Steve Job's Google of the 60s: Whole Earth Catalog revisited (+ homestead tour of a former editor)

Steve Jobs called The Whole Earth Catalog "one of the bibles of my generation". He went on to explain in his Stanford commencement speech in 2005, "It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions".

The Whole Earth Catalog was a kind of "unofficial handbook of the counterculture". It was, pre-Internet, a way for anyone anywhere to tap into a global economy. Founder and editor Stewart Brand set out to create a catalog- like the then-very-practical-and-universal catalog L.L. Bean- that would showcase all of the great tools of the world to help anyone do things for themselves or learn about big ideas.

Lloyd Kahn was the Shelter editor of the catalog. Kahn, an insurance broker-turned-builder, leveraged his experience with Whole Earth and began to publish his own books. First, he wrote very popular books on dome building. Kahn had become "the spokesman for the counterculture on domes" (his dome home even appeared in Life Magazine), but he took the books out of print when he decided the building style just wasn't practical and "I didn't want any more domes on my kharma".

In 1974 Kahn took down his dome and replaced it with a more traditional handmade home. "Built stud-frame house using recycled lumber, doors, windows," he writes in his 2004 book Home Work, "Relief somehow to discover old ways can work best."

Today, Lloyd and his wife Lesley Creed run their own homestead in Bolinas, California where they tend an extensive organic garden and bantam chickens, grind their own wheat, make their own sourdough, spin their own wool, and continue to build their own structures (most recently, a chicken coop with a living roof).

Original story here: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...

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  News & Politics

[Ariebingo]

This sort of lifestyle is something I so desperately want. Being able to live simply. Self-sufficiency with time to put energy into the things you want and the people you love. I feel the generation I am growing up in is based upon the idea of demand and supply. Things cheap and cheerful without enough emphasis on quality and workmanship :( University applications are coming up for me but I wonder.. it just seems like a commitment to society, working tirelessly to survive and pay off dept

[PegCityTanya]

"Smart but not wise." Perfect.

Thank you for another wonderful video. Inevitably I have to hit pause during your videos to find a pen as there's always something I feel I need to write down and remember.

[crzzygma1959]

I think i still have mine somewhere. Have to dig out again.

[fahnke]

As a long-time Lloyd Kahn fan, I find it funny to see these advertisements trying to sell me crap, placed right before and after his video. What he is saying flies in the face of rampant consumerism.

Go Lloyd!

[hagbard72]

Don't know about him but I live in a world of zoning, building codes and regulations. Would love to do what he's done but I don't live in a free world.

[PRAWPUN SOMPONGMIT]

This is my dream .

[Leila Bee]

Seaweed sauerkraut?  I want the recipe!