Saturday, January 19, 2019

eating gold and skills


EATING GOLD AND SKILLS
You cannot eat gold.  It doesn’t mean “don’t bother with gold”, it means that gold is at the bottom of your priority list and it serves a completely different task than surviving the collapse ( silver is another animal.  I’m telling you, you could do a lot worse than just taking a wild bet and investing $20-$100 in silver bullion and waiting for it to exceed gold in price-it costs so little and can return so much ).  It is a generational transfer of wealth and has nothing to do with survival.  Gold is great, but it isn’t a talisman.
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It is the same when stockpiling carbon fuels.  They are great, but they don’t help you survive, per se.  They are a gateway fuel, getting you to the point where you can live completely on renewables.  For our purposes here we include Industrial Age items only feasible by squandering excessive carbon fuels, such as pane glass and insulation.  I’d rather invest in south facing windows ( that is your north, Dingo ) and more insulation than a large tank of propane.  If you JUST stock the carbon fuels, you quickly run out and have nothing. 
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You need both, but one lasts longer than the other and so is a better investment, should you be of a budget that only allows one.  When people see gold as a survival item, they assume that things will only get as bad as they desire ( trade will be possible even as people go hungry? ).  When they desperately stock gasoline and propane, they assume that things will only be bad for as long as they desire.  This is, in effect, prophesizing doom to a level you are comfortable with.  I can understand, being from a milk and honey land.
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But I haven’t seen too much evidence lately that things are still looking all that great for the majority of working folk, anywhere in the world.  If things just keep getting worse, where is the justification that we are still living in energy and financial surplus?  I know, some folks pretend that with “their” politician in power all will return to Unicorn Comfortable.  This is a message beat into our heads constantly.  You know, how finding a better husband ( RomCom movies ), a better job or a better warband leader ( The Walking Dead ) will make everything better again. 
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We obsess over Better, but it isn’t something you can rely on other people for.  Other people are looking for Better, also, and it is rare for the twain to meet.  I’m not suggesting fatalism or nihilism, just that one’s goals and aspirations need to be better grounded in realism.  You must push for personal greatness, but don’t think you can build a better mousetrap and get rich, in a crashing economy.  Yes, in the past, you could.  Past Depressions are zero indicator for future performance.  The last Depression was at the birth of the Oil Age.
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Not the end.  The last Depression was ( aside from any “push off the cliff” given by the central bank to eliminate all independent banks-why do you think gold was made illegal? ) about overproduction and resource abundance.  This Depression is about overproduction and LACK of resources ( we are scrapping the bottom of the barrel for them to keep producing ).  This Depression marks the end of the five century European colonialization of the globe.  You cannot offer what people cannot buy when there are no resources to do so.  That is a Full Stop, Period.
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And this is where people get skills confused.  They think that if they build it, they will come.  They confuse need and ability.  I don’t care how much mad skills you have.  If there is no food to give to you, your skills are useless.  Okay, here is an example.  A supervolcano blows.  A year on, you are having difficulty with too much exertion, as your lungs were impacted by breathing in particles ( despite your best efforts ).  A doctor comes along.  He can, after a few months, cook up some medicine to cure you.
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( yes, I know this isn’t a “thing”.  I’m making a point here ) But you have just enough food left to get you through a harvest in your greenhouse.  If you feed the doctor, you won’t make it that far.  So what do you do?  You don’t cure your breathing difficulty, that is for sure.  Yet, every single asinine story you read about the end of the world, people are going out of their way to find a doctor to come join their group, regardless of their food storage situation ( “I know we don’t have enough, but we’ll figure something out” ).
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Perhaps we should blame the book “Lucifer’s Hammer”.  Rather than reading non-fiction books on the fields relating to survivalism, PA authors read Hammer and think they are now qualified to perform an anal delivery of a novel.  What they seem to have missed is the background information in Lucifer’s Hammer, how they planned on feeding themselves.  These new writers keep the “needed skills” part and ignore the “feeding everyone” aspect.  If Food Is First, and everything follows, you simply cannot make the mistake of thinking gold, guns, carbon fuels or skills are Job One.
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“But, they NEED a doctor.  Any group will be lucky to have me”.  Have you met any fellow preppers?  They have a month of food.  They insist on meat every day, because, ‘Muricans.  Even you my beloved and far too abused minions don’t have enough food, even if far better prepared than the Yuppie Scum preppers.  Having a garden is great.  It is super.  Hell, my desert dwelling ass is jealous.  But it isn’t food.  It is a food promissory note.  Yes, you need both.  But you cannot neglect storage food and pretend that a garden is an adequate substitute.  Eventually it will be.
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But for now, it is a food casino.  You flip the coin, and it MIGHT deliver food.  But then, it might not.  No one goes from even good conditioned soil to Enough Calories in just one season.  You must always have enough stockpiled in case of harvest failure.  You cannot control the weather, pests, or bandits raiding.  Optimistic Ollie’s do NOT survive the apocalypse.  At most, they can be stewpot fodder or soil conditioning for the next generation.  Dark Age survivors understood how primary food was.  They did absolutely nothing that jeopardized the harvest, regardless of some perceived future benefit.
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One in the hand is better than two in the bush.  When the food supply was always one bad weather event away from being in deficit, you NEVER gambled with that lack of surplus.  We THINK we can do that today, because we really have no idea what it is like to be hungry.  We are also idiots.  If we really understood the importance of food, we would already have nuked the middle east for our energy supply and  genocided all the illegal aliens and the politicians who approved them ( because overpopulation ). 
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Continued tomorrow.
( .Y. )
( today's related link https://amzn.to/2VS5S0C )
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note: if you have been ignoring me lo these many years as I've tried to warn you about the Mosin-Nagant with its lack of a gas safety, here is the Forgotten Weapons dude touching on the importance of such a safety as he discusses the Gewehr 98 click here.  And yes, it is still important with low quality Russian ( or especially, Soviet ) ammo or when you start to use improvised chemicals for reloading.
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23 comments:

  1. Yeah, too many of those yuppie unicorn petting zoo hobby farmer preppers think their gardening and pet chickens is the be all end all to their survival success. They may have the six months to a year of basic storage, and a too reliant on a very uncertain ability to farm up or livestock any caloric shortfalls. Their gardens will be raided and livestock slaughtered. The notion of stepping out on the porch with a flir ar 15 and yelling "hey, you there!" Is asinine. The brigands with torches raze it all down and move on to the next "homestead retreat".

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    1. Of course, it is equally dangerous just to rely on stores of food. Both is best. I'm not knocking the gardeners, just saying "don't get cocky".

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    2. Location, location, location. I'm betting everything that most of the raiders will be killed off before they get way out here in the sticks. The ones that do get here will be too skinny and sickly to put up much of a fight. I'm the kindly sort, so I may give each one a couple crumbs and put a steel collar around their necks and use them as draft animals. I do wish we were at least another 50-100 miles south of there, further from the major metropolis in case I am erring. You know what they say, run with what you brung, and I'm thankful we're at least out here in ruralville. Being aware is half the battle.

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    3. And knowing is half the battle, Joe!

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  2. If you have snot kids that aren't bucking it up and cooperating post collapse, the precious metals and looted valuables can be taken in trade for them. Takes a nuisance problem off of your hands, less mouths to feed. Any inquiries, they went to stay with inlaws out of state. Every war and collapse has excesses of human bodies around anyway, so yes nancy everything is logical.

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    1. Why would anyone pay for snot nose kids? How hard is it to just steal one?

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    2. If you have whining brats or a yammering witch you ain't gonna make it far. Dead weight. And if you don't know this already you're already gone.

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    3. "yammering witch" You knew my ex's?

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    4. *bowing & scraping*

      'Scuse me my Lord Bison. I do believe the lowly minion meant to suggest that people bribe others with gold to take the brats off their hands

      A million apologies my Lord nice hair

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    5. You all know I'm easily confused. It doesn't seen very sporting to take advantage of that. :)

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  3. Grow some tall corn stalks within easy range of your favorite plinking gun. Use that as a honey pot bait for taking birds for stew pot. Also snipe any biped humans trying for it. Put them in the stew pot too, and you just extended the stored food inventory. Thats gardening.

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    1. Ha! Friggin classic. Love it. But rather than stewpot, feed chunks to chickens, then the eggs and chickens to the pigs. Is that enough of a "ingestion removal" to ensure no cannibal diseases? Or, chunks suspended over chickens, maggots eat and drop, feeding chickens. Could you then eat the eggs? We've talked about this many times, but I don't think we have answered to satisfaction

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    2. I think I read it on the journalist / desert dweller site. But someone was arrested for using a fishing line with bait to draw in local dogs & then eating them.

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    3. You said you've been getting in a lot of Chinese there, right? So it could be anyone.

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    4. I personally would not eat any nasty assed human no matter how many times you filtered it down. If I had to kill one or more I'd some how get the carcasses as far away from the AO as possible without touching them and then probably get them in the ground and maybe incinerated so that they cannot infect ground water or be consumed by creatures I may want to eat. One more reason to be as difficult to find as possible.

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    5. If a mass grave produces fertile soil and in ten years a bounty is harvested, then that grain fed to pigs, you have still filtered it down. That is all I'm trying to replicate here. I'm not claiming it is a great idea, just that if the choice is bodies everywhere or bacon everywhere...Assuming you don't have incenaration fuel or heavy equipment, how do you dispose of the lot, other than moving away for a year or three?

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    6. "...how do you dispose of the lot..."

      Hadn't thought about this much, truthfully. Maybe a new post is in order? lol

      In the cities the die-off will be traumatic and the bodies will be huge. Perhaps the whole place will be off limits for a long time. How long does it take for a body to turn to dust? And is that dust still potentially dangerous? And what about animals and people that eat the (diseased) dead and wander off and die elsewhere only to be consumed by other animals or people? Pebble in a pond - eventually reaches the bank.

      This is where I refer back to "location" as being a key element in all things. By placing the bank as far away as possible from the pebble in the pond the effect will be lessened.

      As far as up close dealing with dead bodies. Create a trevois (sp) and drag them individually to a place far away from the home base, dig a large hole and put them in the bottom, cover with dead leaves, kindling, branches, and then hard wood logs, and set it afire. 2 weeks later cover it with more dead vegetation and soil, and mark (with the date) for future recognition.

      I don't know man, just thinking out loud here.

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    7. Luckily, here in the desert with dead soil, you are better off leaving bodies above ground. I think I've dug enough holes for my lifetime.

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  4. re:
    "Woman's March 2019" cancelled then non-cancelled?

    Should I go? Should I stay?

    I heard it was cancelled because TheMainstreamMeadia disapproves of folks not holding people of the semite races in The Highest Regard.

    Then I heard The Most Reverent Louie Faracon(sp) is of Another Color, so TheMainstreamMeadia say they're suspending their disapprovals until the signs and placards are pre-approved by The Approval Committee. That should be any day now.

    2019 is turning out to be so complicated. I just know I'm going to flunk. And they're going to hold me back. Again.

    Should I meditate-in-place?
    Should I go to the nearest paved road to glare at drivers-by?
    Candlelight vigil?
    Should I adjust the sandbags on the porch so the black pistol-grip is supported so the cans out in the south pastures are easy-peasy lemon-squeezy?

    The dogs seem to think a nice round of tennis-balls is in order.

    I'm just all in a tither!

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  5. Personally, I like the idea of using "long pig" for dog food and not having to worry about disease transmission.

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    1. Granted, but such a shame wasting so much meat.

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    2. Your problem is in assuming it's meat. I'd rather eat a bakers dozen of 9 day old roadkilled possum's rectums, raw. Dunk them in sriracha and pretend they're calamari. nom nom nom

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