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

"Stay where you are"?

What about travel broadening the mind?

"Society doesn't stop being agricultural just because production gets controlled by a few lords of the manor or captains of industry. People still have to grow food or find it somehow. And the truth is humans don't really "produce" anything anymore than amoebas do. They find it, they gather it, they help it grow sometimes but the food does it's own thing according to the weather and seasons and so on."

Now *that* leads to an interesting question. If cropland is owned and operated by agribusiness, planting is mechanised, irrigation is mechanised, harvesting is mechanised and culling the harvest is done by a bunch of hourly workers in the factory to which the harvest was shipped, is the society agricultural? Sure, agriculture happens, but the people involved are doing a job, like any other. Is *SOCIETY* agricultural, though? Me, I don't think so. If nobody except the owners of the land, who play no part in the actual growing of the crops other that to pay someone else to see that it gets done have any vested interest in seeing that the quality and quantity of what is grown is adequate, if the people directly involved in the growing of the crop are just looking to make enough money to sustain themselves in whatever lifestyle they're used to, agriculture still happens, but society doesn't enter into the picture.


"You're not entitled to control anything. You ask first and express your needs, not wants, but needs, and you make deals that make sense for everybody so we share, not shove. Get it?"

As a principle for how things should be, I couldn't agree more. The problem comes in when we're confronted by the reality that the people who are inclined to shove, do. A lot of people have dedicated their lives to shoving. They spend a lot of time shoving each other, as well as the rest of us. So, do we shove back or do we let them take what they want and hope that they leave us with enough to begin to meet our needs? If we shove back, how do we do it effectively without becoming like them?

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I agree with the principle as well. It is a problem in a goodwill system, that if one person or a group of people discover they can exploit it, they will.

Come fly with me?

Nah, it ain't true, these ties that bind, this material flesh, 'tain't so foul, especially not after a dip in the stream - of water or electrons.

sure you're right: balance, care for the unknown other, doing the just thing without concern for reward, ... good to live by.

predation, it's a terrible thing, pejorative too. when needed and approved by those with whom we share our existance to ensure survival, now that makes it viable? perhaps?

whether you walk, or fly, or swim, I wish you do it in beauty.

I think you've identified the problem pretty well, O. It's sort of a matter of perception and connection.

Which is why Stalin's thing sort of cratered. He tried to change the Ukraine into some sort of agribusiness and the Americans have also done it on the Plains and great desert uplands of Washington State as well as in Third World countries. Big agriculture creates big problems, just as it did for the Romans.

The economies of scale get out of scale to the point that they can no longer function well and food gets dumped instead of eaten.

But there's more money in the distribution same as with electrical power or other so-called commodities. You broker food like electricity or crude oil. And you collect profits for doing essentially very little. The food's already there and you make arrangements to get it here for the best price you can get. Then you claim to be able to feed the world but it's a lie.

You can't even feed people in your own country. And people ask why that is? Why can't the most technologically advanced society on earth feed it's own people? Maybe it's because you really can't treat food like integrated circuit boards after all?

If you can make the distinction between visiting and vanquishing, Roadkill, you can answer your question don't you think?

Thanks, Kyaa, for the good wishes. I think you might even know what beauty means too. That's very gratifying for me to know.

it seems to me that the answer to your question 'O' on what to do about the shoving was provided, for one (and maybe by many others as well), by Jesus: "turn the other cheek." of course, you'll tell me, look what it got him.

perhaps, there is the inkling of an idea in what Siddhartha said, many centuries before Jesus: "do not to others as you would have them not do to you."

maybe it is Mohammed, some centuries after Jesus, whose idea provides a guide: 'that it is preferable always to forgive rather than to seek revenge.'

perhaps it is wishing that each of will walk in beauty.

perhaps it is patience we need most? I just don't know.

Here's another thing about shoving that my cousin wrote about when she was alive. She had shoved and been shoved very violently. Look under "Lil's Luscious Counter Terrorism Plan..."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A873560

yeah I liked her for her mind ...! here check this out, it's all true, honest injun!! http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F19585?thread=314568&post=4035297#p4035297 might put it a rco, promise me you won't lose it, 'k?

nah, let me be honest, in the far to brief time I knew her and she me and in a most limited way, there was a sharing the likes of which are rare.

but, those moments reside only in my mind now for I released the spray of electrons - arranged just so even though they were and that we offered each other - back into the cosmos to form and reform as needs arise and subside.

I can't promise anything where RCO is concerned. It has a mind of it's own I think. But I linked the article there so people can come back here to look at it under the theory that the Beeb won't lose it even if RCO would.

I can make the distinction between visiting and vanquishing. However were I to stay where I was, I may not be.

I afraid I don't understand what you said, Roadkill. Sorry.

Sorry yes I was being cryptic, my fault.

Travel broadens the mind, yes? I hope so. Thus were I not to travel, I would have a much narrower mind, and be much more likely to vanquish than visit in the event that I travelled.

Such a traveling for the broadening of the mind isn't reprehensible then. It's a vertical expansion that doesn't encroach on others, taking what they need to live in this world. That's the difference.

But it rather goes against your suggestion that one stays where one is.

Not really unless you fancy yourself a gypsy in which case wherever you're standing is Roma. That doesn't disturb things too much.

People on vacation are usually expected to return to their homes sooner or later. There's a qualitative difference between a tourist and a colonist.

"You can't even feed people in your own country. And people ask why that is? Why can't the most technologically advanced society on earth feed it's own people? Maybe it's because you really can't treat food like integrated circuit boards after all?"

We *can* feed people in our own country. The folks who own the agribusinesses, in combination with the government, *choose* not to. Yeah, people have become seperated from the land, and that's part of the problem. Maybe a bigger part of the problem is that people have become seperated from people.

*People* are being treated like integrated circuit boards. Businesses have financial resourcesthat they use, have natural resources that they use, and have human resources that they use. It's all the same. They *need* people who are desperate for food, clothing and shelter. Those people help keep wages down.

Well, ?, maybe it is patience that we need. Maybe it's something else. I don't know either.

I agree with all the sentiments the prophets expressed and you posted, when it comes to personal situations, to a point. Can a person be considered moral who sees someone else abused and turns the other cheek on that person's behalf?

Mahatma Gandhi renounced violence as a means of protecting oneself. He also said something like when something you hold in trust for another is threatened, you must do all you can to protect it. I don't have the exact words at my fingertips, but it was something like that.

Revenge isn't ever the proper route. Maybe, sometimes, self defense is. Or defense of one's family or community. I don't have answers either. Hitler shoved. Stalin shoved. Dubya is shoving right now. That's the grand scale of shoving. History is full of examples of cultures and societies that have been victims of genocide. Analiese knows a bit about some examples. If nobody speaks out or takes action, those who are willing to shove the hardest can and will destroy everything around them, and not care.

Maybe we just need more new, creative ways to shove back. Maybe if we take care of the people around us - the people we know and care about on a personal level - maybe if we do that, it will be enough. Maybe it won't.

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