Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

i dont think they made 100 eps of monkey

The “Hundredth Monkey Effect” is a supposed phenomenon in which a learned behaviour spreads instantaneously from one group of monkeys to all related monkeys once a critical number is reached. By generalisation it means the instant, paranormal spreading of an idea or ability to the remainder of a population once a certain portion of that population has heard of the new idea or learned the new ability. The story behind this supposed phenomenon originated with Lyall Watson, who claimed that it was the observation of Japanese scientists. Such an observation did not exist (e.g. Myers 1985, Amundson 1985, 1991). One of the primary factors in the promulgation of the myth is that many authors quote secondary or tertiary (or worse) sources who have themselves misrepresented the original observations.

ahhhhhhhh yes wise one....they only made 52.........oh well im all out of ideas then

theres more Monkey Magic - a new series has started and Ive heard ( though Ive only seen 2 episodes ) that at the end of the series / season they meet buddha and its the guy that played the original monkey , yay

its called something else though , and ive only been able to find it subtitled

serious?

yep serious :

"The remake has remained faithful to many of the original elements - the fighting stick that shrinks to fit inside the human ear and the magical cloud that Monkey uses to travel great distances.

Fuji Television's most significant decision was to cast Shingo Katori as the show's hero.

Mr Katori is one of five members of SMAP - one of Japan's most popular boy bands. The Japanese heart-throb will be the first actor to play Monkey after Masaaki Sakai more than 25 years ago. "

& this :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/20 ... 573069.htm


that was 2006 , It seems that they only made 2 seasons & gave up cause all the actors got better offers

theres atleast one other series based on the same original story , but this ones got the bad "Power Rangers" style fighting , and big foam weapons ...

I think that the analogy of a pyramid scheme is a very good one. Indeed, we're banking on growth to provide us with more riches.

Something on the How Cuba Survived Peak Oil documentary... I think that it's a great & marvellous documentary & all that happened over in Cuba is really very inspiring (honestly don't get me wrong, yes I think it's fab!!! ) but there's heaps more to the story that wasn't mentioned in that doco. I'm cutting & pasting from the following link a lot below...

http://greenwithagun.blogspot.com/2008/ ... k-oil.html

Snippets from the above link
"Cuba's much more often discussed by the most common type of environmentalist, the lefty middle-class pseudohippy, including in a documentary, How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. For a discussion of it, see this youtube vid. It presents a picture of how "Cuba lost half their oil overnight", and of a friendly socialist government helping the people to get into "all-organic agriculture", and of how peak oil will create for us a happy friendly community. On the less-friendly to commies side, more recently there have been articles in the press saying that Cuba imports 70% of its food, or even 85%, mentioning that Cuba still has rationing.

Neither of these is a full or accurate picture of events. I've previously noted that we should beware graphs, because they often tell the truth, but not the whole truth; this is even more so with articles and documentaries."

snip

"So they didn't actually choose to have organic polycultures - they just didn't have the other stuff to use, and as soon as they had the option to return to conventional fossil fuel intensive agriculture, they did, with the notable exception of the urban agriculture. Cuba experienced less the power of community, and more the power of necessity."

snip

"The Cubans continue not to use large fossil fuel inputs in their food-producing agriculture, with the notable exception of potatoes, but they do use it for their cash crops. So it seems fair to say that you don't need fossil fuel inputs to feed yourself, but you do need them to make a lot of cash."

snip

"Cuba remains unfree and a communist country."

snip

"So far everyone looking at Cuba has looked at it with some kind of axe to grind, doomer, anti-doomer, friend or foe of socialism and sustainability. Those who say we can't do without fossil fuels quote the "imports 70%" line. Those who are by nature collaborators with tyrannical regimes say, "look, the power of community, look how everyone got together spontaneously to help each-other out!" Those who are keen on organic food say, "look, they feed themselves without fossil fuels." Each of those is in some ways the truth, but is not the whole truth.

The real lessons learned from the Cuban experience are,

1. having your country produce just a few things and importing everything else leaves it vulnerable to disruptions in global trade and supply
2. these disruptions can drop in for a surprise visit, they're not easy to foresee and prepare against, if you wait until you hear the train coming before you get off the tracks you might get hit
3. people are naturally conservative, that is reluctant to change, but will change when it's necessary to their survival. If given the chance, they'll try to go back to the old way of doing things, mixed in somewhat with the new ways.
4. governments, insulated from day-to-day reality of common life, are more conservative still, but like the people will change when it's necessary to their survival. Governments will at first get in the way, later get out of the way, and finally help and then claim it was their idea all along, If given the chance, they'll try to go back entirely to the old way of doing things as soon as possible.
5. it is possible, though difficult (requiring greater labour and skill) to feed ourselves with very little or even no fossil fuel inputs
6. to get lots of money by exports requires large fossil fuel inputs."




I think a major thing that will need to change, the major paradigm shift that will need to occur is the disappearance of capitalism, commercialism, consumerism.. what needs to go is the 'need' to be rich & to expand wealth exponentially. People might be willing to reduce their energy consumption a bit.. but when it really comes to the crunch, how many people will ever say no to affulence until they're forced to..? (& even then.... ???)

interesting to read.

If we took the mid point between both views we'd probably get a truer view.

Regardless of the outcome the docco and the other data still shows our reliance on oil.

imagine if they COULDN'T import food becasue everyone else was i the same boat.

Hang on, how were they importing food with the embargo? I believe the US was quite strict on turning away and ship that docked at a cuban port? Hence the whole "artifical" peak oil

That seems to sum up the whole thing purrsikat!

What strikes me is how people are willing to sell them selves into many forms of slavery. Makes no difference what country you are in. Its the same as it was over 200 years ago in england. People would sell their selves to the rich "lord" in exchange for the ability to work a piece of land. They only got to keep what they needed to stay alive. Is is really any different now? I am told when I go to work, when I can go home. The company makes millions and I only get enough to survive.... Everything is structured to make some one else a fortune from my labor. The people under me who make far less are the ones that really do the work. So I too make my living from the exploitation of the people under me! The people above make their fortune on what all of us below them make. Heck, the bonus check of the people above me is more than I make in a year. My bonus check is more then the people below me get in 2 months. Their bonus check? A weeks wages; if you did miss to many days. Its all driven by greed and selfishness; the need to have what you want and be wealthy.

So, that is why I am removing myself form this mess. If I can get out of debt and produce our own food then I can live the same life style, with the same free cash as now and only have to work 4 months out of the year. I would no longer be applying most of my labor to make another rich and when the $#!T hits the fan I can sell my product when nothing else will sell and I will have the lead to protect it. If it never hits the fan then I will have lived a happier life with good [s] organic [/s] natural food.

As for the energy to drive the AP systems. That is going to come from solar: PV, Wind, plant/tree based carbon and starches. Heck a wood gas stove run a generator, but its better to use hydrogen from blowing steam over hot carbon.

steve, i agree with you.. I provided an alternative viewpoint that IMO also highlights the reliance on oil today, & how it's not just a matter of peak oil, but a matter of human behaviour, that needs to be addressed.

re: the embargo, it's all in the text (as copied below)

"Cuba today
In the 1990s they grew virtually all of their own food, but a lot of people went hungry - they didn't starve, but it wasn't enough. From 2001 the US started selling Cuba food. Nowadays Cubans get about 22% their toal nutrition from wheat, and 13% from rice, most of it imported from the US. They also import from the US soya meal and the like which they feed to their livestock to get milk and meat, and so the US food must get partial credit for their nutrition from that, too. But overall the Cubans provide more than half their own nutrition."

Which is fantastic! definitely.. but yeh, there's so much more to the story than the Power Of Community doco highlighted, & definitely something worth knowing..

Human civilization is a normal part of earth's ecology that has grown out of control due to breaking into a huge source of stored food (fossil fuel=civilization food) ....think yeast in a beer...fat living for a while, but..

There is not one aspect of our civilization that is not dependent on huge inputs of energy and extractions of resources. Even our roads are oil (asphalt). Older civilizations (like Rome) depended on lots of firewood, imports, etc and were not sustainable, even at their far lower population densities. We mined islands for bird guano for fertilizer and fought wars over it before we figured out how to fix atmospheric N using natural gas.

I believe that we have the opportunity to develop a sustainable culture that can continue past fossil fuel. We have won a lottery and have a huge windfall (fossil fuel) we have used to create an amazing, destructive, complex, wonderful civilization. We can also use it to help put our civilization on a sustainable footing or continue on an.....unwise path. Things like AP can help, but don't forget the electricity, plastic, metal, feed....AP is not independent, just less wasteful.

Population growth is dropping. Awareness is growing. This civilization could work without a crash! We can change!

But I wouldn't give good odds on it.
*sigh*

just watched 2 documentaries :

1 talks about a group of scientists researching 50% drops in 50 years of male love juice production ( not just in humans , in ALL animals ) due to all the unknown & unwanted chemicals that have seeped into the ecosystem over the years

the other doc was an hour long scare mongering about the next big superflu , and how bird flu's gonna wipe us all out ( Oh no )

Maybe we'll just have the misfortune of losing 90% of our population , to the good fortune of nature itself . I was surprised after watching those at my first train of thought - What stock / technology / etc I should invest in now to become super rich after the apocolypse ? rather than "where am I gonna get bullets and toilet paper from"

I've posted before, but Roberto Perez from the Cuba doco is touring australia. Everywhere except Perth, sorry guys...

boris, i watched the same doco on male love juice & thought how ironic it is that 'nature' seems to take steps to reduce population in one way or another...

I believe WW1 and WW2 were planned by world leaders to bring the population down. Imagine what our populations would be now if all those young men hadn't died on the battlefields and had families instead. quite a few generations have come since and with every generation comes a new multiplier into the equasion. it would add up to billions of people by now. I'm kinda hoping for a natural disaster rather than WW3. it's easy to hold a grudge against another person but you can't really blame the earth for a tidal wave or earthquake, that's what god is for.