|
|
Post by LWJ2009 on May 25, 2014 12:07:44 GMT
I think this is a fairly important question because it does tend to determine what kind of skills and preps one makes. Personally I plan for a 2-3 month disaster or civil unrest type of scenario. Massive flood in our area, cyber war with China, limited outbreak of the undead etc. This in turn makes me not very interested in certain areas that were focused on at the old place. Farming wen it is 40 below zero, or trying to grow crops without irrigation is a no go out here. I focus more on stockpiling, hunting, bartering or scavenging for what we would need. So what situations do you guys really prep for?
|
|
|
|
Post by Frank Lee DeRainged on May 25, 2014 12:51:12 GMT
I've been thinking in terms of the catastrophic collapse of our 'civilization' for a long while now. The domino-effect, properly termed 'cascade-effect' where something sub critical knocks out something more important and the effect grows until it reaches a tipping point beyond which, its not stoppable and it's not coming back!
It hinges on 'complexity' and resilience. just how complicated things our society relies on have become and how much flexibility our 'vital' systems are capable of. This is a judgement call and for me the answer is Very Very Complex and less flexible or resilient every day! And we're driving the complex systems flat out, all of the time. There have been a couple of (under-reported) close calls in the last couple of years. Such as the fire that destroyed a small chemical plant in southern Germany which just happened to make 90% of a certain chemical used in ALL modern motorcars. Consequence, the entire world production of motor cars was less than a week away from shutting down and laying off millions of workers worldwide...
All because of a fire in a plant in Germany. This is Russian Roulette on a global scale and you can only pull that trigger so often.
|
|
|
|
Post by LWJ2009 on May 25, 2014 13:26:49 GMT
So in a nutshell since things are ever more complicated, if a
few key things get broken then it is all downhill from the on? What about the more homogenous types of society though? I can see your point working perfectly in a diverse society with little in the way of the social glue that holds them toegther. However I think certain groups would be able to adapt, improvise and overcome.
|
|
|
|
Post by Frank Lee DeRainged on May 25, 2014 13:53:45 GMT
It 'seems' to me that the human race at this precise moment in time, has billions of people utterly dependent on nested sets of 'complex systems'. Should those systems fail the mega-cities (pop > 10 mil) will be lost in less than a week flat and at minimum, millions will die! 'Three square meals away from anarchy' ringing any bells?
We have bet the safety of the majority of the species on our ability to manage complex systems. An that's ok but we then handed the management over to lowest cost bidders to run and that's a fucking disaster waiting to happen!
Just my opinion... lets hope I'm wrong...
|
|
|
|
Post by LWJ2009 on May 25, 2014 14:08:18 GMT
I know what your taking about. I live in a state about the size of former West Germany with a population of
less than 600,000. Being a prepper is easy here because most of the natives are to some degree or another. The big worry would be all the DP's from Colorado. So how long do you think China and India would last then?
|
|
|
|
Post by Frank Lee DeRainged on May 25, 2014 14:21:22 GMT
Couldn't say I have a (very) little experience of North Africa and the near-Middle East but I know Europe rather well and the prognosis is not good for this crowded, ancient and complicated sub-continent. Not all bad though, one thing Europe has going for her is astounding diversity (though being eroded and homogenized at a rate of knots).
But I've dug up an article I wrote for a London Magazine that (attempts) to explain my view of the whole complexity-thing. I'll try to post it here, feel free to discuss, ignore, disagree or ridicule it as you see fit
|
|
|
|
Post by Frank Lee DeRainged on May 25, 2014 14:23:11 GMT
The new age of magic
Type the word 'sufficiently' into my goggle home page and the second of auto-complete suggestions is;
"To the primitive mind, any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic"
This is Clarke's 3rd law. And I'm finding that interesting because while I'm averagely competent with computers I don't actually know how it does that.
So Clarke ( Arthur C ) postulates advanced technologies would seem astonishing and I'm postulating if we are not astonished by the astonishing and advanced tech that's bringing these words into your screen then the problem isn't with Clarke's 3rd law, it's with us.
Know what your going to say here, 'Primitive mind' is the conditional and we are not primitives, right? Well. . . That hardly bears too close a scrutiny does it. Let's just say that we are not as advanced as the lies, which we put so much energy into telling one another, would lead us to believe, and leave it at that for now.
It's our relationship with the technology I'm interested in here, the systems and the complexity of those systems which exceeds any humans ability to understand it in totality. Mobile phones are as good example as we need. Handset made from plastics, metals, rare earths. making batteries, microchips, sensors (buttons, microphone camera and touch-screen) coils, terminals, etc. All very complex and I suggest a top engineer could get his head around it all, and there may be thousands of such talented people in the world now. maybe many thousands but a lot less than the nigh on seven billion of the world population.
And of course that's without the code, because without code the mobile phone is just a slick paperweight. Care to guess how many people could develop a code, operating system, basic applications (just the basics) the system to manage the battery and the screen etc etc. Well no one does that, no 'one'. Entire teams develop the code that runs behind the screen on the mobile in your pocket, and they mostly build on existing systems. But lets suppose there are some really really bright gifted coders who could write all of the code if they wanted to. I'd bet that would be a very small proportion out of 6,700,000,000 people.
And then there is the network, without which your mobile is just a pocket watch/address book/camera and so on. Networks made from antenna masts connected to routers (big ones but just routers) controlled by some pretty large computers and managed by entire teams of I.T. specialists. And I'd reckon any bright engineer could whip one of the rack mounted blade router boards from the little shed thing beneath a mobile phone mast open and understand/reproduce one. And again, much less so the code.
But that's just the physical 'bits' of the network which would also have to include thousands of personnel (and their computers) the sales teams, marketing, research and development, project planning and ever ascending layers of management. So the mobile phone in pocket is the pointy end of a vast and unbelievably complex system.
And that's just the phone. . . Care to try the computer your reading this on. or how about that modern motor car parked outside. Or your supermarket with its pears from Argentina and strawberries from Israel. Or any of the systems that keep you alive, allow you to work or maintain your life with as much understanding on your part as a Roman farm worker had of global weather patterns.
Still certain we are not primitives?
The history of technology is fascinating to me and humans have been extending their capacity with technology for thousands of years and for most of that time it took about five years to train a new magician. The word magician in this case signifies a artisan who worked with a technology that was occult to non members of the guild, trade or whatever. Blacksmiths for instance were perceived as quasi magical for their knowledge for most of human history, Architects that could direct the construction of a soaring Gothic cathedral didn't explain the secrets of the masons art to anyone who was interested, only guild members and indentured apprentices.
But here's the biggie! At some point during the last forty years we left that model and made a world where the only thing five years of study will get you, is to be five years out of date. This is because the workface of technological evolution is advancing faster than our ability to teach, learn or assimilate it and what I'm suggesting is that not only makes us all into primitives but makes the tech indistinguishable from magic.
But the 'magic' metaphor goes further. There are other aspects to magic, consider incantations. An enchantment is a charm or spell created using words, it may be used with the intention of casting a spell on an object or a person. So that would be like writing a computer code then? A line of code that could effect a computer or the machine it controls such as a car factory or a cash point (ATM) A line of code like a computer virus would be different from a magic spell/curse how exactly?
Then there is 'true names' in this new age of magic. According to practises in folklore, knowledge of a true name allows one to magically affect a person or being. And anyone who cares to dispute this particular point is welcome to send me their full name, date of birth, town of birth and social security number and just see what happens when I pass that information on to friends who would be described in the popular press as 'computer wizards' or Hackers.
Finally William S Boroughs or possibly Alan Ginsburg said digital systems will result in slavery of mankind or he (one of them) may have said computers will result in slavery. Or it may have been the end of mankind . . . .
My actual point here is I don't recall enough of the quote for my search engine to pick it up.
And my search engine is where a substantial portion of my memory effectively resides these days.
The search engine that I do not understand. . . .Oh dear.
Welcome to the new age of magic. |
|
|
|
Post by LWJ2009 on May 25, 2014 14:59:11 GMT
I agree, I can't even figure out how to program my damn tv anymore. My latest little purchase is a very refined low tech solution to combat optics. No batteries required with the ACOG. So do you spend more on low tech for your preps or do you personally go for the new complicated technology?
|
|
|
|
Post by Frank Lee DeRainged on May 25, 2014 15:17:01 GMT
I agree, I can't even figure out how to program my damn tv anymore. My latest little purchase is a very refined low tech solution to combat optics. No batteries required with the ACOG. So do you spend more on low tech for your preps or do you personally go for the new complicated technology? So how does that ACOG stuff work in for instance extreme cold when batteries no longer function. Pardon my 'extreme' ignorance the only place I've used an ACOG is in the fallout games where you don't have to maintain them  but remembering walking round London's Portabello during a cold snap a couple of winters ago an all the traders who'd been there since 4am are all shaking their mobile phones trying to work out why they'd stopped... Just how to they work without power? |
|
|
|
Post by LWJ2009 on May 25, 2014 15:28:49 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Frank Lee DeRainged on May 25, 2014 16:32:26 GMT
Ha, I'm not sure I describe something that was produced in a fission reactor 'low tech' but I see where your coming from. I'm a big fan of 'keep it simple' myself. But 12 to 15 year half-life.. I've only ever heard of one battery that would do that - and it was a miniature nuclear pile some nutcase cobbled together. So probably not the sort of thing you'd want around in a crisis situation.
|
|
|
|
Post by LWJ2009 on May 25, 2014 18:06:01 GMT
Nope, but the ACOG or at least the version I ordered should last quite a long while. I don't do the GPS systems etc. Nice to have now, but a crutch when everything goes tits up. Same thing with the Electronic books, great to store all your survival reading, until the battery dies.
|
|
|
|
Post by MajorDamage on May 25, 2014 19:12:58 GMT
Frank, back in the late 80s/early 90s, tritium sights were introduced and fairly expensive. That is, until some small company figured out that tritium is like one of the most abundant elements around and proceeded to undercut all the 'big boys' so the price dropped and became common (at least in a first world country like AMERICA).
anything advertised as 'night sights' or 'low-light' is tritium based
as to the topic: prior to moving to Kentucky (God's country), I was focused on surviving a high-pop density melt-down where I would be shooting non-stop for two weeks. I had resources to last 30-45 days easily and with the high body count, probably could scavenge another 45 days worth w/in a 5 mi radius.
As my current ammo supply exceeds the local populace by a healthy margin, I am now concerned with longer term survival. I need to establish the proper relationships for that.
|
|
|
|
Post by LWJ2009 on May 25, 2014 19:18:09 GMT
So how do the locals feel about you MD? I assume your going to work on more food/water/power generation preps?
|
|
|
|
Post by SlowRide on May 26, 2014 1:28:13 GMT
I prep for the same type of political/government collapse and breakdowns in society as LDub mentioned and I like to be prepared combat wise in the same manner in which MD is...although my ammo count does not currently exceed the population of the greater Seattle area, it certainly outweighs my local population by about 4 to 1.
|
|
but remembering walking round London's Portabello during a cold snap a couple of winters ago an all the traders who'd been there since 4am are all shaking their mobile phones trying to work out why they'd stopped... Just how to they work without power?
