Ishmael blog post 1

1. Two ways to identify people from our culture are through our way of keeping food under lock and key, and identifying ourselves as fundamentally flawed. Ishmael says that people all over the world are of the same culture, and I agree with him. The kind of culture that Ishmael is talking about is the culture of agriculture, which is what seperates us from animals. The majority of the world are takers while very few remain as leavers.
2. Ishmael says that humans are inheritly flawed, and I disagree. I feel that Humans are not inherently flawed. But our culture is. The leavers were not really flawed, but when we expanded to something we didn't really know by becoming takers. We did not know how to make a civilization and were then destined to fail. One can not try to expand onto a failed experiment without scrapping it and starting over. The leavers were going along perfectly fine before the takers came. Humans are not inherently flawed, just takers are.
3. Leavers are those who didn't take up agriculture while the takers were practiced and picked up agriculture as their way to survive and formed a civilization. Americans are what are known as takers. We are completely based on the beliefs of the takers, and thus also believe ourselves as fundamentally flawed and destined to fail without trying to save ourselves. We feel that the only way to find a way to live sustainably is to find a different race to show us the way and save us.

Freedom and sustainability

1.Living sustainably is something that humans have yet to achieve. We are not living sustainably, we are continually expanding and continuing to use up more of Earth's space and destroying the planet. To live sustainably would involve controlling expansion and reducing the need in order to survive. If one was to reach sustainability, one must also destroy continued growth or you would be forever traveling and expanding until you eventually run out of space and can no longer be sustained, and start dying off taking everything with you. To be sustainable with food and living is to be sustainable with growth.

2. As a 14 year old the amount of freedom you have is limited. You can't drive yet, and even once you get your permit you must drive with a parent before you can drive with yourself. You can barely leave home without permission and still rely on parents. We have to go to school and have to continue to schedule. There is a lot of stuff you can't do until you grow up, drinking, jobs and much more. Even when you grow up there are still lots of things you can't do.

3. There is not much you can do at 14 to become more sustainable. You don't control your funds or even what you eat or how much. That is all determined and there are many decisions you cannot make. You can try to conserve power and not eat as much sure, but there is not a very large area of difference because you are not in control.