I like your writings, they are realistic and yet do not soften the hard truths. I have always wanted to run away to the wilderness to live in a cabin off grid, since I was a teenager in the 60's. I never could manage to do it - everything costs money. Now I'm pretty old, but all my life I've been an avid backpacker and have mentally prepared for the grid going down. I still don't have money, and I don't have the skills to become an electrician, but I am really good at doing without, and downsizing to whatever fits in a backpack.
People who say 'let's just live in communities' have no idea. I grew up in a commune in the late 70s. Believe me there is nothing easy about it. Systems of decision-making, attitudes to power, sensibilities about *everything* (ie food, animals, priorities...), make it extremely hard social work. And that's all before you try to raise kids,make mud bricks or broadbean curry.
I should qualify my comment by saying 'its not that we shouldn't try it'. Just be realistic about what it involves. Smaller, self-sustaining interconnected loci are definitely healthier and more resilient than the behemoth structures we currently under.
I work with humans. This is my day job. Number one problem in their life is the way they relate to their partner, the person they say they love. Living in community requires communication skills and spiritual maturity that very few people have, hence communities are often hell past the excitement of the early stages.
Yes! And intentional communities are, in truth, a microcosm of society. Most people are unskilled in what is needed to thrive - in community, whatever the structure. There's an awful lot of muddling through at the micro *and* macro levels of life! (Dear humans! 🥹)
I agree. I worked in two different worker cooperatives for several years, long enough to see the reality of it once the bloom was off the rose for me.
It can be done, it is sometimes very successful, but it’s hard. (And sometimes what does it in isn’t the fact that it’s cooperative in and of itself but that it’s also trying to run a business. Taking those cooperative values and trying to lay them over a capitalist framework doesn’t always gel…and then the creative solutions needed are completely dependent on everyone’s ability to communicate , etc. )
Very informative, Jessica. I hadn't heard about the famine road projects and the other senseless exercise of power over starving people in history. I like your advice to learn to repair things and pick up many new skills. That has been a part of my life since I was a child.
I can definitely see a future where people attempt to create autonomous zones to avoid the tax/debt while growing food (ideally underground/hidden style) but the govt will basically spend its last energy ferreting them out and destroying them. We are at the point of structural violence with drones, robot attack dogs and ai automated taxes that only a few ppl need to run it. So ultimately I would expand on your premise even further given this extraordinary power- famine follies? Yes, massive labor camps....plus famine abbatoirs. I think our govt is closer to the British in India version...
Reporting as of today is that the SPR is being drawn down faster than expected and could run dry July 4 still. I don’t believe the quoted authors assertion this means instant famine, but the war isn’t over and this could definitely get worse before it gets better. Personally I subscribe to your more measured philosophy of preparedness over the histrionic voices out there.
Reading his post yesterday, I was amused that while calling off the collapse, he still insisted his predictions were completely accurate.
Reminded me of an incident some years ago. Some low-echelon TV preacher (I forget which) built a pop-up mini-cult by prophesying the precise, IMMINENT date for The End of Days. When the time came and went, of course reporters asked him what “went wrong”. Absolutely nothing, he calmly insisted. God destroyed the entire universe at the exact moment the preacher foretold: it wasn’t his fault that Satan keeps convincing us otherwise.
So won’t be at all surprised if some Substackers insist that we did all die from famine and empty tanks in July, but are too selfish, stubborn and stupid to admit it.
Thanks for this article. Re skill building. I’m part of a small community group that is focusing on the skills to adapt through collapse. I am a nurse by trade - infrequently these days - but it is still within a high tech, complex system, heavily focussed on surgical/pharma. Even in remote places, practical hands on nursing is still tech heavy. I’m shifting my focus to traditional, preventative modalities such as Ayurveda, working with seasonal, nutrition, traditional herbal medicines through foraging. Not to say nursing won’t be useful, but an elevation of traditional health and healing practices (use what’s available to us) is also valuable as a practical measure.
Grocery prices are going to be super high starting winter/next spring. Not a famine but food insecurity is already a big problem here in the US. There will be famine elsewhere. Especially is El Niño is above average this summer.
Now that is an amazing article, filled with calm and responsibility. Bravo Jessica. You've done it again.
About collapse and death. I like to remind my clients that anyone alive today on the planet will be dead in one hundred years. Collapse or not collapse. The difference will be in one scenario our kids will go on, in another they wont'. But for ourselves, sitting with our mortality is always good preparation, because (sorry spoiler alert), but it is coming your way no matter what.
The other part I wanted to share here is that I have lived in many collapse situation, countries at war, famine, desertification, poverty, injustice etc. And what stroke me the most in my first years is how life goes on barely a mile from the front line. It shocked me at first and then I asked myself: what else could happen? I remember a mission in Yugoslavia when I would sleep in a comfy hotel in Belgrade at night and drive on the highway for an hour to the front line in a rented car. The juxtaposition between normality and collapse is what we will experience. Other scenarios belong to Hollywood.
Because what many people in the rich western countries have not fully comprehended yet is that collapse has been happening for a long time, in other countries far away, but you would not know even with the Discovery Channel. So what people are really freaking out instead is not collapse coming, it has been here for a while, it is the end of the privileges that keeps us separated from collapse.
To go back to your point Jessica. I lived in Africa for many years, where people make shoes with old tires, tea sets with recycle food can and learn how to grab power from electric lines even when you can't afford to be connected. In such places, life has adapted. I lived in Nepal for years, we had electricity 4h a day. No gas at the pump for months. People went to work walking. No one complained.
In fact I believe that the best prepper plan is not to stack up cans of mac&cheese in the basement of your house. The best prep would be go to live in a country that has experienced these hardship for a long time. They already how to deal with such situations.
I had a friend, no longer living, who was farming in the Great Depression and then fought in WWII.
What he told me about collapse and governments surviving:
"It wasn't the banker who took people's farms. The banker would work with them.
"The tax man is the one who will take your farm."
You're absolutely right that government isn't going away.
Wise words.
I like your writings, they are realistic and yet do not soften the hard truths. I have always wanted to run away to the wilderness to live in a cabin off grid, since I was a teenager in the 60's. I never could manage to do it - everything costs money. Now I'm pretty old, but all my life I've been an avid backpacker and have mentally prepared for the grid going down. I still don't have money, and I don't have the skills to become an electrician, but I am really good at doing without, and downsizing to whatever fits in a backpack.
I'm glad. I try to be realistic but also honest. Learning to live with less is a major skill that more people need to practice.
People who say 'let's just live in communities' have no idea. I grew up in a commune in the late 70s. Believe me there is nothing easy about it. Systems of decision-making, attitudes to power, sensibilities about *everything* (ie food, animals, priorities...), make it extremely hard social work. And that's all before you try to raise kids,make mud bricks or broadbean curry.
Agreed. As I wrote the other week, it's hard. It's exhausting, and I wasn't even living in a commune, just organizing communities at my university.
I should qualify my comment by saying 'its not that we shouldn't try it'. Just be realistic about what it involves. Smaller, self-sustaining interconnected loci are definitely healthier and more resilient than the behemoth structures we currently under.
I work with humans. This is my day job. Number one problem in their life is the way they relate to their partner, the person they say they love. Living in community requires communication skills and spiritual maturity that very few people have, hence communities are often hell past the excitement of the early stages.
Yes! And intentional communities are, in truth, a microcosm of society. Most people are unskilled in what is needed to thrive - in community, whatever the structure. There's an awful lot of muddling through at the micro *and* macro levels of life! (Dear humans! 🥹)
it goes back to what Jessica is advocating for: learning the skills necessary to naviagte collapse. That include non-violent-communication...
I agree. I worked in two different worker cooperatives for several years, long enough to see the reality of it once the bloom was off the rose for me.
It can be done, it is sometimes very successful, but it’s hard. (And sometimes what does it in isn’t the fact that it’s cooperative in and of itself but that it’s also trying to run a business. Taking those cooperative values and trying to lay them over a capitalist framework doesn’t always gel…and then the creative solutions needed are completely dependent on everyone’s ability to communicate , etc. )
The one I grew up in lasted 45+ years. Longer than most, but at some cost to those who were part of its messy early years.
Maybe that’s what we will do instead of UBI — we will just build worthless shit.
Somewhere, a billionaire is nodding his head.
Very informative, Jessica. I hadn't heard about the famine road projects and the other senseless exercise of power over starving people in history. I like your advice to learn to repair things and pick up many new skills. That has been a part of my life since I was a child.
I can definitely see a future where people attempt to create autonomous zones to avoid the tax/debt while growing food (ideally underground/hidden style) but the govt will basically spend its last energy ferreting them out and destroying them. We are at the point of structural violence with drones, robot attack dogs and ai automated taxes that only a few ppl need to run it. So ultimately I would expand on your premise even further given this extraordinary power- famine follies? Yes, massive labor camps....plus famine abbatoirs. I think our govt is closer to the British in India version...
Great article, as usual.
The apocalypse is always arriving next Tuesday. Meanwhile, the garden still needs watering and the credit card company still wants its money.
Reporting as of today is that the SPR is being drawn down faster than expected and could run dry July 4 still. I don’t believe the quoted authors assertion this means instant famine, but the war isn’t over and this could definitely get worse before it gets better. Personally I subscribe to your more measured philosophy of preparedness over the histrionic voices out there.
Reading his post yesterday, I was amused that while calling off the collapse, he still insisted his predictions were completely accurate.
Reminded me of an incident some years ago. Some low-echelon TV preacher (I forget which) built a pop-up mini-cult by prophesying the precise, IMMINENT date for The End of Days. When the time came and went, of course reporters asked him what “went wrong”. Absolutely nothing, he calmly insisted. God destroyed the entire universe at the exact moment the preacher foretold: it wasn’t his fault that Satan keeps convincing us otherwise.
So won’t be at all surprised if some Substackers insist that we did all die from famine and empty tanks in July, but are too selfish, stubborn and stupid to admit it.
😂😂😂
Thanks for this article. Re skill building. I’m part of a small community group that is focusing on the skills to adapt through collapse. I am a nurse by trade - infrequently these days - but it is still within a high tech, complex system, heavily focussed on surgical/pharma. Even in remote places, practical hands on nursing is still tech heavy. I’m shifting my focus to traditional, preventative modalities such as Ayurveda, working with seasonal, nutrition, traditional herbal medicines through foraging. Not to say nursing won’t be useful, but an elevation of traditional health and healing practices (use what’s available to us) is also valuable as a practical measure.
Grocery prices are going to be super high starting winter/next spring. Not a famine but food insecurity is already a big problem here in the US. There will be famine elsewhere. Especially is El Niño is above average this summer.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is my favorite make work project. PS hoarding stainless steel acoustic bicycle parts.
Now that is an amazing article, filled with calm and responsibility. Bravo Jessica. You've done it again.
About collapse and death. I like to remind my clients that anyone alive today on the planet will be dead in one hundred years. Collapse or not collapse. The difference will be in one scenario our kids will go on, in another they wont'. But for ourselves, sitting with our mortality is always good preparation, because (sorry spoiler alert), but it is coming your way no matter what.
The other part I wanted to share here is that I have lived in many collapse situation, countries at war, famine, desertification, poverty, injustice etc. And what stroke me the most in my first years is how life goes on barely a mile from the front line. It shocked me at first and then I asked myself: what else could happen? I remember a mission in Yugoslavia when I would sleep in a comfy hotel in Belgrade at night and drive on the highway for an hour to the front line in a rented car. The juxtaposition between normality and collapse is what we will experience. Other scenarios belong to Hollywood.
Because what many people in the rich western countries have not fully comprehended yet is that collapse has been happening for a long time, in other countries far away, but you would not know even with the Discovery Channel. So what people are really freaking out instead is not collapse coming, it has been here for a while, it is the end of the privileges that keeps us separated from collapse.
To go back to your point Jessica. I lived in Africa for many years, where people make shoes with old tires, tea sets with recycle food can and learn how to grab power from electric lines even when you can't afford to be connected. In such places, life has adapted. I lived in Nepal for years, we had electricity 4h a day. No gas at the pump for months. People went to work walking. No one complained.
In fact I believe that the best prepper plan is not to stack up cans of mac&cheese in the basement of your house. The best prep would be go to live in a country that has experienced these hardship for a long time. They already how to deal with such situations.
Love