killing time 2 of 5

KILLING TIME 2

One of these days, you will be forced to downgrade in your living arrangements so as to use far less heat.  Just as Californians actually believe that you can keep drilling ever deeper for water with nary any physical constraints, so Peak Oil Deny-ists also believe the Earth is hollow and full of liquid ( in their case, petroleum ).  If that keeps you paying ten times more for a ticky-tack house than it is worth, needing way more energy inputs than we shall have available to us in the near future, well, whatever.  You can only lead a horse to the water.  If you don’t believe that, I suppose you also don’t believe that nuclear war could never happen because Obammy is so respected and loved ( evidently the whole world loves African homo’s married to football players receiving sex-changes, whose only achievements in two presidential terms is to double taxes under guise of health reform, while losing all his wars ).  But how about this?  I assume we are all respectable survivalists here.  No Pussy Preppers owning just one case of MRE’s and six semi-automatic weapons, living in the shadow of a mega-urban sprawl.  Yes?  Can you acknowledge the possibility of a quick collapse and die-off?

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Yes, I know that all signs point to a continuation of a long slow collapse.  I don’t believe it for a second, but I’m old and cynical and I can’t wait to start shooting the deserving ( and don’t worry, I’m not going to go postal.  I want to shoot people AFTER a government collapse, so I can go home and sit and read a book in peace.  Not worry about the Polizai at 3AM kicking in my door ) so I readily admit to the possibility of wishful thinking here.  But can’t we also think there is a possibility of a Black Swan and we get a fast collapse?  Where you have to lay low while the die-off commences.  And if that happens ( just as I plan for a slow collapse even if I don’t truly expect one, so too should you plan worse case even if you are an optimist ) then you will be hiding in a single location ( or, alternately, you were forced to Bug Out to a much smaller location than you had planned on-by its very nature, a secondary fall back is done cheaply and small, for lack of funds ) and you suddenly have a Cabin Fever situation.  I don’t think a die-off will take all that long, but it will feel long enough.

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I think the same people who really don’t believe a fast collapse is possible also are the ones who put out guesstimates on how long one will take.  It isn’t that I think any of us know, just that I think if you are going to guess about a worst case scenario, you should be, you know, a bit pessimistic.  Months and months?  How?  By studying current examples of collapse?  Those aren’t resource collapses, but government ones.  The distinction is vital.  Governments get replaced all the time, and it usually just means business as usual but with a larger body count.  No big deal-at the most, you have a higher disease rate as the corpses rot in the sun as the morgues are full.  You think a government has to be the same as ours?  Centralized continental control, vast taxes and the like?  Even a drug kingpin and his enforces can make up a government, as long as the basic protection racket is successful ( we protect you from other gangs and if you don’t like it we will make you an offer you can’t refuse-no Free Riders here ).  If peace is enforced and trade is protected, however much it is taxed, you have a government.

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In a resource collapse, there is no peace you can enforce as the hungry do battle, nor is there anything to trade.  You will eventually restore government, of whatever kind fit’s the situation, but first comes the collapse ( the system cleanses itself by removing surplus population so as a resource surplus can then be generated so as to permit a government-rule, even tribal consensual rule, happens in all stable societies.  Like it or not, Libertarians and Anarchists ).  Humans don’t cherish being ruled, taxed and endangered, but nobody voluntarily self-enforces contracts and the monopoly of violence must be kept to do so.  Yes, ostracizing does work, but sanctioned violence works much better ( Libertarians would have you wait for the “shunned” to resort to theft before you can initiate force.  All well and good, in a resource rich economy where such loses are manageable, not so much in a non-surplus group when there are less margins of error ).  My point is that government always returns, but the rulers changing places on the throne is not the same as there being a lack of surplus to keep governance functional. 

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Most of what you’ve read about, those collapses with records ( which are the only kind you can reasonably use-recalling Rome and the Mayan collapse is educated guesswork ONLY and not proof of anything good.  The Slow Collapsers think the length of a civilization is the same as the length of the  slow collapse.  I say a long slow collapse does not disprove an end sudden dip and crash and die-off ), are simply governments changing hands with no interruption of continuity.   A die-off is the temporary eradication of continuity.  In a die-off, it is all against all and dog eat dog.  Only hiding and cowering is a good bet for survival.  Are you ready to prep to hide?  If so, we need to talk about what you are going to be doing during that time.  In effect, how to kill time during the Killing Time.

More next article, obviously.

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