O.K., according to most people ... we live in the Digital / Information age.
Fair enough! As far as it goes.
But, what does this really mean? Basically, it boils down to the fact that our main product is digital information. In reality, this suggests that what we really produce IS ...... nothing substantial.
Does this make a difference? Well, yes it does.
How does one define a Stone Age? A general definition would be a civilisation which does not really build anything but uses 'found' items, like stones, with small modifications to create a 'tool'.
Does this sound familiar? No? When was the last time you 'made' anything? Do you have the skills to create 'anything' from scratch? (In this situation ... I mean 'really' from scratch ... not going to the shop and buying the ingredients/materials.)
Do you know ANYONE who can walk into the bush and come back with any sort of finished article?
Do you know anyone who can create, and operate, a forge to keep an area at 'iron age' standards?
Modern Man only uses the TOOLS that he can 'find' in his immediate environment to 'create' things. Sometimes this tool may be a power drill, chain saw, mobile phone, computer, or what-have-you, but they are still just 'stones' that have been 'found.' Someone else has converted these 'stones' into useful tools AND, to make it worse, once you take away the power for them ... they revert to being JUST stones again.
When this thing breaks ... we are back to the Stone Age, folks. Possibly to the Iron Age in some, localised, pockets but the general populace will be doing nothing but using tools / items that they have found. Once those are gone ... that's when the REAL trouble begins.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
A Quick Aside
O.K., unlike a lot of people, I do NOT believe that what is coming up will be either transient or localised. I will explain WHY I believe these things and that will also explain how, I think, this thing will be going down.
Whether oil supply collapses first or fiat currency collapses first really has no bearing on the matter at hand. WHY?? Because once one goes ... the other will be days, at most weeks, behind it in collapsing.
If oil supply collapses first, so that they cannot truck any food/supplies to your local area, then there will be nothing to buy with any money that you DO have.
If money collapses first, then you won't be able to afford anything that they do truck in, and they won't truck anything in anyway as the fuel to truck it would be too expensive.
Hence, it really doesn't matter which way around it happens because once either of them gets a foothold, the other will collapse without its support.
Let's understand this .... EVERYWHERE in the world relies on stuff trucked in from elsewhere. There is absolutely nowhere, except in some tiny muscle-powered rural communities, that will not have MAJOR impacts felt from the loss of contact with the outside world.
Have a quick look around your house and see how many things are trucked in from outside. Most food is produced a LONG way from wherever you are. Indeed a lot of it is grown/produced overseas. Your food is grown in another area, your water comes from somewhere else, your energy is produced outside your local area, your sewerage goes to another place to be processed,
What does any of this have to do with whether it will be transitory or localised?
The answer is quite simple. Transitory means that it will pass fairly quickly ... let's assume that up to 10 years is still classed as transitory. Our infrastructure has been built up over hundreds of years and, once it fails, it is going to take a long time to rebuild it. Maybe, not necessarily, as long as it took us to build it in the first time but it will be a LONG time. Once it collapses, it will also lose us a LOT of skills that are now reasonably common.
For example, engineers will not be able to build things without power and power tools. They aren't trained that way. Electricians will not be able to build things without electricity to run them. Builders will not be able to build without power and all of their materials trucked in from outside. All of the training that our current professionals have is geared to our current infrastructure ... this means that, without the infrastructure to support them, they will be as good as useless. After a LONG period of instability ... will any of those trained individuals still be alive? Old age, environmental factors, lack of skills use, will mean that there will be very few left with any sort of skills that can be used to build a NEW civilisation. This means that we will probably have to learn our way back up from whatever level we fall to.
Localised is also easy to refute. We have just established that, virtually, nowhere in the world can survive without outside help. This means that EVERY area that collapses will affect a great number of areas that rely on whatever they produce in that area. This will cause those areas to collapse which, in turn, will cause other areas to collapse. The domino, or snowball, effect WILL ensure that this collapse is NOT localised.
Sometimes the snowball effect can work in reverse as well. The fact that one area produces an item means that, if the places that it supplies those items to collapses, then the area will have no-one to sell to. It works in both directions. The lack of production can affect supplies to an area and the lack of markets to supply to can affect production. Remember this two way nature when trying to foresee what areas are going to affect which other areas.
Next, I'll take a quick look at what level I see as probable before I go onto where we can bug out to and then back on to food.
Whether oil supply collapses first or fiat currency collapses first really has no bearing on the matter at hand. WHY?? Because once one goes ... the other will be days, at most weeks, behind it in collapsing.
If oil supply collapses first, so that they cannot truck any food/supplies to your local area, then there will be nothing to buy with any money that you DO have.
If money collapses first, then you won't be able to afford anything that they do truck in, and they won't truck anything in anyway as the fuel to truck it would be too expensive.
Hence, it really doesn't matter which way around it happens because once either of them gets a foothold, the other will collapse without its support.
Let's understand this .... EVERYWHERE in the world relies on stuff trucked in from elsewhere. There is absolutely nowhere, except in some tiny muscle-powered rural communities, that will not have MAJOR impacts felt from the loss of contact with the outside world.
Have a quick look around your house and see how many things are trucked in from outside. Most food is produced a LONG way from wherever you are. Indeed a lot of it is grown/produced overseas. Your food is grown in another area, your water comes from somewhere else, your energy is produced outside your local area, your sewerage goes to another place to be processed,
What does any of this have to do with whether it will be transitory or localised?
The answer is quite simple. Transitory means that it will pass fairly quickly ... let's assume that up to 10 years is still classed as transitory. Our infrastructure has been built up over hundreds of years and, once it fails, it is going to take a long time to rebuild it. Maybe, not necessarily, as long as it took us to build it in the first time but it will be a LONG time. Once it collapses, it will also lose us a LOT of skills that are now reasonably common.
For example, engineers will not be able to build things without power and power tools. They aren't trained that way. Electricians will not be able to build things without electricity to run them. Builders will not be able to build without power and all of their materials trucked in from outside. All of the training that our current professionals have is geared to our current infrastructure ... this means that, without the infrastructure to support them, they will be as good as useless. After a LONG period of instability ... will any of those trained individuals still be alive? Old age, environmental factors, lack of skills use, will mean that there will be very few left with any sort of skills that can be used to build a NEW civilisation. This means that we will probably have to learn our way back up from whatever level we fall to.
Localised is also easy to refute. We have just established that, virtually, nowhere in the world can survive without outside help. This means that EVERY area that collapses will affect a great number of areas that rely on whatever they produce in that area. This will cause those areas to collapse which, in turn, will cause other areas to collapse. The domino, or snowball, effect WILL ensure that this collapse is NOT localised.
Sometimes the snowball effect can work in reverse as well. The fact that one area produces an item means that, if the places that it supplies those items to collapses, then the area will have no-one to sell to. It works in both directions. The lack of production can affect supplies to an area and the lack of markets to supply to can affect production. Remember this two way nature when trying to foresee what areas are going to affect which other areas.
Next, I'll take a quick look at what level I see as probable before I go onto where we can bug out to and then back on to food.
Energy Input vs Output
This post will be about energy but not in the form of batteries or oil. This is more to do with personal energy. Energy in a survival situation is based on the amount of food input versus the amount of energy burned to acquire that food. If you burn more energy to acquire the food than you get from the food then you are losing energy and not gaining. It does not matter how much food you are eating if you are burning more to gather it than you are ingesting. Long term, this means that you are losing and that can only equate to dying in the long run.
All of this means that you will have to use brains, more than brawn, to acquire your food. Things like trapping, tracking, and other low-energy alternatives are vital to survive long term. What you see in the movies where they chase down some animal, for food, is a losing proposition UNLESS the animal is big enough to supply a number of meals. ALWAYS, your main thought should be how much energy you are going to gain versus how much energy it is going to cost you.
I guess we should get on to what food you should be building up for what we know is coming. In the movies we see lots of times when the hero has a small warehouse full of canned food prepared for the coming TEOTWAWKI. This is great if you intend to bunker down and have food, water, and a VERY secure location. This does NOT apply to the vast majority of people. It is almost never acceptable to bunker down unless you have an extremely well prepared bunker. This is not really applicable to anyone living in a city as cities are, decidedly, not secure. Even if you were to have the most secure apartment in the world, with food and water for 10 years, how secure is it when someone can set the building alight underneath you.
I suppose we really need to get into the whole question of where we can situate ourselves before we get into a modus operandi for survival including food. Therefore, I think that we should come back to food after we have discussed where we are going to be situated.
All of this means that you will have to use brains, more than brawn, to acquire your food. Things like trapping, tracking, and other low-energy alternatives are vital to survive long term. What you see in the movies where they chase down some animal, for food, is a losing proposition UNLESS the animal is big enough to supply a number of meals. ALWAYS, your main thought should be how much energy you are going to gain versus how much energy it is going to cost you.
I guess we should get on to what food you should be building up for what we know is coming. In the movies we see lots of times when the hero has a small warehouse full of canned food prepared for the coming TEOTWAWKI. This is great if you intend to bunker down and have food, water, and a VERY secure location. This does NOT apply to the vast majority of people. It is almost never acceptable to bunker down unless you have an extremely well prepared bunker. This is not really applicable to anyone living in a city as cities are, decidedly, not secure. Even if you were to have the most secure apartment in the world, with food and water for 10 years, how secure is it when someone can set the building alight underneath you.
I suppose we really need to get into the whole question of where we can situate ourselves before we get into a modus operandi for survival including food. Therefore, I think that we should come back to food after we have discussed where we are going to be situated.
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