Good stuff, Michael, and so necessaary. I am very grateful for the years when I was very poor. A mantra from that time: Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!
All collapse-aware people are eventually forced to confront the reality that they can't wake enough people up, and so the only remaining path is a lonely one.
Love the coffee story. I make sure to allow myself some misanthropy - there truly are many people who deserve everything they're gonna get.
It's hard to predict how anyone, myself included, will react to various stressors infinitely more serious than that. I have two main issues with prepping:
1) I'm not sure if I'd want to be alive any more in a sufficiently collapsing world. I reckon I'd be too depressed.
2) I'm not sure how preppers can handle being beset upon by hordes of people wanting into their little commune. What's the plan here, when thousands of cars drive into your remote, self-sufficient area?
But then, I'm more of an inwards- than outwards-journey type. Also, my depression lingers; I am full of respect for people strong enough to take action.
Staying alive is the big question. There was a great article on Collapse 2050 about people with exit strategies. I guess we have to wait and see who we'll become.
I would like to have a front row seat as well. It would be good for a few laughs. But mostly, I think of these people as the ones who will die out first as all of the comforts they take for granted disappear. They will have no clue on how to survive and will either sit down and die or, the most likely scenario, be killed by those who do have a sense of survival and are not afraid to kill others for their resources. I don't plan to hang around to watch the chaos unfold. I will be headed for the hills to get as far away from the humans as possible if I am still around when the collapse occurs.
A lot of folks will be heading to the hills, I would imagine. And a lot of those hills are going to be decimated by wildfires and drought and invasive insect blight. Then there are the many poisoned watersheds to contend with, and possibly sick and diseased wildlife and land as microplastics pollution and forever chemicals take their grim toll. I am just ruminating on collapse scenarios involving wilderness areas here based on your comment. How does one keep enough ammo to defend one’s hill shelter/basecamp, once established?
Any measures that you take are just interim and will only serve to keep you alive a little longer if that's what you want. You have just about covered the bases.
I was just about to say this. I guess collapse is already in motion and though it’s accelerating, life continues as usual for many. A sudden increase in temperature from ch4 release or something, wouldn’t be such a bad ending.
One learns all of the chemistry to make the ammo, or one downgrades to things like crossbows and compressed gas guns and baseball bats. Making black powder is pretty easy if you have access to potassium nitrate (involved to make), charcoal (easy to make), and sulfur (find it or chemically react a sulfur compound to isolate it, so involved to make). Making modern nitrocellulose gun powders is even more involved, requiring concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids. Making the primers gets even uglier. It's not impossible, but your little enclave will definitely require a chemist! I think compressed gas guns could be an interesting intermediate because you only have to make the projectile, after making the gun or adapting an existing gun. It's gonna be a wild ride!
My thought is learning how to make bows and arrows would be a good idea. The materials are literally all around us. Bats, clubs, have their uses, but good archery set is perfect for long distance defense.
I would recommend crossbows, and not just because they look cool on the walking dead. I've engaged in a fair bit of archery, from the little kids red rider twang twang, all the way up to fancy compound bows with sights and counterbalance weights. Compared to a crossbow, they all suck, and they take enormous amounts of practice before you can consistently hit anything. Almost anyone can be hitting their targets, or getting really close, within minutes of picking up a crossbow. Making a stock and trigger mechanism is well worth the effort IMO. Cheers!
Thank you for the info. I didn't realize that. My biggest problem with crossbows is the strength needed to cock one. I'm an old guy. I do appreciate the effect on someone to suddenly have a bolt stick in an object right next to them from nowhere. 🤔
Back to Basics by Abigail Gettering is a good resource, too. It would be a good help to those who want to learn gardening, carpentry, canning, etc. It's basically a guide on how to live in the 1800s whether you shelter in place or head out.
I'd suggest the book "Deep Survival" by Gonzales. Some valuable and unexpected takeaways in there.
I totally agree with you/them that it is time to move on from hackneyed narratives involving potential solutions to that for which the only solution, according to the math, the physics - the science - IS collapse. It's inevitable and already begun. I'd also add, work on your own head - become comfortable with the idea of your own premature death, for instance. Don't court it, don't give in to it, don't be hamstrung by it, but don't be in terror of it either. It's a strong possibility.
As far as book recommendations, I would suggest the "Hardy Boys" books. They're simple and written for kids, but they cover a lot of stuff like making a solar still, making fire with different methods, signal mirrors, constructing leantoos, etc. When my brother and I were about 10 years old, we devoured them, and we tried to master all the skills. We even occasionally succeeded with friction fire. Friction Fire is MUCH harder to do than it looks! Try to do it before you need to do it. The other books I would recommend are the Tom Brown books. This guy, as an experiment, walked into the woods naked, and a year later walked out wearing deerskin clothes and weighing more than when he walked in. That one triggers my inner skeptic, but the books are good.
Thank you for your careful thoughts. My guess is that there are too many existential risks to prepare for. Honestly, while one prepare for ten thousand possibilities, another one will tip one over.
I am 66 now. I thought about prepping when I was in my 20’s and realized that while prepping might be fine, the ecological collapse we have been preparing for ourselves will render the odds for individual survival to be about the same for all.
My sense is that prepping is good if it makes you feel better. But living in loving relationship with earth, our more-than-human, and our human relatives - that is what brings the real satisfaction in life.
Today we are well- into the Apocalypse and also the new Golden Age. Our work is to love and reduce suffering as best as we can.
If preparing for the future is on your mind, I encourage you to do so with a beloved community.
We are here to love: only love - nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else.
I'm about the same age as you are, Gary. I figure doing some prepping can't hurt. One could make it through a local disaster that way. Think tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, etc.
I hate to say it, but I recently bought a semi-automatic handgun and lessons for the first time in my life. (I've got long guns already). I also have a few other nasties, if needed. It's sad and frightening to have to think this way, but needs must. My thought is to be such a porcupine so I'm too much of a problem to attack.
Good stuff, Michael, and so necessaary. I am very grateful for the years when I was very poor. A mantra from that time: Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!
I like that mantra.
America, “we just don't care”.
All collapse-aware people are eventually forced to confront the reality that they can't wake enough people up, and so the only remaining path is a lonely one.
Love the coffee story. I make sure to allow myself some misanthropy - there truly are many people who deserve everything they're gonna get.
It's hard to predict how anyone, myself included, will react to various stressors infinitely more serious than that. I have two main issues with prepping:
1) I'm not sure if I'd want to be alive any more in a sufficiently collapsing world. I reckon I'd be too depressed.
2) I'm not sure how preppers can handle being beset upon by hordes of people wanting into their little commune. What's the plan here, when thousands of cars drive into your remote, self-sufficient area?
But then, I'm more of an inwards- than outwards-journey type. Also, my depression lingers; I am full of respect for people strong enough to take action.
Staying alive is the big question. There was a great article on Collapse 2050 about people with exit strategies. I guess we have to wait and see who we'll become.
https://www.collapse2050.com/the-doomer-exit-strategy/
I would like to have a front row seat as well. It would be good for a few laughs. But mostly, I think of these people as the ones who will die out first as all of the comforts they take for granted disappear. They will have no clue on how to survive and will either sit down and die or, the most likely scenario, be killed by those who do have a sense of survival and are not afraid to kill others for their resources. I don't plan to hang around to watch the chaos unfold. I will be headed for the hills to get as far away from the humans as possible if I am still around when the collapse occurs.
Can't get far enough away from humans in my opinion.
A lot of folks will be heading to the hills, I would imagine. And a lot of those hills are going to be decimated by wildfires and drought and invasive insect blight. Then there are the many poisoned watersheds to contend with, and possibly sick and diseased wildlife and land as microplastics pollution and forever chemicals take their grim toll. I am just ruminating on collapse scenarios involving wilderness areas here based on your comment. How does one keep enough ammo to defend one’s hill shelter/basecamp, once established?
Any measures that you take are just interim and will only serve to keep you alive a little longer if that's what you want. You have just about covered the bases.
I was just about to say this. I guess collapse is already in motion and though it’s accelerating, life continues as usual for many. A sudden increase in temperature from ch4 release or something, wouldn’t be such a bad ending.
One learns all of the chemistry to make the ammo, or one downgrades to things like crossbows and compressed gas guns and baseball bats. Making black powder is pretty easy if you have access to potassium nitrate (involved to make), charcoal (easy to make), and sulfur (find it or chemically react a sulfur compound to isolate it, so involved to make). Making modern nitrocellulose gun powders is even more involved, requiring concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids. Making the primers gets even uglier. It's not impossible, but your little enclave will definitely require a chemist! I think compressed gas guns could be an interesting intermediate because you only have to make the projectile, after making the gun or adapting an existing gun. It's gonna be a wild ride!
Buy your tickets early because there will be a lot of people getting on.
My thought is learning how to make bows and arrows would be a good idea. The materials are literally all around us. Bats, clubs, have their uses, but good archery set is perfect for long distance defense.
I would recommend crossbows, and not just because they look cool on the walking dead. I've engaged in a fair bit of archery, from the little kids red rider twang twang, all the way up to fancy compound bows with sights and counterbalance weights. Compared to a crossbow, they all suck, and they take enormous amounts of practice before you can consistently hit anything. Almost anyone can be hitting their targets, or getting really close, within minutes of picking up a crossbow. Making a stock and trigger mechanism is well worth the effort IMO. Cheers!
Thank you for the info. I didn't realize that. My biggest problem with crossbows is the strength needed to cock one. I'm an old guy. I do appreciate the effect on someone to suddenly have a bolt stick in an object right next to them from nowhere. 🤔
A few books (of many) that may come in quite handy:
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, Carla Emery
When Technology Fails, Matthew Stein
The Complete Foxfire Set
The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It, John Seymour
The New Way Things Work, David Macaulay and Neil Ardley
Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual, Bill Mollison
The New Organic Grower, Eliot Coleman
Enjoy!
Thanks for the list.
Great list! Really glad you mentioned the Foxfire series.
Back to Basics by Abigail Gettering is a good resource, too. It would be a good help to those who want to learn gardening, carpentry, canning, etc. It's basically a guide on how to live in the 1800s whether you shelter in place or head out.
I'd suggest the book "Deep Survival" by Gonzales. Some valuable and unexpected takeaways in there.
I totally agree with you/them that it is time to move on from hackneyed narratives involving potential solutions to that for which the only solution, according to the math, the physics - the science - IS collapse. It's inevitable and already begun. I'd also add, work on your own head - become comfortable with the idea of your own premature death, for instance. Don't court it, don't give in to it, don't be hamstrung by it, but don't be in terror of it either. It's a strong possibility.
Well Said!!
As far as book recommendations, I would suggest the "Hardy Boys" books. They're simple and written for kids, but they cover a lot of stuff like making a solar still, making fire with different methods, signal mirrors, constructing leantoos, etc. When my brother and I were about 10 years old, we devoured them, and we tried to master all the skills. We even occasionally succeeded with friction fire. Friction Fire is MUCH harder to do than it looks! Try to do it before you need to do it. The other books I would recommend are the Tom Brown books. This guy, as an experiment, walked into the woods naked, and a year later walked out wearing deerskin clothes and weighing more than when he walked in. That one triggers my inner skeptic, but the books are good.
Thank you Michael🙏
Fucking love this! #JustStop Disrupt. Disrupt. Disrupt!
Thank you.
Thank you for your careful thoughts. My guess is that there are too many existential risks to prepare for. Honestly, while one prepare for ten thousand possibilities, another one will tip one over.
I am 66 now. I thought about prepping when I was in my 20’s and realized that while prepping might be fine, the ecological collapse we have been preparing for ourselves will render the odds for individual survival to be about the same for all.
My sense is that prepping is good if it makes you feel better. But living in loving relationship with earth, our more-than-human, and our human relatives - that is what brings the real satisfaction in life.
Today we are well- into the Apocalypse and also the new Golden Age. Our work is to love and reduce suffering as best as we can.
If preparing for the future is on your mind, I encourage you to do so with a beloved community.
We are here to love: only love - nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else.
We cannot save the earth or ourselves.
All passes away.
The new is being born.
We can deeply savor the earth while we are here.
Best hopes for you on your path, friend!
I'm about the same age as you are, Gary. I figure doing some prepping can't hurt. One could make it through a local disaster that way. Think tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, etc.
I hate to say it, but I recently bought a semi-automatic handgun and lessons for the first time in my life. (I've got long guns already). I also have a few other nasties, if needed. It's sad and frightening to have to think this way, but needs must. My thought is to be such a porcupine so I'm too much of a problem to attack.