#and frees up my day for more important pursuits like supporting and working in ecological recovery and protection efforts

[finrays]

Like, honestly, I think y’all would benefit a LOT from the Grocery Store Test when it comes to talking to other people on this webbed site.

It’s super easy and it makes life better for everyone. Here’s the test;

If you were in line at the grocery store, and two total strangers were having the conversation you’re thinking of butting into in the queue ahead of you… would you speak up?

Sometimes the answer is absolutely yes; you’d probably call someone out if they say something bigoted. You might chime in if you agree and have additional insight to add. These things you’d do without really hesitating. They’re fine to do online.

Sometimes the answer is absolutely no; if you agree but don’t have points to add, maybe you just nod and smile and go “Yeah, exactly!” to yourself, the equivalent of a Like or a quiet Reblog with maybe a few positive tags in it. Maybe you have no idea what they’re talking about so you shrug and go “Eh, not interested” and move on to looking at the candy rack.

And sometimes… sometimes the answer isn’t clear cut. And those are the times where you gotta use your brains, my good bitches.

If you have a respectful disagreement, is it your place to chime in? Can you accept the consequences that might come with that (people maybe being rude to you when you stuck your head into a place that you weren’t really invited to, for instance.) Is it worth risking them to make your voice heard, here? That’s on a case-by-case basis.

And, perhaps most importantly… IS IT AN IMPORTANT ENOUGH DISAGREEMENT TO ACTUALLY TAKE SOMEONE TO TASK FOR???

Would you tell that grandma in line ahead of you that Character McCharacterface sucks, he sucks shit, and you should be ASHAMED that he’s your favorite character in Showy McShowface? Would you tell an excitable preteen buying some Skittles for a movie night with her friends you hate her ship and you don’t want to hear about it here in a public place that’s as much hers as yours?

Or would you wait until they leave and then make a snarky, quiet aside to your friend? Or wander off to another part of the equally shared public store and go “GOD I hate Character McCharacterface,” to let it out?

Basically, if the answer to your question is “I wouldn’t say this to a person’s face/treat them like this in the flesh”…

…why are you doing it on the Internet? We’re all (mostly, I love you Haikubot) people here, just separated by each other by screens and electrons. We’ve all got inner lives, complexities, and things that light us up, but which other people might find blinding. Take a minute to consider how you want to ask your neighbor to turn their lights down. To think before you hit Send. It’s hard. I fucking KNOW it’s hard. I have been learning and relearning it for 32 years now, and the emotions want you to bite like a shrieking fuckweasel half of the time.

But we gotta treat each other better, and we gotta put in a little thought and care and effort. We can’t just fly off the handle whenever we feel like it and expect the universe to shrug it off; we’re not the only ones experiencing it. We can’t let ourselves get addicted to the cheap dopamine hit of holding ourselves as morally superior to people for any and all minor reasons that come to mind; you gotta accept the fact that sometimes people just do things, no judgement or morals or reasoning attached, just human beings doing the being part, and that it’s ok.

Newton’s Third Law applies to human conversations, too; for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Stop and think for a minute about what that might be before you hit send (unless it’s just a straight up random act of kindness, that action-reaction is pleasant and warranted like 99.99% of the time.)

And if you do like being a rot-mouthed snakefucker to people online for minor disagreements specifically because they’re easier to dehumanize here and can’t turn your snout concave when you’re a cunt to them, well… I don’t know what to tell you. You’ve become the bullies you claim to hate, and you should either take a good hard look at your life or accept that people are going to shut you out of pretty much every conversation eventually on account of your slime-guzzling nature.

And, no, you don’t get to complain about that when it happens, either.

Remember the Grocery Store Test when you get up in arms about something; it’ll make your life and everyone else’s a hell of a lot better and keep us a hell of a lot closer to the caring community we all really want to be.

[treeyo]

Response to Carolien via this article:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320718313636

Insects are the basis of the food chain for so much.  Birds for example are one of the many creatures that thrive off of them, well certain types thats for sure but even predatory birds that eat larger forms of life depend on bugs to build the food chain blocks.  In the states we all know the story of DDT and Bald Eagles, ironically the very symbol of our nation. I am sure you get that so here is the philosophical point.

Des Cartes. This french philosopher said man is separate from nature, mind and body are separate.  Cartesian Dualism is in fact the cause of this separation that allows people to read such a thing and then not act.  People stopped seeing in patterns and only have a rational worldview.  Essentially this is the missing link in the new age spiritual realm and a message i really wish to hit home with in my next education pursuits of an online PDC/ subsricption.

Rene Des Cartes

For example with cows, yes they are a mammal with specific caloric needs and health needs, yet rely tremendously on the symbiosis of their gut bacteria and protozoa.  So we began to grow corn and soy and other row crops to meet their caloric needs to gain weight quickly.  It had the repercussions of disease but science had already sorted that out with antibiotics, steroids, growth hormones, vaccines, and all those great advancements rationally took care of the other side of the equation of them feeding on foods they shouldn’t be eating evolutionarily.  We have stepped into the roles of gods and left behind simply being stewards of his/ their creation.  The monotheistic world religions are very materialistic and dominate a worldview perpetuated by Des Cartes.  Spirituality now is viewed in materialism rather than wholism. This is why Constatine crushed the pagan religions because they were holistic thinkers bent on cooperation not competition.

Same happened with plants and fertilizers after the war.  Yes fertilizers make incredible plant growth but then disease and pests proliferate.  So yes, science had already developed nerve toxins for war such as organophosphates and started to spray crops when the plagues came.  Its nerve poison.  And we spray it all the time throughout the whole world.  Agent orange was one of them and Vietnam soldiers are still degrading and dying from this awful poisoning beset by their governments.  And people ask why is there so many mental health problems, our nervous system and endocrine system is now plagued with the very poisons that were meant to free us from starvation.

In the states 90% of the population lives in cities.  Politicians are clueless on agriculture.  But they make the policy.  Its a business reinforced by the need for GDP infusion based on competition.  We are not collaboratively meeting the needs of a growing population and an environmental catastrophe.  Mankind reads such an article and responds with no action.  gross wealth inequality is one of the reasons why because organic and local is more expensive theoretically.  But our tax monies go towards subsidies of industrial agriculture which costs so the prices of those foods remain cheap.  Imagine buying your fertilizer in a bag vs making your own compost, rich in life.  Its chemistry vs biology.  Its GDP vs self sufficiency or local economy.  Its the global reticulation of materials and energy that makes the rich richer.  The billionaire class is no different than the feudal lords and kings of the past. Because so many live in the city, the countryside is raped.  Insects lose habitat because of it and are dwindling in large part to pesticides and poisoned manures.  War against nature and war in humanity is mainly about capitalism vs other ideologies.  They want a bigger market for more GDP.  Its that simple.  And meanwhile in the cities the majority of people struggle to meet ends meat.  Their purchases are based on simple mathematical equations of price of food not holistic health perspective.  Humans also stopped educating themselves about nature known also as environmental literacy.  You maybe able to read a book or do algebra but can you identify five trees?  Simply knowing what trees you are walking by, what birds you hear calling, and what fish are jumping is a good beginning to reconnecting. Educate yourselves for gods sake! People are clueless that their fertilizing of their lawns, their buying of doritos, their yoga pant purchases, their netfilx and chilling are killing this planet. And no one is perfect, surely not me.

hot compost turning, author having fun while teaching the technique as well! Portugal, Escola Da Terra PDC, 2011

Thomas Malthus was also an important philosopher that I studied in University twenty years ago.  He said that human population can only grow based on food supply.   Its a simple ecological proposition.  So humanity took that and created shit tons of food yet empty on real nutrition hence the diseases of today like diabetes.  Its a nutritional deficiency.  Neo Malthusians state that we will always find new technologies to circumvent the feedback loops of nature and our population growth then is essentially infinite.  Its madness.  We rape and pillage our natural resources for a made up set of laws around economy. Capitalism is driving humanity to extinction, the ultimate form of death.  Because yes we all die at some point, and many of us pass our DNA to the next generation.  But there will come a point in time when our DNA is so fried from all the poison that viable human beings are no longer possible, MAD MAX STYLE.

Yet a burgeoning movement of people growing foods alternatively exists.  So will the people of today support those farmers, those land regenerators, those providers of insect refuge and habitat?  That is the fundamental question of humanity.  We are hell bent on watching netflix not nature, we are hellbent on purchasing from Amazon not local artisans, we are hell bent on entertaining ourselves with hollywood rather than interacting with nature.  And no i do not mean simply going for a walk in the park, i refer to actively stewarding pieces of land.  We are an evolving species and our path towards technological and artificial intelligence is usurping our connection to nature.  It is our gods given right to be, not just to do.  We can in fact roll this tide into regeneration.  It takes courage, tenacity, patience, pattern thinking, material knowledge, and many other virtues that society has indeed forgotten.  It maybe cooperation more than anything else.

Nina showing off the newly built insect hotel at Terra Alta, 2016

Gil, our friend at Treasure Lake, preparing to move one of his hives to the lake, KY 2018

Arvid scything at Sekier, Slovakia for hay storage

Tom planting one of the chestnuts on newly terraced zone 3 zone, Treasure Lake, 2018

lots of shovels and picks in this class swale digging project, Cincinnati, OH 2009

Students working on Schematic design with shifting cards

So for me it indeed doesn’t affect much cause all the days of my life are hellbent on giving back to a planet that gives me life.  I shall dwell in the house of the lord forever. Stewardship.

thank you for this question.  hugs

  Insect Decline Blog: A letter back to a Student who asked about this vital topic Response to Carolien via this article: Insects are the basis of the food chain for so much.