Ephemerisle: Worth Your Investment?
Ephemeralization, a term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, is the ability of technological advancement to do “more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing”.
Some futurists think only theoretically and wax philosophically about the possibilities for humanity from the comfort of their libraries and leather chairs, rarely, if ever, testing their assumptions. Others only read the directions on the box, if that, and head out into unknown territories with little more than power tools and some rope to answer such questions as “Is ephemeralization possible?”and “If climate change causes global flooding, could me and 10 of my friends live on a boat?”
Hundreds of years of literature (Lord of the Flies, Robinson Crusoe ), movies and television (Survivor, Cast Away, The Book of Eli and obviously Waterworld) have traditionally concluded that, with limited resources, human nature eventually retrogresses into an Orwellian unfun form of protective tribalistic survivalism, not any kind of Utopia. But most futurist works do not take in to account the emergence and determination of modern survivalism-IS-fun types who take such conditions as a meta and physical challenge to investigate the possibility of non-violent ephemeralism (one exception being Huxley’s Island, a specifically written utopian counterweight to Brave New World, the pair of which I encourage every Burner and Ephemerialist and Futurist to read).
The term “futurist” is also misleading, as many current prognostications about the future involve a complete lack of computers and robots and are not unlike the happy, healthy, self-sufficient cultures of indigenous tribes and vikings of yore (only a light sprinkling of which still exist today). As many dystopian novelists and revolutionary, countercultural and experimental communities of the 1960s have asked: could we ever get back to a balanced, natural state if necessary, or have we gone too far?
Anchored just outside of Stockton, CA in the expansive and windy network of natural and unnatural waterways of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the most important question the floating festival Ephemerisle, now in its third year, wants to investigate — besides whether you would live or die — is this: Can being trapped on an island be FUN?
On June 9, 2011, False Profit sent a recon team to this local real world test of such theories and questions regarding emphemeralism in the particular context of seasteading. About 20 boats were tethered together to form an island, thereby forming a community of approximately 200 residents of various ilk. Community and connective platforms were built, and collective energies and resources were pooled. The result was 4 days of sunning, swimming, dancing, diving, teaching, sharing, and learning within an enthusiastic, ambitious and industrious community bent on creating their own world. As a contribution, we brought a boat full of speakers and DJs.
Learnings:
- “Missing the boat” isn’t an expression for no reason. However, if you do happen to miss the boat, do not give up. There are other ways to reach your destination. Having a stash of cash or other highly valuable tradeable goods helps. A lot. River people can be very helpful if properly persuaded.
- Driving a boat isn’t hard, but you do have to pay attention.
- Dropping anchor sounds easy — you just throw it overboard and your boat stops moving, right? WRONG. Due to collective ADD and inability to commit, we moved our boat approximately 7x, so we are experts on how hard it is to drop anchor.
- If you want freedom, do not tie yourself to anyone. Literally or figuratively. Otherwise you may end up listening to lectures when really you’d rather be having a danceparty in your underwear on the roof.
- High speed watercraft are highly enviable and worth procuring.
- Pirates are easy to distract. See item 1.
- Blasting other boats with a wall of sound is an effective method of takeover, so if you don’t have cannons, have subwoofers.
- Aquatic wildlife is way easier to catch and avoid than mainland predators (e.g. the prismatic leopard of the temperate rainforests of northwestern america). The only non-avian fauna spotted were river otters, and they’re just cute.
- Put sunscreen on your ass if you’re going to lie around naked.
- I’m On a Boat is not that hyperbolic. It really is like that. If you’re on a boat with us, anyway. Champagne wishes and caviar dreams.
Conclusions: Ephemeralization seems possible, but we will still need GPS to figure out where the hell we are unless we all learn how to read starmaps.
Recommendations: Invest. More boats + more people = more fun at Ephemerisle 2012.
dylan (non-resident), jess, nicole, whit, me, lydia (visiting), jay, larisa (newest recruit), ben (1st mate), eric, jordan, alex
Sidenotes: Growing up in the Great Lakes State on the shores of Lake Michigan surrounded by inland lakes, you would think I’d have spent a lot of time on boats as a child. But alas, no one I knew had a boat, or, at least, invited me to come on it. I recall being on boats only once or twice as a child. So I know nothing about boating. Particularly, I did not know that I would still feel the world rocking gently back and forth two days after disembarking, but perhaps that is specific to the workings of my inner ears and not a global experience. Secondly, I realize that this is not so much a summary of the experience as a literature review. But honestly: you don’t do a lot while on a boat. That’s the point. So other than the above there’s not a lot to report that would make any sense at all if you weren’t there. So if you really want to know what happened, join us next year on a motherfucking boat.
Filed in friends, things you can do, travel | Tagged with dystopia, ephemerisle, false profit, orwell, utopia | Comment (0)films: on the subject of alternate and/or parallel lives
“the internet is like this new human experience. at first, everybody’s gonna like it. but there will be a fundamental change in the human condition. one day we’re all gonna wake up and realize we’re just servants. it’s captured us.”
We Live in Public (IMDB/netflix) – are you reading this on the internet? have you not seen this movie? do you have a facebook account? do you use a smartphone to “check in” to places and tell the world where you’re at? do you tweet about what you eat? is your life trackable online? you should watch this movie. especially if the above applies to you and you have also been to burning man.
a biography/documentary of josh harris. like “The Social Network“, only the crazy slightly sociopathic internet visionary is played by himself and he goes a bit crazier than Zuckerberg with his ideas about how the internet will change humanity, including creation of an underground pod community in NYC just before Y2K where everyone is on TV/broadcast to each other 24/7. watch trailer.
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Das Wilde Leben aka 8 miles high (IMDB/netflix/wikipedia) – hot german girl Uschi Obermaier joins counterculture community experiment Kommune 1 in west berlin in the late 60s, meets revolutionaries, becomes “it girl”/supermodel, hooks up with the rolling stones, travels the world all gypsylike. the movie has great scenes and dialog but also sort of cheesy stereotypical 1960s “free love” moments. the actress who plays Uschi is unbelievably hot. fictional biography. in german with subtitles. also super relevant if you have ever been to burning man.
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Leaves of Grass (IMDB/netflix) – in which Edward Norton plays twin brothers who have diverged somewhat stereotypically into a redneck pot farmer and harvard philosophy professor and are reunited under contentious circumstances. i was skeptical (mostly because of a) fake southern accents are hard to take and b) it had a very Doc Hollywood “big shot gets stuck in small town” direction to the script), but i admit the dialogue and acting was above average, and while some moments were easy to see coming, others were totally not. edward norton fans will LOVE this. as will intellectual potheads.
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i sense a theme here in the movies i’ve watched lately.
Filed in art, tv, books and movies | Tagged with dystopia | Comment (0)hobbit homes: the future
The Tea Party Targets….Sustainable Development?
First, they took on the political establishment in Congress. Now, tea partiers have trained their sights on a new and insidious target: local planning and zoning commissions, which activists believe are carrying out a global conspiracy to trample American liberties and force citizens into Orwellian “human habitation zones.”
At the root of this plot is the admittedly sinister-sounding Agenda 21, an 18-year-old UN plan to encourage countries to consider the environmental impacts of human development. Tea partiers see Agenda 21 behind everything from a septic tank inspection law in Florida to a plan in Maine to reduce traffic on Route 1. The issue even flared up briefly during the midterms, when Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes accused his Democratic opponent of using a bike-sharing program to convert Denver into a “United Nations Community.”
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In the tea partiers’ dystopian vision, the increased density favored by planners to allow for better mass transit become compulsory “human habitation zones.” They warn of Americans being forcibly moved from their suburban dream homes into urban “hobbit homes” and required to give up their cars and instead—gasp!—take the bus to work.
now, this is from Mother Jones, so yes, a huge helping of salt and hyperbole with that, so what’s interesting to me about this (particularly since i just watched The Book of Eli) is not so much the “tea partiers are total nutjobs” aspect but that as an extreme minority, this point of view provides a definitive shadow of overlap with extremely left wing conspiracy theorists who have been suspicious of all forms of government planned anything. it’s possible the extreme right and left have each gone so far around they are now meeting face to face (is that part of the 2012 prophecy?), which is either hilarious or terrifying, depending on how you look at it. in fact it reminds me of Marin County NIMBY planning conflicts, where the conservative ultra left fight over things like whether or not Habitat for Humanity should be allowed to build homes n their communities.
or maybe this is nothing new…politics as usual…yawn…trumped up for ratings/publicity, and in that case, isn’t Mother Jones just as guilty of misinformation and rabble rousing as the Tea Partiers are for spreading this around?
Filed in culture and random linkage, politics and news | Tagged with dystopia, NaBloPoMo, nimby, orwell | Comment (0)the book of eli (spoiler alert)
last night we watched The Book of Eli, a post-apocalyptic film. the setting: nuclear (?) war causes hole in atmosphere, sun scorches earth, most people die, the scattered burnt-out civilization that remains looks a lot like hanging out with the DPW at burning man, only more desperate and violent. all books were burned, and water is so scarce it becomes the controlling force for everything people do. it’s sort of a cross between an old cowboy movie and mad max. what makes it exceptional is 1. it’s beautifully shot in black/white/monochrome, and the mood is minimalist and desolate and 2. the cast: denzel washington, gary oldman, tom waits, jennifer beals, and mila kunis.
the premise, however, is tricky, and where i got a little put off (spoiler alert):
Filed in philosophical ramblings, tv, books and movies | Tagged with dystopia, NaBloPoMo | Comment (0)the state of 2010
i’m not one who believes in apocalyptic theories, whether it’s the Second Coming of Jesus Christ Our Lord or 2012: The Mayan Prophesy or even just mundane, secular, Nuclear WWIII.
but the fact that this is 2010 and
1. Arnold Schwarzenegger still holds a very high political office in the USA and
2.To replace him, two of the top winning candidates in yesterday’s CA election are extremely rich white republican WOMEN who were CEOs of HUGE CORPORATIONS (which TK calls the “Girls Gone Wild Senate Race“…ouch! oh, what does this say about the world, especially California, today? the socio-eco-politico-anthro discussion could be endless)
and
3. Ozzy Osbourne is now a health columnist for the Times of London
really sort of freaks me out in a dystopian 1984 kind of way, without even mentioning everything else.
Filed in culture and random linkage, oracles, politics and news | Tagged with apocalyptica, dystopia | Comment (0)orwellian or huxlian?
related to the recent xkcd on sheeple: “Amusing Ourselves To Death” – a short graphic novel on Orwell vs. Huxley in 2009. you really should click that link.
are we in a military state where violence is used to control the masses and media, or one where everyone is so distracted by their wealth, their abundance, that the criminals operate without resistance? (social control through indulgence – give them everything, get them hooked on what they have, and they’ll let you do whatever so they can keep it….) i think it depends on what country you live in. Iran? Orwellian. the US? Huxlian. the result: fear and violence vs apathy and disintegration. for the future of the human race: both are bad news.
+ a whole lot of well presented points on this here.
h.t. to ill gates for this link.
“Liberties are not given, they are taken.”- Aldous Huxley
Filed in culture and random linkage | Tagged with dystopia, orwell | Comment (0)excuse me while i puke
The Enlightenment Visa Reward Card was founded on the idea that money is energy and if used with positive and integrative intention, can have the power to affect change in our lives and the world.
the site goes on to talk about all the wonderfully enlightened things you can do with the points you earn while contributing to america’s debt crisis, and fails to mention that Visa, the company who profits most from your activity, is evil, just like all credit card companies who are funded by large banks and reap the benefits of careless compulsive spending by consumers and take advantage of those with financial problems or weaknesses (like college students). that phrase “supports my conscious lifestyle” is totally misleading – sure, it supports the cardholder by providing funds for all the over-priced products and services (have you BEEN in a Whole Foods?) needed to create a “conscious lifestyle”, but how in the world could any credit card actually support a GLOBALLY “conscious lifestyle”? it simply can’t. credit cards and sustainability don’t mix. Visa earning hundreds of dollars a year in interest and transaction fees (every time you use your card, Visa collects money from the merchant) because of your activity is not “putting your money where your heart is”.
i mean…ack. just like with all the current greenwashing going on in ads (like THIS toxic crap being marketed as “natural”), corporate use of popular spiritual and social values to market products that are only pretending to be aligned with those values in order to make money off of that demographic makes me totally ill. i mean, i know that’s what marketing *IS*, but it seems to be getting more and more Orwellian as the days go by.
~ via social-creature, who also notes an interesting concept in robotics psychology that plays into marketing (and, i would argue, perception of art): the more something approaches who we really are, the less appealing it becomes (e.g., the reason that Visa ad is so repulsive is because it’s so fucking spot on in terms of our actual culture) until it fully assimilates and becomes unrecognizable as an ad, such as the guerilla marketing done by some agencies wherein you don’t even realize you’re being marketed to, and then it becomes favorable and we like it.
humans are weird. as smart as we are, we are also totally dumb and utterly impressionable. our cultural evolution has included the nurturing of this tendency to accept things which are naturally illogical because they are presented to us by what have been established as ruling forces/sources of life, even if they’re totally negative. it’s as though we’ve lost any innate ability we might have had to use logic to foresee negative consequences, and now even the smartest of us still mostly just listen/respond to what we’ve been taught. sure, the marketers have to get more and more creative to keep us fooled, and i’m sure it took a lot of work on the part of whoever created that ad above to find a way to market credit cards to the so-called “enlightened” consumer American. or, maybe not.
Filed in culture and random linkage, environment | Tagged with dystopia, greenwashing, orwell | Comment (1)
