Friday, June 10, 2016

nary a drop to drink 3 of 3


NARY A DROP TO DRINK 3

Most desert dwellers are nomadic and herder.  All farmers are stationary ( yes, there is a bit of slash and burn growing but you don’t find that very often ).  You reading this right now think like a farmer.  That was the way of life this countries white settlers brought with them and it has been such ever since.  And while most of the time, as women want to keep men neutered until it is late career motherhood sperm donation time ( which tells you how retarded and insane FemiNazi’s are-only a psycho masochist wants to put their body through pregnancy at a late age.  Anything much different than fifteen to max thirty-five is spitting in the face of Mother Nature and asking for problems ) and transgender-ism is an answer in search of a problem, it is glaringly obvious that adhering to tradition is the only sane way of life, this time I need you to stop and think if this particular custom and habit is in your best interest.  Again, most folks want to be farmers.  More power to you and stay to the right of the 100 degree Meriden.   I love you all but don’t need anymore neighbors ( not that One-sies or Two-sies are a bad thing, just that a Mass Movement is ).  But if you want to move to the desert, you want to be a nomad, regardless of what others are trying to tell you ( yourself included ).

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So, what is a brother to do for food?  What are you doing right this minute?  You are eating food grown with, more likely than not, imported oil.  Put aside for a second the fact that the PetroDollar is a colonial construct resulting from winning the Second World War and crowning ourselves King Turd.  Those digital entries do in fact allow us to get a good portion of our imported oil for promissory notes, but as we speak that system is under assault and is guaranteed to end promptly and soon.  Those not counting on that-such as assuming any bank or government promise is any good because It Has Always Been That Way ( except when it wasn’t such as gold confiscation or pension implosions )-are going to be disappointed AND double dog dry humped.  In effect, we are trading goods and services for petroleum.  Which we need to grow and process and transport our food ( it takes 10 calories of petroleum to grow one calorie of food-and that is just the growing part, and more importantly we import 60-70% of our oil, even WITH fracking thrown in to the equation ).  Bottom line, we don’t eat in this country without trading indirectly for it.

*

Wow!  Imagine the concept.  Trade for food rather than grow it.  Now, obviously it isn’t as simple as that.  It never is.  Because energy will go from gross surplus to widespread unavailability during a real collapse ( the one we are in now is kindergarten pushing matches and glittery unicorn flatulence compared to what is coming ), trade will be largely impossible.  Without surplus energy and a monopoly on force, peaceful trade is impossible.  But in your area of control, and the surrounding ones,  you will have a level of force to activate trade with your neighbors.  Your neighbors may not like it, may not even have enough of a surplus, but they will trade as they choose the lesser of evils.  Because you aren’t some pussy Hippie goat herding puke.  You are raiders and warriors.  You can certainly raise livestock-and it is mostly necessary so as to utilize your environment intelligently, but you must have the ability to both protect your territory and to project force outside of it.

*

If you are feared, you aren’t always attacked.  If you live in a really crappy area, you most likely won’t be attacked ( soon returning to muscle weapons, horse soldiers will once again become the norm.  And inevitably agricultural cavalry choose specialized horse breeds which need specialized feed.  A nomad group using the desert as a huge moat will use wild Mustang types far better suited for desert foraging.  Invading forces can’t adequately feed their mounts if the terrain is deep enough-use that to your advantage, along with the Russian “defense in depth”, strategic retreat drawing invaders into a death trap ).  If you are both feared AND live in desolate areas, you can overcome the advantages of farmers ( NEVER fight them on their terms but yours-or you will not prevail.  There is a reason empires are agriculture ). 

*

You must embrace the nomadic herder lifestyle as it is advantageous militarily.  You are only marginally dependent on trade, not completely.  And it isn’t like there won’t be a market for your meat and hides-grain growers are quite happy to trade surplus wheat for scarce meat.  You stay mobile so as to both preclude attack ( beware only having a single water oasis as it makes you vulnerable ) and to allow each ecological system to regenerate.  By sharing the same culture and family members with fellow tribesmen you insure yourself of fallback positions, emergency aid and a larger buffer zone.   Sedentary tribes usually lack this shared beneficial relationship as each lot of land is jealously guarded.  Obviously, grazing rights share this sense of entitlement and  potential violence, but each social dynamic is different.  Serfs and landlords are not the same as one set of warriors and another.  It is easier for independent fighters with blood ties to cooperate than to try to dominate, just as it is more natural for nobility to dominate and control rather than to share.  Each mechanism maximizes gain for its practitioners. 

*

A culture of herders is a culture of warriors, trained from birth.  Deprivation and hardship is part and parcel to the process.  Not that farmers have it easy, just relatively speaking easier-others do their fighting for them.  All herders become trained as light cavalry, completely at home and trained in the wild.  The Kings soldiers rely on superior tools with their specialized makers, and are NOT warriors.  Each way has their pros and cons, which is why you always want to get the other side to forfeit their natural advantage.  Such as, for the raiders, the offensive over the defensive ( you can raid that which is momentarily unguarded, and as long as you escape the retaliatory response you hold almost the entire advantage ).  And herding and raiding are nice insofar as their flexibility.   You can peacefully trade one season, go on a raid for wives the next, sell your “protection racket” for better trading terms, turn around and raid just for the hell of it ( to instill respect and to train the next class-your boys are cavalry naturally but must be weaned to battle ), sell your patrolling of your territory as a border defense to your neighbor, or any combination therein.  It sure seems like a better life, to me, than as a serf tilling the soil.

END

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23 comments:

  1. If firearms remain intact a yeomanry farming culture may exist in the better watered areas. Firearms prevent the need for exhaustive training that medieval society required in order to have useful warriors to fight the nomadic 'barbarians'. A couple of months of teenage hood training then a couple weeks a year to keep skills up and un-mounted infantry would be the near equal of a full time trained warrior.
    I think the existence of fire arms are a lot of the reason for the fall of the European kings and defeat of the nomadic barbarians on most of the continents. Note that since farmers need a lot of water they will seldom invade more than a tiny piece of the deserts and arid lands. BUT- it is quite possible that a culture that marries both (farming/ranching and nomadism) might evolve with the advent of climate change making the borders of the deserts very flexible.

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    1. Russia finally became free from the horsemen after firearms. And, I think SOME of the reason for knights was protection but MOSTLY it was keeping power. Complete decentralization after Rome established the system, which worked for the time, but like all powers that be they held on far past their pull date.

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  2. Bicycle infantry/cavalry beats horse in feed-cost, water-need, miles-per-day, with advantage in speed for all distances except very-short. With firearms capable of dropping a horse at 1000 yards, the big advantage of mounted cav ("Mass" pounding through crowds/archers leading to panic) is eliminated. The peacetime cost of having a large hungry collection of battle horses is huge (the smell!), while the training/equipment cost of men-on-bikes is microscopic compared to a Stryker Battalion. The fUSA big army will return to techniques and strategies of the 1890's as money/energy gets more unavailable. Soldiers will run gardens on-base to supply the chow hall, and appreciate how orderly (Eating every day! Electricity most of the time! Annual boot/socks issue! A good start for a young man.) Army life is since the USA can't afford to & stopped policing the world. -pdxr13

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    1. A simple single speed bike has little need for much except axle and chain grease, the occasional chain and tubes/tires. The main issue is the replacement of those non-rubber tube/tires. If we limp along with some manufacture and trade, fine. Otherwise, back to horses. I agree with you that bikes are far superior, as long as the oil flows.

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    2. horses! the small type used by the tartars.
      bicycles need smooth roads or if driven in the rough the driver needs concentration for driving, not firing weapons.

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    3. You don't need transportation to fight from, just to get to the battle. I believe I'm thinking of Dragoons?

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    4. Yep! Dragoons. Bike mobile infantry militia, will probably be among the best choices for small local area defense.
      Single speed dual brake (pedal and pads) bikes could probably be fitted with poorer wheels that don't have to have rubber, maybe instead using leather?

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    5. I can't see riding without squishy air as a shock absorber, but I image someone will something.

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  3. I could see a lot of horses ending up in the stew pot.....

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    1. Just the fancy nancy's who want oats and other imported feed.

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    2. Depends on how hungry the people get. Long term horses will make somewhat a comeback - first few years during the die off all livestock (and pets) will be in the stew pot soon after they cant be fed themselves. Maybe not the owning families stew pots but still in such a stew pot not too far from them.

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  4. The thing is, if you are worried about or expecting or think the grid or peak oil may cause problems with food delivery, electricity loss on a grid-based level (not electricity on a personal level as solar panels can handle that) most of The West is not the place to live as it can’t provide enough water to grow things and also can’t provide drinking / cooking water, and can’t provide water for hygiene. Hygiene keeps disease at bay and it should not be taken lightly.


    No grid / inexpensive gasoline = a very tough life as it makes things we take as easy and plentiful today and turns them into hard to get and expensive.

    Candy-coat how wonderful it is living there right now all you want, but without water it’s a place where life is hard and potentially deadly.

    I was in Tempe Az 20+ years ago and a friends wife showed me her garden she was so pleased with. It was a pile of colored rocks and a few cactuses. Nothing like a garden at all as 90% of it was ROCKS. It was hard to not laugh at her. You can’t have a garden (you know, a garden as in a plot of land where things grow out of the dirt.) where there is basically no water.

    The West looks great in all those Western movies John Wayne and Clint Eastwood made, but it’s not the place to live as water is the stuff of life.

    PS: Most of Clint’s spaghetti Westerns were made in Southern Spain, another place to not live that is short on water as it's a lot like the American West.


    Chuck Findlay

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    1. The question is not how we will live with NO water, but how to live the LITTLE that is available. Yes, avoid the areas with none, go to those with some.

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    2. Living out in a desolate place with little water as a way to live every day comes at too great a cost in lifestyle. You can easily become a prisoner to meeting basic needs rather than a prisoner to the grid. How so? Most people in the suburbs and cities spend around 40 hours a week working a job. Of that time, about 30-50% of it is spent on basic needs like food, clothing, shelter, water and transportation, or around 20 hours. Add to that another 5 hours actually spent on shopping, etc. and you have 25 hours. I would venture to guess that living in a harsh dry environment you can spend far more time than that to get the same things, so a person could easily be less free in that regard. I am not sure that the price paid is worth it.

      Now, this is not to say that I do not think that independent living is a good idea. I do. I just wouldn’t want to have to deal with the extreme climate and ecosystem most of the (very dry) West gives you. There is a big difference between living and just existing and to me survival is not just about existing.

      Grid-down it likely will be a very limited way of life. You spend most of your time just surviving and recovering from events (sand storms, drought, etc.). Getting to anywhere else is very expensive and over time what happens is this: inflation of the currency and prices means your off-grid life requires ever-more on-grid cash to pay for fuel to take you places. In time, you find you cannot afford to go anywhere else: you lose your liberty.

      One simple fact that is immutable is this: people are attracted to cities because that is where commerce and the exchange of goods take place. It’s where money is exchanged for goods and labor.





      Don’t fool yourself into thinking you can survive without money. And it’s even harder to survive without it to buy food when you live in a place that can’t support plants and animals.


      Don’t get to thinking I want to live in a large cesspool like Detroit, But I do want to be somewhat close to my city (Toledo Ohio) but still be out a bit. I figure 25-miles or so is about right to give me some room and still able to do my work so I do have money.


      Chuck Findlay

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    3. You are right in all your critisisms, yet the populated East has its own set of issues that make it no better ( or worse ) than the West. Of course, a BIG factor is what you are comfortable with, yes?

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  5. The drought ridden west has its challenges, no doubt. But personally, I'd rather take my chances here than in the east. Far too many people east of the Mississippi to provide much hope of surviving any catastrophic collapse. Factor in the humidity during the warmer months, a prime breeding ground for bacteria, and noxious disease carrying insects, along with the many corpses lying about, and about the only survivor is going to be superman. I'm exaggerating of course, but the post collapse problems that you will face are going to be far worse than in the west, assuming a full on collapse.

    As far as gardens are concerned, it is possible to have a limited desert garden. I'm not in the desert as of yet, but this year I grew some root crops (turnips). With root crops on a limited water supply, unless you're near a creek/river/pond, there is too much clean up required. You could probably cook them with the dirt still present, and then just peel and eat them that way. I know that some campers bake potatoes in mud. The mud protects the potato from drying out while cooking, and is sterilized in the process. Crack the mud coating following cooking and enjoy. I'll probably just go with something other than root crops.

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    1. If you are in a situation where there isn't enough water to clean supper, I'd image you'll have other, bigger, problems.

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    2. Same area as you Jim. Or rather, same area as your Hermitage property. Haven't got out there as of yet, but my understanding per our previous conversations was about 5 miles from water?

      Doable I think, I was just trying to illustrate that one would wish to adopt a low use water strategy in such challenged areas.

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    3. Use a pop bottle with a hole in the cap. Rinses dishes, washes supper. Uses very little water.

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    4. Don't have it all figured out yet Jim, but I'm thinking food preparation that requires as few plates/bowls/silverware as possible. Finger food would be a better option in such a situation if it's feasible to do so, but generally speaking, it probably won't be. Ditto on trash. Make sure that it's reusable or burnable, so as to avoid excess trips to the trash centers.

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    5. Iv'e done the pop bottle thing for years to take showers when camping. Spray it black and let it sit in the sun for a few hours and it's very hot.


      Chuck Findlay

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