handofdave wrote:
I suspect... no, I KNOW... that most people on this planet are trying to move AWAY from primitivism.
Most who would advocate going back to a pre-technological world don't have a clue what they're on about. Put most of them out in the wild, naked, and they'd be dead within three days, or begging to be returned to civilization.
In fairness, handofdave, that's something of a straw man. Most neo-primitives don't actually envision just waking up one morning and rushing naked out into the wild. There is a view that a managed reversal of technological evolution can be achieved... i.e. a gradual return to individual permaculture via smallhold farms and intentional communities. It's not actually a call for everyone to begin "hunting and gathering" next Tuesday or anything.
The problem, however, is that I do not believe such a project is achievable with 7 billion of us on the planet. And certainly not within the timescale that I personally believe we need to be talking about (if we haven't made significant practical steps towards sustainability within the next decade then the physical limitations of our environment will make the necessary adjustments for us... and that's likely to be a far more unpleasant experience).
A gradual de-urbanisation over several generations of gradual population reduction through family planning might well be a good thing, but I believe that in practical terms, we must resign ourselves -- for now at least -- to cities. We just need to find a way of feeding and powering them sustainably.
