Listen now | I invited Nate on to have a conversation about the problem of scale and if it is possible to devolve power from global and national structures without undermining the lifestyle of the average person?
I look forward to listening to your latest podcast!
I guess I'd better keep scanning the notes section on my Substack homepage to know when something new has dropped. I'm not getting a notification of it by email.
Aside from the cross-over in terms of distributism and subsidiarity....localism..... the most significant technical problem relates to energy and complexity. HT Odum, in his work in the 1970s and 80s, referred to the embodied energy of an object not just in terms of the thing in itself (a lion say), but the entire system necessary to sustain that lion (1000 wildebeest, 10000 acres of grass, a functionally sustainable population of lions). So for an iPhone that would be the entire system of energy transformations across myriad industrial and metabolic supply chains....but also all the trained graduates marketing the apple ecosystem, the app developers, the packaging, the graduate training system.....All vast and impossible to measure. But in this way he argued that any product, good or service has an eMergy (embodied energy) and transformity value - corresponding to the sum of all these energy and material transformations.
From this perspective the question Nate is asking is whether we can reduce the eMergy /transformity cost of a given level of complexity, a given technology etc. I think that there are in fact process technologies - 3d printing, CAD, micro-injection moulding, desktop gene sequencing, and even AI....that make it possible to cut out vast swathes of energy/complexity whilst retaining given product. This would be the equivalent of producing lions which can eat grass whilst remaining in every respect lions. So if I can repair/maintain and manufacture relatively high tech products ....in situ.....I'm basically moving that product backwards up the transformity hierarchy....if that makes sense. Simple example. My vacuum breaks down and I 3d print a plastic spare part. In that moment I'm to buying a new vacuum cleaner but I"m also not buying a spare part (packaged, designed, produced....with energy transformations criss crossing the globe).....It might be that I can reduce the transformity cost of that item by an order of magnitude. And this is exactly what would be required if we want a high tech, sophisticated innovating technically progressive life that is also decentralized, DIY, responsive to personhood, enmeshed in the network of communitarian obligations to each other and to God.....or what I call Livelihood. The person whose vision I think perhaps best articulates this possibility - of desk top communitarian industrialism - is Kevin Carson and his HomeBrew Industrial revolution https://www.amazon.com/Homebrew-Industrial-Revolution-Low-Overhead-Manifesto/dp/1439266999
Yes! I tried all the things and finally something worked. I'm really really sorry to have taken up your time!
No apologies necessary! Glad it’s all sorted.
Maybe I should try to un-subscribe in order to re-subscribe? (I'm so sorry to bother you with my technical problems!)
If you use the App, you might have accidentally set your notifications to "push only."
Substack has a FAQ on this issue...
https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037488332-I-subscribed-to-a-Substack-publication-but-am-not-receiving-any-emails-What-can-I-do#:~:text=If%20you%20see%20a%20%22You,publicationname.substack.com/subscribe
It says on my end that your email is disabled. I wonder if you accidentally changed a setting?
Maybe. Its worth a try.
I look forward to listening to your latest podcast!
I guess I'd better keep scanning the notes section on my Substack homepage to know when something new has dropped. I'm not getting a notification of it by email.
Have you tried re-subscribing? That might be a thing.
Oh. I didn't think of re-subscribing when I am already subscribed. Thanks for that advice. I'll see if Substack let's me do that...
Yes interesting thread. I have been mulling on the significance of Schumacher and Illich for conservatives and Christians for a long time - here https://open.substack.com/pub/oswald67/p/localists-and-greens-engaging-with?r=2r3au&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true. and here https://open.substack.com/pub/oswald67/p/schumacher-against-globalism-and?r=2r3au&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true. and here https://open.substack.com/pub/oswald67/p/between-maga-and-ef-schumacher-a?r=2r3au&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true. ...I'd be really interested to hear what you think.
Aside from the cross-over in terms of distributism and subsidiarity....localism..... the most significant technical problem relates to energy and complexity. HT Odum, in his work in the 1970s and 80s, referred to the embodied energy of an object not just in terms of the thing in itself (a lion say), but the entire system necessary to sustain that lion (1000 wildebeest, 10000 acres of grass, a functionally sustainable population of lions). So for an iPhone that would be the entire system of energy transformations across myriad industrial and metabolic supply chains....but also all the trained graduates marketing the apple ecosystem, the app developers, the packaging, the graduate training system.....All vast and impossible to measure. But in this way he argued that any product, good or service has an eMergy (embodied energy) and transformity value - corresponding to the sum of all these energy and material transformations.
From this perspective the question Nate is asking is whether we can reduce the eMergy /transformity cost of a given level of complexity, a given technology etc. I think that there are in fact process technologies - 3d printing, CAD, micro-injection moulding, desktop gene sequencing, and even AI....that make it possible to cut out vast swathes of energy/complexity whilst retaining given product. This would be the equivalent of producing lions which can eat grass whilst remaining in every respect lions. So if I can repair/maintain and manufacture relatively high tech products ....in situ.....I'm basically moving that product backwards up the transformity hierarchy....if that makes sense. Simple example. My vacuum breaks down and I 3d print a plastic spare part. In that moment I'm to buying a new vacuum cleaner but I"m also not buying a spare part (packaged, designed, produced....with energy transformations criss crossing the globe).....It might be that I can reduce the transformity cost of that item by an order of magnitude. And this is exactly what would be required if we want a high tech, sophisticated innovating technically progressive life that is also decentralized, DIY, responsive to personhood, enmeshed in the network of communitarian obligations to each other and to God.....or what I call Livelihood. The person whose vision I think perhaps best articulates this possibility - of desk top communitarian industrialism - is Kevin Carson and his HomeBrew Industrial revolution https://www.amazon.com/Homebrew-Industrial-Revolution-Low-Overhead-Manifesto/dp/1439266999
These guys riff on this also Finding an Alternate Route: Towards open, eco-cyclical, and distributed production https://www.academia.edu/34948776/Finding_an_Alternate_Route_Towards_Open_Eco_cyclical_and_Distributed_Production_The_Journal_of_Peer_Production_pdf
Does Nate Fisher have a substack?
I'm sorry. I don't know how to do it. It says I am already subscribed. Can I get I un-subscribed somehow before a year is up?