The Agrinautica

From Ecofoot.org, based on fifteen questions my lifestyle requires the following acrage be dedicated to my upkeep:

ACRES / CATEGORY
5.2 FOOD
0.5 MOBILITY
1.2 SHELTER
1.5 GOODS/SERVICES
8.0 TOTAL FOOTPRINT

IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON.
WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.
IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 1.9 PLANETS.

   But what's it all mean? The implication of the webpage is that we're all living horrible gluttonous lives and should be ashamed of ourselves. But let us put this in perspective.

   Going back to the beginning: A popular misperception is that life during the stone age was nasty brutish and short. Modern research indicates that it appears in the stone-age humans, living off the land like hippies, only had to work about three hours a day between food hunting, food preparation, & miscellenious other tasks, and the rest of the time was theirs to lollygag about and doodle on cave walls. This however, was only sustainable if humans kept their population density at 1-2 people per square mile -- that is, having an individual "ecological footprint" of 320 - 640 acres. Over time the population increased and people had to work harder to get the same sustenance from smaller portions of land ... eventually leading to today's conditions where in the United States we have to work eight hours a day and have a footprint of 24 acres a person...

   Now certainly we should try to do whatever we can to be as efficient as possible and thus have the smallest footprint as possible, but we can't reduce our feetprints infinitely. And in the mean time I will not be shamed by guilt-tripping webpages.

   In conclusion, we're on a collision-course with a lack of footroom for our prints and all out world resource war. (=


   This entry shameless cobbled together from comments I made to insolent_pool's post, which was inspired by eazyt's post.
   My facts come from Of Cannibals & Kings, by Marvin Harris, which I flipped through one day during a meeting because I found it on someone's coffee table; and also Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond which I flipped through while waiting in an airport once.


   I'm not sure who the post of the day is either, since I'm in a hurry, but one thing I do know for sure:
The Award of SHAME for Most Pitiful Post of the Year: goes to otimus for pretending LJ Abuse was about to shut down his livejournal as an excuse to urge readers to comment about how much they love him. Incidently, only one person actually posted expressing concern, whereas at about the same time five people responded to my poll yesterday saying "anything is better than posts like Otimus's."
   Now why do I kick this obviously dead and decomposing horse you ask? Because (1) He had the gall to tell me I'm a bad blogger; and mostly (2) that entry really is offensively pitiful; (3) Also remember he started this by saying I "motherfucking suck" at no instigation of mine, so I don't think I can really be too harsh here.
   But really, that entry, wow.

   So yesterday the megabloggers and I celebrated festivus via a an AIM chat room. This prominantly consisted of the "airing of grievances," in which it became apparent that everyone thinks I'm "not hilarious enough" and my font hurts their eyes. In contemplating this I realized the megablogging goals of general hilarity I embraced six months ago have recently taken second stage to goals of becoming the premier current even blog of UC Davis. While we are somewhat pleased by the success in this area, people getting stabbed 29 times or bludgeoned to death in restrooms probably doesn't count as amusing. As to the font claim, I laugh nefariously at all who don't recognize its beauty.

   Anyway, when I asked apoplecticfittz for his sagely advise on how to be more hilarious, he recommended I be more mean as mean is always funny. In response to this peace of "wisdom" I say: "Apoplecticfittz - You are so full of shit. You think you are funny and are one to talk about me? You are not and are instead lame. You do not deserve merriment this holiday season, you deserve to be mutilated by a giant squid. Die plz."
   I suppose that was pretty funny. But alas I didn't write that, he did.
   Anyway, my grievances against the other people involved were that rote needs to be less menshevik and more bolshevik. Less the creepy idealistic communism and more the bold and spicey realpolitik variety. Embrace the breshnev doctrine comrade. emd, as I said I was traumatized by that phone post you made. Learning you faked it (five months later!) has taken a great burden off my shoulders, but I mean, you don't see apoplecticfittz waxing himself during phone posts do you? And otimus, everyone else gets to make fun of you, but I don't know enough about you to participate. I'm not sure I want to know you better, but I feel I'm missing out. Give me reasons to make fun of you as well.
   In conclusion, you should all be forced to date colossal squid. Colossal squid that become extremely irritable if you are not at all times properly waxed (especially you incomple)!

   Also I'm about to be deported to the maternal grandparents house in Camarillo for christmas, as usual. Though its been well established that I don't eat sheep as a religious conviction, they are purportedly intent on having lamb for dinner.
   Religious conviction you say? "What religion is this" and "I thought you were a fundamentalist agnostic" you might say. Well see, if one does not have arbitrary religious prohibitions, one lacks moral foundation, and might then float freely about in a moral vacuum to be batted at like a pinata by the more principaled. When I was a wee lad these same grandparents tried to feed me their erswhile pet sheep, Blackberry, and I took a solemn vow to never touch the unholy material.