The World in 2100 -- Low Tech Podcast, No. 82

A few weeks ago, we were at the Wisconsin Garden and Green [music] Living Expo. While there, we talked with people at our booth about what changes they'd like to see in the world by the year 2100. [music] Let's listen in. This is the Low Tech podcast. Hello and welcome. [music] I'm Scott Johnson from the Low Technology Institute, your host for podcast number 82 on March 13th, 2026. [music] I'm coming to you out of the Low Tech Institute recording room in Cooksville, Wisconsin. Although most of the recordings that you'll hear today were made in Madison. Thanks for joining us today. We'll be hearing from our visitors [music] to our booth at the Wisconsin Gardening and Green Living Expo in Madison last month. And [music] we'll get back to our regularly scheduled visit to the year 2100 next episode. And don't forget to follow us on social media where you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, [music] and YouTube. Also check out our website, lowtechinstitute.org. There you can find both of our podcasts as well as information about joining and supporting the [music] institute and its research. Also, some podcast distributors put ads on podcasts. So, unless [music] you hear me doing the ad, someone else is making money on that advertising. While all our podcast videos and other information are given freely, [music] they do take resources to make. So, if you're in a position to help support our work and be part of this community, please consider becoming [music] a monthly supporter for as little as $3 a month through our Patreon page, patreon.com/lotchinstitute. [music] If you'd like to sponsor an episode directly, please get in touch with us through our website, lowtechinstitute.org. [music] And hey, monetary support is great, but sharing our podcast or engaging with [music] us on social media helps us out. So, thanks to those of you who do that. [music] Let's jump right into the interviews and then we'll discuss them on the other side. [music] Tell me your name, where you're from, and if you jumped in a time machine and went to the year 2100, what sorts of systemic change or what what would you like to see the world looking like and leave modern politics out of it? Cuz it's 75 years from now. So, >> right. Oh, man. Uh, I'm Reed. I'm originally from Arkansas, but now I live in Madison, Wisconsin. And oh man, the world 2100. What I would like to see is I would like to see a world where we are giving back to the local ecology more than we're taking or at least as much. Uh >> would like to see a world where we are living in a way that is more more sustainable that's you know not predicated on endless growth and more about satisfying our immediate needs than going and trying to make everything uh immediately accessible and easy and frictionless all the time. >> Yeah. >> Cool. Well, thank you. >> Of course. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. First one. Yay. >> All right. >> Reed [music] there is touching on economics and uh the idea that we've been [music] dealing with a a model of economics based on limitless growth on a limited world. Right? So, [music] uh, Adam Smith and all of these things suggested at, you know, at a time of European expansionism that, uh, [music] we could basically plan on more and more resources being available, but we all know that's not [music] the case now, but we need to update our economic systems to take that into account. So, I think that's a an excellent point. [music] Who are you and where are you from? And uh if you jumped into Time Machine today and came out in the year 2100, what sorts of things would you like to see? >> Yeah, so I'm uh Derek Nedbeck. I'm from well just south of Madison between store and Oregon. Uh if I were to jump in a time machine and arrive in year 2100 and see things like what what kind of what world would I want to see? I mean, you could even talk specifically about like your >> your farm or >> Yeah, I'd like to see agricultural systems that are focused on regionally adapted uh plants and like um so that would be annual crops but also perennial crops like nut trees and fruit trees that those uh yeah trees have been established on their own roots and that you have diverse plantings of uh trees so you don't have clones propagated that are then susceptible to some kind of uh disease. I like to see like way like like I saying like regional food system so we're not dependent on vegetables from California everything's produced within a 50 miles or something even heavy even even something like that and also like I'd like to see that like expand out from just the the food system to also like maybe the work system or just the like economy having a very local economy. Yeah, I guess if I think about my farm, it would be hopefully filling that role as well. Like the the farm is having uh established tree crops for uh nuts and fruits, having a resilient ecosystem that will be able to handle the the likely chaotic climate that we'll have in the future. >> Circular nutrients rather than bought in nitrogen. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Self-sufficient farm that isn't reliant on things being chipped in to Yeah. provide nutrition or other things. >> Well, thanks for stopping by. Our uh You can plug your >> Yeah, I'm at the the flower factory. >> Flower factory. Okay. We're uh yeah, we were a pennial plant nursery uh just south of Madison and now I'm transitioning to the the next stage which I'm not entirely sure what it is yet, but it's probably going to involve um orchards uh beekeeping and native plant nursery. >> That's really cool. Are you guys selling anything this spring or are you guys transitioning still? >> We're selling at the day county farmers market Saturday. >> Uh my dad's selling native plants there and also the honey that we produce in our farm. >> Great. Cool. Cool. Thanks. >> Great. Thanks. >> Derek is a friend and neighbor just [music] down the street here from us at the institute and he is uh it's interesting to see his ideas for transforming his [music] family growing operations which used to sell a lot of cut flowers >> [music] >> um and commercial um things into uh more of a perennial uh sort of uh production where he's talking about trees and and long-term >> [music] >> um perennials. see seems to be an interesting transition and and useful uh for the future because these long living [music] uh plants like apple trees and things uh will produce a lot per acre for many years with less uh investment of labor uh once they're installed. [music] And so having these locally available instead of having to ship things far away uh would be a real boon in the [music] year 2100. >> Uh [music] let me know what's your name, where are you from, and what would you want to see if you jumped in a time machine ended in the year 2100? >> Yeah. Hi, my name is Vince Aello. I'm from Madison. Um, if I was to see into the future, what I'd like to see is maybe uh quality land management where we're actually using the land kind of like people did in ancestral times, uh, very sustainable ways, not just taking what we can from it, worrying about the future at a different time. It'd be neat to see food forest and stuff like that. >> Great. Thanks. Although short, uh Vince has an [music] interesting point about uh using land uh more efficiently or effectively. Um in the US, uh we have about 6 acres [music] per person and obviously we don't want to live completely spread out. Uh we're not little [music] robots that are going to be using, you know, every uh piece of land exactly [music] the same. Um the landscapes are so different. Some landscapes um will uh carry more capacity, others won't. Um but I mean there is a lot to [music] be said for um the second or sorry the largest irrigated crop uh in the country is is a law is our lawns are grass right? Is that an efficient use of time and resources? Eh probably not. um if even a fracture of that were turned over into you know uh gardens or perennial [music] crops uh the amount of imported uh food from California and other places uh could drop dramatically. Um and then [music] he talks about uh ancestral and other um uh technologies being [music] revived. And that's uh that was actually one of the original ideas of the lowtech Institute was um looking at indigenous and uh pre-industrial technologies [music] uh and and subsistance patterns and then adapting them for the future. And we [music] still do that. It's just not as explicitly uh as it once uh as I as it once was uh right in the [music] main part of our um taglines and everything. [music] >> What's your name? Where are you from? And if you were in a time machine and came out in the year 2100, what sorts of uh things would you like to see in the world? >> Uh my name is Hannah. I am from Madison, Wisconsin. I grew up in Baltimore, but I've lived here for about 5 years. Um the things I like to see it are um a focus on local agriculture more than like global agriculture. Um kind of solar punk ideas I suppose like green roofs and solar panels. Uh most of our energy comes from renewable resources or all of it really. Um lawns are a thing of the past. That's my personal bugaboo are lawns. So, um, everyone who has land has a garden where they're either growing food or prairie or both. Um, yeah, and and less focus on individuality and more focus on collective communities. >> Great. Thanks so much. >> Of course. [music] >> And there we have Hannah also speaking [laughter] about lawns. Um, but also she mentions the idea of solar [music] punk. And if you're not familiar with solar punk, maybe you're uh familiar with the related idea of steampunk. Steampunk is the idea that um instead of switching over to electrical [music] um and other power sources and gas power sources, uh we retained the um motive power of steam from the early industrial age. And so uh steampunk has a lot of um anacronistic [music] uh technologies and aesthetics brought up to the modern age. Um, but Solar Punk is kind of future-looking [music] and it's using uh kind of steampunky type vibes, I guess you'd say. Um, but with uh solar and other renewable [music] energies as the power source. Um, so you see um a lot of a lot a lot of it is art driven um online and you can go to um Reddit and find the [music] solar punk uh community there or just Google for solar punk and there's lots of um artist renderings of what cities [music] could look like and they're the common threads are green um solar panels, wind um uh kind of [music] nature mimicking sort of technologies um on display. So, yeah, definitely uh worth checking out if you haven't seen before. Um, [music] >> please introduce yourself with your name and where you're from and what you would like to see if you got off a time machine in the year 2100. >> Uh, I'm Courtney Kinesesco. I live in Madison, Wisconsin, just down the road from here. And in 2100, I really want to see public markets everywhere. um people being able to access the markets like in terms like you know they have food and just and just a bunch of people selling um services and stuff. Um, >> so you're talking like people would think like farmers markets. >> Yeah, like farmers market, but I think now there's a lot of fees that get like it's really hard to get into them cuz you have a booth fee or they and then on top of that like a percentage of sales. Sure. >> Like I wish there was like a place that was a little more like just pay like a very small percentage because then that lets people who made like five things >> like little little projects that aren't worth very much but it it's still good for them to spend their time and to share their skills. >> Um >> have you ever been to Latin America where people will like literally put out a blanket >> Yeah. in designated places and I think it's free or depends on the municipality and then you can put your stuff out on the blanket. >> Yeah. >> And sell it. >> I read that a lot those are government run >> like the spaces. >> The spaces and so they put um limits on how much to charge per pound of food. >> Oh, interesting. >> And so they really >> take a lot of work to like make food prices low, >> but how they define food is fresh produce. >> Oh, interesting. >> And grains and spices. And so that's why you can go there and get all this amazing food for cheap and it's fresh and it's the farmers selling it. They know everything about it. >> Oh, cool. >> People cook though too, you know. >> Yeah. >> And I would love to see that happening more. I do think just community connection in general. People knowing who needs help and who needs what is kind of a big part of what I do is just trying to connect people whether it's to different resources or just to each other for like little tiny favors like I need someone wash my kid for an hour. >> You know that that kind of little normal community stuff that's really hard nowadays with everybody being so divided. Yeah, >> for sure. >> Well, thank you so much. >> Yeah. [music] >> And Courtney is bringing up another component of economics, not just the uh macro scale with the uh empty world versus [music] uh finite world model uh that we talked about earlier. Uh she's talking about the micro scale now. um the distribution between [music] individuals, the trade between people is more of a community model rather than a um large uh international or even national scale uh economy, keeping things [music] local, which has kind of been, you know, our watchword as of late. Uh the localism idea, the idea of generating [music] um and exchanging things that we need to survive uh and even thrive locally. And so um a local [music] marketplace would be one of them. Um I was thinking when she was talking about that of uh out in the country where we live uh where it might not be worth it to um have people sitting [music] uh when there's a smaller volume of people having a um a little you know [music] post where people can post uh things for sale uh on um on small signs uh so people [music] could then you know like oldfashioned classifides but in physical form stuff like that. Anyway, onward. [music] >> Introduce yourself. Who are you? Uh, where are you from? You can talk about your organization too for a bit. Uh, and then if you were dumped in a time machine and that time machine dumped you out in the year 2100, what sorts of things would you like to see? You can take that however you like to see. >> What would you like to see? Like you come out, how are people getting their food or how are they living or getting around or let's not get into politics cuz we don't need to have everything be about politics. [laughter] Um, my name is Jacob Hunt. I am from Veroa, Wisconsin. I'm the executive director of Derless Folk School and Thorough College. We're an educational nonprofit that does workshops for adults of different lengths, homesteading skills, folk arts and crafts, things like that. Um, I love thinking about this question as I work with young people and uh we're always looking into the future. I would say the future that I would love to see is one that is is very uh is locally oriented, local food systems. Um, I'm particularly interested in education. So I think folk schools and micro colleges um I think our our model for the future I'd love to to see spread. Um this is there's precedent for this. Scandinavia has has many dozens of folk schools and areas of much smaller population in the United States. So local centers teaching both practical skills, you know, low technology and uh handcrafts and traditional skills as well as humanities and uh and cultural events that are place specific and seasonal specific. >> Great. Oh, thanks so much. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. You're the first one to mention educational components. Makes sense. [music] >> I do love that Jacob touched on uh education as we work through our own uh envisioning of [music] what the world will be like or specifically what Cooksville will be like in the year 2100 here on the podcast uh lately. Um you know, [music] so far we've only talked about energy and we're in the middle of food. Um, and upcoming topics include things like the economy. Uh, and uh, there I'm going to talk about how each [music] different community, and I've touched on this a little bit in the food, in the food, um, chapter that is being worked into the podcast about how [music] different communities try different ways of, you know, providing food for themselves. Similarly, in the economy, some places [music] use a time bank, some use, you know, cash, some use, um, barter system. So there's different communities trying using different local [snorts] economies. [music] Um similarly, um my envisioning of what the future of education could be is again more locally dependent. [music] And yes, of course, if you're doing something super specialized, you're going to go off somewhere to a specific school on that topic. But as far [music] as you know, um elementary, middle, and high school education levels, those are all going [music] to be done locally. Um probably in a more dispersed setting. Um, at least that's going to be my argumentation. Um, for smaller communities, although in towns [music] and cities that will vary. Uh, but yeah, uh, Drifless Folk School, there's a number of folk schools in Wisconsin, all of which are worth checking [music] out. They have, um, excellent programs that, uh, that we are jealous of and would love to offer something even, you know, approaching the [music] diversity of offerings that they have. So, so check those out if you've been missing our uh, educational hands-on programming. Hopefully, [music] we'll have some more coming up this year. I'm just actually emailing people this morning as [music] I um take breaks from the podcast about setting up a couple of classes. Uh we're already talking about uh the linen class, the spinning [music] linen class um and uh beginner spinning wool. We might bring back apple grafting uh and a couple other things. So, keep an eye on our website. But if you [music] can't wait, check out these uh folk schools, especially uh the Drifless Folk School. >> So, who are you? Where [laughter] are you from? And if you were dropped off by a time machine in the year 2100, what would you want to see happening? >> So, my name is Leslie Schrader and I live in Wisconsin and my organization is Midwest Linen Revival. So, I'm growing flax and all the things that flax can be used for, but mostly fiber. And so, what I'm interested in is what that fiber might be doing in the year 2100 if I was dropped off. Uh, presumably I'd be dropped off in Wisconsin somewhere. >> Anywhere you want. And so I would love to see that that blue flower blooming in, you know, pretty large spreads where people were then collecting it and using it for all those things that that Flex Fiber can offer to us. Um, but mostly what I would like to have conversations with people about if I imagine they are 2100 is what they're wearing and asking them um and hoping to hear um that they would be able to tell me I'm wearing this sweater that my neighbor made. I'm wearing these, you know, shawl set that um the sheep down the street um you know, the wool is from was processed by and that they had this relationship and connection with people. Um I would really love to hear people in the year 2100 tell me about how um they've got these amazing, you know, mending groups. They get together and they talk about the books they've been reading, what music they've been listening to, and they just mend some of those clothes. and again like changing that relationship and taking um care of each other in community and in their clothing. Um and of course I would love to hear that they are wearing uh clothes made from linen um and the flex that's been growing in Wisconsin. >> Wonderful. Thanks Lesie. >> [music] >> Speaking of our linen class, Lesie was one of our or was that's where I met her was when we ran a class oh I don't know 3 or 4 years ago on turning [music] um flax fiber into linen and yeah she's really taken off in terms of uh local uh linen growing and production uh for fiber which is kind of a lost [music] art and is uh largely done on the industrial scale and she's trying to um bring back a more [music] modest or a more reasonable scale here in Wisconsin. Not that it's modest uh in in long-term outlook, but uh in terms of uh large scale production, it's [music] not industrial. And yeah, so uh fiber and clothing will be a topic that we're going to cover uh in a future part of the Cooksville 2100 [music] series. Uh but is also something that's really important. Uh if you look back [music] uh pre-industrial, people only had a few sets of clothing. Uh they had their work clothing, which was probably [music] their older nice clothing. Uh and they had their nice clothing for uh religious uh religious events or [music] uh weddings, things like that. Um going to town. And so clothing's become [music] so cheap that it's basically worthless, right? If it's so cheap that it's not a huge expenditure, [music] uh you value it less. And so by having fewer items that you know cost more in terms of time time and effort to produce, we're going to value it more and take care of it more, which is also something that uh could and should be brought back [music] and I would hope to see in the year 2100. Well, that kind of wraps up that wraps up our interviews at the Wisconsin [music] Garden and Green Living Expo. It was fun to see the parallels uh of random people off [music] the street or I guess off of the off of the uh off the event floor there having ideas that were similar to [music] what mine are uh that I've outlined for the future of uh the Cooksville 2100 [music] thought experiment. if we're transport to the year 2100 in the village of Cooksville, what would be some ways that we would be living sustainably? [music] And everything from uh economy to food to clothing. Uh these were all themes that people have touched on and [music] their solutions were pretty well in line with what I'm going to be talking about here uh in the future [music] as we move through this uh Cooksville 2100 series. I uh am heartened by that. Right. there's something in the wisdom of the masses uh psychologically [music] speaking. Uh but also I I do recognize that this is a self- selecting uh sample, right? I didn't go to the um this was at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison [music] and at other weekends they have like um you know uh ATV and other you know gas powered uh toy uh events or boat events [music] or uh you know all kinds of crazy stuff there. uh motocross, all these [music] different things. And so like the people at those events would probably have a very different view of the future. Um probably one that is more technotopian, [music] right? Uh technology would be available to solve every problem from global warming [music] to, you know, food production and we would just be able to use more and more power [music] uh to or energy to solve all of our sustainability issues. and we're kind of going the [music] other way, saying use less and less power um to solve our uh [music] sustainability problems. At any rate, it was uh it was fun to have these conversations and others uh throughout the weekend that I unfortunately wasn't able to record [music] or were just, you know, off the cuff different topics. So, um, thanks for tagging along to hear what some folks had to say, [music] and we should be back in a week or two or three, um, uh, with our next installment [music] of Cooksville in 2100, where we will continue to look at food production. If you're putting in your own prairie, check out our neighbors, the Historic Cooksville Trust, which has a program coming up here in Cooksville shortly. You can find out information on these programs at historiccooksville.org. And that's it for this week. The Low Tech podcast is put out by the Low Technology Institute. The show is hosted and produced [music] by me, Scott Johnson. This episode was recorded in the Low Technology Institute recording room. [music] Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, YouTube, and elsewhere. We hope you enjoyed this free podcast. If [music] you'd like to join the community and help support the work we do, please consider going to patreon.com/lotchinstitute [music] and signing up. Thank you to our forester and land steward level members, the canvases for their support. And the lowtech institute is a [music] 501c3 research organization supported by members, grants, and underwriting. You can find out more information about the low technology institute membership and underwriting at [music] lowcinstitute.org. [snorts] Find us on social media and reach me directly. I'm scottloinstitute.org. Our intro music today was Two Hearts Living in Two [music] Separate Worlds off the album Matthew by the Agrarians. That song is under the creative common [music] attribution non-commercial shareike license. And this podcast is under the creative common attribution and shareike license, meaning you're free to use and share it as long as you give us credit. Thanks so much and take care. >> [music]