h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Maybe you did or you didn't say it Sneaky, but that's what I heard.

Maybe saying I ain't preaching doesn't change anything too.

Anyways, the paving issue got me to thinking about where people often do development, and much of it is in floodplains. Now it doesn't usually matter as long as you build huge flood control structures but again you've developed over some of the best farm land with the best soils and why would you do that? And you've put yourself in an area where you need flood control or you get washed out. How much economic sense does that make.

It's never made any sense to me except that's where the people often dropped anchor or whatever. There just doesn't seem much reasoning behind locating urban areas. Nevermind whether there's really any use for urban areas to begin with, especially now when people facilitate trade with cellphones and computers.

In fact a lot of people just want to get out it and get a home office out in the rural areas when they can, so what's the incentive really?

I know you probably don't even want to talk about it but I've been questioned for years about why we do stuff the way we do, and I thought we had some pretty good reasons, such as it works without polluting everything in sight, but that's apparently good enough.

So there's always these theories about what would work better if somebody just had some more land for a golf course, and I'm wondering how you can arrive at that conclusion given the mess that's already around. Doesn't it bother you?

Why do we just have to accept this stuff or perish? I think that's the main issue really.

Sorry, disregard all that previous. You're right it's over.

Take a look..

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/02/60minutes/main576332.shtml

They got one of mine in their friggin glass case. And courtesy of Prescott Bush no less!!

Rita was right!! You can't deal with monsters.

So the only new technology I need to hear about from you is something that can let me fry every power grid from sea to shining sea simultaneously and let me watch the people line up in front of the boarded up super markets. See if they want to shriek about that huh?

Sorry, I should be used to it by now shouldn't I? Just blow it off. College boy prank right?

How can you or anybody else wonder why we get hostile? Because of all the graves they could have robbed in the whole damn country, who's do they pick?

Do you suppose that was just a random thing? Do you suppose it's intent wasn't to shame and mock the people they stole the land from? Do you suppose it wasn't to demonstrate their overwhelming plenary powers?

Gawd I hope the Koreans and Chinese and Arabs and Africans and whoever else who can get the balls kick their friggin asses to the moon or beyond. These monsters don't even belong on this planet!

You have every right to be angry about what has happened to your peoples. It is horrible, worse then the ethnic cleansing nazi Germany forwarded in the first half of the twentieth century. However, wishing for some forigner to fix the problem is not useful. They don't care. The only people that do unfortunately no longer have what is necessary to change anything. That is one of the reasons I say that race is irrelivant. It is a way to maintain division between the masses so that the status quo is maintained, so that the plans of depopulation will continue without opposition.

While I understand your wish to regress to an older way of life is admirable, it is completely unworkable. I'm interested in a real solution for the future. There are lessons of the past that can be useful for any real solution, but there has to be more to it to actually work. In order to fix the problems the way things actually are must be taken into consideration. You don't do this. That is why I keep repeating myself, to point out the things you seem to overlook. Just because you are against technology does not meant that it is all bad. It also does not mean that it is possible to do away with it all. Just won't work that way. In my last posting of length I had posed several questions that I think need to be addressed, but I really don't think that will happen here.

The reason I made the racism comment is that all I had been reading from you kept saying, 'white' this and 'white' that. How would you feel if I kept saying 'red' this and 'red' that? Perspective is definately a problem, but this is rediculous. If it is people of caucasion skin that are the problem, why on earth have you been talking to me? You are consistant on your history, but not your beliefs. At one point you say to me that you have no problem with people based upon race, and then you keep white bashing me. Why do you think I asked you about the song 'Don't Call Me White'? It was the most diplomatic way to point out the offensive way you keep refering to white people. I don't call you a savage, don't call me a monster. It's about respect, something you have been lacking as of late. I have abandoned that in my last few postings, but that is out of disgust more than any lack of respect for you or yours.

There are serious problems with the way things are, and I for one am in search of serious solutions. Solutions that deal with the problems in realistic ways. That is why I started this conversation. That is what you have been dancing around the whole time. Without taking into consideration the way things actually are, no good will come of continuing this conversation. On my space there are a few links. One is for a site by the moniker No More Fake News. I strongly suggest you read the entirety of that site for a look at the way things are. If you do, you will understand more of what I've been saying.

I wish you many good friends and success in your endeavors.

-Kevin

By the way, I do have the plans to do just as you want. I have the knowhow to destroy a great chunk of the grid, but will not. I also will not share information on how to destroy to anybody that might actually use it. You say that there are monsters in the world. What about you? If you were to destroy all that you hate, would you be any better? Please think before you speak.

Is farming the only allowable occupation? No, there are many ways of foraging for food. But practically everyone who is able bodied should probably be involved in that task, not pushing papers around a desk while others do the chores, taking the lion's share of the produce and then reselling it to get even richer.

I'm not talking about returning to 400 years ago. People do what I'm talking about all over the world when they're allowed to. That's the problem. Even your technology doesn't work if people won't allow you to practice it. That's why the problem isn't necessarily technological. It's political. That's been my point which you keep dancing around.

When the political system won't allow people to grow food or forage in their own territories they become dependent on that system. That I've described many times already.

It's not a problem of scarcity. It's a problem of some people taking way more than their fair share by coercion and intimidation. It's about protection rackets.

Your technology can't address that problem let alone solve it. All you'll end up doing is applying a patch to the tire when the tire needs to be replaced.

Is there a problem with hydroponics? Sure there is. There's a problem with any technology if it's missapplied.

Hydroponics specifically was developed over 2000 years ago to support the rise of the Mayan civilization in Guatemala and Honduras. And it worked very well there apparently. It doesn't work well in Nevada without a huge infrastructure investment that includes securing a lot more water than there is there and that makes it a good deal less applicable or economic.

Other technologies work better in Nevada such as protecting and cultivating native plants who are drought resistant among other things.

There's nothing wrong with world. The creator didn't make a mistake. The whites think so though. They think they can do better and repeatedly they do worse and wonder why? People who do the same things over and over thinking they'll get different results are crazy.

Why do I assume technological advancement as defined in Euroamerican culture is geared to war? Because it is and has been for a long time.

People inevitably find non-military applications for some of it but in the US alone over 300 billion dollars a year is spent on the military. Imagine what could be done with that money if it wasn't being squandered on war making? Again this isn't a technology problem. It's a political problem.

In the task of foraging for food, money isn't more efficient. It's less efficient. People can get by without money rather easily, if their allowed to. Again it's a political problem.

Money for taxes, money for seed, money for fertilizer, money for tractors. The reason the aylla system worked in Peru and Bolivia and would still work if it was allowed to work is because people could render taxes in kind. Nobody produces money except the government, but anybody can produce food or handiwork or livestock or the products thereof.

While technology is here to stay, we don't have to use every technology unless we're forced to. And we can certainly develop other technologies but it would help if we considered not simply whether or not we can do something but also whether or not we SHOULD do something. That isn't often considered in the Euroamerican culture unfortunately.

And before we go off in all direction developing things, it might pay to look at what's already available and in use outside the Euroamerican paradigm and make allowances for it even if you don't really want to do things like that. At least consider how it doesn't take anything from you, but you often must take from it to sustain yourselves. That's not a technology problem. That's a moral problem.

The Irish found they could sustain a family on two acres with potatoes. Potato cultivation was and still is an Andean technology.

After rice, corn is the most cultivated grain in the world. Corn cultivation was originally a Mexican technology that spread throughout the Americas. It is one of the most sophisticated technologies ever devised taking probably thousands of years of empirical research and development.

But both these technologies involve much more than just turning the soil and planting seeds, then weeding and harvesting. They involve respect for all the community of living things.

Until you and people like you understand that you will continue to develop technologies that don't enhance life but threaten it, that favor the few over the many, that destroy more than is produced, that create more problems than are solved.

So in a way it is you who are being backward here. Maybe it's time you learned to progress, to evolve in harmony not conflict.

It's funny sometimes when the people who once called me an ignorant filthy squaw and who proudly proclaimed that they were white now take exception when I call them by the same name. It's almost like now that they must observe the decorum of forgoing their perjorative names for me, in least in polite society, I must forgo calling them white.

Well, considering what's happened and how this is probably just peevishness at being thwarted on something that's rather insignificant anyways, since I've already been called everything bad that these people can think of, I don't think I'm going to be too concerned now. If you don't like it that's your problem, because for me white means non-indian, and even in your language it has never had any perjorative connotations.

Causasian is a German concept developed in the nineteenth century to justify white supremacy. It might be your concept then and I leave it to you for whatever it's worth.

Maybe you can cure the world's ills with your brand of technology. But I doubt it. Still you're going to try anyways no matter what I say. I accept that.

I mean you no personal disrespect. It's your choice. Maybe you might find something that makes sense to me. A few people do from time to time. I just like to think I got the option of taking it or leaving it. That's what freedom and self-deterination mean to me. Being able to go my own way with my own people.

I'm not seeking to hurt you although I can't say I wouldn't shut down the grid if I could. It would be a tempting shortcut but upon reflection I know it probably wouldn't solve the problem and really isn't what you deserve. You probably deserve far worse given the scale of injuries we've suffered, but that's for you to decide among yourselves if you ever do.

I don't think I can really touch you anyways. I think it's a waste of time. So I'll go my own way with my own people, maybe publicizing the continued abuses when they arise so that I don't have to deal with the dolts who say they didn't know.

They will know then but they still won't do anything about it and that's okay. They'll pay for that sooner or later. It's not my problem.

My problem is to survive and endure in a stormy white sea. I can do that and if at some point I can't, well we're all going to die sometime.

I haven't had much choice in the matter. I've acculturated as best I could but I haven't assimulated much and don't plan to. That's just how I am.

If you can accept who and what I am, fine. If you can't, that's your problem. I hope you can deal with it without resorting to coercion or intimidation but I'm not optimistic. 500 years of empirical data doesn't support optimism with this stuff.

My homeland is already occupied by foreigners so if other foreigners hurt them, that's too bad. They have my sympathy which is probably worth as much to them as their sympathy is worth to me.

You've asserted that you only deal with what is real, real problems or whatever, but your reality isn't the only one. I could say the same thing to you then and probably feel as important as you do.

But I got better things to do like Goyakla, following his own way with his own people. And each year the power of his spirit grows with the runners at Mount Graham. And it's growing in other ways in other places. The power is growing until it will drive the monsters beneath the ground and the people can live upon the earth again.

It's probably your choice whether or not you want to identify with the monsters. That also ain't my problem. In time, if I'm lucky I'll have my own kids to raise and I'll try to raise them to walk in beauty not identify with monsters. That's the best I can do.

Take care.

Upon further reflection, I think that hydrogen car might not be such a bad idea after all.

I was thinking if you could actually retrofit it to one of the cannibalized classics I might drive around the rez, it would make visiting much cheaper probably if I stayed close to the river which is sometimes a problem but I think depending on the mileage it just might be doable.

I'd probably have to steer clear of gas stations though because if you ask them for the key to the ladies' room to get refill your canteens they sort of get pissed off if you don't buy no gas.

I guess I could maybe steal water out of people's hoses in town too if nobody was looking.

But seriously it might actually work pretty good if like I say you could retrofit it. I'm sure there's no way I could afford a new one so I'd have to wait for a few people to wreck theirs before I could afford one so I'd have enough parts between all the wrecks to make one that ran decent.

Do you suppose it might make more sense to have it work like a diesel electric locomotive? I mean have electric motors on the wheels and have them running off a generator that's fueled by hydrogen. And part of current goes to split the water like you said. Could you really generate enough electricity to do all that and still end up with enough hydrogen to fuel the generator?

'Do you suppose it might make more sense to have it work like a diesel electric locomotive?'

Regenerative braking systems would be a possibility to recover some of the inertial energy. Not entirely necissary, but a good idea. Hybrid technology would also be a help. Use the combustion of hydrogen to power the car up to speed, then use more efficient electric moters to cruise, then apply regenerative braking to gain some of the energy lost. That, however, is way beyond anything I have in mind for right now. Not to mention beyond my abilities to create.

'Could you really generate enough electricity to do all that and still end up with enough hydrogen to fuel the generator?'

Yes. There are some very efficient alternator/generators for automobile use out there. Especially at 1500 rpms and up. Power is sacrificed, but that's not really the point with a hydrogen run auto. The only real problem I've managed to find with the way that I know of is that a small part would still require some type of lubrication. Lithium grease would work, but I'm not sure enough of the production of it to try. The hemp plant could be used for this purpose, and it's easily renewable. For the most part I'm planning on using sealed bearing from marine tech to provide the lubrication necissary. A good vehicle to use (if having parts is a problem) would be an old Volkswagon Beetle. There are hundreds of thousands of them in salvage yards everywhere to be had at a cheap price. $50 could buy one. So maybe you have to buy ten to build one that works. That's still cheap.

The thing to remember is that the hydrogen car I propose is really a stop gap measure to buy time. The car GM is currently promoting is a cleaner and more efficient method, but how long till that's a feasable alternative? Will the oil supplies last that long? I don't really think so, but that's me.

You're most likely right about using hydroponics in the more arid regions, but I'm sure you know of a half dozen ways to farm that land. What I was suggesting was smaller setups to be used in inner city neighborhoods where there is no longer viable farm land. I'm from an area that is always wet, so I have a hard time concieving what might be necissary where water isn't so plentiful. Though I still say that there are other honest professions besides feeding people. That's just part of my paradigm. I don't expect you to agree, just not to bash it.

About money. It's not widespread, but there are private money systems in America. They are all local, formed by a group of people that are sick of the top heavy system in place now. What's stoping the rest of us from doing the same? Credibility on my end. I need to have more of a presance in the community before I can convince them to start using an alternative money system. I also need to work out some basic rules for how that money would operate, without screwing everybody out of what they work for. The trick is, it's only considered a crime if the words 'legal tender' are printed on the money. Other than that, all bets are off. Hell, the only reason there is a fed bank (which is unconstitutional, if that matters) is to deal with the influx of gold money from California in the early 1800's.

Speaking of money and California, what's your take on Arnold? I heard him say something about taxing the native casino's to help with the debt. There are problems with the accounting in that state, which is the real problem. Here's something to think about. Arnold announced his candidacy on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, brodcast by NBC. NBC is owned by GE, which is heavily invested in nuclear power. The power grid in California, which Arnold is now the governor, is the main reason there was a recal election. There was no better campaign add than to announce candidacy on the Tonight Show. Created an instant approval by the applause and cheering of the studio audiance. You can't buy that kind of publicity. It's a PR man's wet dream.

Bet ya fifty bucks and a fifth of good booze that GE will start construction on new power plants in CA sometime during Arnold's tenure as Governor.

I honestly think that everything will change, drastically, inside of twenty years. The only thing left to figure out is how. Who's way is going to prevail? I don't much like the answer I have right now, which is why I'm so adamant about finding a solution. From what I see, there is going to be death on a scale unimaginable, and previously unknown to humankind. The attempted genocide of your people will pale in comparison to the billions that are slated to die. This is what I see. This is why I say that race no longer matters. White, black, red, yellow, green, orange, purple, we will all die if things remain the same. That is a political problem. You're absolutely right.

What do you see in the next twenty years?

About hydroponics in the urban areas I would think twice. Why make the investment?

Consider much of the land is already covered with lawns. Lawns don't feed anybody, not even rabbits, so how can you afford to support such ornamental stuff? Yet lawns take water, the other vital resource besides the land. Couldn't that be better spent? Yes it could.

Even a miniscule lot planted in crops instead of grass could defray the overhead that poorer families have with food bills, but they don't get the option because it violates code or the character of the neighborhood or whatever.

Lawns in public parks are another example. What do they produce for the public welfare? Practically nothing but a place to spread a blanket for a picnic or a touch football game. While that might be important to some people now it won't be of any importance at all if they're starving.

Ponds and lakes in the parks might be used in the type of hydroponic technology that was practiced by the Maya among others. Water hyacinth might be readily grown in them in some regions and used as fertilizer for the corn along the shores. Gradually the thing would shrink is it rose to finally become a very fertile mound upon which to conduct more conventional farming.

Former industrial areas along rivers that are currently being transformed into condos for the upper classes could instead be used to farm. Marshes could be restored to trap heavy metals and other pollutants quite cheaply. This has already been done in parts of New Jersey I think. Just because a piece of land has been put to urban or industrial uses doesn't mean it can't be put to agricultural or even wildlife uses after the former uses become uneconomic.

Some wildlife thrives in urban or suburban environments like coyotes and whitetail deer. The deer at least could be used to supplement the urban food supply just as they're used in rural areas.

One of the curious things about cultures is how they perceive the food supply.

For example, when the immigrants, the Mormons, came into the Great Salt Lake Valley in Utah, they decided to farm the area using irrigation. They saw it as a wilderness after all. So they did this, digging ditches and planting wheat.

Then crickets came in hordes and devoured the wheat. The Mormons thought they were doomed because their efforts to destroy the crickets had no noticable effect.

Then seagulls from around the lake came and ate the crickets. The Mormons thought this was an act of God in their favor and they made a monument to the seagulls that still stands in Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

Now please notice something, the seagulls came from around the lake and ate the crickets. Whatever birds can eat people can eat too. Yet it never occurred to these "pioneers" that they could eat the crickets same as the birds. In fact the crickets would have been higher in many nutrients than the wheat. So sacrificing the wheat would have been no sacrifice at all really.

Instead of viewing the event as a plague they could have viewed it as a blessing because it doesn't happen all the time. Most of the time they would have had to hunt the crickets, gather them maybe in traps.

So, yes, maybe the hand of God was in it, but they didn't understand what that hand was doing, what the vision they were shown actually meant.

Likewise people will often look at the land and not see anything to eat, yet the food is all around them, growing according to its nature.

Mesquite trees bear pods of beans, sometimes called tepary beans. They are very high in protein and fat, very nutrious, but just as importantly they are also high in muscilages which inhibit or slow down the digestion of sugar and fat.

So you can eat a lot of them and not develop obesity or diabetes, something native people forgot for awhile. Those native people then ate junk food and got fat and diabetic and often just by returning to a diet of native foods, they can control those conditions without medication.

Pinyon pines are similar in providing a very nutritious food, pinenuts, and these are not the same as the pinenuts you get from Italy for pesto or whatever. They're much larger. However, gathering and processing them is very labor intensive. Even so you can make bread out of them or dry them and store them indefinitely.

They mature every few years and the people still frequently come together to gather and process them. They also hold dances where young people can court each other and older people can reestablish family ties.

This sort of thing was much more frequent and better attended in the past of course because there more people then who knew about the pinenuts. There were also more pinenuts because there were more trees, but the ranchers who invaded the area chained many of the trees, that is tore them up by the roots with logging chains tied between tractors, to make pasture. Now the pasture has been overgrazed and with no trees there's little chance it can be restored in anyone's lifetime.

So really, food is all around us if we look and can see the cycles that produce it so we know when it matures, how much we can take and still leave some to grow more and so on. That's one of the technologies that has been lost or suppressed because of some people's unwillingness to look and see.

There used to be many fish in Utah Lake and people would live there year round harvesting those fish. They were called fish eaters and by Father Escalante, Lagunas, because they lived by the lake. But then they were driven away and confined to a reservation in the Uintah Valley. And the lake was soon fished out by the immigrants except for sporting fish which are sustained by captive breeding programs.

Fisheries might after all be considered a form of hydroponics. Salmon in the Northwest were the buffalo of the tribes there. They harvested them when they came up the rivers and spawned just like the bears did. The fry hatched then and swam down river to the ocean where they spent four or five years maturing then they would return to spawn again.

The immigrants built dams that disrupted this cycle and the fish began to disappear, so then they built fish ladders but that only arrested some of the losses. The main losses were from huge factory ships fishing the salmon out in the ocean before they had matured. So they had to catch more of them to get the same amount of meat as they could have gotten by just waiting a few years and fishing according to the natural cycle.

So shortsightedness, not looking or seeing, has caused a great fishery to be disrupted and devalued. And this is true of many formerly flush fisheries all over the world that have now either been destroyed or seriously depleted.

The immigrants don't take what they need, they take what they want and however much they want no matter who it hurts, even if it hurts them in the long term.

Another interesting example of a kind of hydroponics can be seen with the Seri who live on the coast west of the Rahimari by the Sea of Cortez. They used to harvest the grain of sea grass that used to grow there in abundance, the only known such seagrass agriculture in the world. But the Spaniards and later the Mexicans destroyed most of that grass with pollution and other things so now the Seri sell santos, carvings of saints, in the markets to survive.

Imagine what sea grain might mean to people living on the coasts of many continents or islands in the world. Yet nobody looks at that. Nobody seems to see the opportunity. Instead they look at growing tomatoes under plastic or genetically engineered soy beans to make fake hamburger.

So what does that mean for the future?

It probably means that the progress we might have had will be squandered on stuff that makes a few people rich, as usual.

Someone wrote that as the wars of the 20th century were faught over oil, so the wars of the 21st century will be faught over water. I think that's right.

China has already taken steps in conquering Tibet to secure her water supply since practically all her great rivers rise in that land. You could probably find other areas where this will happen in the next 20 years.

Jobs will continue to be outsourced to regions of the Third World gaining short term profits for the multi-national corporations at the expense of the long term welfare of everyone. Why?

Because the people who work for those wages won't be able to afford the products they make so either the prices will have to be reduced thus cutting into the profit margins or the people will need staggering sources of credit which will further enslave them to the rich and powerful.

I think within 20 years conditions might even deteriorate so badly that worldwise revolution might actually happen. I think this will be principly because of water shortages. People can live without oil far longer than they can live without water. So the desperation will become so acute that no weapons of mass destruction will be able to suppress it.

The abilities of the professional classes will decline in the next 20 years as they have in previous generations until no one will really know how the global system works or how to fix it, so it will simply collapse under it's own decadent bulk.

Then people will be forced to fall back on local resources. There won't be anymore grapes out of season or cheap bananas. There will be whatever you can find or grow where you live.

And there will probably be much death and destruction but that is the price that we'll all pay for the indiscretions of a few in not maintaining the balance.

In 20 years the American Empire will fall. The United States might even cease to exist as such being like the former Soviet Union, still relatively powerful but no longer powerful enough to dominate any significant portion of the globe outside it's territorial boundaries.

That would be a very good thing in restoring the balance and empowering local communities.

Depending on how brutal the transition is, people might decide that big anything is contrary to God's law or just not very smart and, for a time, the urge to acquire empire might be suppressed. Regional conflicts will probably not be any more frequent than they are now though because one of the chief instigators of such conflicts now are the so-called great powers and their powers probably won't be so great.

The urban civilization might hang on in some areas, especially those which have had it for thousands of years but in the newer colonized areas it will probably be dropped in favor of more dispersed civilizations especially in those areas where dispersion has been traditional because it takes into account the local environmental conditions.

So in 20 years the world might have many areas full of ruins but around those ruins, if you look and see, you might notice thriving communites once again allowed to evolve according to their own traditions in their lands.

When the French overthrew their aristocracy, it was regarded by many in Europe as an unmitigated disaster, especially the bloodbaths that decimated that aristocracy, but in the end I think it worked out better than what was being done before.

If you don't restore the balance periodically and frequently, then the imbalance gets so large that it finally snaps back with disasterous consequences. Unfortunately, many people don't look at that and see. So maybe they are the ones who most frequently perish like the French aristocrats who couldn't see the consequences that would result from their injustices.

That's too bad, but they had the choice and they said, "Let them eat cake," when told there wasn't enough bread to eat. I don't think many tears were shed for them do you?

You can live well in this world if you behave well. Note I didn't say live rich, or live powerful, or live without regard to the rights of others. Those ways are short lived. History is strewn with the ruins of the monumental arrogances that the world punished by and by. That's how the world works and you can live with it or die without it as you choose.