Agriculturalism isn't human.

Agriculturalism is not a native human state.

I really want to stress this point a bit. I've been part of the back to the land movement. I'm tangentially fringe-connected with the doomer-optimist club (the world will end and it will be awesome because everyone goes back to farming)

I've grown corn and taters, cows and goats, pigs and ducks, strawberries and pasturage. And trees.

I love "cottage culture" and backwoods cabins and the human influenced outdoors.

But stage two terraforming - agriculturalism, is not a native human state. We didn't evolve to the tasks, stressors, workflow, particular type of interdependence, and UTTTER DEPENDENCY, of agriculturalism.

Mmm, stage two terraforming. stage one terraforming is, essentially, a combination of opportunistic driving of livestock, seed bombing, and setting of wildfires.

Driving isn't herding, but you can sort of influence the rangeland of herds by driving them in certain directions. seed bombs (scattering seeds) isn't settled field agriculture, but it promotes the growth of the fruits you like (and, yes, grasses). Setting fire to the forests isn't clear cutting and making pasturage, but it does clear out understory and make a more hospitable environment for preferred easy prey species - and seed bombing fruit trees or cane berries and such.

We've done all that for something approaching multiple hundreds of thousands of years. In evolutionary terms, we quite literally evolved WITH fire. We been doing BBQ for a million years, dude.

stage two terraforming is settlement agriculture. sometimes it's semi nomadic, as with slash/burn shifting farming (grow until the soil goes bad, then move a little ways down and do it again) - but most often it is SETTLED. people stay in one place, attached to the land (usually legally attached, and functionally or chattel slaves) . We've been doing that for a while, but not that long, 11 or 12 thousand years. And up until recently, it was not nearly as globally accepted as your "civilization" history has taught you.

Settlement agriculture sucks. I'm just going to plainly state this. Slavery, disease, reduced length of and quality of life - agriculture is ass. .. However, it did prove to be one path toward technological civilization and massive population increase. You are here today, mostly, because of slavery.

And it MIGHT actually work out. we're getting pretty close to having the technological capability of getting past the curses of civilization (agriculturalism) and moving upwards, past our pre civilized status.

I'm not saying we could not have achieved a similar or better civilization without settlement agriculture. we don't know that and really cannot know that. But what we've got is what we've got.

But, psychologically, is SUCKS DONKEY DICK. Agriculturalism is no good for humans. Psychologically, certainly. Physically certainly. Spiritually...debatable.

Moving on - stage three terraforming. Let's call it...gardening. It's not, really, but let's run with it. tuning your local environment to produce happiness, contentment, healthy food, and natural game.

The problem here, is that you have to get out of an agricultural mindset and move out of "slave space" - and that requires some abundance. Physically speaking, that means some internal, core, deep trust that you can eat, thrive, move, and create.

We had that BEFORE agriculturalism. People think of the hunter (and hunter gatherer) period as harsh and unforgiving, but it was truly a period of functionally high independence. there is evidence of a lot of transition between clan/hunting groups. or widespread proto-civilizations with huge temple or gathering complexes. Of a large amount of leisure time. MUCH more than we've seen since. (with some few top elite exceptions, and the recent past, where leisure time (counting time at "work" doing "not work" has approached prehistoric levels)

With that- with that core confidence that you had as a hunter in a world full of endless game, with an ability to move freely - with that, stage three terraforming - permaculture cottage gardening type stuff, co-operative multi-use farms, designed permacultures - with that, we can possibly move forward.

I see this in a lot of the doomer optimism. It's sort of cloudy and seen through a reflection in a fun house mirror, since they are almost all literal doomers, believing in Collapse as a matter of faith (or necessity). But their optimist side, as strangely as it may be presented (mandatory small plot agriculture that everyone WANTS to do, despite it being MANDATORY - for example) - the optimism really does seem to partake of this post agricultural stage three terraforming- gardens and abundance, choice, personal connection and once again finding a focus on the You that is.

And so, I'm an optimist of a slightly different flavor (I think hunting is more crucial than agriculture, for example) but I'm not a doomer. Oh, to be sure, our next phase of the game of humanity is going to be VIOLENT, and bloody, and dramatic, and ecstatic. Very, very, EXCITING. But I don't see it as a collapse. That's not the direction of humans. Even the bronze age "collapse" was very localized....

And I don’t see the end result as some sort of “necessity enforced” universal back to the land sustenance agriculture result. If anything, I think we’ll move (finally) PAST sustenance agriculture.

I consider my friends to be gardeners of and in humanity. Hopefully that’s not too much optimism for them to handle ;)

Stay Sideways.