Totally agree, with the minimalism analogy.

And the whole ebook thing is quite frankly off-putting. There is a ton of hive mind/group think in this field which I find very off putting as well... I was at a Native Plant nursery and asked if they had any apple trees. Now as a computer programmer, permaculture is a hobby to me, I don't have the time to study it full time. But if I'm interested in something, I do read as much as I can about the subject. I had just read "Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration" [0] which explores who defines native plants (pesticide industry) and why (to sell more pesticides).

So rather than having a friendly dialog, my request was met with a snarky and dismissive "Apple trees aren't native." I replied, "Define native." knowing this is actually a quite controversial subject.

But honestly permaculture is like any other field. There are some people who identify with their tightly held beliefs and don't question them. It bugs me but it doesn't take away from some of the great things are doing in this field. I've found that the best thing to do is to focus on people not topics.

For example, if someone asks me to learn Javascript. I tell them to focus on people like Eric Elliot, Douglass Crockford, Dan Abramov, etc. You will learn more doing guided learning from what they think is important than some random blog post on arrow functions. In the permaculture world, I recommend reading as much as you can from these people:

- Bill Mollison

- Elliot Coleman

- Mark Shepard

These people are great, and reading from them will produce more of a knowledge than any course. (Still recommend doing a course to meet other people interested in this stuff)... but some of the best recommended reading to me from permies wasn't about permaculture at all:

- Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows - It is dry but well worth it. Permaculture in a way is systems thinking applied to environment. Understanding the underlying science is the difference between knowing Javascript programming and just knowing one Javascript Framework.

- Hard Rain by Tim Egan - Beautiful anthropological history of the PNW.

- https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/opinion/against-sustainab...

- https://grist.org/article/doe-reprint/

- https://e360.yale.edu/features/environmental_failure_a_case_...

- https://monthlyreview.org/2002/09/01/capitalism-and-ecology/

I've found that people willing to dive into the science and areas that influence permaculture is the difference between someone who actually cares and someone who is an instagram farmer. And speaking of which, beware of biodynamics, it's a total pseudoscience [2] that people are starting to conflate that with permaculture. Biodynamic farmers will often tell you stuff like "oh it's like organic farming" or "You can do both permaculture and biodynamics". Maybe. But to me, new age mysticism isn't going to fix the environmental problems we have.

At the end of the day, the best way to learn permaculture is to get your hands dirty and start caring for plants. Even if you live in a city apartment with hardly any sun, treat it as a environment and find plants like peace lily's and devil's ivy that will grow just fine.

[0] https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/beyond-the-war-on-invas...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malus

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture#Effecti...