You have no idea where I stand.

Now to the disagreements. This it probably the only post where I'll directly talk about what he wrote. But this is a problem specifically with what he said about me, so it's unaviodable that I talk about words rather than ideas.

You have no idea where I stand, Ruud. I've read Guembe's stuff. Of the three options you presented, he's talking about option 3. To throw me in with him because I don't choose to continue the same growth-based strategies that got us here is intellectually dishonest. You didn't even respond to my conclusion that gardening and homesteading are political choices, about choosing decentralization and self-sufficiency instead of dependance on a vast system you have little control over and less understanding of. You just reasserted your beleif that if I do that everyone is going to die. You seem to have missed my point that your options are a false choice, and that there are several others options available.

And I told you what of your three options I would choose, if I had to choose, just to point out that we have different visions of an acceptable future. And I put forward another possible scenario. But at no point did I "clearly [state] that we collectively should aim for a model where humans, at least in the US where you live, should self-organize into small gardens."

What I said is that everyone should have access to the means to do so, should they so choose. That implies nothing about making them do so. And I'm actually more concerned about people in 3rd world areas, or the poor wherever, not just people in the US like me. People who lack food due to economic reasons, for whom homsteading is a viable economic decision. Also, people like me, who specifically want to homestead even though it's not the best economic decision.

But no, we collectively should do nothing. Parse that again, I guarentee you read it wrong. I'm not advocating inaction. I'm advocating a lack of collectivity on this. We need to ride the black swan. This means we need to different groups of active people to choose as many of the above options as possible, and make up a thousand more. We need to pursue every strategy, even (Especially) the ones that conflict. The more things we try, the more likely we'll find something that works. I feel that to pursue such stragegies requires extensive freedom, of the sort that I feel can only be offered by ensuring that, no matter what risks they take, they always have access to the neccesities. I feel that freedom is encouraged by the ability to opt out, to unplug.

I have a vision of the world I want to live in. In that world, I have as much freedom as is possible, in part because I have control over the means to provide all my needs. It looks a lot more like the US in 1900 with ruins than your technocratic future, and I prefer that because I prefer empowerment to physical comfort. But what my vision really looks like is Unplugged farmer-scientists trading with rewilded nomads, on the edge where his bio-remediated orchards blend into forests left to reclaim the land, while in the distance a self sustaining arcology sits where once a city did, and over the hill a million things I can't yet imagine are going on.

"We don't need a silver bullet, we need silver buckshot." -whoever said that.

(As an aside, I really hate that style of internet debate where whole posts are are quoted with comments inserted. This doesn't invalidate any of his points, I'm just saying that, please, make your point and quote my text sparingly. I know what I wrote, you know what I wrote, and this is the internet. Anyone can go back and look what was written. All this style accomplishes is breaking your own point up into pieces, making it harder to follow the narrative. )