YOYOF 2
A common aspect, nay, a REQUIRED and
MANDATORY aspect of survivalism is that after a disruption all will be
well. This can take many forms, such as
the government finally getting the FEMA trucks rolling and then as if by magic
warehouse doors are thrown open and it is MRE’s and bottled water for everyone
forever. Of course, only people that
think “logistics” means ordering crap from Amazon think this is going to
work. The government organization FEMA
is not nor has it ever been about disaster relief. It does ONE thing, and that is Continuation
Of Government. Period.
*
The US military is not in the
business of disaster relief. They might
show up after an Indonesian tsunami or a Japanese nuclear meltdown ( sometimes
it is safer being an Army infantryman than a Navy Squid, what with your ship
randomly hitting cargo vessels or sucking in lots of radiation from Fuki-at
least as a groundpounder, if your officers don’t try to kill you, you can more
easily dodge bullets since you can actually flee under your own volition ), but
that is just public relations selling the “we love democracy, honest, we’re not
colonists” brand of BS.
*
Come a major disaster, be it the Year
Without A Summer, Yellowstone, the New Madrid Fault, or whatever, the
government is going to of course play like they care. A few stale MRE’s will be
airdropped. The other 99% of the
supplies will be used for the government, not the citizens. If you think or plan otherwise, you need to
pull your head out your ass because it is lonely in there and that is NOT the preferred
hair treatment, not even for Bush Bitches.
The gov will show up for YOUR food before it starts giving you any of “theirs”.
*
Another fable of survivalists is the
Cozy Novel. An old ( defunct still, I
believe ) blogger I called Black Cat Dude did a really well done write up on
that brand of apocalypse tales, mainly involving the masses being conveniently
written out of the script so they didn’t bother the main characters. It was a Happy Ever After sort of thing. Sure, bad things happened and bad people
posed as a character building device, but all in all it was Happy Endings for
all and a land enchanted by glittery unicorns crapping Skittles. They confuse New Normal with Happy Ever
After.
*
Humans are rather adaptable. We are good at it. We went from dangerous but free hunting and
gathering to serfdom and secure agriculture.
We can live on seven thousand foot elevation mountains or the Arctic
Circle. As circumstances demand we can
go from bacon and unmutilated genitals to vegetarian and circumcision. That certainly doesn’t mean the changes are
good or desirable. Who REALLY believes
dozens of virgins are better than an all you can eat breakfast buffet with
sweet glorious bacon? Even if “Lawrence
Of Arabia” was mega-cool, are dates and camel milk really better than Big Macs?
*
Sure, in a lot of respects post-apocalypse
living is going to be an improvement. Vendettas
and a nomad diet, a return to masculine warrior lifestyles ( unless you are a
Farmer John, broccoli hoeing back to Gaia puke type of survivalist, and then,
well, welcome to OUR farm, serf ). Yet,
when we are dying of an impacted tooth, or a gutshot, or anemic and plodding
from ringworm after the antibiotics and diatomaceous earth is all gone, it won’t
be too much fun anymore. It will NOT be
better like all the books try to tell us.
*
Having the knowledge doesn’t mean
Dingus. It doesn’t matter Hump All. When you are in prison, it doesn’t matter if
you know how to have a heterosexual encounter.
The MEANS are not available. The
ancient Greeks had a primitive battery.
That was knowledge, without the means to implement it. Just because you know how to run a tractor on
ethanol doesn’t mean you can, if the enemy is fighting you and all your food
must be used by your soldiers and there isn’t enough surplus for the fuel. You need surplus to spare nitrates for
gunpowder.
*
All of us in the western world have
seen five centuries of surplus. It was a
wonderful thing, this colonialism.
Collectively, Europeans decimated more population and extracted more
treasure than the Mongols ever dreamed of.
But just as an atheist cannot prove God does not exist to a Believer,
the highest trained smartest guy in existence cannot prove to westerners that
surplus isn’t forever. Of COURSE it is,
right? It has “always been so”. You hear, “you cannot have infinite growth on
a finite planet”, and your brain translates that into “after I’m long dead,
THEN the surplus runs out. Sad Panda!”
*
Quick question. If surplus has ALREADY run out, if we have
seen nothing BUT contraction of all resources, how do you return to anything
approaching “normal”? I don’t care if
you get that precious Constitution returned, if you aren’t eating because the
soil is denuded and there are no more artificial fertilizers, that piece of
paper only makes one rather inadequate meal.
Knowledge and means. Do you know
what is keeping you alive right now? It
isn’t ‘Murica, Global Breadbasket. It is
globalization. So be careful what you
wish for. America is incapable of
feeding itself without overseas carbon fuels.
*
Even assuming we divert our fracking
natural gas from electrical generation and resident heating, easily done with
draconian laws such as stuffing more people in fewer homes, the loss of
overseas fertilizer also means the end of surplus financing which effects the
fracking industry, and a large portion of transportation fuel. We are using imported oil to supplement actual
fracking operations. Which is NOT
surplus energy, as it needs surplus conventional oil and financing to
survive. It is more of a financial
lubricant than a surplus energy. Some
think it is actually a minus net energy source.
*
Even if that is hyperbole, natural
gas does factor in heavily with electric generation. With limited electricity, how well does your
entire logistics delivery system function?
Do you still get those spare parts for the fracking equipment? For the military equipment? Even with diesel equipment, does the whole
farming sector function without enough electricity? Don’t confuse our past performance adapting
to contraction with our ability to continue to do so forever. All this worry about continued, forever,
contraction? It means you need to expand
your timeline on your preps. I’ll focus
on our history of food, tomorrow.
( .Y. )
( today's related Amazon link click here )
*
Please
support Bison by buying through the Amazon links here ( or from http://bisonprepper.com/2.html or www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303
*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods ( I get 4% of the Amazon sale, so you need to buy $25 worth for me to get my $1 ) or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book ( web site for free books, Amazon to pay just as a donation vehicle ).
*** My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there
Damn you are making my head hurt! How you can be so prescient astounds me. You make me think, however I only have 1 years drugs and after they are gone so will I so that is all I am preparing for. I have 15000 rounds of 22lr and several guns for them but those will be for my son not me.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what the drugs are for, but with that in mind, are you SURE not having them will be a death sentence? Some, yeah, obviously. Some might just be a money making operation. Just saying if you happen to survive more than a years supplies might be a sudden need. If that extra ammo is for your son, does he also have the extra food? $80 in wheat ( plus containers ) is cheap insurance for another years worth of core calories. If I'm presuming, or preaching to the choir, please excuse me.
DeleteWith an understanding that a Minionite is indeed on their own during the current dripping plumbing, slow as a tree sloth, collapsization, and during post collapse and system failures. It would be in that Minionhead's interest to be "in on" or some part of any possible or potential restoration or rebuilding process that will arise after a stabilization phase. (There will be an overwhelming incentive) by survivors and all those remaining bystanders that typically stand on the side of a roadway with stupid imbecilic looks on their faces, to have some systems restored going forward. A stealthy exfiltration from the hermitage in order to make tactical and strategic assessments of the a.o. as well as trade and barter forays for those needed items you burned through or forgot to pack along with those extra bags of unicorn kibble. The collapse and system grindups will not be a last chapter of a Minion's well worn dog eared survivalist novel. There will he new chapters that need to be "written" if luck favors one and he survives to tell the stories and write the history going forward. Just a note that folks need to be cognizant of the possible future scenario developments around them well past a bunkering hermatige period of time that may seem like long time g.i. but is actually a short recess activity and execising period of time frame of reference length.
ReplyDeleteLife might suck in some ways after the collapse/die-off, but it will be a 500 year Dark Age and that is at least predictable if not fun.
DeleteThey are tribal, and embrace ultra conservative culture, so, yes, they are going to be fine in a collapse. Yet, I don't fear their spread AFTER that. There won't be anything to loot. Unless it is slaving expeditions. But everyone is going to do that. I don't think they will gain enough of a foothold here in the US prior to collapse. Europe is already toast.
DeleteThose mohammedans have another big plus == they are divisive and prone toward action.
DeleteChicks dig that.
And mohammedan females aka 'chattel' rarely get abortions. We are out-bred. Over the long-term, the genes don't care about individuals. Or cultures. Or heritage and such trivialities as Mozart and Brahms and Mark Twain.
Globalization. Boom! That right there is the undoing when coupled with contracting resources during a rat like reproducing period of humans. (Trouble with Tribbles-like) It is basicly the apex animal humans devouring everything down to the ground stubble. The equillibrium of nature, as always, is a die off. Until that cycle is completed (may take multiple years or generational lengths of time to accomplish) then a Minion will have to survive throughout that time frame to make it out to another or better side of things. Or if you just outlive your old asshole bosses, scumbag neighbors, exspouses and inlaws, etc. then you are also a ribbon awarded Winner!
ReplyDeleteoff topic, but I was just wondering ... I recall reading a short story on a survivalist-related blog depicting the cusp between pre-collapse and full on-collapse (a very near term future, perhaps even currently) involving various groups of people who subsisted on the fringe of still mostly functioning as normal society, one referred to as "tree people"
ReplyDeleteI think you might have written it, but my memory is a bit fuzzy on that -- does this ring a bell at all?
No, not me. I might myself be off, as it has been many years after reading, but do you think it was "Grid Down" by Bruce Buckshot Hemming? I know, NOT a short story. But the "tree people" part seems to suggest him.
DeleteDemolition Man, with stallone and snipes had similar inhabitants subsisting on the crumbs and petty thieving from a blindly ambling along society that is another world all together. Oh, wait that is kinda going on around us now but with government soft serve to cushion things to prevent full on chaos from men demolishing EVERYTHING as a result of being choked and strangled slowly by the systems. Yeah, keep eyes and ears open for "your" opportunities to strip the meat and hides off of the lumbering 'Murica beast before it goes down permanent like and is finally stripped clean. Just be saying......
DeleteSomeone was saying ( YouTube. Or, I read it. Vague recollection ) the reason burglaries are way down is because nobody owns anything worth pawning or using. Just a bunch of cheap plastic crap. I thought it was hilarious. Sad, if already true. Nothing left to be stripped.
DeleteThanks James - that wasn't it, but kind of close and did help make the connection in my brain .... it was "American Apocalypse", a novel that was based off posts in a blog "Calculated Risk"
DeleteHa! Even when I'm wrong I'm a helpful guy. :)
DeleteIF your summations are correct, then we should invade, annex or colonize Mexico (they have already invaded US) for their oil. The Gulf is oil rich. Stabilizing Venezuela and trading food for oil to turn back on the tap would also work.
ReplyDeleteWere it not for the chemicals and drugs in humans, we could refertilize most of the Midwest with Humaneure (composted processed excrement) and the nitrates from urine. It may not be appealing, and would require delicate care in prep and execution, but we have a massive trove of mostly unused nutrients and minerals. Hell, spreading fresh on fallow fields and letting the sun purify it would also work.
I tend to prep as if there is no tomorrow, but there are relatively easy solutions to many of the problems facing us....we are just encumbered with idiot-overlords who will not embrace problem-solving and would rather bicker about #MAGA/#Orangemanbad .
Mexican oil production is WAY down. It was falling at 5% a year a decade ago. Venezuela oil is no better than than our Fracking Oil. Almost not worth the transportation.
DeleteDude, No way you are going to fertilize the Midwest with composted human manure. You are wronger than wrong. The nutrient value of dairy or hog manure is low that it precludes moving it more than 3 miles or so nowadays. It does not pay in terms of nutrients captured vs fuel to transport. How are you going to ship it when diesel dries up as Lord Bison prophesizes?
DeleteCouldn't even arrange enough transport to utiliize the shit in Chicago. Sorry dude, but "humanure" is not secret juju.
In fact, FarmCredit in many areas will not finance confinement hog facilities nor will NRCS approve permit unless long term contracts can be made within 3-4 miles of farrowing or finisher operations for spreading manure on adjacent farmland. Sometimes producer even have to ditchwitch in a 4 inch polypipe and pump the slurry up to a mile away and splice into irrigation tracks (those big green circles you see as you "fly over" real America)
Seriously dude get out of your condo....smh
The solution is correct, it just presumes we would be able to go back to decentralized farming. It is a common mistake, not factoring in the difficulty of transportation. With several generations of Happy Motoring, few see the difficulty. I don't fault anyone for this, as few delve deeply. Everyone sees reality through their cultural programming, and ours is Growth-centric and surplus-normal.
Delete4:03
DeleteI was making the case that it could probably be done. The fact that movement of shit today is precluded by cheap industrial nitrates wasn't the point. Small farms regularly use manure.
Additionally most cities sprung up around natural lines of transport that allow the movement of heavy cargo, namely rivers and ports, and later railways. Just because we no longer use them, doesn't mean that we CAN'T or WON'T.
Or, liquefied shit could be pumped in the old defunct oil pipelines, if they run dry. Just thoughts off the top of my head.
If the collapse comes, we WILL go back to decentralized farming.....after the dieoff.
IF? IF? Oh, the collapse will happen. It can't not happen. Even in all areas not India/Africa, with stable population, the movement of Turd Worlder's to replace population decline couples with oil decline means the system must collapse. The population redistribution for profit means we will all soon be Africa. Somewhere on the graph falling oil hits rising population. Globally. It will happen. Timing is the only question. As to transporting sewage, a fertile area still requires 20-25% of your cropland to be animal feed. Your city, JUST moving fertilizer, uses HOW much land in fuel? Even farmers have an issue transporting fertilizer from barn to field. Not saying it can't or won't, just that the literal energy cost is extreme.
DeleteGrrrr. If my partial comment made it through, please delete.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I've lost the brilliance of my original comment. Essentially, if we lose either the Ogallala aquifer or natural gas-based fertilizers, we lose all of that wheat and corn and even, heaven forbid, the PEZ mines.
And life without PEZ?
(shudders)
I know, it happens to me occasionally. More brilliant than usual, and the comment joins the one sock black hole. Is it profitable to smuggle PEZ in?
Delete“Having the knowledge doesn’t mean Dingus”
ReplyDeleteI think it would help to have knowledge of chemistry, and some equipment, and to also learn medicinal herbs. It might also be of help to people such as Steve above.
I also looked at some of the medicinal herb kits sold by Amazon, and plan on getting one at some point. I was over at that grandpappy’s site, that another minion shared a long time ago, and at one point he dallied in the medicinal herbs. He mentioned that in his own experiences, the herbs were not of much help, but since that’s all that might be available, they are worth having.
Herbal Home Remedies, By Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E.
About 20 years ago I became extremely interested in herbal home remedies. For about ten years I planted and grew a variety of popular medicinal herbs and I occasionally used those herbs on myself to see if they were as effective as what I had been led to believe in my collection of herbal home remedy books. In almost every case I was seriously disappointed in the results and I eventually purchased an over-the-counter remedy to resolve my minor medical condition. If you wish you may conduct these experiments yourself. However, my suggestion is that you reserve whatever garden space you may have available for edible vegetables and instead purchase a reasonable supply of over-the-counter remedies that you can find at any drug store.
However, if the hard times continue for an extremely long time then the vast majority of us may eventually have no other options except herbal home remedies. Therefore herbal home remedy knowledge may become extremely useful at some time in the future. If you are interested in learning more about medicinal herbs then I recommend the following two books:
1. Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine, by Andrew Chevallier, 2000.
2. The Complete Medicinal Herbal, by Penelope Ody, 1993, or Complete Guide to Medicinal Herbs, by Penelope Ody, 2000.The above two books will help you learn the basics on how to grow, harvest, prepare, and use medicinal herbs.
https://www.grandpappy.org/hssfirst.htm
https://grandpappy.org/
I know this is a stupid question, but can you condense the herbs some way to increase potency. Like those essential oils. Or, is that how it is already done? I have a herb book, not sure if it is one of the above, but haven't read it.
DeleteYou know, I’m almost positive that there is Jim, and I want to say that all modern pharmaceuticals at one point, came from mostly natural substances. But without research, I couldn’t come up with a definitive answer. I briefly tried to look it up just now, but I kept getting mostly results that dealt with increasing the concentration of the mind.
DeleteThat’s what sucks about the internet. If you get a commonly used keyword that is mostly used in a certain application. Or god forbid, if you try to look up a vintage famous person, whose name sounds even remotely close to a modern famous person, the latter will totally swamp out the former.
Is it me, or is modern search engines so much worse than they used to be? Perhaps too much focus on ad revenue rather than a quality product. I appreciate the effort.
DeleteI was wondering if you have ever heard of LFTR-Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. It is a nuke reactor using Thorium as the fuel, and liquid Fluoride salts as a coolant, no water required, no meltdowns. The heat of the reaction could be used to run turbines for electrical power, and also to use the Fischer Tropsch process to liquify coal into motor fuels. Oak Ridge ran a LFTR for 8 years as a proof of concept during the late 50's to the mid sixties, and it worked well. It was discontinued because the decision was made to use reactors that could produce Plutonium for weapons as the mainstay. It could be used today or in the future and take advantage of our coal resources and to move away from natgas and fracking. Of course the greens would have to be suppressed to get it running, but it could be done.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the status with the fuel? Rare? Widespread? I'd have to start there. Then, ask why it isn't widespread if it is so good.
DeleteCommon and widespread. Here is a web site that gives an overview in a concise fashion:
Deletehttps://liquidfluoridethoriumreactor.glerner.com/
sorry if this is a double post, I do not have a Google account, and reposted as Anonymous.
Sorry, my eyes glazed over. I'll try again another time. My initial reaction is, we seem to have wasted most of our fuel already, perhaps for those 70k weapons for the Cold War. So even if fuel isn't wasted, we still need more to become the fuel we don't waste. And those in power won't give up on the finances invested in the conventional nuke plants, nor will our politicians convert until it is too late. Furthermore, I can't shake the question, why is no one else doing it if it is so easy? I'd say at this point, if it isn't already a "thing" it is just a theory forever more.
DeleteThe Chinese are, as are the Indians-east, not American. The Thorium is plentiful, not fissile on its own, has more radioacative material than Uranium per unit, and requires little processing to get that. It also has orders of magnitude less waste product. It has been proven to work, not just by Oak Ridge, but also both India, which is the current leader in developing and scaling the technology, but also by China. It is not "pie in the sky" theiry, it actually works. Whether or not the USA has the smarts or political will to turn to it would depend entirely upon how bad the crisis gets and how short the ropes are that may become used if they don't respond. Look into it before dismissing it outright.
DeleteI wasn't aware the Indians and Chinese are already investing. Which does change my perception. Not about the US ignoring it. I know we will. Our entire culture, economy and educational system are bat crap dysfunctional crazy. No help for that. Plus, all treasure and efforts go to propping up the petrodollar. I remember reading a Wired magazine article on "China's next big thing in nuke plants". It might have been your described method, but I don't know. This was 15-20 years ago. I dismissed it as the usual Tech Porn hype and never heard anything after that. Ignoring the news filters out the 99% BS, but sometimes I miss the vital 1% actual real news.
Delete