4 posts tagged “collapse”

So what are we to do in the meantime, while we wait for collapse, followed by good things? It's no use wasting your energy, running yourself ragged and ageing prematurely, so get plenty of rest, and try to live a slow and measured life. One of the ways industrial society dominates us is through the use of the factory whistle: few of us work in factories, but we are still expected to work a shift. If you can avoid doing that, you will be ahead. Maintain your freedom to decide what to do at each moment, so that you can do each thing at the most opportune time. Specifically try to give yourself as many options as you can, so that if any one thing doesn't seem to be working out, you can switch to another. The future is unpredictable, so try to plan so as to be able to change your plans at any time. Learn to ignore all the people who earn their money by telling you lies. Thanks to them, the world is full of very bad ideas that are accepted as conventional wisdom, so watch out for them and come to your own conclusions. Lastly, people who lack a sense of humour are going to be in for a very hard time, and can drag down those around them. Plus, they are just not that funny. So avoid people who aren't funny, and look for those who can laugh at the world no matter what happens.

Dmitri Orlov, Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation, talk June 16, 2009, Dublin

For those who believe that your survival probabilities and living standards during and after our

Societal Collapse will be optimized through some type of preparation, you might consider one of

the following strategies.

target.

• •- Educate Yourself: learn where and how to secure, produce, obtain, and/or create sufficient

life sustaining necessities—clean water, food, energy, shelter, and clothing—to last for the

remainder of your life, in the complete absence of any output from our industrial mosaic. The

upside to survival awareness is that you will be self-sufficient; the downside is that you will be

competing for dwindling supplies of remaining resources with 300+ million desperate and

hungry Americans—at least for the short term.

• -Store Provisions: stock sufficient life sustaining necessities to enable your survival for at

least several months. The upside to a resource storehouse is that it will provide a buffer

during the onset of difficult times; the downside is that some of the 300+ million desperate

and hungry Americans will almost certainly find you and your storehouse, and attempt to

remove its contents by force.

• -Arm Yourself: stockpile guns and other weapons in order to protect yourself from the 300+

million desperate and hungry Americans. The upside to armaments is that you will be able to

defend yourself; the downside is that you will eventually run out of bullets, encounter

somebody with a bigger gun, or sleep.

•- “Relocalize” into a Self-sufficient Community: this is the group living strategy employed

by those who expect a “fizz” type collapse and post-collapse scenario. The upside is that you

and your self-sufficient companions will be capable of obtaining and producing your life

sustaining necessities for an indefinite period of time; the downside is that those lacking such

capabilities will find you, and your community will be an easy.

• - Erect a Compound: this is the group living strategy employed by those who expect a “pop”

type collapse and post-collapse scenario. The upside is that you and your trustworthy

companions will be temporarily self-sufficient; the downside is that you will be subject to

attack both from the outside, by the 300+ million desperate and hungry Americans, and from

the inside, by your trustworthy companions.

•  -Stay Mobile: travel, scavenge, and maintain a low profile during the collapse until the initial

major die-off from thirst and starvation, which should occur within the first month or so in a

“pop” collapse scenario. The upside is that you will be a moving target, more difficult to hit

than a stationary target; the downside is that you may still succumb to the initial die-off, due

to a lack of sufficient remaining resources, or to the second major die-off resulting from

disease epidemics spread by initial die-off victims.

Cris Calston in On American Sustainability, Anatomy of a Societal Collapse, 2009

My remaining cause for hope is another consequence of the globalized modern world’s

interconnectedness. Past societies lacked archeologists and televison. While the Easter Islanders were busy deforesting the highlands of their overpopulated island for agricultural plantations in the 1400s, they had no way of knowing that, thousands miles to the east and west at the same time, Greenland Norse society and the Khmer Empire were simultaneously in terminal decline, while the Anasazi had collapsed a few centuries earlier, Classic Maya society a few more centuries before that, and Mycenean Greece 2,000 years before that. Today, though, we turn on our television sets or radios or pick up our newspaper, and we see, hear, or read about what happened in Somalia or Afghanistan a few hours earlier. Our television documentaries and books show us in graphic detail why the Easter Islanders, Classic Maya, and other past societies collapsed. Thus, we have the opportunity that no past society enjoyed to such a degree. My hope in writing this book has been that enough people will choose to profit from that opportunity to make a difference.

         Jared Diamond: Collapse – how societies choose to fail or succeed, 2005

There are then notes of optimism and pessimism in the current situation. We are in a curious position where competitive interactions force a level of investment, and a declining marginal return, that may ultimately lead to collapse except that the competitor who collapses first will simply be dominated or absorbed by the survivor. A respite from the threat of collapse might be granted thereby, although we may find that we will not like to bear its costs. If collapse is not in the immediate future, that is not to say that the industrial standard of living is also reprieved. As marginal returns decline (a process ongoing even now), up to the point where a new energy subsidy is in place, the standard of living that industrial societies have enjoyed will not grow so rapidly, and for some groups and nations may remain static or decline. The political conflicts that will cause, coupled with the increasingly easy availability of nuclear weapons, will create a dangerous world situation in the foreseeable future.

            Joseph A Tainter: The Collapse of Complex Societies, 1988