LandSafe

LandSafe (a neologism) agriculture and resource extraction leaves nature intact. At minimum, that can mean customary organic farming practices, or underground mineral extraction that leaves most of nature functional ... call that LandSafe 1. However, "Organic" comes with a lot of ideological baggage; for example, hostility to genetic engineering, food transport, and natural enhancement. LandSafe considers the whole planetary system; which changes to the status quo maximize the fecundity of nature, globally and into the distant future?

Evolution is smarter than we are ... but evolution PLUS human and machine intelligence is smarter than any isolated component. As we learn more, and develop new technical capabilities, the definition of (and even the goals of) LandSafe will evolve into the future. The very long term goal is to help robust and intricate life thrive and evolve into the very distant future, remediating or managing risks like astronomically-sourced catastrophes, or slow changes in solar output or geological drivers like plate tectonics. Evolution is very good at managing risks within bounds - it is our job to shape those bounds so that evolution operates optimally.

Honestly performed and carefully observed experimentation gives evolution the raw information to operate on. The anti-genetic-engineering movement rejects intelligent collaboration with evolution (but for some reason accepts chemical and radiation induced random mutation). "Try it and find out" has been nature's method for 4 billion years, and we should learn to work with that, not attempt to freeze nature and time. "Leave it along, I got mine, f**k you" is not ethically defensible.

LandSafe will not be a binary yes/no description, like "organic" - it will be a multidimensional address in idea space, describing sets of methods that can be compared to methods with various goals in mind. Perpetuality is my most important goal, not sustainability - perpetuation includes change for the better within individual ethical constraints (Pareto efficiency ), not deeming present conditions as optimal and sustaining them into the mid-term future, when the poorly-accounted resources used for that "sustaining" are exhausted.

For example, recycling already-extracted copper is "sustainable". But recycling can never exceed 100%, and for copper typically runs around 60%, which is better than most other elements. However, mere 60% sustainability means the copper lasts 1.5 times longer, IF economic injustice is built into the system to exclude those without access today. Fully inclusive sustainability in the present US-consumerist way of doing things will exhaust the remaining extractable copper in a few centuries, perhaps sooner. Instead, perpetuality focuses on continual technological improvement that replaces rare copper with abundant materials like aluminum, and replaces applications requiring a lot of metal with applications that require less. Replace room lights with "virtual vision" that makes only the photons your eyes need to operate. Replace clothes washers with nanoscale contaminant removal and cloth repair. Focus on quality of life, not quantity of distraction.

Perpetuality would include recycling, but would focus on repair, replacement, and reduction. A "smart" phone is manufactured with way fewer resources than an old style dial telephone deskset, but it is a "rigid" technology, providing convenience but also consumerist indoctrination and loss of autonomy and privacy. Smart phones are not repairable or upgradable; consumers (I hate that word) discard the old one and buy another. A repairable smart phone might not be faster or more entertaining than a new one, but it would be customizable, providing services that evolve to match individual needs, with durable and replaceable screens and batteries so it can continue to evolve for the lifetime of an individual. Buy one for life, and leave resources for billions of other people to also buy one for life. Standardize components for easy repair and replacement. Properly designed, a smart phone does not become the center of an individual's existence; it fades into the background, so that neighbors and nature can move into the foreground.

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LandSafe (last edited 2017-03-12 22:23:38 by KeithLofstrom)