Understanding post-civilization (which is a better term than anti-civ) remembers that there are many lessons we've learned from civilization. Some of these could be carried into a post-civ world. Domestication as an agriculture isn't necessary. In fact, agriculture itself isn't necessary.

About a year ago, I went to a peace picnic and brought a vegan dish made of artichoke noodles, vine picked tomatoes and lamb's quarter. (That is, Lamb's quarter, the weed that grows in just about everyone's yard) Some of the younger folks were a little turned off. I talked to a Mennonite who was excited. "Well, to be honest we used to eat lamb's quarter all the time; it grows everywhere, along with dandelions." Of course, Mennonites have a more decentralized approach to agriculture, they only grow what they need and understand perfectly that agriculture without primitive skills leads to the domestication of the world. Take, hunting for example, hunting becomes necessary in rural communities, unless you want to go to the store and buy food. And! It’s not like hunters are necessarily jerks.

A couple weeks ago, I was talking to a poacher, who after seeing my eco patch felt he needed to make right some hippie's outlook on life. At no time, did the conversation turn bad, in fact, the guy who won't eat beef "cos it ain't natural", ended up telling me that about local municipalities purges of deer he felt were genocide. He also admitted to eating road kill before hunting, and he always took what he felt he needed.

The idea that a post-civ world would devastate the land isn't a working idea. Urban area's kill natural predators of prey, to keep cities safe, and as a result end up killing any prey that comes along. And that's for the folks who eat meat. Many urban and suburban areas work real hard to beat natural succession, so they can have great lawns and parks. Taking the middle ground, the idea that zoysia grass is prettier than tomatoes plants goes to show just how civilization destroys common sense when it comes to food production. They'll tell you it's better to have massive farms, then package those products, even tricking vegans into buying food, whose processes involves the killing of mice, rabbits, ground hogs in the process of harvesting, because harvesting destroys adapting animals attempts to create adapted ecosystems in wheat, soy and corn fields.

Understanding primitive skills, tracking and foraging is a less decentralized approach to proto-agriculture. Primitivists will find themselves keeping an eye on plants, insects and animals, so they can eat them as the seasons change. Some stories I’ve heard involve herding grasshoppers for future use. It's not domestication, the grasshoppers are still feral, but it's a useful and smart tactic to survive.

This brings up another scenario that I’ve seen on really small farms. That's feral chickens and goats that are not penned up, not grain fed and are wandering about even in winter months. Really, the only threat to these chickens (cars; cancer causing power lines) is technology, and the person who will probably eat them.

Taking cattle into account, cows are supposed to be herding roaming creatures, which don't overuse centralized pastures. Goats, too. Allowing them to roam instead of penned or caged, creates a more balanced eco-footprint, but does drain on one's personal capital. This has always been many anti-civ thinkers point. Agriculture as capital. "This property is mine, the food is mine, and any chance nature has at succession is foolish." To keep intact this capitalist construct, people create toys (technology) and what we have now is a pending crisis where human efforts to stifle succession is working so well, we're willing to kill 1/3 of all the species on the planet, devastate undeveloped, less developed countries to protect what's "ours." Even taking the collectivist model on agriculture, if we ended up with a bazillion eco-anarchist farms, we'd still have to stifle succession. There's some hope, permaculturalists are examining this relationship. Even so, most of Western humanity, who lives in houses, would rather keep their toys in their basements, shingles on their roofs rather than use these unnatural spaces for whatever domesticated plants they, feel necessary for food.

Remember that Thanksgiving story, about how all these scurvy ridden pilgrims who drank pine needle tea, thanks to the indigenous knowledge? Why are we still shipping citrus?

Lastly, understanding the anti-civ movement, you have to remember, that it's a massive critique. A critique that examines our motives and actions. The actions that cause us to overlook weeds (natural undomesticated plants that grow like crazy), and whatever else has been here forever, so we can live comfortably according to business models (including capital as represented by anarcho-syndicalism) at the expense of nature and ultimately our fellow humans.

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