future retail

FUTURE RETAIL

*
note: I couldn't help myself, I had to go back and buy more totes and bags of wheat.  Not that I probably need them, but I couldn't stop the dialog in my head ( get more!  Famine ahead!  Don't be a dumbass, economic collapse ahead-keep your savings! ).  I compromised by just getting one more year worth.  A correction from the comment I made.  Each 18 gallon tote ( $5 ) only holds two 50lb pounds of wheat, not three ( left in bag-remember, only in a storage area your cat controls mice.  These are thin totes, not thick buckets ).  And, my luck, three days later the bags already increased 10% to $11.  New calculations for a years worth of wheat is $108.
*
note: JRG of TX, got your mail, yours is on the way.
*
note: continuing the discussion from the other day, a minion who whittles and carves hours a day highly recommends the Douk-Douk knives ( http://amzn.to/2gRAsEj ) or the Opinel knives ( http://amzn.to/2gPzQ1V ).
*

What does the retail sector look like in the near future ( prior to collapse )?  It would be easy to speculate that it will be a lot like it was fifty years ago, but I have my doubts.  Remember back to your childhood?  There were no big box stores, everything was Mom & Pop.  Nothing was cheap, but nothing was crap, either.  There were few frivolous luxury stores and more utilitarian ones.  And mail order was how you got discount or specialty items.  Does any of that sound like something we can repeat or duplicate?

*

None of this should be difficult to figure out-all the changes were in the last twenty-five years, after globalization and Chinese manufacturing.  It was all established during the last Oil Gush ( and last of its kind.  Fracking doesn‘t count, which should be obvious from the two economies in comparison ), featuring Siberian oil and Kuwaiti control.  As much as we all love to hate Clinton, at least he was smart enough to stay out of the way of the prosperity at the ass end of oil affluence.  Already under Shrub the party was over, but opening the credit spigot actually worked that time to kick the can.

*

Nothing is the same as it was.  There is no longer abundant cheap to produce oil.  Shipping costs are no longer Too Cheap To Meter ( as the old nuclear power promise laughingly asserted ) and all raw materials are running out as we strip mined the diffuse ores with extra applications of petroleum ( just as we have done with our soils for food ).  With the credit system from the central bank in disarray it is hard to start a business and impossible to stock inventory.  So the new normal box store stocked with Chinese crap is in big trouble ( and remember, now that Job Retraining is hardly ever applicable, retail was the last chance of employment for many folks ).

*

But mail order ( whether it be Sears By Train or Amazon by UPS ) is also in trouble.  It is far less efficient to ship to every household than it is to ship to a centralized store.  Wal-Mart and Home Despot offering free shipping to their store might be a temporary fix, but it is being used to further decrease inventory ( as JIT once did ) and does less good than harm.  When trucks rolled into stores daily, the extra items shipped and the JIT inventory was less wasteful.  Now that trucks are more intermittent, to save money, the order of the day is rolling inventory shortages, leading people to mail order, leading to further energy wastage.

*

Mom & Pop stores still struggle to this day, for good reason.  They are far too expensive due to lack of volume.  With the bankers number one profit center being rents, the costs of even  opening a retail business are getting even higher.  Not to mention the credit issue.  The businesses that do prosper, the Pakistani opening a liquor store, for instance, operate in high crime low rent areas, have zero employee costs and charge high prices.  That isn’t a very good template for regular retail. 

*

One thing we can be sure on is the high rate of failures ahead, as the retail landscape is in severe oversupply.  There is a LOT of fat to trim and little hope of the economic recovery needed to free money back into consumers pockets.  We are already at the point of the Great Depression when no one had jobs to buy the products those with jobs made.  What?  You thought everyone could afford a $1200 a month health insurance premiums and still be able to shop at the mall?  So, an ever shrinking retail space landscape, little hope of mom and pop’s replacing them, the inevitable shrinking fuel availability for Amazon-like individual delivery.  Where does that leave the consumer?

*

Remember, in a contracting system, new infrastructure doesn’t get built.  However inefficient the old system is, that is what gets used.  The question is, how?  Forget mail order, other than specialty items for the affluent.  Forget Amazon.  Individual point shipping is a future dead industry, given fuel contraction.  As the trucking industry contracts, less overall loads mean fewer loads to fewer outlets.  Wal-Mart won’t be a survivor.  As spending contracts, volume sales of inferior quality will also be a dead industry ( plus, their costs are way too high ). 

*

I think a big winner will be grocery stores.  Not as many competitors as now.  But those that survive on low costs rather than boutique convenience items sold to a shrinking middle class, and expand their offerings.  If you notice the typical grocery store, they have huge amounts of wasted space.  All the convenience food items such as the deli and bakery and butcher can be eliminated, replaced with pre-packaged.  A lot of their shelf space is expanded with less selling items ( and seasonal overprices bric-a-brac crap ).  It wouldn’t be impossible to turn existing grocery stores into a mini-Wal- Mart, selling a lot of daily needed items too heavy to ship to homes and too specialized to be supported in its own store ( such as, to a degree, paint for instance.  If it was just white, no colors ).

*

Specific colored paint needing its own store?  Or huge sections  of a general store?  Or extra needed labor?  These kinds of luxuries are what is going to see contractions.  Home improvement stores?  Serving home owners and those with credit trying to flip homes.  As we move towards greater rentals and less home ownership, you’ll probably see Lowe’s and Home Despot fail before Ace Hardware and the local lumber company.  Why couldn’t your new grocery store turned into a general store offering Free Shipping To The Store on a lot of items?

*

All this is wild conjecture of course.  Trying to follow the failings of the future economy on little more than oil production contraction.  This factors OUT a lot of variables such as the petrodollar, inflation, supply availability, unemployment on a broader scale and etc.  Yet, isn’t it close enough, at least to think to yourself to mostly stock up on everyday items now, before shortages and price hikes?

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2yPaMlG )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

gun myth 2

GUN MYTH 2

*
note: a kind minion did all the heavy lifting and researched a BUNCH of folding knives.  Out of dozens of knives he concluded that anything above $25 added very little value.  Under that didn't last very long although they have their place if prone to loss ( about $6 is the minimum you want to spend ).  The lightest was the Ka-Bar Dozier ( http://amzn.to/2xx1vLL ).  The smoothest for quick deployment was the Ontario/Rat ( http://amzn.to/2zX5piK ).  The heaviest and strongest was the Emerson Kershaw CQC-6k ( http://amzn.to/2zWNkkH ).  Thanks minion dude!
*
note: C.D., I don't care what the other minions say, you're all right!  Much thanks for the PayPal.
*

When you allow yourself to stop at the standard level of education, which is cultural ( the traditions and lessons learned while growing up, which is training you to be included into the local culture, as distinct from job or skill training ), you are a very well trained monkey who fits in with the group.  Now, this is of course normal.  The group is the best tool for our individual survival and the best survival tool of the group is handing down trial and error lessons infused in cultural mores.  All these idiots questioning culture are confused about what culture actually is.  It isn’t a power structure for its own sake but rules which enforce the repetition of successful survival strategies. 

*

However, you need to understand that this culture was to ensure the survival of your group in the past.  It will do NOTHING about helping you survive the collapse of civilization.  Don’t misunderstand me, most cultural norms will still be applicable.  The family unit, the hierarchy of that family, the gender roles in the group, and etcetera.  But the myths of that culture, the stories told to infuse the lessons, they can become dangerous if you still religiously adhere to them.  And a huge collection of myths surrounds guns.  Which is understandable.  Our culture is heavily defined by firearms, and they were the tool that allowed us to ascend to Alpha Dog status.

*

One of the reasons ( besides a heavy dose of class warfare ) the Left is so opposed to guns is that they must counter the firearm culture which props up the warrior culture which must be disbanded to create the opposing matriarchal order.  Yes, of course bitches need protection.  One would think that they aren’t so divorced from reality that they realize the barbarians would love nothing better than to see the Queen Bee’s protectorate legions consist of nothing but females.  That is why they have male soldiers.  Soldiers, not warriors.  That is one myth.

*

The myth that soldiers equate to warriors has always been a myth that protects and nourishes the State.  We have covered that in depth before, so I’ll stop after merely stating that warriors protect the tribe and soldiers protect the State.  If you can’t see the difference you can’t tell freedom from slavery.  If your warrior class has nothing but soldiers comprising its leadership and ranks, you have obedient drones whose only allegiance is to support the ruling elite.  And if that elite is a matriarchy it doesn’t make a bit of difference.

*

The more the PC Princesses try to dismantle the warrior culture, the more opposed its practitioners become, embracing the myths that comprise the culture even more.  That is where you have to study the myths you are following, as a detached outsider.  Which myths strengthen the warrior culture and which ones weaken it?  As just described, the Soldier As Warrior myth is very harmful.  Besides the obvious tactical disadvantage of fighting a war which the other side is trained for, which is like Guerrilla 101 first thing you NEVER do, there is the embrace of blind obedience ( which in itself is under a series of myths.  The heroic individual fighting independently is a huge myth.  The reality is unthinking adherence to the chain of command, centralized control ).

*

Now, I know you’ll think I’m a broken record here, but I’d like you to consider the following as harmful myths.  Semi-automatic fire is how manly men fight, and the backwoodsman as sniper myth.  Don’t you think that relying on semi’s makes you vulnerable?  You must buy into the Protestant Work Ethic slavish devotion to earning money, which supports the current system, and you are far more vulnerable to logistics, which relies on the current industrial paradigm.  No one can survive without tools, but I’d compare it to being able to make your own arrows for small volumes of fire as opposed to having to raid the castle armory in order to get enough projectiles for heavy volume fire, which endangers yourself needlessly.

*

Again, that is fighting a guerrilla war on THEIR terms.  No!  Bad!  No biscuit for you!  The other harmful myth is thinking everyone should be a sniper.  Jeez, look at Soon To Be Bankrupt ( And Couldn’t Happen To A Nicer Set Of Asswhores ) Paladin Press.  If it wasn’t for ancient ninja martial arts secrets and sniper instruction manuals there wouldn’t have been a company.  For those of you dedicating a huge chunk of your free time, yes, you too can become a sniper.  The rest of us?  Hell to the No, yo.  If you insist on acting like you are what you’re not, once again you are fighting against your strengths rather than with them. 

*

Everyone wants to be a mythical fighter, but the myths are largely constructed to bolster the empire.  NOT guerrillas or freedom fighters or independents.  If you recall correctly, our gun culture was harnessed by the state, for the state, from the beginning.  The “independent” immigrants went into the wilderness and killed Indians.  Once the others followed when it was safe, those new citizens then used their own firearms to serve free in the approved official militia ( usually with officers from the ruling class ).  Why are you surprised the myths strengthen the ruling elite?

*

So, stop wasting ammunition you need the State infrastructure to replace, and stop wasting ammunition firing at targets you think you should be able to hit, but can’t because you don’t have the skills for.  Why do you think I don’t write fiction?  I don’t have the skill for it.  Period.  I finally admitted to myself I lack aptitude.  I might be able to translate a bit of skill over from writing non-fiction, but I truly cannot tell a good story with great skill.  Know your limitations.  It is the only way to focus on your aptitudes and strengthen them to the point of mastery.

*

Which kind of ties in with our non competitive new feminist culture, doesn’t it?  By lowering our standards to form group consensus, we are further strengthening the matriarchy.  Everyone spraying and praying is a nice group of hens gathering together.  The rooster has no place.  I’m not calling for everyone to be the uber sniper here.  I’m saying semi’s do NOT replace marksmenship, and if you are honest with yourself and follow your aptitudes and work with rather than against your weaknesses, not only do you strengthen yourself but also the group. 

*

Don’t you think the Taliban/enemy de jour admitting they can’t hit crap with their carbines and instead constructing IED’s is a heck of a lot smarter than how we are doing things?  They are true guerrilla fighters.  This stuff ain’t rocket science.  Hit the enemies weakness, and don’t fight by their rules. 

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2h5qdfP )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

gun myth

GUN MYTH

*
note:
FREE October 29-31
Living amongst the Dead
Living amongst the Dead: Dark Days
When her No means Yes
Firearm Valhalla
To Take what is Needed

.99 USD and .99 GBP from October 28-Nov 4
Living amongst the Dead: On the Road Again
Living amongst the Dead: Struggles New and Old

Standard Pricing
Another One Please, to Dull the Pain (This title is perma-free on Lulu however)
Living amongst the Dead: Will there be No Reprieve

www.amazon.com/author/jnmorgan
*

I think it has been quite some time since I’ve really tried to piss off the minions with an inflammatory idea, one that headed straight into the pasture where the sacred cows were grazing.  What I’d like for you to do is look to either side of yourself.  See your fellow minions?  Most of you really suck with a firearm.  I’d think one out of ten being marksmen is asking too much.  Let’s call it nineteen out of twenty, basically striving mightily to attain mediocre status.  Hey, no loss of love from here, I hold zero illusions on my skills with most guns.  I suck, also.

*

If you think I’m full of crap, and can prove it, well, congratulations.  You are the 5% who can shoot.  The rest of us?  I see no reason to be embarrassed.  Shooting is just a skill like any other.  If you can’t afford the time and or money, you’ll stay a novice.  And it doesn’t even have to be money.  Mostly it is just the lack of willingness to TRULY dedicate yourself.  I’m going to tell you two stories, not to make you feel bad about your lack of talent but to showcase how insanely time consuming it is to acquire some skills without spending money ( old timey skills require very little investment but that is because they lack a worldwide high tech supply chain ).

*

A minion was telling me about how he beat the motor vehicle tax ( the high cost of operating a motor vehicle for 99% of us ).  As a teen, he got a junked truck.  You know, back before China started buying up all our scrape metal and if you hauled away a beater they were happy to give it to you at no charge.  He  took the entire vehicle apart.  Every nut and bolt.  Every single component.  Then he put it all together again.  And from then on it was easy to figure out how to replace anything.  You might not be able to diagnose every problem-but few mechanics do.  Sometimes they just replace the most likely part.  Anyway, the point was he learned how to be a mechanic, for free.  And from then on each New To Him car cost less than the average yearly insurance payment you or I would make.

*

Second, I was watching a YouTube video titled something along the lines of shooting a 223 for ten cents a round.  This guy ended up shooting for free, actually, but the amount of time he took to get there was crazy.  He must have lived in the corner of the garage with his reloader.  Yes, he did have hundreds of dollars in tools, but you know that paid for itself pretty quick.  The first part was range scavenging.  I thought everyone policed their brass at the range, but what do I know?  The last official one I was at was a good ten years ago.  Perhaps not everyone does.  That, AND he got permission to sieve the berms for bullets.

*

You’d think this would be as fruitful as looking for wheel weights at the tire shop.  It takes ONE guy in town to get there before you and the supply is used up ( how to sort wheel  weights: lead when rapped against hard steel makes a dull thud sound.  Zinc and steel a high ping.  Lead weights will scratch or cut easy.  Or, rub against hard metal and lead will easily rub away to show a shiny spot.  A magnet, used far away from the clip, confirms steel.  Once you’ve found a collection of lead, use them on similar sizes to confirm-zinc and steel are much lighter in the same size.  Labeling.  Zinc is Z or Zn, steel is Fe.  Sometimes lead is marked “micro”, but it is also the only one that gets deformed, gouged, scratched and scared.  This saves you from trying to melt them all to determine content ).

*

But my point here is not that this kind of advice is usually not applicable but the amount of effort that is involved in free.  He recast all the bullets, from ingots he had created with the reclaimed lead, then he coated them with something in his tumbler and cooked it dry.  If I recall they were a bit of a red/orange color, which I assume took the place of copper jacketed bullets.  Then he reloaded.  The ten cent cost was assumed to be the powder and the primer.  He didn’t really break anything down by cost ( that was just in the video title ).  He did mention he gave his buddy a bunch of range brass in exchange for the powder and primer, reducing his cost to zero beyond the tool amortization. 

*

Now, I am certainly NOT arguing that the level of Zen master in anything isn’t attainable.  All you need is dedication and practice ( being half bullheaded and anal retentive German and half tightwad Scottish doesn’t hurt ).  What I am saying is that after all our workaday world jobs, you can usually pick ONE additional skill to get really good at.  Most of us DON’T pick being a Billy Bad Ass Sniper or military grade Close Quarter Urban Combat Ninja.  For that, we usually trust and hope our money rather than skill equipment makes up in 80/20 fashion. 

*

This is usually what a semi-auto and a near middle class income does.  It makes up for the lack of skill.  Again, don’t be butt hurt here.  Almost every cop and every non-combat veteran military puke out there almost never practices and counts on semi-auto to replace skill.  With the lack of community cohesion, cops have been forced into the role of mediator for ALL conflicts, and that makes up the bulk of their skill set.  The military is so bureaucratic and Politically Correct it is almost impossible to nourish and encourage gun skills past On The Job Training. 

*

Now, of course, being cursed by the gods to not only be able to identify problems but also be expected to remedy them by legions of screaming minions, I’ll continue tomorrow.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2yP9mrx )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

 

 

die-off training sir

DIE-OFF TRAINING, SIR!

Yesterday I asked you what you were training for, the die-off or the apocalypse.  I know all of you answered “die-off”, if you were honest.  The industrialized food, the mass production ammunition, the specialized training.  All are to get you to the spot beyond the die-off.  After that?  We are all pretty much figuring on winging it.  At the most, our Post-Die Off plans are taken care of by equipment ( our stockpiled grain and ammunition ).  But proficient shooters and fitness buffs?  Die-Off only skills.  Those that think they have trained for the apocalypse, the permaculture organic farmers?  Again, too specialized.  One skill gets you through one time frame.  They don’t overlap.

*

You THINK specialization will save your ass, and it will.  But it is training for one event.  Not multiples.  Look, I understand specialization has worked for millennia.  Even Hunter-Gatherers were specialized to a certain extent ( you hunted, or gathered.  But hunters were also fighters and gatherers were also Domestic Engineers.  And you were multi-faceted rather than highly specialized in one subset of a skill ).  You were specialized all through the Agricultural Age.  It is the new natural.  But specialization had a specialized application, in an imperial hierarchal organization that was functioning properly.  AFTER that organization failed?  Specialization meant dingus, because the infrastructure supporting that skill was no longer in place.
*

Even farming was too specialized, as it needed the hierarchy in place for protection AND, very important here, infrastructure.  All those mythical yeoman farmers in the fever dreams of Jefferson?  Even the frontiersmen had an infrastructure supporting them.  Not just the initial equipment.  That you can duplicated with your prepping stockpile.  The continued resupply was the key.  Both in more population to replace casualties and more industrial equipment or even supplemental food supplies.  Come the apocalypse, you don’t have resupply!

*

Now, since we are talking about infrastructure collapse and decentralization of political control, specialization becomes dangerous.  At least for a time.  One thing human groups hate more than anything is change.  Change is bad ( the quest for any change now, currently, is predicated on food surplus and energy abundance-if only perceived-and is NOT a historical norm.  The norm was Change Is Bad Because Change Is Gambling With Our Limited Supply ).  We want to have tomorrow be just like yesterday.  You want to stay specialized.  That is what worked then and what you expect to work later.

*

Yes, AFTER the die-off and the jockeying for power and the then settling down of upheaval, specialization will once again have the infrastructure established to thrive.  But until then, specialization does you little good.  There are no other specialists around for you to trade with.  As infrastructure collapses, so does trade, and your horizons shrink down to the local level.  You must provide everything yourself.  A generalist will be much better suited for this event than a specialist.  This goes against your paradigm.  Specialization is what provides your livelihood.  And I know what you are thinking.  If I specialize and am super-duper, and stockpile for my specialty, I’ll be King Swinging Dingus and I’ll be loved and worshipped.

*

The guy training to be a super ninja thinks that with enough ammunition stocked he’ll be the soldier supported by the community.  He has few other skills, so he HAS to be, right?  Did we already forget the premise agriculture is structured on?  You need a energy surplus to support the specialists, which includes the soldiers guarding your farm.  What happens without this surplus?  Everyone must be a jack of all trades.  They need to feed themselves AND protect themselves.  Nothing is done optimally, but at a home crafts level, including defense.  Your highly specialized training is wasted.  IF you even still survive without all the other skills you needed besides fighting, like growing food AND sustaining the food growing infrastructure.

*

The argument specialists use is that their advanced training makes them so good that they MUST be valued.  And they are. In a energy surplus.  In an energy contraction, specialists CANNOT be supported.  You’d have had to be a minion for some time, but do you remember our discussion on the collapse of the pottery industry in Britain after Rome fell?  Everything in Rome was specialized and centralized.  Britain had a huge pottery industry and shipped their output all over the empire.  Come collapse, pottery reverted to homemade pieces, primitive to the extreme compared to what had been made.  Without the infrastructure, quality and quantity both disappeared.

*

Now extrapolate that across all fields, including maximum output farming and modern soldierly skills.  Tradesmen will revert to cottage industry practitioners.  Generalists rather than specialists.  This is what happens when trade and transportation collapse.  And it WILL collapse.  Even a sailboat or a mule, if not allowed passage across multiple political jurisdictions, cannot transport.  It isn’t a question of desire or goods, but of opportunity.  Without centralized force monopoly, trade doesn’t happen.  No one is saying being a specialist is bad.  We all strive to be good at our trade, and then the best at it.  The point here is that soon it will be counterproductive. 

*

So, by all means continue to be a crack shot, or a crackerjack wood or leather worker.  If every group has at least one expert in all different crafts, it is easy to train everyone up from a less than novice level.  But recognize that if you aren’t surviving on at least a village level, all that specialized knowledge doesn’t help you do everything else you need to do for yourself.  If you are hyper specialized and have no infrastructure you do one thing great and everything else terribly.  If you can learn above book level on many different skills-but just above abstract, no need to be anywhere close to an expert-you should be better off over all.  This is just food for thought.  I don’t expect anyone to wean themselves from specialization.  This is merely to get you thinking to perhaps hedge your bets away from that specialized field.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2xanjMQ )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

army training sir

ARMY TRAINING SIR!

*
note: how cool is this?  Ultra low-tech distiller.  A clay vessel shaped like a dunce cap with drain hole.  See in the fifth episode of Tales From The Green Valley, minute twelve.  click here 
*

The movie “Stripes” had a lot of memorable quotes, the title of this article one of them ( “what kind of training did you receive, soldier?” ).  My other favorite was “lighten up, Francis”.  It was also one of Bill Murphy’s better films ( granted, this is not saying much.  Bill and Chevy were in my opinion mostly overrated past their younger days-and that is only because Hollywood made better films in the ’80’s anyway ).  The reason I loved it back in the day, but don’t care if I see it now or not, is because it did a great job poking fun at a subject taken way too seriously.  Can you imagine the movie being made today, as we are expected to jingoistically salute all things martial.

*

Being in the military, I loved watching the humor directed at the institution I had erroneously attached myself to.  Yes, they were incompetent puds.  But, even so, it’s good not to take ANYTHING too seriously.  Dedication, sure.  Devotion, no doubt.  Discipline is important.  But for goodness sakes, don’t take yourself too seriously to the point you can’t see the hilarious side of yourself.  As soon as you can laugh at yourself, life is much more enjoyable.  You can laugh at your own dumb ass, you can laugh at everyone else’s antics.  And seeing them take themselves too seriously can at times be hilarious.

*

Which brings up the coming collapse.  It IS going to happen, as day follows night.  You can take any excuse you want, from room temperature fusion ( now called “fracking” ) to ‘Murican Hubris Uber Alles, and that don’t stop Malthus Mayhem.  You add water to flour to get a pancake.  Works every time.  Now add overpopulation to contracting resources.  Different outcome this time?  Your ass ( the Green Revolution was very small parts new grain strains and very large parts extra petroleum.  GMO’s are only securing increased company profits, NOT increasing the food supply.  All this century, we are growing less than we need, and the old reserves are almost gone.  NOW, add in energy contraction ).

*

I know, you know, and Ross Perot knows that the collapse is baked into the cake.  If you desire to make things even more dire, add in Gore Warming, if you wish.  But things will be bad enough as it is ( actually, other than food production, weird weather will have far less impact on us later than it is now, as post-modern we will have far less irreplaceable infrastructure than we do now ).  And it doesn’t look like we’ll have a heck of a lot of time before it happens.  But does taking that so seriously REALLY mean we are preparing better?

*

I respect anyone dedicated enough to alter their current lifestyle to prepare.  You almost have to, to make a difference.  And yes, you do have to do a lot of things differently.  From starting to eat more of that whole wheat you’ve stored, to weaning yourself from the motor vehicle ( wean, not withdraw ) to getting your head right on a lot of things ( starting to hate strangers enough for when you must kill them, start accepting your own early death, beginning to pull back on luxuries you believe to be necessities ).  But do you have to lose your sense of humor?

*

Training is by definition hard.  But everyone takes it WAY too seriously.  All those folks being hard core right now?  The extensive PT, the budget crushing ammo expenditure?  They are needed, BUT!, I would submit to you that you are taking it too seriously.  The fact of the matter is that any training is insufficient at this point.  Training is not life experience and never can be.  But training is never a substitute because all of us view training the wrong way.  We think we are going to school and will get a degree and become proficient.  Unfortunately, this is complete crap. 

*

How do we learn life?  As children, we learn by watching and then learn by doing and then improve with practice.  But only by daily repetitive practice.  Those super studs that are crack shots under pressure, or are in the physical prime of their life?  They are One Trick Ponies.  It takes so much time and energy to master that one aspect that they leave room for very little else.  If you had grown up doing these tasks, as in the days of yore when training was a lifetime endeavor ( or when they started early enough in an apprenticeship ), then it would take little every day as an adult to stay proficient.  When you start training as an adult, you must place a far larger block of time and effort keeping mastery.  And that becomes your specialization.  Which blocks out other skills acquisition.

*

Adult education is vastly overrated.  And childhood education is vastly underperformed.  Vocations must be started with childhood, not adulthood.  Now, the way things are in our society, you don’t really have much choice with this insufficient education.  Here is what I’m suggesting.  Rethink specialization and take a moment to reflect.  Don’t you think it is pretty funny that you are doubling down on the type of training ONLY applicable to the Oil Age?  You think you have no choice, to compensate for lack of vocational training, but you are also boxing yourself in by restricting the range of your activities.

*

I believe it is far better to be passably acquainted with many skills rather than be really good in one.  Just like that quote from Robert everyone loves to use ( “specialization is for insects” ).  Where I disagree with that quote is its realistic application.  You only learn what returns on your investment, so most of us can only read about most outside our job activities.  That is the present reality.  Our only exception is our hobbies.  The problem with THAT, is we are just specializing in ONE other thing.  We still stay specialized!  Many preppers compensate that by accumulating books, but then they are accused of not being skill proficient.

*

But to become skill proficient, most likely you are forced to compensate by specialization.  You are back in the same place you started, except now you have one paycheck skill and one apocalypse skill.  And both will eventually be antiquated.  Because most likely, they are using Oil Age supplies.  Are you starting to laugh at yourself, yet?  I know it doesn’t seem so, and you will get all serious and testy and defensive, but think about it.  Are you prepped for the die-off, or the apocalypse?  I’m going to cover that tomorrow, but let’s return briefly to wider skill sets before we wrap up today. 

*

On one hand is owning a book, and on the other is being good at a specialized skill.  One is insufficient and the other is too all inclusive.  I would suggest that you just try your hand at as many crafts/skills as you can.  Don’t worry about getting good or great.  Just become familiar.  I’m of the mind that a broad approach is the only way you are going to be successful.  This goes against all we’ve ever been taught or been compensated for.  Continued.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2gUPhGl )

 

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

 

harvey prepper

HARVEY PREPPER

*
note: go here for one of the better books on off-grid living.  Free download, Rancho Costa Nada.
http://ranchocostanada.itgo.com/
*
note: holy hump, Batman!  Went to go get another bag of wheat as my last daily use one is a bit down past half.  Only $10 per fifty pounds, red winter.  I expected at least twice that, given the recent wheat crop failures.  Bought three, would have cleaned out their inventory if I had more plastic containers.  Buy, buy, BUY!!!!
*

This is one of the downsides of Moore’s Law.  Now that video cameras are way under $100 every swinging cheese dingus dill hole asswhore is on YouTube acting like a survivalist expert.  Good crapping gravy, I thought print sites were thicker than a hound dogs ticks with idiots on the soapbox.  Here I am, minding my own damn business, and I see something about an update on Texas.  I think, okay, nobody has been talking about Hurricane Harvey and the aftereffects, so I watch this seething turd.

*

In a nutshell, since people from other states donated to the charity ( and you can be sure whatever mouth breather was in charge skimmed off a big chunk in administration fees-that means “I’m getting a big ass salary to push papers, bitches! ) and the Cajon Navy lent a hand, that means people are good and helpful in emergencies and any prepper who thinks it will be dog eat dog and red in tooth and claw is paranoid and delusional.  WHAT???  What planet was this guy from?  I mean, yes, Planet Texas is a very weird place, but this guy immigrated there. 

*

Literally, he isn’t a native Texan.  He was real proud to be one now, which is understandable, since even Texas is an improvement from Planet Dumbass.  Sorry, Texas dudes, but even accounting for East L.A. ( erroneously named “Las Vegas” ) Nevada is a much better place to hang your hat.  I’ve lived in both, and Texas is what I imagine Sarajevo was like twenty odd years ago.  Different cultures mashed together under an alias nation state, waiting to detonate.  Anyway, Texas is merely dysfunctional whereas California, my hatching place, has been a Failed State for generations.  I’m not judging.

*

So, according to The Clueless One, Hurricane Harvey proved preppers needn’t fear violence after a disaster.  Evidently, he doesn’t get out much in his new state, because if he didn’t stay cocooned in his Whitebread neighborhood, only venturing out in his forty thousand dollar pickup truck ( one assumes with a ten gallon hat ), he would know that in the best of times his Black neighbors to the east wish him harm and his little brown buddies to the south don’t much care for his pasty white ass either and would cave in his skull for the five bucks in coins in his ashtray if the death penalty wasn’t so freely administered there.

*

They are Texans too, right?  He has no clue of inequality, drug and illegal smuggling, racial disharmony or the economic collapse, does he?  That is BEFORE any natural disaster.  Texans have always thought in terms of Big.  Big ass terrible weather every season.  Big natural disasters.  Big oil discoveries.  And now, big ass populations.  Only Texans would think an overpopulated area mostly run out of oil and irrigated water is a great place to park for prepping.  So, big dumb asses also Texas does have.  Harvey is the height of prepping problems?  Really?  Nothing worse is going to happen?

*

See, right there is the main issue I have with short term preppers.  They fail to see anything wrong systematically.  Nothing wrong with the economy as long as they have a job.  No racial issues as long as they live in a Yuppie neighborhood.  The US used to be the global empire so it always will be.  We only need to vote in the right guy to solve all problems.  Technology has always and will always solve all problems.  Etcetera.  I could go on for articles, but the short summation is that when you only plan for bad weather, you make bad plans.

*

Why wouldn’t a generator solve all prepper problems, right?  It solves the hurricane grid down issue.  Why can’t MRE’s be the solution to all prepper food storage?  It works for hurricanes!  Why wouldn’t an AR be in every preppers arsenal?  It keeps the looters away after a hurricane.  Do you see where I’m going with this?  When you own a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  And when your prepper guru only preps for hurricanes then all his tools are for solving natural disaster problems.  Since he ain’t prepped for civilization collapse, denial and hubris solve that particular problem.

*

Now, I shouldn’t have an issue with this, you say.  Not all preppers are survivalists.  Not all short term preppers think they should be long term preppers.  No, I have no issue with individuals prepping as they see fit.  Pessimists will always assume the worst regardless and optimists will always be cheerful no matter the evidence to the contrary.  I understand I’m just as biased due to my temperament.  What I find unacceptable is when those supposedly teaching others make blanket statements about your safety based on wildly optimistic assumptions. 

*

You say, hey, get a case of MRE’s and a generator and you’ll be fine.  Okay.  Anyone with a lick of sense knows they need more than that, even if all they do is read/watch the mainstream media.  Infrastructure interruptions are now in long weeks or short months duration, much longer than in the past.  That is kind of an obvious lie that doesn’t harm any but the idiots who deserve to die anyway.  But when you are commenting on human nature, and it is logically flawed, I feel you are being more of a danger.  Most people are living in bubbles.  Some are living in even narrower horizons, hemmed in by social media and electronic devices.  Most people who would become preppers are divorced from most reality.  They have no clues about sociology or anthropology, evolution or biology.

*

I mean, duh, right?  PC bitches think women are equal to men physically and share their mental processing.  Bigger dumb asses would be hard to find.  You must carefully explain to most people the reality of how humans treat each other.  And optimism plays a VERY small part.  When you think you are an expert in human interactions, and get it wrong, that is very harmful advice.  Certain Idaho Yuppie Scum Guru’s are clueless even as they pretend otherwise, and short term preppers are incapable of comprehending this as well. 

*

If you really understood people, you wouldn’t be just short term prepping, would you?  Yes, it is great there are Natural Disaster Preppers out there.  Every extra person staying home and fed and watered is one less idiot taxing the collapsed infrastructure.  I just think they do the rest of us a grave disservice once they start opening their mouths.  It might be well meant advice but it is flawed and fatal nonetheless.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2yCwLfq )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there