Minor comment, but this is one of the few pieces I've read that seems to recognize that, by subsidizing "green energy", the government is also accidentally subsidizing bitcoin mining operations. Inasmuch as that same government hates bitcoin, it is at least amusing.
"modern homesteading attempts to reinstate this somewhat, but is ultimately a simulacrum of the real thing, maintaining only the aesthetic without the economic and social interdependence between neighbors that characterizes village life"
Yes, but a collection of rural homesteaders, who have created a solid foundation of family-based subsistence production, can rapidly develop economic and social interdependence when the world of <i>technique</i> crumbles, whereas people who live in cities just die. Rural agrarianism, pastoralism and hunting-gathering are the only realistic and ecologically sound alternatives to unsustainable <i>technique</i>.
I don't think that the world of technique is likely to crumble. A particular nation might crumble (though I don't think this is likely for either the US or China), but that void will rapidly be filled by other powers.
Minor comment, but this is one of the few pieces I've read that seems to recognize that, by subsidizing "green energy", the government is also accidentally subsidizing bitcoin mining operations. Inasmuch as that same government hates bitcoin, it is at least amusing.
Good piece. I'm right now about a third of the way through The Technological Society.,
"modern homesteading attempts to reinstate this somewhat, but is ultimately a simulacrum of the real thing, maintaining only the aesthetic without the economic and social interdependence between neighbors that characterizes village life"
Yes, but a collection of rural homesteaders, who have created a solid foundation of family-based subsistence production, can rapidly develop economic and social interdependence when the world of <i>technique</i> crumbles, whereas people who live in cities just die. Rural agrarianism, pastoralism and hunting-gathering are the only realistic and ecologically sound alternatives to unsustainable <i>technique</i>.
I don't think that the world of technique is likely to crumble. A particular nation might crumble (though I don't think this is likely for either the US or China), but that void will rapidly be filled by other powers.