OK so its hitting the fan.

In the typical SHTF fantasy, I would actually suggest that advanced knowledge would be what is valuable. Things like engineering handbooks, references.. pretty much anything engineering or scientific based. Having these stored digitally is actually a good idea for a variety of reasons. Physical books arent bad either, but both have their strengths and weaknesses.

The more primitive survivalism is actually pretty straightforward and basic. The real difficulty is the real world experience it takes to back it up. There is also something to be said for competition for resources in even the most rural areas.

Now, since this is all a controlled collapse, that changes the situation in ways that most people dont really seem to comprehend. Most approaches do not take this into account, and will be completely inept at handling the situation. One single factor changes things completely; most scenarios play out with the total (or near total) collapse of centralized structures. That is not what is happening. We are seeing the reverse, where centralized power is fortifying and solidifying its control through intentionally cultivated instability.

Its a bit like the Soviet Famines (i.e. Holodomor) on steroids. Typical survivalism is nearly irrelevant in the face of the actual situation and goals here. The key to their success is ensuring that those who are willing and able to prepare for instability are also technologically averse. Well, specifically transistor-based tech averse with a strong focus on inculcating the perspective that it is the modern tools that are responsible rather than the people who are using them (similar to the firearms narrative, just with a different targeted demographic).

As long as people arent building anything that can actually compete with the centralized structures, it will be like a primitive tribe in Papua New Guinea going up against a civilization from the future. A future civilization that wants what that primitive tribe has and is on an ideologically driven crusade to take control of all of it, globally. And, a future civilization that doesnt need to fight for anything in person.. they will use highly refined social control mechanisms complemented by robotics.

I would even go so far as to say that typical survivalism and "prepping" are almost as ill-equipped to handle the situation as the people who do not prepare for anything at all. In some ways, they are even worse off.

glhf

i douwnload nothing! why???
couse when the human race has extingt it just do'nt matters anymoore!
lemmings rabbits humans and dino's

a reply to: anonentity

Trump said in one of his last rallies "We will fix it in 2024, if we still have a country by then". I fear he was dead serious.

originally posted by: Torlin
If we have long-lasting power outages, we are all toast.

Why?

Because without external power, all the nuclear power plants will meltdown. Then we will have dozen, if not hundreds, of Chernobyl's and Fukushima's.

This will happen anyway regardless of man-made issues, sooner or later, simply because sooner or later, we will have a major solar storm that will fry the power grid.

Hopefully the tech can drop the control rods or, in a worst case, autoSCRAM.

Outages happen, and have happened before without catastrophic failure.

Besides, after the solar activities caused failures in the past, there have been ways to segment and isolate the grids implemented. That means a potential difference can't build up over thousands of miles of a single cable run.

originally posted by: Aliquandro
a reply to: igloo

Just asked my dad who spent time as a kid working on a chicken farm, this is totally a thing! Said he hadn't heard the term 'water-glassed' in over 15 years. Technique was apparently used by merchant marines and people who needed eggs stored for long distance travel

Actually makes me wanna raise chickens more than ever now since the store bought ones suck and are $$$

Thanks for that!!

I love finding out old useful info. I raise muscovy ducks now instead of chickens for meat and eggs as they are great low maintenance breeders, virtually silent. The meat tastes and is textured somewhat like beef so even used as steak. I'm going to try this method of storing eggs next year as there's a time of year where I end up with too many to eat but not really enough to find a market for.

originally posted by: RussianSpy
a reply to: igloo

I suggest learning nutrition and all that entails as well as the scientific method as well as all that entails as well. Welding is a useful trait but won't keep you alive as per the narrative the OP proposed onto us.

Farming as well as baking will be a godsend if/when it all hits the fan. Canned and dry foods only last so long after all you know?

Ah yes indeed! Welding was mentioned for a different reason but you have good points.

Even though I don't cook etc I am a farmer and raise a range of urban animals all for their silence and ability to be fed by foraging. Muscovy ducks will happily eat slugs and bugs. You can raise buckets of maggots for them even. I also have rabbits, guinea pigs and pigeons, thought the pigeons aren't so quiet not that it matters as I have enough land. Rabbits are somewhat like chicken, guinea pigs taste almost like pork and pigeon like a game bird, plus can eat the eggs when they lay too many. Tried sheep last year but two lambs were enough meat for years in the freezer.

One issue I hope will resolve if the shtf is all the rules and regulations we have here over meat. So, here in canada, I can hunt or fish, process the meat myself, then invite my family to my house for dinner. However, if I raise the animal and process it myself I cannot share it beyond those who live on my land. To serve to outsiders, sell or trade it, I'd currently need to have it government slaughtered, inspected, wrapped. That's a long stressful, pre dawn drive about an hour each way and the cost is prohibitive. So in short, I have meat to share with those who like cooking and maybe have some veggies to go with it but the rules here prohibit it.

These rules, I believe, were designed to destroy family farms. They say it is for health reasons but a person could badly prepare meat from fishing or hunting so it doesn't make sense. I'm really good at what I do and would love to be able to barter for other necessities. SHTF would change all those rules.

a reply to: anonentity

Wow, you are late to the party. I already downloaded far more than a village could use on every topic, in anticipation of 2012. Nothing happened, I got lazy, who knew it was going to take 10 more years?!

a reply to: HilterDayon

why cant we use our cell phones' communications, linked neighbor to neighbor.
what is their range?
if my wifi device can pick up my neighbors wifi, and verse-visa, that right there
should be a way..

sorry, i have no clue how networking works, i,ve never tried, but,
those things SHOULD work,..............somehow.

Bloke on the radio imports fridges from China.................

If you want to get a container from China the price has gone nuke style!

eg.............. To ship 1 x refridgerator from China to Britain now costs £169! Three years ago it was £15!

WTF is going on? Inflation gone mental.

Please note............... IF YOU NEED A NEW FRIDGE BUY IT TODAY as prices are going to go nuke very soon

a reply to: cappie

Phones don't have a lot of power for transmission, limiting range; it's why there are towers everywhere. On top of that, different networks and manufacturers use different technology and frequencies. Some GSM, others CDMA, each with their own set frequency bands. Theoretically, same frequency devices could communicate directly, but I don't think it's ever been done in the open world.

For what you're looking to do you'd be better off with a CB radio, getting your ham license and joining a net, or just using a decent set of GMRS walkie talkies.

I'm starting to think that any type of MSM or programs to watch are actually acclimation tools that slowly get the masses used to an Idea so when it happens it's not a shock .

Point is if television or any other form of broadcast didn't exist None of the pandemonium would be happening .

a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

Books are cool also, they don't need batteries or internet,....

Before you say 'come on, man', realize you only mentioned a good side of 'books'.

By the way, temperature doesn't enter into it - as long as it's not hot enough for the book to catch fire, or cold enough that the book is so frozen you can't read it.

Now, books have their good and bad points, just as digital data does. The tactile experience will be forever missed when it's gone, but books DO have their bad sides as well.

You can easily fit thousands of big books as data into a physically tiny, light laptop or even cell phone these days (probably). I have put all Commodore 64 games into a ridiculously tiny SD card (not sure what it's called, MicroSD maybe?). Back in the day, you'd have needed a MASSIVE wall to contain all those games, especially on tape, but even on disks.

Try carrying 10 books everywhere you go, you'll realize it becomes pretty heavy pretty quickly, unless those books are stupidly thin. Even one big book can be quite heavy during a long reading session, your muscles might start to hurt.

Now imagine having 100 books in your room - where will you put them? They take space, they are heavy, they are cumbersome. If there's an error, you can't fix it. If you accidentally destroy a few pages, you can't get them back easily. You can't search something with a searchword from 800 books. You can't copypaste the text. In the modern world, digital data is just SO much more handy, especially if you need to move and travel between places and still want to carry thousands of books with you. There's no WAY you can even do this in real life.

I mean, you'd have to rent a friggin' cargo plane to carry the books you can easily carry nowadays on a tiny SD card.

So yeah, when mentioning good and bad sides, you could do it in a BALANCED way. Books have their points and merits that data can never replace, but be real, be honest, be balanced, be fair and be equal.

Come on, man, indeed.

a reply to: ufoorbhunter

a refrigerator is classed as a 'Durable Appliance' hence the cost to transport (size & all)

i find that 12" electric skillets are 2-3-4X as expensive today than just last year--- a $15-20 stir-fry skillet is $45 t0 $70 bucks at walmarts where i frequent often enough

originally posted by: St Udio
a reply to: ufoorbhunter

a refrigerator is classed as a 'Durable Appliance' hence the cost to transport (size & all)

i find that 12" electric skillets are 2-3-4X as expensive today than just last year--- a $15-20 stir-fry skillet is $45 t0 $70 bucks at walmarts where i frequent often enough

What is a Skillet Uido? Like a fish or something?

a reply to: igloo

You mentioned welding. But with an anvil and a forge, you have everything to rise above it all, you just need the basic knowledge. Like there are three basic types of steel, mild, spring, and tool,. All iron with varying degrees of carbon-infused into it. Then hammers and files, Plus the ability to get to fine tolerances on a simple lathe. Even smelting the iron, and making the hardwood charcoal is all very basic. but you still have to have that basic knowledge. So that would be good to store on a hard drive somewhere. Considering the finest Kentucky long rifles were made from a single billet of Iron, you just have to have the knowledge to build the skills.

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

A tablet or 2 and 4 batteries takes as much if not less room...easy to charge with trickle solar charging meaning the ones with a solar face actually work if you don't need to use it every 6hrs. You can have literally millions of pages of .pdf like that. You can have a whole library if you have expandable memory.

a reply to: chr0naut

I am less concerned about interrupting the operation of the nuclear reactors (scram etc.), what worries me a lot more is the inability to deal with the enormous decay heat afterwards. After 24 hours, the decay heat is still 0.4% of the previous core. After 1 week, it is at 0.2%.

0.2% sounds like almost nothing, but we are talking about up to 3 GW (thermal) power per core - even after a whole week. MW of thermal power is a lot! With 6 MW, you can boil away thousands or liters of water in mere minutes. Keep in mind, the initial decay heat is much higher.

Now, with a strong enough EMP all communication will be down. Electronics in cars and trucks will be fried. Any kind of logistic will be a nightmare.

Plus, we are not talking about just one nuclear plant, there are almost a hundred civilian reactors.

I really don't see how disaster can be avoided in case of a strong enough EMP. But perhaps I am missing something here?

originally posted by: Torlin
a reply to: chr0naut

I am less concerned about interrupting the operation of the nuclear reactors (scram etc.), what worries me a lot more is the inability to deal with the enormous decay heat afterwards. After 24 hours, the decay heat is still 0.4% of the previous core. After 1 week, it is at 0.2%.

0.2% sounds like almost nothing, but we are talking about up to 3 GW (thermal) power per core - even after a whole week. MW of thermal power is a lot! With 6 MW, you can boil away thousands or liters of water in mere minutes. Keep in mind, the initial decay heat is much higher.

Now, with a strong enough EMP all communication will be down. Electronics in cars and trucks will be fried. Any kind of logistic will be a nightmare.

Plus, we are not talking about just one nuclear plant, there are almost a hundred civilian reactors.

I really don't see how disaster can be avoided in case of a strong enough EMP. But perhaps I am missing something here?

I think you'll find that most power reactors are located near water reserves, like a river, so that latent heat can be dealt with over time. The problem is that they need to stop the water with actinides dissolved in it from vaporizing and creating fallout. They need to have a closed system of heat exchangers so that evaporated water has no direct contact with nuclear fuel.

That is part of reactor design, but if anything can...

This is why people like me have been bitching about a mad dash to crap ideas like electric cars by 2030. Even if somehow you managed to make enough of them and convince everyone in the country to buy them, how are you going to power them, and, do you really think you are leaving a smaller carbon footprint doing so?

Our power grid, put as simply as possible, can NOT provide enough energy to charge that many electric cars. Look at places like California right now. They are already borrowing power from neighboring states and still have brown outs or black outs during peak usage times. Now imagine how bad that will be when every house in the state has a car or two plugged in all night. It simply cant work. Not to mention the fact that the average residential electric panel isn't wired for that much amperage. Every house would have to be redone with higher amp service. And of course the higher demand will just drive the price of energy even higher. I mean, c'mon man, who can pass up a good profit making crisis?

This was a failed idea from the start. Its nothing more than pandering on a monumental scale.

a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

I agree you might need a battery for your torch though in order to keep reading in the dark.