Monday, October 15, 2012
Food Soverignity and reality
I have been taking a class in anthropology and the professor is an advocate of "Food Sovereignty". Essentially this is a fancy way of saying people have control over their food supply. One of the basic tenants of this idea is localized and sustainable small scale agriculture.
I like the idea but it runs into huge problems.
The first problem is that there is only so much land and population is constantly increasing.
The second is a little trickier. It takes about 0.22 hectares of land or 0.6 acres of land to supply enough food for 1 person for 1 year. The World Food Organization or World Food Programme is a subsidiary of the United Nations. These guys create all kinds of statistics about food. That sounds okay right, 0.6 acres. Cool.
Not really. There is a problem. Japan has about 0.03 hectares of farm land per person. India has about 0.13 hectares per person.
That creates some huge problems because there isn't enough farm land to supply every person in the country with food.
Wait, it is even better, livestock like cows eat food. It takes about 2 acres of grazing land or about an acre of grain to feed a cow for a year. Other livestock can take less or more, depending. Fortunately a lot of ranch land is not very good for farming. Unfortunately leaving a field fallow and using it for grazing is good for the land and sustainable agriculture.
0.22 hectares is the minimum. For real security we need to allow for a reduction in production which typically accompanies organic or sustainable farming techniques and we need to account for problems so real food security takes about 1.5 to 2 times the minimum amount of arable land per person or individual animal.
Okay, we can't do local food production everywhere. Some places we have to transport food to. It can't be helped.
If we have more smaller farms creating a consistent product becomes more difficult and the production costs actually increase so food prices go up. Organic food prices compared to agribusiness food prices.
So now we have to pay people more money so they can buy food and that causes food prices to go up.
Somewhere along the line things will level out, but, I doubt if small scale agribusiness is economically feasible any more than local production is feasible.
It is a good idea, but, it would take a return to lower population levels or redistribution of populations and a primarily agricultural economy to work. Population density would have to based on arable land available.
Guys like me that have a black thumb and can't grow grass would have a problem in an agricultural economy. We would be busy inventing things that increased production.
Big picture, the idea of food sovereignty can't work. It is possible it could work in some smaller regions with acceptable population density and farm land ratios.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Cultural change cannot be avoided
If we simplify people for the sake of argument we can create two groups of people. Those willing to change. Those unwilling to change.
In reality everyone is willing to change some things and unwilling to change other things. Exactly what can be changed varies with the person and the culture that the person is involved in.
Does muching at Mickey D's make people "American"? Of course not. If a French person buys a burger that person is still French. However, food is something the French have identified their culture with so many people in France think the food at Mickey D's disgraces their culture. Sure, it really sucks and we all know that, but, the United States does not identify their culture with Mickey D's. We identify our culture with patriotism, freedom, democracy, achievement, high standards of living. Mickey D's represents achievement in business rather than a high quality of food. Mickey D's represents the speed at which "Americans" progress.
But people in France don't associate Mickey D's with speed of progress or achievement in business. Many people associate Mickey D's with crappy food. Why would anyone want to embrace this garbage?
But cultural change is unavoidable. Sure, we can make Mickey D's illegal and the next thing you know we have the "War on Burgers" which would be a lot like the "War on Drugs" with hidden butcher shops like we have hidden drug labs.
When cultures come into contact we exchange values, customs, traditions and resources. Eventually the cultures coming into contact change to the point where they are no longer what they were. Typically the predominate culture will absorb the sub culture.
So what happens when two predominate cultures clash? They either destroy each other, absorb each other or one ends up dominating the other.
Take the current clash between Islamic cultures and Western cultures. I can guarantee that one of these two cultures will predominate the other. The two cultures have too many mutually exclusive customs and traditions. Both cultures are dependent on each other in the exchange of resources and as long as the contact exists the conflict will exist.
Which one will predominate the other? If I have to guess I would say that the Islamic nations were going to eventually dominate Western cultures and eventually Eastern cultures. That is just an opinion based on my assessment of perseverance and democracy. The Islamic nations are willing to kill off all opposition culture and the Western nations are not. The last culture left standing is predominate so ....
Even if each culture closed itself off from the other the economic pressures of co-existence would eventually force them into conflict.
We can't stop cultural change. We can attempt to manage it. The founding fathers of the United States attempted to build a constitution which incorporated the ability to plan for cultural change while ensuring specific rights. Today people are trying to eliminate some of those civil rights, like the right to keep and bare arms :-).
Democracies can change their protected rights, the right to freedom of speech is not the same in the United States and the United Kingdom. In both places it can be changed to prevent "hate speech" like speaking out against the religion of Islam.
However Islamic Law cannot change to allow speaking out against the religion of Islam.
One culture can change and exist. The other cannot change and exist.
But cultural change can't be avoided? Right and the incorporation of the West and East into Islam will result in some changes. Islam has changed some in the last 1500 years and will change some more, however, there are some things that cannot and will not change because they are fundamental to the culture.
The Catholic church might allow priests to marry again, but, they will not eliminate the Pope. The Christian church may dress in black or white or red or rainbows but they won't eliminate the Cross. People may interpret the Bible differently but they won't eliminate the Bible.
Western cultures won't eliminate democracy or constitutions but those constitutions can change because democracies can vote to change them.
When two cultures clash they will change and eventually stabilize into some new form. What can be changed will change and what cannot change will not change. If the predominate culture is unwilling to accept the existence of those things that will not change the things that cannot change will be eliminated or be hidden from the predominate culture.
Religion in the U.S.S.R. Drugs in the United States. Prostitution almost everywhere. These things go into hiding because some people want them and other people are unwilling to accept their existence.
There are two prerequisites for elimination or being forced into the "underground". The first is the unwillingness of the predominate culture to accept the existence of whatever custom, value or tradition is unacceptable. The second is the unwillingness of those who participate in the unacceptable value, custom or tradition to cease participation.
In reality everyone is willing to change some things and unwilling to change other things. Exactly what can be changed varies with the person and the culture that the person is involved in.
Does muching at Mickey D's make people "American"? Of course not. If a French person buys a burger that person is still French. However, food is something the French have identified their culture with so many people in France think the food at Mickey D's disgraces their culture. Sure, it really sucks and we all know that, but, the United States does not identify their culture with Mickey D's. We identify our culture with patriotism, freedom, democracy, achievement, high standards of living. Mickey D's represents achievement in business rather than a high quality of food. Mickey D's represents the speed at which "Americans" progress.
But people in France don't associate Mickey D's with speed of progress or achievement in business. Many people associate Mickey D's with crappy food. Why would anyone want to embrace this garbage?
But cultural change is unavoidable. Sure, we can make Mickey D's illegal and the next thing you know we have the "War on Burgers" which would be a lot like the "War on Drugs" with hidden butcher shops like we have hidden drug labs.
When cultures come into contact we exchange values, customs, traditions and resources. Eventually the cultures coming into contact change to the point where they are no longer what they were. Typically the predominate culture will absorb the sub culture.
So what happens when two predominate cultures clash? They either destroy each other, absorb each other or one ends up dominating the other.
Take the current clash between Islamic cultures and Western cultures. I can guarantee that one of these two cultures will predominate the other. The two cultures have too many mutually exclusive customs and traditions. Both cultures are dependent on each other in the exchange of resources and as long as the contact exists the conflict will exist.
Which one will predominate the other? If I have to guess I would say that the Islamic nations were going to eventually dominate Western cultures and eventually Eastern cultures. That is just an opinion based on my assessment of perseverance and democracy. The Islamic nations are willing to kill off all opposition culture and the Western nations are not. The last culture left standing is predominate so ....
Even if each culture closed itself off from the other the economic pressures of co-existence would eventually force them into conflict.
We can't stop cultural change. We can attempt to manage it. The founding fathers of the United States attempted to build a constitution which incorporated the ability to plan for cultural change while ensuring specific rights. Today people are trying to eliminate some of those civil rights, like the right to keep and bare arms :-).
Democracies can change their protected rights, the right to freedom of speech is not the same in the United States and the United Kingdom. In both places it can be changed to prevent "hate speech" like speaking out against the religion of Islam.
However Islamic Law cannot change to allow speaking out against the religion of Islam.
One culture can change and exist. The other cannot change and exist.
But cultural change can't be avoided? Right and the incorporation of the West and East into Islam will result in some changes. Islam has changed some in the last 1500 years and will change some more, however, there are some things that cannot and will not change because they are fundamental to the culture.
The Catholic church might allow priests to marry again, but, they will not eliminate the Pope. The Christian church may dress in black or white or red or rainbows but they won't eliminate the Cross. People may interpret the Bible differently but they won't eliminate the Bible.
Western cultures won't eliminate democracy or constitutions but those constitutions can change because democracies can vote to change them.
When two cultures clash they will change and eventually stabilize into some new form. What can be changed will change and what cannot change will not change. If the predominate culture is unwilling to accept the existence of those things that will not change the things that cannot change will be eliminated or be hidden from the predominate culture.
Religion in the U.S.S.R. Drugs in the United States. Prostitution almost everywhere. These things go into hiding because some people want them and other people are unwilling to accept their existence.
There are two prerequisites for elimination or being forced into the "underground". The first is the unwillingness of the predominate culture to accept the existence of whatever custom, value or tradition is unacceptable. The second is the unwillingness of those who participate in the unacceptable value, custom or tradition to cease participation.
Openness and cultural change
In my last blog post we looked at a summary of my "world according to Jack" theory ending with the opinion that the most important resource for cultural change is people and the interpersonal trust relationships that they build.
The "problem/desire>solution>acceptance>stability/satisfaction" pathway is the heart of "the world according to Jack" theory.
The second most important resource for cultural change is acceptance of the possibility for change. The more open and accepting a culture is the more likely it is to undergo changes. The less open and accepting a culture is the less likely it is to undergo changes.
Change and the openness of a group to the possibility of change is directly linked with the ability or charisma of a presenter of an idea to the group.
Essentially the better someone is at encouraging others to change the less open the group has to be to change. The more open the group is the less skilled the presenter of change must be to encourage change.
If a group is open to change and there are multiple skillful presenters encouraging mutually exclusive forms of change the group becomes conflicted and stagnates, unable to change.
For cultural change to occur we need a group problem or desire. We need a presenter of a solution. We need a group open enough to embrace or accept the presenters solution. We need the solution to satisfy the desire/problem or improve the group stability.
If the group fails to stabilize or is unsatisfied with the solution the process repeats.
Again people are the most important component in cultural change.
Because change is so dependent on both the openness of the group and the ability of an individual to encourage through either coercion or convincing culture change cannot be predicted in any specific way.
We can predict that sub cultures will change in order to either cooperate with or oppose dominate cultures.
Typically the result of opposition with a dominate culture is the destruction of the sub culture. An example is the sub culture of the 1960's and early 1970's called the "Hippies" eventually dwindled away feeding into other oppositional sub cultures.
There are times when oppositional sub cultures such as the communists in Viet Nam or the revolutionaries in the United States were able to successfully oppose the predominate cultures they were in opposition to.
The specific outcome of either becoming the predominate culture or being eliminated is so dependent on human variability and the available resources that the longterm outcome is often impossible to predict.
For example some people will claim that the "Hippie" sub culture was not eliminated even though it is not the dominate culture in the United States. The distinctive forms of dress, hair styles, language and the cultural focus on "peace" that predominated in the "Hippie" sub culture are not currently predominate in the United States. Many younger people don't even know the word "Hippie".
People who believe strongly in the cultural values of that sub culture will insist that they have been incorporated into the predominate culture. When President Bush sent troops into both Afghanistan and Iraq his public approval ratings were in the 90% range.
Today those decisions are regarded differently, however, for a culture focused on the value of "peace" which was central to the "Hippie" sub culture a 90% public approval rating at the time for a President involved in a controversial war tells us quite a lot.
Regardless of the example used to demonstrate the idea or the ability of the individual to objectify their response to an example I stand firmly behind the premise that human variability prevents the possibility of creating a model that will predict cultural change.
The "problem/desire>solution>acceptance>stability/satisfaction" pathway is the heart of "the world according to Jack" theory.
The second most important resource for cultural change is acceptance of the possibility for change. The more open and accepting a culture is the more likely it is to undergo changes. The less open and accepting a culture is the less likely it is to undergo changes.
Change and the openness of a group to the possibility of change is directly linked with the ability or charisma of a presenter of an idea to the group.
Essentially the better someone is at encouraging others to change the less open the group has to be to change. The more open the group is the less skilled the presenter of change must be to encourage change.
If a group is open to change and there are multiple skillful presenters encouraging mutually exclusive forms of change the group becomes conflicted and stagnates, unable to change.
For cultural change to occur we need a group problem or desire. We need a presenter of a solution. We need a group open enough to embrace or accept the presenters solution. We need the solution to satisfy the desire/problem or improve the group stability.
If the group fails to stabilize or is unsatisfied with the solution the process repeats.
Again people are the most important component in cultural change.
Because change is so dependent on both the openness of the group and the ability of an individual to encourage through either coercion or convincing culture change cannot be predicted in any specific way.
We can predict that sub cultures will change in order to either cooperate with or oppose dominate cultures.
Typically the result of opposition with a dominate culture is the destruction of the sub culture. An example is the sub culture of the 1960's and early 1970's called the "Hippies" eventually dwindled away feeding into other oppositional sub cultures.
There are times when oppositional sub cultures such as the communists in Viet Nam or the revolutionaries in the United States were able to successfully oppose the predominate cultures they were in opposition to.
The specific outcome of either becoming the predominate culture or being eliminated is so dependent on human variability and the available resources that the longterm outcome is often impossible to predict.
For example some people will claim that the "Hippie" sub culture was not eliminated even though it is not the dominate culture in the United States. The distinctive forms of dress, hair styles, language and the cultural focus on "peace" that predominated in the "Hippie" sub culture are not currently predominate in the United States. Many younger people don't even know the word "Hippie".
People who believe strongly in the cultural values of that sub culture will insist that they have been incorporated into the predominate culture. When President Bush sent troops into both Afghanistan and Iraq his public approval ratings were in the 90% range.
Today those decisions are regarded differently, however, for a culture focused on the value of "peace" which was central to the "Hippie" sub culture a 90% public approval rating at the time for a President involved in a controversial war tells us quite a lot.
Regardless of the example used to demonstrate the idea or the ability of the individual to objectify their response to an example I stand firmly behind the premise that human variability prevents the possibility of creating a model that will predict cultural change.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Summarizing
My past several blog posts all relate
to cultural anthropology and my theory, “the world according to
Jack”. I'm Jack.
My theory starts out with the idea that
both people and cultural groups begin with either a problem or a
desire which requires a solution. The individual or group utilizes
the resources available to create a solution which is acceptable to
the individual or the group as a whole.
The most important resource in
developing these solutions is the people involved and not the
material resources. Material resources are important and yet they
are not any where near as important as the individuals involved.
According to “the world according to
Jack” people have two basic biological predispositions which are
important to this process of implementing cultural solutions. The
first is the predisposition to group together to enhance the ability
of the group to survive. The second is the predisposition to assure
their position within the group to enhance their individual survival.
Specific individuals who have
“charisma” will present ideas which are more likely to be
accepted by the group even if those ideas are not “technically
accurate” or prevent the group from developing technologically.
Consistency is important to developing interpersonal trust issues, although to much consistency can lead to stagnation.
Consistency is important to developing interpersonal trust issues, although to much consistency can lead to stagnation.
The group acceptance of these ideas
becomes important in the survival of individuals within the group.
The more important the group believes an individual is to their
survival the less likely the group is to abandon that person.
Individuals who constantly present ideas which the group rejects will
be abandoned or marginalized by the group regardless of the technical
accuracy of the presented solutions. This marginalizing reduces the
individuals importance to the group which decreases the probability
of survival of the individual.
Solutions are created and accepted by
people and approved by people regardless of secondary issues such as
technical accuracy. The survival of individuals is tied to their
ability to provide the group with acceptable solutions.
“Charisma” is a form of
interpersonal trust relationship established between individuals.
This interpersonal trust relationship between people is the most
important issue in the adoption of a presented solution.
There are a lot of different ways that
we as a group attempt to define the “charisma” of an individual.
Presidential approval ratings are one way. Voting is another.
Sometimes a small group can “bully”
a larger majority into the acceptance of a solution using media tools
called “propaganda”. Attacks are made ridiculing solutions to
groups issues in the attempt to humiliate those who support those
solutions.
People will support a solution to an
issue and will resist changing that solution until it becomes obvious
that the current solution no longer solves the problem/desire that it
was meant to solve.
In the end the technical or material
resources are far less important in the application of a cultural
solution, cultural ritual, cultural law, than the human resources
available and the ability of those individuals presenting solutions
to establish interpersonal trust relationships with other members of
the cultural group.
Interpersonal trust issues, cultural anthropology and the solutions to problems
People love consistency, unless that consistency is something that has rotted away and once people understand that the consistency has become stagnation and rot they will reject the rotten stagnation.
WTF does that mean?
Suppose you put some water in a canteen and take a sip of 1/10th of 1 ounce every week. How many weeks before the water becomes so disgusting you can't drink it anymore? Instead of the canteen being a solution to the problem of water storage it has become a problem of stagnation.
Often the solutions become stagnant. Once more we return to the rejection of the heliocentric universe theorized by Aristarchus and the acceptance of the geocentric universe theorized by Aristotle.
Aristotle's theory eventually became stagnant and was rejected, yet, very few people run around talking about how great Aristarchus's ideas were. This is because Aristarchus's theories were rejected as "rotten" hundreds of years before Christ.
I am a very inconsistent person, on purpose. I rarely do anything the same way all the time. I am constantly stressing myself by changing how I shave, the route I drive to a place, etc. I develop almost no routines. Consistency breeds stagnation.
Consistency also encourages trust. If something is always the same people can trust it to be the same.
Aristotle was usually right so people trusted Aristotle to be right about the universe.
Unfortunately consistency eventually becomes stagnation. How quickly something "rots" away depends on a bunch of things. It took almost two thousand years for Aristotle's geocentric theory to "rot" away.
Since scientists seek to have their work trusted they try to be very consistent in what they do and say.
This creates a level of emotional involvement. If you want to see a temper tantrum just prevent an obsessive person from completing a ritual. The more obsessive the person is the more of a temper tantrum they will throw because the rituals involved in consistency become emotional.
We HAVE to do those rituals.
We also HAVE to question those rituals constantly or we are no longer scientists, we are religious nut jobs and our religion is the consistent ritual we engage in.
Maybe, like Archimedes, our Ritual is the unwavering support of a scientist we believe in, like Aristotle.
Maybe our ritual is something different.
Maybe our society, our culture, has rituals or consistent actions that it takes as a group which no longer make any sense. Maybe the argument can be made that those rituals never did make any sense, yet, at some point the group required them because the group believed that they did. Aristotle's geocentric theory is once again a perfect example.
In hind site it is often easy to see problem rituals. When we as individuals ,or we as a society, are engaged in those rituals it can be much more difficult to see how ridiculous they are. History often ridicules "rituals" or "customs" which have fallen out of favor.
We, as people, as cultures, as societies, need to question our "customs" and our "rituals" constantly. We need to debate them and discuss them. We don't need to fight about them, but, we will because we become emotionally involved in our rituals and our customs the way Archimedes became emotionally involved in his support of Aristotle and his opposition to Aristarchus.
Our emotions help us trust people. Consistency helps us build trust in relationships. Trust is important in the acceptance of cultural solutions and our emotions play a huge part in building that trust.
Emotions and consistency can also become stagnant pools of rotten water which can kill us if we continue to drink it after it turns.
Question emotions. Question trust. Question consistency.
Now, these questions won't make you popular. People will attack and condemn for questioning "truth" as given to us by our authority figures such as our teachers. Eventually someone else will take credit for your theories the way Copernicus now receives credit for the theories originally postulated by Aristarchus.
Yet we can stir the waters preventing stagnation and even death with our questions and our sacrifice.
WTF does that mean?
Suppose you put some water in a canteen and take a sip of 1/10th of 1 ounce every week. How many weeks before the water becomes so disgusting you can't drink it anymore? Instead of the canteen being a solution to the problem of water storage it has become a problem of stagnation.
Often the solutions become stagnant. Once more we return to the rejection of the heliocentric universe theorized by Aristarchus and the acceptance of the geocentric universe theorized by Aristotle.
Aristotle's theory eventually became stagnant and was rejected, yet, very few people run around talking about how great Aristarchus's ideas were. This is because Aristarchus's theories were rejected as "rotten" hundreds of years before Christ.
I am a very inconsistent person, on purpose. I rarely do anything the same way all the time. I am constantly stressing myself by changing how I shave, the route I drive to a place, etc. I develop almost no routines. Consistency breeds stagnation.
Consistency also encourages trust. If something is always the same people can trust it to be the same.
Aristotle was usually right so people trusted Aristotle to be right about the universe.
Unfortunately consistency eventually becomes stagnation. How quickly something "rots" away depends on a bunch of things. It took almost two thousand years for Aristotle's geocentric theory to "rot" away.
Since scientists seek to have their work trusted they try to be very consistent in what they do and say.
This creates a level of emotional involvement. If you want to see a temper tantrum just prevent an obsessive person from completing a ritual. The more obsessive the person is the more of a temper tantrum they will throw because the rituals involved in consistency become emotional.
We HAVE to do those rituals.
We also HAVE to question those rituals constantly or we are no longer scientists, we are religious nut jobs and our religion is the consistent ritual we engage in.
Maybe, like Archimedes, our Ritual is the unwavering support of a scientist we believe in, like Aristotle.
Maybe our ritual is something different.
Maybe our society, our culture, has rituals or consistent actions that it takes as a group which no longer make any sense. Maybe the argument can be made that those rituals never did make any sense, yet, at some point the group required them because the group believed that they did. Aristotle's geocentric theory is once again a perfect example.
In hind site it is often easy to see problem rituals. When we as individuals ,or we as a society, are engaged in those rituals it can be much more difficult to see how ridiculous they are. History often ridicules "rituals" or "customs" which have fallen out of favor.
We, as people, as cultures, as societies, need to question our "customs" and our "rituals" constantly. We need to debate them and discuss them. We don't need to fight about them, but, we will because we become emotionally involved in our rituals and our customs the way Archimedes became emotionally involved in his support of Aristotle and his opposition to Aristarchus.
Our emotions help us trust people. Consistency helps us build trust in relationships. Trust is important in the acceptance of cultural solutions and our emotions play a huge part in building that trust.
Emotions and consistency can also become stagnant pools of rotten water which can kill us if we continue to drink it after it turns.
Question emotions. Question trust. Question consistency.
Now, these questions won't make you popular. People will attack and condemn for questioning "truth" as given to us by our authority figures such as our teachers. Eventually someone else will take credit for your theories the way Copernicus now receives credit for the theories originally postulated by Aristarchus.
Yet we can stir the waters preventing stagnation and even death with our questions and our sacrifice.
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