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[postrodent]

In my working life, what there is of it, I feel as if I am polishing the gingerbready decorations of an enormous and Byzantinely complex skyscraper... while ninety floors below, floodwaters and barbarians chip constantly away at its foundations. Sometimes it's more like I'm selling hamburgers to the barbarians, but usually I'm doing something

Comments

[anaisdjuna]

Me too. I'm not even sure any more what would be relevant.

[postrodent]

Building something that has a real future.

[ff00ff]

Schrodi, I've got just one axehead, its a bearded axe, with a slight crescent shaped curve to the blade, but ... ok, here's the weird part, see, its also a spear, and a pick? Schrodi, its also on the end of a pole, not an axe handle, but like, a poll that is taller than maybe me and then like a teenager standing on my shoulders. What kind of axe is this?

...

Oh! Ok, Schrodi, a sumptuous blond Swiss of a delicate age, wearing colorful and imaginative lingerie, in service to the pope, just informed me that It's a halberd I have, not an axe at all. That makes so much more sense.

[postrodent]

There's a lot of that going around. *hug*

[amblinwiseass]

Doing on-site support makes this so much easier: you turn up on somebody's doorstep, say "Gimme that axe and get out of the way," then you fix it and hand it back to them. You're happier because you don't have to put up with the world's slowest, lossiest KVM solution and can actually fix the problem in reasonable time, and they're happier because they don't have to think about it between "hand over the broken axe" and "take the fixed axe back out to chop some more heads".

[sphecide]

I feel like I am mostly playing a game. I'm sort of fed up with academia but at least entomology offers me some entertaining field work and a couple Very Critical Skills. Eventually it will become necessary for everyone to eat insects instead of bigger livestock and I'll be in business.

[postrodent]

That's an interesting view of systems collapse. :) Can you actually farm insects for food on any kind of scale? Would you know how?

[sphecide]

Some insects are pretty easy to farm - locusts, mealworms, crickets. I've only eaten live crickets for woodland survival, tasted kind of gross, but the other two are tasty when baked or fried. I haven't done it myself, but it's not much harder than livestock farming. Farming locusts produces less greenhouse gas, uses even less land, and produces a food that is healthier, pound for pound, than the crops they eat.

Much of the East already practices entomophagy but the West is very resistant to the idea for reasons with which you are already familiar. Insectkind needs better PR people. There's very little reason for the Fear. Bees are one rational fear, especially if you are allergic, but the "too many legs!!!" aversion is bothersome. People say they look too alien but given their ubiquity, this planet belongs to them. If you are skeptical, see what happens when you exterminate every last one.

[postrodent]

Oh, I know the world's more theirs than ours. I'm not sure I'm _happy_ about it, but. Anyway, if you hope to have the west eat more bugs, you know who you need to convince? Not me -- the processed food companies. In a few years, poor Americans will probably be grateful to eat anything that's presented in the shape of a fast food hamburger, and whose taste and texture isn't completely alien.

[postrodent]

I believe you, and I'm sorry.

[ff00ff]

What occupations, lets not think of jobs specifically in this case, just things people could be doing, but if those come with titles its cool too, would you say directly address the crisis of our time?

[postrodent]

Making something that is not glaringly obviously being washed away and ravaged. Or at least trying to somehow protect this one and make it float. There are people trying to do this, but the job is really hard and it threatens the barbarians, so they're not well funded.

[ff00ff]

What are things being washed away by?

[postrodent]

The barbarians are, mostly, predatory corporations and other groups that basically don't do anything useful, but have managed to seize huge amounts of cash, and the floodwaters are my ham-handed attempt to depict resource exhaustion. It's actually more like we're held aloft by a fountain of mostly-oil with a bunch of ores and stuff mixed in, and the stream is faltering and getting thinner by the day.