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In my opinion (which I admit, I might have totally misread, misunderstood, etc --- but from my understanding): Stefan talks "down" upon labor working such as landscaping, farming, etc. (for example in "Testosterone Based Parasites") I have a problem with this because, to me, it is disrespectful and to some degree, ignorant. Please read what I have written before coming to any conclusions about my statement. Thanks. There is an imaginable amount of stuff to learn about truly sustainble and the most productive agriculture. In permaculture, for example, there is extensive research, planning, etc. into the process of building and creating a thriving farm. It is much more than pulling weeds. In fact, it is entirely different, those who practice permaculture are incredibly smart, talented and creative. Those who practice and implement permaculture (Geoff Lawton, Bill Mollison to name a few) have done extensive research, trial and error and are knowledgable in many aspects of science and have chosen to use their physical and mental abilities for the benefit of growing and create thriving ecosystems full of biodiversity, highest amount of minerals & nutrients and actually eventually to provide a very small physical demand. Truly productive agriculture and landscaping begins with extensive research and planning to provide an easy experience in the long run. This takes learning, knowledge of science (soil biology, etc.), philosophy (philosophy created permaculture / permaculture is a philosophy), entrepreneur, marketing and much more. I get that Stefan was pointing that a smart person would necessarily be interested in this, but I am arguing that is not the case. I am arguing that there are many things Stefan is ignorant to, in the realm of permaculture and that there are incredibly smart people working on projects related to agriculture and landscaping around the world. Perhaps I misunderstood and /or did not grasp what Stefan was saying (or the context), but I do feel it is a subjective statement to say that people who have drive in landscaping, farming, and other semi-physical activities as a career are not smart, because otherwise they would not be satisfied. Again, perhaps I have misinterpreted, but I feel it is an unjust statement to make. I would also like to quickly point out, there are folks out there who make over $200 grand with this "technique" of farming; and live quite abundantly in nature. Of course, this involves incredible marketing, and physical labor, to be fair. All in all though, permaculture is a practice of agriculture that learns to work with nature in order to reduce and overturn, erosion, drought, and many other environmental problems we face. For those who don't know either, in this form of agriculture, the soil continuously improves, which is far different than any other form of agriculture (including organic--with till -- agriculture. Just to point out, I am openly "biased", being 17, with a huge passion in permaculture, agriculture, the science behind "it all" , wildlife, wildcrafting, plant & soil biology, etc. I may be blinded by the fact that I have a drive towards living a certain way, learning these things and, though I have / had very little money and live in a grouphome, have put hundreds of dollars towards learning the science behind all of this stuff. Hope this all makes sense and is not taken the wrong way. I just wanted to express and share my thoughts; and use this as a way to share and enlighten folks about permaculture ! I would love to hear responses, because I humbly admit that there are things I dont know, undertaand, could have very well misunderstood and misread and so on. I would love to hear what people have to say in regards to my (possible?) argument. If there are things I have said which are blatanly false, arrogant, etc. please point them out; this will help me grow and learn. My attempt in writing this is to practice debating, learning about debating (and about this topic) and listening to and hearing others' arguments and perspectives. My intention is not to simply say, for example, "permaculture is the best" or anything of that nature, so again, I would appreciate it if people point out if my argument or anything was not clear and so forth. Thanks a lot for reading ! All the best! Jake

i was having a conversation with some guys about the anarchist principles and activism and we came to debate about how could social organization be any different. well, first we were talking about why it should change and what would we want to see. but then we were talking about what we'd like to see based on what is possible or not to happen. we changed the direction from philosophical priciples to practical matters. so i realized that often people don't follow a very straight line when debating (informally), and end up going through a variety of subjects without much objectivity, not even realizing they are doing so for that matter, which is not very productive. anyway, I'm bringing this up because i think analysing debate itself is very illuminating because we can have clear view of where its heading. so we should address it directly. my main point: if we want to have good communication we have to be aware of how it's happening (to say, of course, we must study it). so, while we're at it, let's take the situation above. did you ever have simmilar experiences? do you think this change of subject in a debate is frequent? what makes a good debate and a bad one? P.S.: 1- i think that changing peoples minds relies much more on how we try to do it than the actual content our ideas 2- one of the guys said something like other countries wouldn't tolerate a stateless society, people wouldn't let that happen and i wasn't very sure how to respond to that. it's an abstraction of course (and i think it's a very misleading direction to take) but if you could help me out here with some posts/links suggestions so I can study that, i'd appreciate it

When discussing politics or economics with a statist or Marxist what economic or political theories do you like to throw at them? Do you have a top 5 list?