[OldSprocket]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '4'). There will prove to be no viable political arrangements.

[bobcousins]

Even if small communities could be self-sufficient enough to survive, they would not for the simple reason is that it takes a lot less know-how to wield a gun. They would be repeatedly attacked by bands of marauders.

Our modern society has been built brick by brick over many centuries, but unfortunately it won't be simple to rearrange the bricks.

How do these folks currently without electricity cope without medical aid?

[FarmMama]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kochevnik', ':')!:

2) Another reason why such communities would fail : They would be ripe targets and the type of individuals who would form them would be the hippie, non-violent types (see authors of previous dissenting posts). Much as I like hippies, they dont have a real great instinct for survival. Likewise, those communities composed of violent types would have neither the intellectual capacity nor the skills in cooperation to maintain ANY level of technology. Mixing the 2 types of people into one community (either voluntarily or involuntarily) would invariably turn the first type of community into the second, making it non-viable.

[FarmMama]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'E')ven if small communities could be self-sufficient enough to survive, they would not for the simple reason is that it takes a lot less know-how to wield a gun. They would be repeatedly attacked by bands of marauders.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FarmMama', 'A')re you talking about marauding bands of city folk? The ones who never walk, eat potato chips and puff up mightily on their keyboards but have never discharged a firearm?

[ArimoDave]

Don't overlook the innercity gang members. Some of these folks are seasoned street fighters and killers.
Drive by shootings, close quarter stabbings, and the like are common enough for them that they will show little,
if any, fear. I, at one point in my life, worked in several "gang infested" areas in and around the Los Angeles
area. I was an armed security officer. While so occupied, I almost got involved in two shooting incidents.

Talking about being prepared is one thing -- actually being prepared is another.

However, many small town folk are seasoned hunters, and really know how to shoot well -- unlike many
gang members. I'm just not sure that most people are really prepared to take a human life. Some are; they
are the ones who are potentially dangerous to the "enemy."

ArimoDave

[TrueKaiser]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')ake away the outside world and a town becomes like a fish out of water.

[bart]

Some interesting things have come out in this thread, but I don't think it has much to do with the real future. The themes have more to do with our American psyche, with our myths and fears.

It starts with Peak Oil:

1. We know that something will happen, but it's hard to figure out what. We feel anxiety and powerlessness.

2. We leap immediately to a breakdown of civilization, Mad Max and crazed motorcycle gangs.

3. There is a morality play: we have lost the skills of our forefathers and foremothers. Those who are hard-working and self-reliant will survive; the others -- well, they just will get what they deserved.

4. Inevitably, the discussion turns to guns -- guns as symbols of our ability to protect ourselves and our (small) circle of loved ones. We don't go looking for trouble, not we! But nobody better mess with us!

Shouldn't we be suspicious that this future bears a striking resemblance to a John Wayne Western? Rugged individuals against effete city folk and bands of marauders.

The positive aspect of such a myth is that it gives us confidence in our ability to handle a threatening future. It can prompt us to learn basic skills and make preparations.

The negative aspect is that events wll probably turn out differently than this scenario predicts. Preparations made under the influence of a myth may be wildly inappropriate.

The more likely case is that PO will manifest itself as economic troubles - recessions, stagflation, etc. The future of the US may be more like Argentina and Russia than Cimarron City.

Or - horror of horrors to rugged individualists - a post-PO society like Communist Cuba, with a strong government of the left or the right.

It's important to keep a mind open to multiple possibilities -- to admit that there's a lot that we don't know. Reading about life during wartime and Depressions can be helpful. And gardening and self-reliance skills are handy in almost any scenario.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OldSprocket', '
')If the stipulation is that there is NO trade, then communities will indeed have a very difficult time. I suspect that there will be limited, guarded trade between groups as there has been for a dozen millennia.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', ' ')some will survive, probably the most ruthless ...... types but some will survive.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Kunstler is saying that its national governments that won't be viable. What sort of government will even be possible if national governments collapse?

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'K')unstler is saying that its national governments that won't be viable. What sort of government will even be possible if national governments collapse?

[katkinkate]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '.').. There will be NO IMPORTS OF ANYTHING into your community....

[katkinkate]

Greetings, FarmMama, and welcome. We always need more voices of reason and common sense.

[katkinkate]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hawkcreek', '.')..You big city boys are dead if you come looking for trouble in a typical small town. We got plenty room to bury more bodies.

[mgibbons19]

I have to agree that the assumptions upon which this thread are built are a little off, and I love bart's (I think) mythological analysis. But that is what culture does, it speaks to our often unexamined mythology.


First, I've not read hienberg yet, but I've read plenty of Kunstler and I think you sell him far short. Nowhere do I read that cute little small towns are going to make for a nice smooth transition. Simply that they have the best chance at transitioning at all. They have less sprawl infrastructure. They are closer to realistic resources. And they are communities, which makes for built in self-governance. Those are the resources he seems to identify as important.

Second, if we run into thermonuclear war, I'm not sure any of our bantering about the internet is going to matter. There is simply no point in worrying about that. Can't plan for it. Don't know how it would go down. etc.

Third, there will always be trade. Even if it's on the back of a donkey.

Now, look at the cultural references presented and look at how we've responded, knowing that most of the board (not all certainly) are Americans. "Country Boys" is a fun song, but it sure plays into (rural) Americans' thinking about 'city people'. Westerns and country music work for us because they tap into the underlying tenets that support Americans' world views.

Thing is, it is real hard to know what is real, and what we want and need to be real to support that world view. So how much is this a scientific and sociological forum about resource depletion, and how much is it tieing into our own personal and socialpsycological apocalypse fears?

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', ' ')We see a lot of mention of 'local solutions' and I wanted to start a thread where we could look critically at this idea that the answers to the coming crisis lie in local actions that people take. Just what local actions should be taken?

[threadbear]

Penultimate, In the scenario you envision, small "sustainable" communities won't survive. Period. We are so far from sustainability it's hilarious. Even the Amish would have a tough go, but they might make it, with great difficulty. Not only are we faced with economic and energy difficulty, our climate is changing, turning once arable land into desert. The nation, at present, though suffering through the indignity of corporatism, is utterly dependant on it and the strong central and state govts that support them, in turn.

[EdF]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'O')ne thing those stone age people had going for them Ludi was a thriving ecosystem. We have diverted so much of the natural world for our own cultivation that we crowded out and depleted what the stone age people lived on.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Say that Kunstler is right and all the large social systems wither away. No more global corporations, no more UN, no more United States of America, no more State Government (except maybe in Rhode Island). Its back to the drawing board and localities are on their own. No more machines with moving parts - justs jacks and saws and hammers, crowbars, bolt-cutters (I've got one of those). What we have must be protected because there aren't going to be anymore coming off the production lines for a very long time, if ever. We can distinguish between two major concerns: short term survival, and long term survival. In the short run, there are still some fuel supplies here and there, there are many firearms, and there are vast supplies of canned foods, dried beans, etc. The problems in the short run are to get new food production going, to secure water supplies, to organize the local population into a new form of government, to establish order and dispatch criminals, to establish what is needed and find trading partners and trade routes Perhaps the most vital thing to be traded in the initial years of rebuilding will be heritage or heirloom seeds. Long term survival issues include defense, weapons production, reestablishment of technological production. Sure, it could be done. I think we all agree that trade will be vital. Without trade people in localities will slip into lassitute and death. So maybe what is needed to be done, more than anything is for the donkey population to be increased in a hurry!