barking up the wrong trees

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Epiphyte
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barking up the wrong trees

#1

Post by Epiphyte »

whenever we spend money we essentially say, this tree is worth barking up. the sacrifice is necessary because it functions as proof of value. talk is cheap.
If a woman told us that she loved flowers, and we saw that she forgot to water them, we would not believe in her “love” for flowers. Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love. Where this active concern is lacking, there is no love. — Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving
a woman can say that she loves conservation, but if she doesn't donate to any conservation efforts, then we wouldn't believe that she truly loves conservation.

conservation is a public good. everyone can benefit from a public good even if they don't help pay for it. if you asked someone how much they value conservation, and they know that their answer will determine their contribution...
...it is in the selfish interest of each person to give false signals, to pretend to have less interest in a given collective consumption activity than he really has, etc. —  Paul Samuelson, The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure
if you think about it carefully, samuelson's rule is based on the premise that the true demand for conservation should determine the supply of it.

anyone who does truly value conservation probably thinks that demand for it is incorrect. society as a whole undervalues it. maybe this is the case. and so most people don't mind letting elected officials and professionals determine the supply of conservation. but more money for conservation inherently means less money for cancer research. even if the supply of money was somehow unlimited, the supply of genius people is not. how can there possibly be some sort of objectively correct division of geniuses between these two public goods, and all the other public goods?

for a while i kept trying to persuade my orchid friend toby to put orchids on his trees. one time when i saw him at an orchid show he said something like, "i finally put some orchids on my tree and they were growing really good! but then the hoa cut the tree down. it cut all the trees down in order to save money."

democracy doesn't scale well. the bigger the group of voters, the dumber the results. this is why the most popular content on youtube is garbage. the lowest common denominator is really really really low.

back in april here on this forum @OWgave shared a youtube documentary of dudleya poaching. i watched the entire video and commented...
sure, the phalaenopsis on your table wasn't poached, but its ancestors certainly were. the figs you enjoy? poached from the wild more than 10,000 years ago. loquat? kiwi? poached from china perhaps more than 100 years ago. the achacha you still haven't enjoyed? poached from bolivia maybe a couple decades ago. not to mention all the veggies that have been poached, like potatoes. thank goodness for humanity that it's only just recently that our society has become so stupid, as a result of lowest common denominator places like youtube, that laws against poaching have been enacted and enforced with taxpayer dollars that could have been spent on things that are actually useful, like public food forests.
yesterday the creator of the video, siblingrivalry772, replied...
Thank you for your comment. You're right that many of the plants we enjoy today were originally taken from the wild for food and decorative purposes. However, there's a right way and a wrong way to reproduce things from the wild. This story highlights the wrong way: taking thousands of plants to sell for profit without regard for the environment. Instead, responsible cultivation involves seed collection and growing plants in a way that doesn't destroy native habitats. There's a sustainable method to cultivate and sell plants that ensures we protect and preserve our natural ecosystems.
my reply...
if taking thousands of dudleyas from the wild counts as "destroying" native habitat, then what word do you use for what happens to the environment with slash and burning, mining or development? bulldozers "annihilated" native habitat for your home to be built? in the world of real and actual habitat destruction you're don quixote. the "giant" you tilted against didn't destroy anything at all. these individuals simply made the effort to move thousands of dudleyas into the capable hands of collectors in asia, many of who would have done the expert work of pollinating and reproducing from seed. the result would have been a world with an even greater abundance of dudleyas. but all this incredibly beneficial ex-situ conservation didn't happen because of the true giant... the government and all the ignorance it's built on. stop being don quixote. start studying james buchanan. no, not the president, the nobel economist who clarified that supply and demand is just as necessary for public goods (ie conservation) as for private goods. after your head is filled with this incredibly important information, do a documentary about the problem with not knowing the actual demand for conservation. then, and only then, will you be tilting at giants instead of windmills.
you can't see my comment on the video because siblingrivalry772 deleted it.

here on agaveville we don't have the opportunity to use donations to say, "please bark up the conservation topic tree". just like my friend toby doesn't have the opportunity to use his hoa dues to say, "please leave trees for me to attach orchids to!" just like we don't have the opportunity to use our own tax dollars to say, "conservation is more valuable than cancer research!"

since 99% of all possible credible signals of value and worth are missing from our society, the result is inevitable.... countless people barking up the wrong trees. an unfathomable amount of resources and talent is wasted on less important things.
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Meangreen94z
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Re: barking up the wrong trees

#2

Post by Meangreen94z »

Epiphyte wrote: Fri Jul 19, 2024 3:59 pm whenever we spend money we essentially say, this tree is worth barking up. the sacrifice is necessary because it functions as proof of value. talk is cheap.
If a woman told us that she loved flowers, and we saw that she forgot to water them, we would not believe in her “love” for flowers. Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love. Where this active concern is lacking, there is no love. — Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving
a woman can say that she loves conservation, but if she doesn't donate to any conservation efforts, then we wouldn't believe that she truly loves conservation.

conservation is a public good. everyone can benefit from a public good even if they don't help pay for it. if you asked someone how much they value conservation, and they know that their answer will determine their contribution...
...it is in the selfish interest of each person to give false signals, to pretend to have less interest in a given collective consumption activity than he really has, etc. —  Paul Samuelson, The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure
if you think about it carefully, samuelson's rule is based on the premise that the true demand for conservation should determine the supply of it.

anyone who does truly value conservation probably thinks that demand for it is incorrect. society as a whole undervalues it. maybe this is the case. and so most people don't mind letting elected officials and professionals determine the supply of conservation. but more money for conservation inherently means less money for cancer research. even if the supply of money was somehow unlimited, the supply of genius people is not. how can there possibly be some sort of objectively correct division of geniuses between these two public goods, and all the other public goods?

for a while i kept trying to persuade my orchid friend toby to put orchids on his trees. one time when i saw him at an orchid show he said something like, "i finally put some orchids on my tree and they were growing really good! but then the hoa cut the tree down. it cut all the trees down in order to save money."

democracy doesn't scale well. the bigger the group of voters, the dumber the results. this is why the most popular content on youtube is garbage. the lowest common denominator is really really really low.

back in april here on this forum @OWgave shared a youtube documentary of dudleya poaching. i watched the entire video and commented...
sure, the phalaenopsis on your table wasn't poached, but its ancestors certainly were. the figs you enjoy? poached from the wild more than 10,000 years ago. loquat? kiwi? poached from china perhaps more than 100 years ago. the achacha you still haven't enjoyed? poached from bolivia maybe a couple decades ago. not to mention all the veggies that have been poached, like potatoes. thank goodness for humanity that it's only just recently that our society has become so stupid, as a result of lowest common denominator places like youtube, that laws against poaching have been enacted and enforced with taxpayer dollars that could have been spent on things that are actually useful, like public food forests.
yesterday the creator of the video, siblingrivalry772, replied...
Thank you for your comment. You're right that many of the plants we enjoy today were originally taken from the wild for food and decorative purposes. However, there's a right way and a wrong way to reproduce things from the wild. This story highlights the wrong way: taking thousands of plants to sell for profit without regard for the environment. Instead, responsible cultivation involves seed collection and growing plants in a way that doesn't destroy native habitats. There's a sustainable method to cultivate and sell plants that ensures we protect and preserve our natural ecosystems.
my reply...
if taking thousands of dudleyas from the wild counts as "destroying" native habitat, then what word do you use for what happens to the environment with slash and burning, mining or development? bulldozers "annihilated" native habitat for your home to be built? in the world of real and actual habitat destruction you're don quixote. the "giant" you tilted against didn't destroy anything at all. these individuals simply made the effort to move thousands of dudleyas into the capable hands of collectors in asia, many of who would have done the expert work of pollinating and reproducing from seed. the result would have been a world with an even greater abundance of dudleyas. but all this incredibly beneficial ex-situ conservation didn't happen because of the true giant... the government and all the ignorance it's built on. stop being don quixote. start studying james buchanan. no, not the president, the nobel economist who clarified that supply and demand is just as necessary for public goods (ie conservation) as for private goods. after your head is filled with this incredibly important information, do a documentary about the problem with not knowing the actual demand for conservation. then, and only then, will you be tilting at giants instead of windmills.
you can't see my comment on the video because siblingrivalry772 deleted it.

here on agaveville we don't have the opportunity to use donations to say, "please bark up the conservation topic tree". just like my friend toby doesn't have the opportunity to use his hoa dues to say, "please leave trees for me to attach orchids to!" just like we don't have the opportunity to use our own tax dollars to say, "conservation is more valuable than cancer research!"

since 99% of all possible credible signals of value and worth are missing from our society, the result is inevitable.... countless people barking up the wrong trees. an unfathomable amount of resources and talent is wasted on less important things.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, and there are also different levels of wrong. Collecting fruit or seed to cover the basic necessity of food is not on the same page as ripping plants for them to die on someone’s apartment window sill. Are they as valuable as a plant that can provide basic substenance? Maybe in the grand scheme of things no, and don’t deserve as much focus, but someone should care.
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Meangreen94z
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Re: barking up the wrong trees

#3

Post by Meangreen94z »

Speaking of trees. I think this guy might be of interest to you epiphyte. He bought 320 acres in West Texas and is attempting to create a desert forest.
https://m.youtube.com/@dustupstexas
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Re: barking up the wrong trees

#4

Post by Epiphyte »

i subscribed to that crazy guy in texas a couple months ago. good job correctly guessing my preference. he's obviously not a plant guy, but he seems pretty smart. it will be interesting to see if he can create anything sustainable and lasting. i'm definitely rooting for him. are you going to offer to lend him a hand? i feel like sending him a box of premium mulch.

regarding dudleyas, it's hard to imagine anyone shelling out $100s for a dudleya so that they could put it on a window sill. most likely only a serious collector would spend that much money and their collection would be too large to fit on a window sill. check out this private desert conservatory in thailand. maybe too warm for most dudleyas but there must be numerous equally serious collectors in asian countries with more seasonal climates like korea and china.

whenever any plant is poached from the wild in large numbers the invariable result is a greater variety and abundance of that plant...
One would think that man could find enough variation in the orchid family, as it occurs in nature, to more than satiate his taste for variety. Yet man's appetite for variety is never appeased. He has produced over two times as many hybrids, in the past 100 years that he has been engaged in orchid breeding, as nature has created species in her eons of evolutionary effort. - Calaway H. Dodson, Robert J. Gillespie, The Botany of Orchids
admittedly i'm sure that many of the poached orchids ended up dead. even the greenest thumbs among us have killed numerous plants. but when enough poached orchids end up in enough hands, it's a given that some of the orchids will survive, a few will thrive, and some will be hybridized to create entirely new orchids.

not sure if you ever saw the movie "a beautiful mind" about the nobel economist john nash. in the pivotal bar scene where he has his economics epiphany... a blonde bombshell walks in with her friends. nash, being a nerd, brought up adam smith to his group of guy friends... the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself. in nash's "beautiful mind" he envisioned all his friends going after the blonde. the blonde would only accept one of them, or maybe none of them. so nash's friends would then go for the blond's friends, who would then reject the guys because nobody wants to be a second choice. nash said that adam smith was wrong.

at a "cactus and succulent" sale would we all go for the equivalent of a blonde bombshell? ask a 100 collectors which plant is the most desirable at any given sale and you'll get a 100 different answers. we wouldn't all go after the same plant at a sale, just like we wouldn't all go after the same person at a bar.

nash's mind was really good at math, which inherently meant that his mind couldn't also be really good at economics. his technical mind couldn't grasp the fact that "man's appetite for variety is never appeased." adam smith understood this though. since the invisible hand was applied to orchids the result has been their incredible diversity and abundance in a relatively short amount of time.

the dudleya poachers were simply acting according to the invisible hand, but then the government in its infinite ignorance blocked the invisible hand and screwed everyone, especially the dudleyas. well yeah, this is what the visible hand does. we see roads and schools so we jump to the conclusion that the visible hand must be a good thing. the problem is that we can't see that the roads are in the wrong places and schools are teaching the wrong things. the government can't correctly distribute resources when it doesn't know the diversity of our demands. this is the most important fact when it comes to plants and everything else.

until we have the option to use our own tax dollars to support a guy in texas with a crazy dream to create a forest, the visible hand is going to continue seriously screwing us.

here on this forum we should all have the option to use our donations to say, "this topic is truly valuable and important, this is the tree we should be barking up!" obviously we wouldn't all donate for the same topics, but which topic would get the most donations? we don't know. we can guess, but we don't know. this ignorance isn't a good thing. it's a really bad thing. it's why we are still in the dark ages.
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Meangreen94z
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Re: barking up the wrong trees

#5

Post by Meangreen94z »

Epiphyte wrote: Sun Jul 21, 2024 12:01 pm i subscribed to that crazy guy in texas a couple months ago. good job correctly guessing my preference. he's obviously not a plant guy, but he seems pretty smart. it will be interesting to see if he can create anything sustainable and lasting. i'm definitely rooting for him. are you going to offer to lend him a hand? i feel like sending him a box of premium mulch.

regarding dudleyas, it's hard to imagine anyone shelling out $100s for a dudleya so that they could put it on a window sill. most likely only a serious collector would spend that much money and their collection would be too large to fit on a window sill. check out this private desert conservatory in thailand. maybe too warm for most dudleyas but there must be numerous equally serious collectors in asian countries with more seasonal climates like korea and china.

whenever any plant is poached from the wild in large numbers the invariable result is a greater variety and abundance of that plant...
One would think that man could find enough variation in the orchid family, as it occurs in nature, to more than satiate his taste for variety. Yet man's appetite for variety is never appeased. He has produced over two times as many hybrids, in the past 100 years that he has been engaged in orchid breeding, as nature has created species in her eons of evolutionary effort. - Calaway H. Dodson, Robert J. Gillespie, The Botany of Orchids
admittedly i'm sure that many of the poached orchids ended up dead. even the greenest thumbs among us have killed numerous plants. but when enough poached orchids end up in enough hands, it's a given that some of the orchids will survive, a few will thrive, and some will be hybridized to create entirely new orchids.

not sure if you ever saw the movie "a beautiful mind" about the nobel economist john nash. in the pivotal bar scene where he has his economics epiphany... a blonde bombshell walks in with her friends. nash, being a nerd, brought up adam smith to his group of guy friends... the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself. in nash's "beautiful mind" he envisioned all his friends going after the blonde. the blonde would only accept one of them, or maybe none of them. so nash's friends would then go for the blond's friends, who would then reject the guys because nobody wants to be a second choice. nash said that adam smith was wrong.

at a "cactus and succulent" sale would we all go for the equivalent of a blonde bombshell? ask a 100 collectors which plant is the most desirable at any given sale and you'll get a 100 different answers. we wouldn't all go after the same plant at a sale, just like we wouldn't all go after the same person at a bar.

nash's mind was really good at math, which inherently meant that his mind couldn't also be really good at economics. his technical mind couldn't grasp the fact that "man's appetite for variety is never appeased." adam smith understood this though. since the invisible hand was applied to orchids the result has been their incredible diversity and abundance in a relatively short amount of time.

the dudleya poachers were simply acting according to the invisible hand, but then the government in its infinite ignorance blocked the invisible hand and screwed everyone, especially the dudleyas. well yeah, this is what the visible hand does. we see roads and schools so we jump to the conclusion that the visible hand must be a good thing. the problem is that we can't see that the roads are in the wrong places and schools are teaching the wrong things. the government can't correctly distribute resources when it doesn't know the diversity of our demands. this is the most important fact when it comes to plants and everything else.

until we have the option to use our own tax dollars to support a guy in texas with a crazy dream to create a forest, the visible hand is going to continue seriously screwing us.

here on this forum we should all have the option to use our donations to say, "this topic is truly valuable and important, this is the tree we should be barking up!" obviously we wouldn't all donate for the same topics, but which topic would get the most donations? we don't know. we can guess, but we don't know. this ignorance isn't a good thing. it's a really bad thing. it's why we are still in the dark ages.
A large portion of Asia lives in high rise buildings, especially young educated individuals with spare money. They may have limited space, but they have the money for high dollar specimen plants to decorate their flat.
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Re: barking up the wrong trees

#6

Post by Epiphyte »

i searched ig for dudleya and found a 4 year old post of a cool young asian guy with a dudleya on his windowsill. the post has 1,782 likes. i clicked on #dudleyagnoma and found this cute japanese post from 3 years ago with 446 likes.

a bunch of people simply clicked a button (no sacrifice) to convey that society should bark up the dudleya tree. a ton of attention was allocated by voting. democracy. demand shot up and poachers responded accordingly. more dudleyas on windowsills.

i'm sure that dudleyas will benefit from all the attention. just like all the aroids have benefited from the attention. now there are so many aroid hybrids.

the problem is that democracy wrongly allocates attention. so dudleyas and aroids really shouldn't have received all that attention. some far more beneficial plants (or other things) should have gotten all that attention.
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Re: barking up the wrong trees

#7

Post by abborean »

Interest in anything is a specific thing. I don't care for dudleya and wouldn't click on them out of disinterest. A matter of taste I suppose. There is cause and effect in interest of course. A couple of decades ago Yucca rostrata got into the trade largely from rooted top cuts. Initially the interest was low and then when they started appearing in landscapes out of their native habitat demand exploded. I could buy a rooted top cut with 2 feet of trunk for 15 bucks in 2000 for instance. I can only imagine how many were top cut on private range land which certainly diminished the appearance of the population. The rostrata that were cut are presumably growing out of the cut stumps but wild collected dudleya may be affected more. As a side note to this discussion no one complains about prickly pear pads or cholla joints being harvested on private land. The perception of value is what drives concerns over many wild collected plants.
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Re: barking up the wrong trees

#8

Post by nsp88 »

Epiphyte wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2024 2:53 pm
i'm sure that dudleyas will benefit from all the attention.
The original populations and habitats sure won't.


On the topic of Dudleyas - I know it happens with all types of plants but I wonder how many get bought and then die quickly. I bought a Dudleya britonii in December from a pretty popular US-based seller. It was small, cheap, and in perfect shape with no stress, so I sure hope it was seed grown. It is my most finicky plant. I bet a lot of them don't make it.
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Re: barking up the wrong trees

#9

Post by Epiphyte »

nsp88 wrote: Wed Jul 24, 2024 9:03 pm
Epiphyte wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2024 2:53 pm
i'm sure that dudleyas will benefit from all the attention.
The original populations and habitats sure won't.


On the topic of Dudleyas - I know it happens with all types of plants but I wonder how many get bought and then die quickly. I bought a Dudleya britonii in December from a pretty popular US-based seller. It was small, cheap, and in perfect shape with no stress, so I sure hope it was seed grown. It is my most finicky plant. I bet a lot of them don't make it.
right now my favorite thing to hybridize are epiphytic kalanchoes. among the seedlings i'm seeing lots and lots of really good variation of leaf shape and size. technically the hummingbirds are making the crosses, i'm just sowing the seeds. why? "man's appetite for variety is never appeased".

"my" hybrids are going to proliferate. the ones that grow easiest from cuttings, with the most interesting leaves, and/or have the nicest flowers are going to spread further faster. eventually they will make their way back to madagascar, where their ancestors are originally from. will their ancestors still be in their natural habitats? it's doubtful. madagascar habitats are rapidly vanishing, because of slash and burning, as well as development. pristine dense rain forest are being replaced with highly disturbed dry forest with trees few and far between. hopefully my hybrids, coming from dry socal, will survive on them.

the more attention that epiphytic kalanchoes receive, the greater their variation, and the more habitats they can and will adapt to.

from my perspective, trying to worry about original populations and habitats is not seeing the forest for the trees. what matters is having large genetic pools that facilitate adaptability to drastic and rapid environmental changes. a large gene pool is what invariably happens when any given group of plants gets enough attention from people, because, again, "man's appetite for variety is never appeased".

this being said, you should most definitely have the option to use your own tax dollars to say, "this wonderful and amazing natural dudleya habitat is a tree that's really worth barking up."
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