Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

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chenda
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by chenda »

fiby41 wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 11:48 am
There was a famine every ~11 years during the 129 years of British occupation so present is certainly better..
Fiby has there been any tendency for Indians to start moving or investing in more climately resilient areas, like the north or upland areas ? Anecdotally I've heard many middle class indians have relocated to rural areas from the cities.

Campitor
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Campitor »

unemployable wrote:
Sat Dec 12, 2020 12:39 am
Assuming you have freedom of movement. And a functional road network. And a supply of energy to power said vehicle (reminder: the electricity in an electric vehicle still has to come from somewhere) and a way to pay for said energy.
Mobility is probably one of the core tenets of survival along with fire, food, water, and shelter. Obviously if roads and gas are an issue for whatever reason, other adaptive means of mobility will need to be tried like walking, horse/donkeys/dogs + wagon, or a bicycle and trailer (people have biked across the Sahara with a trailer).

However I don't see our generation enduring any Mad-Max scenarios. Our biggest enemy will be the environment. Having a home on wheels to escape floods, catastrophic tornadoes, wild fires, and blizzards seems like a great idea. Being able to drive out of harms way at a moments notice while bringing along shelter/fire/water/food seems like a hedge worth betting on. And you can buy a home on wheels that can handle off road conditions. People do it now. If we get to the point where gas/roads/money/travel is a problem, then home mobility will be replaced by earthen berms, kill zones, community fortifications, guns and ammo, bug out bags, and hidden bunkers.
unemployable wrote:
Sat Dec 12, 2020 12:39 am
Mountainous areas always and everywhere get more precipitation than surrounding lowlands, and hold more moisture due to colder temperatures, correct? Is there an exception to this anywhere on earth? Certainly nowhere in North America I can think of.
They do but in a world of increased temperatures will the mountains that are habitable still produce the same volume of water runoff? Increased winds may blow the precipitation right up one side of the mountain and dump it farther afield and make a once lush valley a desert. Or the reverse can happen, a mountain may have higher than normal precipitation which leads to avalanches and spring flooding. Being able to drive your home away from blizzards and flooding by rotating elevations at the appropriate time would be awesome.
ertyu wrote:
Sat Dec 12, 2020 3:18 am
Your first constraint to mobility is actually citizenship. You're used to thinking that it doesn't apply to you, that it's for keeping other people out. You're also used to "residence" not being something that limits your mobility within your own country.(*) But you shouldn't take this for granted. Mobility isn't necessarily as easy as "I've got wheels," especially when the major question of the climate wars will be, "how do we keep 9 billion people from all trying to move to Russia and Canada"

(*) You = americans
Everyone will be moving around to avoid extreme weather events and their effects. Having dual citizenship could be beneficial unless the target destination locks down their borders to protect their resources. And very few countries outside of the super powers have the ability to lock out their borders effectively against a mass migration event (1million+). So I imagine being in the USA will probably be as good as it gets versus being in Europe or Asia especially since we're basically NATO. Canada has 39 million people and the USA has 331 million. We can probably feed our combined population of 370 million with whatever farm land we have left. The US is already wargaming climate induced scenarios.

In summary - there will be nowhere to go to - most likely you'll be stuck in whatever country you're in. If climate change is a worry, it's best to move to the target destination before international borders close. In regards to in-country mobility, you only have to move out of immediate harms way which may not require cross state travel.

J_
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by J_ »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 10:13 am
@J:

How long do you have to bicycle in order to charge your batteries?
If I have a generator-bicycle-run of an hour {charging my battery} I can play compact disks with music on my 12 V compact disk player, and have power enough on my single led light to read books on paper in the night... not every activity has to be producing products or food...

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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@J:

I agree that information, starting with lighting, is the best use of high quality energy in the form of electricity. That’s why I want to make a radio rather than something stupid like an electric toaster or can opener.

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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:15 pm
Smelting is obviously pretty core on the technology tree skills list.
And yet not easily available. I can take a piece of metal, turn some wood into charcoal, burn it in a furnace and hammer out a knife or a shovel. Smelting copper is pushing it (although aluminum and #2 plastic is doable) and I can forget about smelting steel w/o a blast furnace which is almost surely also beyond the "surplus" of a small community. That's not to mention the machinery and dies for drawing wire. Wire is thus something that has to come from the outside world. This means either someone has to store or scavenge it. If so, the supply is limited (not sustainable in the physical sense). Alternatively, the "remaining core of the empire" has to maintain tech-capacity to make enough to export something that's in high demand---this is the idea behind the potato-LEDs. I'm almost certain this idea does not involve building a semi-conductor plant to make them locally.

When I'm strategizing I'm thinking about a technology tree that's dying (decomposing if you will) rather than growing. The smelter sat at the trunk but the trunk is dead and all you have available is what's local to the branch you're sitting on. This also speaks to the importance of picking the right location. Methinks it's better to stay closer to the "remaining core of the empire" that go for remote/rural areas. Most local manufacturing capacity is pretty limited.

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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Campitor:

During the great plague in London, those who were smart enough to leave the city but too broke to afford countryside accommodations made do with tents. Nearby villagers provided them with food using extreme social distancing, basically just leaving food in a field. This is also how good from the countryside was provided to the markets of London. The farmers left it in field outside city.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@jacob:

According to the internet, wire was manufactured in antiquity by cutting strips off of sheet metal and manually drawing the strip through a perforation in a stone bead. Also, it seems like a lot of the hackers use aluminum foil. So, maybe I will have to have a crew of street urchins to dig through the dump under the sledding hill for me.

A lot of manufacturing in the U.S. is near to rural areas because the cities are now all about finance and tech operations and services and bureaucracy. Also, I like to think about living in a watershed rather than a city or rural township. Trade with nearby watersheds might also be quite easy. The Native Americans in my region regularly covered 100s of miles by foot or canoe.

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Alphaville
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Alphaville »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:47 pm
something stupid like an electric toaster
nuclear fusion toaster ftw

Image

Campitor
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Campitor »

Alphaville wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 3:55 pm
nuclear fusion toaster ftw
:lol: :lol: :lol:

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unemployable
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by unemployable »

Campitor wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:30 pm
Being able to drive out of harms way at a moments notice while bringing along shelter/fire/water/food seems like a hedge worth betting on. And you can buy a home on wheels that can handle off road conditions.
Well yeah, I already have.

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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by tonyedgecombe »

Jean wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 5:44 am
The country isn't safe now. Imagine how it will be when the CAF stops paying handout. Effective tax rate is arount 70%. You can go to prison for writing books or commenting on the internet. A huge part of the youth wants to apply Sharia Law.
OTOH in eastern Europe, you can walk home at night as a women nearly anywhere (so you're not affraid about what might happen to your wife or children), taxes are reasonable, you can create a company and make a living.
It's not big like the US, you can't really escape it by moving to another part of the country, so many french are enjoying the freedom of move that that EU allows, and move to estonia, or romania.
edit: I'm not even including the way France reacted to Covid, but that was a trigger for many, some literally filled their car and drove overnight to Prag without a complete plan.
On the other hand France has some of the lowest inequality in Europe and the delta is flat. It isn't particularly densly populated and is the only country in Europe that is self sufficient in food.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Alphaville:

I am adding large roll of aluminum foil to my core stash list.

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Alphaville
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Alphaville »

i like the costco sized rolls that are not only wider but also feature a thicker stronger foil.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I was buzzing about doing internet research about mining, recycling, and otherwise retrieving metals, and I came upon a professional looking article that stated that the term "ore"just means the easiest way to get that metal. So, if I owned 2 acres of land and I put 20 Costco rolls of aluminum foil, 500 feet of copper wire, and whatever jewelry I got off of old dog Calorie Kings and didn't have to pawn before I died into a rude cellar on that land, then that could be the "ore" my great-grand-daughter could "mine" in the post-collapse world.

Until I do buy some land (again), there is a limit to how much stash I can keep in my Smart Car bounded Modular Minimalist Model, but I am now thinking a roll of aluminum foil might be as core as a roll of duct tape. Of course, you never know what the next crisis might be. For instance, recently I wasn't prepared to deal with bed bugs, and one time when I was out in the semi-wilderness a propane heater melted the sole off of my boot and I wasn't prepared to deal with that.

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Alphaville
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Alphaville »

i'd also recommend gaffer tape over duct tape. it's pricier but stronger, stickier, and leaves little to no residue.

eta: also a small bottle of concentrated chlorine bleach for biohazards. this separate from first aid kit.
Last edited by Alphaville on Mon Dec 14, 2020 9:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

The Water Knife (recommended in a couple of other threads by Jacob) is a good fictional look at near future collapse. Some of the issues coming up here are covered. I thought it was a good read and gave me some things to think about.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Alphaville: Gotcha.

@GdP:

Good recommendation. The author also wrote “The Wind-Up Girl” from which I derived my use of the term Calorie King to describe the relatively affluent old men I date. In my model, Calorie Kings are kind of like the use of a computer in Jacob’s model, except it will be different stuff collapsing that will make them no longer available.

Campitor
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

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7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 2:52 pm
@Campitor:

During the great plague in London, those who were smart enough to leave the city but too broke to afford countryside accommodations made do with tents. Nearby villagers provided them with food using extreme social distancing, basically just leaving food in a field. This is also how good from the countryside was provided to the markets of London. The farmers left it in field outside city.
Being flexible and having a certain stoicism to changing circumstances is always a great survival bonus. Reminds me of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius as told by Pliny the younger. Everyone saw the eruption and many decided to wait it out as the ashes were falling. The smart ones left the city and many took to boats to escape the death that was coming.

chenda
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by chenda »

Campitor wrote:
Mon Dec 14, 2020 11:29 am
. Reminds me of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius as told by Pliny the younger. Everyone saw the eruption and many decided to wait it out as the ashes were falling. The smart ones left the city and many took to boats to escape the death that was coming.
Apparently Pliny was staying with his uncle at a villa across the bay and his uncle decided to go and see what the curious dark cloud over the city was. He asked his nephew if he wanted to go with him, and Pilny made the rather lame excuse he had homework to do, which saved his life as his uncle never came back.

Campitor
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Campitor »

chenda wrote:
Mon Dec 14, 2020 11:37 am
...and Pilny made the rather lame excuse he had homework to do, which saved his life as his uncle never came back.
Thank God for lame excuses. ;)

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