/lit/ - Literature

>>3493195
Immediately thought of 'Call me Ishmael.'

>>3493200
yes!

and what an intelligent gorilla he was

>>3493200
did it change your outlook on religion?

>>3493195
Mah tribesman. This book was the real-life red pill for me.

If you liked Ishmael then hold onto your butt because Quinn wrote two sidequels: My Ishmael and The Story of B. Each explores the lessons that Ishmael developed with two of his other students. You should definitely read those too. Links to shitty free PDF versions can be found through Google if you're feeling cheap.

And remember what Ishmael said to the narrator:

"What you do is to teach a hundred what I've taught you, and inspire each of them to teach a hundred. That's how it's always done."

Some memes need to be forced. The message of Ishmael is one of them. I do not exaggerate when I say that the fate of the world depends on it. Share what you have learned with as many folks as you can.

This appeals if you're a teenager who has never read any works of history, philosophy, politics, ecology etc. etc. Other than that, it's crap.

I read it years ago. Didn't really help the depression, his diagnosis of society's ills is pretty apt and he offers no solution. I had to relearn not to care. Also lately I've been thinking that earth and humanity will be just fine.

>>3493636
>it's entry-level so it's crap
Sure is e/lit/ist in here. That said, feel free to refute any of his claims here if you can think of something specific about the book that sticks in your craw. I'll play gorilla's advocate as best I can.

>>3493713
>he offers no solution
A valid critique of Ishmael, and one that Quinn himself would address in later books (especially Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure). In particular there's a line from The Story of B that sticks with me:

"If the world is saved, it will not be saved by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.”

Challenging the mythological narrative that drives Taker culture is the most important work we can do right now.

“The world doesn't belong to us, we belong to it. Always have, always will. We belong to the world. We belong to the community of life on this planet--it doesn't belong to us. We got confused about that. Now it's time to set the record straight.”

Once enough of us have seen the reality of the cultural Matrix that imprisons us and embraced this alternative narrative of humanity's place in the world, we will find other ways to live together. I emphasize "ways", in the plural: there is no one right way to live. And if there is no one right way, then how can there be one right plan to carry out the revolution? It is better to open other people's eyes, get them talking to each about what they have seen, and then let them get on with making the changes that THEY feel are most urgent.

>>3494042
Sounds like his solution is mostly "stop raping the earth" without any proper suggestion how this can be established. The world is fine though, it'll manage. We might make things a bit hard for ourselves a handful of other species, but that's about it.

>>3494157
>"we might make things a bit hard for... a handful of other species"
>UN Council on Biological Diversity estimates 150-200 species lost every day
Damn Anon, you've got some big hands! Seriously though, we're playing speed Jenga with the biosphere. That game has to stop or we're all going to lose big.

>Quinn doesn't make any proper suggestions
I don't think the central thesis from Quinn's body of work has really sunk in for you just yet, so I'm going to try saying it another way:

Everything that we do, everything our civilization does -- both constructive and destructive -- flows from our culture's system of values. As long as we go on believing that the Earth belongs to us and that it is our divine right to use her as we see fit, and as long as we value the dividends we earn by raping the Earth, then we will continue raping the Earth. We might experience a moment of clarity every so often and show some superficial concern for our victim's well being and implement some program to keep her alive a little longer -- banning CFCs to stop ozone layer depletion, mandating the recycling of used electronics, boycotting everything but dolphin-safe tuna -- but these do not change the fundamental relationship between our metaphorical rapist and victim. We're only bandaging the wounds so we can keep raping her a little longer. We're gonna keep raping her for as long as the joys of plundering her keep our dicks hard. Even if we end up raping her to death.

The rape isn't going to stop until we address the source of our desire to rape the Earth -- the belief that raping her makes us superior beings, the belief that she was asking for it all along, and the belief that we could never enjoy any relationship with her in which we were not in absolute control.

field too long, continued below...

>>3493195
first 1/3rd was good, the rest was terrible

continued from >>3494487

So you see Anon, it doesn't matter how many bright ideas are put forth by people like Al Gore and Bill McKibben to slow the bleeding or stem the trauma: as long as we believe that raping the Earth gives us the things we want, we will continue to inflict more trauma. As long as we continue to believe things like "we have always raped the Earth to live" and "if we didn't rape the Earth then she would rape us," then we will continue to rape the Earth.

That's what Quinn set out to change. Ishmael challenges those beliefs. He challenges the belief that humanity has been at war with the Earth for our entire history by rubbing our noses in what he calls "The Great Forgetting." He challenges the belief that humans cannot live in harmony with the rest of the living world by showing us that some Leaver tribes never stopped. He calls us out for continuing to think that the universe was made for us when we should clearly know better by now. He challenges the belief that we Takers have forged ourselves into strictly superior beings through our conquest of "nature" by showing us just how much we have lost.

CHALLENGING, DEFEATING, AND REPLACING THESE BELIEFS IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE RAPE.

No other plan to stop the rape will work until this sea change in our belief systems has reached enough people. And so Ishmael and his students will continue to challenge these beliefs day in and day out. That IS the plan. For now.

Pic related.
>every day until you like it...

>>3494495

lol@image

>>3494509
forgot i made this

>>3493195
>never been on /lit/
What boards do you generally frequent? Just curious.

>>3493195
so op i should definitely pick this up?

>ishmail's ax

I have had this book sitting on my shelf for almost a year now. I'm afraid that it's garbage.

I had to read it for a class, it was pretty awful

>>3494487
>Damn Anon, you've got some big hands! Seriously though, we're playing speed Jenga with the biosphere. That game has to stop or we're all going to lose big.
Have a look at how many species die and have died out without us having anything to do with it. It's a completely natural part of evolution. There may be more species dying because of us, but that doesn't really matter much. We'll ruin ourselves way before we ruin all species on earth, and the ample amounts of life that will be left can flourish. That's the nice thing about nature, it's perfectly capable of self-governing. It's just silly people that thing certain species are too precious to disappear. There's plenty new prototypes waiting in line to have a go.

Thanks for the summary though. I've only read Ishmael, but most of what you're saying does align with my idea of the book. I can understand his idea of it being a cultural problem. My main problem with this diagnosis, however true it may be, is that people simply love rape. Absolutely love it. And no amount of shouting rape, however eloquent or well put, will change that.

I think that we, as a species, will develop a pattern of raping the shit out of earth until it backfires, disintegrate as a society into smaller groups, be forced to rape on a smaller scale while nature catches her breath until we get well enough at raping again, after which we will suck her dry until it backfires again etc. There's sort of a glass ceiling of rape that will be reached where it becomes self-destructive for us, and as long as that ceiling is reached before we have raped nature beyond any hope of recovery, the game can just go on.

>>3495169
>look at how many species die and have died out without us having anything to do with it
I have, and that's what scares me. Right now it's been estimated that we're losing species at a rate between 1,000 to 10,000 times greater than the background rate (i.e. what we'd theoretically expect to lose without the influence of human civilization). At this rate we could lose somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of all current species by mid-century.

Yes, the total number of species alive today is but a fraction of the total number that have ever lived on the Earth. And yes, extinction is an important part of speciation, just as the death and decomposition of an individual is an important event in the broader cycles of life within a given ecosystem. But not like this. Not on this scale. We're living through a slow-motion meteor strike, and Taker civilization is the meteorite. Even that wouldn't necessarily be all bad, except...

>I think that we, as a species, will develop a pattern of raping the shit out of earth until it backfires, disintegrate as a society into smaller groups, be forced to rape on a smaller scale while nature catches her breath... and as long as that ceiling is reached before we have raped nature beyond any hope of recovery, the game can just go on.
And THIS is quite possibly the most horrifying vision of the future I've read on 4chan. At least if the carriers of the Taker meme offed themselves during an extinction event triggered by their latest exploitative orgy, the planet could fully heal herself up and life could eventually proliferate to its former pre-Taker glory. But this vision has no hope at all.

I don't think this vision is inevitable, though, and here's why...
(continued below)

>protect the environment!

continued from >>3495731
in response to >>3495169
>...people simply love rape. Absolutely love it.
You're doing that thing again where you conflate Takers with the entire human race. This is one of the main fallacies that Ishmael (and later on, B) tried to call our attention to.

I've got good news for you pal:
WE... ARE NOT... HUMANITY.

Why is this good news? Because it means that our love of raping the Earth is NOT an inherent flaw within our biology -- it is only inherent within our culture. Taker culture. You don't see this appetite for Earth-rape among the Leaver tribes. Native Americans didn't get off on raping the Earth. Australian Aborigines didn't get off on raping the Earth. The Bushmen of the Kalahari don't get off on raping the Earth. Neither do the Yanomami of the Amazon or the Dani of the Papua New Guinea highlands. I could go on naming indigenous tribes, but I trust that you see my point by now.

So we don't have to change "human nature" to stop raping the Earth. We only have to change ONE CULTURE. Our culture. Taker culture. This is still a monumental task, to be sure. But it is not an impossible task. There is hope even now.

>>3495118
Now's as good a time as any to pick it up and see whether you're right. All I ask is that if you don't like it, you pass it along to someone else who might.

>>3495144
Compulsory readings tend to poison one's perception of a book, even if that book is hailed as a classic by others. Looking back, I probably would have enjoyed The Scarlet Letter more if I didn't have to write an insipid book report for it in high school.

>>3495801
Doesn't living in harmony with nature imply being wiped out when the next mass extinction (which are natural) comes along? As opposed to having technology and perhaps surviving somehow.

theres no difference between "man-made" and "natural".

Man is a part of nature, he was created by it, therefore anything he does is also part of nature. Any species dying out because of something man has done is nothing but natural selection. We are the means by which nature observes itself.

i thought the book was good not great. i would give maybe 13 out of 17 stars. a score of 77%. the premise was cool. the writing was mediocre.

>>3495882
>theres no difference between "man-made" and "natural".

DOOOOOD... THAT LIKE...BLOWS MAH MIND.

oh wait...

>Artificial.
>Adjective
>Made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural: "artificial light".

>>3495913
>Man is a part of nature, he was created by it, therefore anything he does is also part of nature.

artificial light is natural because it was made by man, and man was made by nature.

>>3495942
artificial light wouldn't exist in nature WITHOUT MAN.

NATURAL AS IN EXISTING EVEN WITHOUT MAN'S INTERVENTION YOU DENSE ARSEHOLE.

>NATURAL AS IN EXISTING EVEN WITHOUT MAN'S INTERVENTION YOU DENSE ARSEHOLE.

>natural is in not this other natural

>natural is in
>is in

welp. i'd better be on my way

>>3495978
it was by DEFINITION.

>Natural
Adjective
Existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind. Present in or produced by nature.

again

>artificial
Adjective

Made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural: "artificial light".


you're trying to sound clever by using two definitions for the same word. how about you use the word as it is defined in a dictionary instead of semantics?

>>3495996
>how about you use the word as it is defined in a dictionary instead of semantics?

You don't seriously think that anyone in this thread (uh, besides you?) thinks a lexical definition is what's at stake here do you?

I haven't look at this thread for more than maybe 10 seconds and I could figure that much out.

>>3495913

His point is that nothing is artificial. How can anything be artificial when everything is natural?
Dumbfuck.

'Evil does not exist!'
'LOOK UP 'GOOD' IN THE DICTIONARY IT SAYS IT IS THE OPPOSITE OF EVIL'

HUEHUEHUHEU

>>3495996
>>3496009
I'd suggest going back to its etymology. Art, artifice, artificial, artisan etc all have the same roots, but the plethora of meanings are such I'm sure you could find some interesting common angle.

I'd also point out that natural seems to typically refer to something normative/recurring. There's some difficulty in, for example, working the accidental dumping of oil into the sea or nuclear waste over the land into such a framework of nature, since we typically like to think of them as one offs.

my opinion of the whole thing is that, given that everyone is *of* nature, anything can essentially be said to be 'natural'. thats partly why i think virtual reality is a something of a misnomer aswell, given that the process that generates the experience, and the experience itself, are certainly distinct, and themselves follow the same rule as everything else.

>>3496027
>His point is that nothing is artificial.
i got that you salty cunt.

my point is that he's ignoring the WHOLE purpose of the word's use and building a conversation that.

>>3496094
>a conversation on that

>>3495853
You don't give the Leavers enough credit, mate. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors survived through ice ages, global thaws, and supervolcanic eruptions that wiped out many less adaptive species -- and they did it with nothing but fire and stone tools and each other. If a meteorite struck today, I'd place my bets on some remote Leaver tribe pulling through relatively unscathed while the global economic machine that keeps us Takers alive ground to a halt.

But I find your post illuminating, for in it I see highlighted the impetus behind the Taker worldview. It's the desire to TAKE CONTROL over who lives and who dies, however illusory and futile that sense of control may ultimately prove. (Compare with the "Leavers," those who are willing to leave this control in the hands of their gods and the forces of nature.)

Another spontaneous mass extinction event will no doubt strike us eventually. But right now I'm more worried about surviving the clear and present danger posed by the ongoing mass extinction of our own manufacture... y'know, the one we brought about in our quest to hijack the life-support systems of our spaceship Earth.

>>3495882
>We are the means by which nature observes itself.
Maybe so, but if we keep this up I worry that there won't be much left for us to observe.

>>3496027
>His point is that nothing is artificial.
i got that you salty cunt.

my point is that he's ignoring the WHOLE purpose of the word's use and building a conversation on that.

>>3494493
Then you might like this novel better. It seems like the first 1/3 to 1/2 goes nowhere fast. You will wonder why the book even bears its title. But make sure you read it on the toilet, because you will shit bricks when Quinn drops the epistemological twist he's been building up. Palahnuik and Shyamalan have nothing on this.

>>3495731
>And THIS is quite possibly the most horrifying vision of the future I've read on 4chan.
Thanks.

The problem is though, all those peoples you mentioned got their shit handed to them because Takers as you call them, while ultimately self-destructive, destroy the competition first. The problem with primitivist ideals is the same as those of anarchist ideals and the like: It doesn't account for the overcoming of outside threats.

Also, I don't think those tribes you mention are in any way noble, I just think they just aren't as good as raping the world as us but would do the same if they could. I see no noble savage in the Aboriginals, for example. Those peoples are less harmful to the earth just like a baby bear is less dangerous than a grown one. Just because it do damage doesn't mean it doesn't would if it could.

I think 'taker' culture is here to stay and that the tide of rises and crashes of our technologically augmented planet rape is here to stay for as long as humanity is. Hell, we can barely wait to rape other planets. It's just how we roll. I don't really mind it though. It's nice and Heraclitean.

>>3495731
>And THIS is quite possibly the most horrifying vision of the future I've read on 4chan.
Thanks.

The problem is though, all those peoples you mentioned got their shit handed to them because Takers as you call them, while ultimately self-destructive, destroy the competition first. The problem with primitivist ideals is the same as those of anarchist ideals and the like: It doesn't account for the overcoming of outside threats.

Also, I don't think those tribes you mention are in any way noble, I just think they just aren't as good as raping the world as us but would do the same if they could. I see no noble savage in the Aboriginals, for example. Those peoples are less harmful to the earth just like a baby bear is less dangerous than a grown one. Just because it doesn't do damage doesn't mean it wouldn't if it could.

I think 'taker' culture is here to stay and that the tide of rises and crashes of our technologically augmented planet rape is here to stay for as long as humanity is. Hell, we can barely wait to rape other planets. It's just how we roll. I don't really mind it though. It's nice and Heraclitean.

>>3496804
>Leaver ideals don't account for the overcoming of outside threats.
What good is the ability to overcome unforeseeable outside threats if our culture can't even overcome the threats it creates for itself? Besides: we Takers can boast all we want, but we're ultimately just as vulnerable to some geological or cosmological black swan event wiping us out one day. In the meantime we're much more likely to succumb to our own self-destructive proclivities that you brought up yourself in your post. Does the thought of dying by our own hands really comfort you more? Are we really that addicted to our sense of control?

I'll have to address the points you made in your other two paragraphs in separate posts because of field-length limitations. If I come off as long-winded, it is because snappy retorts just won't do the job here. The cultural memes and assumptions that you draw upon are well ingrained within 4chan and indeed throughout our civilization; we've all been listening to the voice of Mother Culture for a very long time now. You can count on everybody else grokking your argument after just a few sentences. I don't have that luxury. At least not yet.

part 2 of response to >>3496804
>playing the "noble savage" card
Here I'll just quote B's response to this common question/objection:

Q. You say that Man lived at peace with the world during the millions of years that preceded our agricultural revolution. But hasn't recent evidence revealed that ancient foragers hunted many species to extinction?

A. I believe I can still recall the words I used just a moment ago, when I said that Man lived at peace with the world: “This doesn't mean he walked the earth like a Buddha. It means he lived as harmlessly as a hyena or a shark or a rattlesnake.” Whenever a new species makes its appearance in the world, adjustments occur throughout the community of life—and some of these adjustments are fatal for some species. For example, when the swift, powerful hunters of the cat family appeared late in the Eocene, the repercussions of this event were experienced throughout the community... This appearance and disappearance of species is precisely what evolution is all about, after all.

Human hunters of the Mesolithic period may well have hunted the mammoth to extinction, but they certainly didn't do this as a matter of policy, the way farmers of our culture hunt coyotes and wolves, simply to get rid of them. Mesolithic hunters may well have hunted the giant elk to extinction, but they certainly didn't do this out of callous indifference, the way ivory hunters slaughter elephants. Ivory hunters know full well that every kill brings the species closer to extinction, but Mesolithic hunters couldn't possibly have guessed such a thing about the giant elk.

The point to keep in mind is this: It is the policy of totalitarian agriculture to wipe out unwanted species. If ancient foragers hunted any species to extinction, it certainly wasn't because they wanted to wipe out their own food supply!

>>3497180
>What good is the ability to overcome unforeseeable outside threats if our culture can't even overcome the threats it creates for itself?
Simple: Outside threats would kill us sooner. Just look at the Leavers, there are barely any of them left and they only continue to exist because we allow them. Bare subsistence is nice, but guns are nicer. So far Taker tactics have won, even if it'll ruin us in the end. I don't think that it will though once we advance more technologically. Technological progress will go a long way towards stabilising the whole thing, even though it might take a few catastrophes before we get to it. We're stubborn that way.

>>3497213
The harmony between hunter gatherers and their environment is all nice and well, but it doesn't really provide a solution. Agricultural and industrial society leads to more power, and therefore a retreat into primitive subsistence will lead to being dominated and eventually absorbed by the Taker culture.

part 3 of response to >>3496804
>I think 'Taker' culture is here to stay and that the tide of rises and crashes of our technologically augmented planet rape is here to stay for as long as humanity is. Hell, we can barely wait to rape other planets. It's just how we roll. I don't really mind it though. It's nice and Heraclitean.

I would have said 'tragic and Sisyphean' there at the end, personally. And yes, I've read Camus; I know his take on that particular myth.

You're right about one thing: we Takers will continue to roll that rock up the hill again and again for as long as we think there's no better way to live. Just like the Babylonians and the Romans and the Mongols did. The tragedy is that we were not cursed to this fate by the gods -- we cursed ourselves, and we continue to curse ourselves. We can walk away whenever we want but we are bound by our own hubris and fear.

>>3497291
But how do you suppose we go about finding a remedy for this curse apart from telling people the good word like a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses? I don't think it's possible.

Also, to address another angle, why should we even care? This is an important part of the issue, since it's the way a lot of people feel.

>>3497250
>Outside threats would kill us sooner.
Inside threats are bearing down on us RIGHT NOW.

Suppose you're walking across a one-track railway bridge that spans a coastal bay and you see an oncoming train speeding towards you. You're not that high up off the water; you know the water's deep enough that you could survive the jump and warm enough that you could probably swim to shore without succumbing to hypothermia or exhaustion.

Do you just stand there and trust that the engineer will be able to apply the brakes in time? Or do you ignore that niggling little voice in the back of your mind that says "what if there's a shark?" and jump for your life?

>I don't think that it will [ruin us] though once we advance more technologically. Technological progress will go a long way towards stabilising the whole thing, even though it might take a few catastrophes before we get to it.
The problems we're trying to solve today with technology are the problems we created for ourselves with technology while we were trying to live up to our cherished mythological narratives about humanity's superiority and privileged place in the universe. To quote Albert Einstein: "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."

>[A] retreat into primitive subsistence will lead to being dominated and eventually absorbed by the Taker culture.
Not if we succeed in de-programming all of the Takers living today. Not if we can convince them that the Leaver philosophy can produce a world they would all enjoy living in more. And we can spread new ideas very quickly these days. We actually CAN reach all the Takers. More on that later.

>>3497509
But I don't see any train coming. I'm going to have a nice sleep soon thinking of the fresh coffee and toast I'll be having tomorrow and the day that I will spend in leisurely reading and getting my flâneur on. I don't see this changing any time soon, so you'll have to offer very good reasons for me to pick up a spear instead and go shiver to death in the woods. Or do you propose some sort of Leaver culture that doesn't imply primitivism? I'd be up for that as long as I don't have to do anything.

>The problems we're trying to solve today with technology are the problems we created for ourselves with technology while we were trying to live up to our cherished mythological narratives about humanity's superiority and privileged place in the universe. To quote Albert Einstein: "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."
What do you propose then?

>Not if we succeed in de-programming all of the Takers living today. Not if we can convince them that the Leaver philosophy can produce a world they would all enjoy living in more. And we can spread new ideas very quickly these days. We actually CAN reach all the Takers. More on that later.
Alright. I'm going to sleep now, but I'm interested. Still supremely sceptical though. Thanks for the elaborate responses.

Basically, what I think it comes down to is that you'd have to offer people an alternative that tangibly improves their life directly. It's the only way we've ever been tempted to do anything on a large scale. That's why indigenous tribes often have no qualms about incorporating guns, basketball jerseys and plastic.

>>3497305
>But how do you suppose we go about finding a remedy for this curse apart from telling people the good word like a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses? I don't think it's possible.
Spreading the word IS the first and most important step towards breaking the curse. I cannot stress that enough. As Ishmael explains, we're wrecking the world because we're enacting a story which demands that we wreck the world. Give the Takers another story to enact, a new vision that appeals to their humanity more than their old story, and they'll work towards that vision with the same ingenuity and tenacity that they displayed when working to enact the old one.

>[W]hy should we even care? This is an important part of the issue, since it's the way a lot of people feel.
I've already touched on the survival-related reasons, but evidently that's not enough to convince most people that changing course is a good idea. That's fine. Expected, even. I've spent far too much time ITT sounding the alarm and not nearly enough time selling the upside.

What if I told you that we could all be living BETTER than we are now?

>>3497588
OK, so that IS what you're wanting to hear about. Here's hoping you return to this thread when you wake up. I think we may finally have some common ground here. ^_^

This thread and this comment are both pithy and pedantic.

>>3497658
How does one tell a story naturally?

>>3497291
there is no planet rape, you're just a lazy idiot who happens to be a fellow cock mongler.

continued from >>3497658
in response to >>3497588

Quinn never states in any of his works that primitivism is the proper solution to what ails us. (He took great pains to stress that there was no one right way to live, after all.) We're not going to survive and live happier lives by adopting Leaver TOOLS. We're going to live better by adopting Leaver PHILOSOPHIES, IDEALS, and SOCIAL STRUCTURES. We're going to stop living as cogs in a machine and filling the holes in our souls with mass-marketed trinkets. We're going to start thriving again as members of semi-autonomous bands and tribal communities instead of suffering within our old fissioning nuclear families and hikikomori cells. We're going to kill our nihilism and existential despair by reconnecting to the living landscapes that once nurtured our spirits and inspired our art. We're going to remember that humanity belongs to the Earth, and we will revel in that remembrance.

Pic very much related as one of many possible non-primitivist visions of such a future.

>>3497724
And as a final gift from our Taker heritage, we will be able to look up at the night sky and remember that we are not alone in the universe after all. We will tell our children that those twinkling lights are other suns, and that many of them have planets orbiting them that can support life like ours does. Will we ever visit them ourselves? Maybe not. But we have our own place in the cosmos, and no doubt many other alien creatures and cultures are living in accord with their homeworlds just as we're living with ours. We will show them the same benign neglect that they have shown to us. We will not repeat the atrocities of our colonial era on a galactic scale.

And whether we leave the planet or not, there may be other sapient species who encounter us or our artifacts in the distant future. Maybe we encountered them out there in the black after all. Or maybe they will be the distant evolutionary descendants of creatures living on Earth today. Either way, they will not remember us not as marauding tyrants. They will look through any of our surviving ruins and remember us as sages -- ancient, wise, and humble.

This is what a Leaver's take on the Humanity-Fuck-Yeah genre would look like.

This thread is relevant to my lifestyle.Also, check out Always Coming Home for a beautiful view of the future.

>>3497864
>This thread is relevant to my lifestyle.
Details, motherfucker. We want them. Elaborate.

>>3497724
>>3497768
Sounds pretty good but ultimately utopian. I don't really see the world moving in that direction. I don't even see this story as being particularly tempting to your average person. Especially now that technological development becomes more and more relevant and than downscaling and a humble life constantly leads to greater sacrifices than before, unless you can find a way to keep this development going without slowing down. But perhaps I'm misunderstanding what the solution would look like.

When humans leave earth and colonize mars are we still part of nature? Even if mars has no nature so to speak. Also tribes are motivated by the same things New Yorker are, greed, lust, pride and so own. Tribal people were never peaceful hippie types and given technology they would stop being hunter gathers and switch to farming. Why? Cause its a safer bet for survival. Hunter gather can't support large populations so if you don't want totalitarian farming you need to kill off vast amounts if humans. Farmers kill off coyotes because they can go bankrupt if their animals are killed. Both leavers and takers are protecting their best interests, that of survival.

>>3498610
Nature is just that which isn't artificial. Mars has plenty nature, it's completely nature, it just doesn't have (much) life (as far as we know).

>>3498665
But aren't people natural? And the actions of people natural? Including building things, and taking resources, etc.?

The natural/artificial dichotomy is and always has been a false one. Say what you really mean: there's human and then there's everything else.

Really enjoyed all three books in this series. So much so I tracked down the first editions.

Never came across as preachy to me at least.

>>3498706
Of course it's a false one, but it's still a useful practical dichotomy. All dichotomies are false on a fundamental level because they rely in simplification of a mushy flux into binary, but they're still of use in navigating the world.

>>3498706
>Say what you really mean: there's human and then there's everything else.

he did. the words are called natural and artificial. needing man's intervention to happen or not. if you want to get upset on the sentiments of how the words are used that's another thing. but the definitions are what they and you can look them up yourself.

ugh you're a fucking idiot

>>3498780

>>3498793
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo.

>>3498798
babies aren't the same as a fucking car or an ultra violet light bulb you dickhead.

babies are natural like growing hair is natural. you're trying to get away with using two definitions for the same word but i'm on to you, faggot.

>>3497910
Just working on living a Leaver lifestyle in the middle of a Taker culture... Raising my kid with his continuum intact: as much as I can... it's not very fucking easy, but so much is about perspective and attitude. Seeing ourselves as part of everything instead of seperate or above.

>>3498798
u've been caught owt m8!!!
>>3498806 has rumbled yew!!!!

>>3499255
And how does this manifest itself in a concrete way?

>>3499344
I train them not to use bathrooms, but to find an isolated corner and save their excrement in their pockets to help nourish our garden. I'm teaching them that dumpsters are goldmines for food and furniture, but that what they find they should always try to share with others. Most importantly, I have dressed as a gorilla for the entirety of my child's life, so that he knows me only as a gorilla and not as a filthy human.

>>3499543
4/10, if this is actually the first guy who managed to string us along for several posts. But I doubt you're really Mr. "this is relevant to my lifestyle." So kindly fuck off. Grownups are talking here.

>>3499543

Are you the sort of person who hears other people discussing books and finding yourself wondering how they can even form opinions on stories? I mean, either you like it or you don't, right?

Well, if that's you, then read this book, The Giver, and Siddhartha (if that sounds like too much, substitute Jonathan Livingston Seagull for the latter). Once you've done that, you'll feel all sorts of strange emotions and ideas swirling around inside you and you, too, will be able to talk about how a book made you think.

Then, you should watch Donnie Darko (which will become your favorite movie), and you can talk about how movies made you think, too. Soon, you'll be readin' and thinkin' and talkin' up a storm. It's just like a dog who eats grass so he can understand horses.

This book may seem impressive if you don't have much experience with philosophy, history, sociology, or theology, but the ideas in this book are about as complex as what you'd find in a college freshman's paper. And Quinn has an agenda: he wants to convince you, so all of his ideas are simplified and mixed up to support his conclusions. Whether he did this deliberately to convince the reader, or accidentally in the process of trying to convince himself isn't really important. Which one is really worse?

>>3499584
>feckin pleb book also the author has convictions and uses rhetoric to convince you which is bad
Summarized.

>>3499344
Ok...
I'll try to distill my lifestyle to a post quickly.
I try to live with as little unmeaningful work as possible (not doing so great at that right now)...
I try to live in community as much as feels comfortable: doing meaningful work with others, sharing food, raising the kids together...
My kid was breastfed, coslept with us, and was worn in a sling until 6-9 months. He walked at 9 months... At that point, we really just modeled behavior for him, and he followed right along, having no reason to do otherwise. We took the approach of pretty much letting him do his own thing allday, but expecting obedience to (rare) directions. I believe that it is in the Continuum to feel a sense of rightness: of being in the right place at the right time. So we have been careful never to make him feel "wrong", but to redirect his behavior. ( Commonly heard around the house: "that's outside behavior: take that outside")
Beyond this, as he has gotten older, we have discussed our underlying beliefs of connectedness, which of course makes perfect sense to a kid raised with animals and plants all around. He has always professed on his own a strong belief in reincarnation, so brotherhood with all life fits right in.
We've also discussed"right" being"what works for life"... and concepts of living with each other without attempting to control one another.
I sort of see our lifestyle as indigenous to the city. We bicycle, find a lot of what we use, do some trading (working on more), and shop the farmer's market when we can afford it.
I'd love to hear other folks thoughts on living with a Leaver attitude/ mentality...

>>3499802
Rhetoric is bad. Simplicity is bad. The only thing you managed was convictions, which are ok, so long as they're not misguided and silly, which Quinn's are.

>>3500381
So you only like bad phrasing and obscurantism?

I guess I'm a pretty good Leaver since I live a frugal and minimalist life of non-interference (aside from shit talking) on the dole.

>>3500399
What? No, simplicity is problematic because the world ain't simple, and rhetoric is problematic because it gets in the way of truth. That should have been obvious enough.

>>3493195

idk, i liked the book and all but im still not sure what Quinn wants us to do to save the world

anyone?

>>3500440
Stop being takers, duh.

Or, more seriously, go back to being hunter-gatherers, which I find more than a bit retarded.