This bit got me: "If someone is in a position to judge, they’re also in a position to help. Let’s do that instead." That should be a tattooed banner ad for all people reading and responding to shit on the internet. Enjoyed the article and agree.
Maybe even go a step further, isn't the grid kinda the point in the sense that we all rely on each other to make the world cooler than being alone? I get not wanting to rely on "the man" but not leaning on any human seems a little counterproductive too.
As I have grown older, I have come to embrace the Black Mountain vision of the future. In my mind, collapse is inevitable because the present political economy is unsustainable. Like an avalanche, it has already begun to crumble, and sometime in the future, all hell will break loose. It's not that people are unaware of the prognosis or simply don't care. They have hypernormalized the situation, knowing that the financial elites have an organizational lock on political power and will not willingly give it up. Meanwhile, the population at large pursues their Dopamerican dreams, flitting from one post to another, amusing themselves to death. I think you do well to get people to start thinking about what they will do when the grid gives way. It's definitely the time now to be building small, sustainable communities instead of thinking that the best way is to go it alone.
You are saying this with the belief that these small sustainable communities will eventually give way to creating a better world with a larger but just as sustainable society overall that’ll allow for us to retain all the modern amenities and advancements we have but with none of the corruption and disadvantages of now right?
Maybe. I think it's worth a shot, but there is nothing to guarantee that this will lead to a better world. Perhaps the technofeudal overlords will take over and suppress any attempt to live differently. We don't know how the future will play out. One thing is certain in my mind, however, the imperial lifestyle now enjoyed by those in the global north will not be sustainable at the scale that exists today. There may be some isolated remnants of what we call modern society, but I agree with Jessica that the vast majority of people will be living differently. especially when the "grid" collapses.
I still dont understand why its believed to be inevitable that the “grid” will collapse. I dont believe theres going to be a point in the future were we just lose all electricity, unless its meant in the way that only the “elite” will get access to it, which even then, I still don’t believe that would be impossible to overcome. Humans are nothing if not revolutionary beings, even if some “overlords” try to make living life their way a necessity, eventually there will come a time where the people have enough and rise up to take back control. Its simply human nature.
When Jessica talks about the "grid," she is talking about more than just the distribution of electricity. She's talking about the entire economic infrastructure that permits people in the global north to continue consuming the earth's natural resources. Only madmen and economists believe that there can be infinite economic growth on a planet that has limited resources. Eventually, humanity will burn through the fossil fuel supply. How the collapse will play out, no one can predict. In the opinion of many, climate change will bring about catastrophic socio-economic change. In South America, the last el nino brought on historic drought in several countries. Where I live, there were rolling blackouts 12-14 hours a day because the water levels were so low in the hydroelectric reservoirs. We are only at the beginning of a series of huge disruptions to the way our daily lives are presently structured. What happens if there are massive crop failures? How long will your local food supply last, especially in large urban centers? Given how Americans are armed to the teeth, many people are questioning whether they want to stick around to find out. In the words of David Suzuki, the eminent Canadian ecologist who devoted his life to trying to get people to take the notion of catastrophic climate change seriously: it's too late to prevent it; now is the time to begin hunkering down into units of survival. Believe what you want to believe.
I acknowledge that there will most definitely be needed changes in the future on the way life is lived, just as there has been many advancements and changes in human society in just these last several years. I *believe* that just as we have many times before, humanity will find a way to persevere through whatever hard times may come. I agree that we must prepare for whatever perils humankind will face, but that doesn’t just include bunkering down and hiding from a potential armageddon, we can also fight back against whatever is trying to cause it, whether it be natural or our so-called “overlords”. That is what I believe, and I hope that in some way, you do too…
Sorry to break it to you, but the battle is over-- we lost. The more relevant questions are what are you going to do and where are you going to be when the shit hits the fan? The rise of the ocean levels is a fait accompli. Back in the 1950s the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere was 315 ppm. Last month it was 430 ppm. As a result, continued global warming is guaranteed. The only question is how much. There is no fighting a torrential downpour that drops four months of rain in four hours. There is no fighting a firestorm once it forms. All you can do is try to escape. It's like we are passengers on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. The ship is going down, and there is nothing anyone can do to prevent it. The only thing left to decide is who gets into the lifeboats. It's going to get ugly. Bonne chance.
The technolords may have the grid, but those who don't will have a say over whether they keep it or not. See: warfare, assymetrical.
I chuckle at some of the preppers who think that collapse will be like camping and cosplaying Call of Duty. They're likely going to be many of the first to go. The ex-military folks will eat them for breakfast.
There are good reasons for all those short lifespans 150 years ago.
They're going to run out of conveniences and necessities eventually. All that stuff they've squirreled away has expiration dates. Some things will still be useable after those dates, but some of those are hard dates. How long has that stuff been in your hidey hole? Did you remember to rotate your stuff regularly?
Sir Patrick Stewart's autobiography was quite a book, wasn't it Jessica?
Throughout history no one has lived 'off the grid' - communities exist because we need other humans, because one person is unlikely to be able to create food, clean water, store the food, cook the food, create/fix clothing, create/collect everything needed to stay alive.
Our modern society has been created with the false belief that individuals are separate from one another, than we can all be completely independent, and not have to care about other humans. This allows those in power to continue hoarding wealth and power, while we all argue with each other about who deserves basic human rights. The truth is we all rely on others (whether that is the person growing, packaging, selling our food, creating items we buy, keeping our water and electric flowing), and when someone wants to live 'off the grid', for any reason, often the first mistake made is to assume they can do it without finding a community to work with.
Also, I love this line 'If someone is in a position to judge, they’re also in a position to help. Let’s do that instead.' and I believe it relates to pretty much everything in life, not just for preppers.
I believe that “living off grid” and “living with appropriate technology” are two different shades of “living a self-reliant lifestyle.” No connections - NO CONNECTIONS - to “the outside world” would be the extreme definition of “living off grid.”
The larger point is that we take the grid for granted and don't think about the larger services we rely on outside our daily sphere, regardless of how we define "off the grid."
I used to run seminars on personal strategic planning and preparing for a chaotic future. The seminar included a two-part exercise and a journaling exercise I asked participants to do. Both are related to “being on the grid.”
Exercise Part 1: Create a matrix on a piece of paper with six rows and two columns. Label the rows 1. Food, 2. Energy, 3. Water, 4. Shelter, 5. Sanitation, 6. Security. Label the first column Current Source(s) and the second column Sources After Collapse.
Exercise Part 2: Fill in the twelve cells to the best of your ability. I suggested that participants in the seminar consider medical, transportation, and communications needs under the security category. Where does your food come from now? Where will it come from after collapse? Go down the six rows, filling in each column. This was always an eye-opening exercise.
In the journaling exercise I had them keep a journal for a month in which they wrote down each day the items they consumed, worked with or purchased. Lots of work. That was an eye-opener, too. Their personal strategic plans had to address how, after collapse, they would continue this consumption, use or acquisition.
Why mention these exercises here? Because “the grid” we connect with in modernity for essential services and products is for most people their sole source of supply for the six categories in the matrix. Most people have given no thought to how dependent they are on “the grid” for each, nor do they realize how frequently they use or acquire items in the six categories in their daily lives. These exercises provided an opportunity for seminar participants to become much more aware of how dependent they are on external supply chains, manufacturers, and providers that will vanish in collapse… And then, what do they do?
Not sure this is entirely fair. For the last 50 years 'off grid' has meant something quite specific—disconnection from the power, water, and waste grids. NOT as you are implying a total disconnection from society and everything it supplies. That is more accurately applied to the self-sufficiency movement, although I've never heard anyone in that movement suggest they are totally disconnected from society, either. Lots of people have been engaged in off grid living and self sufficiency (myself included), long, long before 'collapse awareness' became a thing.
A couple hearty laughs in this one, especially the Greta line.
As a handyman who formerly lived on a rural farmy/factory commune for five years and has been managing properties for five years now, I still fantasize and yearn for the 'off grid.' In a foreign country, even (Japan)! Of course, knowing that I will be very much tied into and invested in global supply chains. While I have such fantasies of not being on call for every stupid thing that goes wrong in eighty year old housing stock and only being accountable to a smaller number of people in a community I'm much more invested in, I lately have succumbed more and more to the "well, this is it, ain't it?" I will be in this Rust Belt city for the rest of my life I believe and all I can try and do is commit to the communities here that I think can possibly make the city a little more liveable in harrowing times. Ahhhh, please help. Have a good weekend everyone!
Every civilization operates within a "grid." If you removed everything from a person that supported their lives in any civilization, they wouldn't survive long. Imagine a 16th century village where the mill, the farms, the blacksmiths, etc., disappeared and suddenly the populace had nothing.
We cannot survive long without some sort of cooperative structure. And no amount of prepping will carry us forever without sourcing our basic needs. Instead of jumping too quickly to total grid collapse (which may or may not happen), maybe consider ways to ruggedize your life while still operating within the current grid advantage.
I don't know exactly what that looks like. Maybe concentration of alternative energy, heat, water sources, sanitation, food, and security. But it's worth considering partial strategies that augment those things as worthwhile to pursue.
We can't prep for every disaster, and some disasters are beyond any of us.
But I'm all for using what we have now to build what we need later.
And on that note, there is a new app called Red Hen for Farmers. You download it, and can sign up as a farmer or as a customer. Get the word out to local farmers market and growers. While we still have a grid, we can create a local network for sourcing food, eliminate middle men. And getting the word out to local growers means you're helping to network your own area.
I just addressed this yesterday, speaking of how "I dug" something... No, I didn't. Diesel fuel dug it. The grid dug it.
But in one of the senses you mention there has always been a grid. It's been a long time since we started setting each other's broken bones, and stones from one end of the continent have long been carried to the other.
But you're absolutely right. Today the whole world is on the grid. What comes next we all have guesses.
As soon as you engage in conversation with other local people, you are no longer off-grid. Good friends of mine have been prepping for years, produce their own electricity, have a well, have compost toilets and use eco-friendly building materials to create a bit of rural heaven. But after 10 years they would never claim to be off-grid. They had to replace one of their batteries last year. Can’t do that off-grid!!
My home was just recently connected to fiber optic cables for phone and internet service. So currently I am in love with the unethical grid. I read that some communities are trying to buy their electric companies and co-op them and update them for green energy sources. Sounds good.
This bit got me: "If someone is in a position to judge, they’re also in a position to help. Let’s do that instead." That should be a tattooed banner ad for all people reading and responding to shit on the internet. Enjoyed the article and agree.
Maybe even go a step further, isn't the grid kinda the point in the sense that we all rely on each other to make the world cooler than being alone? I get not wanting to rely on "the man" but not leaning on any human seems a little counterproductive too.
I agree. We're better off with a grid. The problem is that the grid we're on isn't sustainable and relies on exploitation.
100%. Our grid is a beater. I am optimistic we can do better, but not feeling like it lately.
Posturer: "I live off the grid"
Me: " then explain how you received this comment. "
As I have grown older, I have come to embrace the Black Mountain vision of the future. In my mind, collapse is inevitable because the present political economy is unsustainable. Like an avalanche, it has already begun to crumble, and sometime in the future, all hell will break loose. It's not that people are unaware of the prognosis or simply don't care. They have hypernormalized the situation, knowing that the financial elites have an organizational lock on political power and will not willingly give it up. Meanwhile, the population at large pursues their Dopamerican dreams, flitting from one post to another, amusing themselves to death. I think you do well to get people to start thinking about what they will do when the grid gives way. It's definitely the time now to be building small, sustainable communities instead of thinking that the best way is to go it alone.
You are saying this with the belief that these small sustainable communities will eventually give way to creating a better world with a larger but just as sustainable society overall that’ll allow for us to retain all the modern amenities and advancements we have but with none of the corruption and disadvantages of now right?
Maybe. I think it's worth a shot, but there is nothing to guarantee that this will lead to a better world. Perhaps the technofeudal overlords will take over and suppress any attempt to live differently. We don't know how the future will play out. One thing is certain in my mind, however, the imperial lifestyle now enjoyed by those in the global north will not be sustainable at the scale that exists today. There may be some isolated remnants of what we call modern society, but I agree with Jessica that the vast majority of people will be living differently. especially when the "grid" collapses.
I still dont understand why its believed to be inevitable that the “grid” will collapse. I dont believe theres going to be a point in the future were we just lose all electricity, unless its meant in the way that only the “elite” will get access to it, which even then, I still don’t believe that would be impossible to overcome. Humans are nothing if not revolutionary beings, even if some “overlords” try to make living life their way a necessity, eventually there will come a time where the people have enough and rise up to take back control. Its simply human nature.
When Jessica talks about the "grid," she is talking about more than just the distribution of electricity. She's talking about the entire economic infrastructure that permits people in the global north to continue consuming the earth's natural resources. Only madmen and economists believe that there can be infinite economic growth on a planet that has limited resources. Eventually, humanity will burn through the fossil fuel supply. How the collapse will play out, no one can predict. In the opinion of many, climate change will bring about catastrophic socio-economic change. In South America, the last el nino brought on historic drought in several countries. Where I live, there were rolling blackouts 12-14 hours a day because the water levels were so low in the hydroelectric reservoirs. We are only at the beginning of a series of huge disruptions to the way our daily lives are presently structured. What happens if there are massive crop failures? How long will your local food supply last, especially in large urban centers? Given how Americans are armed to the teeth, many people are questioning whether they want to stick around to find out. In the words of David Suzuki, the eminent Canadian ecologist who devoted his life to trying to get people to take the notion of catastrophic climate change seriously: it's too late to prevent it; now is the time to begin hunkering down into units of survival. Believe what you want to believe.
I acknowledge that there will most definitely be needed changes in the future on the way life is lived, just as there has been many advancements and changes in human society in just these last several years. I *believe* that just as we have many times before, humanity will find a way to persevere through whatever hard times may come. I agree that we must prepare for whatever perils humankind will face, but that doesn’t just include bunkering down and hiding from a potential armageddon, we can also fight back against whatever is trying to cause it, whether it be natural or our so-called “overlords”. That is what I believe, and I hope that in some way, you do too…
Sorry to break it to you, but the battle is over-- we lost. The more relevant questions are what are you going to do and where are you going to be when the shit hits the fan? The rise of the ocean levels is a fait accompli. Back in the 1950s the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere was 315 ppm. Last month it was 430 ppm. As a result, continued global warming is guaranteed. The only question is how much. There is no fighting a torrential downpour that drops four months of rain in four hours. There is no fighting a firestorm once it forms. All you can do is try to escape. It's like we are passengers on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. The ship is going down, and there is nothing anyone can do to prevent it. The only thing left to decide is who gets into the lifeboats. It's going to get ugly. Bonne chance.
Have we considered seizing the grid instead of trying to live off it?
The technolords may have the grid, but those who don't will have a say over whether they keep it or not. See: warfare, assymetrical.
I chuckle at some of the preppers who think that collapse will be like camping and cosplaying Call of Duty. They're likely going to be many of the first to go. The ex-military folks will eat them for breakfast.
There are good reasons for all those short lifespans 150 years ago.
They're going to run out of conveniences and necessities eventually. All that stuff they've squirreled away has expiration dates. Some things will still be useable after those dates, but some of those are hard dates. How long has that stuff been in your hidey hole? Did you remember to rotate your stuff regularly?
Sir Patrick Stewart's autobiography was quite a book, wasn't it Jessica?
Oh to be a fly on the wall of a MAGA style prepper when it hits their fan. Yeah, Patrick Stewart is one of the good ones.
Throughout history no one has lived 'off the grid' - communities exist because we need other humans, because one person is unlikely to be able to create food, clean water, store the food, cook the food, create/fix clothing, create/collect everything needed to stay alive.
Our modern society has been created with the false belief that individuals are separate from one another, than we can all be completely independent, and not have to care about other humans. This allows those in power to continue hoarding wealth and power, while we all argue with each other about who deserves basic human rights. The truth is we all rely on others (whether that is the person growing, packaging, selling our food, creating items we buy, keeping our water and electric flowing), and when someone wants to live 'off the grid', for any reason, often the first mistake made is to assume they can do it without finding a community to work with.
Also, I love this line 'If someone is in a position to judge, they’re also in a position to help. Let’s do that instead.' and I believe it relates to pretty much everything in life, not just for preppers.
My dad took one bath a week as a kid! That’s almost incomprehensible, right? But that’s how it was on the farm.
I vividly remember my next-door neighbors installing indoor plumbing and I’m 59.
We forget how new some of the things we depend on actually are. Others had plumbing long before, but it was not universal.
I believe that “living off grid” and “living with appropriate technology” are two different shades of “living a self-reliant lifestyle.” No connections - NO CONNECTIONS - to “the outside world” would be the extreme definition of “living off grid.”
The larger point is that we take the grid for granted and don't think about the larger services we rely on outside our daily sphere, regardless of how we define "off the grid."
I used to run seminars on personal strategic planning and preparing for a chaotic future. The seminar included a two-part exercise and a journaling exercise I asked participants to do. Both are related to “being on the grid.”
Exercise Part 1: Create a matrix on a piece of paper with six rows and two columns. Label the rows 1. Food, 2. Energy, 3. Water, 4. Shelter, 5. Sanitation, 6. Security. Label the first column Current Source(s) and the second column Sources After Collapse.
Exercise Part 2: Fill in the twelve cells to the best of your ability. I suggested that participants in the seminar consider medical, transportation, and communications needs under the security category. Where does your food come from now? Where will it come from after collapse? Go down the six rows, filling in each column. This was always an eye-opening exercise.
In the journaling exercise I had them keep a journal for a month in which they wrote down each day the items they consumed, worked with or purchased. Lots of work. That was an eye-opener, too. Their personal strategic plans had to address how, after collapse, they would continue this consumption, use or acquisition.
Why mention these exercises here? Because “the grid” we connect with in modernity for essential services and products is for most people their sole source of supply for the six categories in the matrix. Most people have given no thought to how dependent they are on “the grid” for each, nor do they realize how frequently they use or acquire items in the six categories in their daily lives. These exercises provided an opportunity for seminar participants to become much more aware of how dependent they are on external supply chains, manufacturers, and providers that will vanish in collapse… And then, what do they do?
Not sure this is entirely fair. For the last 50 years 'off grid' has meant something quite specific—disconnection from the power, water, and waste grids. NOT as you are implying a total disconnection from society and everything it supplies. That is more accurately applied to the self-sufficiency movement, although I've never heard anyone in that movement suggest they are totally disconnected from society, either. Lots of people have been engaged in off grid living and self sufficiency (myself included), long, long before 'collapse awareness' became a thing.
A couple hearty laughs in this one, especially the Greta line.
As a handyman who formerly lived on a rural farmy/factory commune for five years and has been managing properties for five years now, I still fantasize and yearn for the 'off grid.' In a foreign country, even (Japan)! Of course, knowing that I will be very much tied into and invested in global supply chains. While I have such fantasies of not being on call for every stupid thing that goes wrong in eighty year old housing stock and only being accountable to a smaller number of people in a community I'm much more invested in, I lately have succumbed more and more to the "well, this is it, ain't it?" I will be in this Rust Belt city for the rest of my life I believe and all I can try and do is commit to the communities here that I think can possibly make the city a little more liveable in harrowing times. Ahhhh, please help. Have a good weekend everyone!
Our entanglement in the machine is absolute, we need to apply wisdom about to what extent we allow it to affect us both collectively and individually.
Every civilization operates within a "grid." If you removed everything from a person that supported their lives in any civilization, they wouldn't survive long. Imagine a 16th century village where the mill, the farms, the blacksmiths, etc., disappeared and suddenly the populace had nothing.
We cannot survive long without some sort of cooperative structure. And no amount of prepping will carry us forever without sourcing our basic needs. Instead of jumping too quickly to total grid collapse (which may or may not happen), maybe consider ways to ruggedize your life while still operating within the current grid advantage.
I don't know exactly what that looks like. Maybe concentration of alternative energy, heat, water sources, sanitation, food, and security. But it's worth considering partial strategies that augment those things as worthwhile to pursue.
We can't prep for every disaster, and some disasters are beyond any of us.
But I'm all for using what we have now to build what we need later.
And on that note, there is a new app called Red Hen for Farmers. You download it, and can sign up as a farmer or as a customer. Get the word out to local farmers market and growers. While we still have a grid, we can create a local network for sourcing food, eliminate middle men. And getting the word out to local growers means you're helping to network your own area.
You order and pick up at the farm. It's a start and a stopgap that might grow into a very secure source for food locally. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/red-hen-for-farmers/id6745176026
I just addressed this yesterday, speaking of how "I dug" something... No, I didn't. Diesel fuel dug it. The grid dug it.
But in one of the senses you mention there has always been a grid. It's been a long time since we started setting each other's broken bones, and stones from one end of the continent have long been carried to the other.
But you're absolutely right. Today the whole world is on the grid. What comes next we all have guesses.
As soon as you engage in conversation with other local people, you are no longer off-grid. Good friends of mine have been prepping for years, produce their own electricity, have a well, have compost toilets and use eco-friendly building materials to create a bit of rural heaven. But after 10 years they would never claim to be off-grid. They had to replace one of their batteries last year. Can’t do that off-grid!!
My home was just recently connected to fiber optic cables for phone and internet service. So currently I am in love with the unethical grid. I read that some communities are trying to buy their electric companies and co-op them and update them for green energy sources. Sounds good.