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Participatory medicine with Jon Lebkowsky – Technoccult interview

May 27, 2010 / Klint Finley

Jon Lebkowsky is a social media consultant and cofounder of the Society for Participatory Medicine. He was also the co-founder of FringeWare, Inc. and EFF-Austin, co-edited Extreme Democracy, and is a regular contributor to WorldChanging. You can read his blog here and follow him on Twitter here.

Klint Finley: Let’s start off by defining what “participatory medicine” is.

Jon Lebkowsky: There’s a good definition on Wikipedia:

Participatory Medicine is a model of medical care in which the active role of the patient is emphasized.” It can be patients coming together in communities dedicated to a specific disease or condition, or it can be patients being considered peers within treatment teams that are treating their conditions.

The Internet makes it more possible, in that patients can find much more information about their conditions online, and they can find each other.

You’ve been involved with online communities for many years, how did you get involved with participator medicine?

Through my relationship with Tom Ferguson. Tom was a participatory medicine pioneer. He had edited the health section of the Whole Earth Catalogs, and published a magazine called Medical Self Care. We started talking and hanging out in the early 90s – he found me via EFF-Austin. He could see the potential for the Internet to provide patients access to more and more information, and he had always advocated for patients to be as informed as possible, and to have a role in treatment… and do as much for themselves as possible.

He had a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to do a white paper on e-patients (See e-patients.net), and he knew that blogs and social technology would be relevant. He wanted me to join his team of physicians and others because I was involved in the evolution of social technology, what some now call social media.

I started working with the e-patients working group and became a founding member of the Society of Participatory Medicine.

How long this movement had been afoot? I’ve read that things like this were going on as far back as the 80s in places like the WELL.

Yes, there’ve been a lot of patient conversations and communities over the years in various contexts. The WELL has always had an active health conference, and patient communities like ACOR have been around for a while.

Other than there being a lot more people involved now that the Internet has become mainstream, is there any big difference between what’s going on now and what was going on way back when?

In a way, yes. With higher adoption of the Internet, you have so many more patients getting active online. And the tools are evolving so that it’s easier to create contexts for conversation. Also, partly thru Tom’s work and the Society, and other orgs like PatientsLikeMe and the Health 2.0 conference, you have a lot more interest, activity, and potential for innovation. And there’s more information coming online, so patients can theoretically be better informed. There’s also new tools for people to manage their health records online, and track aspects of their health. More hospitals and healthcare professionals are starting to use social media to connect with patients and for community engagement.
We have a whole movement forming around patient demands for access to their complete health records.

Can you give any examples of “success stories” in participatory medicine – anything that really stands out? Like a situation where you could say “Wow, that recovery could never have happened otherwise.”

Dave deBronkart. He had 4th stage terminal cancer, is now in remission. If he hadn’t been an e-patient, he might never have found the treatment that made him so much better.

Here’s what the Wikipedia article about him says:

His kidney was removed laparoscopically and he was treated in a clinical trial of high-dose interleukin-2 (HDIL-2), ending 7/23/07, which was effective in reducing the cancer, although his femur ultimately broke from damage caused by the disease. Visible lesions on follow-up CT scans continued to shrink for a year and have been stable since, and are presumed dead.

He learned of the treatment through his e-patient activiites and research. No one had told him about it. If a healthcare provider can’t offer a treatment, they don’t necessarily know about it or tell you about it.

Dave deBronkart aka E-patient Dave/em>

Is there a downside? Increased “cyberchondria,” or decreased trust in physicians?

Jon L. Part of the power of participatory medicine is in patients collaboratively researching and discussing various treatments. More powerful than a single source of information. There’s a potential down side – a physician has a different context for assessing information, and may make different judgements. But it’s good for patients to be more informed. For the physician, there can be an issue of having to spend more time with patients explaining why something they’ve found online might be inaccurate or inapplicable.

Physicians who believe patients should be empowered can be pretty good about that, though.

And there are physicians who don’t assume they necessarily have the answers, and are very willing to listen to patients who’ve been researching, and consider what they have to say.

The patient has a strong vested interest in outcomes, and will sometimes dig more deeply and thoroughly than the healthcare professional has time to do.

Here’s another downside to consider: some patients may become more knowledgeable about their conditions than their doctors. There’s a tendency for people, and I’m as guilty of it as anyone, to sort of double-down on their position if their expertise is questioned- especially if that expertise is questioned by an amateur. A physician might not want to admit they were wrong about something and their patient, who might not have ever even been to college, was right.

Yes, that’s definitely a concern. The solution is to create a culture where patients can be seen as peers. (Though not all patients will want that… many will.)

Not to be too personal, but have you been an e-patient yourself?

Jon L. Yes, but not with anything life-threatening, at least no so far. I have psoriasis and have researched it online, and was on a psoriasis email list for a while. I left it. My general sense was that the list was dominated by people who had strong feelings about what would or wouldn’t work – e.g. would vehemently oppose other patients who felt there was a potential to see results through changes in nutrition. I had a feeling they were being defensive – didn’t want to change their eating habits. So not all communities will be functional, or will work for all members.

I also had a problem with arrhythmia that seems to have been treated effectively by cardioversion and a round of drugs. I researched the drugs and decided I felt they were too toxic to continue, so I stopped after a year and a half. The cardio would have preferred I continued at least another six months.

Do you have any recommendations for potential e-patients for finding resources and communities, or places to avoid?

I would counsel proceeding with caution until you’ve felt your way into it, and got a good sense of the online landscape for your condition. It’s so easy to be misled, to get the wrong info. There are some communities that are well-established, and are the best places to go for specific conditions – like ACOR for cancer.

Also in researching your condition, remember that you’re not a physician or health researcher, so you don’t have the same context for assessing the information you find. Don’t assume your physician is wrong if you find contradictory information online.

You can get a sense of the landscape by reading e-patients.net and Journal of Participatory Medicine (the latter is the journal that the Society for Participatory Medicine started). There are also a lot of bloggers and tweeters in the e-patient space. Here’s a blogger on patient advocacy: Every Patient’s Advocate

Ed Bennett has resources for healthcare professionals.

Is there anything of note in the recent health care overhaul regarding participatory medicine?

It’s more of an insurance overhaul than a healthcare overhaul. I don’t think it has a lot of impact on what we’re talking about.

One thing specifically mentioned on the Society for Participatory Medicine’s web site is a need to address the digital divide’s impact on participatory medicine. Do you know of anything being done, or do have any ideas for solutions?

I don’t think there’s a specific project to address digital divide in this context. In fact, the community network / digital divide efforts in general seem to lack steam. Part of that is because Internet adoption is so high, it seemed that the issue was resolving as we had more and more ways for people to get online, and more incentives for them to do so. However I know there’s a significant number of adults who don’t have the kind of access they should, especially considering that so infrastructure for services is moving online.

State and smaller governments, for instance, are moving services online for the efficiency.

It’s not just a matter of access either, there’s also a matter of online literacy.

And when we get to the point where all healthcare data for everyone is available digitally, not just as an electronic health record but as a personal health record, only those who have the right degree of digital literacy will be able to have that as a factor in managing their health. To me the digital divide is more about knowing how to use computers than actually owning the hardware, so I’m with you 100%.

Metaverse One’s augmented reality anatomy education app

Bruce Sterling, in the State of the World conversation you moderated, suggested the possibility that individuals, informed by various web based instructional materials, could start doing amateur medical operations. It was clear that what he was talking about wasn’t what you were talking about in terms of participatory medicine at the time, but have you thought anymore about that scenario?

I think it’s pretty unlikely – he was seeing that as the ad absurdum where participatory medicine could go, but I think that’s a real misunderstanding (and I don’t think he seriously believed it would go there). That’s really not what “participatory medicine” and “empowered patient” is about… when we talk about being better informed and being part of the conversation about your own health, it doesn’t follow that anyone would necessarily want to be an amateur surgeon.

Maybe not in the global North, but I can imagine it happening elsewhere, where access to professional health care is worse. Or even here in the States if economic conditions worsen.

You have a point there, but it’s not really what participatory medicine is about.

I could imagine someone learning how to do just one or two particular procedures really well and just doing doing those.

We are near a point where only the elite can afford adequate care. Yes, very possible.

Right, so the “participatory” in participatory medicine means more participating in the decisions, not doing surgeries.

Right… participating in the knowledge, and in the decisions.

Well, I think that about wraps it up. Do you have any closing thoughts?

My focus has always been on the Internet and its impact on culture, so participatory medicine is just one of a set of related interests. I’m still thinking about what’s really happening and how what’s happening in various sectors relate – participatory medicine to the changes in journalism and in politics, for instance.

21C Magazine’s Ashley Crawford – Mediapunk interview

May 20, 2010 / Klint Finley

Ashley Crawford

Richard Metzger called 21C his favorite magazine of the 90s and “The most unabashedly intellectual and forward-thinking journal that I have ever seen, anywhere.” Editor Ashley Crawford joined the magazine in 1990 when the magazine was still a publication of Australian Commission For The Future “a comparatively short-lived governmental entity.” Ashley took the magazine international with the help of publishing house Gordon & Breach in 1994. The magazine continued in this form until 1999. After a short lived online revival helmed by Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) in the early 00s, the magazine went back into long-term hiatus.

Now it’s back in a new digital form. Ashley was kind enough to answer a few questions about the magazine’s past, present, and future for the inaugural Mediapunk interview.

You can read the magazine online here or follow them on Twitter here.

Virtual reality veteran FSK1138 talks about his new low-tech lifestyle – Technoccult interview

May 18, 2010 / Klint Finley

FSK1138

Electronic musician and artist Donald Baynes, aka FSK1138, spent 10-12 hours a day exploring 3D virtual worlds in 1996 and 97. But now he spends less than 3 hours a week online. He spent an hour of his weekly Internet time chatting with me from a park to tell me why he decided to unplug.

Klint Finley: You say you were “addicted” to virtual reality in the late 90s. How did you get started with VR and what were you doing with it?

FSK1138: During that time – I was what you would call cyberpunk – I spent days plugged into a body suit, data glove, and HMD [head mounted display]. I explored virtual worlds and was surfing the web in 3D. Searching, always searching, for others and A.I out there in the sea of information.

What sort of equipment were you using?

Virtual io HMD, Nintendo Powerglove, dual cpu pPRO.

Did you have broadband back then or was this on dial-up?

I was using dial-up but I moved to Toronto because there was faster Internet – this thing called ISDN.

I remember ISDN. Basically it was using two phone lines to achieve faster speeds, right?

Yes. It was a dream – so much faster. It made 3D surfing VRML [Virtual Reality Markup Language] a reality.

So you were surfing VRML sites then? What were those virtual worlds like back then?

Low rez – like Quake or the first DOOM but at the lowest settings. There was a whole underworld of VRML BBS sites at the time.

And what did you typically do on the BBSes? Chat, socialize?

Chat, socialize, share data – much like what people are doing right now but like the Sims or SecondLife.
FSK1138

Are you still using VR?

No – I think it is a very bad thing. Even back then 3D was considered bad for your eyes and brain. I don’t think we were made for this type of input.

What makes you say that?

The reaction of any one who has seen avatar – when people who have seen it talk about it they always seem to have a smile on their face – the same smile…

He later sent me this article mentioning health concerns surrounding prolonged 3D gaming in children

FSK1138

You say now use the Internet for less than 3 hours a week and do not own a TV, phone, or stove. What brought you to the point that you decided you had to unplug like that?

I lived in Guyana for 4 years. You can have days when you have no power, and I survived. I feel that people think that the Internet will always be there. I feel it will not and the day is coming soon. I have seen the Internet change over the years – it has changed alot. The day is coming, I feel, that the can not remain a free utility.

Life really is not hard without technology if you learn to live without it. But if you’re addicted – what then?

When did you decide to cut back your use of technology?

When I realized it was taking up so much of my time – 2007 – I started closing down websites that I was using. I cut back to Myspace and YouTube – there were so many. And I cut my surfing – I use RSS now, I do not surf. By 2008 I did not have a landline or cell or Internet at home.

Above: Video FSK1138’s “Catch the Man,” a cover of Front 242’s “Headhunter.”

It looks like you use a lot of technology to make your music – have you thought about going towards a more low-tech approach to making music?

I am in a way back to where I started with making music. When I could not get a sampler or computer I used found objects – metal and glass and things you could bang together to make noise.

So you’re not using computers for music music any more?

I am using computers still – I just did a track for The 150-Years-of-Music-Technology Composition Competition.

Do you have any opinions of augmented reality? Have you used any AR applications?

I think is a cool concept. I just hope it doesn’t become the next form of spam.

Above: Video for FSK1138’s “Digital Drug”

Beyond Growth – Technoccult interviews Duff McDuffee and Eric Schiller

May 11, 2010 / Klint Finley

Above: Duff McDuffee

Above: Eric Schiller

Duff McDuffee and Eric Schiller run the blog Beyond Growth, a site dedicated to bringing some much needed criticism to the modern “personal development” business. Duff and Eric joined me via instant message from Boulder, CO and Belingham, WA respectively to answer some questions about the field.

Klint Finley: I suppose we should begin by first talking a little bit about “personal development” – what is it, how did this business emerge?

Duff McDuffee: You mean the field itself?

Klint: Right. Personal development as a business.

Eric Schiller: Duff is probably a bit more of an expert on that particular question, but I’ll add my thoughts to his response.

Napoleon Hill holding a copy of his book Think and Grow Rich

Duff: Ok. Well, from what I understand it largely emerged in the early 20th century when New Thought religious ideas became popular and were applied to worldly success. The basic idea was contained in such books as Think and Grow Rich and As a Man Thinketh.

The notion was that you could create stuff with the power of your mind. The correlary is that if you aren’t getting what you want, you need to do a kind of mental hygeine and clean up your stinkin’ thinkin’ (to quote Zig Ziglar).

So you have people like Napolean Hill, who died broke by the way, writing books on how to get rich by visualizing and affirming one’s future wealth.

Eric: In Douglas Rushkoff’s book Life Inc. he argues that ‘personal development’ or self help found its place in corporations, in order to help the remaining staff become more efficient after job cuts.

Thus personal development has deep capitalistic roots, based in becoming more useful for society, and or your particular corporate persuasion.

The Bobs

Duff: Yes, an excellent point Eric. Books like Who Moved My Cheese encouraged employees to “embrace change” and stay positive while they were being downsized for no fault of their own to make short-term profits for stakeholders. Barbara Ehrenreich covers this too in Bright Sided.

Whether or not this was intended, personal development functions as a perfect religion for capitalism. Pray for money and consumer goods and social status, and take 100% responsibility even when your circumstances are largely determined by social structures and institutions that are not in your direct control.

Eric: The early gurus cherry picked from Maslow and Jung – whatever ideas sounded good at the time.

Duff: Today’s gurus still do

Klint: OK. So how does this – or does it – tie into other areas like “self-help,” “lifehacking,” and, most recently, “lifestyle design”?

Eric: Personal development and self help are effectively the same, personal development is a more recent name for the same thing.

Duff: They are all synonyms as far as I’m concerned, rebranding.

Eric: Life hacking is different, but I think it is in effect, part of the same trope. Life hacking is a branch of hacking culture, it is really technologically based, but is all about “bettering oneself” so it has taken on the goal of PD or self help.

Duff: “Lifehacking” seems to me to be another name for geeking out on consumer gadgets and software for the most part. I mean if you really want to hack your life, do Vipassana meditation, or read Hegel, or take acid (not my preference, but that will seriously hack some stuff up).

Above: Tim Ferris goofing off while his employees do all his work.

Eric: The strange place is where the lifestyle designers and the life hackers collide, there you get people like Tim Ferris

Duff: Lifestyle design is interesting because only the privileged count as designing their lives. When a Mexican immigrates to the U.S. in order to have a better life for himself and his family, it isn’t lifestyle design. In fact, most lifestyle design focuses on 1st world young men with laptops who do freelancing living in developing nations to get a good exchange rate.

Eric: Yeah, lifestyle design itself is very priveledged, and only high-end consumers tend to get into it. They believe it is not consumption, but in reality it functions as a higher almost more evil form of consumption.

Duff: Part of the lifestyle design ethos involves an “escape from corporate jobs” which is of course nonsense. The first thing a lifestyle designer does is create an LLC in his or her own name, then engage in personal branding, and often exploit cheap overseas labor. The corporate ethos has been driven deeper, not avoided.

Klint: Well, it’s been escaped for the person doing the designing – but not for anyone who’s being outsourced to.

Duff: Right. So lifestyle design is really in the same boat as those business books on how to think like a CEO. But it plays off a countercultural branding.

Klint: Well, let me ask you guys this: is there anything so wrong with wanting to escape the corporate 9-to-5? Are they really hurting anyone by bringing business to these countries?

Eric: I think that question isn’t really getting at what is going on on these blogs. Tim Ferris offers to his readers “escaping the 9-5” but in reality, he hasn’t done it himself. To him, “work” is doing stuff you don’t like, and the rest is fun. To him, a lot of the “fun” makes him money. Ferris works his butt off on his image and his books.

Klint: You’re right, becuase most of what’s actually going on, so far as I can tell, is these guys are going around having a blast and selling shady “info products” to marks with the promise that they can do what they do.

Eric: Ferris is offering a facade to his readers, that they can “make it” by doing very little work. This is really not a new idea, and has been offered in a multitude of self-help/business bookis.

Duff: What’s remarkable about Tim Ferris is that in his book he openly brags about cheating at Tango and martial arts. He used a radical dehydration technique to enter a much lower weight class, then pushed his opponents out of the ring and won on a technicality. This is the kind of business sense he is teaching–how to exploit loopholes in the rules for personal fame and profit.

It’s not really that surprising that Ferris is therefore the guru’s guru when it comes to shady internet marketing schemes that promise get rich/lifestyle quick.

Jonathan Mead. What a rebel!

Eric: Additionally “escaping” is an extension of the American dream, of beating capitalism and making it your bitch. It isn’t an emancipatory dream like Ferris likes to pitch it. Someone I’m critical of, Jonathan Mead took Ferris’ ideas further and claimed that he was part of a “revolution.” This is a bigger problem.

Chris Guillebeau is also guilty of ‘revolutionizing’ lifestyle design. The problem is that it makes business as usual capitialism seem like a new revolution to the consumers, thus making it impossible for a real anti-capitalist movment to take hold. People are mesmerized by the same old promises.

Seth Godin

Duff: The revolutionary rhetoric really goes all the way back to Seth Godin, the ur-guru of personal development bloggers. Godin encourages marketers to use the techniques and rhetoric of grassroots political organizing to sell your info products to 1000 true fans. Instead of white papers, you get these PDF “manifestos” which are all a variation of a neo-liberal capitalist manifesto.

While there is nothing necessarily wrong with selling stuff on the internet and making a living doing it, to pretend that this is a revolutionary political act is ludicrous.

In more than one PDF white paper “manifesto” that I’ve read, the authors have specifically said that one should not vote or engage politically in any way. Steve Pavlina has said similar things. Most personal development bloggers advocate for avoiding the news because it is “negative.” All these things combine to destroy our political power by solely focusing on personal power.

Klint: I always thought that militant apoliticalism was a way of appealing to more people by avoiding taking any controversial political stance.

Duff: Could be, yes. But within that apparently apolitical view, when you scrape past the surface, is a radical neo-liberalism.

Eric: Klint, have you read the Porto Davos essay by Zizek? His notion of liberal communism fits perfectly to these lifestyle design gurus.

Klint: I haven’t read that essay, no.

So it sounds like it’s a pretty greasey business. Is there any value at all in it – is there anyone out there in that business worth commending?

Duff: Sure, there are some. I like Scott H. Young for the most part, although I don’t agree with him on a lot of points.

Eric: There are some people we like, but it really isn’t cut and dry to derermine who. I think it is important for individuals to develop themselves, but there is a lot of merit to the idea that you cannot just read what someone is telling you to do, and then directly apply it to your life. There is some barrier there, that prevents the ideas from becoming real habits.

Lucy from Peanuts

Klint: OK. So where does life coaching fit into this?

Duff: Life Coaching is interesting. I was a life coach for a while.

Life coaching feels really good for both coach and client. It’s really easy work and you get paid really well. It’s like being a therapist with only sane clients.

Klint: And without having to get a master’s degree. Or any degree for that matter.

Duff: Honestly, I think people really benefit from coaching, probably because we are so alienated that many people never have any meaningful conversations in their lives at all. But it is waaaaaaaaaay too expensive, and quickly becomes a massive ego trip and a huge financial scam. I don’t think there is any significant difference whatsoever between a $40/hour life coach and a $5000/hour life coach.

Another potential problem with coaching is that it outsources our meaningful conversations to specialists. If you have a Big Win in your life, who do you share this with first–your wife, or your life coach? Maybe your wife is stressed out and not that good of a listener anyhow. It is more efficient to share with your coach who will celebrate you unconditionally. But this takes away intimacy from your marriage, increasing your alienation.

Klint: So you don’t think that life coaching should be regulated like professional counseling?

Duff: Not really, no. I don’t like regulating meaningful conversation.

Eric: “Life coaching” is very broad. Most “life coaches” in reality are business coaches.

Duff: Yup.

Eric: Overall few focus on personal problems like getting along with others, self-esteem etc. These people are in it for the money.

Duff: The field overall is highly problematic and structured like a pyramid scheme. The most “successful” coaches are meta-coaches, i.e. they coach coaches on building their practice.

But within that, there are some really great people who are very helpful to their clients.

Eric: I asked a coach recently what the breakdown was of his clients, and a lot of them were bloggers and life coaches themselves. Very masturbatory.

Duff: To be fair, many healing professions are circle jerks. Massage therapists often have many massage therapists as clients

Klint: I can imagine if you spend all day giving massages, you’re really going to want a massage at the end of the week.

Duff: Yeah, my lady is a massage therapist. She needs her own bodywork to do bodywork on others. You get really sore.

BTW, my life coach is currently in jail for running an illegal Ponzi scheme.

Pyramid scheme

Klint: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that Duff, in relation to regulation Because if this guy is found guilty and sentenced and goes to prison – he could come right out and go right back to life coaching.

Duff: Sure. But he wouldn’t go to prison for life coaching fraud, but securities fraud. If he robbed a house he shouldn’t be barred from driving a car. Two different fields.

Klint: Yeah, but do you really think someone who goes to prison for securities fraud should being giving life advice?

Duff: I actually have a blog post in the works about this. The issues are complex and the facts aren’t all in yet. I’m not sure anyone is qualified to give life advice. But some people are pretty good at listening and asking poignant questions.

Eric: Who should be giving life advice anyway? It all comes down to the dispersion of a variety of ideologies.

Duff: Agreed.

Eric: Securites fraud just means that they broke the rules of capitalism.

Duff: The funny thing is his “Dharma Investments Group” was making similar errors as the big wigs. Who’s fault was the bubble anyway? Certainly fraud is fraud, but when the conservative bankers are doing similar things, all the normal rules go out the window.

Eric: Capitalism encourages people to stretch the rules, some people just get caught. I’d consider a full-of-air guru to be a worse person than someone comitting securites fraud.

Duff: It’s a spectrum of fraud and we’re all on it. Personally I think we can’t go much longer with interest-bearing currency before the whole monetary system collapses.

Klint: I don’t know the details of what that guy got himself into, but it’s hard for me excuse a guy who’s getting normal people to fork over their savings for some investment and then basically stealing their money. It doesn’t really matter what level he’s playing on…

Duff: I understand. It looks really bad for him! I certainly won’t be receiving his services anymore. But I stopped going to him about 5 years ago anyhow.

Klint: …that sounds like someone who’s pretty ethically challenged, y’know?

Duff: Or manic. Making impossible promises.

Klint: But yeah, he could get out of jail, move to another town, assume an alias, never have to disclose any of this… It’s very problmatic I think.

Eric: My point is that gurus do similar things. They take lay people and promise them all sorts of things, lead them on, and then leave them with nothing. James Ray was convincing his followers to go into debt to pay for his $10,000 seminars.

Klint: But to be honest, I don’t think there’d be a decent way to regulate life coaching anyway.

Duff: I don’t think so either. Some fields like coaching/healing and miracle cure supplements will always consistute the wild west …that and spirituality, faith healing, charismatics, etc. And yet, that is what is beautiful about these things too. You get these really wild characters with amazing insights or healing abilities or compassion etc. in the same arenas with the psychopaths and scam artists.

A total shitbag
Above: a complete and total shitbag

Klint: So it kind of leads me to another question – does it really matter that much? If people are willing to shell out obscene amounts of money for whatever – personal development products, life coaching, snake oil… are they basically getting what they deserve?

Duff: Well, personal responsibility does come into play to some extent, but we don’t want to go as far as blaming the victim.

Eric: I think they’ve been effectively brainwashed. So I suppose the question is, does a brainwashed person deserve the consquences of things they did not initiate?

Duff: I went to this particular life coach out of my own greed to be a wealthy life coach, for example. But his investors in his scheme retain their legal rights to sue. One of the reasons I like living in Colorado is that there is little regulation over healing practices and therapies. You can practice as an unlicensed psychotherapist here. So we have tons of innovative approaches to healing and changework. Yet the flipside is we have tons of new wage snake oil and BS. It goes together.

So…I’ve got to run now as I’m meeting up with someone. Hope that is ok. You guys can continue chatting if you’d like. I enjoyed this and would be happy to do it again. Let me know when it is posted, Klint!

Klint: OK, thanks for your time Duff!

Duff: Thanks to you too for the suggestion.

Klint: Do you guys have any further plans or is Beyond Growth winding down?

Eric: We’ll see. A lot of the reason we haven’t been posting much lately is that we are bored of where the field is going, and it is difficult to get excited about the same old. Both Duff and I had dreams of writing books and being guru-like long before we started BG.

I’ve thought about opening it up to more authors, or changing the scope a little. Once we start writing again we’ll definitely be taking a different direction. Less harsh criticism, more covert, careful writing with perhaps a few more ideas for people to ponder. Just going after gurus gets a bit tedious after a while.

Considering how harsh we are, we’ve been recieved very well by the community though.

Recommended Beyond Growth posts

The 4-Minute Mile and the Myths of Positive Thinking

Social Media: Moving Towards A Brave New World? (Here are my comments on this post)

The Dark Side of The Secret: Reading James Arthur Ray’s Sweat Lodge Disaster through a Magickal Lens

Pan Sonic’s Mika Vainio – Technoccult interview

May 4, 2010 / Klint Finley

Mika Vainio

Pan Sonic, originally known as Panasonic until the electronics company made them change their name, was a collaboration between Finnish electronic musicians Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen. The pair recently announced that their new album Gravitoni, now available from Blast First Petite, will be their last. Mika spoke with me by phone about the reason for the split, the new album, and his plans for the future.

Klint Finley: I guess I’ll start with, just to get it out of the way, the announcement has been put out that Pan Sonic has split up, so was this an amicable split?

Well, let’s say that we don’t have any plans to start again, but maybe we do one day. It’s still open, but I don’t think, at least for a couple years, we will not do it.
Pan Sonic

So are you willing to talk anymore about the reasons behind the split or do you want to leave it at that?

Yeah, why not. There has been no argument or bad spirit or anything like that. It’s just that after, we’ve been doing this for over 15 years, it’s time to stop and concentrate on our own solo things.

So is that what you’re going to be concentrating on now, solo work?

Yes. Solo work, then I work with a couple of other people also. There are lots of projects going on.

Will Jari Lehtinen still be working with you and/or Ilpo?

Not really, not for a long time actually.

Pan Sonic Gravitoni

What can listeners expect from the new Pan Sonic album?

Compared to the one before, it’s more minimal and basic. We kind of wanted to go back to the old style, minimal tracks with quite strong sounds.

Are there any guest artists on it or is it only you and Ilpo?

It’s only me and Ilpo this time, yes. It’s quite basic.

Did you collaborate long distance on this album, with you working in Berlin and him working in Finland, or did you get together in the studio to work on it?

No, we were working here in my studio in Berlin.

Pan Sonic is known for recording live instead of using overdubs and sequencers. Has that changed at all?

Well, since the last album before this new one we’ve been using multitrack, so we’re doing overdubs now.

Have you experimented with using software – like software synthesizers or sequencing – or are you still using only hardware?

I’m using only hardware. I don’t really want to do any computer thing. I think it would change my whole approach to the music. It feels quite boring for me, I don’t want to go for that.
Pan Sonic live

The record business has been going through a lot of transitions lately through music piracy through the Internet and there’s also the economic crash that makes it harder for people who might want to pay for music to actually pay for music. Has than been affecting you at all? Do you have any thoughts on that?

No it’s not affecting me that much, I think it’s only a problem of the record labels and big major artists. But for smaller artists and people like me we get very little money from the record sales altogether. The main source is playing live, that’s where the income is coming from. And I possibly think the music is available on the net because there are a lot of people, for example in South America, who could not afford to buy any CDs but this way they can hear the music, the music is available.

Mika playing live at In Touch Festival, Minsk. 2009-02-28

So you say most of your money comes from playing live, so will be touring solo to support your new work?

Yes, and I’ve been doing different things also. I’ve been working with a dance company making music for them. And I do sound installations too from time to time, so there’s income coming from that also.

Can you tell us about some of your sound installations?

Yes, sure. I would like to do them more often now that Pan Sonic is over, if I have more time. My last piece was in Brussels in November. It contained 6 off-tune radios. And I created the sound in the gallery with these radios.

Do you have any advice for new experimental musicians who are just starting out?

I would say they should just trust themselves and not think too much about what others think.

More Info

Video interview with Mika from Brainwashed.com. Mika talks about the history of Pan Sonic.

Unofficial Pan Sonic site from Phinnweb. Most complete resource for everything Pan Sonic.

Mika Vainio page from his booking agent. Watch here for tour dates.

Justin Landers of The Steven Lasombras – Technoccult interview

April 27, 2010 / Klint Finley

Steven Lasombras

Front: Justin Landers Back: Ben Blanding. Photo by Tony Vu.

Justin Landers is Portland based artist and musician who records and performs under the name The Steven Lasombras. His new EP A Diamond Eye Shines in Failing Light was released today on To the Neck Recordings. You can download the EP for free here or buy it here. Disclosure: I’m opening at the CD release show 4/30/10.

Klint Finley: What’s the meaning of the name Steven Lasombras?

Justin Landers: Oh Jesus… Should have seen that one coming! “Steven Lasombra” was a fictional character in a long-running Vampire: The Dark Ages campaign. When I originally started recording songs I labeled them Steven Lasombra Recordings, right around when a lot of “The” bands were getting big (The Strokes, The White Stripes, etc. etc.) so taking the name The Steven Lasombras was a really satisfying goof. I always meant to change it when I found a better name, but after a couple years it became a thing where nothing else fit.

Basically, it started out as a really stupid in-joke.

So he was one of your characters or one from a published series of books?

Sighh… it was my first character.

C’mon, do you think SPIN is going to be any easier on you?

“LOL”! It’s true.

How would you describe The Steven Lasombras to someone who’d never heard your music?

I would say I write and illustrate stories in the form of “songs”, and that they usually end up big and loud and dark, with lots of different parts. And I would feel like a pretentious ass. But that’s the quickest way to put it.

You’re also a visual artist. How has that impacted your approach to making music?

I have no training as a musician or anything, all my training is in visual arts. So I approach recording in the same way I would a painting – begin with the initial idea (whether it’s a half-finished story, imagery from a dream or a movie, a phrase, something from “real life”), then flesh it out and heap on as much detail as I can.

Moving forward, the visual element will be a bigger part of it. I’ve always made all the accompanying artwork for SLs releases but the new thing I’m working on which should be finished by the end of the year) is a bit more involved, the visual and sound elements are equally important. In that way, The SLs should become less of a “band” and more… I don’t know, something else.

That probably answers my next question – You spent some time last year studying wayang kulit in Indonesia, will that find its way into your work?

YES, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. The new EP is a transition between my way of working before going there and the way I’m going about it now. The next project I mentioned definitely has some elements of wayang, especially in the visual side. I started compiling ideas for a wayang show to try here, but I am not sure if that’s ever going to happen. Not only would it be insanely expensive, I was a severely mediocre dalang.

A Diamond Eye Shines In Failing Light

So The Steven Lasombras is just you in the studio, and you work with various musicians for live shows, is that right?

Correct. The live line-up has shuffled a bit, mostly between friends or relatives who I’d played with in other bands (my brother Alex, our cousin Chris Ryan, who I played with in Animal Beard, Jevon Cutler from Chevron and Animal Beard, Michael Ferguson, Ben Blanding…) and who I was comfortable giving orders to. Since I’ve been back, everyone’s schedules were hectic enough that I just ended up playing alone live, and I think that’s been reasonably successful. With a guitar/bass/drums band the songs come across as a little more straightforward, the one-man versions pull them to a slightly weirder place.

How long have you been performing and recording under the name?

I believe the earliest four-track recordings date back to 2001 and the first proper live performance was March of 2006.

We don’t play live too often since a lot of the songs are tricky to learn. The parts themselves are simple enough (I think), but getting them practiced to a point of being really presentable is a challenge, especially when everyone has a job/school/wife/whatever.

(I should find some unemployed believers and then get comfortable giving them orders.)

It shouldn’t be that hard to find unemployed musicians in Portland.

How did you get your first gig?

First gig was by request! It was the release party for the Dragging An Ox Through Water record “Rebukes!”

Brian Mumford is actually one of the first people who really seemed to like the SLs stuff when he heard it, going back to like 2003. He had a CD-R label for a while called Publisher’s Clearinghaus that put out an Animal Beard record. He was going to put out another SLs record in 2004 but the project folded or he lost interest or something… He was really nice about it, though. He apologized to me for years.

Steven Lasombras

Left: Justin Landers. Right: Alex Landers. Photo by Tony Vu.

So were you passing recordings around to friends or actively seeking local labels?

Just to friends, and barely that! At that time Chris Ryan was still living in Eugene and was friends with Brian and the other guys in (the sadly now-defunct) Chevron, I believe that’s how he heard it, probably by accident. It’s only fairly recently that I’ve been comfortable actively sharing this music with people outside of my immediate circle of friends. That might be a mental thing on my part, but I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m much better now and know what I’m trying to do.

When were you in Animal Beard? Was that before The Steven Lasombras?

Yes! Animal Beard started when Chris was still living in Eugene, during my two terms at U of O, late 2000. That also started as a bedroom four-track recording project, but… in more of an indie-rock style. Chris wrote perfect little pop songs and then sang them in a bizarre, often kind of ugly way. I played bass with him, when he was in town Jim Edwards played drums and keyboard (often at the same time)… We played a lot and made some really nice recordings that just fell flat. We played a fair amount, the line-up changed (added upright bass and Brian Mumford on theremin) but people just didn’t know what to do with us. To this day, I still think Animal Beard was solid gold and everyone else was crazy.

There’s an Animal Beard full-length that’s 99.9% finished that I think I’ll be able to put out this summer. It’s weird and lovely.

Was that your first band? You said you don’t have any training as a musician, how did you get started?

I bought a bass in 2000, I think because I thought it would easy to teach myself. Outside of aimless “jamming” with friends I think Animal Beard might have been the first “band” situation, where we were focused on writing and making something good.

Was bass easy to teach yourself?

It definitely was! I mean, it’s not easy to play *well*, but it’s not too hard to figure out.

WikiLeaks, the future of journalism, and Government 2.0 with David Forbes – Technoccult interview

April 14, 2010 / Klint Finley

David Forbes

Photo by Jonathan Welch

David Forbes is an Asheville, NC based journalist and blogger. He’s a senior journalist at The Mountain Xpress, a regular contributor to Coilhouse (both print and online), and runs his own blog The Breaking Time. You can find him on Twitter here. As a fellow media-geek I asked David to chat with me about WikiLeaks, the future of journalism, and Government 2.0.

Klint Finley: Personally I don’t think there’s one single future for journalism, but many different futures. I think WikiLeaks is one of journalism’s futures – what do you think?

David Forbes: I would agree that there’s not one single future, just as there’s not one single past for journalism — is made up of many different methods of pursuing and conveying information. WikiLeaks represents that raw, juicy information aspect, and there is a role for that, though it’s more limited in impact that some of its apostles may think.

There’s also a desperate thirst for analysis and context, for putting information together in ways that Wikileaks can rarely do.

Above: short version of the “Collateral Murder” video

Well, it seems like they’re trying to do more of that now, with the collateralmurder.com site and all.

A bit yes, but it’s still not their strength, and I don’t think it ever will be. As the release of that video shows, their strength is in finding what others can’t find. Ironically enough, the best analysis of that video has been done by some of the more traditional journalists (in their training at least) who’ve moved well into new media and can use their own contacts and info to put all of this into context.

I’m not sure, but it seems like they were initially trying to be a resource for journalists instead of an actual source of journalism. But they weren’t get the response they were hoping for so they’re doing journalism themselves now.

Jay Rosen called them a “stateless press” which I thought was really interesting.

It is, and does play to that part of journalists’ minds that sees themselves as an investigative society beyond borders.

On a side note, journalism is a capricious field, and what wisdom there is remains usually of the least conventional. For example, this week news emerged that NPR has doubled its market share over the last ten years, to the point where it exceeds network TV news. By a lot of the narratives about “new media” radio’s a dinosaur, and that wasn’t supposed to happen. But it has.

NPR Fast Company chart

Above: NPR’s market share visualized by Fast Company via Peltier Tech Blog

Oh wow, that’s interesting. I knew they’d been growing for the past few years. I wonder if that has to do with increased commute times for American workers.

Partly, yes, but moreso I think it’s that they’ve moved fairly aggressively into new media, enough not to get left behind, and people are thirsty for succinct analysis of the glut of information out there.

So let’s imagine for a moment a scenario in which virtually all professional news organizations have gone out of business. There’s just no business model for them, and all that’s left is “citizen journalism.” (I don’t think it will come to that, but let’s just pretend.)

As a professional journalist yourself do you think “citizen journalism” could step in to fill that gap? Do you think out of work journalists would keep doing journalism on the side, for instance?

Ah, a good hypothetical. No, I don’t think they could, much as plenty of professional journalists are salaryman hacks and plenty of citizen journalists are quite good.

The value of professionalism is underrated, and most news orgs don’t help themselves by having become extremely stodgy, but investigative skills don’t come overnight, and the sort of combined knowledge and contacts some sort of organization has is invaluable.

I think, in that hypothetical, it would quickly “re-professionalize” The best citizen journalists would find backers or form organizations and another system – perhaps bounties for really valuable pieces- would come along to provide the resources.

Yeah, that’s part of why I think it’s an impossible scenario – at least a few people are going to make money some how.

How much investigative work do modern journalists do? It seems a lot of the leg work is actually done by non-profits, advocacy groups, people like that, before journalists even get started.

It depends on the modern journalist. Sadly, a lot of more corporate papers have ditched much of their investigative arms, but plenty, especially locally owned papers or alt weeklies (like the one I work for) are actually going into it more heavily because there’s a hunger for it. Sure, non-profits and advocacy groups will usually do some of the legwork, especially in the initial stages, but at best they’ll only have a piece of the puzzle. Even on basic news stories, plenty of journalists still spend a lot of time chasing down statistics, facts, harassing contacts. A lot of this doesn’t get seen outside, because what the public sees is a very small chunk that’s been battered into a coherent narrative.

A mentor of mine put it best “investigation is following up 10 leads and having nine of them go nowhere.”

Can give any examples from personal experience of doing investigative work.

I’ll use one of the older, higher-profile stories I’ve worked on. Back in 2007 a Buncombe Sheriff’s deputy, using a North Carolina law that had been struck down in the ’60s, arrested a couple for flying a large, upside-down American flag in front of their house.

activists Mark and Deborah Kuhn arrested in Asheville

This was a case where the investigation had to be done extremely quickly. So I ended up heading to neighbor’s houses, talking to them, getting them to make introductions to others. Turned out one of them had snapped some pretty gripping photos of the arrest. I then uncovered the ruling striking down the old flag desecration law, and found out that the deputy shouldn’t have been responding to a call within the city anyway. The charges were dropped, but it’s an example of how investigative journalism works: the information was there, some of the neighbors had pieces of it, but it still had to be pulled together, put into a whole, added to, etc.

I don’t know if you can speak to this, but how is Mountain Xpress doing through this period of… adjustment… for the newspaper business? Alt weeklies have been amongst the hardest hit. Are you/they doing anything interesting to adapt and weather the storm?

We’re weathering it fairly well. That’s in part because the paper has a lot of loyalty in the area and a lot of support from the communities here. But we’re also adapting from the news end. Now when a news story breaks we’ll have it up on Twitter ASAP, and we’ve worked on building our news hashtags and put those feeds up on our main site. Then we’ll have a blog post, then an in-depth print article

Hell, I’m Twittering news from local government meetings (as my outside Asheville followers are no doubt weary at me for). But I think that “all of the above” approach is necessary to survive. Media changes, the need to deliver stories doesn’t.

Right – I think the hard part though is figuring out how to monetize new media. It’s obvious that you’ve got to be everywhere these days – but paying the bills gets harder and harder.

Are there any particular journalism start-ups or experiments that you find particularly exciting?

Well, you mentioned Wikileaks, and that’s one. I find some of the hybrid experiments interesting: the all-online Seattle Pi has developed a pretty extensive stable of “neighborhood bloggers” I think using Twitter for that quick-hit news (and feedback) is fascinating.

I think, in Seattle, the West Seattle Blog is even more interesting. But the PI is interesting in that it’s a very well established paper daily making a huge change in how they operate.

I’ll have to check that out: good local media is priceless, and I’m glad it seems to be making something of a comeback. The future of the PI will be interesting to follow too: they’re making some interesting steps, but I wonder if a corporate-owned paper can be as adaptable as they need to be.

I’m also really interested to see how the NY Times semi-permeable pay-membrane works out.

Ah, the NY Times. The journalism nerd in me loves them, though I gritted my teeth at the “pay membrane stuff.” Last year, I think someone found that for what it costs to supply all their subscribers, they could buy every last one of them a Kindle.

You mean all their print subscribers?

Yes.

Ah, it’s actually twice as much as buying every subscriber a Kindle, pardon me.

New York Times Kindle

One of the problems I see with monetization… even if you can get people to pay monthly fees for access or whatever, I don’t know if that will cover the sorts of expenses newspapers have. Newspapers have typically lost money on subscriptions and made up for it with ads.

Indeed they have. One of the problems, I think, is that corporations began buying newspapers and seeing them as just another asset. Newspapers, except for rare boom-times, aren’t meant to make huge amounts of money; they make slow, steady profits instead. Also, many got used to being the only game in town and alienated a lot of smaller advertisers, instead of finding ways to build them into a network that could better endure shaky times.

Ironically, a similar thing happened in the banking industry: this pursuit of massive profits inspired a lot of dumb, risky decisions because parts of the economy apparently can’t work unless they’re making ridiculous amounts of money.

I actually really like the idea of the pay membrane – I hope it works out. But I don’t think it will be their only or even main source of revenue.

So shifting gears a little bit. You’ve been following the “Government 2.0” debate on your blog. First of all, can you sum up what “Government 2.0” is concisely?

Basically it’s technologists looking to revolutionize government with, as one might expect, technology. Gov 2.0, in theory at least, would be more accessible, transparent and allow people and government to better coordinate to solve problems and get needed information. And that “in theory” absolutely has to be stressed.

How do you think that fits into what you do as a journalist?

This is one of those areas where it affects me at multiple levels. As a journalist, I know how difficult needed information can be to get and obviously freeing that up would be a major boon to my profession, and most citizens. The political observer in me — which is informed in part from seeing government up close as journalist — has some major criticisms of Gov 2.0.

And what are those?

Oh my, where to start. The Gov 2.0 people for the most part genuinely want to do good, and they’re brilliant. Some of this stuff — like making case law and legislation massively more accessible — will be a big boon. But they’re largely well-heeled business and government types. These are people for whom government’s already working pretty well.

I would’ve killed at the Gov 2.0 conference to see one community organizer up there, talking about how this could help people who aren’t remotely linked in to all this shining technology. Transparency’s great, but there’s already more information out there than ever before about how government operates. There need to be ways to connect people to actually use that information and to press for needed change — basically tomorrow’s political machine. Politics is a fight, it is always and only a fight, whatever form it may take and whatever people may tell you otherwise. I don’t think most of the Gov 2.0 people really comprehend that yet and until they do, we’ll see some fancier tools and more info, but government will continue to be largely as it is now.

I’ve gotten very cynical, myself, about how much transparency and all that actually matters. We know so much about what happened during the Bush administration, and yet nothing was done about and nothing is being done about it.

Well it ended up playing a major role in routing his party in the elections and has led to the reversal of many of their policies (though not nearly enough, by many counts). But yes, it’s a stark example of the limits of transparency when not backed up by the power to make it count.

Hm, well, let’s try to wrap this up with something a little more positive.

Surprise musical number? I’m a terrible singer.

Yeah, I’m only good at making noise so that’s out.

OK, so let’s try and end with this question… If you could tell everyone who reads this to go out and do one thing after reading this, what would it be?

Pay attention to as much of the world around you as you can for one day. That means politics, art, fashion, weather, everything. Then pick a definite course of action to improve things from where they are right now. That’s vague, I know, but basic observation is a good start. I think there’s a grand world coming and we’re fortunate to live in very interesting times. But that same potential means upheaval and uncertainty. We’re going to need everyone engaged and ready to fight like hell in their own way, and taking a good look around is the best first step.

Resilient communities with Jeremy O’Leary – the Technoccult Interview

April 1, 2010 / Klint Finley

Jeremy O'Leary

(Photo by Audrey Eschright / CC)

Jeremy O’Leary is a steering committee member of the Multnomah Food Initiative and was an initial organizer of the City of Portland Peak Oil Taskforce. He’s a member of Portland Peak Oil, Transition PDX, and the Portland Permaculture Guild. He’s a contributor to the online publication The Dirt and maintains his own blog Biohabit. You can view his presentation on “20 Minute Neighborhoods and Emergency Response” here.

Klint Finley: What do you think the biggest/most important food security problems we have in Portland are?

Jeremy O’Leary: During the City of Portland’s Peak Oil Taskforce, we had a conversation with the management of Safeway where we learned that, for example, an apple from Hood River would be driven to LA and then back up to Portland. I think this example indicates one of the many problems with the food system. Many of the food issue we have in Portland are similar in other areas.

One of the things we have discussed in the steering committee meetings for the Multnomah Food Initiative is our area has one of the highest levels of hunger.

Which personally I’ve always found odd as we are also one of the leading cities for the local food movement. The following is from Multnomah Food Initiative:

Why a Food Initiative?

Multnomah County is at the epicenter of the local food movement. There are countless food-related, grassroots efforts being made in the community, as well as numerous projects and initiatives led by local government. The prevalence of local Farmers’ Markets and growing interest in organic gardening indicate strong community support for local food, but we must do more. To achieve a truly sustainable, healthy and equitable food system, all partners must help reach a common vision and share responsibility for the implementation of a strategic action plan.

It makes more sense than ever to implement a local food initiative. Despite the energy generated by local food in communities throughout Oregon, statistics show that our food system is broken:

Oregon is ranked second in hunger by the United States Department of Agriculture.
About 36,000 Multnomah County residents access emergency food boxes each month.
Half of all adults in Multnomah County are either overweight or obese.
Chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke are on the rise
Half of all Multnomah County children will be on food stamps at one point in their childhood.
Only a small percentage of the food that we consume is grown locally (estimates indicate 5-10%).
We lack a coordinated strategy to ensure the vitality of our local food system.

One thing I’ve been puzzled by is how if you don’t have food in your house for tonight, it is a social justice issue. However if you don’t have food in your house for 72 hours (standard Red Cross recommendations) it is an emergency management issue.

Just to narrow the conversation a little, as the food system is more than a little complex, just talking about organic food sold at places like People’s Coop, New Seasons, Wild Oats … the fact that stores only have a three day supply of date sensitive food is one aspect that I’m concerned about.

More broadly speaking I sometimes think that the best way to describe our food system is (mind you I have a somewhat dark sense of humor) is Death by Convenience.

How is that even though we’re one of the leading local food cities, we still only produce about 5-10% of the food we consume here?

It is in the same vein as the discussion of Portland being the Greenest City in the US, basically we are being graded on a bell curve. I’m always filled with pride and terror when it is pointed out that Portland is leading the charge on sustainability.

Just how problematic is the fact that we only produce about 5-10% of our own food? Do we export a lot of food? And do you know what they’re counting as local? For example, would they be considering Forest Grove local?

This may seem like an aside but it is related….

In Yellowstone national park, analysis of trees prior to 1850 shows that 50% of the nitrogen was of marine origin. 50% of the nitrogen arrived in the form of salmon. So it is not as if a long supply is necessarily a bad thing.

Efforts like the 100 mile diet are interesting, but it really depends on how the food arrives. Grain shipped in via trains from the mid-west is considerably better then strawberries flown in from Chile.

As for what food we export, I don’t have specific information about that.

Taking a completely different angle on things… I did my own sociological experiment by going to the one of the local gun shows and talking about sustainability to self-described “right-wing gun nuts.”

Basically, if you ask whether it’s a good idea to take a typical single family house and re-design it so you can live without power fairly well for a week if it is January or July, to have a large pantry, rain water cisterns, veggie gardens, fruit trees, … the response to this was basically “duh.”

My conversations with the “gun nuts” led me to the view that it is much better to focus on what you want and stop. The key detail when talking about a problem: you can debate whether that problem is actually a problem then never actually start effectlvely talking about actions.

It seems like the environmental movement has progressed from talking about renewable resources, to sustainability, and now to resilience. What exactly is resilience?

I can’t speak for the environmental movement, just for what I’m focusing on which is community and resilience. I think part of the focusing on resilience is that it is a more accurate meaning of sustainability…. how you sustain yourself/family/community is a rather important detail.

Sustainability seems to have been mostly about a long term vision, which is great, but doesn’t do you much good if you don’t have a vision for tonight or next week.

I think resilience is an example of what folks want.

Based on your experience on the gun show, do you think there’s more overlap between the left and the right if you re-frame what you’re talking about as resilience instead of “environmentalism”?

On the community level, very much so. On the level of Washington DC, I have no idea.

Rainwater cistern

(Above: an example of a rainwater cistern at Columbia Credit Union in Vancouver)

What can individuals do to improve their community’s resilience – whether that be in Portland or elsewhere?

I would suggest one of the 1st steps is to re-enforce the school buildings to withstand an earthquake, use the food certified kitchens in the schools to process locally grown food, and store emergency provisions at the schools.

If you mount solar PV panels on the roofs and place HAM radios there you can be fairly sure of having islands of communication even if things go really sideways.

You would need to have rain water cisterns at the schools, which could also be used for the urban orchards and the veggie gardens.

More broadly speaking, knowing your neighbors and being on good terms with them is possibly the 1st thing to do. It’s only then that conversations about sharing resources can be possible.

It sounds like you’ve picked schools as the epicenter for resilience in communities. Why?

At least in the case of Portland, they are arranged so there is usually a school within a 1/2 mile of you at any point in town. Community centers, churches, a mall…. these would of course work as well.

Columbia Ecovillage

(Above: The Columbia Ecovillage)

Transition PDX is interested in applying permaculture principles to the city. Are there good working examples of urban permaculture already?

As applied to dirt, very much so. The Columbia EcoVillage would be a good example that is more or less open to the public. For me permaculture comes down to good design, which translates into other disciplines.

In the case of my backyard, I have things lined up so I’m getting fruit consistently from early may until late Sept. Once the Kiwi matures, I can get another harvest in late November.

People who rent, instead of own, single family houses can have a hard time applying permaculture to their homes. Is there anything at all people who live in multifamily housing can do in terms of applying permaculture?

Yes, for this I would refer folks with what Leonard Barrett has been doing – Permaculture for Renters.

Container Food Forest

Above: Image from the Permaculture for Renters post Create a Container Food Forest

So what Leonard is doing is also applicable in multi-family housing?

Admittedly I’m not the best source of suggestion around permaculture for folks who don’t have some land to work with. You can do some pretty nifty things with container gardening on a balcony for example. But there are also examples of folks finding ways to share resources or buy things in bulk together.

What is the minimum amount of space needed to grow enough food for one person to survive? And for one person to have a reasonably healthy diet?

Quite a bit fits inside. I would point to books by John Jeavons such as How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine. I would also point to materials by Toby Hemenway such as The Self-Reliance Myth.

I guess we’re just about out of time, so I will ask one last question: If people reading this interview come away with only ONE message, what message should that be?

Using “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs” as a point of reference, society seems to spend the vast majority of our focus on whether we are sufficiently amused. This is an arrangement that by definition is unsustainable.

Revolution – history and praxis. Technoccult interviews Johnny Brainwash

March 25, 2010 / Klint Finley

Johnny Brainwash

Johnny Brainwash is an armchair activist and disaffected leftist. His past political activity has ranged from blockading logging roads with Wild Rockies Earth First to coordinating a state campaign for Nader in 2000, with lots of other stops along the way. He mostly organizes Discordian bullshit now, because when he fucks up, no forests get cut down and no one goes to jail. He blogs occasionally at Dysnomia and Shut Up You Are An Idiot. You can read his open letter to Obama-haters here and his follow-up here.

Klint Finley: I suppose you should start by defining what you mean when you say “revolution.”

Johnny Brainwash: Well, it’s one of those slippery words, like freedom or democracy, that gets used a lot of different ways. I’m assuming here a political and social aspect, and really focusing on what are sometimes called “social revolutions” or “the Great Revolutions.”

The basic definition for me is a rapid and fundamental change in not only political leadership, but also economic and social relations.

So the American Revolution or the various colored revolutions (like Georgia’s Rose Revolution) don’t make the cut, but the French or Russian Revolutions do.

Johnny Brainwash

True Story: Johnny Brainwash and his compatriots once, while in jail, went on a hunger strike because the guards wouldn’t feed them. It worked.

What made you decide to study the revolutions and their history?

I was an Earth First! activist in the 90s, and had been involved in various other causes as well. We talked a lot about revolution, but never had a solid foundation to build on. It was always based on the world as we thought it ought to be, but rarely took into account the world as it is.

When I bailed on that type of activism, I went back to school to finish my history degree with the pretty clear intention of learning how it had actually worked in the past. I’m drawing especially on a poli-sci class called “Political Violence and Revolutions,” but also on a broad range of other sources I’ve encountered both in school and out.

What are the essential conditions required for a revolution to take place?

Surprisingly, revolutions don’t typically happen when things are bad and getting worse. The classic phrase is “the miserable don’t rebel.” Revolution usually happens when things are getting better but not as fast as people expect, or when things were getting better and have now taken a dive. The key is the gap between reality and expectations. Obamanauts, I’m looking at you.

Also, a very important caveat: anything that meets this standard of revolution has happened in a society that is entering the modern world- typically transitioning from agrarian to industrial economy, and from rural to urban. So to some extent, social revolution belongs to the past. The models I’ll be talking about give us some good ideas of what’s important and what to look for, but I wouldn’t expect them to play out the same way today except in narrow circumstances.

Iranian Revolution

Protesters in Tehran, 1979

Well then, what models are you going to talk about?

I’m drawing pretty heavily on Samuel P. Huntington here, so let me warn you that he’s a bad man. He did a lot of this work in the 70’s on behalf of the military dictatorship of Brazil, helping them forestall a revolution. But that meant he had to get his hands dirty with the details of history, and he’s always insightful, even when serving the dark side.

Huntington basically divided revolutions into two categories, eastern and western. The names are unfortunate, so don’t be fooled- there’s no real geography involved. It’s just that one is modeled on China and the other on France.

Eastern revolutions we can cover quickly and dismiss, since they’re not terribly relevant to our situation. These are the classic guerrilla uprisings, like we saw in China, Cuba or Nicaragua. They involve a revolutionary actor building its strength in the countryside until it’s strong enough to take cities, and ultimately to take the capital. Very exciting, but not likely to happen in our society.

Much more interesting is the western model, such as France, Russia or Iran. Typically this involves a long period of troubles or unrest, leading to the collapse of the ruling elite. Then others can step in to pick up the pieces. There’s typically a struggle at this point, and if the military or another faction of the old elite come out on top, you don’t get real social change. If a group with a different power base and a different agenda end up in power, however, you’ve got a revolution on your hands.

So that’s why you say the American Revolution and the “color revolutions” don’t count? Because the new powers were old elites?

Essentially, yes. The American Revolution, for instance, may have made some huge localized differences, such as in upland New England, but the big landowners were still big landowners, the wealthy merchants were still wealthy merchants, and the slaves were still slaves. Representative government wasn’t a big change, and no big changes occurred (on the large scale) in who was represented. We could say that a lot of big changes followed, but if it takes 150 years, it ain’t a revolution.

Policemen and flowers

What about the Velvet Revolution?

I’m torn about how to view the various post-Soviet changes. A lot of them ended up with party bosses still in charge, but Czechoslovakia was a clearer change. There was a shift from state capitalism to market capitalism, but I’m not too clear on how much social change occurred.

What many of those post-Soviet changes had in common is that the waters are muddied by the absorption of the former communist states into the Western institutions such as NATO, the EU, etc.

Why do you say an eastern revolution unlikely to take place?

A couple of reasons. For one, the traditional model requires a large agrarian base, and all the angry farmers in the US just don’t add up to enough people anymore. More important is the simple question of military power. The only way a movement could grow strong enough to take on the paramilitarized surveillance state backed up by an enormous and well-prepared military is if it recruits its own military power from the army and the police.

I don’t say this is unlikely- in fact, it’s a more valid concern than it has been in decades. But by drawing on the institutions of power, it guarantees that it will not be revolutionary in nature. Just a different set of goons on top, and no more hiding behind veils of democracy or what have you.

Are there means by which groups can engineer revolutions?

Um… maybe. Like I said at the outset, the social revolutions are all a product of the transition to an industrial urbanized society. So we can reason by analogy, but there are limits to how far that goes.

I would say it’s important to look at Huntington’s western model and see how much we would be relying on stepping into a political vacuum. In that case, it’s a matter of organizing ourselves today for something that might not happen for a long time, and pursuing goals short of revolution in the meantime.

You can’t rely on calling up your friends in a moment of crisis. By the time the crisis occurs, you want to have a large network that is ready to go. The only way I know how to do that is to organize today for the things that are in our reach and don’t frighten people away from us. As the crisis approaches, we can ask for more.

Sooner or later, the choice may be stark enough that people will have to choose.

Zapatistas

Are there any countries that are close enough to collapse to have a revolution? Mexico, for example?

Mexico is interesting. Close to collapse, sure, maybe. But who would step in to fill the vacuum? Maybe the Zapatista networks could carve out a region in the south, but I don’t know if there’s a strong enough revolutionary movement to succeed nationwide. The worst case is that the drug cartels end up ruling big chunks of the north.

Pakistan, now, that’s a whole ‘nother question. They’re still in the transition to urban and industrial, their government is in pretty bad shape, and there’s a revolutionary movement already taking power in some places the government can’t hold. It’s not the kind of revolution I’d want, but it’s certainly revolutionary.

10th anniversary of the Nicaraguan revolution

Above: photo from 10th anniversary of the Nicaraguan revolution

What revolutions have been the most successful overall – the ones you’d most like to see emulated?

I’m careful about saying I’d like to see any of them emulated- the Terror was a logical outcome of the French Revolution, and similar outcomes can be seen in nearly every example. As an old lefty, I’m inclined to point out Nicaragua as a revolutionary state that had less of that sort of atrocity than most, but we never got a chance to see how things would play out there.

In general, revolution is always violent and bloody, and the violence is often indiscriminate. The older I get and the more I learn about history, the harder it is to close my eyes to mass murder. On the other hand, leaving our society as it is amounts to closing our eyes to massive indiscriminate violence as well.

I would like to spend more time learning about how the relatively bloodless colored revolutions work, knowing that they only happened with support from outside powers (like the US) and served only to bring those countries into the western institutions. But the use of civil society as an organizing principle might be of some use in making future revolutions less vicious.

Rose Revolution

Above: Demonstration at the Mayor’s Office, Freedom Square, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2003

Are you suggesting that radicals might be better off working within civil society to bring about change gradually rather than revolutionarily?

I think the choice of whether to commit revolution or not isn’t necessarily in our hands. It depends on material conditions. I suppose at some point we could work on bringing about a collapse, but trying that before we build the strength to exploit the collapse would be silly.

To me, the argument between revolution and reform is old baggage we need to get rid of. We don’t know what the world will do around us, so we should be prepared for whatever awaits. If we start organizing and find we’re strong enough when a vacuum occurs, then great, we’ve got a revolution. If we start organizing and find that the vacuum never happens, then we’d better do what we can with what we’ve got.

Demanding revolutionary action or none at all is simply hubris.

What do you think radically minded activists can do to make a difference in their communities or the world?

Well, I keep using the word “organize,” and I’m not sure it’s one people really get. We’re mostly stuck in the “activism” paradigm, which is very individualistic and focuses on people getting to express themselves. It’s egotistical in that the goal is for the activist to feel fulfilled, rather than to achieve anything concrete.

Real organizing means you have to work with people you might not have a beer with otherwise, and focus on what’s important to them instead of you. It means building an organization or a network that is capable of responding to events instead of building ad hoc groups for every issue.

If you’re thinking of revolutionary change, it means recruiting people who are not as revolutionary as you, and helping them become radicalized as their expectations of Obama are continually dashed.

It also means leadership, organization and discipline, three things that are anathema to many radicals with roots in the old “new left.”

Anti-fur activists

Above: anti-fur activists

Can you point to any good examples of the type of organizing you’d like to see more of?

I’ve got a knee-jerk reaction to say the teabaggers, but without Fox News on your side, you can’t get the coverage that they did. And besides, it’s not like they’re winning or anything.

I have a hard time pointing to much that I like from the aughts, but in the 90s, the two most effective movements (and therefore those worth studying, if not necessarily emulating) were the anti-abortion crowd and the anti-fur people.

More broadly, I would set political baggage aside and study how the modern conservative movement went from the political wilderness in 1960 to the Reagan/Bush/Gingrich/Bush years that reshaped an awful lot of how the country is run. They had a genuine grassroots, combined with a slick political operation that invented a lot of our modern techniques of mass politics.

Do you have any other messages for would-be organizers before we sign off?

Be patient. You can build something that can fit into the flow of events, but no one can simply grab the world by the collar and issue demands. You need time to build, and you need time to understand. A good dose of humility helps as well- you’re not the messiah, and you’re not the only one trying to do good.

Finally, just stay grounded in the world. It’s good to have lots of theories, but nothing gets done until you’ve got some dirt under your nails.

Remembering Mac Tonnies

March 18, 2010 / Klint Finley

Mac Tonnies

Cryptoterrestrials

Mac Tonnies was a ufologist, the author of After the Martian Apocalypse and The Cryptoterrestrials, and the blogger behind Posthuman Blues. He died on October 19th, 2009 due to heart complications.

The Cryptoterrestrials was released posthumously on March 15th, 2010. Fortunately, Mac gave numerous interviews on the subject of his book prior to his death, including this one with the Ballardian and an interview on Coast to Coast AM.

Since his death, a dedicated community of friends and readers has been working to preserve his legacy. Blazingbetta (aka Sarah Multiverse) has started a Mac Tonnies tribute site, and Capn Marrrk has been hard at work archiving Posthuman Blues. I talked to both of them via instant message.

Blazingbetta

Above: Blazingbetta

Klint Finley: How did you discover Mac and his work?

Blazingbetta: I met Mac through Twitter. He was a friend of a transhumanist friend of mine, and I noticed he got retweeted a lot. I just started checking out his feed, which often led to his website.

I went ahead and introduced myself to him one day, once I had added myself to be a follower. He added me back and pretty much from that point we were conversing weekly. Our mutual friend told me he was a writer, so I did a bit of digging, and came to know what kind of stuff he wrote about.

Did you ever get to meet him in person?

No, but we had plans to meet. I live in Toronto, Canada, and he kept mentioning through the summer that he was planning to come to Halifax, I think, to shoot a TV series on the paranormal in November, and we were going to try to fit in a visit while he was up here. Unfortunately, he passed away in October.

I never got to meet him either. I really regret that.

I totally regret it, too! He would have loved Toronto, and said often he always wanted to visit. besides that, he seemed like a really fun guy to spend time with!

Can I ask how you came to know him?

It was one of two places, I can’t remember which: either the sTaRe group blog or the Cabal blog aggregator that grew out of sTaRe.

Both our blogs were on Cabal. But I think we may have originally ‘met’ through sTaRe. Either way, around 2003-2004.

Cool. Wow, that’s a long time…! I wasn’t that familiar with paranormal/ufo stuff when I first met him, I visited his site mostly because he had such an eye for design… but then I got to know what kind of stuff he researched, and then I was impressed by how level-headed he was about the whole thing.

twin women in tubes

Above: Mac’s final “women in tubes” find.

Do you have a particular favorite post his or link that he found?

I could hardly pick a favourite… I love his photography, he had a great eye for beauty, for details… I like his really old science fiction cover art, and of course his obsession for women in tubes… I love his architecture and design posts, oh my god his whole site was amazing… One that I guess stands out was that we had a thing going for a while with the triceracopter, we both couldn’t believe how awesome it was, and laughed about it for weeks, so that might be my favourite.

He’d come up with these scenarios that the triceracopter was good for. He had me in stitches all the time.

Triceracopter

So what made you decide to start a tribute site?

A couple reasons, I guess. In the first place, I guess I wanted to preserve the sense of community that had developed as a result of his death. You see, I had met many people through Twitter just as a result of sharing condolences and updating people on what we knew of the situation (no one really knew what had happened, and it was kinda crazy the first week or two) I had seen these people on Twitter through mac’s retweets, but I began to seriously talk to them only after his passing.

It struck me that so many of these people that I had met were creative or artistic in some way.

So on the one hand, I thought that creating a site just for fan art would be a fun way to commemorate the special person he was.

When I suggested that, people picked up on it right away, and i thought, well if people like the idea and want to remember this special time, maybe we could even put the art into print for ourselves to have a lasting piece I guess I was thinking that a site like this would also help with the grieving process.

Also, Mac’s lasting impact seemed, for most people, to be his sense of joy and imagination… he just seemed to inspire people.

So I thought, when his final book comes out, let’s all be imaginative with him. I knew once I had the book in my hands, I would be illustrating to it, and I thought others would have fun doing that, too. I guess that’s how it REALLY started in my head… just a way to have fun with our last message from mac…and once I got thinking about it, i realized it might be healing for people, too.

You’re planning on compiling material there into a book?

It’s a possibility, and I make that clear in my first or second post there. The idea is not to create something to make money off of, it is more to just take the images/words and create a commemorative picture book or something. It’s pretty easy to get things in print nowadays. I guess it’s still only an idea, because its hard to say what the site will become, if anything. If it becomes a place where people do indeed post illustrations, photography, poetry, and other kinds of design like I first envisioned, then I think that would work really well as a big coffee-table book. If it turns out that people just want to share links to other sites and cool books that Mac would’ve liked, then that doesn’t translate so well. But whatever, we’ll take it as it goes.

So you’re taking a kind of hands off approach in terms of how it develops?

I guess so. I don’t really see myself as a blog owner here, just a facilitator. I like to facilitate great ideas. And this, I think, is a great idea. But it’s not up to me. I can’t force people to create; they have to do that out of their own hearts.

I personally would love to have a big book of images of creativity inspired by Mac… doesn’t that sound awesome?!

It does sound awesome. I’d also like to maybe do something with audio. I played a Halloween show not long after he died and used some sample of his voice as a tribute. But I’d like to do something more.

Aw, that sounds amazing. See, I would love to have something like that on the site, but it doesn’t translate well into a coffee table book.

Well, maybe if enough people contribute we could have a CD that could be a companion to the book or be packaged with it or whatever.

That would be so awesome. I would do it.

See, this is what I love. Collaborating and trying to think creatively. That’s what Mac was ALL about.

Grey with Mac Tonnies button

Above: Alien with a Mac Tonnies button, by isoban.

I really like the alien with a Mac Tonnies button that’s been posted there.

Isn’t that awesome?! Its kind of an ongoing joke around twitter lately. Lately, as in the last number of months.

What do you think it is about Mac and his work that people find so alluring?

A couple things. First, he was incredibly optimistic, even in the face of ignorance and dismissal that he would have encountered all the time. He was a trooper, and encouraged others to be.

Second, he was a fresh breath of reasonability. He took a “problem” or issue that has been around for decades and tried to cut through the mysticism and secrecy, whatever, and tried to get down to points that we could not only use, but that might help people or just be fun to know.

I think we are starving for this kind of a direct approach, in our day in age, and Mac provided it, without any hint of arrogance.

Lastly, and most of all, probably, his legacy is lasting because he was full of joy and wonderment and his unbounded enthusiasm about what our world and universe had to offer us was truly contagious. and lasting.

Have you read The Cryptoterrestrials yet?

I’ll be honest. I have not read The Cryptoterrestrials yet. In the first place, it is not available on Canadian sites yet, and his publisher suggested to me that I wait a bit for it to come out on The Book Depository website, which offers free worldwide shipping

In the second place, I am still gearing myself up to read it. I have barely been able to visit his site, Posthuman Blues, without becoming emotional, and just last night was the first time since his passing that I could bring myself to watch a video of him and hear his voice.

To receive his last message is honestly going to be one of the harder things I’ll ever have to do.

Sounds weird to feel this way about an internet friend, but he seriously broke down any kind of barriers with his outgoing personality and that smile

I understand. When I read that it was out I felt sad all over again. I haven’t read it yet either.

Totally. It brings back every bit of the loss. Because a conversation goes two-ways. That’s just how we function. So to only be able to be part of half of that seems wrong, even scary. But Mac’s friends are pushing through, you know? And being unbelievably open and honest about how they’re feeling. I admire them all.

Mac Tonnies and Cap'n Marrrk

Left: Mac Tonnies. Right: Cap’n Marrrk

Klint Finley: How did you meet Mac?

Cap’n Marrrrk says: I first met Mac through Bsti Natosi’s Chapel Perilous, which I went seeking after reading R.A.W.’s Prometheus Rising…but there was no relation between Bsti’s site and R.A.W. I stuck around anyway.

And this goes way back in Internet years before 2000.

And you guys met in person as well right?

Yeah we met twice…

Mac started PostHuman Blues in 2003, but he was posting at Chapel Perilous before then or at least commenting there.

Then after following him for a few years he told me he was coming to Saint Louis, which was great because he only lived a state away. He was the first person from the Internet, that I had met in person. He came to town with his girlfriend, who was a local, and we had a brief lunch at a Thai Pizza Place.

The first visit was very brief, only lunch. Then the second one, was dinner at the same Thai place, then we went to a performance of choreographed by his girlfriend.

You’ve been working with his parents on archiving his online work. How’s that coming along? Will it be hosted in the same place or somewhere else?

So, when it was discovered he died the first think I thought of, as did many, “What will happen to PHB and Mactonnies.com?” No one had any answers, so I just grabbed everything. The story is, Mac had a recurring charge on his credit card, but no one really knew what it was attached to. His parents picked up the charge, and I don’t think they’ll let it lapse, but maybe if they know his work is safe, we can save them some money.

As far as hosting it goes, Doctor Menlo offered up some space. But just last week, I bought some hosting and I’m going to host my own site there. But they’ve given me 150 gigs. So I can host it at my space.

Hosting is dirt cheap these days.

What I discussed with his parents was to leave it all on line, and let people take from it what they want or need in a fair use basis. I don’t think Mac would have wanted to lock down his writing. And I’m not really worried about plagerism. His works and ideas are very selective.

There’s been an amazing community of people spring up around Mac since his death. I was just talking to Blazingbetta about the tribute site she started. What do you think it is about Mac and his work that was affected people so much?

Mac was (I don’t like saying “was”) earnest in his desire to stay neutral, and had a curiosity which was infective. He also didn’t take himself too seriously, and had a very dry sense of humor about himself.

Mac was also very vulnerable. And in me, I felt protective and extreme sympathy towards what I saw as his difficulty in living in Kansas City. Because he was way to smart, and way to weird for that town.

As you can see, Mac had a wide range of interests. So he had an ability to draw people in. And through Macs passing I’ve met several people with whom I’m very sympatico.

mac tonnies morbid tombstone

Above: a fake tombstone Mac generated in 2004

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