As you have so often stated Leaver societies work(ed) because they were time tested for thousands of years. Having destroyed the wisdom of most of these societies, how can one be optimistic for our culture to survive our impending cultural collapse?

The generations after our culture has failed will not have any other option but to “invent” systems. Even with a tribal paradigm how can it be expected to work?

I can recall sitting in gov’t. class and my teacher, a well-known-so-called Democrat, whatever that is, told “his” students, “If you don’t vote, then you don’t have a right to complain.” I didn’t raise my hand and explain why I strongly disagreed with what he just said. Instead I just sat there thinking he is “full of it.”

I don’t vote because casting a vote for any of these candidates is a vote for failure. The politicians that are elected still have in there heads “people are kings of the world and supposed to be kings of the world.” If you listen hard enough, you can hear them say we are the world. And if you look at them hard enough, that is what they are representing.

No one asks these people what the true world means to them or what is our niche, our contribution, along with the rest of the community. If anyone has a right to complain, it’s the nonvoter. What do you think?

I am writing a short story about a small community in present day California that decides to implement your ideas from Ishmael and My Ishmael (e.g., not locking up the food, laws that work for the way people are, an education system that lets children follow their noses and learn from thier environment, etc.) into their society as social experiment.

I am a fiction writer, and I think this will help me to understand your philosophies. This has been a fun and challenging project.

I was wondering if you have a vision of what a modern day “leaver” society would look like? I would be interested in comparing your vision with my own. I have searched the Q&As to the best of my ability and did not see a specific answer to this question, if there is one, could you point me to it?

You ask a capitalist how he expects to survive without biodiversity, and he calls you a tree hugging communist. Defending yourself against the abuse of a vegan, you point out that you believe you have as much right to eat meat as a lion does to eat a gazelle, and he calls you a capitalist pig.

I think, that amidst the war and turmoil of the world at the moment, people are being whipped up into a frenzy of irrationality. It seems to me, that as the water around the frog is reaching boiling point, people are pedaling away at the taker mobile with a renewed, and alarmingly frantic urgency.

With extremist voices being heard the loudest in a time of war, I find myself desperately hoping for a period of calm, in which your message can be heard clearly, without being bludgeoned into submission by fear and the blind pursuit of reckless, idiotic leaders like Bush, Howard, etc.

What do you think? How can the turmoil of the world show people the inherent flaws in the taker lifestyle, rather than make them pursue it with an increased urgency?

It has been said that politics will be the last to change because politicians will not move ahead with ideas before the electorate changes. In Beyond Civilization there was a look at how homelessness could be managed through changing how people think, and My Ishmael talked about education and wealth in general.

Could you see a situation in which people change their minds about one specific area, say homelessness, enough so that politics will change the policy in that area or do you instead feel that the change will happen all at once?

Further, although you think politics will be the last to change, do you feel that there is any hope for people interested in politics to enact changes in the short term?

I was watching the tellie (television) the other day, and one of those “The Truth” anti-tobacco commercials came on. While watching it, I got the idea that we should write and produce a bunch of commercials that tell people the truth about our planet, our culture, and our possible future.

T.V. reaches millions of people (as opposed to the 30 people privy to the speeches I give in my philosophy classes), and if the commercials were demographically targeted for maximum effectiveness, it may be able to help get the message out faster than any way we’ve tried thus far. I was wondering what you thought of this idea, and also if you knew of any people in this little community of ours that has the means (read: cash) to help make it a logistical possibility.

I am a LCPL in the Marine Corp. I am 2 years from finishing my contract, and going to college. Recently I returned from Iraq and while over there I read Ishmael. It changed me. Or it defined something I already knew. My question is this, and I think it apply to all military personnel interested in Ishmael and its message.

My being in the military, is it an asset, a way to understand and maybe grasp the weaknesses of the ultimate symbol of taker influence or is it a detriment? A brand making me a liar to my desire to, as you say “save the world.” That’s my question.

I am a U.S. sailor recently returned from a deployment to the Mideast. While I was out there I read a couple of your books—Ishmael and The Story of B. As most of your readers have said, I was profoundly moved by your work.

However, I do not know how to balance my choice of a career with my choice of philosophies. I guess my question is: Do you think it’s worth ruining my future by leaving the service early or should I try to be as active as the military allows and finish my time?

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