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167 comments on DrumBeat: February 22, 2007

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MicroHydro on February 22, 2007 - 8:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

As I once wrote in a private email to Jeffrey, (back before the TOD comments sections got a much needed enema)I am only 2/3 on board with ELP. My path is EMP. Instead of localizing, I am mobilizing. My issue with localizing is that the next several decades are going to be roiled with not only PO but upheavals in politics and climate. A place that will be excellent in 2015 might be a hell hole in 2020. If one is tied to land, what do you do when the multiyear drought comes?

Throughout history many people have been nomads. Portable wealth and portable skills are another path to survival.

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sgage on February 22, 2007 - 9:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"Throughout history many people have been nomads. Portable wealth and portable skills are another path to survival."

Nomadism is totally not about individuals with "portable wealth and portable skills". Nomadism is tribal and hyper-conservative.

It seems to me that the last thing you want to be when
TSHTF is a stranger in town. You want to be a well-known, trusted local. Someone that people can trust not to just move on when the going gets a bit rough. That's just one step removed from an opportunistic parasite.

Not saying that being mobile isn't a plausible individual survival strategy, but please don't dignify it with the term "nomad".

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MicroHydro on February 22, 2007 - 9:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Some of us are in special circumstances. Traditionally persecuted minorities (religious, ethnic, sexual) do not have a homeland anywhere. However modern outcasts have a archipelago of ghettos to shift through. At the present time, Jews have Israel, but managed to survive for several centuries prior by keeping on the move. If one is a gypsy (Rom) or in a same sex marriage, conditions haven't changed at all. Economic crisis will make traditional scapegoats more vunerable.

The trick is to learn to sense the coming pogrom or witch burning before it starts and pack quickly. I smelled the torches and pitchforks during the 2004 US election campaign, and fled to New Zealand PDQ. As far as mobility goes, a sailboat with a stash of bullion or similar classic lightweight trade goods (loose diamonds, pearls) will take one a lot of places even when the planes are grounded.

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sgage on February 22, 2007 - 10:11pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

MH,

On the one hand, your points are well taken. But my point would be along the lines that the Jews did not survive as individuals, but rather as a very communal entity. Ditto Rom, gays, blacks, etc.

Point being, whether your community is fixed or "nomadic", it seems to me that you clearly want to be a part of a community.

Unless your only goal is individual survival, but that's a whole different story. And if the people you are with sense that your game is your own individual survival, vs. the survival of the community, whatever it may be, well, good luck to you.

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MicroHydro on February 22, 2007 - 11:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Actually, there are problems for a mobile survivor, but they are more of an internal nature. It is the 21st (Sky TV) century almost everywhere, and communitites are rather loose and ephemeral. When the chips are down, people will take care of their immediate family above all else. Cousin John or the old lady next door are low on the list of priorities.

The problem is likely to be the problem faced by the Europeans with resources and foresight who fled Europe in the 1930s. They survived, and prospered, while most of their old friends and neighbors died. No matter how comfortable, many of these folks were haunted by what is called "survivor guilt" for the rest of their days. For many people it might actually be preferable to stay in place wherever they are and suffer the same fate as their friends, even unto death. For my part, I have chosen to risk suvivor guilt.

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Yosemite Sam on February 22, 2007 - 9:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

As much as I like your mobility idea, I can imagine restrictions to travel. Toward maintaining the political and territorial integrity of nation states, I could imagine some kind of system which would specify where you belong and do not belong. This could morph into an actual breakup of large nations like the US into regional centers which might develop their own cultural identities and hostilities to outsiders. Traveling could end up being very hazardous subjecting the traveler to robbery.

I do not pretend to be an expert. I just suspect that much of what we count on, one being freedom of movement, could end up being a scarcity.

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elwoodelmore on February 23, 2007 - 12:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

consider the dinosaurs, the survivors are the smaller - more mobile ones (i.e. birds).

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