology, in this case I mean technology that makes an economic "system" run. A system produces what the society needs to live rather than people. The viability of the two paths are determined by the availability of energy in easily portable, storable forms.

One path is permaculture and low-tech solutions to the basic problems of life: food, water, shelter, and transport. The other approach is exemplified by Weimar techtopia fantasies like Tesla or the parade of techno-narcissist people on the TED talk stages. The techtopia fantasy needs limitless energy to remove the need to make a choice or to think about anything. The low-tech path assumes we basically live in a terrarium and resources are limited. In this case "low-tech" really means not energy intensive--this technology can be more like magic than the most high tech silicon geegaw.

The limitations of our civilizations life-support systems are probably not solely limited by energy availability. They're also curtailed by our relationship with the soil and with water and other species. The techtopia path is exemplified by something as stupid as robot bees.

The vision of techtopia grows out of the technocratic mass societies that also gave us factory farming, factory schools, and mass media. Factory farming is essentially a method for transforming petroleum into food. It kills the soil. It kills animal life. That path is a dead end.

The oligarchy that's in control of the western world depends on the factory farm system and factory schools and technocrat sophists. They're as dependent on that system as a poor single mom and her kids living on EBT cards and junk food.

When the oligarchs wring their hands about climate change, they're really wringing their hands about keeping this crappy system going so they can retain power.