Human roles in ecology and economy

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grundomatic
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Human roles in ecology and economy

Post by grundomatic »

From pg 183-4 of the book:

In a growth economy, there are workers, organizers of workers, owners of assets, and owners of land. In a complete ecology, there are abiotics, producers, consumers, and decomposers. Humans are sufficiently adaptable to execute any of these roles in either system.
My question after reading this is how can a person serve as an abiotic in the ecological economy paradigm? I know the drill about being a producer instead of a consumer by making one's own solutions instead of buying them. It's also pretty easy for me to see how a person can be a decomposer by composting their organic waste or breaking something like a car down for parts. But how does one serve as a "resource"? Answers we came up with in the MMG were that maybe one's knowledge might be an abiotic, or that a person that provides the underlying infrastructure to the economy like communications or transportation is acting as an abiotic. It could also be someone that lends their resources ($) to the economy rather than consuming them. Anyone else have ideas?

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Re: Human roles in ecology and economy

Post by jacob »

An abiotic is essentially a raw resource that can be turned into a lot of different products. It's not really a "person".

For example, take soap making. You can buy the lard and the lye ("abiotics") from the economy. Alternatively, you can render your own lard out of fat and make your own lye out of wood ashes. Alternatives, you could use the lard to cook with and the lye to clean your toilet with.

Money is also a kind of abiotic. E.g. you "decompose" your wasted consumption materials by selling your old iPhone on ebay for money. If you take it apart for parts yourself, those parts are abiotics.

The confusion/lack of imagination may come in part because most humans are still in the habit of outsourcing the decomposition part. Once you start integrating that part as well and closing the loop, it'll affect how you think about production. For example, I design my furniture so it can easily be taken apart again because I will very likely do that one day. As such, I tend to use more screws and only use glue where necessary.

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grundomatic
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Re: Human roles in ecology and economy

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I think I was just being too literal with the last line I quoted.

So the task for the ERE aspirant as far as abiotics go is to better understand the resources/raw materials/parts used to produce? And the broader task is to better understand and gain experience in all of the roles, which leads to improvements when executing the various roles?

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Re: Human roles in ecology and economy

Post by jacob »

yes and yes

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