To press non-economic values into the framework of the economic calculus, economists use the method of cost/benefit analysis. This is generally though to be an enlightened and progressive development, as it is at least an attempt to take account of benefits which might otherwise be disregarded altogether. In fact, however, it is a procedure by which the higher is reduced to the level of the lower and the priceless is given a price. It can therefore never serve to clarify the situation and lead to an enlightened decision. All it can do is lead to self-deception or the deception of others; for to undertake to measure the immeasurable is absurd and constitutes but an elaborate method of moving from preconceived notions to foregone conclusions…The logical absurdity, however, is not the greatest fault of the undertaking: what is worse, and destructive of civilisation, is the pretence that everything has a price or, in other words, that money is the highest of all values.
– Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (Page 31), E.F. Schumacher
Devon Double Hexayurt
EDIT: Link to Nick’s Blog
One problem with categorising dates by the weekends i.e “First weekend in June” is you forget what other events approximate to it, such as a friend’s birthday. So where was I instead of reconnecting with old friends? In a field, in Devon, with a bunch of strangers. I will be vague with names since I cannot recall which individuals requested not to be photographed and uploaded.
Meet Nick. Nick has been living in a field for a few months. He decided he would like to live off-grid in a sustainable fashion and that his housing solution would be a Hexayurt. We were supposed to build it in December with the aid of wind, rain, and limited daylight but that had to be delayed. In the meanwhile Nick lived in a van, and we waited for the sun.
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Maths Triage
Should any experienced educator spot any mistakes in my methods please alert me to them.
A latent dream to become an educator has taken great leaps forwards. With great luck I might be accepted onto teacher training course, despite losing many of my application slots (a grand total of 3) to schools that have yet to remove vacancies from the system, and are even slower to reject me after informing me that there is no space. I am also waiting on my previous employer to respond to my reference request should he ever find a free moment in between providing water and medicines to Malians.
In the meanwhile I am tutoring and as yet remain far below any threshold for reporting my earnings. I do wish I could pay tax. I initially advertised to provide free maths and physics tuition up to GCSE. In the meantime I am revising my A-Level and university maths and will tutor these once I am confident enough to devise teaching strategies. I am now charging new tutees, we negotiate but it averages about £10 per hour and I eagerly wait for the time when honestly will allow me to charge £15.
One a Day – 1
Articles I’ve read in the past week. One for every day.
Four Futures
There are therefore four logical combinations of the two oppositions, resource abundance vs. scarcity and egalitarianism vs. hierarchy. To put things in somewhat vulgar-Marxist terms, the first axis dictates the economic base of the post-capitalist future, while the second pertains to the socio-political superstructure. Two possible futures are socialisms (only one of which I will actually call by that name) while the other two are contrasting flavors of barbarism.
World Future Energy Summit
I recently attended the World Future Energy Summit. I was unable to attend the conference but the visitors and speakers were prestigous, Wen Jiabao, Premier of People’s Republic of China, Francois Hollande, President of France, Christina Fernandez, President of Argentina, Hwang-sik, Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, President of the UN General Assembly and Ban Ki Moon UN Secretary General. With such illustrious guests you could rest assured that there was no danger of anything important or interesting happening.
The exhibition was an endless sea of stalls, some meagre tables with no table cloth and a pile of leaflets, others colossal corporate monuments with animated displays, artwork, meeting rooms and sometimes water features.
From the Bottom Up
I had to answer some questions in an application recently. I thought the answers were blog worthy.
Describe the world as it is. (a description of the status quo and context in which you will be working)
Stresses to infrastructure arise when it is asked to supply more than it can deliver. Sometimes this is an explosion of need following disastrous events, or it can be a slow build up as the old infrastructure falls behind due to increased demand or diminished capacity. Failure to expand can be caused by technological, physical, financial or governance limitations
Graphics for the new Hexayurt site
Vinay asked to throw together some graphics for the updated hexayurt site. Whilst making them I discovered styles in sketchup. An incredibly cool tool. So I made him a gif showing 13 members of the hexayurt family and a banner concept piece.
The Future We Deserve – Bootleg Oil
The Future We Deserve a collaborative book project to create a vision of the future is finished and launched as of yesterday. I cannot describe how good the book is to read. Perhaps it has been best expressed by Vinay in the introduction.
It is all available to read online, You can download the PDF or buy the book. I contributed to the book in the 11th hour after a moment of inspiration about a future scenario. Vinay encouraged me to write it up for the book. It is freely available online so to help promote the launch I reblogging my contribution to the book.
Bootleg Oil
After reading a blog post by Noah Raford I was awakened to the fact that visions of the future are typically commissioned by the wealthy and as such are horrendously narrow in their vision. How will the the glittery sustainable technology we all wish for change the world?
Jay on Fascism in the UK
My friend Jay @thejaymo made a wonderful series of tweets a few days ago taking a list titled The 12 Warning signs of Fascism and attaching each to a picture, article or news story in the UK. Read the storify
The 12 warning signs of fascism seem to have evolved from an article written by Dr. Lawrence Britt (“Fascism Anyone?,” Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20) inside it he outlined Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism.
The impermanence of twitter compels me to commit his efforts into a blog so that it may be more easily shared and retrieved.
Clear words
Wordless instructions. This suggestion comes up almost immediately as the best way to deliver instructions to the developing world. Whether it be an answer to tackling the behemoth that is multi-lingual translation or addressing mass illiteracy, this is the answer that keeps coming up. It is easy to see why, it sidesteps the issues of translation and illiteracy.
This approach was undertaken by two Swedish students in a remarkable a project the called Made in Kenya that tries to engage with the informal manufacturing industry and uses IKEA inspired styling http://www.notechmagazine.com/2011/11/when-low-tech-goes-ikea.html Continue reading