Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

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

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Well, if you go with Bardi's model, 15 continuous watts would only be .75% of your energy allotment, but you would also have to depreciate the embedded energy of all of the equipment and your initial stock and any feed you brought in from outside your system.

As Jacob has noted, the more important question might be whether you believe your system will be sustainable if technological replacement parts are no longer available due to wider world economic systems failure. For instance, could you rebuild your pump out of scavenged junk? How will you access your share of scavenged junk? If your plan is multi-generational or community based, will your great-great-grand-children and/or future community members still be able to do pump repair once scavenged junk piles have been depleted? etc.

white belt
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by white belt »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Dec 21, 2020 1:23 pm
Well, if you go with Bardi's model, 15 continuous watts would only be .75% of your energy allotment, but you would also have to depreciate the embedded energy of all of the equipment and your initial stock and any feed you brought in from outside your system.

As Jacob has noted, the more important question might be whether you believe your system will be sustainable if technological replacement parts are no longer available due to wider world economic systems failure. For instance, could you rebuild your pump out of scavenged junk? How will you access your share of scavenged junk? If your plan is multi-generational or community based, will your great-great-grand-children and/or future community members still be able to do pump repair once scavenged junk piles have been depleted? etc.
All good points and things I will have to explore. I know there is a water pump, aerator, and biofilter involved, but I don't yet understand enough of the underlying equipment required to determine how easy it would be to source/jerry-rig replacement parts. The fish also require high protein feed, but there is potential to source that with alternative sources. The hang-up with any sort of livestock raising is that it requires feed with adequate protein, which right now is provided by soy and grain crops in combination with leftovers/waste from industrial food system. If that system collapses then bio-intensive production of animal protein, even in the most animal-efficient form of fish or milk, becomes very difficult.

Riggerjack
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Riggerjack »

If we eyeball the purple portion (fossil fuel)of the topmost graph above the dotted line, we can see that approximately 1/8 of fossil fuel energy needs to be reinvested into development of alternative energy sources for this projection to play out successfully.
So "all" we have to do is reroute an eighth of all fossil energy consumption to green energy generation, without changing anything else.

:lol: Any hints as to how that could be done? Does it involve a rabbit, a black hat, and a wand with a white tip, perhaps? :lol:

Look at that graph again. Why would anyone looking at where the renewable bands are in 2020 think that could be an accurate projection? Look at the hydro band. Why would he think hydro is expanding, or that it would continue to expand in the future?

Judging by dam failures, and dam removal (aka "habitat restoration by habitat destruction"), even as hydro gets added in the 3rd world, it's being subtracted in the first.

I didn't read the source material, but it doesn't look at all realistic from what you have shown. Or I have missed something.

My own thoughts are that present day human energy use is not sustainable. Therefore it will not be sustained.

The relevant question then, is how well can one live with less energy consumption. (This is an infrastructure question to me, and the answer given today's infrastructure isn't fun to think about.)

Today, the examples are difficult and extreme. (Even here, how many are actively working on getting below 1 Jacob?). Tomorrow, as more people undertake the same challenge (of necessity, if for no other reason) it will be easier.

......

White belt:

So you want to raise fish in your basement. In ways, this is easier than an outdoor tank, I guess. You don't have to worry about predators. Or freezing. Or sunlight causing algae problems. So that is good.

But I only have seen freshwater fish grown in ponds for aquaculture. Mainly because taking water from the stream, routing it to your pond, then piping overflow back to the stream has some strong benefits for the aquaculture project. Cool water for temperature control. Oxegenated water so the aquaculture project doesn't need to work that out. And more importantly, waste is removed (to the stream).

If you want to do this in your basement, how will you control moisture (nobody planned for a pool in your basement, before you.) And waste management. And oxygen...

Aquaculture is often sold as being good for the environment. Viewed from the right perspective, I am sure it is. From others, less so. Just a heads-up.

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

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Riggerjack:

Well, it’s a model or possible scenario, NOT a forecast. The critical assumption is that the EROI for both fossil fuels and alternative sources is now around 20. IOW, exploration and drilling costs have gone up and alternative energy technology costs have gone down and now they are pretty much the same. So, if this is true, or even nearly true, why wouldn’t the changeover begin to accelerate.

Obviously, petroleum is cheap now because demand is down, but that doesn’t mean petroleum production costs are down. In fact, it may indicate trouble with obtaining future investment towards increasingly more expensive production. At least that is my understanding of the matter.

Anyways, even if it fails as a forecast, it might serve as a model at smaller scale. Just like if you do strive to reduce your spending to 1 Jacob, you are doing your part even if nobody else does. I agree that it will get easier to do it as an individual when everybody else is forced to do it because, for instance, you won’t be competing against other people who are using cheaper forms of energy. Like how could my friend who ran a totally green human powered lawn service compete with per acre rate of fossil fuel powered blow and mow guys?

@white belt:

Commercial livestock producers sometimes add urea to grain feed, so I guess you could try cycling your urine back into the system. The easiest solution for human food calories in bio-intensive system is usually potatoes, but potatoes don’t make good livestock feed. Another possible solution is relatively high protein feed sources foraged or scavenged from “wilderness” or “commons”that other humans won’t eat. There are records of human settlements starving to death rather than getting creative or breaking taboo about what qualifies as food. Of course, unfortunately, there are also recorded instances of humans getting too creative about what qualifies as food. So, for example, unlikely that hungry modern American humans would be in direct competition with you if you foraged high protein insects to feed to your livestock.

Riggerjack
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Riggerjack »

IOW, exploration and drilling costs have gone up and alternative energy technology costs have gone down and now they are pretty much the same. So, if this is true, or even nearly true, why wouldn’t the changeover begin to accelerate.
Oh, I expect it to accelerate. But I would be shocked if it looked anything like that.

Plugging in the 12% of fossil fuel use number seems like a small multiple, it's not. Just retooling existing uses for the new sources of energy at that rate is probably beyond us.

That's something like half of all manufacturing, IIRC. Every year. That's going to take more than "renewables are getting cheaper".

Perhaps not beyond us, but certainly not a small change, either.

I expect as energy grids get less reliable, those with the means to augment their energy consumption by adding green energy. So if things go well, I expect green energy to do well. And if they don't, I expect green energy to do well.

But I don't expect everyone to retool to green energy production. And I don't know that green energy will expand faster or farther than current investors believe. So I don't know that more capital investment is justified by price projections.

Your EROEI calculations include a lot of differing processes, some of which have already been paid for. So even if the gross numbers are roughly equivalent, each individual comparison case is not.

Unsustainable practices can be maintained long after they are not profitable. They continue until the numbers can't convince investors. Then the numbers get "massaged" until enough investors get burned that they discount the numbers. And then there is government "investment", which is of course agnostic to investment considerations.

And all this is after things have changed enough to make fossil fuel extraction unprofitable on existing infrastructure. That is, after fossil fuels become unprofitable, even though most of the costs have already been paid (by others).

For instance, we have proven reserves (we know where it is, and how to get it) of 200T m3 of natural gas, 1.75 T barrels of oil, and over 1T tons of coal. All of that already has an investment made in it, and so will be cheaper to exploit than your EROEI calculations would imply.

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

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Riggerjack:

I get what you are saying, and don't entirely disagree, but, right now it looks like most alternative energy investments are running WAAAAY ahead of conventional energy investments over the last year. It just might be the case that Biden's election will prove to be the small lever needed to start the snowball rolling down the other side of the hill. Dunno.

Riggerjack
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Riggerjack »

right now it looks like most alternative energy investments are running WAAAAY ahead of conventional energy investments over the last year.
From some perspectives, I agree.

From the simplest example, 3 phase electricity is used in industrial machinery. This allows more power transmission, without as much in loss. But 3 phase is not available everywhere that electrical service is available.

This means that very large tools come with 3 phase motors, that many people cannot use. So I can buy big, serious tools, for hobbyist tool money, sometimes. 3 phase can be converted, but then power loss is a problem. Or other means of producing 3 phase power may be used.

Because I like to play in the waste stream of dead businesses, this is of practical concern to me. The most economical way I could access 3 phase power, would be to wire in a 3 phase diesel generator, and run it on biodiesel.

But this is motivated reasoning. I value personal energy production. I abnormally value 3 phase power. I value biodiesel over diesel. And I am not challenged by the complexity this configuration brings.

Others have different values, and I would expect them to come to different conclusions.

In particular, from an asset management perspective, my configuration doesn't accurately factor the in assets (because I buy used and waste), depreciation (because it will be replaced with waste), maintenance (because this is as much a hobby expense as a financial one), and redundancy and downtime (as a hobbyist, I accept these limits). So I would expect a differing configuration based on these differing values.

This difference in approaches is vital if one is trying to understand how people choose to do what they choose to do.

The same object, measured in different ways, yields different results. This doesn't imply that anyone did their measurements wrong. It means other people go about the same tasks, for their own purposes, in their own ways.

Changing those ways is most easily accomplished by demonstrating success in someone else's terms, using one's own processes. Which is of course more easily said than done...

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

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Riggerjack:

In the earliest stage of the industrial age, the machines had to be very close to the source of power and the work was quite dirty and dangerous. Electricity was necessary for the invention of the distributed assembly line and the work became less dirty and dangerous, although arguably more boring. The average housewife greatly preferred electrical lighting, because previous lighting options required combustion, and combustion tends towards being noisy, stinky, and/or dangerous. Obviously, with wind and solar generation, the fusion of the Sun at a great distance further replaces the need for nearby combustion. Therefore, for instance, while camping, I would choose to charge up my phone using my portable solar rather than using a noisy, stinky gas-powered generator. There are a lot of humans who like quiet, not stinky, not dirty, not ugly, light-weight, compact, modular, automatic/automated and portable. I like all of these things, but I don't like "boring" or "dependency." So, if I am going to, for instance, use a solar powered garden robot, I want to know how it works, but it is not necessary for adoption that all the other humans who like quiet, not stinky etc. etc. know how it works.

Riggerjack
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Riggerjack »

So...
So if things go well, I expect green energy to do well. And if they don't, I expect green energy to do well.
We agree then.

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

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Riggerjack:

Yup :D

And I am having fun playing with my new Arduino kit during boring Covid isolation, so Win Win Win!

white belt
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by white belt »

Riggerjack wrote:
Mon Dec 21, 2020 3:23 pm

White belt:

So you want to raise fish in your basement. In ways, this is easier than an outdoor tank, I guess. You don't have to worry about predators. Or freezing. Or sunlight causing algae problems. So that is good.

But I only have seen freshwater fish grown in ponds for aquaculture. Mainly because taking water from the stream, routing it to your pond, then piping overflow back to the stream has some strong benefits for the aquaculture project. Cool water for temperature control. Oxegenated water so the aquaculture project doesn't need to work that out. And more importantly, waste is removed (to the stream).

If you want to do this in your basement, how will you control moisture (nobody planned for a pool in your basement, before you.) And waste management. And oxygen...

Aquaculture is often sold as being good for the environment. Viewed from the right perspective, I am sure it is. From others, less so. Just a heads-up.
I’m still in the feasibility assessment stage of exploring aquaculture. The issue I’ve found is that there are very few resources for people establishing systems on the household scale, especially artificial tanks rather than a pond (which could be an indication of the feasibility?). Then again most people aren’t looking at designs from a low energy intensity lens. Aquaponics has grown in popularity in the permaculture community in recent years, but the systems are complex and require constant electricity. Additionally, most of them are focused on bio intensive agriculture with fish as a bonus, rather than bio intensive aquaculture with plants as a bonus.

I agree that natural ponds and systems utilizing stream water are more effective on a commercial scale. My use case is the household scale at an urban or streetcar suburb area. Teaching families small scale aquaculture for fish less than 2 inches has been proposed as a solution to solve nutrient deficiencies in Bangladesh (source), but those systems are in existing rice patties and so do not require any pumps to function. There is also a history of indigenous American Indians eating minnows and similar small fish: http://traditionalanimalfoods.org/fish/ ... px?id=6408

My original thought process for an indoor system in an unfinished basement was that it provides relatively consistent temperature so I don’t need to heat water to maintain breeding conditions year round, it is underutilized space in existing housing stock in my region, and variables are easier to control because it is indoors. The downsides are numerous as you point out. For humidity management I’ve seen people make covers for tanks out of greenhouse siding, but I’m not smart enough yet to know how much must be left open for air exchange if I’m also using an aerator and pump.

Since my last post, I have discovered this channel and I think I'm going to try it instead of an indoor system when the weather gets warmer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_x1AJeasYg

The basic idea of the system is that the tank sits outside and sunlight grows algae and duckweed on the surface. Those plants filter the water and absorb nutrients from the fish waste, and the fish in turn eat the algae/duckweed. Mosquitos and other insects put their larvae in the tank and the fish eat those. Rainfall provides the same effect as a water change with a few overflow holes drilled near the top. I can position it next to my vegetable garden bed so the overflow fish poop water can help fertilize my plants. No power required. I'm unsure of the stocking density that such a setup can support and how to balance the fish population with the plant population, but I will experiment (I may have to resort to growing duckweed in a separate tank and feeding it to the fish). The test will be if I can get the minnows to breed without supplemental feeding, although I have faith because of the high protein content of duckweed. Experiments on duckweed as fish feed have only been conducted on larger omnivorous fish like catfish, tilapia, but not on smaller fish who eat traditionally lower on the food chain. Minnows require water temperature above 65 degrees to breed and take about 3 months to reach maturity, so I can probably only get 2 cycles in during warmer months in my area and take the system offline during colder months.

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Dec 21, 2020 4:49 pm
Commercial livestock producers sometimes add urea to grain feed, so I guess you could try cycling your urine back into the system. The easiest solution for human food calories in bio-intensive system is usually potatoes, but potatoes don’t make good livestock feed. Another possible solution is relatively high protein feed sources foraged or scavenged from “wilderness” or “commons”that other humans won’t eat. There are records of human settlements starving to death rather than getting creative or breaking taboo about what qualifies as food. Of course, unfortunately, there are also recorded instances of humans getting too creative about what qualifies as food. So, for example, unlikely that hungry modern American humans would be in direct competition with you if you foraged high protein insects to feed to your livestock.
My plan is to use my urine for growing vegetables that I eat in accordance with WHO guidelines (only apply to soil and stop >30 days prior to harvest). I suspect that insect proteins are quite overhyped and that the foraging or raising of insects is not worth the effort. Crickets have a similar feed conversion ratio to fish. Additionally the numbers generally don't work out for regular feed supplementation. For example, I started my worm bin with 1 pound of red worms, which only have 10% protein by weight. Meal worms are more protein dense, but I haven't found very many people who think that raising them for anything more than occasionally feed supplementation is worth the effort. I do use my worms for fish bait sometimes, so I guess that counts as insect feed to forage for protein higher on the food chain.

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

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@white belt:

I am taking an online course on public health and food ecology offered by John Hopkins. According to the research they shared, the Low Food Chain Diet which included insect, small fish such as sardines or herring, and bi-valves such as clams or mussels as protein in otherwise Vegan diet was very close to being as low ecological footprint as pure Vegan diet. The 2/3s Vegan Diet was a jump worse than these two, and Pescatarian and Ova-Lacto Vegetarian were a jump worse than 2/3s Vegan. However, this was based on model of achieving/maintaining minimum daily requirements of 2300 kcals, 69 grams protein, 5-7 servings fruits and vegetables, and less than 10% added sugars for all humans on planet, so YMMV.

I might be wrong, but my quick research also indicated that meal worms can be fed on potatoes, which would make them great candidate for small scale closed loop bio-intensive production, especially if you also had birds in the system. Apparently you can kill them before eating simply by popping them in the freezer. You can order a bag of barbecued flavor dry roasted meal worms if you want to try them. The site I visited said the first time eating worms is the hardest. Mussels are often invasive, so it’s possible that you could even figure out a way to get paid for harvesting them. Same goes for some (only some!) species of frogs. Snails are also relatively easy to raise in garden environment. If you grow vegetables and you don’t have a fence, it’s pretty likely critters will visit, so you could put out a humane trap and capture suburban game by that method also.

white belt
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by white belt »

@7Wannabe5

Interesting. I’ll have to look more into the low food chain diet, but sounds pretty much in line with the Live FCR I mentioned in the Food and Climate Change thread. I read one study that live FCR for farmed cricket is around 1:2, which puts it at the same level as small fish. My current diet is in the realm of 170 grams of protein daily, which I know is a luxury but it is necessary for me to gain and retain lots of muscle (which fits well in my web of goals).

I’ll dig into meal worms again to see if it’s feasible. I know they are quite high in fat and protein so they would probably have to be supplemented with something else to make a complete poultry diet.

There are a number of squirrels that live next to my current apartment and I haven’t even started my garden yet. I have a feeling they will be an issue so maybe I’ll try to trap them and eat them (Rob Greenfield did this). I need to verify the legality of trapping in my area. My concern was that I’d still need to figure out how to kill them after trapping because I don’t have an air gun I could use in my neighborhood. Maybe drowning? More research is needed.

Edit: Trapping seems to be a bit of a PITA in my state. Since I’m renting, I’d need to pass an exam, get a commercial trapping permit ($45) and the landowner’s permission to trap even nuisance wildlife like squirrels. Additionally I can’t legally kill trapped squirrels and instead I have to release the squirrels in another area.

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

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@white belt:

There are quite a few difficulties with modeling a low energy future in the present. For instance, the prohibitions on trapping squirrels in your area are likely due to combination of population density and affluence(high energy/technology.)

Generally, there is some overlap that needs to be untangled when considering whether population density, available energy, or modernity is more relevant factor. For instance, there were the equivalent of fast food restaurants in Roman cities, so less indicative of modernity than high population density and moderate energy intensity.

I would note for the record that I am interested in the “craft” of modeling, NOT telling other humans what they should or shouldn’t do, but it might be interesting to consider how you could most directly loop your stock of Muscle back into your stock of Protein Food.

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Alphaville
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by Alphaville »

srsly gonna look into insect cuisine

white belt
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by white belt »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:45 am
@white belt:

There are quite a few difficulties with modeling a low energy future in the present. For instance, the prohibitions on trapping squirrels in your area are likely due to combination of population density and affluence(high energy/technology.)

Generally, there is some overlap that needs to be untangled when considering whether population density, available energy, or modernity is more relevant factor. For instance, there were the equivalent of fast food restaurants in Roman cities, so less indicative of modernity than high population density and moderate energy intensity.

I would note for the record that I am interested in the “craft” of modeling, NOT telling other humans what they should or shouldn’t do, but it might be interesting to consider how you could most directly loop your stock of Muscle back into your stock of Protein Food.
Interestingly enough, the restrictions on trapping squirrels seems more to do with property rights than anything else, because if I owned the land where I live then I would only need to pass a trapping exam and not have to purchase any additional permits. I am moving this summer so perhaps my next jurisdiction will be more favorable. If I was staying longer I might consider skirting the law and processing the squirrels I trap anyway.

Good point about looping my stock of muscle back into stock of protein food. I suppose hunting would be one way of doing that, because I don't think carrying a gun through the woods for hours at a time is particularly taxing, nor would I have any issues carrying 50-100 lbs of meat over long distances. Maybe someday I could craft some kind of processing/energy harvesting device like the Wheel of Pain for home workouts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5KYZ74OAak

Convincing a fine young lady to accompany me and share foods that she gathers might be another way to utilize my muscles. Currently I do my laundry for free at a paramour's house and I assume at least some of that is because of my muscles.

I've done a lot of research on Black Soldier Fly and it seems like that provides another great resource for processing protein. What appeals to me about the BSF is that it can process protein extremely effectively from otherwise hot waste (high nitrogen poultry waste); my understanding is that they will reduce waste they are fed by 50% and that they can turn 5 lbs of waste into 1 lbs of larvae with a protein content of ~40%.

I'm learning that not all decomposers and not all waste are created equal. Red worms shine because they can turn cellulose into fertilizer, however they are quite inefficient at creating protein from protein sources. Likewise, a traditional compost pile is good for creating fertilizer over the long term, however it is not a very efficient use of waste that still has a high protein content. Theoretically, instead of feeding food scraps to red worms, one should first feed them to some kind of animal (pig, chicken, fish, etc), then feed that waste to BSF, then finally feed the remnants of the waste to compost worms or a traditional pile, because then you can maximize protein retention at every step.

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

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@white belt:

I agree that a well developed stock of musculature might serve to maintain flow of sexual access while reducing financial expenditure. Since the average American single man spends $250/month on dating expenses, this would be the equivalent of roughly 50 lbs of meat on the current (fossil fueled, high tech, industrial abundance) market. I used to make similar calculations in reference to maintenance of .7 waist to hip ratio. I am still able to engage in barter for more meat than I care to eat, but the collapse of the remnants of my youthful assets shall likely precede the collapse of our civilization. I did have a 70 year old paramour who still chopped all his own heating wood even though he only had one arm, so there’s also that possibility to consider.

Once you start thinking in terms of systems loops, it quickly becomes apparent that you need to consider what all you are hoping to maximize, minimize, hold steady etc. IOW, you have to keep track of your terms after defining your boundaries. For instance, the process that maximizes unit protein production per acre might not be the process that minimizes CO2 emissions per unit protein. If you want some software that helps visualize this, I recommend Vensim. I’ve also used it to model how helpful just a little bit of employment income can be in maintaining invested funds over time.

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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by fiby41 »

It will be like last time. Bronze Age Collapse was sudden in Mesopotamia but took multiple centuries for the Indus Valley Civilization. Things that we take for granted today- hot water, electricity, internet, won't be as standardized. Imagine the inconvenience of having to plug into different types of sockets or configuring many kinds of protocols to connect to your local net. During its mature phase IVC supported 5 million people over 1 million sq km so population and its density will also fall.

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

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@fiby41:

So, you would approximate post collapse population of planet at less than a billion by 2100?

white belt
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Re: Collapsology- What's Your Intuition?

Post by white belt »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Dec 28, 2020 5:26 am
I think defining boundaries might be the hardest and also the most important step. Of course this modelling is all highly individual, so it's hard to come up with blanket frameworks (I think ERE is the best framework out there). But I think if I attempt to for me I come up with something like this:

-spending should be around 1 JAFI
-My strategy shouldn't be reliant on one model of society (anti-fragile is the ideal, resilient is the minimum)
-My strategy shouldn't be reliant on one form of capital


The first framework is pretty straightforward and of course is one key of the ERE strategy that Jacob seemed to design to thrive in a number of such collapse situations. The traditional FIRE adherent (Wheaton 4?) would fail all 3 rules, but likely the biggest issues are that it assumes the current consumerist overreach society model will continue and it relies entirely on financial capital. I guess web of goals is the real guiding principles here, but where it gets difficult for me is implementation.

With that in mind, when I'm weighing how I want my lifestyle to look I come up with the following:

-Live in a urban/suburban area that allows me to leverage social and cultural capital more easily
-Grow 50% of my own food on premises (veggies, fruit, fish, quail, bee honey)
-Forage for 50% of my own food (hunting, fishing, wild plants, etc)
-Have 3 sources of income to cover my expenses


The above might only make me resilient, and I'm unsure how to cross into the realm of anti-fragile in anything other than my investment portfolio. But with time perhaps I can refine my strategies.

I see that the typical permaculture trope is to move into the country and start a homestead/food forest, however I think there are risks to this strategy because it generally means becoming overly reliant on physical/ecological capital at the expense of developing other capital. Additionally, it means that you are tied to your physical location and in an actual collapse situation might find violent masses or governments at your door taking their "fair share" of your livelihood. That's why I'd like to hedge my bets with half of my food coming from foraging, which will still be useful in a collapse that involves geographic displacement. Foraging doesn't work well over the long term in a starving masses scenario, but at least I will have a leg up on competition since I already possess the skill set and tools necessary. These skills also improve my social capital because they make me more valuable to a community in such situations.

Food security isn't everything, so by ensuring I still have a variety of sources of income and invested assets, I benefits from employment markets and economics booms. Additionally, a surplus of financial assets can solve a number of short term crisis problems (escaping an area, buying emergency equipment, bribing others, etc). Because JAFI is a good stand-in for carbon footprint in our current society, I think it serves as a good reference point to ensure my strategy has a chance of succeeding in a low energy intensity future. Accounting gets a little more complicated if I'm running my own businesses.

Just like in portfolio construction, no asset/solution is perfect, so it is important to understand the pros/cons/risks of everything and construct a strategy accordingly. The hedging of skills as I described also means I can scale up one skill or the other depending if circumstances require it.

Edit: I know living in a suburban/urban area may not be sustainable for the whole population, however I am just introducing that as a constraint since it is the way I prefer to live and it fits best into my web of goals.

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