‘Kas, you have an amazing grasp of the obvious…’, this is what a friend uttered to me about 30 years ago during my University studies. At first I did not know if it was an insult or a compliment?? Always trying to be an optimist, I chose to take it as a compliment.
The SRS Vision tab here contains and is likely linked to ideas of many entities/individuals. None the less it seems beneficial to regularly work on fundamentals of any way of Art, in this case let’s call it the Art of Life in any way. In other words, the thoughts and ideas expressed here by me are possibly one, two or three decades old but hopefully they continue to point in the way of and towards sustainability and permaculture like values.
The SRS Vision tab includes ‘The Generalist Blog’ which is also linked to our SRS Facebook page that we finally came around to starting. After all, we are supposed to be builders, not writers… The idea of ‘The Generalist Blog’ is to convey thoughts that come from a place of generalizations, not sweeping ones but sensible ones which as always evidently have exceptions. Staying aware and knowing this, we are able to use the power of generalizing to be in touch with ourselves and whole approach selves??
While pursuing Architectural studies and professional life, it quickly became clear that the job of an Architect is unique and it is understood by thinking people that it is one of a few Generalist type professions. In modern and even traditional societies, specialization has for a long time been needed and a functional aspect of society. If you specialize in something, you can start to do it very well and thus your skills and mastery develop value. However, in the case of the responsibilities of an Architect, if anyone has an imagination, it would not be difficult to see that managing the work of probably over a dozen or so other specialists can be daunting. This is why most Architects use the power of generalizing, estimating and considering feasibility with their imaginations to develop complex building projects in a realistic manner marrying dream and reality in buildings. The Architect not only manages the work of all of these tradespeople and builders but is also responsible for designing functional structures that fulfill the many needs of society including psychological and aesthetic needs.
Loose and Simplistic Diagrams of Current Human Endeavors and Investments
Bubble Diagrams of:
Where we have been recently…
Where we should go…
Commentary on Bubble Categories:
Food/Energy/Local- First and foremost we need food and energy to live; so this bubble is at the central location and it will always be our central need but of course in one way or another it is tied into all of the other categories… If we don’t have life, we don’t have all of the other complications that go along with it… In any case, it is always central and it is always large but if you notice, in the second diagram, the word local is placed there and the point is: Any way we can, we must strive to get all of our food and energy from local sources and this is usually not so hard to do but there are forces that may want it otherwise…
Politics, Military and Defense- Many people in our society, meaning in the USA, are appalled by the money we spend on our military and foreign policy endeavors and of course many other people are not. The latter group probably think that our military strength and prowess is awesome and that makes us powerful and rich. Again though, I am sure that at least some part of this latter group realize, that all of the world politics and wars we are involved with inevitably waste our money and resources. Some politicians are now pointing out, the latter group is indeed far off the mark and actually most of our enormous national debt ultimately comes down to our ridiculous military spending and focus. In the former, we always hear for example about how the education providers for our children should be getting better wages and essentially money wasted on the military is at fault etc. In any case spending on government and military needs to be significantly reduced and ultimately that means decentralization of power and wealth.
Education- What is it exactly? In its best forms, the consensus of our most intelligent people say that more than anything education is about learning how to use our minds and the importance of questioning and creativity. In its lower forms, it is just about showing up and putting heavy emphasis on conforming. Now this does not mean that individuals receiving education should be encouraged to just be rowdy and rebellious and making lots of noise, not at all. It does mean that we learn to utilize our minds in different ways and sharpen our critical thinking skills. This bubble grows significantly.
The role of Artificial Intelligence will be an interesting one pertaining to Education but we need to be reminded, ultimately AI has come from our big business culture and our big business culture to this point has done the most to actually dumb us down so we could be good consumers. So moving forward, we should embrace AI with care and not forget past lessons about how our societal machine sometimes operates and remaining aware about our natures and tendencies…
Entertainment- This category is suggested to be shrunk to some extent. There can be various responses to this and people may disagree but without explaining all of the possible disagreements and to provide clarity, it is important to note that while entertainment is so important to our existence and happiness, we should exercise continuous scrutiny on everything that is entertaining us. In a sense, while we are laughing and gleeful we can still be serious and question the sources and motives of pertaining forces. Nothing more needs to be said on this topic and this is the nature of generalist thought, to bring up important issues that can be addressed in different ways by different individuals keeping our Human conversations flowing into the future…
Public Transportation, Rail, Buses, High Speed Trains etc.- Oh Public Transportation! All over the world in metropolitan areas, the lessons of adjacent and far off lands flow into the minds of planes of public transportation and again and again we enjoy different iterations of these systems from country to country. Oh how proud we can be as a Human community that we have advanced with our ingenuity the technology of this phenomenon all over our planet. We don’t need much space travel anytime soon but we can continue to improve and expand our public transportation systems to benefit all and collectively save the energy we need to live into the future. The Metros, the street Rail systems, buses and ofcourse the high speed trains that we must invest in hopefully subsidized by the airline industry unless they completely and successfully subvert their current paradigm of jet fuel burning with an advanced electrical system as they are currently planning for.
Planes- As just mentioned, the airline industry is vibrant but really just not working well. The toxicity of all of the fuel airplanes burn has spilled into the social culture of their industry and then inevitably out into our culture at large. Customer service is practically nonexistent because it seems that the people involved with running the industry may feel that the public is desperate to travel and we being what SRS calls a hyper-mobile society(it’s a term used to describe joints in the human body but it is also a perfect way to describe this modern predicament), these phenomenon then become a catalyst for some atrocious customer experiences at times. From ridiculous airport security experiences to gimmicky policies and egregious behavior of some people working in the industry and how their customers are treated. Ultimately, it’s become all about money, comfort, moving ahead and supposed progress but not so fast, there is the quality and pollution issues the industry still needs to address… Let’s shrink it and invest in High Speed Trains, in fact the Airline industry themselves should do just this, they’re the ones holding the investment money to do so… Yay for this solution whoever does it!!
BICYCLES and Small Private Vehicles + Automobile- BICYCLES, BICYCLES, BICYCLES, perhaps the greatest machines ever created by man and woman kind!!?? Just can’t get enough of them, bringem bringem… When it comes to vehicles and personal transportation, smaller is often better. What better way to live in liberation and mobility in the modern setting. Don’t even need electrical power unless we are dealing with slopes. With electrical, don’t forget you are having more costs, complications, of course weight and actually they are significantly more dangerous but that point will not be made here.
Automobiles, well we already know enough about them. They are over produced and as far as electrical, we have to continuously asses the full impact of how the energy for them is sourced. Like the pretty obvious point, if you are not producing electricity from solar panels at your residence, don’t purchase an electrical vehicle because you are then just an advertiser and green washer. Enough said about cars, they can be very neat and cool but they also seem to be able to tank our Human values in one way or another…
Shelter, Architecture and the Environment (Being at Home with Mother Nature)- Every being, creature has to find a home. We collectively have our planet, the ultimate we know of, the Earth. Naturally, we actually continue to take the power of our Mother for granted and we abuse our existence here because often, we do not know any better. Other animals and species usually do as they are programmed to do by Nature herself but with us Humans, it is a hit and miss situation. We create shelter, from caves to huts to buildings of all sorts, from the meager to the magnificent. The preferred is to create works that have a low impact on the original blueprint of Nature and to glorify her, in a nutshell to create Organic Architecture!