Political Chaos and ERE

[Mikeallison]

Times seem chaotic, and we are mirroring quite a few ugly historical parallels right now. I fear we're mimicing the 30's more than anything. Those damn communist and fascist are fighting in the streets again, uh oh. But it really does seem like it could go any damn direction, from balkanization to social revolution.

Is the financial side of ERE feasible to pursue with all this craziness going on? Should we depend upon a complex system that is under immense stress for our income? Or would a shift to devoting resources to stocking up, ala the prepper crowd be a good idea?

Self reliant skills are obviously super important for ERE all the time, more so now, so not really talking about that.

What are you guys doing? Do you think there is reason to be concerned? Or am I just paranoid?

[daylen]

Yes and no. Order has been maintained long enough that chaos is creeping in, but that does not mean that we should abandon the system for anarchy or some totalitarian regime (total chaos or total order). Mediation of chaos and order practiced at the individual level emerges balance at the social level.

You write as if we have a choice. Virtually everyone relies on the current system, and nearly everyone underestimates their inherent dependence on it. We are social animals; what is an ant without the colony?

[Mikeallison]

"You write as if we have a choice. Virtually everyone relies on the current system."

On the contrary, the system is far bigger than any individual, and I'm not looking forward to or happy about the prospect of it ending. I was merely curious what, if anything, people are doing to prepare for a possible different outcome, if it doesn't continue.

You write as if we have a choice on whether it keeps going or not. Do you really think you alone could stand in the way of change if we are headed the way of the Romans? Complex systems fail, this one is no different. Everything is subject to entropy and decay, and the current global system is showing signs of the terminal stage. Im not saying civilization ends, but change is messy and unpredictable, and we are in the middle of a big one.

There is nothing antisocial about recognizing that fact, examining how it could play out, and figuring out what you can do to get on as well as you can. Seems rational to me anyway. Better than sitting down and giving up, or putting your head in the sand at any rate.

[sky]

Low debt, ability to live frugally, minimal possessions to allow easier migration, sufficient resources to allow for relocation. ERE lifestyle gives you excellent survival opportunities.

[daylen]

What exactly is meant by complex systems fail? Failure is not equivalent to death. The Roman empire still lives on in a sense. We do have a choice in what is preserved from the current system to some extent. The boundaries between one civilization to another are fuzzy.

The idea of collapse has been discussed on this form for years.

[Mikeallison]

"The Roman empire still lives on in a sense."

Yes Eliot put it well when he said "We are all, so far as we inherit the civilization of Europe, still citizens of the Roman Empire..."

But I doubt you think people suffering a meager sustenance existence during dark ages, even though they inherited Roman tradition, thought things were great. The point being, they often change for the worse, and sometimes for a long time.

So when I say collapse I mean change for the worst. If you have the ability to read the room, so to speak, you can easily discern that change is afoot, and the dramatic sort, not the everyday variety. I was curious what other people thought about this, you think this is just another bump in the road, fair enough. I think it means something more.

"The idea of collapse has been discussed on this form for years"

Oh I'm sure it has, the idea of the apocalypse is a mythological archetype and people have been assuming the world will end since it began. This does not preclude a rational examination of the unique risks we face today, and what it means in terms of pursuing a passive income based on a system that is stressed by those factors.

I'm basically asking how resilient people think the system is and Why? I have my own conclusions, but it's good to hear other opinions. Thank you for yours.

[Campitor]

Is the financial side of ERE feasible to pursue with all this craziness going on? Should we depend upon a complex system that is under immense stress for our income? Or would a shift to devoting resources to stocking up, ala the prepper crowd be a good idea?

Self reliant skills are obviously super important for ERE all the time, more so now, so not really talking about that.

What are you guys doing? Do you think there is reason to be concerned? Or am I just paranoid?

Here the problem with "prepping", you're assuming that whatever chaos occurs, you'll be able to remain in place and subsist on whatever supplies you may have. You may need to abandon you're residence for various reasons. The only real prepping worth anything is in a community of preppers that can create overlapping circles of support and supplies - kind of like a fort in the wilderness. And even then you may not be able to remain in place.

I think we're no where near the above scenario (fort in the wilderness) and you're better off saving for your future. The end of the world warnings have been going on since forever; if it comes it comes. Meanwhile try to be the ant and not the grasshopper - save $$ for your future and learn survival skills.

[Mikeallison]

"I think we're no where near the above scenario (fort in the wilderness) and you're better off saving for your future. The end of the world warnings have been going on since forever; if it comes it comes. Meanwhile try to be the ant and not the grasshopper - save $$ for your future and learn survival skills."

Probably the most rational approach, and one I'm currently taking! I was originally sucked in by the gold bug/preppers thing. I still don't think they are totally wrong. The election especially scared me. I think it is because, unlike an external threat, like the cold war, or the gas crisis, this seems to be an internal crisis. My degree is in history, so I've read extensively about what happens when things fall apart in a country, and it is scary stuff, and it's not all ancient, the last century had some truly god awful stuff happen.

There seems to be this weird war going on for the soul of the country and half, doesn't just disagree, but hates the other half, and vice-versa. I see no dialogue, no consensus, and a total lack of compromise, and I can't help but think, god a democracy just can't function this way, how are we ever going to reconcile this when neither party has any interest in doing So? It feels broken.

But shit I'm trying to have faith. I have alot at stake in different traditional investments right now, but I also have emergency supplies and a small amount of bullion. Can't live in fear, I know, but I'm trying to walk with both eyes open too.

[wolf]

Besides living frugally, efficiently, ..., reducing waste, saving, investing, doing sound financical decisions, following ERE principles and living to them accordingly, ... I recently got into prepping.

So I bought "The Prepper's Blueprint" (which I can recommend). It adds some new perspectives into my current way of thinking. Prepping helps me to tackle life from the security side. (opposite to FI from the freedom side). So I started to learn more about prepping and "living a preparedness lifestyle" as the author calls it. At the same time I try to stay realistic. That means that I don't prepare for "Doomsday" or something like that. I prepare for more realistic scenarios, like electrical power shortgages, weather problems (floods, snow, heat, ...), etc.

But if there would be major and global events or catastrophes, I doubt that many people are prepared for the effects. Well, prepping for me is just another dimension in my way of living, besides ERE, life satisfaction, spiritualism. To a certain degree preparing is just commons sense to me, especially if you consider realistic scenarious that could happen in your circumstances and surroundings.

[Jason]

(@) Mikeallison

Well, I certainly feel bad for the students who take your history class because there is more histrionics in this post than in the dressing room of child beauty pageant after the results are announced. For someone who heralds his pedigree, the meandering nature, lack of historical support not to mention general wisdom is alarming. In many ways its ahistorical and more akin to the pamphlet community than the intellectual community. It's like a newspaper filled with headlines but no articles.

For starters.

(1) I don't know if slept through the class, but there was this event called the American Civil War where the "soul" of the country was divided. I think its safe to say democracy survived that little dust-up. Yeah, you might not like the current occupant of the oval office, but we've also had ones that were slave trading in there (Polk);

(2) Between the time of the Fall of The Roman Empire and The Renaissance was a period called the Medieval Period. Calling it "The Dark Ages" is merely employing the agenda laden terminology employed by the Renaissance scholars. My suggestion is that you read Marica Colish's "The Medieval Foundations of The Western Intellectual Tradition" where you will discover that this was the period where the template for the modern university was laid, Aristotle's Metaphysics was translated into latin (thanks to the discovery of Islamic translations, algebra was first utilized (other Islamic innovation), Thomas Aquinas produced his great works (works that we still engage with) and various technological innovations were discovered. Would I want to have live during that time? Um, no. But to portray it as time of rabid despair, militantly retrogressive and void of intellectual life is historically inaccurate. I would further say there has never been such a period in human history where there was a time that could be described in that manner, at least where it is universally agreed upon that such a time was actually such a time;

(3) The possibility of society's devolving into pure animalistic, dystopian chaos is based on your view of political contract theory. Does the state provide moral order or does it merely protect pre-existing moral order i.e the difference between Robespierre and Madison. I see no mention of that;

(4) If you want to contrast the current administration to the early 20th century totalitarian regimes like some legitimate scholars have done i.e. Timothy Snyder you obviously have the right but in this kitchen sink of hysteria I don't even know if that pasta hardened plate is buried in it;

(5) No one wakes up and says "Oh, today is the day the Medieval Period ends and the Renaissance begins. History involves continuity and discontinuity. Why did elements of the Roman Empire survive its pinnacle? On a material level, many of the buerocrats moved into the Holy Roman Church and expanded its efforts - “The Roman Catholic Church is the Ghost of The Holy Roman Empire.” No one knows the period of time they are in. "Periods" are historical devices used by scholars retroactively. So are the times a changing, yes. But when are they not? How many anti-christs have there been over time? How many doomsday cults? Is the fat lady really singing now? If she is and you are calling it, don't consider yourself right, just lucky. And I hope that bullion brings you great comfort when her final aria reigns down on your town.

[7Wannabe5]

Actually, all these recent elections that come down to a slim margin recount would seem to be more indicative of the overwhelming tendency of complex adaptive systems towards homeostasis. Punch and Judy don’t ever have to resolve their differences for the show to go on and on.

[7Wannabe5]

OTOH, since temperature is exponentially connected to the activation of ATP, it might be a very good idea to stock up on mosquito netting.

[Jason]

I read the OP's original post and I realize that he is making a direct correspondence to the early 20th century. I was confused because for me personally, the word "chaos" isn't the word that pops up in my mind for that period but "control" in its various political permutations i.e. totalitarianism, communism, fascism as I think the problem was that there was not enough chaos during those times because chaos means the existence of active and ongoing dissent and expressions of patriotism are not governmentally regulated. It's the orderliness of that period that is most harrowing. I don't want to wake up in a country where there is no element of chaos or where protest has been eradicated. If its approached from a "law and order" angle than I think the forum thread title would make more sense and you could parse out the parallels which IMHO have legitimacy. I just get confused when people bring in the eschatological angle. What exactly are we referring to? Is it divine or military? Is there an idealogical basis to it or is just socio/political? Is it worldwide or is it contained? Is it between factions within the government each claiming legitimacy or is it armed insurrections personally defending themselves? Is there a party affiliation? Is it geographical? And maybe I'm missing something but I always assumed bitcoin would be the currency of choice for preppers which leads me to think maybe complete upheaval can be accomplished over the internet and we won't have to leave our houses this time around. Instead of work farms or concentration camps, the ruling power just blocks your Facebook page or if they are exceedingly cruel, your favorite porn sites.

[Mikeallison]

@wolf seems like a sound strategy!

@7wannabe5 could you elaborate more for me? I see tectonic plates being in the same sort of balance, but when they shift watch out!

@Jason I would love to have a discussion with a fellow history lover, but you have too much venom in you. Attacking me professionally when you don't know my background is in pretty poor taste. My area of focus is in fact Late Antiquity, but I love the transitional period as well, particularly the Carolingian Renaissance, Alcuin, and the early development of the trivium and quadrivium as the basis for the university model. I still believe the Trivium should form the basis for our education today, instead of the rote memorization that we now have.

I call it the dark ages because I agree with the earlier scholars, despite having read several modern books on the intellectual activity of the period. A few candles may have burned brightly, but that doesn't make it a golden age. Through much of the period Knowledge was cloistered away in the monasteries, and it was the prerogative of a small caste, despite Charlemagne's efforts to the contrary. Still I'm grateful to those monks.I will concede that using vague periods as a metric causes issues, so for the sake of clarity and convenience, let's just call it the time spanning between the Catalaunian Plains and the end of the viking "invasions". Also I voted for Trump.

No offense but if your typical M.O. is to jump to conclusions about someone before knowing the full story, you must be a pretty poor historian yourself. It's a pity you are not able to marshal your arguments in a less hostile manner, I can tell you have a true love of history like I do, and it would have been fun to unpack this stuff together. Try not to be so pedantic and belligerent, you're too intelligent for those tactics. Oh and I only have my undergrad, and I don't teach, so don't worry I'm not corrupting the youth, Meletus.

Your response lacked focus, and seemed to meander in a million different directions. At first I assumed you were being deliberately pedantic as so many intellectually insecure people do when they lack a real opinion on the matter being discussed, but at least part of the blame lies with me. I'm in the process of articulating my thoughts and feelings on what is happening, so maybe it was too vague a topic. Permit me to be more explicit. What I'm seeing, reminds me of those instances in history when tribalism breeds an intense hatred and dehumanization of the "other". The left is doing this with racial/gender identity politics, the right with nationalism which is another species of the same. This scares me as western civ is founded on the individual, and I see that at stake in this cultural war.

My real question, wasn't so much "Does this exist?" as it was how bad is it? How far do people think it will go? I don't assume people can read the future, but opinions are interesting none the less. If we are in the late stages, then it does not bode well for strategies like ERE viewed through a historical lense, since totalitarian regimes are the antithesis of classical liberalism, and therefore the individual and private property. If we can agree that chaos is the absence of order, then I think we may see a good deal of that to, since such transitions are rarely orderly. I apologize, I didn't think such a definition was necessary, or I would have provided it for you earlier.

Judging by your uncalled for hostility (presumably just because you erroneously assumed that I was a left wing academic?) I'm going to use your response as further evidence that we are headed toward malignant tribalism. So thanks for that insight, at least.

[Campitor]

There seems to be this weird war going on for the soul of the country and half, doesn't just disagree, but hates the other half, and vice-versa. I see no dialogue, no consensus, and a total lack of compromise, and I can't help but think, god a democracy just can't function this way, how are we ever going to reconcile this when neither party has any interest in doing So? It feels broken.

A 24hour news cycle that is fighting for ratings (and jobs survival) coupled with the internet providing a megaphone for every extremist (ultra left and ultra right wing) makes it appear as if the country is shaking itself to pieces. It's not. The silent majority, which leans left or right depending on the topic, will always swing the country back into the middle. We are a long way off from a civil war or the dark ages.

Barring an extinction level event that destroys humanity or most of it, there is too much dispersed knowledge regarding technology and other engines of civilization to allow a downward slide to last long. Life may get rough but if you're adaptable and resilient, you'll be okay. There are 3 things we need in life: a roof over our head, food in our belly, and our health - only the 1st and 2nd require money - less so if you embrace the tiny house movement and grow your own food or learn to cook peasant foods. I recommend reading books on organic farming and how to enrich your soil. If you live in a cold climate, I highly recommend Eliot Coleman's book on winter harvesting: http://a.co/eVhTjsT. Tailor your knowledge to your geographic region.

[vexed87]

On the contrary, the system is far bigger than any individual, and I'm not looking forward to or happy about the prospect of it ending. I was merely curious what, if anything, people are doing to prepare for a possible different outcome, if it doesn't continue.

Hi Mikeallison, ERE's basic component of financial independence won't survive the collapse of the market economy if we are talking about capital investment in the traditional markets, that's not to say there won't be other investment vehicles, but really that depends on how capital is owned and exchanged in the social systems that follows, it's impossible to know in advance. I believe overlord jacob has commented on the likelihood that retirement in the traditional sense will become impossible for the masses reaching retirement age in the early 21st century if the assumption that the future will look like the past prevails. That blog post makes for some somber reading. All other social challenges aside (AGW, oil depletion, ecological collapse), once the markets break down, contemporary civilization fails. We are so heavily dependent on markets that we have organised our entire lives around them, almost to the exclusion of every other system of being, fortunately we haven't totally turned our back on basic systems of community and reciprocity as a system of social organisation. Well, not all of us!

That's not to say other parts of ERE's web won't be useful post-collapse, frugality, resource conservation, make do and mend, emphasis of production over consumption, independence, resilience to shocks will all contribute to making you and your community more resilient so you can get on with the task of adapting to life without globalised markets.

I recommend you read David Fleming's writings if you haven't already, he like no one else I know grokked the impending failure of the market economy and its implications for the individual and civic society and condensed that all into a lengthy but concise tome.

I detect a hint of distrust of tribalism in your prose, but tribalism is not inherently evil. Perhaps you need to revisit your biases/assumptions and reevaluate the benefits of tribalistic systems, as with all systems, they do not come without downsides, but there are many benefits to such a system of social organisation, for starters, they tend to be more equal, altruistic, sustainable, less lethal (compare dark age warfare vs mechanised 20th/21st century war), far more suited to localised decentralised economies of limited means. Arguably that's the way we need to head if we are not to destroy the very ecologies we are so heavily dependent on for our natural resources, the true source of all our wealth.

[7Wannabe5]

@7wannabe5 could you elaborate more for me? I see tectonic plates being in the same sort of balance, but when they shift watch out!

Okay, imagine some suburban neighborhood in Michigan. One guy is watching Fox News and his next door neighbor is watching MSNBC. Then some other guy down the street neglects to call MissDig before using his oversized rental rototiller and slices up the cable line. So, as the result of this tragedy, the first guy and his next door neighbor both come out on to their front lawns, blinking hard in the sunlight, to figure out what went wrong. Since the Fox News and the MSNBC news both rely on the same infrastructure, the two neighbors are best served by co-operating to fix the problem.

[jacob]

It's useful to distinguish between the system and the individuals of the system. A system may survive just fine even as individuals inside the system get clobbered. It's also possible for individuals to survive the collapse of the system insofar they can replace it with a new system fast enough.

Political risk in these times seem to target smaller groups [of individuals]. For example, now [with increasing nationalist populism] is not a fun time to be a Muslim or an immigrant in the US or Europe. It seems to be human nature not to care all that much [about other people] insofar one is not personally a target, most people will look at something and tell you it's not a problem insofar it hasn't touched them yet. Most might not even be aware of what's going on. In general, political risk will impact the easy targets first ... then only later expand their powers.

There seems to be a modern tendency to pursue this expansion in a way that is within the letter of the law even if it violates the spirit of the law. Note that almost all authoritarian takeovers in the 20th and 21st century happened by legal means. Rights were lost AFTER the authoritarian assumed power. In particular, it starts with minorities losing rights that were previously assumed. And a great many people will be okay with that, because after all, the new leader was elected partially due to those sentiments.

Recall that German Jews lost their rights, first slowly over a period of years, then suddenly within a few months. What most people don't seem to be aware of is that other groups were also targeted for concentration camps (not all of which were extermination camps, and none were initially) such as homosexuals, intellectuals, gypsies, and people deemed unproductive for German society. In short, people that the average person either didn't know or didn't care for.

If you're a "special case", populist politicians are happy to throw you under the bus as part of some ill-considered/non-vetted populist measure; that is, politicians will happily sacrifice a small number of individuals to please the "people" (a largely arbitrary construct anyway). Such measures only get rejected/reverted if they begin to affect enough people. See e.g. McCarthyism in the US. It was once dangerous to be associated with anything associated with socialism. To pay off government debt, the government might institute a haircut on anyone with more than $100,000 in savings (see Cyprus)---and since most people have less than that, most people don't care or think that all those rich people can easily afford it.

There doesn't even need to be specific laws targeting you. If the government (executive arm) doesn't like you, it can hassle you doing tax audits, putting you on no-fly lists, or by demanding permitting, etc. Whatever politicians decide can certainly affect you financially (cost of lawyers and accountants for starters) even if the entire system doesn't come down.

Indeed people might come together in the face of disaster (like if the TV remote ran out of battery). The thing to worry about is insofar disaster only happens to a few and nobody cares; because there's really no "orientation" that has historically been safe. You might subscribe to the wrong religion ... or you might not subscribe to the right one in time.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

True, but one major difference between Hitler's Germany and Trump's America is that demographically, whether or not everybody likes it, we are becoming a majority minority population. This is very obvious to me on the rare occasions I find myself in an upscale night spot in the newly renovating Midwestern city I inhabit, I am amazed by how cosmopolitan the crowds of youth appear to be.

OTOH, I also recently heard a grumpy old white guy say "Blacks are the new Americans." , but the voting block is shifting and the grumpy old white guys are going to die off even faster than the grumpy old white women, so 6 years from now, whole different pot of mixed beans, would be my prediction.

[Jason]

Judging by your uncalled for hostility (presumably just because you erroneously assumed that I was a left wing academic?) I'm going to use your response as further evidence that we are headed toward malignant tribalism. So thanks for that insight, at least.

I didn't think you were either left wing or an academic. Now I just think you are acting like both. I thought your initial post was incomprehensible and somewhere else you stated you were a historian so you put that out on front street. My hostility was not towards your view because quite frankly I didn't know what it was. My hostility was towards your lack of clarity. I guess I belong to the tribe that likes to know what someone is talking about it. And unlike you, I have no issue with people insulting me so keep it coming. Just try to spruce it up a bit. And if you want to interpret a few rough words on a message board as being representative of a broader geo-political shift, well, it's your methodological prerogative.

And I disagree. The early 20th century transitions, specifically in German were orderly. It was modernism expressed in destruction of life as opposed to the creation of industry - the Henry Ford's Detroit and Adolph Hitler's Poland are a mere Janus head. The imposition of man over nature and his surroundings. German forestry and cadastral maps anticipated the Holocaust. It was removing "the homeless" from a neighborhood or a cancer from a body or a vermin infestation from a home. It was strategically done in the haze of war so no one believed it was happening ie. Churchill calling it the crime that had no name." But it was orderly. That's why passion murders were frowned upon. Totalitarianism is the definition of order. A monotholic order imposed by fear.

And I'm not sure what you mean by the fact that Western Civilization is based on the individual. At first blush, that seems more Eastern to me. The Greek concept of Polis was based on man as a social, political animal. To the founding fathers, liberty was really politically defined. If you are talking individual rights, OK.

And if you are going to make a correlation of this period to the 30's, at least in the US, I don't think its totalitarianism. That would be going into Mexico in order to kill people and then when resistance came, building a bridge not a wall to kill some more here. Totalitarianism implies expansion into other regions. It also implies the elimination of any and all heteronomous ideas so along with JLF's little system, there goes Judeo-Christianity, there goes I don't know, whatever. At that stage every idea and every person becomes a mere mouse flexing in front of the elephant. I just thought that was obvious.