Auntie_Cipation wrote:What else is there, given what's coming, but to become part of a sustainable community? And those of us who see what's happening, are the ones who can help prepare our communities now to become sustainable as quickly as we can.
Any other attempts at a solution that I've heard -- from techno-fixes, to intensive urban greenhouse-pods, to terraforming other planets, are only an extension of our temporary ability to live beyond our means. Not to mention mostly infeasible. So, what else is there?
What else is there? I can answer that question
You might not like the answer though.
You have two very different problems here, one is the Survival through the Zero Point, the second is the rebuilding if there is to be one.
The Independent Sustainable community won't do well through the Zero Point. Any area with any productivity whatsoever will be raped and pillaged if that community is not part of a larger force. All will be forced into the Borg Collective. "Resistance is Futile".
However, without additional planets to swarm over, the Borg will eventually run out of resources to keep the Collective going. In other words, at a certain point all the big weapons and mechanized armies will stop functioning. Its only after that occurs that the ISC might begin to reassert itself.
How do you survive as the society collectivizes under the Borg? You submit, you become a part of the Borg. There is only one place you can retain your independence, that is inside your own mind. You have to lock it up and keep it safe, until the Borg begins to fall apart. As Hawkeye told Cora right before her capture by Magua:
"No, you submit, do you hear? You be strong, you survive... You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you. "
There is no Hawkeye out there who will come to save you, so you will in the end have to save yourself, if its possible. However, in the short term of the Zero Point, you have no choice other than to submit, elsewise you will die.
I do not think the Zero Point will last all that long actually. I cannot see the big militaries holding together as the sources of funding dry up. Maybe a couple of years with the big boys fighting it out on the World Stage. Then you devolve down to more local areas struggling to survive. At this point you might let the Independence you harbored in the Safe of your Mind come out once again, if you are still alive.
Be aware that a sustainable community in this period is not simply pascifist farmers and shepherds and hunters and fishermen. You will need PROTECTION. You must have a cadre of people, mostly young men who will patrol and protect the given plot of land your society of 10,000 human souls occupies. Go no further outward then the defensible geographical boundaries of your location, perhaps protected by the Ocean if you are on an Island, perhaps bounded by really Big Rivers like the Mighty Mississippi, perhaps surrounded on all sides by Mountains. Really BIG Mountains. The Great Wall that God built.
If your ISC is to remain TRULY sustainable, you will have to find a way to limit your population growth inside your boundaries. You cannot let all people reproduce, neither can you let all children live, neither can you keep old folks alive past the point where they are productive toward the community in some way, at least as knoweldgable teachers and leaders. Determining the Law on how this is done is the most difficult part of developing a self-sustaining community of human souls that does NOT over tax the environment they live in. In the most fair way I can imagine, you have a test for survival among your children if you are reproducing too fast. You send them out in groups into the Wilderness for a year, you see which ones come back alive. If they are strong of mind and strong of body, if as a parent you prepared them well for the Survival Test, perhaps your child is the one Left Standing at the end of the Test. This is a REAL test, not just the SAT. Its the test of Life and Death, and those who walk out of this alive will have learned a very important lesson about the nature of life on earth.
As I have said before, I am no Communist, I am no Fascist either. I am a Darwinist in the most strict sense, its all about utility and the preservation of resources for the community, and you make your tests very real to determine who survives and who dies. The Time for this comes when you reach Puberty, around the age of 12-14 generally speaking. At this point of reproductive ability, you can no longer depend on your parents, you must demonstrate your OWN ability to survive and to procreate further. If you cannot make it through the test, so be it. It is up to the society to make the test as fair as possible, no child goes out into the wilderness with more or less than any other. No inheritance of wealth or power. All Equal for the Test.
At the end of the year in the Wilderness, there will be a few left standing. You bring them back in, you breed some more. Repeat the process. You will defintely breed up some very tough individuals this way.
Reverse Engineer
