Learning from Louie
Reading more about the time of Louis 7, around 1100. .... Monasteries were defensible spaces for religion, scholarship and technology. Monasteries usually had active farms, and had enough time and resources to do ag research as well. Similarly with wine and bread and blacksmithing and engineering for irrigation and dams. While kings and queens engaged in Open Marriage and Open Warfare for macho and status, the monks were protected by the Pope.

Convents still served a similar purpose as late as 1940. I noted while tracking ancestors in the '40 Census that the German Catholic farmers in Missoura were able to maintain a Catholic school for every 100 farmers, complete with a dozen resident Sisters. Those Sisters were preserving a higher level of education than the public schools.

Monasteries have fallen back to pure theology, plus a little wine for tourists. Some Catholic schools still have resident Sisters, but they're not freestanding rural institutions any more.

It's clearly time to bring back monasteries of technology and training, without the theology.

Reading a current item about aluminum smelters fading because idiot governments are purely enslaved to the banks. Everyone knows protectionism is bad. Protectionism allows people to make real value. Real value is bad. Only counterfeit value is allowed. Bigger metal plants were smashed long ago by the EPA Terrorist Army; now the smaller ones are being smashed by counterfeit value.

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Convergent idea: Bring back small-scale protectionism.

A commodity crash creates opportunities. The new Makersteries should be built around bankrupt aluminum smelters and similar facilities, before the facilities get disassembled and sold for scrap. When a small foundry or a semiconductor facility is getting ready to close because of unresisted Chinese mercantilism, the Makerstery buys it up cheaply and keeps it going at a low level, using it to maintain and train skills and techniques, selling its output locally if possible. This wouldn't work for plants that were closed by EPA terrorists, but Saudi oil rigging and Chinese bubble-popping create lots of purely economic closures.

Labels: defensible spaces, Experiential education

  ¶ 6:54 PM