A reader named Scott was kind enough to take some time to comment on my last blog post, with some suggestions and questions. It's good to hear feedback from people -- at times, I feel a little like a DJ running a pirate radio station with no phone line for people to call in. :) The feedback I have had has been overwhelmingly positive and I think that the Society is beginning to fill a need that people have had and not been able to articulate or have had met anywhere else. However, I think his comments raise some points that I think need to be addressed and would be helpful for a number of other people reading the blog.
First off, I want to talk about the idea of "membership" in the Leibowitz Society, so people don't misinterpret the intent behind this concept. To be a member, all one has to do is consider themselves to be a member. If they don't want to be a member any longer, they're not a member. There's no organization, no hierarchy, no place to give money -- just a conviction that we are going to soon experience some very rough times and that there are things we need to save for future generations and that they are worth saving. Like you, I have been concerned that there was the possibility of something like this turning into a cult, but I tend to think people who appreciate the Society's emphasis on rational thought are also the kind of people who are unlikely to be involved in a cult. I do think that, down the road, people may eventually form communities of learning and knowledge. While I have no idea what form that will take, I think the monastic model is a candidate for what form the Society will take once the bonds of organized modern civilization have been broken and people enter a strange new world. Monastic life offered order, discipline and stability in a very rough time, combined with the opportunity to become educated when education itself was a rare commodity. It may also be that when civilization has stablized and is seeking to learn from the past that the knowledge of the Society is instead exposed through something along the lines of the classical schools of learning and philosophy. While this bears some thinking about, it's still probably beyond the scope of what needs to be done in this day and age.
Second, "prepping" (as it has come to be known in recent years) is one of those things that I approach warily. The problem is, if we look at the decline of Rome, it was not something that happened in five or six days. The signs were clear much further back, so for the people living in the Empire in the latter days, it seems to have been like looking at a swaying tower about to topple -- there was plenty of time to get out of the way and find a relatively safe haven. Much of the time -- although the emphasis does seem to be shifting -- people seem to be expecting an acute event and hoping that their supplies and preparations will be enough to carry them through to the other side when things become stable again. What I think instead that people need to be doing is realizing that the state of things at this time is probably as good as it is going to get in our lifetimes, or even the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. The "machinery" of the global economy took roughly eight hundred or so years to put together, beginning with the early banking systems of the Knights Templar (and the Renaissance a couple of centuries later), then being developed into full-fledged commercial systems in the late 1600s, finally to our completely global system of the modern day. So, in our current state, trying to force this system into an artificially sustained level of luxury and productivity, we are essentially destroying this system which took nearly a millenia to assemble. Realistically, we are not going to have the chance to try to put something like this back together for quite some time, if ever.
So, barring a sudden, cataclysmic event (which leaves us all living in a world as illustrated in The Road), we are going to simply see a steady decline, with ups and downs as the global system (and civilization which has grown addicted to it) grinds to a halt. There are little signs of this happening all around us -- for example, I was coming down the highway today and saw three billboards with the number listed for the advertising content and nothing else on them. The vast tracts of empty commercial real estate, foreclosed homes, etc -- all the "broken windows" which are never going to be repaired -- are just signs upon signs of what is happening. In this kind of a world, we need to expect that once something's gone, it's gone and is never coming back, be it jobs, businesses, cities, whatever.
If anything, I think the kind of things we will be facing at first are going to be increased crime as people become desperate once the social safety net is gone, as well as problems finding medical care, food and other essentials of daily life as the economic apparatus which has supplied them begins to hiccup. It should be expected that the coming crash of the dollar (often predicted, but now looking increasingly likely) will exacerbate these problems as no one will be sure what anything is worth. The implication then is that we need to be able to think on our feet, understand how to be effective members of the larger society as long as it can still meet our needs. We need to know how to barter and interact with a wide variety of people, many of whom won't believe what they're living through even as it slaps them in the face. We need to know where the safe places are to land as the herd is running off the cliff. We need to learn to live with less and still thrive.
As far as sites I would recommend, I want to point out that the focus of the Leibowitz Society is mostly concerned with preservation of knowledge through the coming Dark Age. There are other places which are going to be better sources of information as far as what to store, how to store it, etc, although FerFAL's Argentina Collapse Blog is a good starting point. Argentina suffered something similar to what I think we're about to experience, although it was localized to only one country back in 2001, while we will be dragging the world down with us. Things we have never dreamed of -- bandits on the highway -- may become commonplace. I like Kunstler's site (and The Long Emergency was one thing that finally pushed me to get this effort rolling), although he tends to think that no real hope lies for salvaging anything on the other side. Backwoods Home is a pretty good source of information for self-reliance. I haven't looked at it in a while, but Mother Earth News also used to be good.
People tend to want to look for a magic formula for prepping, and keep searching for information, like people do with fad diets and weight loss books, but a friend of mine once pointed out that what people lack isn't information, but motivation. There is plenty of good information available for people who are looking for it, although it can usually be boiled down to the basics. Putting aside a few firearms (where legal) for hunting and self defense, some fuel for your car so that you can get around when there aren't any gas trucks running, having a house which can be habitable off the grid, a year's supply of food and medicine and the ability to produce more food, and having a good source of clean water is probably as much as anyone should reasonably expect to do. Anything beyond that is probably bonus territory. The motivation for us should come from just looking at the news and how bleak things are becoming.
Last, and probably the most important, the type of help we need (and, remember, people are helping each other, not helping me) is for people to begin looking at the knowledge content areas I'm posting and commenting on what else they think should be included, how it can be organized better, etc. On top of that, people with expertise in certain areas need to start putting together 10-20 page overviews of the various content areas so these summaries can form the text of the Codex Universalis. Obviously, some of these content areas are going to lend themselves to shorter or longer entries and aren't going to be complete, even if they were to run into several hundred pages, but they are intended to familiarize people with these areas and serve as starting points. For those with professional skills and knowledge, suggestions for written texts for people to begin storing in their personal Repositories are necessary. A couple of people have mentioned an interest in long-term digital storage, which would be invaluable if a durable form could be developed.
I'm planning on putting up a forum fairly soon which will allow people to start discussing these topics in a more user-friendly and dynamic form. I had hesitated because I wasn't sure if there was enough interest, but I think it can easily be justified now. Once it goes live, I will announce it here, along with some guidelines on its use. The blog will still be active, of course, as a good introduction to what the Society is about as well as random items I come across which may be of interest. At some point, I anticipate other people wanting to write blog entries, once they have a comfortable understanding of the Society's approach and interests.
Thank you for the honor of your response!
ReplyDeleteYou are correct in reminding all of us “preppers” that we could be facing a very slow motion collapse, lasting years and maybe decades. The complete collapse could even occur after our lifetimes are over.
On the issue of what form that the gathered knowledge should be stored upon, as a computer-programmer for 20+ years, I have a cautionary tale: I have seen many “platforms” and "systems" come and go. Near the end of a platform or operating systems life, lots of work is expended to make sure that in the future, one can go back and retrieve information off of the “legacy system” – and here is the rub – in the few times when an attempt is subsequently made to retrieve information off of a legacy system, I have yet to see it work. And so there lies the downside of using digital media as your sole storage device, especially if the dark age last decades, …
While I am probably getting way ahead of where we should spend our time (i.e., you are correct that most of our efforts should be spent gathering the info ), your answer to my question of “Should we gather post- or during-the-crash?” was interesting. I think your Monastary concept/idea makes the most sense, since it really is “tried and true” – i.e., the previous dark age.
Let us face it – there are very few of us “Like-minded people” - 99.999% of Americans would think we were nuts, and would screamingly red-in-the-face insist that we are “nuts” … right up until the collapse (and maybe after). Indeed, there may be blowback against those who had seen it coming and had prepared, with we few being illogically accused of wishing for or even causing the breakdown. So your monastery idea has merit, including the part involving the actual form of the monastery as a walled fortresses, as they were during the previous dark age. Also, the monks of old (both European and Oriental) often found it necessary to be skilled in armed (or un-armed) combat, so you chose a good parallel.
A slight tangent: As my signature states, I live in Bucks County, PA, and one of it’s treasures is the Mercer Museum. Too make a long story short, around the turn of the century (i.e., 1900), a true scholar and scientist (Henry Mercer) saw that many of the pre-industrial tools were being discarded, and collected an enormous amount of them in his “Mercer Museum”. Since I think both this blog and Kunstler’s are correct, and we are going back to “a world made by hand”, this building, which is probably the largest collection of pre-industrial tools in the world, is of critical importance. (Web site: http://www.mercermuseum.org/museum_collections.htm). I am reminded that after the fall of Sadaam, one of the many tragedies that occurred in Iraq was that most of the museums, housing very ancient works of art, were looted, and many of the objects were destroyed or lost. Maybe my biggest contribution to the Leibowitz society (and to the future of humanity) is to do my best to see that the Mercer Museum doesn’t fall to similar looting/destruction.
Thank you again,
Scott in Bucks County
Thank you for the honor of your response! Sorry for my delay in replying, but given the honor of such a direct communication from you, I put some time into my response below.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct in reminding all of us “preppers” that we could be facing a very slow motion collapse, lasting years and maybe decades (I tend to lean towards the shorter end of this range, but could very well be wrong). It could even occur after our lifetimes are over.
On the issue of how the gathered knowledge should be stored on, as a computer-programmer by day, I have some “negative” or cautionary experience to relate to all: I have seen many “platforms” come and go. Near the end of a platform or operating systems life, lots of work is expended to make sure that in the future, one can go back and retrieve information off of the “legacy system” – and here is the rub – in the few times when an attempt is subsequently made to retrieve information off of a legacy system, I have yet to see it work. NEVER SEEN IT WORK! And so there lies the downside of using digital media as your sole storage device, especially if the dark age last decades, …
While I am probably getting way ahead of where we should spend our time (i.e., you are correct that most of our efforts should be spent gathering the info ), your answer to my question of “Should we gather post- or during-the-crash?” was interesting. I think your Monastary idea makes the most sense, since it really is “tried and true” – i.e., the previous dark age.
Let us face it – there are very few of us “Like-minded people” - 99.999% of Americans would think we were nuts, and would screamingly red-in-the-face insist that we are “nuts” … right up until the collapse (and maybe after). Indeed, there may be blowback against those who had seen it coming and had prepared, with we few being illogically accused of wishing for or even causing the breakdown. So your monastery idea has merit, including the part involving the actual form of the monastery as a walled fortresses, as they were during the previous dark age. Also, the monks of old (both European and Oriental) often found it necessary to be skilled in armed (or un-armed) combat, so you chose a good parallel.
A slight tangent: As my signature states, I live in Bucks County, PA, and one of it’s treasures is the Mercer Museum. Too make a long story short, around the turn of the century (i.e., 1900), a true scholar and scientist saw that many of the pre-industrial tools were being discarded, and collected an enormous amount of them in his “Mercer Museum”. Since I think both this blog and Kunstler’s are correct, and we are going back to “a world made by hand”, this building, which is probably the largest collection of pre-industrial tools in the world, is of critical importance. (Web site: http://www.mercermuseum.org/museum_collections.htm). I am reminded that after the fall of Sadaam, one of the many tragedies that occurred in Iraq was that most of the museums, housing very ancient works of art, were looted, and many of the objects were destroyed or lost. Maybe my biggest contribution to the Leibowitz society (and to the future of humanity) is to do my best to see that the Mercer Museum doesn’t fall to similar looting/destruction.
Thank you again,
Scott in Bucks County
Thank you for the honor of your response! Sorry for my delay in replying, but given the honor of such a direct communication from you, I put some time into my response below.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct in reminding all of us “preppers” that we could be facing a very slow motion collapse, lasting years and maybe decades (I tend to lean towards the shorter end of this range, but could very well be wrong). It could even occur after our lifetimes are over.
On the issue of how the gathered information is stored, I have some “negative” or cautionary experience to relate: I have been in a computer-related job for 20+ years, and have seen many “platforms” come and go. Near the end of a platform or operating systems life, lots of work is expended to make sure that in the future, one can go back and retrieve information off of the “legacy system” – and here is the rub – in the few times when an attempt is subsequently made to retrieve information off of a legacy system, I have yet to see it work. NEVER SEEN IT WORK! And so there lies the downside of using digital media as your sole storage device, especially if the dark age last decades, …
Continued in post below ...
Scott in Bucks County
While I am probably getting way ahead of where we should spend our time (i.e., you are correct that most of our efforts should be spent gathering the info ), your answer to my question of “Should we gather post- or during-the-crash?” was interesting. I think your Monastery idea makes the most sense, since it really is “tried and true” – i.e., the previous dark age.
ReplyDeleteLet us face it – there are very few of us “Like-minded people” - 99.999% of Americans would think we were nuts, and would screamingly red-in-the-face insist that we are “nuts” … right up until the collapse (and maybe after). Indeed, there may be blowback against those who had seen it coming and had prepared, with we few being illogically accused of wishing for or even causing the breakdown. So your monastery idea has merit, including the part involving the actual form of the monastery as a walled fortresses, as they were during the previous dark age. Also, the monks of old (both European and Oriental) often found it necessary to be skilled in armed (or un-armed) combat, so you chose a good parallel.
A slight tangent: As my signature states, I live in Bucks County, PA, and one of its treasures is the Mercer Museum. Too make a long story short, around the turn of the century (i.e., 1900), a true scholar and scientist saw that many of the pre-industrial tools were being discarded, and collected an enormous amount of them in his “Mercer Museum”. Since I think both this blog and Kunstler’s are correct, and we are going back to “a world made by hand”, this building, which is probably the largest collection of pre-industrial tools in the world, is of critical importance. (Web site: http://www.mercermuseum.org/museum_collections.htm). I am reminded that after the fall of Sadaam, one of the many tragedies that occurred in Iraq was that most of the museums, housing very ancient works of art, were looted, and many of the objects were destroyed or lost. Maybe my biggest contribution to the Leibowitz society (and to the future of humanity) is to do my best to see that the Mercer Museum doesn’t fall to similar looting/destruction.
Continued in post below ...
Scott in Bucks County
As for me, as I said above, I am an computer guy and have been for 20+ years, but believe it or not, my undergraduate study was in agriculture, and especially “small-scale” agriculture. Quickly realizing that being a small-scale agriculture producer in the mid-80’s was to sign up for a quick path to the poor house, I got a Master’s degree in Statistics, and have been sitting at a desk ever since.
ReplyDeleteI fully support (and wish to continue to support in the future) the main goal of this site/blog: to preserve as much human knowledge as possible for the future. If I had one additional wish for the future, it would be this:
Current human society has human development (in all of its forms) spreading across most of the landscape, with a few scattered and token parks/national forests/wildlife sanctuaries. I would like whatever future human society that arises to be the opposite – in other words, we the human race would be less selfish and better stewards of the earth, and not crowd out all of the other species. The net result would be very concentrated centers of human habitation (hopefully as beautiful and magical as possible), and our farming and other activities would never spread out to cover the landscape, as is the case now. At least half of the planet would be a “wildlife sanctuary” – we owe it to the other species.
Thank you again,
Scott in Bucks County
One more thing ...
ReplyDeleteWhile I am probably getting way ahead of where we should spend our time (i.e., you are correct that most of our efforts should be spent gathering the info ), your answer to my question of “Should we gather post- or during-the-crash?” was interesting. I think your Monastery idea makes the most sense, since it really is “tried and true” – i.e., the previous dark age.
Let us face it – there are very few of us “Like-minded people” - 99.999% of Americans would think we were nuts, and would screamingly red-in-the-face insist that we are “nuts” … right up until the collapse (and maybe after). Indeed, there may be blowback against those who had seen it coming and had prepared, with we few being illogically accused of wishing for or even causing the breakdown. So your monastery idea has merit, including the part involving the actual form of the monastery as a walled fortresses, as they were during the previous dark age. Also, the monks of old (both European and Oriental) often found it necessary to be skilled in armed (or un-armed) combat, so you chose a good parallel.
A slight tangent: As my signature states, I live in Bucks County, PA, and one of its treasures is the Mercer Museum. Too make a long story short, around the turn of the century (i.e., 1900), a true scholar and scientist saw that many of the pre-industrial tools were being discarded, and collected an enormous amount of them in his “Mercer Museum”. Since I think both this blog and Kunstler’s are correct, and we are going back to “a world made by hand”, this building, which is probably the largest collection of pre-industrial tools in the world, is of critical importance. (Web site: http://www.mercermuseum.org/museum_collections.htm). I am reminded that after the fall of Sadaam, one of the many tragedies that occurred in Iraq was that most of the museums, housing very ancient works of art, were looted, and many of the objects were destroyed or lost. Maybe my biggest contribution to the Leibowitz society (and to the future of humanity) is to do my best to see that the Mercer Museum doesn’t fall to similar looting/destruction.
Thank you again,
Scott in Bucks County
Scott,
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever had anyone say that a response from me was an honor. :) Most of what you left in your original comments seemed like they were questions and thoughts that other people might want to voice but didn't want to post themselves.
I agree that data retrieval is an iffy thing at best and I would want to use it as a supplement to the main focus of stored printed material.
I'm not really sure how I feel about the retreat of humanity to smaller areas or sites and leaving the rest of the planet open for most other species. I think that the issue will probably be decided as reduced resources, agricultural output, etc, reverse the trend of people living miles and miles from any center of population. In the future, clearly humanity needs to return to making progress, with the intent of expanding first into space, then the stars, or will otherwise face extinction. I'm sure someone will thinking "Well, when the heat death of the universe occurs, humanity will die out at that point anyway." Maybe, I don't know. It's a ways off and I think we need to work on getting humanity through the next Dark Age first.
As far as the reaction of non-prepared people to prepared people goes, I would agree with the speculation that there might be more than a little discord. At some point soon, I'm going to post some more columns on relevant points raised in Anathem and I'll cover some insights the book has on this topic.
Interesting point about the Mercer Museum (I took a look at the web page). Probably the more valuable thing to do at this point, instead of trying to anticipate a need for guards for a collection of old tools, is to instead make some visits and take some photographs and perhaps share the research in a blog, as well as maybe looking at building reproductions. I don't know if any currently exist, but it would be a great help for people who are looking at a pre-oil type of existence. I know that there are bodies of research on the subject, but I think that researchers are often looking at the subject more from an academic perspective than a practical one.
-John