Some good ideas there, like the nut trees. (does that make his doomstead a nut farm?

)
On the one hand, the transition ideas, growing your food on your lawn, it all sounds plausable. But on the other hand, why isn't this self-suffiency achieved in resource-poor countries now? I keep thinking about places like North Korea, where good land goes untilled. And Haiti, with the bounty of Carribean fishing all around them, and a paradise climate -- and yet the people starve, and eat mud cakes.
I have to wonder if doomsteads are even possible in the midst of chaos. Sure, you may have the land and the nut trees and a nice farm -- but is that really sustainable, while in the midst of political chaos, violence, and Dark Ages?