Disclaimer

Just FYI, this isn't a blog, it's basically my journal, so you probably aren't reading this right now. But if you are, and your reaction is "this guy is an idiot (true)" or "this guy should seek help", I'll make you a deal. Mail me your journal, and we will psychoanalyze each other... Also, I'm a shitty writer.

PS- I like head cheese.

Hedging Our Bets

It should be stated from the outset, that I have a great life. I have a good job, a beautiful home, and great family, and I generally want for nothing. Very few people can claim to be subjectively in a position to lose more (materially) if the world should recede in some way from the current prosperity that we now collectively enjoy. I think that most people who have traditionally spent their time worrying about impending doom and prophesying the apocalypse are fundamentally unhappy.

I will state at the beginning of everything that I write here, this is a (semi-fictional) exercise in risk management. It is of supreme importance to not allow my tepid pessimism to descend into nihilism or cynicism. It wouldn't be intellectually honest to discount the fact that the progress that presently has the potential to unwind itself has, in fact, made the world the best that it has ever been by every reasonable measure. Also worth noting, everyone who has ever predicted our imminent doom has been wrong. Obviously. The only rationally pessimistic thing to do is to continue to operate like we can correct our current course, and do everything in our power to do so, while hedging against the possibility that we will shit the bed spectacularly. Progress, peace and prosperity shouldn't be taken as a given. We, in fact, can fuck it all up. So the question becomes: how likely is that?

I think the answer to this question lies along an ever-evolving continuum. As time passes, much like the doomsday clock, the likelihood of the global community finally stepping on its collective nutsack hard enough to render it disabled, ebbs and flows. We have not seen the tide ebb in a while now. Much seems to be flowing toward a flood. Is this the natural cycle of the tide, or is there a tsunami coming? It can be argued that the ebbing tide that began after WWII pulled so unnaturally away from the shore that we have yet to realize it portends a wave that will consume humanity, casually sitting on the tropical beach of life, soaking up the light of prosperity. (BTW, that's a super dark thought, and sounds a little crazy. That is all...)

If the end goal is Helm's Deep ( aka, a place that exists juuust in case we poop our diapers, but is not necessarily my primary residence. Only a total kook actually lives in Helm's Deep), what is the first step in a journey that will have 100,000? If I were writing an outline to a story entitled "Paranoid Kook Decides that the World is AFU, and Is Taking Steps: One Man's Journey" what are the major plot points?

Baby steps. For a guy who is notorious for having my horse smash into the back of my cart, even contemplating something of this magnitude is overwhelming.

Conceptualize. Since Lord of the Rings is (allegedly) not real, and I don't live in Middle Earth, what does the end look like? Classic risk management says that you analyze possible outcomes and act to mitigate the damage in a worst case scenario. What are the principal and most likely risks to my children having an existence in the face of existential threats? Doomsday preppers are deluding themselves if they think that survival is something that can be accomplished by learning how to subsist in some post-apocalyptic hellscape without a large community, and tremendous thought into not just having resources, but protecting them. Subsistence communities that have the resources to survive in the event of general societal collapse will be overrun in short order by groups that didn't have the foresight to prepare for this new reality, but have the strength to take from those that did.

Much of the research that I have done on how to build a resilient community in a world where resource depletion is the new normal seem based upon the premise of a generally stable societal structure (e.g. nothing is ever said about security). Knowing how to produce food is important in the face of the collapse of the global food supply chain, but how to provide security is equally important. In a worst case scenario anyone who has enough resources to produce food is going to be under constant threat. For my mind, the best way to minimize that threat begins with location. If chaos begins to consume the lower 48, then anywhere that has the resources for survival will be accessible to anyone who has the means to take them.

I have no desire to create, or illusions that it is possible to create, some sort of utopian community, free from the struggles that plague society at large. Doesn't mean we can't examine the systems that have produced the best outcomes, and attempt to craft, much like the founders of the United States did, a mechanism to continually improve those outcomes. A "more perfect union", as it were.

And one locations is not just as good as another. After thinking about this from every perspective possible, especially whilst pooping, I have come to the definitely not-wrong conclusion that somewhere along the Inside Passage might be the best place on the planet, but especially for an American, to which to retreat in the event of the general breakdown of orderly society. Why? Stay tuned, me.

The lastest

An interesting point in a NY Times piece today about how some Trump voters simply have a "need for chaos".

They conducted six surveys, four in the United States, in which they interviewed 5157 participants, and two in Denmark, with 1336. They identified those who are “drawn to chaos” through their affirmative responses to the following statements:

• I fantasize about a natural disaster wiping out most of humanity such that a small group of people can start all over.

• I think society should be burned to the ground.

• When I think about our political and social institutions, I cannot help thinking “just let them all burn.”

• We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions, we need to tear them down and start over.

• Sometimes I just feel like destroying beautiful things.

The interesting thing here is the first bullet point. As a matter of intellectual honesty as it relates to my current pessimism, I am always trying to assess whether or not I suffer from the same psychological affliction. Some deep and poorly understood need for chaos. I completely agree with the notion that most people who are "prepping" for the end of the world would fit a psychological profile with which I would prefer not to be associated. I certainly would answer questions 2-5 in the negative.

What is the difference between fantasizing and simply being worried about it? I think it goes back to action. The individual choices that we make are important, but collective action is far more so. To quote D.W.W. in the Times:

"...conscious consumption is a cop-out, a neoliberal diversion from collective action, which is what is necessary. People should try to live by their own values, about climate as with everything else, but the effects of individual lifestyle choices are ultimately trivial compared with what politics can achieve.
Buying an electric car is a drop in the bucket compared with raising fuel-efficiency standards sharply. Conscientiously flying less is a lot easier if there’s more high-speed rail around. And if I eat fewer hamburgers a year, so what? But if cattle farmers were required to feed their cattle seaweed, which might reduce methane emissions by nearly 60 percent according to one study, that would make an enormous difference."

Just because the effects are trivial, does not mean that they don't matter however. It's best not to be a hypocrite, methinks. Also, I think neoliberal  has become the hot new pejorative buzz word on the left, and it's annoying. The implication above is that if you're an average Joe or Maria and you're feeling quite helpless about what you can do in the face of a potential climate emergency and you buy a Prius, you're somehow part of a Hillary Clinton, deep state, complacency apparatus. Poppycock. I think you should buy a Prius, and then make it clear that any candidate for political office shan't get your vote unless they take the problem seriously.

Although, to be fair, I think he might be saying it's a cop-out on the part of politicians when they call on individuals to be conscious of their consumption. Still, statements like that promote nihilism among everyday consumers in my opinion.