Human artifacts are everywhere

Regenerative & Transitional Technology Misc.
#1

Speaking as a craftsman and a salvager, I say-
I would sooner roof my shelter with aluminum from cans, than fell a cedar for shingles.
I would rather learn to knap plate glass than flint.
I plan to use swimming pool linings in the waterproofing of earth shelters.

We have to deal with the detrius of Civ by reuse, if possible… I expect organized mining of landfills in my time. This means learning to work with metals, even plastics. We cannot possibly put everything back where we found it.

(yes, we can drag every manufactured artifact to a subduction zone, and the Earth will eat it…)/{Waste nothing}

#2

The re-invention of human detritus will be an important stepping stone to learning the use of natural material, I think. It’ll gear up our engineering braincells for a gradual transition to all-natural sourcing after peak metal and whatnot.

#3

True, true. I would like to learn to use both ideally. Certainly there is useful manmade junk even deep in the forest and nearly everywhere in the world, but there is also nothing like the feeling of living directly off of the land. ALERT SCAVENGERS, DUMPSTER DIVERS AND OTHER OPPURTUNISTS! Colleges are getting out for the summer! Just picked up a bunch of dvd players, appliances, food, clothes and the like.

#4

Take a look at this reusage of civilized materials and icons:

The Afterculture

#5

Yeah. I’m kinda glad we’ll have the transition period of looting the abandoned cities for raw materials. In fact, I really, really look forward to it. Let my great-grandkids finish rewilding and naturalizing. I have a city to dismantle peice by peice.

#6

has anyone thought to forage for tools? I find scrapers, arrowheads, adzes, and so forth, all the time. Why bother making what’s already available? Or do I just have it good here in Indiana?

#7

definitely forage. but i also want to learn to make them so that i know how when they aren’t readily available.

#8

thanks for the link to afterculture, Rix. cool site, the VW necklace reminds me of that old book where they dug up a hotel in the future and called our toilet seats “funerary headdress”.

http://art.afterculture.org/Timeline.html

holy shit.

i guess i can stop second-guessing myself about ending a pregnancy. this visual puts our choices in living on this planet into much sharper perspective.

#9
thanks for the link to afterculture, Rix. cool site, the VW necklace reminds me of that old book where they dug up a hotel in the future and called our toilet seats "funerary headdress".

i love michael green’s work. it really gives me hope. i thank willem and jason for introducing it to me.

http://art.afterculture.org/Timeline.html

holy shit.

yeah, the J curve freaks me out, too. before i caught on to peak oil and the issues of complexity, i always figured we’d breed ourselves out of a planet. human population doubling within a generation’s lifetime.