If we are ultimately subunits of one finite system -viewed from either within a VR or from a big picture perspective-then it seems to follow that there is really no such thing as true self sufficiency. Maybe varying degrees of synergy would be a more accurate view....

The finite resources of fresh water,clean air and minerals are just a few of the things we all need to 'keep playing' in PMR.For example: I have a very small organic mini farm in my backyard and I compost as much as possible;but ultimately no matter how much I rely on my 'mini farm' I will have to amend the soil- I will need to replace lost minerals to satisfy the 'conservation of matter' rule,thus forcing me to interact.

Another example would be someone who is fortunate enough to have access to all of the possible resources required for survival in apparent isolation,but becomes ill and needs an appendectomy.This survivalist now relies upon outside hands and outside knowledge accumulated by others if he/she wishes to continue their experience packet. Can they honestly say that they are 'self reliant?'

It seems to me that these kinds of facts must lead to some form of truth in regard to PMR politics and society. The question seems to be "what is the best way for us to interact ?" This is not easy to answer since many of our main ideologies seem to self contradict under certain sets of conditions.

Does a finite world require 'left' politics, 'right' politics ,some combination,or something not yet defined ?

I think a ideal of cooperative independence where the fact that we all cannot be good at everything is understood, and accounted for. We need each other.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Hi Jeff,

My understanding is that in a world of finite resources, some sort of political system is necessary, else anarchy reigns. This last is not a bad thing if there is a clear respect for some sort of moral code and the group is small, and many an aboriginal or American Indian society sounds in many ways as idyllic as can be.

Given the suite of potential political systems as we understand hem, a little time to think about them, almost any 8 year old sees clearly and will say something like "If the people are moral, any system will work; And if they are not, none will".

In the NPMR-lands where survival and resources are NOT an issue, my understanding is that a sort of aristocracy-meritocracy is the rule. But there are probably lots of exceptions, and a lot depends on the region.

-Montana

"cooperative independence" -I like that.

Hi Montana,
All very good points,I agree that some type of system is necessary.Unfortunately, it often seems to me like morality (not the fake self righteous kind) and the ability to effectively self promote are almost mutually exclusive,leaving the greedy,corrupt,short sighted and selfish to rise to power.

I believe that the ideal system should scientifically consider the whole ,it's parts and how they effect one another.I found this today which looks encouraging:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_chemistry

Interesting comment about NPMR. I've had such a suspicion myself. In fact I sometimes get a sort of paranoid notion that beings there are under a kind of 'gag order' when they interact with us in OBEs. Information must be a valuable resource in a NPMR meritocracy ?

Also,if we eventually destroy our PMR earth,this would certainly have an impact on NPMR seeing that PMR is supposedly where the most progress can be made for entropy reduction....

Jeff and Montana,

NPMR is a meritocracy and basically a benign dictatorship. There is a problem with communication between NPMR and PMR including us with our guides. I have discussed this reasonably extensively with Tom and that is when I started the new forum about Communication within Consciousness Space. That thread is still there but no one ever picked up on it and discussed it much further. Here is the link to that original thread. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=2965 It is presently at the next to last post of the whole forum which is on the next to bottom of the second page.

There is not a vastly more informed citizenry in NPMR versus here. There is no gag order. There is a difficulty with communication because we do not communicate here the same way as there. Here it is linearly via language, spoken or written. There it is in 'blocks' of information so we only communicate clearly when passing very simple information answerable with a yes or no. These blocks of information must be broken down and deciphered in a sense. Read that thread and possibly look at some of the others with Tom in them.

Ted

Thanks Ted,
I'll check the link.You made a good point about effective NPMR communication and Yes/No answers,one that I keep forgetting while in NPMR.The formulation of questions is very important and often not given enough consideration by me. I'm glad you reminded me of this.

I thought of the 'gag order' because I have asked many apparent beings in my OBEs and Lucid Dreams to answer some of the same questions over many years without very good results in some cases.

For instance 3 days ago I OBEd into a hotel-resort like environment. I came upon two guys who seemed to possess sentience. I explained that I was dreaming and had a 'physical' body elsewhere. I asked them "do you see many like me?" They said yes. I asked " can you explain this place to me?" "What is my relationship to this place ?" Then they looked at each other like "Well,how do we begin to explain this." There was a discomfort that showed on their faces that seemed to indicate that I was asking for something that I'm 'not allowed' to know. Then I suddenly woke up 'in' PMR.

Maybe 'they' were -and/or I was -inhibited by my open ended approach...

Jeff,

Remember that your whole interaction with the two 'guys' was entirely your interpretation. Hotel/resort environment, guys instead of gals, what were they wearing, did they have drinking glasses in their hands, what did the expressions on their faces mean? None of this 'stuff' applies in NPMR. No hotels/resorts, no guys/gals, no clothes, no imbibing of anything, no faces and no expressions, except within your interpretation.

It was your interpretation that they should not answer when probably they simply could not.

Ted

I wonder though if there is some ego element to this self sufficiency impulse, and resistance to the reality that we are part of an intertwined economic system, that makes a lot of inconvenient demands on us, and stresses our egos.

"If I could only be alone in the woods I would not have to cope with all these irritating people, bosses...."

Self sufficiency can get very inefficient...likely most of what you grow can be bought at the top of the season for half of your investment in money and time.

More importantly, the upside to the garden is that it pushes your R-complex buttons and reduces your anthropological stress - the gap between what your DNA is programmed to expect from the external environment, and what your modern lifestyle is.

Another important indicator of the importance of gardening is what I call the old money benchmark (OMB). Old money are families that have had resources to try out all the possible lifestyles and figure out what is pleasing, what works, what is efficient. Billionaires garden, and there is a message in that.

Left politics is the world primarily seen through the lens of the right hemisphere, heart centered, and right politics, is the world seen through the lens of the left hemisphere, logic centered. Extreme politics, on the left and the right, is the world seen through the R-complex, hate centered.

Political convergence, or the purple movement, is our best attempt to find balance between head and heart, and seek out what economists call unity, that point on the trade off curve where logic and heart are balanced, most syntropic.

For those who have looked at this professionally, and deeply, the solutions are not far from libertarianism and Milton Friedman's teachings on policy and government, which focus on liberating consumers to be free to choose, the decision vector.

_________________
Does this PMR make my butt look big?

Black people eat chicken because historically they could raise them for free once they had their stock. They could be self sufficient in this way since they HAD TO BE, or "society" would just let them die because it didn't like them. I'm just saying, society as it stands now wants to make humans dependant on corporations for food, etc. for greed based reasons, Monsanto anyone? Pretty soon we will not be able to get seeds that will grow plants with viable seeds, and we will have to figure out what "they" cannot control for us to eat, too.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

In this VR of PMR we neither are nor can be truly self sufficient. The rule set makes us part of the ecology and just another animal in the chain of being. When we fitted best into the ecology was as wandering hunter gatherers or acceptably as localized hunter gatherers with some tendency to grow a patch of vegetables. That was when we burned over a patch of ground, tilled it as we were able and it was necessary, planted our crop, harvested and then ate it. Then we went on to a new patch of ground which put the residue of the burning into the ground as fertilizer for our crops, then let the land go fallow again. That kind of agriculture could go on endlessly in reasonable population density. We spread our own manure back into the soil with our little toilet pits dug all over the landscape.

I remember reading a science fiction book that described a civilization where you had to be self sufficient. If you had a child who needed an operation, you damn well better have the smarts to learn how to do it yourself because there were no surgeons and anyone with the experience was locked into the 'code' of do it yourself and would not help. Not a pretty scenario for a life of high quality and technology. There were no farmers nor firemen either. There were no car manufacturers nor mechanics. Again, do it yourself or do without.

But there are truths and values to attempts at self sufficiency. Just suppose that society as we know it becomes unsustainable because of a change back to glaciation. The level of society that can be sustained will be that level which is the common denominator of those remaining in that society. Research may end because there is no excess capacity to support it. All effort may go into production of food as the arable areas decrease in size and availability. There are those who save seeds of natural vegetation and crops so that when big agriculture monoculture destroys the environment and crowds out the more natural but lower producing crops there is a resource to recover from. This is done on an institutional basis and an individual basis. I spent a number of years learning how to do small scale agriculture and animal husbandry before age and circumstances cut that off. There are others on the board as well who do so.

True self sufficiency does not exist however. You must have a community, no matter how small, to have the range of skills and the help you need when something like a barn raising is required. That is also part of the design basis for PMR in order to provide the interactions and rapid feedback which it is designed to produce to fulfill its proper function as designed by the LCS/AUM.

Ted

Yeah, like I said, we need each other. :)
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Since Ted brought this up, I would like to add that I too am interested in acquiring the skills to be more physically self-sufficient. If anyone has any lessons or resources they would like to share about small-scale agriculture, I would appreciate them, only it might be best to share them with me privately, because they would probably be off-topic for this Forum. Thanks.

Whitcomb,

Do a Google or other search for The Whole Earth Catalog. That will link you to a whole world of survivalists and those searching for self sufficiency as is possible. You could also search for Five Acres and Independence. It is an old book, but those kind of principles do not change much. You will probably in the search find many other supplements and alternates to that book as well. Another good book that will tell you much is Diet for a Small Planet which provides a great deal of information on complementary foods to provide a more ideal amino acid profile than an individual food usually does and thus a better diet. What to eat when the population really hits the max and feeding livestock for high quality protein to be eaten in turn is too inefficient. From there you can branch out into the new world that you find there. Tools and equipment sources and how to books. Books on raising small livestock that one person can handle on small acreage. Raising goats as a milk and meat animal that can live where a cow cannot as they browse instead of graze. Books on and sources for solar energy equipment, small water turbines if you have a flowing stream that does not fail, books on windmills to raise water and generate electrical power, battery banks to store power for when the sun don't shine, and non engine driven power sources such as fuel cells fed direct with gaseous fuels. Set up a composting digestor for animal and plant wastes to generate gas for electrical power generation with a fuel cell. Then unload the spent mass as fertilizer and soil adjuvant. That world goes on and on. Then you can look up AAC or aerated autoclaved concrete for a building material that is inherently self insulating, non combustible and will stop a 50 caliber military round in 8" solid thickness. A vast amount to learn and do if you have the youth and the strength and the money. I was once more or less part of that world. Back when I could do instead of just think. I still own 20 acres in the woods in a rural county.

Ted

Hi Whitcomb,
On the contrary it wouldn't be off topic at all-I would very much appreciate this info too! I'm very new at this and also need advice.(I'm already running into major insect problems for instance.)

As for my motivations: There may be a small bit of ego involved in the way that Randy has mentioned,but I am doing this more as a way to gain some sort of basic retirement security- if at all possible. SS and medicare are being constantly raided and attacked with 'privatization' schemes (read:corporatism) and it just may not be there for me (us). Also,the next wall street bubble will surely rob me of what is left of my 401k. My family's costs have been too high to save anything substantial.( 2 daughters went through college,and one still to go for example)

What to do when one is uninsurable,too old, and/or too sick to physically labor ? The way I see it,I'd rather work for myself than be exploited by some global corporation in my 'golden years.'

I hope to have my house payed off and have some sort of 'sustainable living' scheme rolling by then. I have been using this book as one resource:

http://www.amazon.com/Mini-Farming-Self ... 752&sr=1-1

My mother-in law really helps out too. She has some educational background in argriculture and does quite alot of work while my wife and I are at our jobs full time.