LJ Brainstorm

[nyuanshin]

A friend and I have a running dialogue on whether or not some sort of major institutional cataclysm is likely to occur in the next decade or so (yes, really). The other night we started talking about things one could do that would have some benefit under stability but a potentially enormous benefit under instability. I think of acquiring skills --

Comments

[e4q]

i have been thinking about this since the first version of 'survivors' was screened in the '70s. gave me something to think about while i stared out the window at school all day.

the current bbc version is worth getting ahold of.

[airstrip]

Purchase a firearm, learn to use it and keep a good supply of ammunition. Make sure the gun is in a common caliber. Guns are not just for protection. In the midst of true institutional breakdown, it will be possible to get away with murder and that is a fast way to acquire resources.

Start adapting a sociopathic persona for yourself. Third worlders, who are inveterate survivors actually living in an institutional catastrophe, are often vaguely sociopathic in their moral thinking.

Making and fixing things is great, if you can survive the initial chaos to the part where cooperation can stably emerge.

Learn to farm organically, learn to identify good soils and construct irrigation systems. Go hiking and keep an eye out for untouched but possibly good agricultural land.

[airstrip]

Above all else: develop a sociopathic persona. There will be lots of misplaced cooperation attempts. Defect and win. Cooperate and die when the defectors come for you.

[smandal]

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-- Robert A. Heinlein

[airstrip]

On a more extreme note: you could establish a largely self-sustaining commune knit together both by mutual need and a set of vaguely spiritual values. When the collapse occurs, your society will be largely untouched and its spiritual values will allow you to spread its model beyond the confines of your commune, creating a buffer zone between you and the heathen hordes.

[mstegosaurus]

Is this not in direct contradistinction to your assertion that one should go sociopathic?

[airstrip]

It's a brainstorming session, just throwin' shit out there.

[ercutio]

I dunno. Wasn't the Manson family supposed to be a sort of a commune?

[ashland_pup]

Agricultural and medical skills would also be most beneficial.