I am so sorry to hear your daughter has COVID. Nothing worse than a sick child. I hope she recovers quickly and that the rest of your family stays healthy. We are all doing the best we can. It has been a fucking grind for the past 10 years. Frankly much longer! Like you, I am relishing and appreciating whatever comforts I can. Preparing and conserving where possible. It will disappear all too soon. And I am not wasting precious energy berating people trying to do their best. Take care.
I've written a couple of pieces for a series on Reddit called "Imagining the Collapse" about all the things we will miss after they are gone. The first one was titled "The Return of Virgin Field Pandemics". Because, once Collapse gets going and public health programs stop being funded. Once the pool of vaccinated people in the population shrinks.
Virgin Field Pandemics will return.
I never thought that this would be something we did TO OURSELVES, ON PURPOSE.
It changes the dynamics of being in a collapsing world/society when EVERY person you have to deal with may infect you with a deadly illness. We imagine "communities" and "local networks" through the lens of mass vaccination instead of the reality of deadly communicable diseases.
I expect some places will simply shoot strangers on sight rather than risking what they might be carriers of. Your daughter has Covid. The mortality rate for Covid is around 1% of an unvaccinated population.
In 1846, about 6,100 of the 7,864 people living in the Faroe Islands contracted measles. It had been 68 years since the last cases and no one had any immunity. 170 died, a case fatality rate of 2.8%. From MEASLES. The exact thing that's ripping through under vaccinated communities across the country.
The only reason we aren't having a measles pandemic with mass deaths is that we are still coasting on the mass vaccination programs of the past. With Collapse accelerating I don't see those programs coming back.
As you say, we talk a lot about "community" without ever considering what that means or how it will really work.
I hope your daughter recovers quickly and fully. I hope that your previous Covid vaccinations give you and everyone else in your house the immunity to avoid reinfection.
"The Grid" isn't just the physical infrastructure that supports us. It's also the social infrastructure that makes it possible for all of us to live together. It's also breaking down.
Thank you for being a voice of sanity. This 100 percent articulates something that's been on my mind for a while now, sort of addressed in my post and a few other pieces, but it deserves a full treatment. The people talking in such warm fuzzy tones about community aren't thinking about Covid now, and they're definitely not thinking about all the future pandemics. We are. I have little interest in joining a community or hanging around for the moment when they reach the find out phase of their airborne disease denial.
I’m in Wales - we nearly bought a house at the bottom of a valley with a stream running through it. Just as we were getting ready to sign, the horrific flooding in Spain happened. We reevaluated, dropped out of that purchase and bought a different place instead. It has far less land and unfortunately comes without the easy access to running water - but it is in a far more sensible, sheltered location, that meant we went virtually unaffected, unlike most places in last winter’s storm. I think it was the right decision. In our new location we’re already experiencing regular water cuts, but I see this as a good thing as it’s showing us we need to add more water storage to the top of our list.
No one that has ever drawn electricity from a utility company has lived off the grid. I may have grown up in an old farmhouse that had a well pump, and a sewer tank buried out back but we still got our electricity from a company that ran wires to our house from the road. We were on the grid long before there were cell phones and personal computers and such.
Now we are infinitely tied to the grid in more ways than we want but we're not being given much choice in the matter anymore. You can't pay your bills in person much anymore, or little else for that matter, without a smartphone. The corporations have convinced the government that this is all good for us. Even when those of us old enough to remember what life was like without the internet and the fancy machines to talk through it, know better.
But, should I live long enough to see it all go down, I will still remember how to live without it. Like riding a bike. Once you have that skill, you don't forget.
Well said. I've lived without heating and air conditioning in some pretty extreme climates. I've also lived without the internet. If anything, that makes me appreciate the grid a little more and not be in such a rush to get off it, you know? I don't know where "the doers" get this idea that I'm telling everyone we're completely helpless without the grid or we should all just give up. These days, that feels like a pretty low ball to throw at someone you want to villainize, and that's it.
You're popular enough and have a big enough audience to become a target. These days it might not even be real people saying these things. It could simply be a standard AI attack on any writer who has a large audience and writes on these topics.
The disinfo game has RADICALLY shifted over the last 4 years. It's SO much easier for disinformation campaigns to identify and target writers "by topic" now.
There all manner of idiots out there trying to make a buck at someone else's expense. Especially by being a butthead on the internet.
I would challenge most of these idiots to live without their technology for more than a day or so. I would give them a day at best before they start whining about uploading a selfie or something to a social media account.
I would miss my current comforts but I can manage just fine without them. If I knew they were going to be gone for a long time, or even forever, then it would be easy to move on and start surviving without them. That's the first thing. Understanding your environment. Once you know what you're up against, you can start preparing for survival. That's how you know who you can trust. I would trust the ones who are willing to move forward, versus anyone who sits and cries about what they don't have anymore. That's the difference between a survivor and a so called 'doer'.
You always evaluate what you have left after you lose something. Even if it's just part of the grid. Take advantage of every little thing at your disposal. It might make the difference between life and death and surviving another day. I'll take any advantage I can and exploit the heck out of it everytime. That is the hallmark of a survivor.
I'm so sorry about your daughter. It is such a gut punch for a Mom to worry about their children when they are ill and COVID can be so serious. Hopefully, she will have a mild case. I encourage you to look into CIDRAP...Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy. From the University of Minnesota. They have created the Vaccine Integrity Project. It sounds incredible and is being financially supported by philanthropists. It is a group of scientists, Epidemiologists, physicians etc. They started this when they were concerned that Trump would be elected. And here we are...but it is a beacon of hope for Americans...who believe the science and want vaccines for themselves and their loved ones.
thank you for the way you write about covid, it's a relief to read. and i hope your daughter gets better soon. i'm sure you know this, but the more she can rest during and after the acute phase, the better her chances of not developing long covid.
For sure. It's one of the big reasons we still test, to make sure it's not allergies or something else. Covid calls for a different response, including even more rest.
There is a resource out there that isn’t on the grid. We have forgotten it because the grid has been such a lifesaver in every sense of the word. We are enclosed in a bubble of sorts, abundance of basics and a censorship of what is going on outside this bubble. Look at India, Afghanistan, some parts of Ireland, Pakistan, some parts of the USA, and look closer at the Amish communities and see how they work, and thrive. While it is interesting and Stephen King frightening to imagine a world without the grid there are people doing just that. Now is the time to search out these communities to understand how they work, learn from them, thank them donate to them. The important thing that I take the initiative, the response to learn and prepare, and yes, do things to have a bit of breathing room
There are so many scientific and medical breakthroughs that can bolster the grid and yet we are talking about the collapse of civilization as we know it. I think it’s simpler. Either we succumb to the world of morbidly rich sociopaths who are dedicated to destroying the world we live in or there will be a massive push back and movement towards social awareness and spiritual connection instead of materialistic greed.
I don’t say goodbye to the grid, I say goodbye to our freedoms and growth or I say hello to a planet of cooperative governments and people willing to work together. We will see very shortly where this all goes. There are some indications that things could turn out for the best. There is usually great confusion before order sets in.
You raise some interesting points. Since we both agree that the collapse of the present political economy is just a matter of time—it may or may not arrive within our lifetimes—the question becomes what kind of changes to our lifestyles would be prudent to make. If we think of "the grid" as a set of relations and standards that operate over vast expanses of territory that integrate a complex set of inputs and provide a variety of outputs that we rely on and have come to take for granted, does it make sense to think that a smaller community, localized in a particular geographic setting, identifies and takes responsibility for providing certain goods and services to its community members, for example, potable water, food, and basic sanitation?
Those few of us who survive dieoff will miss the grid, aka technological civilization.
My guess in first world countries? 20y from now, USA 1-3% of current population will struggle for survival in a land where easy to access resources are gone..
The billionaires who are strip-mining the grid for immediate profit and will hide from the crash in high tech compounds? Used AI analysis. . . all gone in 5y, thelr sh*t will break, no skills / parts for fixes. Most get shot by security staff 15m after 911 goes down forever. While they won't be a problem, this won't help the rest of us.
How to stop / mitigate the crash? Political problem with no *legal* solutions. Illegal? Don't discuss in public
Warren Zevon song "lawyers, guns & money"? He forgot hackers. ;-)
Am so sorry and hope she feels better.
Same here, and thanks. :)
I hope she has a full recovery, and feels better soon.
I am so sorry to hear your daughter has COVID. Nothing worse than a sick child. I hope she recovers quickly and that the rest of your family stays healthy. We are all doing the best we can. It has been a fucking grind for the past 10 years. Frankly much longer! Like you, I am relishing and appreciating whatever comforts I can. Preparing and conserving where possible. It will disappear all too soon. And I am not wasting precious energy berating people trying to do their best. Take care.
Indeed, I assume daughter's frightening potential for long covid may explain berating strawpeople "doers."
I've written a couple of pieces for a series on Reddit called "Imagining the Collapse" about all the things we will miss after they are gone. The first one was titled "The Return of Virgin Field Pandemics". Because, once Collapse gets going and public health programs stop being funded. Once the pool of vaccinated people in the population shrinks.
Virgin Field Pandemics will return.
I never thought that this would be something we did TO OURSELVES, ON PURPOSE.
It changes the dynamics of being in a collapsing world/society when EVERY person you have to deal with may infect you with a deadly illness. We imagine "communities" and "local networks" through the lens of mass vaccination instead of the reality of deadly communicable diseases.
I expect some places will simply shoot strangers on sight rather than risking what they might be carriers of. Your daughter has Covid. The mortality rate for Covid is around 1% of an unvaccinated population.
In 1846, about 6,100 of the 7,864 people living in the Faroe Islands contracted measles. It had been 68 years since the last cases and no one had any immunity. 170 died, a case fatality rate of 2.8%. From MEASLES. The exact thing that's ripping through under vaccinated communities across the country.
The only reason we aren't having a measles pandemic with mass deaths is that we are still coasting on the mass vaccination programs of the past. With Collapse accelerating I don't see those programs coming back.
As you say, we talk a lot about "community" without ever considering what that means or how it will really work.
I hope your daughter recovers quickly and fully. I hope that your previous Covid vaccinations give you and everyone else in your house the immunity to avoid reinfection.
"The Grid" isn't just the physical infrastructure that supports us. It's also the social infrastructure that makes it possible for all of us to live together. It's also breaking down.
That grid WAS an amazing thing.
We’re ALREADY missing it.
And things are going to get a lot worse.
Thank you for being a voice of sanity. This 100 percent articulates something that's been on my mind for a while now, sort of addressed in my post and a few other pieces, but it deserves a full treatment. The people talking in such warm fuzzy tones about community aren't thinking about Covid now, and they're definitely not thinking about all the future pandemics. We are. I have little interest in joining a community or hanging around for the moment when they reach the find out phase of their airborne disease denial.
Got a link to your Reddit pieces?
Imagining the Collapse 01 : The Return of "Virgin Field" Pandemics.
https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1ghjjb1/imagining_the_collapse_01_the_return_of_virgin/
Imagining the Collapse 02 : The End of "clean, safe, and abundant" water.
https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1hzge6m/imagining_the_collapse_02_the_end_of_clean_safe/
So far just these two. I'm working on a third on "Safe Infrastructure" built around this article
"Century-old dam under strain as floods increase in US and federal funds dry up"
Trump axes key infrastructure funding while more than 18,000 Ohio properties face flood risk as ageing dam buckles.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/22/midwest-dams-floods-rise-us-trump-funding-cuts
Again, "The Grid" isn't just electrical. It's EVERYTHING,10,000 years of constructed Anthroposphere that's ALL worthless in the world that's coming.
Think about that. The MAGNITUDE of it.
EVERYTHING needs to be rebuilt or upgraded over the next 10-20 years.
Or else it WILL fail.
Don't live downstream or down river from a dam.
Hard dark stuff, but necessary to think about.
I’m in Wales - we nearly bought a house at the bottom of a valley with a stream running through it. Just as we were getting ready to sign, the horrific flooding in Spain happened. We reevaluated, dropped out of that purchase and bought a different place instead. It has far less land and unfortunately comes without the easy access to running water - but it is in a far more sensible, sheltered location, that meant we went virtually unaffected, unlike most places in last winter’s storm. I think it was the right decision. In our new location we’re already experiencing regular water cuts, but I see this as a good thing as it’s showing us we need to add more water storage to the top of our list.
No one that has ever drawn electricity from a utility company has lived off the grid. I may have grown up in an old farmhouse that had a well pump, and a sewer tank buried out back but we still got our electricity from a company that ran wires to our house from the road. We were on the grid long before there were cell phones and personal computers and such.
Now we are infinitely tied to the grid in more ways than we want but we're not being given much choice in the matter anymore. You can't pay your bills in person much anymore, or little else for that matter, without a smartphone. The corporations have convinced the government that this is all good for us. Even when those of us old enough to remember what life was like without the internet and the fancy machines to talk through it, know better.
But, should I live long enough to see it all go down, I will still remember how to live without it. Like riding a bike. Once you have that skill, you don't forget.
Well said. I've lived without heating and air conditioning in some pretty extreme climates. I've also lived without the internet. If anything, that makes me appreciate the grid a little more and not be in such a rush to get off it, you know? I don't know where "the doers" get this idea that I'm telling everyone we're completely helpless without the grid or we should all just give up. These days, that feels like a pretty low ball to throw at someone you want to villainize, and that's it.
You're popular enough and have a big enough audience to become a target. These days it might not even be real people saying these things. It could simply be a standard AI attack on any writer who has a large audience and writes on these topics.
The disinfo game has RADICALLY shifted over the last 4 years. It's SO much easier for disinformation campaigns to identify and target writers "by topic" now.
There all manner of idiots out there trying to make a buck at someone else's expense. Especially by being a butthead on the internet.
I would challenge most of these idiots to live without their technology for more than a day or so. I would give them a day at best before they start whining about uploading a selfie or something to a social media account.
I would miss my current comforts but I can manage just fine without them. If I knew they were going to be gone for a long time, or even forever, then it would be easy to move on and start surviving without them. That's the first thing. Understanding your environment. Once you know what you're up against, you can start preparing for survival. That's how you know who you can trust. I would trust the ones who are willing to move forward, versus anyone who sits and cries about what they don't have anymore. That's the difference between a survivor and a so called 'doer'.
You always evaluate what you have left after you lose something. Even if it's just part of the grid. Take advantage of every little thing at your disposal. It might make the difference between life and death and surviving another day. I'll take any advantage I can and exploit the heck out of it everytime. That is the hallmark of a survivor.
So sorry that your daughter has COVID - I hope she heals quickly and well.
And thank you for always stating the truth.
I'm so sorry about your daughter. It is such a gut punch for a Mom to worry about their children when they are ill and COVID can be so serious. Hopefully, she will have a mild case. I encourage you to look into CIDRAP...Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy. From the University of Minnesota. They have created the Vaccine Integrity Project. It sounds incredible and is being financially supported by philanthropists. It is a group of scientists, Epidemiologists, physicians etc. They started this when they were concerned that Trump would be elected. And here we are...but it is a beacon of hope for Americans...who believe the science and want vaccines for themselves and their loved ones.
sorry to hear, hope she recovers and that you're alright.
We're hanging in there. The HOCl steam seems to be helping a lot.
There are so few Cassandra’s out there.
We all need the grid. We just need to power it differently.
Exactly.
thank you for the way you write about covid, it's a relief to read. and i hope your daughter gets better soon. i'm sure you know this, but the more she can rest during and after the acute phase, the better her chances of not developing long covid.
For sure. It's one of the big reasons we still test, to make sure it's not allergies or something else. Covid calls for a different response, including even more rest.
There is a resource out there that isn’t on the grid. We have forgotten it because the grid has been such a lifesaver in every sense of the word. We are enclosed in a bubble of sorts, abundance of basics and a censorship of what is going on outside this bubble. Look at India, Afghanistan, some parts of Ireland, Pakistan, some parts of the USA, and look closer at the Amish communities and see how they work, and thrive. While it is interesting and Stephen King frightening to imagine a world without the grid there are people doing just that. Now is the time to search out these communities to understand how they work, learn from them, thank them donate to them. The important thing that I take the initiative, the response to learn and prepare, and yes, do things to have a bit of breathing room
tl:dr
learn bushcraft
There are so many scientific and medical breakthroughs that can bolster the grid and yet we are talking about the collapse of civilization as we know it. I think it’s simpler. Either we succumb to the world of morbidly rich sociopaths who are dedicated to destroying the world we live in or there will be a massive push back and movement towards social awareness and spiritual connection instead of materialistic greed.
I don’t say goodbye to the grid, I say goodbye to our freedoms and growth or I say hello to a planet of cooperative governments and people willing to work together. We will see very shortly where this all goes. There are some indications that things could turn out for the best. There is usually great confusion before order sets in.
Having the grid go ker-plooie will be just like it was in the eighties B4 the www albeit w/a crap load of inconveniences
Indeed, like the 80s except it's 120F degrees outside. Can't wait!
Only if you mean 1880's.
You raise some interesting points. Since we both agree that the collapse of the present political economy is just a matter of time—it may or may not arrive within our lifetimes—the question becomes what kind of changes to our lifestyles would be prudent to make. If we think of "the grid" as a set of relations and standards that operate over vast expanses of territory that integrate a complex set of inputs and provide a variety of outputs that we rely on and have come to take for granted, does it make sense to think that a smaller community, localized in a particular geographic setting, identifies and takes responsibility for providing certain goods and services to its community members, for example, potable water, food, and basic sanitation?
Ooops - still learning ui, hid post by mistake.
Those few of us who survive dieoff will miss the grid, aka technological civilization.
My guess in first world countries? 20y from now, USA 1-3% of current population will struggle for survival in a land where easy to access resources are gone..
The billionaires who are strip-mining the grid for immediate profit and will hide from the crash in high tech compounds? Used AI analysis. . . all gone in 5y, thelr sh*t will break, no skills / parts for fixes. Most get shot by security staff 15m after 911 goes down forever. While they won't be a problem, this won't help the rest of us.
How to stop / mitigate the crash? Political problem with no *legal* solutions. Illegal? Don't discuss in public
Warren Zevon song "lawyers, guns & money"? He forgot hackers. ;-)