I've been having this discussion on a thread here about the ability of humans to adapt to environments and environmental changes.

Now mind you, I've got great faith in our ability to adjust to things, but I also believe that humanity could always do better. We have our weaknesses and they could lead to dire circumstances.

It seems to me that there's this widespread false dichotomy that you can either live in a technological world or in harmony with nature. It's not hard to see this dichotomy in play - with the fanatical paving over of pristine farmland in favor of concrete jungles and urban sprawl and the like, and the Federal Government having to section off countless square miles of land as protected territory. We have tons of city slickers who have rarely even been in nature, and many who've never been beyond the concrete jungle.

I'd almost be in favor of victory cities to protect nature from further human intrusion, but there are a multitude of things that put me off about the devil that lies in the details of that particular plan. Starting with centralized city planning, which can lead to centralized population planning.

Anyhoot. This is what I would like to see. I'd like to see a hell of a lot more Boy/Girl Scouts*. According to Wikipedia, we have around 10 million now in America. If I had my wish it would include almost all the kids in the world. It's amazing how well those Scouts are adapted to both nature and society. I mean, these people do things like first aid all the way up to restoring river banks. And many grow up to be prominent people. I'd barely heard of the Boy Scouts as a kid; I wish I knew then what I know now because I'd have joined. But when my daughters are old enough, my wife and I are seriously pitching the idea of them becoming brownie scouts.

Ultimately I want to see an agrarian-techno society where almost all kids spend some of their time learning how to live with and off the land, how to work the land, AND learn about computers, astronomy, medicine, liberal arts, etc. Get all our kids back in nature for a portion of their day - even if not necessarily within arms' reach of the odd mountain lion or deer tick . Working with nature is good for making young kids' morals, minds, bodies and immune systems stronger (and strengthening immune systems is a big issue for me).

Balance. Yahhh, that's the word I'm looking for... we need a balance between nature and tech. But how do we get more kids to want to be the equivalent of Scouts? And is this just the start of what we need to maximize humanity's ability to evolve both physically and technologically?

Yeah, I'm wearing down the whole Scout thing, but what other organization is there that does so much to mold our kids into the highly versatile people that our intellect allows us to be?


* Yeah, there are numerous controversies with the Scouts; these are unfortunate barriers tied to arbitrary cultural prejudices. Argh.

Okay, where is this thread and how did I miss it? Sounds like something I might have had two Canadian cents to add to. ^^

I was in Scouts as a kid. Very young though; the Beavers, from 5 to7 or something. I wasn't interested in "graduating" to the actual Boy Scouts, but now I wish I had. My brother was in Scouts and though I hadn't thought of it often until now I realize it probably greatly influenced his curiosity and ability to learn things.

KavenBach wrote:Okay, where is this thread and how did I miss it? Sounds like something I might have had two Canadian cents to add to. ^^

I was in Scouts as a kid. Very young though; the Beavers, from 5 to7 or something. I wasn't interested in "graduating" to the actual Boy Scouts, but now I wish I had. My brother was in Scouts and though I hadn't thought of it often until now I realize it probably greatly influenced his curiosity and ability to learn things.

You know, I was JUST thinking about you and your farm experience and voila! Here you are. So how was it like as a Beaver Scout?

Also, I gotta ask you... how hard do you think it is to teach a kid about your side of the farming business and animal husbandry and such, and also give said kid a high tech education as well? From what I know, farming is a dawn to dusk thing that doesn't allow much for other kinds of education, but I wouldn't say that concretely.

It all factors into the total feasibility of this 'balanced world' I often fantasize about...

I'll tell you about farm experience. Right fucking NOW I'm at the mercy of the Effin' WEATHER. Yesterday evening the forecasts were for one day of storms and then three days of beautiful sunshine; my next few days were set for cutting and baling hay. Now they've decided there's a 40-70% chance of rain EVERY SINGLE DAY for the next three and full rain the following two!! RARRRGH!!

Ermph. Guess I'll have to take the opportunity to draw and write...

Anyhow. Beaver Scouts, I actually remember very little of... I think it was mostly just arts and crafts, and all I remember clearly was being picked on even then. Yup. Evil kids are still evil kids.

As for teaching kids about farming and still giving them a high-tech education... there's absolutely no reason for the two to be mutually exclusive. Even farmers are on the internet now; cell phones, Blackberries, and GPS systems are just as common for us as city-goers, if not even moreso in some cases. As a matter of Fact, a farmer will usually be far more diversified than the average Slicker; electrics, electronics (farm machinery is mostly computerized now), hydraulics, mechanics, plumbing, construction, chemical and waste management... everything. The eartags I have to put on my cows work by barcodes, and richer people use card readers like you'll find in any supermarket or shipping company.

The biggest difference is that people in the city aren't NEARLY as ready to get dirty, in any way shape or form. Mechanics will work in oil and grease but NEVER touch more, um, biological waste. I have met suburbanites that said they knew how to use chainsaws... only to discover they used ELECTRIC mini-chainsaws, and to see them scrap a REAL chainsaw because they didn't realize they had to use mixed gasoline.

This is going to sound extremely conceited, but a kid growing up on a farm will be far better equipped to face the world (or a cataclysm) than any city kid. Simple truth. On the other hand, some like myself would be the first to die if trapped in an urban disaster...

And there's of course the unfortunate mindset of not getting involved city people tend to acquire; if there's a fight or something such, it's not their business. Whereas out here, despite the distance between the homes, more of us are likely to try to help a neighbor or (cough) climb into a burning vehicle.

Farming is not ALWAYS dawn 'til dusk. In dairy farms, absolutely; the animals must be milked at set times every day. Other farms may have a less stringent routine. Of course I can only speak from my perspective; the simple fact is that small mom-and-pop family farms such as mine are going extinct, and everybody is either growing or going out of business. A beef farm like mine is worthless unless you have 300 head of cattle. -_-

Truth is, yes, farming is a dawn-to-dusk lifestyle, and if I followed that more stringently I'd get a lot more done. Truth is, farming is a harder life, with much more work required and far less revenue than, say, sitting in some corner office pushing a pencil and getting paid 75,000$ a year to come up with ideas that are unfeasible in Real Life (ie consultant).

Don't assume farm kids are uneducated. Nor should I assume city kids are helpless. But there is no doubt that the Scouts do indeed teach very good skills and values (other than the pedophilia thing... but then again, the Church can claim the same thing, with the same results). In fact I expect having a city kid in Scouts could produce a very decent human being, both morally and in terms of skills.

Fact is, I'm distantly HOPING for a superplague or something. The planet could use a purge of the virus swarming all over it... heh...

Forgive me if my thoughts are a bit disjointed; they're going straight from my head to the text editor. I can't guarantee full coherence.

On man vs. nature: I observe that many, many creatures do not live in total harmony with nature. By this I mean: tons of species build nests that they use for sleeping in, storing food, and whatever else they may do in their spare time. These nests are rarely "natural"; they have to be put together at the cost of other actors in the environment. Birds and squirrels are going to take twigs from anywhere they can find them and put them back together in a completely different shape. Moles and other burrowing animals (I almost said "badgers" but I'd have to research it before I made the claim) tear the dirt out of its original position and stick a hole where that earth used to be. Humans simply do the same thing on a far larger scale. So if "nature" is that which is outside of the home, then nature is a fairly brutal thing; nature is the point between the eagle's nest and the squirrel's nest where one kills the other in order to survive. It is a necessary part of our existence, but not one that ought to be worshiped (unless you're crazy like me; see "Fatality and Vore").

On those damn city slickers: let me ask you something. If you're running a corporation, do you want every single employee to be a programmer? Or to have 99% of your staff be managers? Or janitorial staff? Of course not. Any well-functioning human system with a sufficient population is going to have specialists in a diverse array of fields, most of whose skills won't intersect at all. Human society, taken as a single unit, is fundamentally the same way. Many people don't have a single whit of knowledge about wilderness survival because, on average, they're never going to need it; they never leave a state of being "home" into the state of "nature". Barring a disaster (which, by definition, is extremely rare), any effort put toward learning such things provides very little return. I can name a few utility skills that could probably be applicable to anyone (knot-tying, for instance, and use of a knife without self-injury), but some of the more esoteric stuff like building a lean-to or setting up a water trap has a minuscule chance of ever being context-appropriate.

Of course, I absolutely could never condone willful ignorance of any subject, so yes, I think education on nature, what it is and how we interact with it, is of vital importance. We will never reach a point where we our survival is entirely divorced from nature, so it will always be a good idea to keep an eye on it. Whether that requires achieving "harmony" with nature is questionable, I feel.

Jacquelope wrote:Ultimately I want to see an agrarian-techno society where almost all kids spend some of their time learning how to live with and off the land, how to work the land, AND learn about computers, astronomy, medicine, liberal arts, etc. Get all our kids back in nature for a portion of their day

That would be a very good idea. Children shouldn't grow up with no knowledge of the land and of a more "natural" environment than the cities.

Kavenbach: Being on the farm does wonders for the immune system too, doesn't it? And yeah, I tend to agree that farm kids are better "adapted". Wish I had some more meaningful experiences with farming, I have a feeling we're all going to need it soon. As for mom and pop farms, now there's one place I favor Government intervention. We need more farms, and more high tech, efficient farms, and subsidies to help them all modernize (such as sequestering cow methane an turning it into energy). Maybe we can also develop nanotechnology to replace insecticides... oh hey, bug-killer swarms! COOL! I thought of it first, lol! No, seriously though, replacing insecticides with an equally effective less toxic alternative would be a huge plus for the environment and for producing more food. I would consider that to be an agricultural holy grail. Alternatively, making all crops super pest resistant would be even better, but how do you do that?

I would get tired really quickly of "but these Government programs to keep non-commercially viable farms alive, is a waste of money". Stop thinking about money and start thinking about what's good for the species. The two aren't one and the same.


Bitter: I feel humans should be more well rounded in their education. We're not drones. We should be a specialist/master of one or two trades, but it doesn't hurt to be a jack of all trades, too.

As for not needing survival skills, well if all these rumors are true regarding what's going on with countries abandoning the US Currency and our Government's inability to pay down the debt/deficit, etc., many will have to flee the cities and the riots and mobs, etc., and then they'll soon find that those survival skills are more important than we ever thought. Rare or not, right now we're in the exact age in America where a disaster (economic collapse) is most highly likely to happen.

I also think society has been greatly harmed in trying to conform to what corporations want. We specialize in one thing and then the job market completely falls apart so that now few if any skillsets can save you from unemployment. Assuming that our economy doesn't collapse, when you are laid off because they're sending programming jobs overseas , you find very quickly that having an understanding of things beyond what your corporate boss wants (say, management or even sanitation engineering) will allow you to forego the corporate world and start your own business more easily. Your employer may have no use for all your extra skills but you will, if you know how to ply it when you lose your job.

Mostly, above that, we need more people to experience and understand nature through structured organizations similar to the Scout system, because so few people CARE about nature now. You would have more people aware of conservation and the dangers of habitat destruction and more people fighting pollution and the paving of pristine land. Certainly, it would cut down on the apathy, no?

Jacquelope wrote:Kavenbach: Being on the farm does wonders for the immune system too, doesn't it?

As far as I have been able to notice, yes indeed. Other than colds, I am rarely if ever sick; had a bout with meningitis as I was finishing college, a fever that peaked at 105, but came through just feeling like shit. When we found out there'd been several deaths in the college system in that month I kinda did a doubletake.

On the other hand one is certainly more prone to injuries... comes with the territory. Usually just scrapes and such, fixing machinery or building things, though when dealing with animals you have to expect the unexpected. And back problems are extremely common as well. A lot of farmers could pull a HULK ((I wuz... LIFTIN' up the CAR.") but will regret it for a while thereafter. And of course, farm machinery remains heavy machinery, and is not something you want kids around. My mother lost half her left hand because she leaned on something she shouldn't have (sounds stupid, but when you're working it can be extremely easy to get distracted). PTO shafts --- the rod stretched from the tractors to the machinery --- can be, and have been, extremely deadly, and represent a very ugly death. With great Power-Take-Offs comes great Responsibility.

And farm-raised kids tend to be more fearless than they should be. How many of YOU have climbed to the top of a 120-plus-foot pine tree?

...looking back now, boy were we insane kids.

And yeah, I tend to agree that farm kids are better "adapted". Wish I had some more meaningful experiences with farming, I have a feeling we're all going to need it soon.

Let's hope you're wrong. Much as the world could use a purge, Let's truly hope you're wrong...

As for mom and pop farms, now there's one place I favor Government intervention. We need more farms, and more high tech, efficient farms, and subsidies to help them all modernize (such as sequestering cow methane an turning it into energy).

I was a bit pissed this morning when I read that. I felt you were targeting me... ("Destroy the little dinky farms!") maybe you were. Maybe you're a consultant and my jab at them earlier made unexpected contact. (if so, apologies!) But the fact is, there ARE no "mom-and-pop" farms; those with families, either the kids have taken over (so it's a family thing, and can actually grow quite large) or the kids left for an easy city life and the aging parents had to sell everything off or will soon. The smaller farms are "gentlemen farmers," usually retirees living off the land as a hobby, or are smaller family affairs that are either adapting or dying.

Actually, have you ever gone into a modern dairy farm to look around? Everything is mechanized now. Feeding is done by a robot (I AM NOT JOKING) and milking is mostly automated. The barns are equipped with climate controls (AC, Heat evacuators, dehumidifiers, heaters, air purifiers) and the cows are usually just lined up and never leave their stalls. Not during a milking period of several months at least.

EVERYTHING is automated, chemical, genetically modified, boosted. That "ROBOT" I mentioned earlier doses every single milk cow with food based on her milk yield, with antibiotics mixed in at all times, not just if she's sick. They are often sprayed with insecticides to keep off the flies and ticks (slightly-better farmers wash them by hand often instead, but that uses up a lot of water and still uses soap). Animals raised for their meat (beef, pork, so on) have specialized ear-implants that pump them full of synthetic growth hormones so they'll fatten faster; milk cattle have similar implants to stimulate lactation. Chickens are kept in stuffed cages, their beaks half seared off, their wings clipped, and their eggs are bleached and/or irradiated. Natural eggs are NOT PURE WHITE. And dear Lord do natural eggs have more taste to them!!

And how many of you REALLY know where the eggs come from?

*cough*

You'd think I'm a PETA member, huh? Nope. I just favor the natural way as much as possible. My animals have no insecticide tags, no implants, no antibiotics. Their food is as natural as I can make it. Some of my clients ARE clients because I offer a far more natural alternative (one lady would have allergic reactions to store-bought meat, and the chemicals in it, but not to mine). Not to mention a steer raised freerange on grass and natural green growth, instead of force fed corn exclusively, has a far different TASTE. Any hunter eating deer meat from an evergreen forest and a boreal forest will likely agree.

I actually UNDERSTAND that food must be mass-produced to satisfy the demands of our ever-growing (and ever-pickier) population. But... I find it's too much. There MUST be a middle ground somewhere!

I'd go more into detail about still more stuff, such as waste management and how it can be used to grow non-chemically, but this is getting long as it is.

Maybe we can also develop nanotechnology to replace insecticides... oh hey, bug-killer swarms! COOL! I thought of it first, lol! No, seriously though, replacing insecticides with an equally effective less toxic alternative would be a huge plus for the environment and for producing more food.

I absolutely agree... on the less-toxic thing, if not on the bug-killer swarms. I confess that I use genetically modified corn, one specifically immune to a specific herbicide, because I couldn't harvest it if I let the weeds grow. Whereas other farmers would pass several times however, I pass once, just in the middle of the growing period, to control the weeds just enough so I can harvest. Logically passing two or three times in a single year should greatly diminish the need in subsequent years, but... meh. I can't afford to experiment, and prefer not to kill the bees if I can avoid it!

I would consider that to be an agricultural holy grail. Alternatively, making all crops super pest resistant would be even better, but how do you do that?

Genetic modification. There is already a lot of that on the market; corn that is resistant to "pyrale" (whatever that is in english), a burrowing worm, because it produces an enzyme that is toxic to those worms. they say it's safe for humans, but... I dislike the idea of playing God...

On the other hand, I'm not discounting Genetically Modified products. As I said, I use some. But I find it ridiculous that seed companies have patented the genetic modifications (again, "we're God!") and if bees happen to pollenate (sp?) the neighbor's fields with the stuff, that neighbor can end up losing everything to a lawsuit for unlawful production!? DON'T LAUGH, IT'S HAPPENED! Seems to me that if humans can modify the genetics of things, fine, to some extent, but it should be OBLIGATORY that ALL of humanity can benefit! I forsee a time will come that the world will have to make a choice... the rich fuckers can hoard their patented stuff, and die like the rest of us, or they can use their wealth to do the right thing and keep humanity alive.

I would get tired really quickly of "but these Government programs to keep non-commercially viable farms alive, is a waste of money". Stop thinking about money and start thinking about what's good for the species. The two aren't one and the same.

Tell me about it. The "consultant" comment I made was directed at all the useless overpaid Quebec "civil abusers," er, civil servants, who basically make up their jobs and proceed to issue all kinds of "feasible" directives to farmers. "Do SUCH, and you'll be more environmentally friendly." "Do SUCH, and it'll be much easier for us to ensure food is safe." "Do SUCH, and..." These people take "courses" and get jobs making decisions when they have NEVER SET FOOT ON A FARM IN THEIR LIVES!

But even as they order us to do these things, they also are CUTTING all our funding programs, and WE have to foot the BILL for all the changes they're FORCING onto us! Farmers are already the most GROSSLY-UNDERPAID members of society for the work we do, and are LOOKED DOWN UPON by the majority of the population, who live in cities or suburbs and can't tell a steer from a heifer. Even the well meaning ones such as yourself (no offense) assume we're uneducated bumpkins.

If all the farmers suddenly went on strike tomorrow, and stopped producing food, or sent it to China, the government would have to resort to back-to-work legislation or force us to work at gunpoint. Nobody realizes just how important we are; to you we're all just something to look down upon or wrinkle your noses at.

If the day comes when food is scarce, the rich fucks will see how tasty their money is while the farmers manage to survive off their land.

...wow this turned into an aggressive reply. Please don't take it personally. And you have permission to quote me, or even cut-and-paste the entire entry to whatever that other thread is you were talking of...

K-Bach out. I have to go weep, anyway, since my freshly-cut hay just caught a downpour.

Actually what I was getting at is I want to see less corporate farms and more mom and pop farms, but I also want the mom and pop farms to get the money so that they can modernize. I never want to see a "too big to fail" farm. EVER. We're talking food crisis central there.

"As for mom and pop farms, now there's one place I favor Government intervention. We need more farms, and more high tech, efficient farms, and subsidies to help them all modernize (such as sequestering cow methane an turning it into energy)."

Should have read

"As for mom and pop farms, now there's one place I favor Government intervention. We need more mom and pop farms which are high tech, efficient farms, and we need subsidies to help them all modernize (such as sequestering cow methane and turning it into energy)."

As a liberal I'm always in favor of the little guy over the bigger guy. And telling a farm to drastically modernize without giving them the money or financial incentive to is just not good common sense. I don't mind doing it to a car company - but to those who produce food? Not such a good idea.

Now if I could wave my magic wand there wouldn't be anything BUT a half billion financially healthy high tech family farms and a mandatory cap on the size of the big operations.

And damn, do I seriously fear the constant use of antibiotics on cows. And bees spreading "copyrighted" pollen to another farmer's crops - that's a Monsato incident, ain't it? I despise Monsato. I want to see their 'patents' nullified ASAP and their 'terminator' crops BANNED. But the rumor that makes me take pause the most is the one I keep hearing about corn being unable to grow on its own without the help of technology. Is that true?

And I don't look down at farmers. I know how essential they are.

Jacquelope wrote:Actually what I was getting at is I want to see less corporate farms and more mom and pop farms, but I also want the mom and pop farms to get the money so that they can modernize. I never want to see a "too big to fail" farm. EVER. We're talking food crisis central there.

No worries, I'd figured it out.

And damn, do I seriously fear the constant use of antibiotics on cows. And bees spreading "copyrighted" pollen to another farmer's crops - that's a Monsato incident, ain't it?

Yep! I'd forgotten the name, but yep.

I despise Monsato. I want to see their 'patents' nullified ASAP and their 'terminator' crops BANNED. But the rumor that makes me take pause the most is the one I keep hearing about corn being unable to grow on its own without the help of technology. Is that true?

"terminator' crops: crops that do not produce viable offspring. The seeds from their plants are virtually all sterile. Meaning Monsanto literally controls who gets to grow what where and when. How perverse that their name (unless I'm mistaken) means "Holy Mountain." As for the "no-grow-without-tech" stuff, I honestly don't know; haven't heard that. Maybe it means the Terminator seeds could be grown but only with some product Monsanto produces? Otherwise I don't know what "technology" would make such a big difference in whether seeds germinate or not. On the other hand, in a less-paranoid sense, indeed there are some crops that can't be grown (not properly or easily anyway) without irrigation/drainage and fertilizer, but that's more due to the land than otherwise. I couldn't grow oranges around here unless the trees were permanently in greenhouses, for example. Same as maple trees to produce Maple syrup just can't handle the climate of the southern States or even farther south.

And I don't look down at farmers. I know how essential they are.

Too bad the rest of the Effin' world doesn't. You know what would be beautiful irony? If after some global collapse or other the only humans that survive are those in the poorest sections of Africa --- because all the Aid people have taught them the SIMPLE techniques to live off the land.