What kind of collapse i mean?: Global.
I’ve just just just started preparing, well, better late than never, right?
I’m going to sound confident here but I’m not this is just what I am doing.
Build and participate in systems of support. There are almost certainly already people in your area experiencing a collapse of social systems.
If you’re now thinking, “i’d love too but I can’t afford to” I would see what people actually need in your community and try to see what you personally can actually provide yourself. Not what you can afford from your job or could give up from your stuff, but what you could repeatably do to help even just a little.
You will build a niche that helps your community be more resilient and yourself too.
I’ve been making soaps for people and myself for example, and cleaning vinegar. I also been able help move people to more secure software, which is one my interests.
Been learning to garden for a few years. This year I’m focusing on perennials, specifically heirloom species that were staple food crops prior to the modern agricultural era.
Turns out pretty much every non native plant in North America is a food crop. These plants often have superiour nutritional content as well as being more drought resistant, hardy, and ecologically sustainable.
A few to google.
Bambara ‘Beans’ - West African Staple for 300 years. All 9 amino acids. Bio available B12. Grows like legumes. Nitrogen fixer
Bamboo - Edible varieties have lots of fiber and potassium, some protein and low fat.
Old King Henry - Edible shoots like asparagus, edible leaves like spinach, edible grainlike seeds similar to quinoa
Skirret - clumping root vegetable that looks like carrots. Has higher carb density than carrots.
Comfrey - Top Tier mulch/fertilizer.
Clover - Edible nitrogen fixer
Dandelions - Edible nitrogen fixer
Cat Tails - Indigenous, all parts are edible, winter survival crop.
Ashitaba - apparently this plant has insane nutritional benefits for the body and originates from an Okinawan island with the longes average lifspan in the world.
originates from an Okinawan island with the longes average lifspan in the world.
Are we sure that the lifespan thing isn’t just benefits fraud
First thing to understand is global collapse isn’t an event. It’s a slow process that unfolds over years, or more likely, decades. We are already seeing it happening, but since it’s not like the movies most of us don’t recognize it.
The second thing is that baring some catastrophic imminent localized danger you aren’t going to see hordes of displaced people fighting for your potatoes. It takes real desperation to pack a bag, leave all the rest of your things, leave your home, and walk far away hoping it’ll be better somewhere else. Even now people stay in some of the most dangerous and inhospitable places.
So, odds are you’ll have time to set up a garden, set up a rainwater collection system, maybe get some solar panels. Whatever you want to do to prepare for what you expect is coming, you can probably do it. One guiding principle in this is try to minimize your external dependencies. If you can feed yourself and live comfortably without a big shopping trip every week you are doing better than most. Independence from utilities is more difficult, but doable if you want to put the effort and money into it. Another principle is learn useful skills. Learn how to build things, fix things, buildings, cars, electric motors, etc. Most people jump to protecting yourself from bandits. Do you live in a high-crime area? If so maybe move. If not, take some reasonable self-defense precautions. You aren’t going to fight off an army or even a coordinated gang, so just don’t worry about it too much. Basically, live in an area where you get along with your neighbors and you help each other out. Bonus points if they are self-sufficient too.
I mean, you can’t predict what’s going to happen, so just try to insulate yourself from whatever system shocks might appear. You’ll need to adapt as the years go by and things get worse. Good luck. :-)
I have a novel planned about this. Basically, zombie apocalypse starts. People get infected, the lights go out in major cities and they lose radio contact, and the troupe of heroes, lead by a gritty survivalist, set down harsh rules for their camp to survive as long as they can.
Several months later after some harsh decisions and a few deaths, the radio hums to life again. Turns out, the city’s main antenna was damaged, and there was risk in fixing it. But, with some danger, life has proceeded as normal there; and they’re making steady breakthroughs on a cure for the infection. The government is active, finding who to help, and little of the “Brutal, tough decisions” of the survivor crowd were necessary.
Thanks.
I could go into specifics, but there’s lots of that out there. Maybe the most useful thing I can say is that preppers massively underestimate skills and connections, and overestimate just having whatever stockpile or tool. Don’t get me wrong, it’s better than not having that, but between the two having skills and connections will actually keep you going longer and under more circumstances.
At the beginning of Covid searches for “how to cook rice” spiked, IIRC.
If you’re starting fresh, maybe figure out what you’ll be doing and who you’ll be doing it with, get ready and organised for that, and then buy stuff to make it easier. If the collapse is global or local doesn’t matter much for this, BTW, only how it will look where you live.
Edit: If that sounds like work, it basically just is. The apocalypse was never going to be easy. Preppers who just buy stuff is a thing, because disposable income is much more common than disposable time and disposable interest in an unpleasant scenario.
One of the main reasons why I love watching people like Primitive Technology on the 'toob.
Chap goes through the process of building shelter from nothing but the shorts keeping you decent, and access to a bit of yard with a creek that has some good clay and sometimes grows iron eating bacteria.
Yeah, and over a very long crisis, some of that could become relevant. (The general concept of bootstrapping technology from nothing is kind of an obsession of mine)
Before equipment starts to wear out, anything that can run off a solar panel will continue to work (if you can afford it), though, and it’s hard to picture no leftover metal any time in our natural lifespans.
In a short-term disaster, just how to survive your local climate and navigate without help until things go back to normal is the main concern. And you can pretty much rely on other people being helpful. In the medium term, the way people live in the third world or remote areas right now is the best source.
I don’t think you can. So I don’t.
You can’t prepare for a collapse because the circumstances will be unpredictable and probably not how you imagine.
What you can do is prepare for temporary events like blackouts, floods and so on. The German civil protection office has some helpful guidelines: https://www.bbk.bund.de/EN/Prepare-for-disasters/prepare-for-disasters_node.html
First off start building yourself a “Shit has hit the fan and I need to get out of dodge.” kit to keep in your car/close to your door so you can grab and run if it gets REAL bad.
Keep it stocked and up to date (certain first aid items are only sterile for a year. Antiseptic Creams like Savlon go VERY bad when they degrade)
https://youtube.com/GXYdQJsJ2JE
Additional components; heavy duty needles and some aramid or Dyneema thread (brand name of the high density polyethylene rope that’s strong as Fkk) for repairing things that need structure.
Also get yourself on an emergency first aid course, one that covers serious injuries and stopping bleeding is more than worth any price you pay for the lessons.
Learning practical skills like simple electronic repairs (I’m not talking about house electronics, that’s how you meet god in one of the most painful ways possible), how to diagnose car issues how to effectively tie knots in rope, and a few sewing stitches to repair clothes.
(I’m not talking about house electronics, that’s how you meet god in one of the most painful ways possible)
Learning how to do basic household wiring is seriously not that hard, and has an almost negligible chance of bodily harm as long as you do the basics like… turning off the breaker you are working with. If it is an old house and you arent sure what breakers control what, there are plenty of devices for checking if any given outlet/light switch is still hot before you work on it.
Oh aye, especially over in america the 110 out the wall isn’t all that bad, its how they can get away without earthing any of their appliances.
But as a general rule, not going poking around and finding out, is probably one of the easier ways to avoid getting bitten by the grid (or by the last guy’s “professional wiring job”)
One of those Fluke non-contact live detection pens is a solid thing to have with you, if you don’t have a voltage detector and proving unit
Introduce yourself to your neighbours. Communities share resources and it makes them resilient.
Bingo. My plan is already in works. Intention is to move back to a small town where everyone knows everyone. Safety in numbers.
A simple.22 riffle with a suppressor is quiet enough you could hunt small game even if it was illegal and no one would hear it unless they’re close enough to also see it.
I drink whiskey and enjoy the sunset.
When you step back even chaos is beautiful so I get it. Good whisky I hope!
The only thing I can think of to do to prepare is stock up on food in case of emergency. I really don’t think I have much chance of survival when it all goes to hell. I guess try to enjoy things while we still can. I quote I think of a lot lately:
“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on”- Nick Fury, The Avengers
There’s little I can do to prepare in case the fascists come for me. The best thing to do seems to be to keep living my life as normal fir as long as I can
in terms of a global collapse at best it gets you an extra year of semi-starving
Usually I grab something sturdy.
Cyanide pill.
Establish or join mutual aid networks and learn practical skills like gardening, sewing, or mechanics. Ideally don’t live in a city (assuming total trade collapse)
Most prepping is bullshit, right wing fantasy jerking. How they’ll be the lone man in an unjust land, killing and pillaging as they please. Realistically, if there’s an event that there’s a global collapse, you’ll likely die from it as well.
Nuclear war? Best hope you’re in a target zone, you don’t want to try and live through a nightmare where growing food may be impossible. Your canned goods will run out in months unless you can supplement them.
Global pandemic beyond what COVID-19 was? Yeah, COVID sucked, but it had a rather low kill rate. A super bug that has a rate to kill society as we know it around the globe is going to spread quickly, easily, and be highly deadly by comparison. You’re more likely to contract it and die than survive.
Climate change? You may be able to survive this one but you’ll need to think of how high waters will rise, how that’ll effect local growing ecology for food, etc. It’s going to be insanely rough.
Any other plausible event? Again, it requires a massive die off in a short time or just general destructiveness that’ll kill a lot of people initially then everyone slowly afterwards.
Nuclear war? Best hope you’re in a target zone, you don’t want to try and live through a nightmare where growing food may be impossible. Your canned goods will run out in months unless you can supplement them.
Your food will be fine. Animals are going to die WAY before plants, they’re much more resistant to radiation than we are. System failure is much more likely to kill you than actual fallout.
Global pandemic beyond what COVID-19 was? Yeah, COVID sucked, but it had a rather low kill rate. A super bug that has a rate to kill society as we know it around the globe is going to spread quickly, easily, and be highly deadly by comparison. You’re more likely to contract it and die than survive.
A disease that kills quickly is much more likely not to spread too far. One problem with COVID-19 was that you can walk around spreading it, that doesn’t happen with ebola because by the time you’re contagious, you’re not moving. What you should worry about is a slow spreader like COVID-19, but only a few times more deadly. It doesn’t take much to collapse food and energy distribution.
Climate change? You may be able to survive this one but you’ll need to think of how high waters will rise, how that’ll effect local growing ecology for food, etc. It’s going to be insanely rough.
Nah, sea level rise won’t kill you. It might kill your grandkids, but climate change is mostly going to cause massive storms, and ruin farmland and destroy water supplies. System failure will kill you, not drowning. Unless you live in a river floodplain with inadequate defenses or a low shore, in which case storm-caused flooding might kill you.
Any other plausible event? Again, it requires a massive die off in a short time or just general destructiveness that’ll kill a lot of people initially then everyone slowly afterwards.
Oh yeah, really anything that will stop food, water or power getting to you. Or getting to someone with the ability to come get yours.
Yeah, the loss/collapse of important social structures like farming and such is going to kill the most people. With climate change, there is going to be a lot less “safe” farmland. For nuclear war I was talking more of the general uptake of radioactive particles increasing causing further ailments. There will be food but it’s likely to be contaminated for a long while.
