Michael Pollan Quote
Industrial processes follow a clear, linear, hierarchical logic that is fairly easy to put into words, probably because words follow a similar logic: First this, then that; put this in here, and then out comes that. But the relationship between cows and chickens on this [Polyface] farm...takes the form of a loop rather than a line, and that makes it hard to know where to start, or how to distinguish between causes and effects, subjects and objects. . .Joel would say this is precisely the point, and precisely the distinction between a biological and an industrial system. In an ecological system like this everything's connected to everything else, so you can't change one thing without changing ten other things. . .This farm is more like an organism than a machine, and like any organism it has proper scale.
Industrial processes follow a clear, linear, hierarchical logic that is fairly easy to put into words, probably because words follow a similar logic: First this, then that; put this in here, and then out comes that. But the relationship between cows and chickens on this [Polyface] farm...takes the form of a loop rather than a line, and that makes it hard to know where to start, or how to distinguish between causes and effects, subjects and objects. . .Joel would say this is precisely the point, and precisely the distinction between a biological and an industrial system. In an ecological system like this everything's connected to everything else, so you can't change one thing without changing ten other things. . .This farm is more like an organism than a machine, and like any organism it has proper scale.
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