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You would not have been able to make these points without knowing what the article states and the point of it is that a lot of people do not.

It is true that we could do better and should do better - the pendulum of progress has swung too far away from working with nature to forcing it to conform to our standards during the industrial revolution.

But still your comment has a very pessimistic view of the world.

The easiest rebuttal is that I like my engineering management job. It really is more fun than doing housework - and I can tell this from experience. I've built a house with my own hands and lived in one where you had to carry in the water and build a fire in the stove when you wanted food or warmth. It mostly sucked.

Thanks to my car, or a rental car, I've seen things that I could never have seen otherwise and it has enriched my life in so many ways I can't even count. Also, I got my driving license at age 28. So I know how living without the ability to drive was like. It was possible, but not great.

The ability to use plastic tools in hospitals probably saved the life of one of my kids. Although on this one I do admit, the need to pack every single thing in it is excessive and we should cut down on the usage of plastic in many areas.

Finally, about fertilizers and monocultures - please read up on Norman Borlaug and the Green Revoluton before saying that things would be fine without them. Maybe in the US or other countries that have lots of space and great soil they would be. But in India, Pakistan and other countries, the ability to have crops that produce vastly more product per area has given a better life for millions of people.

Finally, the percentage of the population that gets to enjoy a better lifestyle has never been higher. Health has never been better. Of course, that shouldn't be an argument to stop progress, but saying that things are terrible isn't true either.

> but saying that things are terrible isn't true either.

Which is precisely why he didn't do that.

His only point was that every progress we've achieved came with a trade-off and a lot of these will make life significantly harder in the future

Very well put.

> Synthetic fertilizers are hugely beneficial, but they are in part necessitated by, and directly enable (in a cycle, see), crop monocultures that don't allow the soil to replenish its fertility.

Yes. The article gives the impression that modern organic and permaculture farms are basically using medieval techniques, when that's far from the case. I hope the author does know better.

Do these alternatives scale at a cost that people can afford?

I tried googling for permaculture information (like cost per unit of food) and I only found absurd cult-like propaganda or people complaining about the myths of permaculture.

It’s confusing because you have so many dimensions of scale - labor input, land use, water consumption, etc - that you can point out advantages to almost any approach.

The last century has seen massive farms using high tech kit, in part because they can lobby for grants and subsidies more effectively. They are not water efficient as a rule, and they tend to suffer inefficiencies because the people managing the land have no skin in the game, but they are profitable because they can move large volumes of produce and get their machinery paid for by the government.

It doesn’t take permaculture levels of agriculture to make it better than it is now.

For example insurance companies dictate how and when farmers apply chemicals, the insurers are influenced by petrochemical companies and are also risk adverse.

So while we could do better with more careful and targeted application of chemicals there’s not a huge incentive to at a systemic level. The risk is too high for farmers to try and do something different, because the insurers dictate the terms

Intensive organic farming seems to work, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biointensive_agriculture, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Martin_Fortier for an example with numbers.

> permaculture farms

Where are these magical permaculture farms that solve all problems and are cheaper to produce than every other technology out there?

It would be wonder that such a solution would exist and literally no single country in the world has converted to it.

> Where are these magical permaculture farms that solve all problems

Your comment reeks of cynicism. Obviously we can't solve "all" problems.

I think many small or medium-sized agricultural operations would have elements that might be considered "permacultural", some more than others.

> are cheaper to produce

It depends on what you mean by "cheaper." Are you considering cost to produce, cost to the consume, cost to the environment? These are all very different and our current system is optimized for a small subset of cost constraints while almost entirely ignoring others (e.g. long-term ecological impact, health impact).

> no single country in the world has converted to it

We converted away from it, so naturally we were doing something right or we wouldn't have Western Civilization. Medieval farms were incredibly sustainable from an ecological perspective, often integrating with natural processes wherever possible. We once had a much more integrative approach (for lack of technology) and moved away from it (due to labor constraints and improving technology).

Further, I think it's fair to say that if industry applied improved science and technology with an integrative approach, we could have permaculture, limit labor constraints, minimize ecological damage, and have comparable yields.

I would argue that the reason this hasn't happened at scale is due primarily to political reasons and not because permaculture doesn't work.

If you want some examples of farms actually implementing permaculture there is a documentary called Fresh (2009) which documents a couple of farmers in Shenandoah Valley and Milwaukee who worked to create sustainable farms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwR44T69_Is

> We converted away from it, so naturally we were doing something right or we wouldn't have Western Civilization. Medieval farms were incredibly sustainable from an ecological perspective, often integrating with natural processes wherever possible. We once had a much more integrative approach (for lack of technology) and moved away from it (due to labor constraints and improving technology).

Medieval and earlier farms were horrifically unproductive and unsustainable. Land had to lie fallow for nutrients to be replenished, and even when there were actually plants growing, output was low. In an average year, a medieval european farm could expect to produce between 7 and 15 bushels per acre, and as little as 4 in a bad year. Compare this to a modern farm that can produce 60 bushels per acre. Medieval farms would harvest about 4 seeds per seed planted on average, a bad harvest may not leave enough to plant for the next year, modern farms on the other hand reap 30 to 40 seeds per seed planted.

Europe's population remained stagnant for 1000 years as any increase in food production would lead to a reduction in grazing area, which in turn meant less manure was produced and lands could not be sufficiently fertilized. Famines were frequent and severe. Medieval agriculture wasn't sustainable, it was inescapable. Only the crisis of the late middle ages and the ensuing deaths of millions forced systemic changes which allowed europe to break out of its vicious cycle and lead to real quality of life improvements.

Just because something is better than what came before does not mean it is perfect, and it's worth considering other ideas. But pre-industrial agriculture was terrible, and anyone romanticizing it either has no idea what they are talking about or is actively trying to deceive you.

I don't think you read my comment. I didn't say it was sustainable from an economic perspective, but an ecological perspective. All of the reasons you said are precisely why pre-industrial farmers had to integrate with natural processes as much as possible, eeking out all potential benefits.

> but an ecological perspective.

Ecological considerations hardly matter if you can't sustain human life as we know it. Going back to something like medieval farming would mean mass starvation, and I'm not sure this is going to get many votes for whoever proposes this kind of idea.

I didn't say they did nor did I suggest we go back to medieval farming. I don't know what you guys are reading but it's not what I wrote.

> I hope the author does know better.

I hope the author doesn't know better - I'll take genuine ignorance over dishonesty any day.

Agreed. I really think Industrial Literacy is crucial and should be part of all curricula, but this gung ho whig history of the blog post is absolutely sickening.

It also conflates methods which are basically necessary with current/prior tech and population levels (the agriculture ones), with ones that aren't (cars, plastic). We absolutely could have a cities + farmland + nature economy with trains and glasswear without sacrificing the population capacity.

> But recognize that everything contains the seeds of its own destruction.

This doom and gloom scenario has been around for centuries. In the beginning of the 20th century people were worried about overpopulation and how it was going to make the whole world starve. Now we are worried about being too rich for our own good and the defects of our lifestyles eventually killing us all. In 100 years they will see us as completely paranoid.

This is one of my favorite comments I've read here. Thanks for each of those offsetting points.

They are good points, but they aren’t offsetting.

The point of facts isn't to offer a point and counterpoint that fits anything in particular. As best I can see all the things above and in the OP are simply true?

The number of times I've had to explain that our food comes from natural gas... these things are important, like the amount of petrochemicals we use for fertilizers is many many power plants worth but they're also integral to our survival but that's also because of history and the complexity of it is really just kind of important to grasp. At least in a science class.

It's not that reality is especially good or bad, but it is reality. We are reliant on monocultures that are mostly produced by one company with absolutely ridiculous IP policies to resist pesticides also made by the same company that we fertilize with oil. That is how it is. It should probably be different, but any deviation from the local stable point is terrifying.

Yes - they are simply true.

But they don’t ‘offset’ anything about the points in the original piece.

Both are important to understand, and are important in being ‘industrially literate’.

Right, there's not a "counterpoint" to the fact that agriculture is dependent on fossil fuels for fertilizer. Not mentioning it just means kids aren't aware that it is even true, when it should be utterly non-controversial and commonly known.

Electic Bicyles and Remote work solve a lot of problems.

You didn't criticize vaccines. Why not?

I find your attitudes to be reactionary.

Reactionary usually means something like "extremely conservative; opposed to progress". How is acknowledging that the status quo is borrowing from the future reactionary? It seems to be the exact opposite to me.

> Synthetic fertilizers are hugely beneficial, but they are in part necessitated by, and directly enable (in a cycle, see), crop monocultures that don't allow the soil to replenish its fertility

If all it took was to "rotate the earth" then farmers wouldn't spend millions on dollars on fertilizers and special crops.

> Housework was a full time job, and now it's not. We have different full time jobs that aren't that much more fun, but they've unlocked record levels of profits. We don't have time or energy to maintain our bodies anymore. Wages haven't gone up in decades.

I get it that you never worked in a farm or knew someone close who did. It's 14 hours work, not exaggerating, with no real sick days, you better find the time and energy to maintain your body let me tell you that. There is a good reason most people in the world left from rural areas to factories as soon as they could. I come from a place that was settled only ~150 years ago, people began to leave as soon as there was a road and are still doing so even now up to a point the average population age is 55.

> Plastic is an incredibly useful technology, and has saved the lives of those tortoises whose shells we once carved products from. These days, plastic particles drift across every mile of the ocean, and kills those tortoises a different way.

That sounds more like an emotional argument than anything else. Yes plastic pollution is bad, but this is far from being a problem that can't be solved efficiently.

> Automobiles are a lifeline for people in rural and suburban areas, but it is a lifeline in the same way an abusive lover is a lifeline -- the centrality of the car made us build our communities and cities around the car. The car created a need and then filled it, and now we think ourselves lucky to have them.

People love having their own personal space to go where they want when they want with who they want (especially during a pandemic) and with more stuff that can be transported on a bus. "I wish I didn't have a car" said no one ever. Yes traffic is bad but this is because a lot of people have decided to live at the same few areas. There is no need in the Internet Age to have this kind of intelligence hub, we need to decentralize and distribute zoning more.

> "I get it that you never worked in a farm or knew someone close who did. It's 14 hours work, not exaggerating, with no real sick days"

My brother-in-law has a farm, and it's true. Farming is barely economically viable. He's doing pretty good for a farmer, but he does work 80 hour weeks, and selling the farm and living off the interest would probably give him more income with much less work.

Farmers need to get a bigger share of the revenue of food products; at the moment supermarkets and other big corporations basically decide the price, and farmers have no choice but to accept it.

All the profits go to the large corporations, not to the real workers.

The level of straw manning here is egregious. The OP wasn’t trying to make the points your refuting, just pointing out that these clear and accepted benefits also have some costs. That’s all.

> There is a good reason most people in the world left from rural areas to factories as soon as they could.

Yes, and that reason was massive rural unemployment. That was certainly the case here in the UK, but also China with which I’m also familiar. By and large they didn’t go to the cities to get away from back breaking work all day, they went to escape no work at all (for them).