Yes, the term "taker" is from the book. Though it's probably not the way you're assuming. The author pulled titles of "takers" and "leavers" from the context of the phrase of "take it or leave it". Not used as a reference to current civilization "taking" everything.
I agree that it's a problem to present ideas negatively, ala "Greta Thornburg style" ("You're ruining everything!"). While she's right, many people are more easily convinced by showing them that (many of the) 'right'/'better' ways of living are not just better for "the world", but better right now for the people living that way.
I've found and lived this out in hundreds of different ways, in many different realms (personal finance, health, environmental impact, etc.). Very often there are ways I find to live or to achieve something that when compared with current civilizational/consumerist defaults are actually better in all the main ways that I see as important - in context of this thread, that is for "the world", for me personally, and for more fun/enjoyment/ease right now.
'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
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jacob
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
After many scientist fails with public messaging, there has been some research---it's an emerging field, perhaps in part inspired by past failures---showing that "If you don't do X, shit will happen" is surprisingly more effective messaging than "If you do X, shit will not happen" in terms of the public taking action. In that regard, Thunberg's "you're ruining everything" is more effective than the traditional "you're saving the world" message. If the point is to make people healthier, more people will change if told that they will die younger if they don't start exercising than if told that they'll live longer if they start exercising. This does go against convention and won't make as many friends but it will change more minds.C40 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 07, 2020 10:16 pmI agree that it's a problem to present ideas negatively, ala "Greta Thornburg style" ("You're ruining everything!"). While she's right, many people are more easily convinced by showing them that (many of the) 'right'/'better' ways of living are not just better for "the world", but better right now for the people living that way.
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classical_Liberal
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
@jacob
As you have stated before, the biggest problem here is the discount factor given to far off future events. It's much easier to talk action/reaction when the average person can correlate them. IOW, telling someone who is 30 that if you don't quit smoking there is a 2/3 chance you will have either lung cancer or COPD in 30 years, is very different than telling someone who already has already been hospitalized for COPD exacerbation that if they don't quit smoking they will end up in the hospital more.
The Thornburg style is social shaming. IOW, if you don't act responsibly towards the environment I will call you names and make you feel bad today. Action leads to immediate reaction, no future discount. This is actually how the US public health handled smoking in the 1990's and 2000's, with great success I might add. It was effective from a preventative stand point. Kids who did not smoke did not want to become one of the yellow teethed, smelly smokers. However, it didn't do much to stop people who had already been smoking for years or decades (see the analogy to US consumers). Gov't restrictrictions on where people could smoke and higher taxes had more of an effect on this crowd. It became more expensive and inconvenient to maintain the habit. Immediate action/reaction. Part of the effectiveness of any such a strategy may very well be based on the Keegan/maturity level of the intended audience. Also, there is the social structure of the intended audience, being part of a society where sameness is valued vs one where individualism is valued. As a US gen X'er I take pride in being socially shamed
, so my gut reaction to that child Thornburg is to do more of what she rallies against. However, if you cut car lanes in half and use them for mass transits and bikes, plus increase the gas tax, behaviors will quickly change.
As you have stated before, the biggest problem here is the discount factor given to far off future events. It's much easier to talk action/reaction when the average person can correlate them. IOW, telling someone who is 30 that if you don't quit smoking there is a 2/3 chance you will have either lung cancer or COPD in 30 years, is very different than telling someone who already has already been hospitalized for COPD exacerbation that if they don't quit smoking they will end up in the hospital more.
The Thornburg style is social shaming. IOW, if you don't act responsibly towards the environment I will call you names and make you feel bad today. Action leads to immediate reaction, no future discount. This is actually how the US public health handled smoking in the 1990's and 2000's, with great success I might add. It was effective from a preventative stand point. Kids who did not smoke did not want to become one of the yellow teethed, smelly smokers. However, it didn't do much to stop people who had already been smoking for years or decades (see the analogy to US consumers). Gov't restrictrictions on where people could smoke and higher taxes had more of an effect on this crowd. It became more expensive and inconvenient to maintain the habit. Immediate action/reaction. Part of the effectiveness of any such a strategy may very well be based on the Keegan/maturity level of the intended audience. Also, there is the social structure of the intended audience, being part of a society where sameness is valued vs one where individualism is valued. As a US gen X'er I take pride in being socially shamed
, so my gut reaction to that child Thornburg is to do more of what she rallies against. However, if you cut car lanes in half and use them for mass transits and bikes, plus increase the gas tax, behaviors will quickly change.Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
Almost a year after reading it I still frequently think about this book. My two major insights are 1) civilization is a recent development in both ecological and human terms, not a divine/ natural occurrence that has been with us since the start of time and 2) thinking about how long humans have needed/ wanted things when assessing wants/ needs and technology/ stuff.
(1) Gives me a bit of personal peace and helps me detach from society. I was (implicitly) raised to believe that the "American middle class" way of life was the natural and correct way to live. Noting that this is actually an aberration from how people have/do live (not that how people have always done things is necessarily right or wrong, but I find that it factors into these thoughts/ conversations) makes it easier for me to look outside the culture I was born into and deprogram myself from that culture without thinking of it as the only way to live. I think this is different than totally escaping the culture which I was born into, which I think is nearly impossible and not necessarily desirable.
(2) When considering societal norms and technology, we take for granted all of the technology that has existed since our grandparents were born (but not necessarily for very long before that) and all of the institutions, freedoms and structures that have existed in the rich world for all of our lifetimes. I find it interesting/ insightful to think about where these goods (stuff), technologies and social institutions came from and what human needs they fulfill. This line of thinking has, at times, made me sad because it's become increasingly clear to me that while our society does some pretty great things that fulfill some basic human needs and improve our lives, it's almost impossible to take advantage of these advances without engaging the system of global slavery and ecocide (I realize this last sentence is a controversial statement and not everyone here agrees with this, though it is how I feel).
Here's an example: Restaurants. A lot of people here abhor them because they are a giant waste of money. Not being reliant on restaurants for most of your meals is all but a requirement for ERE. Jacob in particular dislikes restaurants.
Here's the thing, I love eating out in restaurants and ordering takeout. Why? The most basic need it's fulfilling is food. The need for food is older than people. But I also love to cook. It's nice not to have to make food for myself. A lot of people do this for the time savings (it's been discussed previously, but eating in a restaurant is not time saving and getting takeout is not necessarily time saving if you have a good grocery/ food storage routine), but when someone else makes me food, I value the act of care more than the time savings. I use making people food/ people making me food to cement friendships as well as business and romantic relationships frequently. People making each other food as an act of care is probably as old as people. However, the act of care is not present in a restaurant setting.
The time savings/ outsourcing of labor is also nice. I do have people who will make food for me, but being known as a good cook in a world of egg microwavers means I prepare >90% of my meals, whether or not I'm eating with someone. I love treating myself to the occasional night off of kitchen duties. The appreciation of not having to do something is probably also as old as people, but it's drastically enhanced by our hyper-specialized productivity obsessed society.
The social aspect is big for a lot of people. I am a 50/50 introvert/ extrovert. If I am having a more introverted day, the thought of being in a noisy restaurant is terrible. However, if I am fucking amped and in go out and hang mode, the thought of having a giant meal with several of my friends where no one has to do any work and we are also around other people is very exciting. Meals present great social opportunities and I've been trying to eat as few meals by myself as I can (an idea from NNT actually). Sadly, I had this thought around the start of the pandemic...so... not great. Meals as a communal/ social event is probably as old as people and at least as old as tribes of people.
The final thing I enjoy about eating in a restaurant/ getting take out is temporarily hiring trained food professionals and taking advantage of global food supply chains. Sometimes restaurants have specialty equipment, or access to specialty ingredients or the time to make shit that I haven't figured out how to make yet. Sometimes you need someone else to pour a mountain of salt on food, because you cook healthy. Sometimes multiple people's combined years of training and experience make a better final product than I can half-paying-attention at home. This is by far the newest innovation and combines capitalism with global supply chains and labor specialization.
So when I go out to eat at a restaurant with friends, I'm not simply feeding myself with the less (monetarily) efficient method of eating at a restaurant, I'm satisfying a host of needs as old as humanity and taking advantage of new technologies. I think it's important to think about these kind of things as you cross the moat from Wheaton 5/6, but a dangerous method of justification at lower Wheaton levels. The way the scale is designed, one would need to figure out how to satisfy all of these needs without money in order to climb the scale.
(1) Gives me a bit of personal peace and helps me detach from society. I was (implicitly) raised to believe that the "American middle class" way of life was the natural and correct way to live. Noting that this is actually an aberration from how people have/do live (not that how people have always done things is necessarily right or wrong, but I find that it factors into these thoughts/ conversations) makes it easier for me to look outside the culture I was born into and deprogram myself from that culture without thinking of it as the only way to live. I think this is different than totally escaping the culture which I was born into, which I think is nearly impossible and not necessarily desirable.
(2) When considering societal norms and technology, we take for granted all of the technology that has existed since our grandparents were born (but not necessarily for very long before that) and all of the institutions, freedoms and structures that have existed in the rich world for all of our lifetimes. I find it interesting/ insightful to think about where these goods (stuff), technologies and social institutions came from and what human needs they fulfill. This line of thinking has, at times, made me sad because it's become increasingly clear to me that while our society does some pretty great things that fulfill some basic human needs and improve our lives, it's almost impossible to take advantage of these advances without engaging the system of global slavery and ecocide (I realize this last sentence is a controversial statement and not everyone here agrees with this, though it is how I feel).
Here's an example: Restaurants. A lot of people here abhor them because they are a giant waste of money. Not being reliant on restaurants for most of your meals is all but a requirement for ERE. Jacob in particular dislikes restaurants.
Here's the thing, I love eating out in restaurants and ordering takeout. Why? The most basic need it's fulfilling is food. The need for food is older than people. But I also love to cook. It's nice not to have to make food for myself. A lot of people do this for the time savings (it's been discussed previously, but eating in a restaurant is not time saving and getting takeout is not necessarily time saving if you have a good grocery/ food storage routine), but when someone else makes me food, I value the act of care more than the time savings. I use making people food/ people making me food to cement friendships as well as business and romantic relationships frequently. People making each other food as an act of care is probably as old as people. However, the act of care is not present in a restaurant setting.
The time savings/ outsourcing of labor is also nice. I do have people who will make food for me, but being known as a good cook in a world of egg microwavers means I prepare >90% of my meals, whether or not I'm eating with someone. I love treating myself to the occasional night off of kitchen duties. The appreciation of not having to do something is probably also as old as people, but it's drastically enhanced by our hyper-specialized productivity obsessed society.
The social aspect is big for a lot of people. I am a 50/50 introvert/ extrovert. If I am having a more introverted day, the thought of being in a noisy restaurant is terrible. However, if I am fucking amped and in go out and hang mode, the thought of having a giant meal with several of my friends where no one has to do any work and we are also around other people is very exciting. Meals present great social opportunities and I've been trying to eat as few meals by myself as I can (an idea from NNT actually). Sadly, I had this thought around the start of the pandemic...so... not great. Meals as a communal/ social event is probably as old as people and at least as old as tribes of people.
The final thing I enjoy about eating in a restaurant/ getting take out is temporarily hiring trained food professionals and taking advantage of global food supply chains. Sometimes restaurants have specialty equipment, or access to specialty ingredients or the time to make shit that I haven't figured out how to make yet. Sometimes you need someone else to pour a mountain of salt on food, because you cook healthy. Sometimes multiple people's combined years of training and experience make a better final product than I can half-paying-attention at home. This is by far the newest innovation and combines capitalism with global supply chains and labor specialization.
So when I go out to eat at a restaurant with friends, I'm not simply feeding myself with the less (monetarily) efficient method of eating at a restaurant, I'm satisfying a host of needs as old as humanity and taking advantage of new technologies. I think it's important to think about these kind of things as you cross the moat from Wheaton 5/6, but a dangerous method of justification at lower Wheaton levels. The way the scale is designed, one would need to figure out how to satisfy all of these needs without money in order to climb the scale.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
@Jin+Guice:
At some point it does become much more important to consider "qualities" rather than "quantities." That said, with the note that it is always easier to clean other people's closets, one solution towards spending fewer $$ to achieve your desired experience state might be purposefully making friends with more people who are not "egg-microwavers." IOW, instead of having "some people who will make food for you" you could endeavor towards having "many people who will make food for you." OTOH, it has been my experience that hanging out with more "foodies", even those who are great cooks themselves, often has opposite from lowering restaurant expense tendency. So, maybe endeavoring to somehow get yourself into restaurant supply chain would work? For instance, an extroverted friend of mine had a friend who was a baker, so he would sometimes just wander over to his bake shop in the morning, help him with his work, and bring home a few "free" loaves of bread.
Other solutions to this problem I have used over the years have been exchanging post-divorce consolation therapy for dinner out with date who picks up the bill and writing off as business expense on book buying trips. However, I would note that it is the overall energy flow that matters at the level of ecology as opposed to the cash flow out of your personal account, so some of these hacks can only be justified at that level of analysis if savings are used to plant trees or equivalent. For instance, if I am spending 1 eco-Jacob, I am at egalitarian-humanist-ethics break even in terms of dumping of waste, so if I trade empathetic-listening for expensive restaurant dinner with assumption that restaurant service personnel will use wages/profit to buy gasoline etc., then I need to also do the work necessary to sequester maybe $30 burn worth of CO2 in order to balance energy accounts. Calculating burn-worth of CO2 per dollar is not easy because you have to consider to what extent energy intensive production activities/inputs are being off-shored/imported and the bouncing price of a barrel of oil. IMO, 80% is too high, but 20% is too low. Since I have not yet managed to even get my spending down to 1 eco-Jacob, I don't bother to make these other calculations very often, but I believe that not doing so is not reflective of reality.
At some point it does become much more important to consider "qualities" rather than "quantities." That said, with the note that it is always easier to clean other people's closets, one solution towards spending fewer $$ to achieve your desired experience state might be purposefully making friends with more people who are not "egg-microwavers." IOW, instead of having "some people who will make food for you" you could endeavor towards having "many people who will make food for you." OTOH, it has been my experience that hanging out with more "foodies", even those who are great cooks themselves, often has opposite from lowering restaurant expense tendency. So, maybe endeavoring to somehow get yourself into restaurant supply chain would work? For instance, an extroverted friend of mine had a friend who was a baker, so he would sometimes just wander over to his bake shop in the morning, help him with his work, and bring home a few "free" loaves of bread.
Other solutions to this problem I have used over the years have been exchanging post-divorce consolation therapy for dinner out with date who picks up the bill and writing off as business expense on book buying trips. However, I would note that it is the overall energy flow that matters at the level of ecology as opposed to the cash flow out of your personal account, so some of these hacks can only be justified at that level of analysis if savings are used to plant trees or equivalent. For instance, if I am spending 1 eco-Jacob, I am at egalitarian-humanist-ethics break even in terms of dumping of waste, so if I trade empathetic-listening for expensive restaurant dinner with assumption that restaurant service personnel will use wages/profit to buy gasoline etc., then I need to also do the work necessary to sequester maybe $30 burn worth of CO2 in order to balance energy accounts. Calculating burn-worth of CO2 per dollar is not easy because you have to consider to what extent energy intensive production activities/inputs are being off-shored/imported and the bouncing price of a barrel of oil. IMO, 80% is too high, but 20% is too low. Since I have not yet managed to even get my spending down to 1 eco-Jacob, I don't bother to make these other calculations very often, but I believe that not doing so is not reflective of reality.
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jacob
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
Actually, I find that what I dislike is being surrounded by the loudness of multiple conversations---I don't know if it's just me and everybody else is pretending too, but I typically can't hear half of what people are saying. However, I also understand that many enjoy this "200 milliTechnoParty" assault on the senses because it lets them focus more on their senses and feelings than they normally do and it is desirable.
Also, I don't like having to make a choice between menu items I do not understand. If I could have some little pictures of what I'm ordering, that'd be nice
The times I've been in a restaurant and been treated to a fixed menu course in a private room, I actually enjoyed very much. However, now we're talking $200+ per ticket---so definitely not something I'd pay for myself. It wasn't because the food was particularly awesome but because it was actually possible to take turns talking and hear what everybody was saying.
PS: One way to replicate this cheaper is to hire a chef/server/dishwasher to cook such a course at home in your kitchen. You pay for their time and for the ingredients (which they bring too). I've never done this myself, but I've been to a party which was done that way. As far as I'm concerned it was the same experience w/o the $3000 bill at the end.
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horsewoman
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
@jacob how dies it work in Denmark in regards to ordering in restaurants? When I was in Boston I was completely overwhelmed in restaurants because you need to piece together your meal out of a gazillion choices. This is not the case in Germany and Austria (or Italy, at least in the touristy places). There are fixed meals, complete with sides, that you can choose between.
It was very stressful, and the servers became impatient pretty fast, which flustered me even more.
It was very stressful, and the servers became impatient pretty fast, which flustered me even more.
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jacob
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Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
@horsewoman - I don't know about Danish restaurants. It's been 20+ years since I've been.
Re: 'Ishmael' Trilogy by Daniel Quinn
This is the thread that led me down quite the rabbit hole. It filled up my "to do reading list' note on my phone...I must bump. I've read Ishmael...I'm halfway through the 'Story of B'.
So far I can summarize my thoughts...modern society is suffering from the "Tragedy of the Commons" where the tragedy is our climate and resource depletion....due to Taker Culture. In the 2nd book, B discusses pre-agricultural civilization (leavers) where this isn't a problem due to various reasons that are either explicitly stated or implied (mostly that population is controlled naturally for instance with food supply). But other reasons such as leaver culture doesn't have a way of life that drains resources...it naturally replenishes without even intending to do so.
Whether pre-agricultural life vs modern life is easier vs harder is debatable in my opinion. Though I do like the idea if I woke up tomorrow as a Native American running around hunting buffalo with a bow and arrow with my best buds. I can romanticize this lifestyle for fun surely...
Like the OP stated, I too had to deal with some depression and a shocking realization that ecologically we're screwed. Ishmael made me feel cynical about everything basically....I think I became something of a nihilists for a few weeks.
On a positive note, I'm optimistic in the fact that at least there are humans who're attempting to solve this problem. Jacob with very a practical solution ERE book (multiplier effect), Bill Mollison (deceased) with more practical solutions such as Permaculture One - A Designers Manual (have not read yet) and the eventual design of permaculture courses (another multiplier effect)...Al Gore was right about "man-bear pig" (An Inconvenient Truth). People in huge positions of power / money (Bill Gates) are bringing these ideas to the mainstream too. I'm sure many others.
Another paradigm shift that B mentions - the difference between rivers and programs. Or Visions (long-term solutions) / Programs (shot-term bandaids). Nothing else to say here regarding that thought.
So far I can summarize my thoughts...modern society is suffering from the "Tragedy of the Commons" where the tragedy is our climate and resource depletion....due to Taker Culture. In the 2nd book, B discusses pre-agricultural civilization (leavers) where this isn't a problem due to various reasons that are either explicitly stated or implied (mostly that population is controlled naturally for instance with food supply). But other reasons such as leaver culture doesn't have a way of life that drains resources...it naturally replenishes without even intending to do so.
Whether pre-agricultural life vs modern life is easier vs harder is debatable in my opinion. Though I do like the idea if I woke up tomorrow as a Native American running around hunting buffalo with a bow and arrow with my best buds. I can romanticize this lifestyle for fun surely...
Like the OP stated, I too had to deal with some depression and a shocking realization that ecologically we're screwed. Ishmael made me feel cynical about everything basically....I think I became something of a nihilists for a few weeks.
On a positive note, I'm optimistic in the fact that at least there are humans who're attempting to solve this problem. Jacob with very a practical solution ERE book (multiplier effect), Bill Mollison (deceased) with more practical solutions such as Permaculture One - A Designers Manual (have not read yet) and the eventual design of permaculture courses (another multiplier effect)...Al Gore was right about "man-bear pig" (An Inconvenient Truth). People in huge positions of power / money (Bill Gates) are bringing these ideas to the mainstream too. I'm sure many others.
Another paradigm shift that B mentions - the difference between rivers and programs. Or Visions (long-term solutions) / Programs (shot-term bandaids). Nothing else to say here regarding that thought.