Useful Hard Skills for the near future

[SnailMeister4000]

making tools out of wood and (...) metal

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je_mEnfKNXU

[jacob]

Number one is not getting reliant/dependent on some kind of [prescription] drug. Stay weight/height proportional. Test whether you can run 5k without a break and perform a few pull/pushups. If you can't, consider it a warning sign and take it very seriously. This is an easy skill when you're 20 or 30 ... but possibly harder when you're 40 or 50 or 60 unless you start early and maintain it.

Number two is being able to eat well for 1-2 months without having to shop or eat-out at all. If you find yourself needing to "go to the store" every week just in order to eat, you have a problem. Take it seriously. See viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8479 and consider it the bare minimum.

[BRUTE]

Number two is being able to eat well for 1-2 months without having to shop or eat-out at all. If you find yourself needing to "go to the store" every week just in order to eat, you have a problem.

intriguing. brute goes to the store almost every day, a week would be a HUGE grocery haul for him. his resilience comes in the form of fasts. if brute didn't have access to food for a week, he'd be very comfortable with that. 2-3 may be be pushing it, but probably fine.

[Ego]

Number two is being able to eat well for 1-2 months without having to shop or eat-out at all. If you find yourself needing to "go to the store" every week just in order to eat, you have a problem. Take it seriously.

Huh? 1-2 MONTHS!? What specifically is on the horizon that would cause that kind of food disruption?

[7Wannabe5]

Yeah, good luck on that one if you live in the city with somebody who owns 4 medium-to-large dogs. I can't think of any solution except breeding meat rabbits in the basement.

[cmonkey]

I am assuming @jacob is referring to having 1-2 months of bulk staples/spices in house. In an emergency, you could certainly eat them daily (if you don't puke first).

We get fresh produce weekly, I'm not sure how you'd do that except winter gardening/canned food.

[ducknalddon]

Huh? 1-2 MONTHS!? What specifically is on the horizon that would cause that kind of food disruption?

A Carrington event? Modern agriculture is so dependent on technology I can't see how that couldn't be very disruptive.

[7Wannabe5]

A couple days ago, my sister baked a pie from some berries we had harvested and frozen during the summer. After putting the pie in the oven, she washed out the freezer containers and realized that one of the batches of berries had accidentally been frozen without being cleaned, so I ate a piece of berry-and-dirt pie. I think the skill to preserve food under a variety of circumstances is more critical for the medium run food survival than even the skill of gardening or cooking, mostly because most people don't have it. A stockpile, no matter how large, is more fragile.

[jacob]

One major crop breadbasket failure happens around the world every <5 years or so. Usually global production for that crop goes down by 10% (there aren't that many breadbaskets or kinds of crops in the world) and prices go up because people start hoarding or the government adds export tariffs or restrictions. This causes prices for other crops to rise as people buy substitutes. Stock-to-use ratios are around 10% (corn) to 20% (wheat) meaning that the world has a wheat reserve of 365*0.2=73 days and a corn reserve of 36 days, for example. Thus reducing production of corn by 10% would take out the entire stock.

In poor countries, people usually respond by protesting or throwing a revolution or two. In rich countries, we complain a bit about prices, buy something else, and laugh at the news stories about silly people hoarding bags of flour or rice.

What could specifically happen is that more than one major breadbasket fails in the same year.

PS: It's legal to eat Fido in 44 states.

[Ego]

I understand that there is a remote possibility that prices will surge across the board because of a cascade of food supply problems. But heck, even if the price of every food item increased ten fold, I am not going to need two months of stores. I agree that it would be good to have those stores if that worst case scenario actually happened. But I think we've got to ask ourselves if we are confusing possibility with probability in that level of preparation.



https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/201 ... versation/

If food becomes absolutely unobtainable for two months then the problems are likely bigger than food and I am probably going to need move (endurance) and I am probably not going to be able to carry my case of canned sauerkraut with me when I go no matter how much I practice lugging. That said, food on the paw may be useful.

[jacob]

If food prices increase ten-fold, it's because the store shelves are empty. Rationing will happen before the price goes that high. If so having food on hand will improve your diet and extend the rationing allowance over months. If you need to move/relocate because you ran out of food, presume that other people would have the same idea and that the refuge receiving areas probably won't be that welcoming (they will have shortages too).

In terms of odds, lets say that failures happen every 5 years (to put an upper limit on it ... the world has had single failures in 2003, 2008, 2011, and 2012). That's a 20% chance per year of something westerners notice and then forget about(*). The odds of two independent(**) failures in the same year in any given year is 1/25 (4%). That's something that many people won't have personally experienced although they probably know someone who has (cf. 1970s energy crisis, WWII rationing). The odds of three failures in any given year is 1/125 (0.08%); that's the stuff of history books (cf. Great Irish Famine, Maunder Minimum).

The odds of entirely avoiding a two-failure year over the next 30 years would be (1-0.04)^30=29%.

So those are the rough a priori probabilities which are too high for me to just dismiss and punt on the problem.

They are the reason I put this suggestion #2 on my list. The odds for screwing oneself up metabolically, etc. via lifestyle choices and becoming dependent on a borked health care system are higher ... so that's why that was #1. Both are useful because failure is rather critical ... compared to e.g. one's laptop refusing to boot or being unable to repair one's washing machine, say.

(*) What is hard to compute is how "tough" the personal impact is. If one's food budget is 10% of one's income it's going to be less than if it was 40%. Revolutions and civic unrest have started from single crop failures in countries where the average food budget is 40%. A threefer could increase crop prices by 4-500%. Not even Americans would laugh that one off. Having lots of money in the bank is not going to fix the problem. The supermarket would become illiquid and inefficient. Not to mention the social consequences of being the person outbidding everybody else in the store.

(**) These odds presume independent events, but given that they're usually weather driven and sometimes pest driven, one should expect a finite level of covariance which would increase the odds. The global price setting and market system are in any case not independent.

[7Wannabe5]

There is a bit of a survival trade-off for some of us between ability to run 5k quickly and ability to maintain non-adverse-metabolic-activity fat store below the waist. If forcibly subjected to the BRUTE diet, I could likely live off of my extra bottom 20 and foraged-under-the-snow greens for over a month!

[bryan]

Rather than programming, I'll say cyber security
DoS, buffer overrun, virus, cryptography, keystroke monitors, etc.

Seems like something you should leave to the experts. May be useful to have a friend to pick her brains or be educated enough to know what you should be doing (e.g. using password manager, avoid smartphone's that don't get regular updates, how to browse the internet safer, etc)

Or do you mean learning some offence? Installing malware on e.g. your target's computer?

Programming in general is pretty useful. Great for automating things. I would say learning python and how to connect the physical world to the digital world (e.g. rasberry pi projects) is a good launching point.

[Ego]

In terms of odds, lets say that failures happen every 5 years (to put an upper limit on it ... the world has had single failures in 2003, 2008, 2011, and 2012). That's a 20% chance per year of something westerners notice and then forget about(*). The odds of two independent(**) failures in the same year in any given year is 1/25 (4%). That's something that many people won't have personally experienced although they probably know someone who has (cf. 1970s energy crisis, WWII rationing). The odds of three failures in any given year is 1/125 (0.08%); that's the stuff of history books (cf. Great Irish Famine, Maunder Minimum).

The odds of entirely avoiding a two-failure year over the next 30 years would be (1-0.04)^30=29%.

What are the odds of waking up tomorrow and suddenly, without warning, having two or three crop failures simultaneously? Tomorrow. My point is, these things don't happen without a lead-up. If you find yourself with an empty stomach, an empty pantry and empty store shelves on that day, then you haven't been paying attention.

The thing I don't like about your two-months of stockpiled food is that the fear plays into an idea that is becoming increasingly appealing to the average Joe/Jane. That is, they believe they can buy solutions rather than be part of solutions. Their stockpiles make them feel like they don't need their neighbors and they feel okay about harming us all collectively with their votes and their purchases because they prepared for this eventuality. In a way they hope to usher it into existence so that they can prove for the first time in their lives that they actually are the smart one in the family. Lottery tickets of a different sort.

The odds are long. Longer than you calculated above because you assume everything happens on one day with no warning. If you use the stores like I use my hundred pounds of oats then the odds are meaningless. If, on the other hand, your stores go rotten but you write them off as a good purchase because they make you feel safe.... then.... that's not good.

[Bobby McGee]

You don't need a crop failure to have empty shelves at the grocery store. I experienced just that when years ago, due to a highway washout, the transport truck didn't make it, they chartered a cargo plane to fly food in. For two days, many shelves sat empty. No milk, no meat. Two days is nothing, but yet it was a big reality check for many. Unfortunately, I am doubtful many people had learn anything from it.

I only go grocery shopping every 4 weeks. If I really plan carefully I can push to 5-6 weeks. I usually run out of milk and some vegetables after 3 weeks. Carrots, apples and potatoes will last forever if stored at the proper temperature. I don't eat red meat, poultry or fish.
I also have an emergency food cache that could last 1 month. So, at any given time I have roughly 1 1/2 month of food.
But, like any other skill, it took me many months to master it. Learning to plan meals based on shelves life of certain food in my fridge.
Next skill to master is hunting.

[jacob]

@Ego - Obviously crop failure doesn't happen over the period of one day. There's a lead of 1-2 months to make the call(*). The first failure happens---it probably won't be declared officially until after the fact when official numbers are realized (although reports from farmers should give a good idea in advance).---In any case, people shrug it off because such failures happen every few years. Then the next one develops a few weeks later... people start paying attention; more people take measures (this is where the feedback occurs)... prices for this one go higher than for the first one. The total system now has to compensate for people increasing stock while simultaneously dealing with the first failure. Pricing and availability becomes non-linear. Then the winter crop that people were hoping to replenish stocks with also fail ...

So the odds of three occurring in a single year is very roughly 0.8%.

(*) And how many people really follow this stuff in sufficient detail to put the pieces together in real time as it happens? Almost nobody except for farmers and traders. The rest rely on the news to tell them---after the fact.

This doesn't have anything to do with politics. These are real physical limitations in the real physical world. Food does not magically appear out of nothing by having good relations with ones neighbors. This is not equivalent to having run out of sugar when baking cookies and being able to go over and ask for a cup from a neighbor. It's empty-shelves in stores, everywhere. There's really nothing a group of people can do to instantly create food that is not there in the required amounts no matter how nice everybody is to each other. The solution here is either 1) Having food at hand; or 2) Having put a lot of seeds in the ground 6 weeks ago. It's way too late to "come together as a community". All that accomplishes is some kind of rationing system to share whatever is in people's cupboards equitably ... but if everybody follows your desired plan(?), there won't be much stored and thus not much to share.

To reiterate ... the global food stock of staple calories is around 30-60 days. Not enough time to grow replacements. And longer than even brute can go without.

I suspect people will be just about as able (unable) in calling this as they are in terms of calling stock market tops or the evolution of any complex system in real-time (Black swans a a lot clearer in hindsight). The problem here is also one that by the time you figure it out and need to act, most people around you will be doing the same thing. The system is adaptive. In addition, most people will choose not to act on initial warnings because doing so unplanned has a higher cost at this point. By the time enough people realize the problem, there won't be enough time to act. If we go back in time to e.g. the Maunder Minimum which had multiple crop failures back to back, it weren't as if people back then---most of them farmers---weren't paying attention. Not much help from the neighbors either unless those neighbors actually have reserves. No matter how good community relations and social capital is, it is not possible to transmute social capital into physical foodstuff in 48 hours or less. It takes several weeks to grow anything.

It's pretty easy to incorporate a two month supply into business as usual cooking. It saves money too.

It's also something one can do or choose not to do without necessarily having to agree with anyone else. But the more people who do it, the more people there will be who have something to share. Don't presume that all the people are sitting on their stashes hoping for things to go wrong just so they can say "I told you so".

(You can compare this to a boat. Once you broach, what you have is what you have strapped onto your person. There's no time or opportunity to go below and fetch a life jacket or a rigging knife out of a bag. Even if you see it coming 5 seconds ahead, that is not enough time, and you'll be busy doing other things (like trying to prevent it). Sure, crew members can help each other ... but no amount of helping each other is going to produce a life jacket if everybody decided they didn't need one because broaches are rare.)

[Bobby McGee]

Advantage of spacing out trips to the grocery store :

1)If one go grocery shopping every 4 weeks, IOW every month, right there you know exactly your monthly food expenses.
2)It increase your creativity in meal planning : If you find yourself a Tuesday night of week #4 and the only thing left in your fridge is a sack of carrots and tuna can, you HAVE to be creative, otherwise you just run to the grocery store. Which lead to the next point :
3) Self-discipline. You MUST not run to the grocery store because on week #3 you can't put together any nutritious meal due to lack of imagination
4) Minimize time spent at grocery store. Save time for more interesting activities.

P.S. I eat 3 meals a day, I bring my lunch at work.

[jennypenny]

The odds are long. Longer than you calculated above because you assume everything happens on one day with no warning.

Aside from typical SHTF scenarios, there are lots of other ways that life can turn on a dime. Like you could unexpectedly end up in the middle of a peloton crash and hurt more than your wrist. If you were laid up for an extended period of time, wouldn't it be nice to have some supplies around so Mrs. Ego didn't have to hunt and gather in addition to helping out around soylent towers, taking care of the apartment herself, and helping you with your bed pan? It would also mean you could use the money you would have spent on groceries for the unexpected medical bills.

A person who keeps enough cash to cover two month's worth of living expenses would be described as prudent, not fearful. Why is keeping two month's worth of food any different? A well-stocked pantry is just a different type of bank account.

[Ego]

(You can compare this to a boat. Once you broach, what you have is what you have strapped onto your person. There's no time or opportunity to go below and fetch a life jacket or a rigging knife out of a bag. Even if you see it coming 5 seconds ahead, that is not enough time, and you'll be busy doing other things (like trying to prevent it). Sure, crew members can help each other ... but no amount of helping each other is going to produce a life jacket if everybody decided they didn't need one because broaches are rare.)

I guess we can agree to disagree. I do not see it unfolding the way you suggest and I think the odds of it happening that way are so far out there it is tantamount to parking your car in an emp-proof garage every night just in case. It is possible that I will wake up tomorrow and find that all of the 25 lb sacks of rice have disappeared from the Asian grocer where I shop. Possible. Not probable.

In the past I would probably have shut up and shrugged. I may have even played along for the fun of a mental exercise. But I've come to realize that it is harmful to indulge the fear in those who are prone to it. Harmful for them and harmful for all of us. It is like a contagious disease. The contagion of fear builds when we indulge it.

And that fear itself causes real, actual problems.

[luxagraf]

I tend to agree with @ego, too much of what passes for "preparation" on the internet feels more rooted in emotions drawing on secularized (or not) fantasies of apocalypse (whether it's being proved right, dissatisfaction with status quo, some kind of dystopian survivalist scenario or what have you) than genuine understanding or concern for crop failures or other actual problems(*). And all of that is rooted in (among other things) fear. And yes, fear can cause real problems. In fact it might be the root source of all problems.

That said, stocking up on dry goods makes sense for a variety of other reasons as well so it seems like a no brainer (price and not having to go to store all the time are the ones that motivate me).

As for hard skills, aside from gypsy caravaning, the one I've always thought would be good future proofing is knowing how to go from seed, to wheat/hops, to beer. Master that cycle and you'll likely fit in in almost any community under almost any circumstances. Today's hipster seed-to-stein brewpub is tomorrow's only working alehouse. If you do it right.

* Consider the way the noisiest purveyors of these fantasies are suddenly people on the left side of the political spectrum, whereas six months ago most people peddling the same would have been on the right side. To my mind what primarily unites them is emotion -- fear.