My Observations of Peak Oil people ::)

[nomadcat]

WILDERNESS SURVIVALISTS:  You will never see these folks on the internet -- if you do, they are actually INACTIVE PREPARERS with macho fantasies.  However, this seems to be a dead end preparation technique, since it involves only basic survival, has not support group or backup plan, and is unsustainable long term without the products of civilization.  Often, even active WILDERNESS SURVIVALISTS are prone to macho fantasies which cloud their reasoning ability about the likely success of their chosen route.  Some may migrate to the militant preparedness path.


you're absolutely right!! learning these skills is bad! nobody should ever attempt to do it. everybody should learn farming and stay out of the woods. the woods are bad and scary, and dark, and big noises, and animals with big toothy fangy things. bad bad, stay out of the woods and on the safe farm. 

[kaykay]

I don't understand this mindset that has to label everything and everyone.  Why do we need to label people at all?  Why do we need to put everyone in some kind of niche?  That's part of what's wrong with the world today..."oh, you're a (insert token of the day label).....now I know who you are.
It's too simplistic and confining and frankly belittling.  We are aware beings....aware of what's going on in the world.  We each have our own path to follow and as noone really knows how it will all play out, it's anybody's guess who will survive or not.  Say you survive and then slip and fall and crack your head open while working in the garden....now what's your label?

[heretic]

I guess that I would be an INACTIVE PREPARER. 
While i would like to travel the agrarian path, that way takes a good bit of money.  I have money saved but would probally need to continue working for a while to afford any property worth while.  Also to my detriment i would be working it alone right now, not good with my basic plant knowledge. Garden City, MI where I grew up had few gardens and no open land, just one huge ugly assed sub

I know going half-assed won't be much better than where i am now.
 So im keeping my options open,
- go urban gardener route (prob need planty of ammo for that one)
- good land w/small house near a town that should fare well
- good land w/small house near a decaying town
- find ecovillage willing to defend itself (not likely)
- find an town with PO aware individuals working toward sustainability. (not intentional community)

Say you survive and then slip and fall and crack your head open while working in the garden....now what's your label?

fertilizer

[mem]

I hear what you are saying, kaykay.  Labels are too simplistic, of course. 

That said, I do think that categorizing us into different populations could help us to understand each other's perspective--or at least be less critical of it.  For example, I won't be full agrarian.  No room, no patience for livestock.  But I'm glad Old Horseman is. 

On the other hand, I hope Old Horseman will appreciate some traders in the urban class.  We may be of some use to him someday as well.

And if we can accept those different perspectives, perhaps our conversations could be less tense.

[kaykay]

And if we can accept those different perspectives, perhaps our conversations could be less tense.

That's part of what's wrong with the world today....we put everybody into a perspective and feel we know who they are, whether we know them or not.  Someone said earlier they would fit into more than one area....that's another good point....

I understand the need to classify things to understand better....I teach science...but, I don't personally believe that we should be doing it anymore in regards to the "new world" coming.  I think it limits you and those making the assumptions.  We are far more complex and more simple at the same time.  Guess you can tell I hate labeling people. 

With that said...I would say I would fall into the "doing everything I can think of, afford and physically able to" category...was that one of the choices?

[JurisDoctorOfDoom]

OH, you are probably the best candidate around here for PEAK OIL SURVIVOR

   I hope you're right. If we can avoid major set-backs and stay on-track, and SHTF holds off until late '08, we should be in pretty good shape...  But only time will tell. 

You seem to have a militant mindset, yet have achieved a mature agrarian homestead.

   I'm actually pretty good at avoiding and diffusing conflicts.  I just find it useful to operate from a position of strength.

  Your biggest problem is that you need about 4 more families just like you around there and more household members.

   I think there's a pretty decent chance of a number of families holding on out here.  Few know anything about PO, but they're old-school country folk who aren't inclined to evacuate their lands under any circumstances.

   Of course, if you'd move a bit farther to the right after you escape California, we could have a fully PO aware neighbor.

Personally, I think PO SURVIVORS will have to be able to have a sustainable farm, be able to effective defend it, and in the event of major disaster have at least one critical skill that makes their brains worth keeping around enough that others will contribute to your survival.

   I think we'll actually have all that covered.  If the future finds strong, free, young folk taking a break from running the farm (with the skills I helped them learn) to drop my ancient carcass into a hole on the northern pasture, then I'll qualify as a PO Survivor.

OH,

No good carcass should be going into the pasture. That's called "waste."  It should be going to the hogs for dinner or into the thermal depolymerization machine for some heating fuel.

 

[GreenNeck]

That's an interesting thread. Going by Nicole's categories I am somewhere between New and Middle Agrarian. I have wilfully banked on a slow, 1930's-like collapse and have not focused on a Mad Max scenario at all. If anything, we have more to fear from politicians than roaming bandits.

The thing I'm lacking now is the network of friends/neighbors for mutual support. I am leery to get into this until the collapse is under way. Then I can see who has the mettle to carry on from there.

Say you survive and then slip and fall and crack your head open while working in the garden....now what's your label?

That's a good point too. In a world where modern medical help may no longer be available, accidents and sickness are far more likely to get you than the zombies.

[Nicole]

you're absolutely right!! learning these skills is bad! nobody should ever attempt to do it. everybody should learn farming and stay out of the woods. the woods are bad and scary, and dark, and big noises, and animals with big toothy fangy things. bad bad, stay out of the woods and on the safe farm. 

LOL -- skills good. The idea that you are going to vanish into the wilderness buy yourself and survive by living off the land?  It's never happened long term.  The long hunters and Grizzly' Adams' of the world always came back to civilization occasionally to trade and needed those items that the social order could provide.

Now nomads are a different story -- they take their community and critical skills with them.

I was trying very hard to present the different mindsets involved.  Of course it's a model and not everyone will fit into it.  No model is perfect. 

[Nicole]

   I'm actually pretty good at avoiding and diffusing conflicts.  I just find it useful to operate from a position of strength.

So you carry the biggest stick.   Nothing wrong with that -- except very few people can manage to carry that big stick without using it.  Often.  We're a violent species.

   I think there's a pretty decent chance of a number of families holding on out here.  Few know anything about PO, but they're old-school country folk who aren't inclined to evacuate their lands under any circumstances.

   Of course, if you'd move a bit farther to the right after you escape California, we could have a fully PO aware neighbor.

Kinda defeats the goal of having family around to rely on.  Or help.  Or avoid, depending on the individual involved.

[OldHorseman]

No good carcass should be going into the pasture. That's called "waste."  It should be going to the hogs for dinner or into the thermal depolymerization machine for some heating fuel.

   I fully intend that, by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil, it'll be so very old and used-up that it wouldn't even be fit for use as a rawhide dog chew...

   Whatever good the worms can get out of it will fertilize the pasture.

[OldHorseman]

So you carry the biggest stick.   Nothing wrong with that -- except very few people can manage to carry that big stick without using it.  Often.

   I'm used to self-control.  I kinda' have superior force built-in, being a big, strong guy with an unusually rugged life history.  If I let someone get under my skin in person, it could get real ugly real fast.  But most people who are crazy enough to try and provoke me just make me laugh.

We're a violent species.

   Perhaps spending most of my time with another species has helped as well...  Horses are prey animals, who naturally run like hell from anything they find scary.  Humans are essentially large pedators, smelling of meat, with eyes on the fronts of our faces like a wolf or cat.  A lot of horsemanship has to do with projecting a calming influence that helps horses accept people on a social level, and even holds them together in the face of real threats.

   The wife hated it when I used to travel. She said the horses all went nutty within hours of my departure.

Kinda defeats the goal of having family around to rely on.  Or help.  Or avoid, depending on the individual involved.

   A resource I sadly lack... And a burden I am spared, I suppose.

[nomadcat]

LOL -- skills good. The idea that you are going to vanish into the wilderness buy yourself and survive by living off the land?  It's never happened long term.  The long hunters and Grizzly' Adams' of the world always came back to civilization occasionally to trade and needed those items that the social order could provide.

Now nomads are a different story -- they take their community and critical skills with them.

I was trying very hard to present the different mindsets involved.  Of course it's a model and not everyone will fit into it.  No model is perfect. 


very much agreed. going off by yourself in to the woods is pretty much impossible. I personally feel that a combination of the 2 is probably best, and flexibility and the ability to be flexible are what will most ensure survival. the advantages to agrarian are that given luck and skill, your food is right there. but the disadvantage is that if being in one location is absolutely necessary for your survival, than you have less choice and less flexibility. the disadvantage to wilderness living is that it is more work to gather your food, but more likely to be able to avoid crowds and chaos. so, a basic working knowledge of both would be the most adaptive. i myself have chosen the nomad life and also have a small group of people that i live with normally (though not right this moment as i have to be away for a few months to take care of some loose ends) who lives their daily lives this way, and are working to learn more and more as they go on.
but that is just the way i choose to live, because i want to, not because of peak oil. i agree with kaykay about being careful about making too many judgements, especially about who will and who won't survive, as well as what characteristics somebody within a given group shares. I think that any of us regardless of preparations, if it gets as bad as collapse, will be lucky to survive. any of us that do survive, will have to do so knowing that almost everybody they have ever known or cared for is dead or will be soon. maybe the ones that do make it will just be lucky, but i think that most likely they will be lucky as well as knowledgeable, flexible and adaptable. maybe fast too
but besides that, the wilderness really is too scary, and people should just avoid it alltogether:)

[Nicole]

By the way, I plan to update the graph tomorrow trying fit in the mercantile path and nomads, time permitting, and some of the other comments.  I'm not sure how to get it all on there yet.

I'm not sure I see a viable future for nomads, unless there is a major population crash.  If I catch people hunting/foraging on my property without permission, I'm going to shoot them.  I don't think we can rely on public land as staying public, and if it is, there are lots of rules and regulations about the use.  (At least in the US.)  Very little good land is left that isn't actively and often densely populate, or else protected.  Look at how much grief the Roma get NOW, mostly because of basic distrust of their chosen lifestyle, and they are generally harmless and living on the same oil economy we are.

[CantSeeTheBottom]

Where to begin.  I see myself with at least a foot in the door of many of the catagories listed.  Mostly New Agrarian as my wife and I purchased a farm this year and are in the process of adding to and upgrading it.  We are learning gardening and animal husbandry but as we are now parents to a two week old (oops), things are progressing slower than we would like.  I also have several guns, lots of ammo and food/water and supplies stockpiled (not enough, but it never is).  I see very little hope of any kind of orderly decline.  I also see little chance for a better world in the aftermath.  Our current freedoms in the west are a product of the oil age.

I also see myself as a bit of what Matt said.  A loser in the current paradigm , hoping to be a big shot in any new one.   I am a loser in the sense that I don't fit in that well in the current economy.  I have lots of loving, supporting family and friends, so I am mostly a loser at my career.  I am an electrical engineer.  I don't like being an electrical engineer, never really have.  I work with a bunch of upwardly mobile yuppie types who are totally invested in the consumerist lifestyle.  I can't really relate to them.  Most of them see some signs of the trouble coming, but none of them understand the scope of the problems and from what they say their prep will be, they will be the sycophants for whoever the new powers that be are (or the old ones repackaged, more likely).  They will be the type to rat on the neighbours.  Me, I hope to be a feudal land baron of some type (we can all dream).

Militant, New Agrarian, Feudal Land Baron to be.

[JurisDoctorOfDoom]

   I'm used to self-control.  I kinda' have superior force built-in, being a big, strong guy with an unusually rugged life history.  If I let someone get under my skin in person, it could get real ugly real fast.  But most people who are crazy enough to try and provoke me just make me laugh.

 You know what you do in that situation? Just start barking at them. Yes I mean barking like a full blown rabid dog. Now there is a bit of a bluff going on here. 99/100 people are going to walk or run away from that situation where a large man is barking at them like a dog. This is a good thing since avoiding a confrontation is almost always (as in 9,999/10,000 times) better then actually engaging in one even if you anticipate comeing out on the "winning" side.

 But if you pull the barking bit and the guy doesn't walk away then you have a full blow certified psycho on your hands.