> It could easily be said that many of those things are along for the ride because of capitalism (especially medical and scientific advances). Does capitalism still play no role in helping increase material quality of life?

So are you suggesting that, without Capitalism, those advances and political/social reforms would not exist? Again, I never suggested Capitalism plays no role, I'm suggesting that Capitalism may not always (or even often) play a central role that could not be played satisfactorily within another framework, given the will.

> Well, the wrong choices maybe but competition gives advantage to those which are the right choices (cough nuclear cough). That advantage those right choices have is called sustainable profitability.

Listen, I get it, I understand the idea of crony Capitalism and how it buffers the status quo from competition. I think that competition can be good, but I will argue that it's simply not a panacea that will solve all of our problems. There are glaring problems created by Capitalism itself (independent of government/cronyist intervention) that absolutely must be solved, at least in part, outside of Capitalism's mechanisms; free market or not.

> Usually its science backed by interest in real world uses that gives us most of these things. Capitalism doesn't exploit the discoveries, it utilizes the discoveries so everyone can benefit from them. You assume it then gains a monopoly. Monopolies are actually very much going agaisnt the principles of free market capitalism (removing chance for competition). Patents aren't permanent and allow for it to be profitable to invest huge amount of resources into trying to make a potential huge discovery (huge amount that wouldn't be worth/able to be invested into making that discovery if it wasn't for the protection of a patent). Those massive discoveries (expensive but nonetheless very important) are what drive progress in society and improve everything.

Capitalism is all about exploitation. Take a given form of capital/resources/labor, combine it with a potentially profitable innovation, and monetary profit is gained. The interests are profit, not the innovation itself. Innovations are only put into use if they can prove their more/less immediate profitability. Profit-motive is a double-edged sword within Capitalism and can serve to crush or deny innovation just as it serves to boost it. Like the law, Capitalism is external from more core fundamentals; in law, not everything that is right is legal and not everything that is legal is right, similarly, not everything that is superior is profitable and not everything that is profitable is superior.

> Exactly, profit is a hugely successful motivator for innovation and ingenuity.

Yes, innovation and ingenuity towards making profits, not necessarily towards visionary, or even technological progress.

> Ha, you really like just making statement and not backing them up with anything (logic, examples, etc.),don't you? People will innovate new things that are desirable (and the most desirable things are those that are beneficial). We already know that causes society and technology to advance (because that's exactly what has happened).

This is magical thinking, the religion of the market, more focusing on the positives, ignoring the negatives.

> Ha, I find it ironic that you complain that people's innovations under capitalism doesn't "necessarily mean that society or technology will advance" all while you praise "tribal/band societies" which often stay the same for millenniums because of a lack of advancement in society and technology. Like you pointed out, the "tribal/band societies" is what "humans lived in for over 90% of our history. 90% of our history! That shows just how little advancement (both in society and technology) happened during that time.
"very efficient lifestyles with less-hours-worked and very efficient use of resources over the long-term" and no innovation, no improvement to society or technology. Just a pure system of stagnation, society sitting where it is forever. Neat.

Tribal/band societies don't "stay the same for milleniums", they do/have change(ed). They are also very socially advanced in the sense of embodying highly sustainable equilibrium with ecology (comparatively) and one another (systemic egalitarianism); all while working less hours than modern workers and seeing their "work" as passion, survival, or play rather than as alienated abstraction from their lives. We have much to (re)learn from them, at least socially speaking. You're speaking in binary again, you say there was NO innovation/change/advancement, but this is simply inaccurate and precisely why I advise you study Anthropology to learn more about how other cultures operate(d). Start with this primer:
https://www.amazon.com/Limited-Wants-Unlimited-Means-Hunter-Gatherer/dp/155963555X

> And innovation moving ahead and is constantly working out ways to solve it.
Don't fear change and wish for the predictableness of the past.

I don't fear change at all, I fear the wrong change and the wrong traditions of the past. Currently, we're holding onto too many of the wrong traditions and failing to embrace the proper changes.

Also, I feel I must make it clear to you that I'm not advocating we eliminate efficiencies in our technologies, but that we do not simply trust in market-driven efficiencies to solve our immensely daunting (and, to some degree, inevitable) and looming collapses on the mid-term horizon. It's going to take MANY (if not EVERY) approach(es) and Capitalism, like Jesus, or space aliens, or implementing the right political reforms, simply will not do the job alone. I caution, always, against technophilia, unscientific optimism, and market worship.

I'm leaving a day later than expected -- so when I said you could have the last word, I lied. :-)

>The case for collapse is quite clear.

Apparently so clear there is no need to present any.

Collapse is a verfy serious thing. Having the best demographics of any major country in the world is not evidence of comming "collapse", just because one would prefer them to be better. The need for the richest nation in the world to increase taxes and reduce promised spending in the future is not evidence of coming "collapse". Etc.

>It would be nice to see something that would challenge that evidence.

You mean that evidence? :-)

> (The best response to the question was the link to The Rational Optimist.)

Oh, Ridley only follows in the footsteps of the late Julian Simon and his classic Ultimate Resource 2 of which there is now a free if poorly formated version online.

>>How much of a shorter life expectancy would you prefer? Admittedly your shorter life might feel a lot longer as you listen to your 8-track tape...

> I'm trying to decide if that is more strawman or half truth. Hell, I can't decide. I'll just call it both.

Half? I can fill out the rest ... You'd be listening to your 8-track in your car with Big Fins but no seat belts getting 12 miles to the gallon, spewing pollution, as you race to get home in time for the Hillbillies... shall I go on?

You think I'm kidding? There's no straw man about it. Life expectancy was 10 years shorter. What's a year of life worth? What's "straw man" about life being shortened by 15%???.

> If you want to compare life a few decades ago to today, please tell the full story. Yes, consumer goods are cheaper. So is food. So are clothes.

Food, clothing, consumer goods, not merely less expensive but better. You couldn't get today's common consumer goods at any price back in time. How much would a computer and internet connection cost to have this conversation in 1965?

>Unfortunately, housing is much more expensive.

Is it?? Why do you think so? Perhaps you are impressed by how much new bigger, better homes cost relative to older, smaller homes. But that's entirely subjective, and cherry-picking selective.

Let's look instead at BLS data. From 1967 to 2011 the housing component of the CPI has risen more than the total CPI by all of 6.1% ... that's after 44 years. Not so much, eh?

Now compare the 6% real increase in the cost of housing to the 120% real increase in per capita income over the same period, and we get this. Wow, things get tougher and tougher all the time, eh?

> So is heath insurance.

Now there's both a simple point and a sophisticated point you are missing here.

1. People pay more health costs to get more health benefits. (Like they pay more for modern bigger, better houses.) Life expectancy was 10-years shorter in 1960. What's a year of life worth? Of course an easy way to cut your health care costs is by dying earlier. Good bargain, that? Would you make that deal? If not, you should reconsider your objection.
   
   
2. As national income increases health care is supposed to cost more. Health care is a "superior good". People spend only so much on normal basic goods like food, clothing, housing, so as their income rises they spend an increasing portion of it on other "superior goods" such as health care. This is universal.
   
   Now before you become absolutely wedded to the idea that health care costs have risen a lot since 1935(!) ponder this chart and commentary which takes into account rising income since 1935 and the "superior good" effect. Hmmm.
   
   > So are many other things.
   
   Like what? Well ... there is entertainment. We spend a lot more on entertainment. That's a superior good too. But is this a sign of coming collapse?
   
   >>Do these indicators include, for instance, the recent "unprecedented increase in magnitude of U.S. natural gas resource base"...
   
   >Yes.
   
   >>...and the resulting drop in energy prices that has already occurred from it?.
   
   >What price drop?
   
   Did you read the links? Big price drop in natural gas, combined with big increase in production.
   
   >Are you seriously suggesting that what people pay overall for energy has decreased? Yes, natural gas is cheaper. Is electricity? Is gasoline?
   
   Total energy costs? Percentage of national income, 1970: 8%; 2007: 8%. Sign of imminent economic collapse?
   
   > efficiency improvements are logarithmic. The lowest hanging efficiency fruit has already been picked.
   
   And what evidence for this is there in the history of the last 200 years??
   
   In the late 1800s there was a very serious Peak Coal scare in Britain. The logic was irrefutable: The Industrial Revolution ran on coal. The supply of coal was finite. The least expensive, highest-quality coal was being consumed first, and fast. Yet demand for coal was rising at an accelerating rate. As the supply and quality of coal declined, its price had to go higher and higher and higher -- bringing the Industrial Revolution to a grinding halt!
   
   Could you disagree?
   
   Yet today there is more coal in the ground in Britain, literally worthless, than they imagined even existed then. What was the systematic mistake they made? Read Julian Simon.
   
   >If the price of energy rises, additional efficiency gains won't be able to prevent the cost per unit of economic activity from reversing.
   
   The Peak Coal argument lives! No number of stakes driven into its heart by factual reality, hard data, and economic analysis can kill it! :-)
   
   Every generation says "the low hanging fruit has finally now been picked". Then the next says it too, and the next, and the next. What systematic error do they all make?
   
   >>Japan's real GDP has increased 13%. Are we now defining down "economic collapse" to equal slower growth?
   
   > 1) Take the first derivative of that.
   
   Weak, dude. You go troll up a squigley line that can't possibly tell you the net GDP+/- number for 1990-2010 (it doesn't even go to 2010) then you talk about how you respect data??
   
   If you want data, go to IMF GDP data and find "Japan, 1990-2010, +20.7%". (Ooops, not 13%, I made a mistake! Using primary data sources keeps one honest.) Which is what that squigley line totals up to, if you add 2010.
   
   > 2) How about GDP per capita?
   
   

• 16.9%. Now less than 1% growth per year is nothing to brag about, but it's sure not "collapse".
  
  >> Tax increase = "economic collapse"? Defining collapse downward in every direction you can think up? Gee, what were the 17 years after 1929 compared to ... a tax increase!
  
  >If real income net of taxes go down, how does that affect standard of living? C'mon now, I know you are bright enough to figure this out.
  
  "If", I love that. What a data-based argument!
  
  Now I pretty much loathe the current course of US fiscal policy, but the worst case for the USA is it will end up with a tax burden equal to Western Europe's for the last generation. Has Western Europe's real income been declining for a generation? That's a relevant data point.
  
  On what factual grounds can you predict your "If" will come true? (Western Europe's worst case going from today on is a lot worse -- but that's another reason to expect the US will remain a solid #1.)
  
  >>The USA has the best demographics of any major economy in the world, by far. Over the next 40 years the US working age population will grow 24% while every other one (except India's) will shrink. China's working age population is peaking right now and will fall 21% by 2050.
  
  >This is a fair point. The question, though, is will we be able to provide jobs for this growing working age population?
  
  Another "If"! Yeah, if the economy collapses, it will collapse!
  
  But really, dude: "Demographics will collapse the US economy". "The USA has the best demographics in the world." "Yes, but what if we can't take advantage of it? Then we'll have an economic collapse in spite of our best demographics".
  
  That's an argument???? That's an expression of creed -- whatever fact comes up, it's spun to: ... so collapse can be coming! To conform with a creed that can't be challenged by fact.
  
  >>OK, yup, you are hearing from me. You are right! That is exactly what the media does, to drum up revenue for itself. How much money does it make from saying "Oswald acted alone ... UFOs aren't from other planets ...The economy by historical standards is OK, pretty good even as people are much better off than ever before." Not so much.
  
  >I don't give two shits what the media says. I do care about data and what I can deduce from it.
  
  What data??? Do you care where you get it?
  
  You don't get your living/housing cost data from the BLS, don't get your energy data from the EIA, don't get your international GDP data from the IMF -- but from squigley lines you Google up that you think support your claim.
  
  If not from the media, do you get it from politically partisan Youtube clips full of strong feelings and moving if dubious claims you don't verify (and which wouldn't do well if you did)? Well, Youtube is media too.
  
  As to Elizabeth Warren as a recommended "data source" in that clip ... oh, my ...wow... I'm going to write a separate comment just about that.
  
  

>Do you happen to know of some recommended reads by your friend whos into fashion history, memoirs, etc?


I'll definitely ask for more details, but one of the things she's turned me onto to is the Dressed podcast! They tell very interesting historical fashion stories.

>Also, how did you start learning the numerous textile arts? What have been your go to resources in those cases? Tutorials? Books? etc?

Haha this is a long story! But basically, I've been interested in making clothes since I was a kid...one of my earliest memories is making a sailor moon costume out of paper and taping it to myself. :) I learned sewing from community college classes and knitting purely from youtube, and the rest has been slow osmosis in the textile art community...I actually wrote a whole post about how to start making your own clothes here, which reminds me I really need to finish up part 2!

>How do you relate mindfulness to fashion?

Hmm...I like the idea of mindfulness and living with purpose in general. I think it's too easy to be a consumer these days, to get swept along with whatever the current trends are, losing sight of what's really important to you--and that rabbit hole of indiscriminate consumption becomes its own trap, which is why you have people with enormous closets and nothing to wear. So I take care to question everything: what do I want to buy? What do I like about it? Is it high quality? Is it ethical? Am I really going to wear it? It sounds tedious to some, but it's not difficult once you get started.

>Where do you do research for the ethics of fashion?

That's a tough one. It's very piecemeal--unfortunately there isn't one good standard or source for this information, partly because the fashion industry is purposefully so nontransparent. For the basics of what to watch out for, there are really good books (Deluxe, Overdressed are both really good) and movies (The True Cost is a big one, I also LOVE this short documentary series about Swedish fashion bloggers going to Cambodia).

Once you're fired up about buying ethically, it's important to always think critically and be skeptical, especially as ethics/sustainability becomes more mainstream and big companies start to capitalize on it. Remember that the norm is exploitation in the fashion industry, and that ethical production is difficult and expensive--if a company is truly doing it, it's going to be a major selling point for them, not a short amorphous "we treat workers well lol" blurb at the bottom of their "About Us" page. Always be wary of promises, especially those that can't be verified and can be worked around. This John Oliver piece goes into how big companies make promises and reneg or find loopholes around them.

There are some reliable, third party certifications--certified B corps, GOTS certification for textiles, etc.

Something I'd like to point out is that many of these things are connected and symbiotic--making textiles and clothing gives me intimate knowledge about how yarn/fabrics/clothing is made, what makes something high quality, which helps me be mindful of purchasing only high quality items, or know what processes to look out for to determine if something is ethical or sustainable. I truly believe that education and understanding is the bedrock of all of this, and unfortunately we're so removed from these low level processes these days as average western consumers, not just for clothing but also food, products, etc. That's why I love that it's becoming hip to start making things with your hands again. :)

P2

There are other problems with production-for-profit economies, according to ecosocialists. The system can lead to self-destructive rushes to produce commodities. For example, in a system where we produce for profit, we might build more houses than we have homeless people (as is currently the state of things in the US) or have other boom-bust cycles of overproduction as things remain profitable for various producers up until their collective production leads to a price crash. Presumably, say socialists, if industrial mass society produced for the use-value of the homes, some social planning would avoid the irrational boom-bust action. In addition to resource-wasting overconsumption, there's a problem of overharvesting to feed insatiable far-away markets. The Iroquois in the northeast hunted the beaver almost to extinction in much of its range there. A bit of this had to do with new guns, but much of it was with bows. What changed wasn't the technology so much as the motive. Where before a hunter had no reason to kill more than he needed, he could now kill a whole bunch and trade them for money or wampum that he could spend on things he did need- and the possibility of those demands could be endless. Suddenly, an Iroquois had a reason to go out and kill tons and tons of beavers- and by and large, they did (the book "Changes In the Land" by William Cronon is a fascinating exploration of the development of this and other trends during the settlement of New England. I very much suggest reading it for anyone interested in environmental history or political ecology).

Also, if you produce for exchange values, you can end up with a situation where things are being produced that have exchange-value but little or no use-value. Consider diamonds. There was little popular demand (and little use-value for most people) for diamonds before DeBeers started a campaign to make them the centerpiece of every wedding (restricting supply was also a masterful stroke on their part). Because firms in a market economy have to swim or sink, and keep selling, there is an incentive for them to create new demands and desires where none existed before, because this makes more consumers. It is not good for the economy for you to be satisfied with what you have. It's very much not good for the economy for you to say, "Well, my material needs are basically met, so I'm going to focus on things like friendship, belonging, and personal fulfillment, that I can't really just buy in a store". Companies would rather you believe that those needs can be fulfilled with more consumption, because if you're satisfied, you stop buying- and if you stop buying, investors stop making money, people get laid off, and the economy crashes. Remember that in a market economy, it is more 'rational' to convince a person with disposable income that they need to buy their kid a new cheap gizmo, then manufacture and sell that gizmo to them, than it is to produce bread to feed hungry people who can't pay- the hungry people have a demand but no money to make their demand bear any exchange value, and so don't get to eat, but the person with money has to be squeezed for every last consumer dollar to create more niches for investors. They have to be convinced that they want more things. This is basically what advertising is- a market economy creates a demand for demand. Advertising largely exists to convince you that a diamond is a prerequisite to love, Coca-Cola is a prerequisite to a good time, a watch is a prerequisite to the respect of your peers, a fast car is a prerequisite to the love of a beautiful woman, etc etc. Some of this might even be true, if the advertisers succeed in shaping cultural norms to make it true. In this way, a production for profit economy, because it has to keep selling, profiting, and growing, creates and propagates a consumer culture. The impact of this on the environment, of course, is that more and more natural resources have to be sucked up to feed that consumption and more pollution and waste is churned out. You have an economic system that has to keep growing forever, on a planet with finite resources.

All of this amounts to an 'internal contradiction' in capitalism, according to ecosocialists. In Marxism, which uses dialectical analysis, an internal contradiction is when conflicting tendencies and trends in a system lead to the self-destruction of that system. For example, the rising role of the merchant class that would eventually usurp power from the hereditary gentry was an internal contradiction in feudalism. In capitalism, the 'internal contradiction' laid out by Marx is the conflict between capital and labor (which he observed during his life and which has, in part due to his own writings, raged on since, at times somewhat suppressed by reforms, as environmental degradation can be somewhat suppressed by reforms). Some ecosocialists argue that because capitalism relies on endless growth, is ridden with market failures, encloses commons and commodifies people and the land, creates a consumer culture, and concentrates political power in the hands of an upper class that often resists attempts to fix the environmental problems, that environmental degradation (sometimes called the 'metabolic rift') is a second internal contradiction- that capitalism will undermine the base of ecological resources it needs to survive (and, unfortunately, the same base that all industrial society would need to survive, as well as non-industrial society). The scholar James O'Connor is the main theorist of the 'second contradiction', but I think it makes a great capstone to ecosocialist theory. This theory echoes some (rather under-developed but very important) observations of Marx (who is often painted as an environment-blind industrial development fanatic) regarding of industrial capitalist agriculture on soil fertility. Marx wrote on the subject, and in doing so began to make inroads in critiquing the ecological impact of capitalism, many decades before his time. This work has mostly been fleshed out by later Marxists, though.

TL;DR- Socialists believe that capitalism has enclosed the commons into a market system that is prone to market failures because it does not consider the common ecosystem or the full values and costs of ecological goods. They believe that much of this irrationality comes from the fact that markets produce for exchange-value rather than use-value. They note that markets need endless growth and consumption to remain healthy, and that capitalist societies spread capitalism globally to feed their need for resources and new markets, and that the environmental degradation of this global industrial market system will undermine capitalism and civilization itself.

Section 2: Who Are The Ecosocialists?

Some prominent ecosocialist theorists include John Bellamy Foster, Michael Löwy, Derek Wall, Joel Kovel, and others. There are some groups that promote ecosocialism or similar ideas, including Ecosocialist Network International, the CNS Journal, Ecosocialist Horizons, and the various groups of the Trotskyist Fourth International, which recently embraced eco-socialism. It should be noted that generally speaking, ecosocialism is mostly embraced by Trotskyists and other non-Stalinist Marxists, and ecosocialist theorists are almost universally anti-Stalinist. Most non-Stalinist socialist groups embrace some degree of environmental concern even if they are not ecosocialist.

In addition to these groups, there are some major green party organizations that have formed 'red-green' alliances with social democratic and socialist parties, particularly in Europe. These include coalitions in France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and other nations. In addition, some European political parties have outright merged into green-left parties, like GroenLinks in the Netherlands. In the US, a small red-green political alliance does exist between the Green Party and the International Socialist Organization (a Cliffite Trotskyist activist organization that is the largest socialist group in the US). ISO frequently endorses Green Party candidates and the two groups recently co-sponsored an ecosocialist conference. There is also a red-green alliance between the Industrial Workers of the World and Earth First!- though neither of these groups involve themselves in electoral politics, both preferring direct action. Red-green alliances should not be confused with 'blue-green' alliances in the US and elsewhere, which are alliances between reformist environmental and labor groups.

Some writers who are not 'eco-socialists' per se but do take a social-ecological view on environmental issues are Vandana Shiva (an Indian anti-globalization and anti-privatization writer and proponent of 'Earth Democracy'), Murray Bookchin (who formulated the concept and political program of 'social ecology'), Winona LaDuke (an Anishinaabe indigenous environmental justice activist), and Ariel Salleh (a social ecofeminist)- these are, of course, just a few, and there are many, many more. The social ecofeminist (as opposed to cultural/mystic ecofeminist), indigenous rights, environmental justice, and anti/alter-globalization movements often incorporate views from the social-ecological perspective. Earth First! is a group that often takes a social ecology view along with their deep ecology.

TL;DR- The ecosocialist theorists are largely academics from the first world who identify with Trotskyism and other non-Stalinist forms of socialism, though other thinkers who embrace similar views come from all over the world and many anti/alter-globalization and indigenous rights groups share many of the ecosocialist perspectives on globalization and capitalism. In addition to eco-socialists, there are some political alliances of less-green socialists and less-socialist environmentalists.

Edit: Regarding the role of production for profit in creating a consumer culture: This (as well as the concept of 'green consumption' and its associated greenwashing and consumer culture) should be understood in the light of other developments, including the rise of the mass industrial society over previous close-knit village societies, and the processes of alienation and commodity fetishism.

I am happy to talk about scientific and technical sources. My apologies for the wall of text; I hope it's readable.

First of all, my answer reflects my own personal opinions and preferences. I'm a techie, a capitalist, and I once worked for an energy transmission company. Many will disagree with me, and that's fine... but you can (and should!) judge the veracity of scientific sources for yourself. That's a quality I look for in sources - they didn't fall back upon "settled" opinions, but saw for themselves what does or does not make any danged sense.

In this case, I originally learned about the Helms project many years ago, from listening to Dr. Bill Wattenburg's radio show. He's from California, and so talks about these issues frequently. Dr. Bill is a nuclear scientist, and an accomplished engineer. He has an unapologetically pro-nuclear power viewpoint, but (in my opinion) he still takes care to weigh the pro's and con's of various other generation and transmission technologies. I've learned a great deal from Dr. Bill, not the least of which is to develop a healthy skepticism towards big claims.

Beyond that, a great way to learn about various sources of information on energy issues is Anthony Watts' website. Even if you don't agree with everything (or anything!) here, WUWT is a very useful gateway to a whole variety of science-based (and suitably contrarian) primary sources. Whatever your views, Watts and his correspondents are very close to the ongoing argument about the future of energy, and how people choose to live. It's raucous, informative, and occasionally news-making.

I've had many other influences, but one more for now: I was greatly informed by Bjorn Lomborg's influential book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. He has several other worthy titles, but I quite like this one as a starting-point. It isn't recent; but this is as much a critical-thinking exercise, as it is a scientific investigation. Again, many people will discount his ideas... but ask yourself why this is (and whether they have actually countered his arguments) before you draw your conclusions.

 

For my part, I am rather optimistic about the future of energy. Once people begin reading a genuine diversity of viewpoints, they are likely to observe there is very much to be hopeful about. If you didn't hear more about some of the intriguing developments before now, one reason is because these particular advances may not not suit the dominant viewpoint, and are often filtered out by the gatekeepers of news networks and accepted-science journalism. Thank Goodness we now have many sources to choose from... if only more people pursued them.

Another reason is that (when compared to the news cycle) scientific progress is frustratingly slow - Mother Nature gives up her secrets with the utmost reluctance. It takes a long time to improve upon an existing (really good) technology, to the point where it makes more economic sense to do it the new way. This is a critical factor - in order to be widely accepted by the public, the new method must be able to make money. Subsidies only get you so far. People change their routines in order to get more for their money - it's simply human nature.

Everyone has their biases (myself included), but so many so-called scientists have successfully suspended reality, that the academic apparatus of 'accepted science' begins to look like something far different - in some extreme cases, it resembles a return to Lysenkoism. More than anything else, this statist impulse to bend science to the government's will is what I rally against. Once you strip the compulsion away, the science is far more objective, and the technology is much easier to discuss.

I'll consider any energy solution, if I decide that I can afford it. Beyond that: May the best technology win.

> Hemp and Cannabis is a great way to go because there's not totality of a monopoly yet.

This has absolute nothing to do with what we're talking about. Monopolies are important when discussing microeconomics, i.e., companies competing against one another. But a monopoly of one product within a country would actually help its GDP out, and per this discussion, wouldn't be a bad thing.

First, Ukraine already produces hemp. There isn't enough demand globally to warrant an increase in production, in addition to the limited infrastructure that's being occupied by other, more important cash crops. More importantly, the current demand of global hemp is being met by the production of it, so a subsidized increase or even inflation in the number of hemp businesses would be meaningless to overall GDP, even driving prices down and hurting global hemp whatsoever. From an FAS report issued last week:

> Approximately 30 countries in Europe, Asia, and North and South America currently permit farmers to grow hemp. Some of these countries never outlawed production, while some countries banned production for certain periods in the past. China is among the largest producing and exporting countries of hemp textiles and related products, as well as a major supplier of these products to the United States. The European Union (EU) has an active hemp market, with production in most member nations. Production is centered in France, the United Kingdom, Romania, and Hungary.

The demand is offset by the production bases that already exist. This wouldn't help Ukraine sufficiently.

Moreover, cash crops might be a sufficient way to grow the economy if you're living in the turn of the 18th century, but it doesn't put much towards GDP in modern times, especially in developed economies - which Ukraine is. When I say infancy, I'm referring to its place in the rest of Europe - it's developing the important parts of the economy: finance and banking, heavy industry, education-based services. That's where the country needs to do its work, not with something worthless like hemp. If you're seriously suggesting to me that hemp is going to help break Ukraine from its bounds of Russia, I think you might need to go back and take Macroeconomics 101 again.

> Oil is technically an obsolete resource that is currently forced upon the World as the standard because the big business surrounding it will not allow the more efficient technologies to come forth. The only way to destroy that monopoly is extreme minimization on consumption.

First, I don't see the link between hemp and oil, whatsoever. Is that really relevant to our discussion?

Secondly, the narrative that "big business" is precluding development of more efficient energy sources is manifestly untrue, as they're actually involved in developing energy 2.0.. Big oil will be the companies who actually help push us towards green independence, because they recognize that it's coming and will use some of their capital to invest in projects that allow them to continue to make profits when the oil stops. (Also, you don't understand what a monopoly is. Standard Oil had a monopoly. Exxon, BP, Mobil - there are many competitors that make it, by definition, not a monopoly).

For right now, oil is not obsolete. In fact oil was a necessary component in what drove the growth of China's middle class sparked GDP growth to 8%+ over the past few years. It will also play a critical role in India, Russia and Brazil this decade, and Africa in the next two - two regions that are going to have to offset the global economic malaise of Western Europe and North America, and the world needs them to do it by building up a middle class. Right now, the only energy source viable to do that with is oil - not because it's "forced upon us" as you say, but simply because it's the most efficient, least expensive.

I support green energy, but I don't think you understand that it's also inefficient right now for a few reasons: one, its technologically underdeveloped, it's too expensive, and more over, the global macroeconomic effects of employing some methods of green energy have been actually hurting the global economy, especially the poor. The most obvious example is Brazil's drive to push for ethanol fuel in 2007. Since corn is the base material for ethanol, millions of hectares had to be dedicated to growing corn for ethanol, displacing what would normally be used for corn as food, pushing the ag prices up and causing the price of food overall to go up. Since then, economists in Brazil have suggested bringing it down because it's quite inefficient, and doesn't have an effect pronounced to the extent that it's going to be beneficial.

Finally, the only people who have the luxury of using green energy are advanced economies because they have the capital to invest in green R&D and also have the extra money to spend on using it. In these countries, it's being replaced; this is a process that takes decades, not years. And the mechanisms that will replace it are already in place. If your theory about big business wanting to stamp out green energy development were true, none of these interests, including the Obama administration, would have been investing in these alternate sources in the first place.

If you're looking for some reading about energy, Daniel Yergin's The Quest is the outstanding authority.

Book list:

Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin. The author discusses this same theme of The Great Turning. Argues that people in modern western society are pathologically orientated towards adolescent things, and among our main problems is that few of us mature fully, and few of us can ever be considered elders who guide each other towards a wise way of life. He also argues that we historically have developed equally in both nature and culture, but modern people spend their lives solely in culture, and lack understanding of the natural world.

Future Primal by Louis Herman. The author lays out a big picture view of human history and how the solutions for the future we face can be found in the past among primitive cultures. He links his own personal struggles to the planetary struggles we face, and shows that it is true that the personal and planetary are linked.

The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein. Lays out huamn history, and "how the illusion of a seperate self has led to our modern crisises".

Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein. Looks at how primitive economies differed from our own, and how we can come to a different understanding of economics and wealth in our own society.

The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible by Charles Eisenstein. Lays out a vision for what the world could be and how we could organize ourselves in a wiser way.

Limited Wants, Unlimited Means an analysis of the economics of hunter-gatherer societies by an actual Economist. Very in depth look at the different foundational beliefs and practices. This is the most scientific and in depth book I've ever come across on this subject.

Eaarth by Bill McKibben. Goes into great detail on the the stark reality of the effects that climate change have already had and will likely have over the next decades and century. Finsihes by making reccommendations for how to make a life on a rough new planet.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. A look at the deep history of our species. This book presents an understanding about what humans are and where we've come from that I think is hard to get anywhere else, really great work.

Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken. Very similar to the theme of my above post, the author explains how this new movement is much larger than you might think, and could soon become one of the largest cultural movements in all of human history.

Active Hope by Joanna Macy. On "how to deal with the mess we are in without going crazy".

Greening of the Self by Joanna Macy. An exploration into the idea that we are interdependent with the ecology around us.

Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken and others. A look at how we can start a green industrial revolution.

The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones. Lays out the idea that one solution- work on constructing a sustainable infrastructure- can fix our two biggest problems: the ecological crisis, and the rampant poverty and inequality in our society.

Spiritual Ecology: the cry of the Earth by Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, and others. Outlines a spiritual perspective of what is happening to the world, and how we can remedy it, rooted in Buddhist thought.

Changes in the Land by William Cronon. A look at how the ecology of New England has been altered since Europeans first set foot there.

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. This is one of the classics of nature writing by a great naturalist. I include it here because I think it fits, and shows how much of this in not new thinking. Leopold talks about his experiences in nature and from living off the land, and lays out his own 'land ethic' for how best to coexist in nature.

The Evolving Self: a psychology for the third millennium by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi. Explains the authors view of psychology and how to find meaning in the modern world. Talks about playing an active role in the evolutionary processes of life, and linking that up with your own personal evolution.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimerer. Brings together scientific understanding, indigenous wisdom, and respect for nature and for plants, in a very poetic book.

The Future of Life by E. O. Wilson. Wilson is one of the greatest biologists of our time, and gave us many of the foundational concepts that we use today, such as popularizing the idea of "biodiversity" and the desire to preserve it. Here he talks about the future of life and the challenges we face in preserving the Earths biodiversity.

Half Earth by E.O. Wilson. Here Wilson lays out his strategy for saving the biodiversity of the Earth and preserving it through the hard times it will face in the future, by devoting fully half of the surface of the Earth to wildlife habitats. This book just came out so you might not be able to order a copy yet.

If you know of any other books or media in this sort of genre feel free to post it.

For an alternate explanation outside the usual scope of neoclassical economics is the resource / physical / biophysical economics explanation. This treats an economy at the macro level not as households and firms (or same plus governments), and as labor + capital, but as a set of inputs:

• Raw materials (consumed but returned to environment)
  
• Labor
  
• Technology
  
• Plant capital (equipment and machinery)
  
• Energy (consumed)
  
  Where energy is a very significant factor in governing the total level of economic activity.
  
  These don't map entirely cleanly onto the K-L model. Materials, technology, and plant capital are components of capital. Labor is, well, labor. Energy is treated as capital in the K-L model but substitutes for labor (in the form of muscle power).
  
  Earlier proponents of this view include Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, and more recently Charles A. S. Hall with his textbook Energy and the Wealth of Nations. I haven't found a review within the economics literature though Michael Jefferson's Energy Policy review is pretty good.
  
  Hall is not an economist, he's an ecologist, though he's studied some economics (and largely found it wanting). I studied both physics and economics (my undergrad degree), as well as growing up in an ecologically-conscious atmosphere and studying environmental and geography in college. I spent a great deal of time beating my head against the wall in college trying to reconcile my views of how the economy seemed to actually work with what was being taught in my econ classes. And though I've come to appreciate some of neoclassical econ, I still see a lot wanting.
  
  The upshot of Hall's view, though, is that energy flows, EROEI (energy returned on energy invested, he's the originator of the term), and price-stability of energy have a vastly greater impact on economies than the neoclassical literature would suggest.
  
  What Hall discounts or omits from his treatment is the interaction between this and fiscal and monetary dynamics, whether as cause or result. I'm increasingly coming to see such interactions (the primary focus of neoclassical macro) as ways of influencing flows of physical resources and labor in the short term, but as ultimately subservient to the greater picture of the physical economy -- they can tweak the environment, but cannot ultimately change it.
  
  It's one of several significant refinements to neoclassical economics which would greatly help in providing a better fit between theory, observations, predictions, and policy.

I would highly recommend using the Earthship design principles for your house. I'm an architecture and environmental science student and have been researching sustainable building for a few years now, as well as having lived in two houses which applied efficient solar passive design and helped to build a number of houses as a labourer for my father's design and construction company. If you want to be building truly sustainably then you need to look much further than standards such as LEED; which are designed to fit within conventional architectural frameworks and thinking and in doing so fail to truly tackle the challenges of designing something that can be constructed and lived in without diminishing the ability of future generations to do the same. Earthships are a good step in the right direction, but they still do not go all the way sadly.

I would recommend reading the book Cradle To Cradle as a good place to start in understanding what it means for something to be truly environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. For if a house can be designed to use net zero electricity and waste yet it is at the expense of Chinese children dying from poison's released when a technology in the house needs to be disposed of and replaced (as a ridiculously extreme fictitious example), then how could it be called sustainable? In order to design our built environment to be sustainable in the core sense of the term all aspects of that design must be attended to with the utmost care, from resource extraction and processing to transportation and distribution of materials to assembly process (how sustainable is it exactly to build an earthship with 50 volunteers over 5 weeks if they're being fed steak every other day and half of them flew long distances to get to the build site? not very, i'd wager).

Achieving as I would call it true sustainability is a very difficult task right now unless you're happy to give up many of the modern comforts and conveniences that we enjoy in Western society, in fact it's nearly impossible. However, I do believe that if we (people like you and I) set out to lay down the groundwork for distributed systems of sustainable resilient development now, using the best technologies and processes available, then we could achieve a truly sustainable society within one generation that has access to all of the same conveniences (this is assuming several technologies are invented that are only now on the horizon of science). Sustainable development is, I believe, core to restoring much of what is perceived to have been eroded within society over the past few centuries, such as equality, strong communities, health (which as Ghandi said, is wealth), relevant education and satisfaction with individuals path through life.

I'm sorry, this is a bit of a rambling post. I get really excited seeing people preparing to move to a way of life which I see as essential if we are to lift humanity from the current gloom and doom that seems to pervade so much of our world right now.

Sure, thanks for asking :) you were the first who provided a valid point on the vegan side for the whole B12 deal. I've read this as well, that we live "too clean" nowadays, reducing the chance to get B12 on many levels. However if animal products, amongst other nutrients, contain decent amounts of B12 in it's natural form (meaning no pill needed to be manufactured, packaged, and delivered to your local supplement store), there are only more questions raised.

My statement is based on experience (I've been trying out different diets / lifestyles for 16+ years now), and on the following:

Here's an interesting link first: https://www.nps.gov/rowi/learn/news/the-tree-root-that-ate-roger-williams.htm

The apple tree, after a long time, consumed - "ate" - Mr. Williams' body. Basically, used his nutrients. That's what all in our world does, regardless of life type; Bacteria, insects, animals, plants, all eat, for nutrition, and try to reproduce as much and as fast as they can. All life forms are set up to consume a certain amount of nutrients, from certain sources. That's a fact, regardless of how we feel about it.

Throughout history our bodies got used to animal consumption 100% - fats, proteins, all of it, nothing is left out, compared to vegetables' cellulose. There's nothing our body leaves out undigested.

It also got used to eating nuts, and random amounts of fruits, and vegetables (being season-dependent of course). This whole concept changed about 10-15.000 years ago with agriculture. To this day, archeologists can show differences of bone density, and general health differences between old societies that stayed hunter-gatherers, and those that switched to grains / rice / maize crops. Here's what I found: https://proteinpower.com/drmike/2009/04/22/nutrition-and-health-in-agriculturalists-and-hunter-gatherers/

So as per this link, as soon as agriculture became more and more popular, our health got involved, in many aspects.

Now, I'm not convinced of course that regular activity cannot better the state of bone density for instance. Vegan crossfitters are great example of extra healthy, vegetable-based diets with great outcomes.

Getting back to the subject - connection between B12 and veganism being unhealthy, my base thought was inspired by this book: https://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804

I'm not judging anybody, on the contrary, I think it's very noble to decide you don't want to partake in the living hell we call the meat industry today. I'm questioning the natural aspect of it. My goal, in my life, is to be as natural, and as close to my general requirements as possible. I eat local, and mostly bio products. But that's me.

There are various, other great effects of becoming vegan. But is it really healthy? Is it sustainable? Is it really a "natural form of living", when even on the basic nutrients, like iron, and vitamin B12 one would need to get supplements? Iron of course is easier to come by - spinach, broccoli, and other greenies are full if them. Beans too! But my basic argument is that all living beings should find their natural equilibrium in our world's system. We also are consumed by mother nature, we also should follow the course on which we are set. Let me know what you think.

What is the B12 supplement made of btw? Is it from the bacteria found in dirt? Isn't that also a type of living being then? So how is that different from eating a mackerel that you cought 20km from your city's shore? (Cought, not farmed) = I think it can be ethical to eat seafood.

Ah! Have I got reading recommendations for you!

• Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture has been mentioned a few times in FFA and people generally found it excellent. It isn't fashion-specific, but talks about market pricing practices in general, the psychology of pricing to certain numbers, running discounts/sales and how it's intended to influence consumer behavior, the ethics and worker's rights issues behind cheap goods…
  
• Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion is specific to fashion, and it's the book written by the woman interviewed in the NPR segment I linked in the original post! It's really good as a kind of exposé into all the messy and undesirable and unethical and concerning and polluting practices going on behind cheap, disposable fashion, and the dangers of the ethos behind the fast fashion industry.
  
• The Reader's Digest Household Hints and Handy Tips is legit the most amazing lifehack-y book ever. All the classic stuff on making your own shampoo, caring for a garden, &c &c &c &c…but! The stuff you're interested in is the super-comprehensive-worth-the-piddly-<$10-USD-price-tag-alone section on how to buy quality garments, caring for different fabrics, how to deal with various kinds of stains…it's amazing. Cannot recommend highly enough.
  
• Our beloved /u/SuperStellar wrote a bra care guide for ABTF and is currently working on a general materials/fabric info and care guide for FFA. So hopefully soon we'll have an awesome guide for that on FFA as well!

Don't worry too much about the lack of "domain knowledge"...most companies understand that industry knowledge is something that only really comes with experience. It's usually enough just to be able to speak to a subject conversationally at the layman level.

For instance, in defense simulation, being able to verbally summarize the original Bay of Biscay analysis would be a fantastic discussion point in an interview (in fact, it would probably go over most managers' heads). Likewise, for environmental science, being able to discuss a few of the chapters from Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalist would be a good way to express interest and rudimentary knowledge of the topic (being careful to tiptoe around any emotional political / philosophical positions, of course).

As to getting your foot in the door...you can't always seek out such things. Often you simply maintain yourself in a state of readiness, such that when the opportunity appears before you, you're ready and able to step into it.

By way of comparison, I had been programming odd jobs for 10 years before I randomly met a Discrete Maths professor while tinkering away at a Master's Degree (never completed). It turned out that in his day job, he was a hiring manager for the Operations Research department of a major local defense company. There were 30 other students in that class simultaneously vying for his attention, but...I was more prepared, and more forthright in expressing my interest (that was a gamble), and in the end, I got offered a job.

You can make such chance meetings more likely by seeking out opportunities to meet more people. As I said, I made some life-changing contacts through taking some extra night courses. I've met some interesting people by attending local Java User Group meetings. I even met a young undergrad, possibly not unlike yourself, similarly interested in careers in Operations Research, by attending a Reddit meet-up at a local alehouse. I've even made some interesting career contacts through my family's church. And if you chance to be in a job involving travel, you can strike up some absolutely fascinating conversations in airports and airline seats (see, "Is this seat taken?").

Wherever people are, potential contacts maywill be in hiding. But they won't speak up if you don't. You need to break the ice and get conversation rolling.

Oh, and as for companies / agencies: Lockheed Martin Simulation & Training Systems (STS), Mission Systems & Sensors (MS2), Missiles & Fire Control (MFC), Aeronautics (LM-Aero) and the like are all good, as are their many competitors (Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, L3, etc). There are all the "Beltway Bandits" surrounding D.C., like Booz Allen Hamilton. There are the big generic consultancies like SAIC and Accenture (not my favorite niche, but they do land some juicy contracts).

Don't overlook gaming experience. A year or two on SimCity, CityVille, FarmVille, etc can actually provide some authentic and useful experience, as long as the game is architected in a reasonable manner. Then there are the big gaming giants who are almost always hiring, mostly because they tend to burn people out after a year or two (EA Tiburon, etc).

As I'm sure you've seen posted elsewhere, open-source contributions are a great way to get your feet wet. Find the open-bug or requested-feature lists for OpenSim, FlightGear, VDrift or similar, and implement a couple. That counts as real experience (I've hired people based on their open-source commit log), and will give you a chance to decide if this is really something you want to delve into.

You hit the nail on the head when you brought up Alex Epstein: he is the best source for rational climate/energy information I know. Here are a few steps you should take if you want to get educated in that realm:

-Read his columns in Forbes (and follow him so you get notified of new articles when they're posted). The best one that's most about "climate change" per se is the recent piece The Unscientific Consensus.

-Absorb everything on his site Center for Industrial Progress. There are podcasts, blog posts, e-books, and more. You might be particularly interested in the "Environment" category and the Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet e-book.

-Pre-order a copy of his upcoming book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. It's guaranteed to be awesome.

-If you're on Facebook, like the Center for Industrial Progress, I Love Fossil Fuels, and I Love Nuclear pages to keep updated.

-This page on The Objective Standard site ("Exploit the Earth or Die. It's not a threat. It's a fact.") also does a great job of compiling links to more educational resources.

I hope this wasn't too overwhelming. If you're just looking for one quick hit, your best bet is the Unscientific Consensus article I mentioned before. (But IMHO, it's so good that you'll be hooked on Alex's clarity and authority and want to continue with all the other steps I mentioned :).)

I don't know of any that compare, but, the Napoleon's Buttons is SUPPOSED to be good.

http://www.amazon.com/Napoleons-Buttons-Molecules-Changed-History/dp/1585423319/

Other books, engineering related, that I liked are:

Norm Lieberman's Process Troubleshooting books, the guy cracks me up!

Working Guide to Process Equipment (3rd edition probably cheaper): http://www.amazon.com/Working-Guide-Process-Equipment-Fourth/dp/0071828060/

Process Equipment Malfunctions (not as good as the other one, some overlap, but still worthwhile, and covers more breadth for individual issues): http://www.amazon.com/Process-Equipment-Malfunctions-Techniques-Identify/dp/0071770208/

The Prize (mentioned above): http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1439110123/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/188-3799228-4803548

The Quest (Follow on to The Prize): http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Energy-Security-Remaking-Modern/dp/0143121944/

Oil 101: http://www.amazon.com/Oil-101-Morgan-Downey/dp/0982039204/

The Mythical Man Month (Not engineering directly as it pertains to software, but, projects and project management are huge in engineering, though this book is timeless): http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959/

Piping Systems Manual (You can NEVER know enough about pipe!): http://www.amazon.com/Piping-Systems-Manual-Brian-Silowash/dp/0071592768/

Pumps and Pumping Operations (OMG it is $4, hardcover, go buy now! This book is great... did you know OSU didn't teach their Chem E's about pumps? I was flabbergasted, gave this to our intern and he became not a scrub by learning about pumps!): http://www.amazon.com/Pumping-Operations-Prentice-Pollution-Equipment/dp/0137393199/

Any good engineer needs to understand MONEY too:

The Ascent of Money: http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/dp/0143116177/

It's Nial Fergesuon, who has had his own series of dramas and dumb stuff. The Ascent of Money has a SLIGHT libertarian tinge... but it wasn't bad enough that I didn't enjoy it. I consider it a history book, and he attempts to write it like one.

Have fun!

You can always comment stalk him in the meantime ;) http://www.reddit.com/user/fatmalcontent - I think most of what you need to know is already there in his comment history.

About returning to my omnivorous ways: this was not an easy or quick decision, I had been thinking about this for at least a year now. I had ben a vegetarian for 15 years, it was a big part of who I was and I did not want to give it up. One problem were my iron levels (I'm female, from what I've heard males tend to have less problems with iron) that I barely managed to keep at a good level by using supplements. But since iron supplements tend to cause a permanent state of constipation that was just a temporary workaround but not a solution. But this was only what started to get me thinking, not the only problem, otherwise I would have done this years ago. Even with good iron levels I was still tired and pale. The fact that I was using a lot of carb heavy stuff (lots of grains and legumes) to make up for meat was not helping either. After noticing a couple of problems with supplements I started to be very suspicious about them, wondering how many other side effects they had that I did not even notice yet. So I decided that I did not want to keep taking various daily supplements, wanted to get most of the stuff mainly from my diet and started to have a detailed look at my vitamin and mineral intake (I use a software called "cronometer" for this; screenshots: http://imgur.com/a/YWUCk/cronometer_screenshots_2). I noticed after a while that I wasn't meeting many of my nutritional goals (mainly B vitamins and of course also iron) even though I was trying my best to do so.

Based on that I started to question my belief that being a vegetarian is a perfectly natural and healthy way for humans to live. I had always used the typical "no short intestine, no claws,.." arguments to defend my position. I did not want to see that you could also turn these around just as well (we don't have the long intestines of plant eaters either, but we lie somewhere in between which would make us an omnivore if you take this as a sign; we don't have claws and sharp teeth but an essential part of us being human has always been tool making so there was no need to keep wasting energy on building them).

Have you heard about the Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith? From the reviews I've seen that it is a bit controversial (veganism and vegetarianism tend to be very emotional subjects and I definitely understand why that is) but I've talked to quite a lot of people who found it very interesting and who stopped being a vegan or a vegetarian afterwards. To be honest I haven't read it since my decision was already made before I stumbled across it but if I decided to stay vegetarian I would have read it. I think it's always better to be able to consider aspects that one didn't know about before and then decide whether one wants to take them into consideration or not.

You might also have heard about the voraciouseats girl who stopped being a vegan: http://voraciouseats.com/2010/11/19/a-vegan-no-more/ she also links to a couple of other blogs of former vegans who made the same decision. In case you are interested in health related concerns I would at least have a look at these.

My personal compromise is that I am now even stricter when eating at a restaurant or party than I used to be (which is also a result of cutting out all grains). I still don't eat meat and most of the time I just have a salad, sometimes just water if I don't feel like eating (which is a completely new experience for me...). When I'm at home I cook meat for me but only when I know it has been grass fed and raised in the best way possible which I think is best for me but also the comparably best thing for the animal. There are a couple of local farmers who stopped producing milk and who instead let their cows live together with a bull on the pasture. Their calves are slaughtered at the farm and only afterward transported to a factory for processing. I also know where my eggs come from and I don't consume any dairy. This is of course more expensive but it's not like I eat nothing but meat now, it is just a small part of my diet. And I also eat much less than I did before. Upping fat & protein and cutting out anything that causes cravings (for me that unfortunately currently also includes fruits and nut butter) has helped me a lot already and so I need smaller amounts of food now. Sorry for the long comment. I've thought about this a lot and thus obviously like talking about it....

---
Edit: there was one thing that I forgot to mention. I've read this so many times and I remember when I first heard it: around 10 years ago when my doctor had checked my iron levels for the first time he looked me in the eyes and said "not everyone of us is born to be a vegetarian, you know". I did of course ignore him back then and only now remembered this. Not everyone might have the same problems when being vegan or vegetarian and as far as I know we have absolutely no idea why that is the case. So if being vegan works for you, you feel and look "alive" and if there is nothing that is missing or wrong with you then of course do whatever you believe is right. The question might however be how many people are indeed not having any problems and how many just ignore them. I always thought that I was "just pale" and that was just the way I am. Thinking about it, I have lots of pale, thin vegan friends who don't look very good but who are probably in denial just as I was. I do in fact not have a single vegan friend that looks really healthy but at least from what I've read online they might be out there.

Your body will thank you. Raised vegan, sometimes saw my parents “lapse” into vegetarianism, went to mostly vegetarian as an adult but rebelled by trying inconsequential quantities of meat. I had a myriad of mystery health problems that I couldn’t understand and neither could my doctors; I’m early 30’s. It was a horrible journey, but I feel like a new person on carnivore/zero carb and I’m only three months into it. Also everything is starting to make sense which is glorious.

I’ll be honest with you, changes in weight or muscles are not as visually dramatic for me initially. If your experience is like mine, your body will spend a lot of time nourishing deprived joints, bones and muscles in the beginning, but you’ll feel more energy and stronger. I also experienced extreme oxalate dumping which was tough. I wrote some of my experience here (kind of went on a tangent, tbh!):
https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/comments/df5qdp/optimizing_my_way_of_eating_for_further_health/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

If you have more questions, feel free to message me. I’m still learning about meat (I didn’t even know what each cut was or how to cook it) but I hope you enjoy that first steak as much as I did!!!

Oh I suggest some good reading for recovering vegetarians/vegans, message me if you’re interested in a book list but “vegetarian myth” by Lierre Keith is a good primer:
https://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804/ref=nodl_

Find farms that are local to you. I buy grass fed beef direct from the farmer. (I even get to pet my dinner during their happy, but short lives on the farm.) It's like $5 a lb, but I have to buy in bulk.

The same farmer though also sells individual chickens. They are TRUE free range. Not like CAFO chickens - these birds literally could leave if they wanted too. There is no fence or gate preventing them from just heading out and walking down the road. The meat is incredibly dense and the birds are huge. I am a big eater and single breast is more than a meal for me; while I could pretty much eat an entire Publix chicken on my own.

Also - buy a slow cooker and find a source for quality meats in the cheaper cuts, like a roast.

You may like to read this book; The Vegetarian Myth. The title is a bit confrontational but most of the book is about the author reexamining her relationship with food and the earth. I am not a "spiritual person" but I found it quite moving and it really changed who I think about my food. The first chapter was free on her website - google it.

TL:DR: You can afford good meat; you need to buy it from a farmer not from Whole Foods.

Well I'm sure you've read it, but I've heard cradle to cradle is pretty good

You could look into biomimicry too, there's absolutely loads of interesting projects that deal with biomimicry

Here are some other books that could help:
one,
two

Hope that helps!

EDIT: Forgot this one

There are several reasons that many of us in the strength and conditioning field outright avoid all grains.

The primary concern with grains is the presence of lectins, which are proteins that are only present in grains and have unusual qualities. Normally, when you ingest proteins from a meat source, the enzymes in your stomach cleave apart the peptide bonds that hold the proteins together, and you then easily absorb chains of 3 to 10 aminos, which are used throughout the body. Lectins, however, are of a design such that they aren't readily digested and are absorbed in their full state. Now, here's where the science gets somewhat cutting edge, but from what I've read, here's what happens: Once floating around in the blood, the body has a hard time recognizing them for whatever reason. They then readily bind to all sorts of tissue, inhibiting cellular turnover, most especially in the intestines (keep in mind that the intestinal lining replaces itself very rapidly). Plus, while only about 1% of the US population has Coeliac's disease (a genetic disorder which produces a marked autoimmune response in the gut leading to pain and GI issues due to a sensitivity to wheat and other grains), there's evidence to suggest that a majority of people in the US have minor autoimmune reactions to wheat and other grains. Constant autoimmune reactions to what is supposedly the basis of our diet is certainly not conductive to good health, and after all, lectins are classified as an anti-nutrient.

Another aspect is that, to me at least, it's a junk carbohydrate. It provides almost nothing other than carbohydrates. The fiber in wheat isn't nearly as high-quality as the fiber in actual vegetables, and I believe the FDA is even moving to classify grain fibers differently than vegetable fibers for that very reason. Other carbs like sweet potatoes and white rice are much more superior, in my opinion. For those that just can't get away from bread though, there is an option called Ezekial bread, which is sprouted grain bread. Sprouting doesn't get rid of all the anti-nutrients, but it does eliminate many of them.

Last of all, the evolution argument is one I find interesting but one that is difficult to consider anything more than psuedo-science without more hard data. In short, agriculture has only existed for roughly 10,000 years. Humans have existed for around 200,000 years, and during that time, they thrived on a diet of meats and vegetables. Even before that, pre-human ancestors maintained a similar diet as well. While anthropologists do note that life expectancy increased with agriculture, general wellness decreased pretty drastically using a measure of pelvic depth and height of the human. Between humans that were hunter-gatherers and humans that were farmers that lived at the same time, the hunter-gatherers were on average taller, had greater pelvic depth, and lower body fat. Agrarian cultures saw a drastic reduction in quality of life based on those biological markers.

If I may suggest, there is an incredible book that talks at length on this subject called The Vegetarian Myth. I don't think I could do the author's work justice by trying to repeat it, but she's certainly done her legwork on the topic.

One of my favourite books about being a lawyer: A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr (later made into a movie with John Travolta). Book takes place in the American context (and in the context of an environmental contamination case), but it's extremely well-written and interesting and really provides a good in-depth look about what it's like to be a particular type of lawyer (i.e., a small-firm bulldog type). Highly recommended!

My other advice is to try to work at a law firm for a bit - see if you can get a legal assistant job for a little while. It will definitely teach you a great deal about the inner workings of a law firm.

Definitely! Good places to start are Buxton's Sketching User Experience and Norman's Design of Everyday Things


Also, the people over at Kicker Studio keep a list of the top 10 books of all time as well as a very good essential reading list.


Interaction design is a huge field, as deep as any other, so it's not just something you can pick up a book or two and become an expert in or know all the details that go into a good design, but it's definitely worth learning something about it.


One nice article that will start to change how you view interfaces is Raskin's Intuitive Equals Familiar.

Good luck!

Much of the reason it's hard to find an example (part of which someone already mentioned) is that as the price begins to increase for a resource that becomes rare, the technology used to refine, extract, or use it is upgraded to be more efficient. This drives the price back down as suddenly you can keep the same output, or even increase output, without using as much of the resource as before.

Julian Simon famously won a bet with another professor that the price of several precious metals would go down over time. The other professor (Ehrlich), believed the price would go up because we would begin to run out of those resources as demand for them increased.

Basically - the economic argument that Julian Simon makes is that as our natural resources become more scarce, the more there is to gain by investing in efficiency. For example, when we first discovered oil and it's benefits, it was extremely unrefined. All the money made from oil was used to find more oil since it was cheaper to find more than it was to figure out more efficient ways of using it. Since then, the refining of oil has become a massive process and the oil we use for energy today is so different from the oil used a long time ago. Basically, if we never put any effort into the refinement and use of oil, we would have run out of it decades ago - but the reason why we keeping pushing back "peak oil" is because we keep figuring out how to be more efficient. Just look at the current trend with cars. If you're interested in learning about this theory more I highly recommend Simon's book "The Ultimate Resource". Essentially he argues that our brains and the ideas we come up with are the "infinite" resource we need. It's flawed but really interesting

https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Resource-Julian-Lincoln-Simon/dp/0691003815

(Edit: I'm thinking of non-living resources like metals, oil, wood etc. This argument/idea doesn't really hold up with animals/species)

I am relatively new to this subject and these books have been useful for me:

The Urban Homestead A good introductory book that touches on a lot of relevant topics.

Gaia's Garden This is not specifically a homesteading book but it is a very useful book for growing food and learning about small scale permacultural design.

Four Season Harvest Another useful book for growing, especially for those of us in cold climates.

Country Wisdom & Know How A fun reference for many homestead topics.

It's the blog of the author, and that's the first chapter of his whole book where you can find references to further reading. The main issue is about the fundamental differences between animal fats and proteins versus vegetal fats and proteins and how they're metabolized in completely different ways by the body. This among hundreds of other bits of information, especially the critics upon ethical and social aspects of vegetarianism and ecological concerns like sustainability itself. Like I said in another comment, veganism is better than the average post-industrial world diet but is no better than a healthy omnivorous diet. Furthermore, vegan diet is extremely easy to mess up and end up hurting yourself and is mostly impossible to attain a perfect vegetarian diet without chemical supplements of nutrients.

EDIT: Further read: New York Times article can be backed up with this article.

Additional data

There's also the issue of what does a true vegetarian diet consist of. Eggs or milk count? yogurt? fish? bugs? Morally would you renounce to reading books, using plastics, wearing leather, and consuming certain medicines and other product produced out of farm animals? how does this would play out on an ideal Vegan world?

I interviewed at a large software company a few weeks ago for a PM position. They aligned me with multiple UI/UX teams which I interviewed with. I prepared pretty rigorously for a few weeks leading up to the interview. Specifically I read a few books that we're recommended by the recruiter from the company. The one I would highly recommend is the design of everyday things. I had no prior experience in UI/UX designer and this book forces you to think like a designer.

Second I found a great paper pertaining specifically to the postion of PM. You know they will ask you why you want to be a PM so its important to have a proper understanding of the position and its responsibilities: Zen of PM.

Best of luck with your interview and feel free to ask questions!

We moved to the area because her family's from southeast Minnesota and I managed to get a job nearby. The village, we don't know anyone in, but we got the place at a low cost on an acre lot in a pretty area with a low crime rate. It's been pretty neat because the residents are all older and are looking for younger people to come to the village, partially because we gave a pretty prominent landmark that they're trying to preserve. Conveniently, my college-educated, liberal self minored in folklore, which branches into museum studies, so I'm going to be helping them bring their landmark into the 21st century.

We're literally in the midst of moving into the place, but I picked up Gehring's Back to Basics Book and have been looking at the 1 acre farm homesteading plans and urban farm plans people have made so we're more self-sustaining.

Our area is reserved, but it's surprising how many liberal people you can find in the country. A lot of my coworkers are liberal, but live in the country, because they're interested in controlling their food production, or they just like not having to be bunched in with others and the headaches it may bring.

That's neat about your chicken farm. Our new place has a small egg producer up the street we plan to use. We're not livestock people, but I've looked a lot at starting into vegetables and fruits, then building out from there.

The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World looks like a great read! Possibly a follow-up to his book The Prize.

Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies looks good as well! David Nye has written quite a few books... He seems like an interesting guy.

I would buy land and books.

With the land, I would set up ecovillages, and I would (also) set aside vast areas where the plants and animals would be able to rejuvenate uninhibited.

I would find like-minded people, and I would ultimately try to integrate them into the enviornment with the wolves and the buffalo and the other animals. Humans can, and have been, ecologically sustainable organisms in natural environments. Not all agriculture is bad. Many Native American groups practiced agriculture in harmony with the rest of the environment.

I am also not against technology. A bow and arrow is technology, any tool that people use is technology. I am, however, against plastics and other harmful chemicals.

I would also build an army with the people who come to live on my land. There is no shortage of people - homeless people, high-school and college dropouts, homeless children, the unemployed, environmentalists, and lots of people I talk to IRL would be down for this idea.

I would learn assorted martial arts, I would teach them to others, and I would have the others teach them to more people, and we would spend a lot of time on it. This would be both for the health benefits and the self-defense benefits. It would be an army of ninjas, who also grow their own food and are self-sustaining. This will be great in case of societal failure or economic collapse. I would also teach/learn as many natural survival skills as I can. The goal of the army would be to establish peace and not wars, and to help people achieve independence (from money, oil, and industry) while also keeping a healthy relationship with the environment and the other animals.

We would also care for our children. We would raise them to be physically healthy and open-minded. We would not overshelter them, or put taboos on their sexuality, and we would make it the job of the entire community (especially the elders) to educate and take care of them. We will not over-shelter them or raise them to be weak. We will teach them how to socialize with each other in healthy ways, in an open, nurturing, loving environment. We'll also make it official policy that everything we do is done with the well-being of the next seven generations in mind.

There are also some books that I would want to buy and distribute. They include Circle of Life Traditional Teachings of Native American Elders, by James David Audlin, The Other Side of Eden, by Hugh Brody, The Conversations with God trilogy, by Neale Donald Walsch, The Art of Shen Ku, by Zeek, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, by Thom Hartmann, A Practical Guide to Setting Up Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, by Diana Leafe Christian, and I'm sure there's lots of other good ones. You should really conduct your own search, but I feel all the ones I've listed have valuable information and the power to change the ideas of large groups of people. Anything on Native American culture, history, and philosophy, or on organic gardening, or self-sustainability in general. I might even set up my own bookstore or library, now that I think about it, and make more money. I'm definitley not against making money, because everyone in our world believes in money and money is power in our society.

There's an ok-ish textbook, Energy and the Wealth of Nations by Hall and Klitgard in BioPhysical Economics that's a good starting point.

Robert Ayres also has a thermodynamical based approach that is very consistent with what you probably know from ecology. The Economic Growth Engine is also a pretty good general introduction to economic concepts that are thermodynamically correct.

Steve Keen's Debunking Economics is a good general critique of current neoclassical thinking from a scientific standpoint. It's sometimes good to read an insider's critique of the paradigm so you know what is problematic.

Doyne Farmer does more complexity stuff but he's involved in a similar space.

Elenor Ostrum is also another great place to start. Her work on sustainability and common pool resources is hugely important in the area.

There is also a huge amount of work being done in complexity economics using ecological models that I've only just started scratching the surface of.

There is a huge amount of work being generated in this area. Sadly very little of it is getting through to the economists.

For comparable quality produce from the local farmer's market (or Whole-Paycheck Foods), yes, IF you eat it all. For regular old produce, probably not. It's pretty cheap for a HOBBY and it's a wonderfully practical skill to develop that you can't really but a price on - but if you don't love doing it, it's probably not worth the work...

I really liked the book The Urban Homestead for sustainable (aka, cheap) ways to grow food.

Here's what I'm doing (Caveat: I'm only just now finishing my first 'serious' garden season, but I've read a lot about this subject.):

• I get free mulch from my city (lucked out on this)
  
  
• Built my garden from salvaged materials (pulled out an old deck ramp, and re-did my front retaining wall)
  
  
• Buy all my soil and compost at the end of the season for $1.50/bag instead of $3 (I cannot deal with a truckload, and anyway it's not all that much cheaper from what I can find...).
  
  
• Started growing heirloom plants so I can save their seeds (pre-started plants get pretty expensive)
  
  
• Started homemade compost tumblers in round, locking top black cans (don't buy a commercial tumbler, they suck and break)
  
  
• Started a worm bin for fertilizer (fertilizer tea is the shit!) but I have yet to see if that one's panning out...looks good though!
  
  
• Next year I'm replanting my front with edible perennials/self seeders, that should hopefully manage themselves and keep me in noms with minimal effort for years.

If you are interested in books that read as generic non-fiction books and not as textbooks, these two were interesting to me and assigned by professors (one of my majors was economics).

The Choice by Russell Roberts is a very accessible text about international trade (so this book will definitely drive home how free trade is best for society as a whole) but its themes are relevant to general economic theory as well. It is written in the form of Platonic conversation where the entire story is just two people talking back and forth in a question:answer format. My macro professor made all of his classes read it, even his honors students.

The Ultimate Resource 2 by Julian Lincoln Simon explores issues of resource scarcity, population dynamics, and technology diffusion; each of these is important to economic theory and the themes and anecdotes explored here are common to economics. Some of the ideas expressed might fall more into the Austrian/Libertarian camp, but certainly not all (it isn't always black-and-white).

Out of curiosity, the fact that you are vegan, is it a health life style choice, or are you not eating meat and animal products because of a moral objection?

If it is simply a health choice, i recommend reading the book Vegetarian Myth this might help. If it is a moral objection to eating meat, can't really help you, but solute your resolve.

Also, 40 min HIIT, either you are an animal or you are not giving the proper intensity. HIIT workouts shouldn't really last longer then 15 - 20 minutes. Tabata for example is ideal to only last 4 minutes.

Anyways best of luck to you.

Edit: spelling

Personally, I don't think a full repeal to all of the residential zoning is the best practice. A full repeal would likely only increase land values
(here's a good explainer as to how that can happen). I do believe they need to be loosened significantly. At the rate this city is growing, it needs to have all of the tools necessary to help increase density and banning thing such as having both an ADU and DADU on single family lots and requiring their sizes to be such that they cannot accommodate families is a bad thing. Duplexes and triplexes also should be legal in single family zones. These allowances also should be paired with strategic rezones that allow for some sort of corner market/commerce zone within a 5-10 minute walkshed of every house in SFZs in order to make it reasonable for people in SFZs to live without a car in these now densified neighborhoods.


In regards to more reading: are you looking for more reading regarding Seattle zoning law exclusively or are you looking for reading recommendations that follow an urbanist bent? For Seattle specific stuff, The Urbanist and Seattle Transit Blog post a lot regarding land use in the city. If you are looking for books that talk about general city planning the gold standard is The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I personally really enjoyed Walkable City, Suburban Nation, and Happy City.

Interaction Design

• About Face 3 by Alan Cooper
  
• Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge
  
• Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell
  
• Designing for the Digital Age by Kim Goodwin
  
• Making Things Talk: (2011) (2007) by Tom Igoe
  
  Interior Design
  
  
• The Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden, Jr. Codman
  
• Domino: The Book of Decorating by Deborah Needleman
  
• Design*Sponge at Home: A Guide to Inspiring Homes by Grace Bonney
  
• The Vintage/Modern Home by Katherine Sorrell
  
• The Fundamentals of Interior Design by Simon Dodsworth
  
  Landscape Architecture
  
  
• Landscape Architectural Graphic Standards by Leonard J. Hopper
  
• Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers
  
• Landscape Graphics by Grant W. Reid
  
• Cities for People by Jan Gehl
  
• Design with Nature by Ian L. McHarg
  
  Lighting Design
  
  
• Stage Lighting Design by Richard Pilbrow
  
• The Architecture of Natural Light by Henry Plummer
  
• Painting With Light by John Alton
  
• Made of Light by Anthony Tischhauser
  
• Color, Environment and Human Response by Frank H. Mahnke & Rudolf H. Mahnke
  
  Product Design
  
  
• Sketching: Drawing Techniques from Product Designers by Koos Eissen
  
• Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek
  
• The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
  
• Mythologies by Roland Barthes
  
• Cradle to Cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
  
  Product Design
  
  
• In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World by John Thackara
  
• The Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine II & James H. Gilmore
  
• Universal Methods of Design by Bruce Hanington & Bella Martin
  
• Cradle to Cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
  
• Mental Models by Indi Young
  
  Sound Design
  
  
• Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema by David Sonnenschein
  
• Designing Sound by Andy Farnell
  
• Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen by Michel Chion
  
• The Sound Effects Bible by Ric Viers
  
• Sound Theory Sound Practice by Rick Altman
  
  Urban Design
  
  
• The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
  * Cities for People by Jan Gehl
  
• A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
  
• The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler
  
• The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch
  
  Web Design
  
  
• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
  
• HTML & CSS: Design and Build Web Sites by Jon Duckett
  
• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird
  
• Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS by Ben Frain
  
• Hardboiled Web Design by Andy Clarke
  

>Any good books that you might recommend that tell a different story than the ones listed above?

I don't read about politics anymore, because I don't think it's worth the effort to figure out what needs to be done if I'm unable to affect things much. I have no special talent for making people like me, organizing groups of protestors, or schmoozing with politicians.

Anyhow, here are some conservative thinkers who seem like they should be intelligent:

Arnold Kling - this might be good

Mencius Moldberg - his commenters/blogroll might also be a good place to look

John McCarthy

Bjorn Lomberg

I'm usually annoyed by "Grrr! I'm angry all the time!" character designs, but I like Millie's style. Maybe it's because she still relaxes sometimes. Maybe it's boobs. But, it's probably because she reminds me of some girls I knew back in high school --or at least how they wanted to be.

I don't play a lot of flash games, so I'm struck by how difficult it is to control a game like this with a keyboard. Controls really influence how much patience people will have when starting a game. Here are a few random suggestions:

• Consider moving interact to Enter and maybe move jump to Space. ASD is comfortable and convenient, but it is also confusing for noobs. "quick! need to.. which button? home row, home row or home row?" Some separation would help highlight the differences. I strongly recommend the book The Design of Everyday Things to all game designers for issues like this.
  
  
• The effects of the rage meter are not clear. There are no indications of when or why I lost the ability to kick and do the air-attacks. I thought it was a bug for quite a while. Berserk mode is too brief. I still haven't figured out what difference it makes. For a while, I thought blue/green clouds upped the rage meter instead of health. I'd recommend different sized green clouds if they all up health. I'd also recommend red/blue instead of red/green because of colorblindness issues.
  
  
• The neutral air attack doesn't read as an attack. It just looks like a different jump pose. I see the connection with charge, but... Maybe a repeating horizontal slashing anim that has the same effect would be more clear. At the moment, repeatedly hitting attack while jumping looks like a twitch. Being unable to jump when pressing down is annoying.
  
  
• In general, I'm looking for more moves. Trying to discover moves and seeing nothing happen is frustrating -especially when kick and air-attacks disappear. Maybe, jump+forward+attack = upper-cut would help.
  
  
• I'm not feeling much benefit from blocking or kicking compared to the risk of mistiming and still getting hit. The enemy attacks are too brief for me to plan a block and blocks don't stumble opponent timing, so there isn't much motivation. Maybe down+forward+attack=duck-attack to dodge high attacks would help.
  
  
• I'd recommend against auto-hopping. It's fun, but hard to control. Only jump on the jump button down-edge. When it comes to side-scrollers, let the wisdom of Super Mario Bros be your guide. I strongly recommend the book Game Feel for issues like this. It has a whole chapter on the controls of SMB.
  
  
• You should be unfairly forgiving when it comes to platformer jumps. Let the logical edges of your platforms extend a bit farther than the visible edges. The goal is to let the player be a frame late when jumping, or an inch short when landing without making them fall. Otherwise, real or imagined keyboard latency will enrage your players. I also tried way too long to time my jumps off the flowers before I figured out that I could just hold jump. Some forgiveness there would help too.
  

This one is about law—so I guess sorry for not actually answering your question—but I just finished this one and can't recommend it enough. Someone in an 0L thread a couple months back recommended "A Civil Action" to anyone looking to read something fun this summer that's law school-adjacent but not a casebook or whatever, and I finally picked it up and started reading it about a week ago.

I flew through it and loved it so much—it's a super compelling and true story, a total page-turner, and made me feel in the tiniest way that I was getting in a law school mindset without doing any of the "useless" prep that everyone warns against/discourages. One of my favorite nonfiction books I've ever read.

I have an eccentric obsession with the oil/energy industry. Some of these books were mentioned already, but below are my absolute favorites:

• The Prize
  
• The Frackers
  
• Oil 101
  
• The Big Rich
  
• The King of Oil
  
• Fundamentals of Investing in Oil and Gas
  
• The Smartest Guys in the Room
  
• The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
  
  If you're looking for a history of oil and gas check out The Prize, and The Frackers covers the more recent energy revolution. Oil 101 and Fundamentals of Investing in Oil and Gas deal more with the technical side.

This may be a bit of a stretch but i loved
Cradle to Cradle, a book on re-imagining sustainable design and engineering, the book itself is even made out of recycled plastics with soy based reusable inks and is waterproof. I found it to be really enlightening and is definitely worth a read.

I did the same after reading Overdressed

If I google "slow fashion" I got more results than "ethical clothing," especially since the word "ethical" is used pretty loosely.

It was a great book, way more interesting than the movie. I'd highly recommend it.

It's more living in harmony with nature, rather than destroy it like current cities usually do. If you have the chance, read "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" https://www.amazon.com/Last-Hours-Ancient-Sunlight-Revised/dp/1400051576/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505327231&sr=8-1 to be informed.

There's an efficiency with cities, but there's also a net negative in the way it's currently structured. With Artificial Intelligence that's currently in development, I believe eco villages can be highly sustainable in the future. Also, rather than commuting to work, perhaps we can reduce it with telepresence.

If we have the infrastructure that promotes eco villages, it can work. If everyone were to live in a spread out village that lives in harmony with nature, we would have more nature than we currently do now.


Also, there are NIH studies that shows contact with nature is very healthy to our mental health(which leads to improved physical health):

• "Healthy Workplaces: The Effects of Nature Contact at Work on Employee Stress and Health" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3072911/
  
  
• Patients recover faster in rooms with nature views https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6143402

>It is 2019 & high dietary cholesterol is linked to heart disease. And heart disease is the leading cause of death, it is caused by cholesterol and saturated fats.

This is completely bogus. This is like claiming that firemen are the leading cause of fires. Your body can regulate its production of cholesterol to respond to your dietary intake without any significant difficulty. Your whole premise is flawed: the assumption that cholesterol is a problem the body needs to solve.

You should read this book that covers the flaws in the studies regarding dietary fat, cholesterol and heart disease and how they are corrupted by agricultural lobbying in the US Congress. If you are broke I'll be happy to buy the e-book for you. Keith covers quite a bit more than just that, I'd skip ahead to the relevant section on heart disease studies and the issues with the reported "increases" of the rate of death by heart diseases, although the entire book is interesting.

Other how to books of an anarchistic nature:

• Making Stuff and Doing Things
  
  
• Recipes for Disaster
  
  There are a whole ton of books and military surplus gear out there, a lot of which can be found with a simple amazon or google search.
  
  I personally like this series of books because they are not bug out only. There is a lot out there that is more prepper/survivalist oriented. For a more rural perspective the Foxfire books a long with the Country Wisdom books and Mother Earth News
  
  In addition there is stuff like the Open Source Village Construction Set and quite a few other online resources like make and instructables that are the same deal just in a different format.
  
  A piece of advice would be not to get caught up in the cultural presentation of information there is a lot of great post-collapse, survivalist, whatever, information out there that is not presented as such.

First we have hundreds of years of recoverable oil. I think every person who is like me, figures technology will get better, but for the foreseeable future, oil is our friend.

If you want a great read that will at least make you consider why oil is so amazing, read The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

Ok - a great place to start is Carolyn Merchant's textbook, Major Problems in Environmental History. It's a fantastic mix of documents and essays, and to a certain degree also gives you an idea of what directions the field has come from and where it's going.

If you are interested in any specific sub-genre of environmental history I can give you more detailed recommendations - history of environmentalism, history of conservation, enviro-tech, environment and gender, environment and race, urban environmental history, etc. etc. etc.

If you want to start in the places the field started I would go with William Cronnon's Changes in the Land - it's an environmental history of the colonization of New England, and is still excellent, although it has been disputed, revised, and corrected by a variety of historians on points big and small (as happens with any classic work of history over time!).

There are three American history audiobooks I've enjoyed. One was recommended by a friend who is a big American history buff, Braddock's Defeat (https://www.amazon.com/Braddocks-Defeat-Battle-Monongahela-Revolution/dp/B014LJJMM2). It's set about 20 years before revolution and features George Washington working for the British.

Washington's Spies, by Rose, is what the series "Turn" was based on and it's also quite excellent: https://www.amazon.com/Washingtons-Spies-Story-Americas-First/dp/0553383299

Last of the 3 is "Changes in the Land" which is look at how European colonization of New England changed the land. The author weaves interesting material from various domains to paint an interesting story: https://www.amazon.com/Changes-Land-Indians-Colonists-Ecology/dp/0809016346

So many ways to go with this.....

Saying "we need to plan based on metrics" is not "fuck people." There's a book I would advocate you reading if you haven't already, The Skepical Environmentalist. One of the key take-aways is that we don't spend enough time figuring out how to spend resources WISELY and with the greatest benefit.

Of course, "greatest benefit" is a matter of opinion and subject to hijack, but your response shows that you clearly have your mind made up to the point of not taking the time to evaluate or understand an opposing viewpoint.

While nicely put the statistic is misleading. When talking about pops and feeding those pops you can't brand agricultural products like "Food", more so if he latter say "a susbtantial portion of the food (cereals) is diverted to produce food(meat)". So let me rephrase it, there is enough food (cereals+meats) produced in the earth right now (so w/o increasing the burden of agriculture on natural lands) to feed 11 billion, yet this amount of food is reached because "a substantial amount of what consititutes food is used to produce the other constituent...."? so X = 11 billions, but X = (m+c) while m = (c-s)xlivestock ??? so C =/= C or m doesn't exist or m does but c doesn't.

So no even if the food were heavenly distributed to every one, it would'nt be possible to feed 11 billions, not a "normal level". In fact studies have show that for every single one to have an acceptable diet (not as fancy as the US or Europe, but acceptable) while still living in a decent environnement, with should be only 5 billions.

a must read : http://www.amazon.fr/How-Many-People-Earth-Support/dp/0393314952/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1343120899&sr=1-1-catcorr

Here's some books from my library:

The Affordable Housing Reader - Basics on how affordable housing in the US works (or how it doesn't work...)

Cities for People/Walkable City/Death and Life of Great American Cities - Classics that really pertain to most things

The Public Wealth of Cities - How to leverage public/city assets to benefit the most amount of people

The Color of Law - How racism has shaped our cities

Happy City - Planning for social health

> especially leftist urbanism (anti suburbs and single family housing, pro mass-transit etc)

I'd be weary of calling this 'leftist urbanism,' since all of these are perfectly compatible with right-wing viewpoints, just handled very differently. You're looking more for sustainable urbanism and the social impacts of it. The books I have recommended above do all have a centrist or left lean to it though.

Predictions of world population vary quite a bit. Just imagine how hard it would have been to predict the population of 2018 back in 1918: that was before widespread effective birth control, before the Green Revolution, before World War II, the Cold War...

With that said, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses future population estimates as an important part of predicting future climate change. They expect that world population will reach a maximum of somewhere between 9 and 12 billion, sometime between 2070 and the early 2100s, before declining. Improved global wealth and better access to birth control are the main factors that are expected to end the exponential growth we've seen for the past couple centuries.

https://skepticalscience.com/rcp.php?t=3#popgdp

https://static.skepticalscience.com/pics/population-gdp-vanvuuren.PNG

As for the theoretical maximum, I'll direct you to this book:
"How Many People can the Earth Support?", by Joel Cohen
https://www.amazon.com/How-Many-People-Earth-Support/dp/0393314952

It's probably the definitive work on the subject, though it doesn't really give a definite answer (and I won't either), because it really depends on the quality of life you want to give people, and how much impact on the environment you're willing to allow.

Yeah, Interface Carpets have done incredible things. Ray Anderson the owner of Interface did a great TED talk where he explains their journey. You can find other cases along this vein in the book Cradle to Cradle. They give me faith that business and manufacturing can positively contribute to sustainability if they choose to.

https://extension.umd.edu/hgic

Consider signing up for gardening classes, lectures, and seminars. Try your local extension service, garden clubs, botanical gardens, and plant nurseries. Youtube has a wealth of information, but it may not apply to where you are. There's a regional aspect to growing.

Start gardening where you are right now. Skip trying to start things from seeds (it's July), and just see if you can keep some herbs alive in pots for now, like basil or mint. Learn to cook from scratch and how to can/preserve/ferment your food. Reddit, youtube, and the internet in general is full of countless resources on this and other related topics, everything from r/gifrecipes to r/cooking to /r/EatCheapAndHealthy/ to r/baking to r/homebrewing - and of course there's tons of garden-related subreddits.

Buying your actual piece of land is step #4209 of homesteading, not #1. Without experience, you'll have no way of evaluating whether the land actually fits what you want to do or not.

Here's two books to consider, to help you learn how to garden where you are currently -

https://www.amazon.com/Grow-Great-Grub-Organic-Food-from-Small-Spaces/dp/0307452018/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/The-Urban-Homestead-Expanded-Revised-Edition-Your-Guide-to-Self-Sufficient-Living-in-the-Heart-of-the-City-Process-Self-reliance-Series/dp/1934170100/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8

I haven't read much about runway fashion but over the past year I've become more interested in the business of fashion and how clothes are actually made. I enjoyed reading Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. A lot of the information I kinda knew already just from this sub but it was still a good read.

jQuery is not about design. It's about programming interaction, and interaction is a subset of design. Try The Design Of Everyday Things, for starters, and then look at your favorite sites and ask yourself what works about them and why. Use a grid system like 960.gs, and above all KISS.

The best way to test my designs is to sit someone down at a computer while I hover behind them. I Don't talk, I don't point things out, I don't even explain what the site is. Every time I see them hesitate I know I've got something to work on.

It kinda sounds like he has a lot of stuff and that you don't necessarily know every tiny thing he has / uses / lurves, which is understandable, because people who really think on their EDC-type stuff often buy and trade a lot of crap. I'd almost suggest trying to get out of the EDC-items box and getting him The Axe Book or Back to Basics, both of which cover skills around outdoorsy things. AB will cover how to cut down all kinds of trees with an axe; BTB covers all kinds of homesteading, food growing, basic skills required for such. Both have lots of neat illustrations and seem to come from pretty competent writers. The Axe Book has made me want to get a decent axe, which obviously isn't an EDC item, but it's a nice to have one. If you get something like that, just keep in mind, axes aren't made out of stainless steel, so he'll want some mineral oil / gun-lube type oil to keep rust away.

Otherwise there's always Celox and an Israeli combat bandage for the 'super bad emergency contingency' part of one's EDC. I like to have something like that in my day bag or in my car, just in case.

"Neomalthusian" is just a catch all phrase for the modern study of resource limits and human ecological overshoot.

It's modern origin is in the Club of Rome's funding of Donella H. Meadows systems dynamics work, which lead to the 1972 Limits to Growth report and regular updates since. Other good resources are Will Cattton's 1980 book Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change,
Joel Cohen's 1996 How Many People Can the Earth Support, and Alan Weisman's 2013 Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth. There's no shortage of books and academic studies which have drawn on these more popular titles (LtG, OS, HMPCtES, CD), but they're a good intro.

You're not alone. Menstrual problems are extremely common in vegetarians, and so are mental health issues. There's plenty of stories similar to yours over at the WAPF, Let Them Eat Meat, and Beyond Vegetarianism. Personally, I gained a whopping 55lbs, developed B12 deficiency (despite taking 1000mcg of methylcobalamin per day), and ended up with a bunch of other nasty things. I'm proud to say that I've lost all of that weight plus seven pounds. (Who would've known a slice of bambi's mom could be so satisfying?)

So, a lot of people have clearly experienced health problems as a result of a vegn diet. Why does the ADA still insist that a "well-planned vegetarian diet" (a clear oxymoron) is healthy and even beneficial? [Seventh-Day Adventists and vegns have so much influence on the ADA to the point that it's rage-inducing.](http://letthemeatmeat.com/tagged/American-Dietetic-Association)

The Vegetarian Myth, The Mood Cure, The Meat Fix, The Ethical Butcher, The Whole Soy Story, and Defending Beef are all worth giving a read. Were you tested for B12, iron, zinc, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, magnesium, and/or iodine deficiency during your vegn years? If you quit recently, it's very likely that you're still deficient in some of these vitamins and will need to supplement for awhile. DHA and EPA are also very important due to how poorly ALA (such as that found in flaxseeds) converts to these essential nutrients.

I was vegan for nearly six years. No cheats. I always had my doubts about it, but getting to learn what other vegns look like was my last call. Just keep in mind that some lifelong meat-eaters will insist that a vegetarian diet is healthier. And some people are really mean.

Back to Basics covers a lot of it. This is a great book because it starts with selecting the land for your cabin, follows through on how to build the cabin, and then right through stuff like how to forge your own tools, stock your own food and make your own clothes. It's practically a field guide on how to start from scratch.

When Technology Fails is also a pretty substantial resource. I haven't finished reading it yet, so I can't really say much about it.

>Can any of you give some advice on some books that a young teen could look into to learn more about the profession and what's involved with it, what types of things she would be studying and such?

It might be a bit advanced for a 13 year old, but A Civil Action is a pretty interesting non-fiction read. It discusses the experience of a litigator in a major trial and the various trials and tribulations that he goes through. I don't remember anything in there that would be inappropriate for a teenager and it is used in high school curriculum.

It might be a bit advanced for an average 13-year-old, but I doubt that an average 13-year-old is actively trying to be a lawyer.

Sometimes I wonder about the collapse--will it be the opportunity for the world to return to localized living? Will everyone finally understand that our mother can't keep giving and giving without a point of exhaustion? I feel your pain, I know that settlers with the awareness are also hindered by what they see around them and it's very disheartening when it's your own people doing it. But do remember that indigeneity (or "realness") can be a mindset, not necessarily a point of descent--much like how the imperial mindset (or "the sickness") has effected some of our own as well.
So here's some suggested readings that might inspire you, if you haven't read them already:

Original Instructions

The Secret Teachings of Plants

The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight

A People's Ecology

We know you're out there. We're doin' our thang. Keep on doin yours! :)

Appliances in product design and product engineering have some specific traits. Number one is User Interface design and the concept of "affordances" which generally translates to "Form suggests intuitive Function".

The second trait is focus on narrower design requirements. A toaster is for toast, not washing dishes. It's not about "general purpose" but rather "focused purpose" done really well.

The classic case (from Norman's TDET book below) is door design: a horizontal bar suggests "push me" for operation while a handle suggests "pull me" for operation. If you see the operation in opposition to the affordance hint, you have bad UI and bad operation. Another good link - PDF from CMU.

Another axiom of this is "if you have to apply a text label to explain the operation, you've already done the basics wrong". Think about the case of having to RTFM just to use some piece of software compared to seeing the "obvious" usage of the software.

Don Norman, who had a stint at Apple in his long career in UI, wrote what is probably the best book on this idea of appliances and affordances: The Design of Everyday Things and its successor books. The cover shows a teapot, which I think accurately portrays the inane stupidity of generations of Microsoft products compared to Apple products; the latter would be an intuitively obvious "correct" teapot.

Once you are aware of the idea of affordances (which in software GUIs are all the "fluffy" design stuff you read about in Apple's Design Guidelines), you start to see problems with every design (no design is perfect) and you start designing better yourself. Another useful subject for software UI design is to study up on the concepts and background of GOMS which is the basis of UI design of the Xerox Alto which was the inspiration to Apple for the Lisa and Mac.

Lots of great ideas here.

You could also get him a copy of Cool Tools which is basically an encyclopedia of tools and gadgets. Tons of stuff that he may not even know exists, but lots of creative or efficient ways to get the job done.

All non-fiction:

• Chaos: Making a New Science - It's a little dated now, but still a very interesting read on chaos theory and it's uses in science and math. I picked this up in high school and found it very inspiring to read.
  
• The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition - An insightful examination by Frederick P. Brooks of his experiences with developing a large mainframe and it's OS. Originally published in 1975, it is still very applicable now. I first read this in College and it's still on my shelf as a professional.
  
• The Design of Everyday Things - An interesting look at the psychology of design.
  
• Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality - An interesting look at what evolutionary psychology suggests about human sexuality.

> some people may have looked for someone who had a bit more experience writing or negotiating treaties specifically

Fellow liberal here. To help ease some of these concerns I'd point out that most of what an oil CEO does is negotiate with foreign governments for complicated agreements.

Also the oil industry is actually far ahead of other industries in terms of environmental protection in spite of what you might assume. Two books on the subject I highly recommend are The Quest (which is on Bill Gate's reading list and probably one of the single best books I've ever read) and Collapse.

Between "Back to Basics" and a trusty copy of Fannie Farmer for cooking, you can cover a LOT of good ground. There are lots of great books, but those are two I can't live without. To be clear, both are about techniques and methods, not so much the theory behind it. They're fantastic reference books though.

Kind of a homesteading book, http://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-Complete-Traditional-Skills/dp/1602392331/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318997900&sr=1-1

I frakking love this book, I've read it over a dozen times since I was a kid. Next year I will be living my dream!!!!

On youtube, Cultivate Health and Beauty. It's targeted towards women and their channel is not about being anti-vegan, but they are pretty anti-vegan. Also Primal Edge Health. I watch Sv3ridge for the exvegan videos and the Epitomy of Malnourishment videos but be careful in venturing to anything outside of that. For podcasts, listen to Bulletproof Radio, Fitness Confidential, The Paleo Solution, Primal Blueprint Podcast. For books, The Vegetarian Myth and the works of Weston A. Price. Look for people with an internet presence who are paleo. Most a very educated about veganism. Nina Teicholz work is worth mentioning too. She did a great breakdown of all the problems with that piece of propaganda "documentary" What the Health.

To be redpilled on the energy issue in general, and a balanced rational look at the climate change issue, I highly recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Case-Fossil-Fuels/dp/1591847443

It doesn't discuss nuke as much as I would like, but it covers all the other forms energy including all the "green" energy forms.

No matter what your views currently, you will learn something useful from this book.

Here's the Amazon link to read more It's a great read. It's all about the "psychology" of planning and how much of an impact a cities design can have on our mental/physical health. I'm not sure if it directly relates to your new job, but since you said you liked Walkable City I think you might like this.

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Case-Fossil-Fuels/dp/1591847443

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6b7K1hjZk4

Fossil fuels are great. Clean energy has it's place, but if you want reliable, peak power that you can raise and lower as demand changes there is nothing better. That means cheaper energy, and cheaper energy means more economic opportunity.

Mostly it's just general knowledge from various history courses as well as reading on Paleo, Keto and Traditional diet topics. The problem with living in the wild and eating only plants and fruits is that they are pretty low calorie. People tended to use up more energy looking for those foods than they would gain from eating them. Another problem is that before agriculture plants were way less productive. Here is a comparison of ancient vs more modern corn. Another problem is that you can't find wild strawberries in the middle of winter. Plant based food was much more reliant on seasonality and went bad very quickly. Meat on the other hand has tons of nutrients and can be dried or smoked and kept for the winter.


Nutrition Density Challenge: 5 lbs of Fruit vs. 4 oz Beef Liver

Here is the chart, the liver is on the bottom. http://imgur.com/k84944M


You might enjoy this book. The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability. PB has a torrent of it.

Country Wisdom & Know-How by the editors of Storey is my personal fave. It has a little bit of everything. They have a few other large Know-How collections I have been meaning to get, browsed through them in the store and they look equally useful.

I you are honestly interested in reading some answers to those exact questions, I would encourage you to read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Resource-Julian-Lincoln-Simon/dp/0691003815

You could be correct in one thing. Perhaps it's TOO much thought that went into the site, because you can analyze it to infinity, and come with longer lists of logical reasons why it should be good, but you can't deny the simple observable fact that it isn't. It's trying to say someone should find art beautiful because they are the experts and the highest quality material is used. It doesn't mean a thing.

You should read this book, a must read for everyone into design.

I'd recommend Energy and the Wealth of Nations. https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Wealth-Nations-Understanding-Biophysical/dp/1441993975

You can also find an understanding of his work on youtube. Basically the claim is that energy is the real basis of the economy - with all the implications you'd imagine for oil, environment and geopolitics.

Also, ourfiniteworld.com is a frequent read for me.

I completely get where the article is coming from. There's a book I read not too long ago that focuses on fast fashion (Overdressed), and one of the observations the author makes is how it's almost impossible to buy good, quality clothing now that a middle-income family could afford - and how this didn't use to be the case before fast fashion. A typical everyday dress from Sears used to be over $100 in today's money, but it would be tailored well and made of good materials. Now it's either buy complete crap that's not meant to be worn past a season, or pay for designer luxury that few people could afford. That middle Goldilocks zone of price to quality doesn't really exist much anymore, either in fashion or other markets.

I don't have the answers on how to solve this (other than buy the highest quality you can afford), but yeah. I agree that there's a whole lot of low-quality junk in the world, and it has a high environmental and social cost.

Ethically made clothing is expensive! I read a super interesting book on the topic called Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion for anyone interested.

It sucks that you have to be on the receiving end, but the guy is right. He shouldn't have to read a book to be able to use his remote. Good design is obvious and intuitive. If you have to read anything before using a product, it's been poorly designed.

Obviously that's not your fault, which is why I'm always nice to support people. Guy's a douche.

Edit: At least two redditors have never read this book.

Proof / plugging my Twitter account

While I'd love it if you bought my book, I promise I will be answering questions on all sorts of topics. Not going to pull a Woody Harrelson. :-)

Great thanks! Is this it? - http://www.amazon.com/Urban-Homestead-Expanded-Revised-Edition/dp/1934170100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373064286&sr=8-1&keywords=urban+homestead

>His claim is my claim. Your assertion is that once man recognizes the problem it will be too late, I don't agree. Personally, I would like to see both nuclear and hydrogen power pursued in the future. Why isn't hydrogen power on the front lines? Would love to hear your take on that topic.

I think all forms of clean energy are great but my argument is that it doesn't matter if we solve the energy problem because that doesn't solve the greater ecological problems of species and habitat loss which are caused by economic and population growth and exacerbated by fossil energy use. You have yet to dissent with evidence on species and habitat loss. Your only pertinent comment was to plant some trees. If you like the technology position you should read The Ultimate Resource and its sequel. As I mentioned, Simon only addresses scarcity in response to the Cobbs, Trainers, and Kassiolas and not the ecological problems described by Coyne and Hoesktra.

>I and others like me don't like throwing money after good intentions.

No one is asking you to pay more for anything, you probably already are. Wherever you pay taxes probably contributes to some centralized space program or national research. But no one ever said the solution was to contribute money to something. I'm not convinced that money will be a thing by the time we develop the capability of interstellar travel. All of the authors I cite all over the place are pretty convinced of the end of industrial society.

>Is CO2 rising? Yes. What effect will it have on the planet, we will find out.

We already know. Statistically significant levels of ocean acidification, average temperatures that exceed all of the data ever collected by the human species, and sea level rise due to warmer temperatures melting the ice caps. No one disagrees that these things are happening in the status quo, not even Mr. Kimoto. The only argument they are having now is if it is the fault of fossil fuels or not. I don't care whose fault it is, I care about addressing the problem.

>Allow people to take money before their is a measurable negative consequences or solutions, not going to happen.

Take a look at the Maldives, they seem convinced enough to center their national infrastructure strategy around sea level rise. The effects of these problems are already apparent to many people globally. The consequences here are measurable and detrimental. I agree, it will take more immiseration before many will begin to realize the gravity of the ecological problems we face.

> In response, people try to point at events, like your flood, as some kind of proof, or they make wild overstatements.

The hallmark of rising CO2 levels is drastic climatic fluctuations. The reason I mentioned the flood was because it exceeds the crests of any flood in this area in human recorded history. We seem to be collecting a lot data of unprecedented weather patterns in the last decade.

well not that common, but "this book is not a tree" and it is a great read!

Some recent-ish architecture/urban design books that are really good reads & from well respected practitioners!

Walkable City by Jeff Speck

Happy City by Charles Montgomery

Cities for People by Jan Gehl

Otherwise, most stationary/art stores should stock some [Rotring] (http://www.rotring.com/en/) pens/mechanical pencils. They are high quality drafting pens that are always in high demand.

source: I own a lot, and still want many more. Always handy.

I suggest:

Country Living and Know How

Survival Wisdom and Know How

and

Garden Wisdom and Know How

The book The Vegetarian Myth is a good source if you are interested. It is very strongly on the other side of the argument, but seeing as 90% of the mainstream media pushes the "vegetarian/vegan is healthy and ethical" line it's refreshing to read some of the opposing arguments.

Ah yes, I'm an old dude. Being free of debt helps too. I'm just so ready to do this but have to fulfill one more of lifes obligations before I can make it a reality.

I've got this Back to Basics version. I haven't seen the one you linked to. I wonder how much alike they are.

You know tribal societies ran a gamut of hierarchical structures. Some didn't have much of a power structure at all. In pre-history there were literally hundreds of thousands of separate tribes some large, some small. To think that all of it was violence and starvation is a misnomer.

A good book on hunter-gatherer tribal culture and economy that I read was called Limited Wants, Unlimited Means (see the twist) was really good and broke down the reality of tribal and hunter-gather culture. I don't think we'll ever go back to such a structure but I think that we can learn that before our current culture there was a variety of different cultures that perhaps had better means of living in harmony with the world around us.

There is an author by the name of Lierre Keith who makes a good argument about how veganism isn't environmentally sustainable nor the healthiest diet around.

However, I would be willing to bet you that being vegan is a lot healthier than the soda and fast-food diet of most Americans. If you do it right, it can be pretty fucking good for you.

Recommended Reading(As v3, I'll try to add a book before each checklist now): The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon

^(I assume that's the book you were referring to by "people are the ultimate source of capital")

[✅] American People will Die!

[✅] Doesn't know how guns purchasing power works(Only looks at nominal wages decreasing from immigration and assumes PP does as well, ignoring price decreases also from immigration and thus possible increases in real wages)

[✅] Not Real Socialism/Communism Collectivism™(THE GLORIOUS NATION™ is still a collective)

[✅] Anyone who disagrees is a shill for Berkley and CEOs

[✅] The Greater Nationalist Good™

[ ] Hoodie's Law

[ ] Esoteric's Law

[✅] Sargon's Law(Says OP is hurting Americans with more immigrants, hurts America with r/badeconomics)

[ ] I used to be a libertarian

[✅] Lovejoy's Law

[✅] Ban things and people I don’t like(The immigrants/outsourcing)

[✅] Who Will Build the Roads Protect the Disabled?

[ ] We need TO DO SOMETHING!

[✅] Breaking windows will boost GDP

[ ] Fake Nuance

[ ] Sunk Cost Fallacy

[✅✅✅] Fearmongering(DEY TERK ER JERBS!)

→→[ ] The Koch Brothers Conspiracy

→→[ ] Someone of Group X did something, therefore Group X is EVUL!

[ ] Distinction without a Difference

[✅] The God that Failed

[ ] Just-in-Case Fallacy

[ ] Nirvana Fallacy

[ ] But that’s not PC!

[ ] RESPECT DA LAUH!

[✅] Move to Somalia

[ ] Spotlight Fallacy

[ ] r/AsABlackMan Fallacy

[✅] Questionable Cause(The immigrants & outsourcers did this!)

I'm reading Happy Cities right now and it gets to the core of the issue. Highly recommend

https://www.amazon.com/Happy-City-Transforming-Through-Design-ebook/dp/B009LRWHPY

> What, if anything, can I do to bridge the disconnect between thought and action?

Answer: Get your facts straight.

Introductory reading:

• In Defense of Meat Eaters, Part 1: The Evolutionary Angle
  
• In Defense of Meat, Part 2: Animal and Human Well-Being
  
• Are we meat eaters or vegetarians? Part I
  
• Are we meat eaters or vegetarians? Part II
  
• The Vegetarian Myth (book review)
  
• The Vegetarian Myth (book)
  
  tl;dr Meat is good for you and the environment.

Its a good book to show just how much food you can grow on given sizes from 1/4 acres and up etc.

Good books: Back to basics / Encylopedia of country living /

http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Country-Living-Carla-Emery/dp/1570615535/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323093223&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-Complete-Traditional-Skills/dp/1602392331/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323093275&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Self-Sufficiency-John-Seymour/dp/0751364428/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323094521&sr=8-1

Something that really helped me cut back on my fast fashion purchasing was learning more about how exactly those clothes were made. Once I better understood the environmental impact, poor labor conditions, etc it was easier to switch my mindset.

I recommend the book Over-Dressed, but there is also a ton of info available for free online.

Here is a good summary of the issue: The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability

The Urban Homestead is great. Check out their blog as well. http://urbanhomestead.org/

“Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things” is a book I am currently enjoying that covers these topics. The anti-corporation sentiment is unrealistic, though, as large companies are what develop and set in place sustainable energy via solar, wind, etc. and are able to invest in recycling programs to reuse plastics, etc. in the first place—but that’s my only qualm about the book so far. Here’s an Amazon link.
https://www.amazon.com/Cradle-Remaking-Way-Make-Things/dp/0865475873/ref=nodl_

I would check out the professors that teach at The Evergreen State College and see if any of the professors that teach in the sustainable farm and agriculture department have any knowledge of this stuff or perhaps know of some students that have a background in this sort of stuff. I also would check out this book,. I got this one at Orca book downtown a few months back, and at the very least there is always google and youtube. Good luck!

Absolutely, supporting farms who treat their animals well is an active vote against meat from a factory farm. Money talks.


Agriculture is also hugely deadly to animals and bad for the environment. There's a whole book about this written by a woman who was vegan for 20 years. The Vegetarian Myth

My favorite book for this sort of stuff and everything similar is Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1602392331/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_OKxMxb9TA4AX7


I'll post pictures of the soap and table of contents in another post. I hate mobile lol.


Edit: here's some quick pics. I can scan whatever pages if you guys want a better look. Before you buy the book. Mind you I've only ever used the bread making recipes and they turn out well. I can't vouch for the rest. Sorry.

https://imgur.com/a/4iTMH

Are you wanting to read substantive legal materials (e.g., what does the First Amendment say?) or about the history of law, or biographies of famous or interesting lawyers, or are you looking for information about what the practice of law is like?

"A Civil Action" might be a reasonable start. http://www.amazon.com/Civil-Action-Jonathan-Harr/dp/0679772677/

I'm hoping to change my shopping habits this year.

It's been a slow descent into zero waste so I've been buying my clothes from thrift stores, but I left a little wiggle room for myself. New clothes have got to be ethically made from natural materials. Goodbye Forever21! If you're interested in reading about the detriments of fast fashion, I suggest Overdressed: the Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth Cline.

The vegetarian myth appears to have been written by someone who was foo-foo-veggie & believed that she didn't need b12. So after rotting her spine out decided to be equally foo-foo-retarded in the opposite direction and say vegetarianism is deadly because she is retarded. Tell your sister if she really cares about the animals she better stop being retarded because she's going to do some dumbass thing like that author and then demand people murder animals to atone for her idiocy.


I think that book was actually one of the early lead-ins to paleo getting popular, so the threat level is real. Retard = animal murderer emperess.

EDIT:

Who/why downvote???? It should be clear this was humor, I don't mean literally tell her she's retarded, but that 'murica loves nothing more than to find a sickly dying vegan to prove that we must torture animal and feed on their juices, and being radiantly powerfully healthy is the best argument you/she will ever have to give, so be careful in making good decisions. Asses

I read a book called Cradle to Cradle which, in order to practice what it preached, was printed on a material that was designed to truly recycled rather than down-cycled. The material was some sort of paper-like plastic that could be melted down and remade into another book of the same quality, as opposed to being turned into lower quality pulp for brown paper bags or paper towels, etc.

A consequence of that design was that the book was waterproof and you could read it in the shower. It was actually pretty awesome. The book felt a little different from mass-market paper books (it was a little heavier and pages a fraction thicker) but it didn't feel wrong at all. The book said that it was possible and viable to print other books on similar material, which I have been looking forward to, but have yet to see.

Krill, Shrimp, and Sardines are each one of the largest biomasses on the planet. They're actually more sustainable than most plant and vegetation which we have to actually actively grow to get enough of. Those farming practices actually help destroy the planet even worse than krill, shrimp, and sardine fishing do. This is because these three species are pretty much as the bottom of the food chain in the ocean. We couldn't actually wipe out any three of these populations from fishing practices if we actively tried to.

The same isn't true of salmon though, which is why it's often farmed (or because it's difficult to catch large amounts of in places like Alaska where there is still an abundance of it).

Have you ever heard of this book?

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. First book to ever truly brake down the world paradigm for me. Wouldn't be in this sub without it. Fair warning though, it's got a lot of earthy, ecology stuff in there. Might be too much for people further to the right. If that is your thing though I'd also recomend Last hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann. Good thread, BWT. Refreshing to see this.

Maybe the book 'The Vegetarian Myth' by Lierre Kieth could help ease your conscience. She was also a vegan for something like 15 or 20 years and had to stop because of health problems (and changing beliefs) just like you.

I've only read the introduction and the first of three parts but I really enjoyed what I read. The book is about why veganism might not be as good as people might think from a ethical, environmental and health-perspective. The title may sound a bit harsh but the book itself isn't. She also makes it clear in the introduction that it shouldn't be seen as an excuse for factory farming or cruelty towards animals.

Isn't it true that if everyone went vegan, more of the environment would have to be converted to agriculture?

I haven't read it yet, but I believe that's a big part of this book: The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability https://www.amazon.com/dp/1604860804/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_6y2JDbNDRNWAA

Discussion with the author I heard: [Tangentially Speaking with Christopher Ryan] 391 - Lierre Kieth (The Vegetarian Myth) #tangentiallySpeakingWithChristopherRyan
http://podplayer.net/?id=79760768 via @PodcastAddict

herezeez:
http://www.thegreatcholesterolcon.com/The_China_Study.html

http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255048634&sr=8-1

I also agree veggies are the shizz, but not soy and all the imitation products vegans sub in for the food they used to eat. Fermented and sprouted foods generally have a better nutrition profile. Phytic acid and lectins are also things to watch out for.

Useful?

Kevin Kelly - Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities

Trailer

As a reference, Back to Basics provides an interesting overview.

The author's intended audience seems to be the naturalist or eco-friendly person, rather than the "prepper", but that doesn't detract from the content. It doesn't cover any single topic deeply enough where you'll be an expert, but it covers a number of traditional living topics that mirror what would be necessary in a post-collapse scenario: farming livestock/crop, food preservation, natural irrigation, milling flour, sustainable home design, edible plant recognition, etc.

It also includes lots of diagrams/pictures, so it's a quick read and easily-skimmed reference.

I'm a huge fan of JD; but this just doubles-down on my concern that he is ruining his health by being vegan.

Silly list of evidence;

Low energy - need to lean on things to stay up right.

Depressed - Lack of animal based nutrients and healthy fats impacts mental health. I note his older songs seemed to be dark, but on the average less morose. Saw a concert recently and have to admit that I was disappointed he played mostly "sad, relationship songs" and few of his more exciting songs. I really wanted to hear Autoclave and Michael Myers Resplendent but you can't please everyone I understand. Still - I left feeling really down in a way that I did not expect from listening to the albums.

His teeth are falling apart and he doesn't know why - this is often the warning sign that turns vegans into some version of paleo-type eaters. Happened to Robb Wolf, Lierre Kieth, and others.

When I see photos he just doesn't look well. This is what my vegan (not the fat ones that eat vegan junk food but the ones that actually eat vegetables) friends look like - thin but without that warmth in their skin, lines, wrinkles, etc.

Can vouch for root cellaring, I love that book. My biggest recommendation for OP would be back to basics http://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-Complete-Traditional-Edition/dp/1602392331 all inclusive intro to everything.

The best advice here: read The Vegetarian Myth

Lierre Keith

• lierrekeith.com
  
• YouTube - The Vegetarian Myth
  
• Wikipedia
  
• The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability - Amazon Link
  
• By Lierre Keith
  
• Published May 2009

Thank you, I've been looking for a new book to read!

here's a link for the fortunate, supporting bad capitalism

> What I've wondered is if there's any sane way of removing the carbon from the atmosphere other than just planting trees. I understand why trees are crappy as an offset vehicle, but I'm wondering if they ultimately are needed to just pull carbon out of the atmosphere.

Look up "geo-engineering".

What you're referring to is "carbon sequestration". It is less plausible than other ways of controlling global temperatures, since it would be very expensive and resource-intensive.

The more promising areas are things like cloud seeding and injecting reflective aerosols into the atmosphere to reduce the amount of light actually coming to the Earth. Even a single volcanic eruption emits enough particulate matter to significantly reduce global temperatures. With relatively little expense, it would be possible to inject similar particles directly into the stratosphere and very slightly reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the ground.

Of course, there are risks and challenges, but I think that such proposals are much more reasonable solutions to the problems of global warming than radical cuts in the use of fossil fuels and carbon emissions. Cutting emissions to the extent many environmentalists want to cut them would be an economic disaster, cutting growth and the standard of living, especially for the global poor.

It makes more sense to maximize the amount of energy and resources we can generate and use, then use some of that surplus to mitigate environmental consequences, than to try to minimize our energy and resource consumption, giving us less ability to deal with environmental and other problems that will happen regardless. For example, look at the number of people a hurricane kills when it hits Florida, vs. when a cyclone hits Bangladesh. It's much smaller in Florida, since their ability to build safe, sturdy buildings is much higher.

I recommend Alex Epstein's book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels for a look at the importance of generating as much energy as possible for people to use. He recognizes the existence of climate change, but he argues that "minimal impact" is not the solution.

Probably not exactly what you are looking for but this book talks about Native Americans and how they existed prior and during the colonial invasion. He touches on the eating habits of the natives.

A very interesting read nonetheless.
http://www.amazon.com/Changes-Land-Indians-Colonists-Ecology/dp/0809016346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393820108&sr=1-1&keywords=changes+in+the+land

Lomborg, serial misleader?

The guy whose book was found to contain: "Fabrication of data;
Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation);
Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods;
Distorted interpretation of conclusions;
Plagiarism;
Deliberate misinterpretation of others' results"?

The guy whose next book, Cool It!, was found by a different person to contain: "misrepresentation of academic research, misquotation of data, reliance on studies irrelevant to the author’s claims and citation of sources that seem not to exist"?

The guy who received millions of dollars from conservative organisations linked to Koch?

The guy who keeps writing columns with scientific credibility very low?

The guy who blithely described a 20-foot sea-level rise (6 meters – a plausible outcome of unmitigated global warming in a few centuries) which would inundate about 16,000 square miles of coastline where more than 400 million people currently live as:

> That’s a lot of people, to be sure, but hardly all of mankind. In fact, it amounts to less than 6% of the world’s population – which is to say that 94% of the population would not be inundated. more details

Now if you don't believe or care about any of that, I have a challenge for you.

Use Amazon's Look Inside the Book and choose "Surprise Me!" and read a few pages from his book. Tell us the page numbers.

Now visit the catalogue of errors for those pages, and read those, and judge whether the extract from Lomborg's book had any value?

http://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-Complete-Traditional-Edition/dp/1602392331

This book is amazing.

Go visit them before you eat them. See them being treated well and having good lives even though (because?) they're being raised to be our food. It's the cycle of life, they eat their food, we eat them--and, eventually we die and rot and become plant food and it starts all over again.

Edit: you might also want to take a look at Lierre Keith's The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability.

The book Cool Tools by Kevin Kelly. It will point you to cool things that you might never have seen before. Many are ridiculously inexpensive and amazing.

https://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804

It's written by a former avid Vegan, and covers what she's learned about how Vegtarianism/Veganism affects health, the environment, and animal rights. It's not a hard scientific study, but covers a wide range of topics to enough of a degree to possibly reshape your thinking. I suggest reading it as a overview, and then start digging into select areas that concern you more deeply.

She didn't go ZC, but instead is omnivore with a focus on fresh unprocessed food.

It really depends on a lot of things, lot size, the size of the outdoors spaces for either the building or the house, the size of the house itself, etc. It isn't going to answer your question, but perhaps you'd be interested in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Happy-City-Transforming-Through-Design-ebook/dp/B009LRWHPY?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

I think this read is a must:

"The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World" by Daniel Yergin

https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Energy-Security-Remaking-Modern/dp/0143121944

At least in Europe you've got Björn Lomborg. The only sensible 'solutions' I've heard have come from him.

A lot of the 'solutions' outlined in the Kyoto protocol are stupid expensive and wouldn't help all that much over the course of this century. Lomborg proposes a lot of cheaper and more effective solutions in Cool It.

Here's a 17 minute TED talk by him on the topic.

He also wrote an excellent book titled [The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World.] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Skeptical-Environmentalist-Measuring-State/dp/0521010683)

...I'd really like an updated version of that book. Most of his stats stop at 1999/2000.

(Country Wisdom And Know How)[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1579123686/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499743603&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=country+wisdom+and+know+how&dpPl=1&dpID=51cMPJHEMLL&ref=plSrch]

One thing I would add as the submitter: This blogger sounds as though she has read The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith, and while I don't fault her for that if so, I do think it would have been better had she been upfront about it.

No, that’s not the point. It needs to entice the customer to pick it up in the first place. However, a hanger appears two dimensional. So a lot of three dimensional clothes look like crap while on a hanger but fine on, and vice versa.

These style mannequins are also modeled off stylized high-fashion drawings, which again are trying to make a two dimensional drawing appeal to three dimensions. We don’t do that terribly well as a species and will think “oh! That’s how it looks on me!”

It’s all based in art and psychology. I highly recommend [Overdressed: the shockingly high cost of cheap fashion](Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591846544/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_u6G6Ab93RKDW5). Very interesting and informative.

http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804

It's a free audiobook if you sign up for a trial subscription to Audible.

I'm not your mate, mate.

Some good books for reference.

http://www.amazon.com/Mini-Farming-Self-Sufficiency-Brett-Markham/dp/1602399840/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333634510&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-Complete-Traditional-Edition/dp/1602392331/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333634541&sr=8-1

I'm reading an excellent book called Happy Cities right now and the author brings up this exact point. Not just HOAs, but municipalities are obsessed with micromanaging property owners over the most minor things. For a nation that is so anti-authoritarian a lot of the time we sure do have a lot of rules about our property.

> But it's $22, which is a pretty fucking capitalistic price.

And the garment industry is a crooked, unsustainable, neoliberal shitshow. There's a lot of unspoken high cost that goes into cheap fashion.

If you want a good overview of our side, read this. A moral case for fossil fuels.

Go read any ethnography and some books about ethnographic methods.

Some classic ethnographies/etc are

• The Forest People (I've seen this one free online before)
  
  
• The Dobe Ju/'Hoansi
  
• Facing Mt. Kenya
  
  
• Participant Observation
  
• Paradigm Wars
  
  
• Yanomamo
  
  
• Changes in the Land
  
  I could probably think of some more decent ones but it's not a bad list to start with.

Urban Homesteading!

• http://www.amazon.com/Urban-Homestead-Expanded-Revised-Edition/dp/1934170100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=8-1&keywords=your+urban+homestead
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Place-Affordable-Sustainable/dp/0978866568/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410454876&sr=8-1&keywords=make+your+place
  
  Keep some chickens, grow a kitchen garden!
  
  This all would be my dream.

This is a good book, Design of Everyday Things
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0385267746

Yeah, no. Besides, fossil fuels are good for the environment.

Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional American Skills

Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills

The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 40th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual for Living off the Land & Doing It Yourself

That's a crap ton of knowledge right there. Remember to practice and learn before you need the skills.

http://www.bonappetit.com/story/oldest-person-in-world-food

It looks like all the people on the list eat meat.

Check out Lierre Keith The Vegetarian Myth. She talks about the issues of being a vegetarian longterm and the issues/medical problems that it can create due to imbalances created by a diet deficient in different nutrients and fats.

I suggest a copy of the book Cool Tools, a great antidote for boredom.

Just leaving this here for those interested in this thesis:

https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-Prosperity-Evolves-P-S/dp/0061452068

And this:

https://www.amazon.com/Skeptical-Environmentalist-Measuring-State-World/dp/0521010683

Web design books? Meh. However, I highly recommend books like "The Design of Everyday Things" and "Don't Make Me Think". The latter does take a bit of a web focus, but they aren't your typical how-to book, they're just intended to give you some perspective on ux design (as applied to the web and elsewhere).

I like The Design of Everyday Things

Your comment is basically the summary of (and written right into) this entire book http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0385267746 . You would like the book.

I'd recommend Cronon's Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England when you're done with 1491, and 1493.

Cronon covers some of the same sort of territory that Mann does, only his focus is New England and in particular the way that inhabitants of New England (both native and European) used the land and changed it.

I have a book like that, the pages are some sort of polymer. The book is actually about sustainable methods of production. Cradle to Cradle

I recommend Alex Epstein's The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels for a philosophical view on the subject.

Country Wisdom & Know How has some good stuff. I'm not a homesteader but I liked it.

Please read this: The Design of Everyday Things

I'm sure you'll read it with an open mind

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Case-Fossil-Fuels/dp/1591847443/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496104872&sr=8-1&keywords=the+moral+case+for+fossil+fuels

Adam savage had a podcast episode recently (Still Untitled) called "cool tools".

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RxII4cHg9pc

It was really interesting and this is the book they were talking about.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1940689007/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/191-8067955-8608660

In my opinion, impossible. I'm taking advantage of a paleo lifestyle, but I don't think it's practical on a large-scale level. Like leevs11 said, the only reason there are 7 billion people is because of agriculture. While many were saved from starvation, the long-term outcome was more mouths to feed, and of course, starvation continues.

Lierre Keith is interesting talks specifically about this topic. You can download a speech by her here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?007hq967v7xy937
Her book:
http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804

Also, read this article, written in 1987, describing agriculture as, "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race":
http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

Give Good Calories Bad Calories a read first. Then try reading The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith. She was a vegan for 20 years and it caused her some major health issues. She really points out the fallacies that the vegetarian lifestyle is based on very clearly. In the mean time you can watch all the videos found here, and this post from March 14 by Taubes is great, pay special attention to the second paragraph. Does she want you to watch Forks Over Knives? That movie fails entirely to address the weaknesses inherent in observational studies.

Well, if things are as bad as you make out, what do you care about bullet trains?


Tell you what, I'll read a bunch of articles on /r/population if you read a Julian Simon book.

I just purchased the updated and revised 4th edition earlier this year at my local Tractor Supply Co. but I never read any of the earlier versions to give a comparison.
Edit: Correction, I have the 3rd edition which is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-Complete-Traditional-Skills/dp/1602392331

One item that OP doesn't touch on that is very important is a discussion of the changing overall demographic of retail, w.r.t who is selling what kind of product, and what customers are buying.

Specifically, fast-fashion in this context.

Sears, JC Penney, Macy's et al today are the vestigial remnant of last century's 'Great American Department Store'. They derive from an era where they provided middle-class America with well-made, modestly priced mid-range products across the full spectrum of customer need. They occupied the space between bottom of the line and extravagent.

But the value curve and the purchasing decisions it motivates no longer support this kind of product. Fast-fashion has dropped the floor of the market so low that consumers are calculating value by comparison to products that are dirt cheap. Consider, for example, that in the past a decent pair of jeans would cost between $50 and $100, with the higher end being more, and Walmart being less. Then H&M moves in selling jeans at $20, and these seem to be comparable in value. Thereby the consumer becomes trained to use the $20 jean as the value benchmark, and suddenly those Levi's or whatever seem overpriced.

That has happened to a significant number of textile products. The key is that where consumers might once have operated on a 'you get what you pay for' idea and rejected H&M products on the basis of quality, they have now been trained (brainwashed) to expect both a lower quality and a lower price. They don't mind because if those $20 jeans fall apart in 10 washes (or less), they just buy another pair and discard the old.

That is something totally alien to the old Sears model; it's hard to have hand-me-downs if nothing survives that long. And this is a contributing factor to the decline of Sears, outside explicit financial negligence.

On the other extreme, a number of brands and products have patently rejected the Fast-Fashion model. They have elected to use the most premium materials and construction and charge a premium price. Think high-end denim, raw, selvedge (made on old looms in Japan), constructed of Cone Mills or Okayama fabric. It costs nearly $200 (or more), is supposed to be worn to death (literally), with 'sick fadez' being a sign of its value. It patinates, which as William Gibson remarked 'is a sign of the quality wearing in,' and 'distressing is a sign of a lack of quality.'

Those kinds of products are thus a high-value signalling premium product and buying experience.

And the issue is that there is no longer much in the middle between Naked & Famous and H&M. All these failing retailers are in that sense simply people who failed to choose which direction to go. Their intransigence in changing their business model and re-branding meant that they were bypassed by the new fast-fashion giants, or the premium brands either selling d2c or through 'selected' (curated) retailers (like DSM or Nordstrom).

It's also probably possible to tie this to the economic reality of middle-class America, gentrification, and other economic demographic shifts. But that's another topic.

What I wanted to point out is that B&M stores aren't failing as a model. Some B&M stores are doing very well--stores like H&M, Primark, Zara, Forever 21, etc on the low end, and d2c locations of higher-end brands and stores like Urban Outfitters and 'select' boutiques like DSM on the upper end. Amazon fits in to it by providing the specific brands consumers are looking for which don't have d2c locations in their neighbourhood. It covers the full spectrum, which is why it is untouchable.

Finally, the key I think to revitalising these ailing department stores is, to the extent that it may be possible, in counteracting the fast-fashion movement. It means either pushing consumers to reject products made by 'sweat-shop' labour, which is the foundation of dirt cheap prices, and to expect products to be made in a responsible way by workers paid a livable wage. It means educating consumers on what is and is not an acceptable level of quality, and encouraging consumers to buy products made locally, or at least in a first-world country.

It's a tall order; likely impossible. The model right now supports consumers who align with either pole, with those not thinking or caring about it normally aligned with the fast-fashion end. There is an enormous amount of media supporting cheap products, with a bazillion YouTubers showing off all their 'hauls' and glamourising the purchase of unethically produced products. It's what the NYT called 'cheap chic.'

For those who are interested in this subject, I would encourage people to read up on the Slow Fashion movement, as well as books like Overdressed: the Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion which chronicle the changes to the market over the last century.

This book has lots of info about more primitive type skills: smithing, alternative energies, plant use, canning, log cabins.

Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster is incredible and important in today's market that focuses on aspirations towards high end purchases.

Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Fast Fashion is another good one.

From what I've read, the idea of meat-eating being bad for the environment comes from the mass factory farming of animals, and the mass agriculture in terms of corn and other foods types required to support that industry. The predominance of mono-crops in modern agriculture (that is, using a piece of land to grow one thing and one thing only) results both in a reduction of biodiversity in the land, and ultimately to that land no longer being able to sustain agriculture. This is being seen across the world. That reduction in biodiversity is, in real terms, the removal of multiple types of life from our planet - bacteria, small animals, and plants.

Most animals reared for food can grow very happily on grassland, eating what nature provides. They are then part of the local ecosystem, eating the grass, pooping it out, and not impacting on the wider world.

Also from figures I've seen, in terms of food production, the density of quality calories produced per acre from rearing animals in this way, far surpasses anything agriculture can offer.

Now whether this kind of farming could be replicated across the planet to feed the whole world, I'm not so sure. In fact I'm doubtful. But as it's available to me in my wealthy western country, I'm happy to keep supporting it, in the belief that it's actually impacting less on the world, and is magnitudes less cruel to the animals and other impacted creatures.

In terms of references, I'd have to take the easy route and point you at a book - The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith. She is a radical feminist who saw meat-eating as part of the masculine raping of our planet, but changed her view after trying to start a small-holding herself.

There's lots of proof.

Also a great book.

But if you really want to learn about food, you have to go to the source in my opinion.

I wish that I could find some actual research to back this up, but what I read was in a 'book'. (Cradle to Cradle http://www.amazon.com/Cradle-Remaking-Way-Make-Things/dp/0865475873). Anyway, bottled water, soda, etc, is put in bottles that aren't really made for reuse (washing, bending, smashing and unsmashing) so the plastic degrades pretty quickly. You're then drinking plastic gas, more or less.

Any vegetarians here, this should shut those hypocrites up for good.
NOT BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, NOT MORALLY SUPERIOR, and NOT HEALTHIER
http://www.amazon.com/The-Vegetarian-Myth-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804

A pig is more intelligent than a dog... they can feel pain, affection, mourn the loss of loved ones, and can be trained to perform specialized tasks.

Corn, not so much.

In terms of a healthy diet though, veganism and vegetarianism are total crap. For more on morality, I would suggest this, although some of the sources are very weak for the nutritional components, so refer to this.

Read The Vegetarian Myth. Make sure that you are doing this for the right reasons.

Anemia and vegetarianism don't mix very well. You will want to see a doctor/nutritionist so you know exactly what you need to be eating. It might feel more moral, but being a veggie is more work to make sure you eat right and more odds of things going terribly wrong with anemia. This is doubly so since you say that you aren't going to have people supportive of your choice who you still have to feed. If you can't afford to eat so that it won't kill you, don't do it.

I had a friend in high school who almost killed herself being a veggie because she's anemic. It wasn't until she had the chance to be out of her house and got some extra income to be able to eat so it wouldn't kill her.

tl;dr: Anemia and vegetarianism don't mix very well, see a doctor instead of asking the internets.

I suggest this book: http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804

this one?

The Vegetarian Myth

Read The Vegetarian Myth by Leirre Keith