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<p>Glen -</p>
<p>No, I think you are spot on, and I can credit you with helping to
have moved my perspective some over the many years you have been
shadow-boxing at me (and others) on this list.</p>
<p>I am acutely aware that my 1800 sq ft home IS a mcMansion by
many,many standards, and that my myriad microprojects are one of
my ways of allowing myself some slack on living as remotely as I
do when my instincts and semi-formal understanding of the
power-law distribution challenge/opportunity. If I am part of
the 99% in this country (first world), it does me well to remember
that I (we) are part of the 1% to the third world (or pick
another ratio if you think 2 orders of magnitude is too
much/little).<br>
</p>
<p>I was hugely conflicted by <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.arcosanti.org/arcology/#:~:text=Arcology%20is%20the%20fusion%20of,functioning%20as%20a%20living%20system.">Paolo
Soleri's Arcology</a> vision when I first encountered it (I was
in college 60 miles north of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.arcosanti.org/">Arcosanti </a>as it was being
built in the 70s) and was drawn to the ideation of "right scaling"
and "low impact" living for humans, but offended by implications
that I *must* become <i>homo hiveus</i> to be
happy/healthy/survive. I have visited Arcosanti every few years
as an adult and befriended Tomiaki Tamura (architect/archivist at
Arcosanti) after a number of us made the effort to do a digital 3D
capture of the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater in Santa Fe when it was
in threat of being bulldozed. I still think it isn't the ideal
Utopian vision it wants to be, but it provides some very good
parallax in several dimensions.<br>
</p>
<p>Whilst in Stockholm 2 years ago with Merle, SteveG and I met the
folks behind <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://hubville.org/">Hubville </a>which is a Swedish
project to try to re-envision mesoscale development... to fill in
thoughtfully and efficiently at the scale of Village to relieve
both rural and urban (esp. suburban) problems in development....
as the name suggests, to become (yet more of) a Hub or return to
fill the scaling niche they filled when they emerged 100 or 1000
years ago. They were not only working in Sweden but also with
partners in Africa whose development challenges were somewhat
complementary to those in Europe. <br>
</p>
<p>Your point about our processes being perverted by our "delusional
identity as individuals..." and ".. delusional conception of
private property" is also well taken, in spite of my being highly
charged up with that conception and rhetoric both as a child and
throughout my adult life (and ongoing). I recently (1 year
hence) read Robin Wall Kimmerer's book "<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass">Braiding
Sweetgrass</a>" which addressed human society/nature from a more
ecosystem point of view. She is a trained botanist but also a
Native American and manages (IMO) to balance those two
perspectives very effectively. She talks a lot about
pioneer/frontier culture/species and succession growth in
ecological recovery. I was left with a strong feeling that we (<i>homo
faber</i>) really need to recognize that we are a (highly
effective) invasive species over most of the planet and that if
what drew us to those ecosystems/niches is at all valuable to us,
we need to back the hell off and recognize that we need to yield
to a more robust/stable order that comes with mature ecosystems,
and be part of them, not the dominators of the landscape where
they once thrived. This applies not only to the biosphere but to
the cultural milieu where we (Western Civ Heroes) colonized the
hell out of those who *had* found a more mature balance. I
reject the literality of "<i>homo hiveus"</i> as an aspiration,
but acknowledge that we are not even a little bit "right scaled"
in our participation in the human-sphere, much less the biosphere.<br>
</p>
<p>Kimmerer also introduced me to the idea of a Gratitude Economy
which is the next step along a chain of evolution beyond Gift
Economies. I was raised with an ideal of "generosity" but more in
the way a hardcore Liberatarian or even Republican might hold it
(pride, ego, obligation, fealty). This made it easy for me to
embrace ideas like "Gift Economy" and "Pay it Forward" variants...
but it was really poignant when she began to give examples of
applying that "generosity" in a slightly different context of
"gratitude". I burn my firewood and even bask in the sun with a
very different perspective than I did when I felt like I
*deserved* those things. I'm less focused on getting a
subsistence garden to grow than nurturing/expanding
proto-food-forests in existing the microclimates already in place
in and around trees and shrubs that were already here when I came
or volunteer (thank you birds!). <br>
</p>
<p>I only wish I had been more of this awareness when my daughters
were growing up. They benefited significantly from the
Equal/Civil Rights movements of my era, and Hippy-cum-Yuppie
ideals of the bulk of my professional/personal circle, but they
are still stuck in rat races when (if your vision were more fully
elaborated and generated) they could be living in a more
peaceful/gratitude-filled "nest" or "ecosystem" ("Hive" still
carries too much specialization/non-power-law for me). We talk
about this some when we get together, but it is hard when you are
a rat trying to keep up in the race. The elder turned me onto
Kimmerer and I in turn turned her sister onto her... Kimmerer's
"Gathering Moss" wasn't as poignant for me, but for anyone who
lives where moss thrives, it might be perfect.<br>
</p>
<p>In the spirit of gratitude, I definitely gain a lot from your
oppositional instincts/style in this forum (and sometimes
offlist). I'm guessing your Saloon-Salon compatriots in Olympia
groan (with gratitude) when you show up for verbal fisticuffs and
beer. <br>
</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/8/22 10:45 AM, glen wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:be74fc0c-7ff1-78a7-d895-2c36849aa239@gmail.com">It still
sounds like rent-seeking to me. The answer is: Move to the city.
Centralize. Hivitize. We need to stop enabling those who think a
McMansion [⛧] in the forest/desert or the suburbs is, in any way,
a Good Thing. Suburban and rural populations are sucking way more
than they're contributing, living off the excess produced by the
centralized hubs.
<br>
<br>
It *seems* reasonable to assert that we should work on the "last
mile" problem, applying individualist solutions like personal
vehicles and private power lines (of whatever composition)
directly to one's rural homestead. But the last mile problem is
only a problem because of our delusional identity as individuals
and our delusional conception of private property. Correct those
causes and that symptom will be mitigated.
<br>
<br>
Sure, there will still be issues like transporting individuals
from the hive into the fields to do work (e.g. launching small
groups into space). But those would be the edge cases, not the
center. If the power law distributed majority of us lived in
appropriately dense hives, compressed air storage makes a lot more
sense (as does broadband communication, cultural transmission, and
a host of other processes perverted by our identities as
individuals).
<br>
<br>
<br>
[⛧] Sorry, Steve. I know your homestead, littered with cool
micro-inventions and geeky tech, doesn't *seem* like a McMansion.
But it essentially is ... just tailored to a - our - subculture's
tastes. >8^D Even for those who go fully "off grid", when the
sh¡t hits the fan, those humans, massively capable harvesters of
natural resources that we are, will go back "on grid" to, say, get
cancer treatment or buy some canned beans or whatnot. But we can
tolerate the few truly innovative survivalists, and *not* pipe
energy to their stead. It's the blatant exploiters, rent-seekers,
whose living out there is fully supported by their ability to suck
resources from the hive ... and our abetting that parasitic
relationship.
<br>
<br>
On 2/8/22 09:00, Steve Smith wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<br>
As an amateur complexicist, I am a fan of multi-scale
systems.... so I look forward to systems like yours not being
scaled (only) to mega-industry. I wonder at how far out the
existing distribution chain you can push compressed air
practically? I doubt there are (m)any mechanics or private
homes, for example, who could give up their NG feed (heat
mostly) for compressed air, even if the upstream distribution
were converting. The new(ish) DC-powered residential scale
mini-split heat-pumps would seem to operate well off of any
mechanical energy source (not just PWM modulated variable speed
DC motors) and the decompressed chilled air from the air-motor
would go right into boosting the efficiency rather than being
yet another source of waste heat. Not a perpetual motion
machine, just a system where some of the intrinsic
inefficiencies are exploited/recovered elegantly?
<br>
<br>
The big win seems obviously to be the major NG pipelines and
existing electric generation stations. I can't tell from your
literature if converting existing NG turbines to compressed air
is even reasonable... seems like this is probably why CAES is
burning NG to bring the charge up to the performance scale of
existing turbine designs? I believe that many of these plants
were designed/modified to be "peaking" plants which it seems
your tech is ideal for... let the
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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