Edge Collective

18

Future of FarmHack; salinity

Connection to Greer's stages of post-peak-industrialization

FarmHack as anti-proprietary, 'right to repair'

FH as being able to make your own tools

These are 'sovereignty' ... but really that wasn't the stated goal, isn't the goal of most farmers today. They want 'full agency' ... but often aren't looking for independence from the system -- it's assumed by most that they must engage with the system

But Ramp Hallow makes the point that a lot of farmers have been independent of the economic system, and were pushed into dependence

So: if we consider tech sovereignty, are we also considering economic sovereignty?

Separately -- an analysis of the material basis for farming today, and in the near future. If we're looking for sovereignty, we can't see that the petri dish is 50% covered and not think about the future

Also: climate and economy and materials

And: some sense of concrete projects

Governance / philosophy that is up to folks. Simply being a container.

Sun Sep 24 09:16:50 PM EDT 2023

Possible strategies for remaining LOR grant resources:

Tue Sep 26 04:01:52 PM EDT 2023

Readings

sovereignty

sovereignty is a nice place to start.

both it and open source are complicated.

examples of tech sovereignty

unique nature of energy, food, water, comms, as per hagens

new agrarian movement

tech sovereignty and self-provisioning / subsistence, land

mapping out the communities

educational sovereignty

legal independence

open source is dated.

strategies for access to land

downshift; retrosuburbia

internationalization

tensions ...

localism vs international

big ag vs small ag

urban vs rural

markent vs non-market

organizational control vs. no control

class conflicts

narrow focus vs all-comers


romanticism ... anti-modernism

energy realism ... smil

cultural issues

smaje themes

doomer optimism / michaux themes

energy as part of tech sovereignty ... but more fundamental

recognizing that some tech is different ... e.g. difference between comms and databases

smaje's distributism

thinking on the scale of 600 years

alternative hedonism

scaveneged industrialization

donut economics, limits, bounds

the impossibility of electrifying everything

con

sovereignty

confusion between juridical and legal notion, and our tendency to blend that into a concept of power

key place to start: disentangling the notion of 'tech sovereignty'

sovereignty in analogy with politics and land sovereignty in analogy with code

but there are hierarchies and contingencies that are unavoidable

production of the technology

food, water, shelter, comms, energy

Richard Bourke on the concept of sovereignty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuobgLICp1w

at 3 minutes, notes on how people have used the term 'sovereignty' in terms of power

fundamental feature of the modern state

succession is a rival claim to sovereignty

sovereignty is typically a contested claim

a conceptualization of power

sovereignty is fundamentally a legal notion

note that (at 3 minutes +): examples where one reclaims sovereignty but loses power. sometimes there is a tradeoff. e.g. you the proprietary software might be the most powerful software.

at 4 minute mark -- 'claim sovereignty, but practically depedenent on all sorts of other powers on the world'

'final juridisction doesn't equal power'

'legal concept and practical political one are often confused'

around 7 minutes ... powerful notion of sovereignty by boudoin

notion by jean bodin: sovereignty should be supreme, absolute, and perpetual

the supreme sovereign should have no superior

should not be accountable to anything else in the commonwealth

should be indivisible

jean bodin and hobbes -- democratic, aristocratic, monarchical sovereign, monarchical preferable

rousseau -- democratic or 'popular sovereignty' -- only form of legitimate sovereignty -- anything else is usurpation

an absolute and indivisible popular sovereignty

(the conservativism of edmund burke: https://serious-science.org/author/r_bourke )

bourke on burke, englightenment -- chapter excerpt -- https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-companion-to-edmund-burke/burke-enlightenment-and-romanticism/3D8185B51F7F648E80294219D881C5C4

review of bourke's book on romanticism: pdf


the way in: why would we talk about sovereignty in farmhack?

perhaps sovereignty is just not the right term

but: we should explore why people thought it was the right term

basically: they want control over tech. they were reacting to that. the responses to that are several. are there useful aspects of the conception of sovereignty that might help us navigate our way towards useful next steps.

so -- if we take technological sovereignty seriously -- the things that we wanted that lends themselves to be called that -- i.e. control over our material extistence, autonomy, etc -- then i think to be consistent we need to define them more broadly ... and by defining them more broadly, we actually end up with more than we asked for, with more possibilities ... materially, and politically ... because then we're talking about providing a necessary substrate for true autonomous action and political organizing ... which seem to be the thing that is most needed.

another way in: at first glance, farmhack is the 'tech' side, and greenhorns is the 'political' side. but both need the other in a deep way. one enables the other. if you can organize to produce your own food and shelter and energy autonomously, then you enable political projects.

some side themes:

Thu Sep 28 08:31:52 PM EDT 2023

Salinity

How to test for salinity https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/168882/water-salinity.pdf

Sensorex testing salinity of water https://sensorex.com/how-to-test-the-salinity-of-water/

Drinking water standards for TDS https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/public+health/water+quality/salinity+and+drinking+water#:~:text=less%20than%20600%20mg%2FL,L%20is%20regarded%20as%20unacceptable.

Fondriest on Conductivity, Salinity, and Dissolved Solids https://www.fondriest.com/environmental-measurements/parameters/water-quality/conductivity-salinity-tds/

Safe levels of sodium in drinking water https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-09/documents/support_cc1_sodium_dwreport.pdf

sodium at 30 to 60 mg/L is range that most people don't find objectionable

Mass guidelines for sodium in drinking water https://www.mass.gov/doc/dph-fact-sheet-sodium-in-drinking-water/download -- suggested 20 mg/L

Suggested here that TDS should not exceed 1000 mg/L for drinkability https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/public+health/water+quality/salinity+and+drinking+water

Australian Drinking Water Guidelines stipulate:

“based on taste, TDS in drinking water should not exceed 500 mg/L” although “water with a TDS content of up to 1000 mg/L is acceptable to many”
water will become increasingly undrinkable in the 1000 to 2000 mg/L range.
Based on taste, the following categories are provided to rate drinking water according to TDS concentrations:

less than 600 mg/L is regarded as good quality drinking water.
600 to 900 mg/L is regarded as fair quality.
900 to 1200 mg/L is regarded as poor quality.
greater than 1200 mg/L is regarded as unacceptable.
World Health Organization
World Health Organization comments on guideline TDS levels are:

“The palatability of water with a total dissolved solids (TDS) level of less than about 600 mg/L is generally considered to be good; drinking-water becomes significantly and increasingly unpalatable at TDS levels greater than about 1000 mg/L.”
No health-based limit since TDS is “not of health concern at levels found in drinking-water”.

Via: https://www.healthvermont.gov/environment/drinking-water/sodium-and-chloride-drinking-water:

Consuming water containing chloride and/or sodium alone is typically not harmful to your health. However, if sodium and chloride are in your water, that may mean other contaminants, such as bacteria, nitrates or lead, may be in your water. Plus, high levels of sodium and chloride may cause your water to taste bad. 

If you or someone in your household is on a low-salt diet, talk with your health care provider about the level of sodium in your water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends no more than 20 mg/L (milligrams per liter) of sodium in drinking water for people restricted to a total sodium intake of 500 mg/day (milligrams per day).

High sodium and chloride levels can also corrode your plumbing fixtures. 

The drinking water standard for sodium is 250 mg/L (milligrams per liter) and for chloride is 250 mg/L. These standards are called secondary maximum contaminant levels, or SMCLs, because the levels are based on aesthetic (color and taste) reasons rather than health effects.

If you have levels of sodium and chloride above the drinking water standard, your water would likely taste salty and may pose a risk to people who are on sodium-restricted diets. You may consider treatment to improve the taste and appearance of your water. 

High levels of sodium and chloride could also mean that you have other problems with your well that could allow other contaminants into your water if not fixed (see treatment options below).

Salinity intrustion, drinking water [https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/doi/10.1525/elementa.143/112784/Drinking-water-salinity-associated-health-crisis](https://online.ucpress.edu/elementa/article/doi/10.1525/elementa.143/112784/Drinking-water-salinity-associated-health-crisis)

--> Great guide! -->  World Health Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality [https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/254637/9789241549950-eng.pdf?sequence=1](https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/254637/9789241549950-eng.pdf?sequence=1)

Approach for testing water salinity in a health context: [https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/19/3746](https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/19/3746)

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