More experiments that are followed through to completion, with the results used to improve outcomes across the board instead of being repeated in an endless series of trials.

I went to an experimental high school in the early 1970s. Among other things they tried were:

• Multi-grade classrooms for the transition years from arithmetic to introductory algebra to pre-calculus. Not the traditional 1 teacher for 2-3 grades, but 3 grades with 3 teachers taking turns. Some of us moved between grades depending on what we mastered and what we struggled with. My perception was that about 1/2 would get through 3 grades in 2 semesters, 1/4 would get through 3 grades in 1 semester, and 1/4 would require the full 3 semesters. But they cancelled the experiment after 1 semester.

• Contract assignments in a history class. We were given the list of papers to submit at the start of the semester. Despite class running normally, we could choose to do the necessary reading and research to fulfil the contract as we saw fit. About 1/3 of us completed our contracts by halfway through the semester, then they didn’t know what to do with us.

• Work at our own pace with the promise that if we finished early enough, they would transition us to the next grade without waiting for the next semester. A few of us put together an alternative study group and invited others to join. About 1/3 of the class took 6 weeks to finish all the homework assignments and write all the exams with the lowest mark being in the high 80s. They decided that this meant there was something wrong with the plan, cancelled the experiment, and forced us to sit through the rest of the semester. Nearly half of those hard workers opted out of further education after high school and two actually dropped out without a diploma.

… and then there is drainage.

Our lot is positioned to collect all the runoff across a few acres. In itself, that’s manageable, but the septic holding tank is sitting under the trailer with insufficient height above the ground. Even that wouldn’t be a problem, but a new neighbour did some perfectly legitimate landscaping that causes a pool to form where runoff used to make its way directly to the creek behind our lot.

So now, every spring, I have to take a shovel and do drainage management to try to get the water running down the road instead of into our yards. It’s kind of fun in its own way, except that I cannot get people to understand that they have to stay to one side of the road, even if that means taking turns. Every time someone drives in the wrong place, it creates ruts that direct water to the wrong side of the road.

I just got in from trying to break up an ice dam that is causing water to run into our septic tank.

Thanks for tagging. I would have missed it.

It sounds like you’re on the right track. Unsurprisingly, we have some substantial differences, some based on the fact that we live in a park.

We are not allowed to have a septic field, so we just have septic storage tank. Getting an off-season (winter) pump-out is very expensive, so we do a lot to keep pump-outs to once a year.

• RV-style toilet for occasional guests
• composting toilet for us (only urine goes to the holding tank)
• clean grey water (most laundry, most personal hygiene, most dishwater) goes on our raspberries and fruit trees.

We are not allowed to have a well, so we put in a freshwater cistern. I haul water from a very good well. Our household use is about 180 litres a week. I pump from the cistern into jugs that I bring inside. Most gets poured into a highly rated gravity filter. Laundry and showers use unfiltered water.

We got used to living out of jugs before we had a cistern, so giving up on plumbing after the 3rd freeze-up was a no brainer.

Laundry water gets warmed up either by the pellet stove or sitting in the sun, depending on season. All other hot water comes from a kettle on our propane range.

Depending on the season, our laundry either gets hung outside to dry or hung on drying racks in front of the hot air blowing from our pellet stove.

Irrigation water comes from the season water distribution system that the park has. It’s just raw lake water.

Our power used to be just 30 amp service, so we’re quite accustomed to low power living. Up until the last couple of years, our grid was so unreliable that our standby generator ran about 100 hours a year (probably closer to 400 hours if we didn’t ration how long it ran). Grid upgrades mean that we’ve only used it about 4 hours in the last 2 years, and mostly during planned outages as they continue to work on the lines.

My plans for this year are:

Install an interior water tank against the ceiling, filling it manually via a permanently plumbed, self-draining line. No more jugs! Then I’ll hook up our hot water heater and bathroom/laundry plumbing to make showers and laundry easier.a

Crawl under the trailer (a mobile home) and remove the axles. This means it’ll no longer be classified as a mobile home so we can take advantage of subsidies for energy efficiency, heat pumps, etc.

People have been trying for several decades to get unpaid but necessary labour classified as work. Largely unsuccessfully, because that brings in a lot of other things like how to calculate pensions. (In Canada, we have a government run pension plan that pays out based on contributions. Homemakers can’t contribute, because they’re not earning any money.)

Then you have workplace injury compensation, access to supplementary health insurance, and a myriad of other things.

The author seems to focus a lot on the idea Marx was a degrowther, which yeah probably isn’t true but just starts to sound more like ecclesiastical arguments on what Jesus really meant as opposed to talking about the actual issue at hand.

I’ve read Marx and various commentary on his ideas. My conclusion is that he had some interesting things to say, maybe even the seeds of a better future, but we’ve learned a hell of a lot since then. It’s past time to leave the study of Marx to historical context, not advice for today.

We should instead focus on the positives of de-growth, that is less work. Yeah, you may not be able to buy that new pair of shoes every other month, but you’ll only work 10 hours a week.

This is the big one. Unless there is some kind of trigger to force a revolutionary change against our will, we are still at least a few generations away from leaving behind the moral imperative to devote our lives to labour.

I mean, it’s not my morality and never has been, but I know very few people of any age who don’t view work as necessary to fulfillment, even shitty work. In fact, I would argue that the preponderance of work being shitty is why work has become a moral imperative. “Growth through suffering” and similar nonsense.

Until that changes, degrowth will be either impossible or disastrous, because the systems and the very manners of thinking we need in a steady-state (or shrinking) economy are so radically different from those needed by a growth economy.

Check out Abandoned

Vice had series called Abandoned that followed a skateboarder as he explored abandoned places, including malls.

I don’t know how it holds up, but I really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. As I recall, the skateboarding was pretty far down the list of why they were doing it.

I look forward to more!

Also former ditch digger…

Work on those systems. Think about what they need to be for someone less agile or just less physically capable in general. Think about what it takes to train someone new on those systems.

We went with pellet stove over traditional wood stove because of the ease of use and the lack of local wood supply. Three trips to the city with our pickup gets us all the pellets we need for winter. I think that the combination of improved technology and government subsidies will see us with a heat pump and electric baseboard heaters for backup this year. Easier yet.

We scrapped our indoor plumbing because keeping it from freezing was a full time job. Now I fill 7-9 20 litre jugs once a week and top up our gravity filter system a couple of times a day. Next step is to route some self-draining lines to an interior tank in the unused space above our filter system to get rid of the jug hauling.

We bought a snowblower, because shovelling a 300 metre access road by hand was getting old. Next step is to go electric so that we don’t have to deal with fuel and small engine repair and maintenance.

Our yard is being converted from lawn to fruits and vegetables. A bit more each year as we figure out what grows, what we like, and what keeps or can be preserved.

We’ve made connections in the community, both personal and commercial, so that assistance is a phone call or cheque book away.

Those and other things have brought the time and effort difference between current life and our city life down dramatically. We now have plenty of time for a variety of hobbies. I retired last year and now I can’t say I really even notice the impact of chores on my freedom to do as I will. Keeping in mind of course, that some of those “do as I will” activities might be seen as chores by others.

And prisoners? My understanding is that slavery is permitted in US prisons. (Assuming that is relevant to the discussion.)

Absolutely! I don’t even have any bowel related health issues and occasionally find myself in trouble.

The worst was when I used to go running along the river the city I lived in. For years, the public toilet I occasionally used was open 24 hours. Then one day, for no reason and with no notice, they started locking it between 9 pm and 9 am. The day I discovered that was not a good day.

Knowing that I needed ready access to a toilet a few times a month was enough to curtail my running to the point where I just quit.