>oh wait that takes effort, everyone wants a low effort, idealistic (yet unfeasible), solution to the food problem.
This is what I can see is the problem in any of these conversations. Vegetarianism is the cure! And look! You don't really have to change your life that much! Lab grown meat is the cure! And look! You don't really have to change your life that much!
When did conversations about sustainability just completely drop the 'your life will have to be different' approach?
Also, lawn chickens are a good idea, but only as part of a concerted neighborhood effort.
If Mr. Jones has chickens, and Mrs. Smith has a milk goat, and Mr. Lee has an exceptional vegetable garden, and Mrs. Brown has apple and pear trees, then everyone can get what they need within their own neighborhood. Extrapolate out across the entire suburb, and you really have something.
(now I'm going to get really, really cynical) The problem is now that most people are selfish, self-centered, and short-sighted. There is no sense of community, and no sense of immediate gratification for working as a co-op to help the neighborhood succeed.
I agree with your sense that most people have completely lost their sense of community; this is the primary reason that I oppose widespread immigration. Increased diversity of class, race, culture, religion, values, etc. makes it extremely difficult to organize along non-financial lines. People withdraw into their sub-communities as a result of living near people who don't think like them.
This should be obvious, but I'm astonished that it's not. I think people are afraid of being called racist, but it's a very simple concept. Is it easier to organize a high school party in a group made up of 15 jocks, or a group made up of 3 nerds, 3 jocks, 3 skaters, 3 gangsters, and 3 choir kids? Or, a less "immature" version of the same question--which is a higher-trust environment, a big group of recent immigrants from the same country speaking the same language and worshipping the same god, or an equal-sized set of random people taking a bus in New York?
The reason that I mention this is that I desperately want to change my and everyone else's life to be sustainable, as you describe in your example, and participate in a mutually beneficial exchange of value with people in my community, but the people in my community share very little common ground with me and will not go out of their way to help me (which is completely not the case for my friends and family, who are scattered across the world). This is not the case for me; I often go out of my way to help people that are not like me, but the favor is rarely returned.
I think organization along financial lines is much more egalitarian. It’s fungible and people can make changes in their lifetime to move between social classes. You’re proposing racially based zones in the world where everyone of a single race must reside. It’s asinine and odious.
That's interesting. Because I have the same thoughts, but came to the exact opposite conclusion.
Arbitrary borders make it harder for people to get to know each other. My experience is that one the easiest things to bond over is 'difference' between cultures. Whether that's food, holidays, religion, whatever. Easy, seamless immigration helps people move around, easing the process of getting to know each other.
Further, building community of place is all about knowing each other. (Source; my life). Knowing your neighbors, and where they come from, helps build empathy for others, in general, in my opinion.
I find it fascinating that we both come at the same problem, with wildly different conclusions. Human brains, what weird things.
Do you really find that people bond over differences in culture more than they bond over similarities? Devout Catholics and dedicated Protestants? Introverted nerds and extroverted jocks? Career felons and beat cops?
People inside the same culture don't bond over differences, so why would people from other cultures do so? I had a many differences with the recently-immigrated Mexican kitchen staff in the restaurant I worked in, many with the dirt-poor kids at my high school who fought each other daily, and many with the rich kids from the mansion district, and not one of those groups was friendly or desirous of "bonding" with me. Their contextual social power and sway was immense, and their loyalty to each other was far stronger than any voluntary community of differences I've ever belonged to.
> My experience is that one the easiest things to bond over is 'difference' between cultures.
Are you talking about "people who behave and think like Western progressives, but happen to speak different languages and hail from different locales"? That isn't real diversity. I get along very well with highly-educated immigrants from China, Singapore, India, Nigeria, etc. because we all had nearly exactly the same life: a lot of studying, reading, and close ties with our family. It's very fun to bond over differences then, but the only reason the differences arise is because we're already almost the same. When we laugh over how our holidays and food are different, we are constantly reinforcing our similarities; we speak at the same volume, we let one another talk at similar rates, we ask questions of a matching intimacy, and we have the same desires of each other, namely to allow the other peacefully prosper. I can bond easily with an engineering student from Thailand, but not so with a career thief from the same country.
> I find it fascinating that we both come at the same problem, with wildly different conclusions. Human brains, what weird things.
Beware of ignoring certain patterns in order to come to fashionable conclusions, although perhaps you really have never experienced anything like what I've experienced.
>Do you really find that people bond over differences in culture more than they bond over similarities?
Yes, that has been my experience. Talking with people and learning about how and why they do things is the easiest way to become neighbors. Taking an honest interest in the people around me has been the easiest social lubricant that I have found. It has helped me build a community in the past, present, and I assume in the future.
>Are you talking about "people who behave and think like Western progressives, but happen to speak different languages and hail from different locales"?
No. I have lived in the same house/apartment and/or in the same neighborhood as individuals from other cultures, including those relatively similar to mine and wildly different; from folks who were fabulously wealthy and well-connected, and those that had just the clothes on their backs when they came here. In my experience the only individuals who I have been unable to actually interact with positively are those who regardless of where they're from I wouldn't have been able to anyway. Religious extremists, that's one. Bigots, that's another. These are people who I would not get along with, even if they were from my own family.
Your example of the Thai career thief is a prime example. Someone coming here specifically to undercut and sociopathically 'get ahead' is not someone I would want to interact with. There are those people who already live here, though. That's not an immigration issue.
>although perhaps you really have never experienced anything like what I've experienced.
I feel like that's obvious; we're two different people.
What I was saying is that it is fascinating to me that two people with the same conclusion 'society is fragmented' have two wildly different conclusions about the reason for it.
This is what I can see is the problem in any of these conversations. Vegetarianism is the cure! And look! You don't really have to change your life that much! Lab grown meat is the cure! And look! You don't really have to change your life that much!
When did conversations about sustainability just completely drop the 'your life will have to be different' approach?
Also, lawn chickens are a good idea, but only as part of a concerted neighborhood effort.
If Mr. Jones has chickens, and Mrs. Smith has a milk goat, and Mr. Lee has an exceptional vegetable garden, and Mrs. Brown has apple and pear trees, then everyone can get what they need within their own neighborhood. Extrapolate out across the entire suburb, and you really have something.
(now I'm going to get really, really cynical) The problem is now that most people are selfish, self-centered, and short-sighted. There is no sense of community, and no sense of immediate gratification for working as a co-op to help the neighborhood succeed.