The Simpler Way: Ted Trainer

[AxelHeyst]

I found Ted Trainer's The Simpler Way stuff yesterday. I DAFS'd this forum and found only one mention (by White Belt), so I thought it worth posting for discussion.
https://thesimplerway.info/

On first skim though, I thought it reads as a very concise and simply written way to explain the problems, cut through some bs that typically gets muddled (by me as well), and points in the direction of a solution (eco-anarchist eco-villages and transition towns). It might be an easier way to communicate so of the "Why" that many of us are pursuing.

He makes the point repeatedly that the large organization (governments etc) are probably structurally incapable of doing anything useful because they can't move without the support of the people, aka culture, and so the culture has to change first before those institutions can do anything.

The standard issues with intentional communities that this forum is familiar with (see Jacob's two Stoa talks, the end of the first and the beginning of the second) apply of course, but Trainer's writing seems somewhat cognizant of those critiques and basically boils down to "Yeah, you're right about all that, but ultimately that's the direction we have to go so we need to figure it out" (my rough take on his perspective).

Trainer's stuff feels at least somewhat less New Age hand-wavey than usual, so there might be some stuff worth mining out of it. His critique of the Degrowth movement at minimum is worth the read I thought, because of his points about the magnitude of change required and what that implies.

Anyone else read his stuff before? I think we're all on the same page about the challenges of intentional communities, so I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a "yeah, but..." discussion we've already gone through multiple times about hippie cults. Any critiques about some of his assumptions, conclusions, logic, or communication style? In other words, thoughts on the possible practical uses of Trainer's framing of the issues and solutions?

[7Wannabe5]

I agree that it is a good summation of the literature. I think I have read something by about half the authors he noted.

I think the important question to ask is why isn’t what he suggests likely to happen? IntelligentObjectiveAlienVu.

Also, I think cavalier dismissal of high tech/ high service economy may not be completely warranted. I mean anti-consumption could also be viewed as anti-value-production.

One thing I’ve been thinking about is how affluence, education of women in particular, urbanism, lower fertility rates, ecological consciousness, and desire to afford more leisure and autonomy towards self-actualization all trend together. What’s next? Therapy, polyamory, couture...?

Why not attempt to approach the solution from lowest energy/material intensity of luxury lifestyle. IOW, start from assumption of “Yeah, it appears like humans need to spend about $40,000/year to be happy/fulfilled.” but then fill market basket with most energy/resource cheap goods possible-forget about secondary spending effect on greater market. So, for instance therapy costs $100/hr and massage costs $50/hr and custom dyed scarf costs $200, but no $350/month SUV payment.

[AxelHeyst]

Would the method to decouple/de materialize the economy be something like carbon/resource use taxation? Regulations to un-externalize costs?

What do you think about his point that that’s not feasible due to current governments governing at the will of the people, more or less, and culturally we’re not going to be able to pull off a demand for dematerializarion as policy? People like their SUVs, so the political will to abolish that sort of thing is lacking.

In other words, you seem to be arguing for a top down solution, and his argument is that that’s not possible because of the structure of power.

[7Wannabe5]

I’m not arguing for a top down solution. I’m wondering about something like an expanded dematerialized market couture solution. Nth degree might be world where everybody spent $40,000 year buying art made by each other.

[AxelHeyst]

Ah! So instead of changing culture to live in ecovillages with low tech, change culture to where everyone mostly only spends money on hyperlow resource footprint goods and services.

[7Wannabe5]

Right, one reason being that if you stick women out in any kind of village with nothing to do, they will have more babies. I know because I used to be a devoted reader of hippie breastfeeding mom magazines. OTOH, how many babies did the “Sex and the City” Orange crew have? Takes a whole lot of fancy shoes to add up to one big new house in the suburbs resource wise. No sense in just rebooting a vicious cycle.

Two lists: decadent things rich people spend money on that burn tons of resources vs decadent things rich people spend money on that don’t burn tons of resources. I was recently reading a book on entrepreneurship which stated that you have to accept Greed in order to be successful entrepreneur. You have to think of something decadent you crave. Only thing I could come up with was personal gardener

[jacob]

Anyone else read his stuff before? I think we're all on the same page about the challenges of intentional communities, so I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a "yeah, but..." discussion we've already gone through multiple times about hippie cults. Any critiques about some of his assumptions, conclusions, logic, or communication style? In other words, thoughts on the possible practical uses of Trainer's framing of the issues and solutions?

I read him back in the peak oil days. I don't disagree with any of physical science basis or the limits. I also don't disagree that it's easy enough to live on 10% of the resource imprint of the average westerner. But even convincing the average ERE forumite of this can be quite a slog.

Change always comes down to what motivates people. People apply different frameworks, for example capitalism, socialism, anarchism, ... that supposedly explains what drives people. And the problem with change is always that people have to live in TWO paradigms simultaneously, from A to B, while changing over.

This is why the hedged approach is the only way.
https://earlyretirementextreme.com/the- ... treme.html

And so dropping hints, doing outreach, and holding meetings, endless meetings, about the wonders of B has wasted decades. Likewise, waving placards and signing petitions to abolish whatever one doesn't like about A (corporations, bank loans, oil companies...) insofar one's other hand is cashing paychecks and paying the bills from those very same companies. That too has wasted decades.

For example, a zero-growth society can certainly have finance, capital, and lending at interest. It's just that the inflation rate has to match the long term interest rate. Lending $100 to get back $104 only means the economy grows nominally. But if $104 still only buys 100 potatoes in the future, this simply mean that the lender needs to produce less(*). And that inflation rate is 4%. However, without this framework (and this is just an example) ... further debate freezes in an argument about who needs to take the first cut. But try getting someone from the Green vMEME to accept this.

(*) But this would be anathema if you don't like the idea of some people working for others due to differences in time-preference.

Not to dunk on specific approaches---this is general critique---but this problem is just rampant in the "lets rebuild the world approaches". When it meets ordinary people it becomes a structural prisoners dilemma with people defecting left and right. For example, I am semi-active in another forum where people insist that it's absolutely futile to personally change anything whatsoever beyond working on their emotional issues until "we" somehow get rid of the corporations first. This discussion is happening on an internet server run by FB probably on a phone plan serviced by VZ on a smartphone made by AAPL with chips made by QCOM or whatever.

So it's like that always or for the past 40 years ... the technologies exist, the social solutions exist. What lacks is agreement or the ability to agree.

As it is, compromise (or war) will be forced by natural degrowth from decreasing EROI and an increasing damage function. Some cultures will handle this better than others.

But again, I like the framework. I just can't find 1000 people who'd agree on personally implementing it. Basically what it's asking is Mark Boyle x1000 all moving to the same place. Resolution is similar (but in reverse) why e.g. relocating a drowning city is much more complex than just giving each family a $100,000 relocation package.

[jacob]

The problem is this: https://youtu.be/0MGQgQZHx1Q?t=3196 (btw most of these time-stamped youtube links point to a particular slide in Stoa2)

Proposal#1 doesn't work very well.

[jacob]

Would also suggest: https://www.amazon.com/Plan-Community-S ... 002H5GT5G/ and Transition Towns. TT in particular has quite a bit of literature.

A meta-framework for all these world-plans is David Holmgren's Future Scenarios:
https://www.futurescenarios.org/4-desce ... scenarios/

Debate reminds me of one of those memes that were(?) popular some years ago:
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/265148- ... -really-do

Green tech: What society says it'll do.
Brown tech: What society actually does.
Lifeboats: What individually oriented people dream about doing.
Earth steward: What socially oriented people dream about doing.

The reason I'm a bit resistant/triggered by these ideas/plans is due to Rumsfeld's quote that "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." So I look at what kind of "army we have" and see that there are lots of visions for grand strategy but little interest in logistics.

Very well, so we have "vision" and "discomfort" ... but what's the plan?

[7Wannabe5]

The individual solution does not work, because too many individuals currently on the planet do not have capabilities/opportunities sufficient for simple self-reliance (not talking about self-sufficiency) due to permanent or temporary conditions. This can be further extended beyond humans to include endangered species, eco-systems, water-sheds, and valuable, because complex, human works. Full recognition that sense of fulfillment as mature adult will generally only come from taking on responsibility beyond self (or beyond relationship to other fully competent adults) for some combination such as :

A) tutoring inner city kids in math and participating in water-shed reclamation group
B) organizing bike rentals through local library system and providing foster care for drug-addicted infant
C) training cognitively impaired young adults on basic urban greenhouse operations and creating app to wiki track local amphibian sightings
D) teaching basic English to recent immigrants and volunteering to catalogue regional history museum archives

[jacob]

Full recognition that sense of fulfillment as mature adult will generally only come from taking on responsibility beyond self (or beyond relationship to other fully competent adults) for some combination such as ...

This might devolve into barbed points about "hippie cults" as discouraged in the OP, but ...

There's a tendency to look for a "community bypass" (in the spiritual bypass sense) in that the promoted focus becomes exclusively about "taking care of each other" while ignoring (almost deliberately) that this increase beyond the self has to sit on a foundation of being able to take care of oneself first. "Put on your own oxygen mask first."

For example, to paraphrase a typical and sincerely meant comment: "the crashing economy shows how dependent we all on global supply chains, therefore it is important to form local communities so we can take care of each other during the next crisis." I do not think that crucial importance of "buffering up on supplies, parts, tools, and the skills to use them" is 'so obvious that it goes without saying'. Rather, I think it's completely presumed that physical goods will appear automagically and I absolutely worry that there's some expectation that someone else ("they") will have thought of that; and thus one's strategy should first and foremost be to friend as many people as possible to increase the odds. (Not seeing that "if everybody does that" ... then that one person will not have enough for everybody and thus even possible change their mind about sharing.)

This is adjacent to the other issue with B-world communities. They tend to focus on the "cool jobs" as app-designers and youtubers... but what about the 90% of former accountants, marketing assistants, etc. who will now be doing 996-schedules as field hands; the nightsoil collecting industry to avoid fossil fuel subsidies, ... all the unpleasant stuff.

In particular, how do we talk people into that when trying to form a simple living community?

To wit, what happens whenever farming is collapsing in a given area is that the weakest members simply leave the community for the city or join the local gang. This leads me to suspect that "earth steward" scenarios subconsciously presume that there will always be some youtube/tourist-income to carry the community through hard times.

I wonder whether the practical challenges are ignored because the sheer magnitude is disillusioning.

[7Wannabe5]

Oh, I absolutely agree with "put on your own oxygen mask first", but only kind of sort of agree that this is equivalent to "ensure all future needs for self first." IntelligentObjectiveAlienVu would definitely recognize first order strong efficiency of seeing to current individual needs, but maybe be a bit "Hmmm..." about overall efficiency of plan that pretends to know exactly what "future self" will need 20 years out, but remains clueless to needs of other-passenger-who-can't-unbuckle-seat-belt in the moment. Greater overall efficiency requires a bit of trapeze release trust in the notion of what goes around comes around.

One of the up/downsides of semi-ERE or, more accurately, ERE- Option 2= Reduce Expenses Enough That You Can Immediately Choose to Only Work Part-Time Intermittent Flexible @ Mostly What You Like/Choose is that it is pretty easy to combine paid work with otherwise fulfilling work if you don't stay stuck in $$$/hr optimization mode and you are just social enough to naturally occasionally create or interact with variety of markets. My perspective is that there is a shit ton of potentially meaningful, fulfilling work to do out there for anybody willing to put up with some serious headaches and relatively low pay.

This is adjacent to the other issue with B-world communities. They tend to focus on the "cool jobs" as app-designers and youtubers... but what about the 90% of former accountants, marketing assistants, etc. who will now be doing 996 as field hands; the nightsoil collecting industry to avoid fossil fuel subsidies, ... all the unpleasant stuff.

In particular, how do we talk people into that when trying to form a simple living community?

Well, first off I am not talking about forming new simple living communities. I am talking about starting at your own front porch in the community/eco-system where you currently find yourself. Second off, I actually think it is kind of hard to sort such hands-on-do-the-environmental-and-social-work-in-front-of-you into super-shitty-job vs. super-cool-job. For instance, do teachers of cognitively impaired children with masters degrees sometimes find themselves literally picking up shit off the floor of the classroom, absolutely "yes." Will I possibly pick up something toxic if I wander over to the nearby beach and spend some time cleaning up the shoreline today? Absolutely, "yes."

OTOH, it is true that in many affluent communities, you are going to have to hike a bit farther to get to the obvious work that needs doing. I think this is one reason why joining action groups can often be frustrating. They often tend to be composed of relatively affluent people living in relatively affluent communities who are almost having to look for problems to solve. And it is also the case that just sending money to realms where the needful work is in your face apparent is not good enough. 6 year old whose window on acquisition of primary reading skills is closing right now, watershed where PFAS is being dumped right now, vs. working at IT firm to further fund your retirement account towards unlikely possibililities for 2052...tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, .... make a choice.

[Mister Imperceptible]

The oligarchs make all of the decisions. Almost everyone is programmed. This conversation is happening in broad daylight only because the oligarchs allow it within their framed Overton window. Otherwise it would be deleted, erased, and the participants unpersoned.

The policy meetings happen so people feel they have a say. They don’t. That is why nothing gets done.

If you think you are taking part in changing the culture, you might want to consult your memory banks what it is in your programming that initiated that drive.

The aim is to survive until the oligarchs have succeeded in crushing everyone else and engage in open warfare upon one another, initiating their own collapse.

Survival must cancel out programming.

[7Wannabe5]

@MI:
Yeah, but, depending upon definition, it could be argued that strong majority of the members of this forum, including you, are members of global level oligarchy. Ergo, we got some decisions to make.

[ducknald_don]

@MI I'm not very convinced by those sort of conspiracy theories. It seems far more likely to me that these problems are emergent from the system we find ourselves in.

[7Wannabe5]

@ducknald_don:

I agree. For instance, as Pickety pointed out, it's hardly a conspiracy that highly educated females tend to prefer highly educated males as life partners, and this growing trend towards associative mating is not an insignificant component of growing household income inequality in the developed world.

[AxelHeyst]

@7, my batting average is low for summarizing/synthesizing your points accurately on the first try, but the payoff is always worth it so I’m going to have another go at it.

One theme I’m picking up, and maybe integrating with other stuff in my head, is almost a sort of “community service” front for an ERE2 minded individual. In an environment of extreme uncertainty, make decisions biased towards action. So: don’t do the stuff we *know* doesn’t work well (we have certainty about it), like endless meetings and awareness raising etc as Jacob says.

But *do* engage in activities that are near to you and will do obvious good now, an example list you’ve already given. This is possibly a model for hedged community engagement:
1) If it “doesn’t go anywhere”, as in doesn’t lead to a flourishing TT, fine, you still did good on those kids or whatever you were involved with. The minimum threshold of success wasn’t a 200person flourishing ecovillage.
2) You’ll learn (Observation) and build more networks, at a minimum, which can hardly be seen as having bad effects.
3) If you are going to meet a critical mass of local people who you might be able to take on a larger scale project with, it will be in this sphere: other-focused people who can show up to a work day and actually work, get past their petty bs, etc.

So, a possible action-oriented ERE2 practice (in *addition* to ERE1 and the more philosophical fronts of ERE2) is to get out there and get involved with other people in projects that are doing some immediate good and that you have some interest in/value to add.

In Boydian terms, this strategy is “run as many OODA cycles involving other local people doing immediate local good as possible”. Learn (execute fast transients) as you go. The end isn’t in sight from here (there is no end, but you know what I mean).

Something like that?

[AxelHeyst]

On the shitty jobs angle, I think it was a recent link to a 1998 article about a community I’m forgetting the name of, they said at first they had a points system to try to balance out the good jobs vs shitty jobs. What they found is that above something like 20 people, there were no jobs that at least someone wasn’t fine with. For example I love doing the dishes and also actually enjoy dealing with all aspects of a primitive humanure (nightsoil) system. I don’t like watering plants. But lots of other people do. Above some threshold, there’s no such thing as a shitty job from a communal scale.

[7Wannabe5]

@AxelHeyst:

I think you described what I was suggesting very well. It has been my experience that simply starting to execute any sort of useful work in a public setting will generate interest and support.

I also agree with no shitty job theory based on my experience living in co-op with over 30 members. My job was solo cooking dinner for all members with vegetarian option once night week = 3 hours credit = my full obligation. Everybody loved my mushroom walnut stuffed turnovers!

[7Wannabe5]

Basically, if everybody would do some not-for-profit social/environmental work AND create a for profit green discard market business as Ego suggested, pretty much problem solved.