If you’ve been reading for awhile, you’ve likely concluded that “free” is my second favorite f-word.
In his recent video, Dmitry Orlov spoke briefly about the emerging free (or gift) economy that is, in some applications, creating goods and services that outperform expensive alternatives. He cited the specific example of running a nuclear submarine on Windows software vs. Linux. Windows is quirky, expensive, unmanageable, and narrowly focused whereas Linux is free, easily adaptable, and innovates around software challenges. Which would you choose? Having never used Linux, I’ll take his word for it based on the near religious following this platform has gained.
This idea is intriguing, and shatters every free market or hybrid market paradigm I’ve ever studied. I love it.
Recently, I have come to appreciate that freely spreading Human Capital is seemingly primary to our equation of reclaiming an out of control financial capital system. This concept is counter to the way most business or even non-profit organizations operate. This is a powerful weapon against a growing worship of complexity for complexity’s sake.
What human capital can you develop that adds value to the equation? What can you do now that slowly erodes complexity, debt, apathy, and incoherence?
Growing herbs in a window box or a tomato plant in a bucket on your porch seems futile while staring at the behemoth agribusiness, but the nurturing of such a thing is both therapeutic and erodes powerlessness. You instantly have a stake in that plant and natural cycles are no longer text book concepts. I stole this idea from Charles Hugh Smith from his book Survival+.
March is coming which means two things:
- The deadline for Operation Reverse Leverage is approaching.
- Planting season is beginning in many regions.
This coming Spring season can represent a renewal from the winter of inaction and overwhelming nonsense that I know frustrates you.What seeds will you plant?
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Nobody targets Linux with viri..that could open another discussion as to just how much people trust big cartels..maybe there is more resistance to the matrix than we think…
Having used Linux for a few years, I have some stake in the Linux philosophy. The key to its comparison to human capital is in understanding how evolution works. When a species (or operating system) fills a niche, there are outlying areas where ‘freaks’ hang out and do things that the middle of the Bell curve doesn’t do. Humanity has created a central, very narrow spike of population while using cheap energy to force the fringe toward the middle of the spike (call it “Conformology” or “Jobs from On High”). The problem with Conformology is that when the environmental niche slides up or down the scale, those in the spike don’t move with it: they die and the fringe that fits the new niche survives and reproduces. If the spike is too narrow (Atari, Amiga, purple nuthatch, etc), then when the niche moves, there is no fringe adapted to the new environment.
The vast majority of ‘civilization’ is homogenized to be Homo Petroleumus. Raising a few chickens in the back yard or plants in a window box may not save you, but it might push your kids down the scale just enough to learn to look for alternative living arrangements in the future. Linux has that type of adaptability and the open nature of it compares to the old fencerows between small farmers’ fields that grew rabbits and berries and harbored birds that ate insects. An ‘open’ system alongside the niche allows adaptability and fosters new ideas as well as providing refuge for old ones. We aren’t adapted to living on petrocorn and bug spray (GMO corn with Bt traits to produce pesticide), but that’s the niche we are now in.
Auntiegrav is awesome. Just want to put that out there.
Thanks, Kate. I have my moments…
Dan
I’d say a lot of moments. I’m with Kate.
Interesting blog. Thanks for putting this up.
Auntiegrav… where did you learn about the concepts you wrote about in the comments? I’m not questioning you… I want to learn more.
Steven: for the part about fencerows: Wendell Berry gets credit.
For the concepts of evolution and niches and Net Future Usefulness: you’ll have to join my new church…;-)..lots of thought added to lots of other people’s thoughts just because I’ve been lucky to have a lot of time to think while driving tractors and pulling weeds. Also, too…(Palinspeak! lol!) http://www.dieoff.org/page150.htm (“Life as Anti-Entropy, Schroedinger) led me to some interesting philosophical roads.
Comparing Linux to a fencerow is just my Asperger’s brain…I’m not usually that creative.
Hey thanks for the credit– will you be willing to add my book Survival+ to yuor recommended reading list? Thanks!
charles
Hey Charles!!
It’s in there now, plus I just proudly added a banner. Means a lot that you’re here checking out freedomguerrilla. I don’t normally get to interact with favorite authors, so I’m honored.
Your friend and Remnant,
Tommy
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