I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 9:14 am Post subject: [Prep] First world kit
There are many postings here about emergency packs and the supplies necessary to live like a frontiersman at some post peak date. However the question I have is what are the bits and pieces you would consider necessary to maintain as close as practical to a first world lifestyle - eg the first world kit. What would be necessary practical for doing that for decades?
For instance long distance radio comms, and spares to keep it running could be considered essential. Same could be true of medicines.
One area that gets little attention is that of automation. Its easy to consider you are going to till the earth by hand, but not even our forefathers did that, they can horses and ploughs. Wouldn't mechanised approaches to farm and other work be considered essential. In particular what jobs could be massively simplified with the addition of automation that today's IT allows for. Solar power calculators is just one area.
What would make up your first world kit? _________________ Arcane Domain
Joined: Sep 06, 2004 Posts: 5315 Location: Smalltown New Zealand
Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:15 pm Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
garyp wrote:
Wouldn't mechanised approaches to farm and other work be considered essential.
Hey, yeah, and you could make those mechanical things, and sell them to farmers who need them, and if they can't afford it you could have a banking system, and credit, and other people might make the same things you do so let's have a marketing system so you can show your plough is better, and then when you've made your money you can retire in the big mansion while the poor people drive your tractors round the field...
So in a period of six thousand years we've demonstrated why the idea of bigger and better is unsustainable and you want to start the process off all over again? _________________ "Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 10:45 pm Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
Easter island provides a good illustration what will happen to our entire planet, soon, if the ridiculous notion of "sustaining a first-world standard of living" is not quickly abandoned by every resident of earth.
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:31 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
So no sensible answers, just the usual muck flinging by the hair shirt luddite brigade.
Useful.
You know, maybe we are headed back to a medieval age - not because it necessary or even makes sense. Just because so many have so little imagination that other options exist.
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5651 Location: Body in OK, Heart in TX
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 1:47 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
garyp wrote:
You know, maybe we are headed back to a medieval age - not because it necessary or even makes sense. Just because so many have so little imagination that other options exist.
Or maybe it's because we need ludicrous amounts of fossil fuels to live the way we do, and the fact that the supply of those fuels will soon decrease. Actually, I think you might get more replies along the lines you desire if you defined what aspects of "first world lifestyle" you wanted to maintain.
I'm all for creativity, but you can't live on imagination alone. If you could there wouldn't be so many people dying of starvation every day. _________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 2:19 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
Shannymara wrote:
I'm all for creativity, but you can't live on imagination alone.
No, but I've seen different people with exactly the same amount of money, and some of them are definitely poor and some are living a middle class lifestyle. The difference? Imagination and resourcefulness.
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 2:23 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
"you wanted to maintain"
Simple stuff really. Lots of folk talk of a back to nature lifestyle, but not much thought of how it could be sustained long term. For instance, how are you going to plow the land so you can do all that planting? Sure you can use a horse or ox, but you also need the plough - which means you tend to need a significant metal working facility to make and mend it. Where do you get the feedstock from to make things? To maintain even a medieval lifestyle you are going to need to maintain a significant degree of technology, most of which you don't have today because its been supplanted.
My point is we have developed beyond that, through steel, powered tools, towards automation. If you are going to have to maintain technology anyway, what technology would you need to maintain to keep that first world lifestyle that most people would want?
For instance, maybe it is better to aim to maintain internal combusion engine technology level using biofuels as power source. You would need to know how to rebuild such devices, but its easier to obtain a tractor today than a horse and plough.
Chief thing we do have today, that we probably wouldn't be able to get post PO crash is high tech automation. As someone else said, solar powered calculators are very cheap, disposable items today. However in some future world they would be virtually impossible to manufacture - but would be key in being able to do calculations that can help a lot in planning, etc.
What are the bits, the capabilities, and the impossible to manufacture spares that would enable a maintenance of what could be called a first world lifestyle?
This is not about some religious viewpoint on progress and petrolum powered lifestyles - its about sustainable capability that makes sense. How much planning and capability does it take to maintain a tractor rather than a horse and plough? What do you need and what is the minimum set?
I'd suggest that high tech manufacture, metalworking, feedstock, general purpose high tech automation, distillary, cloth and cloth working machines, comms devices and spares, glassworking, etc. etc. would be on that list. But how controlled can that list be and what level of living does it allow?
The other item people ignore is free time. If all your time is spent just keeping yourself alive - you have no time for anything else. In essence you guarantee that you will spiral down over time, whereas having the time to progress means to can claw your way upward. If you can maintain those first world capabilities, you can have a better chance at long term survival. _________________ Arcane Domain
Joined: Sep 06, 2004 Posts: 5315 Location: Smalltown New Zealand
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 3:11 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
garyp wrote:
My point is we have developed beyond that, through steel, powered tools, towards automation. If you are going to have to maintain technology anyway, what technology would you need to maintain to keep that first world lifestyle that most people would want?
Repeat after me, "Technology is not the same as energy". _________________ "Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 3:39 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
rogerhb wrote:
garyp wrote:
My point is we have developed beyond that, through steel, powered tools, towards automation. If you are going to have to maintain technology anyway, what technology would you need to maintain to keep that first world lifestyle that most people would want?
Repeat after me, "Technology is not the same as energy".
Did I say it was?
In fact wasn't my point that just aiming to maintain a level of technology wasn't a good reason for having the luddites jump up and down on you with a chant of "you're the problem, stop using energy".
I'm not sure if you are trying to have a go at me, maybe you were agreeing? However its getting a little tiring with all the negative thoughts around here and doomish tendencies.
Maybe the phrase to be repeated should be "Technology isn't the problem, its the only solution we've got"? _________________ Arcane Domain
Joined: Sep 06, 2004 Posts: 5315 Location: Smalltown New Zealand
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 3:48 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
garyp wrote:
Maybe the phrase to be repeated should be "Technology isn't the problem, its the only solution we've got"?
Technology isn't the problem, we are.
First remind yourself what sustainable means. The clue is normally if you need to dig something up from the ground to make it run, it's not sustainable.
How much energy can a single person be allowed to use if
(a) they are sharing the planet with 6.5billion people?
(b) they are not depleting some resource in order to generate that energy
If it's not sustainable it's a temporary solution. _________________ "Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 4:16 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
Ultimately, nothing is sustainable, rogerhb. Entropy makes sure of that.
Having said this, don't forget that metal, unlike oil, can be melted down and reused. And given the amount of wasted materials (read: disused vehicles and the like) that we're going to have sitting around), we're probably going to be OK for some time (assuming metals use declines with the bell curve).
Yeah, it tales a lot of energy to melt down metals, but it takes more to find it these days. And we've been doing it for thousands of years, so it's hardly in the "too hard basket".
Great to see some folks trying to nut this out though. It's an important one, this issue.
Reusing plastics would be a good idea too - far too handy to waste (for example, plastics won't get eaten up by most acids). _________________ "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." - Douglas Adams
Joined: Sep 06, 2004 Posts: 5315 Location: Smalltown New Zealand
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 4:26 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
peaker_2005 wrote:
Yeah, it tales a lot of energy to melt down metals, but it takes more to find it these days. And we've been doing it for thousands of years, so it's hardly in the "too hard basket".
England used to be covered in forest, all those rolling hills were once forests. Smelting will eventually find it's way to the too hard basket precisely because we have been doing it for around three thousand of years. _________________ "Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 4:44 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
rogerhb wrote:
First remind yourself what sustainable means. The clue is normally if you need to dig something up from the ground to make it run, it's not sustainable.
How about, "Normally, if you take something that you don't replace, it's not sustainable." Most animals in general, people inlucded until recently, take food from their environment and replace it with natural fertilizer.
But to get back to garyp's question ...
If "First World" means the US standard of living, then we need fusion power, ZPE, or moon gas as part of the First World Kit, yesterday, but none of which are going to happen in our lifetimes.
If it only means "I want a higher standard of living than others around me", well, so do lots of people. Apparently it is part and parcel of what got us into this mess. Good luck with that. _________________ "We have seen the enemy, and he is us." -- Walt Kelly
Joined: Sep 06, 2004 Posts: 5315 Location: Smalltown New Zealand
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 4:49 am Post subject: Re: [Prep] First world kit
JustinFrankl wrote:
If it only means "I want a higher standard of living than others around me", well, so do lots of people. Apparently it is part and parcel of what got us into this mess. Good luck with that.
As a species, modern man has a real problem comprehending the word "enough". _________________ "Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
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