This conversation hits very close to where I live.
I have a written “100 Year Survival Plan” guiding my infrastructure and skill development program that is intended to keep my family even if all outside inputs fall away. The 12th (final) metric recognizes that none of it happens or can be sustained without knowledge, and knowledge is fragile. Look at how quickly we Americans have forgotten many of what were once the most common of skills: how to butcher and dress animals; how to preserve the resulting meat without refrigerators and freezers; how to cook and bake on a wood stove, which includes an understanding of the varying burning and heat-producing qualities of various types of wood; how to fell trees and convert them into wood for building, wood for fencing, wood for heating, and wood for cooking; how to prepare and till the earth without gas-powered rototillers, which includes how to keep, care for, and feed draft animals; what to grow and how to grow livestock feed; how to select vegetables and fruits to improve their hardiness; how to save seed; how to save vegetables and fruit without refrigerators and freezers; how to graft; how to prune; how to discourage insects and predators that want to eat the crop; how to process grain into flour and cereal, and how to do that without electricity; how to build a root cellar, hay loft, and granary; how to make cloth, and clothing from it; how to birth children and nurture them without doctors and vaccinations and pre-made formulas and baby food; how to raise a barn or a house and keep them in good repair – just for starters.
The fund of practical knowledge assumed by Americans from our founding up through the mid-1900s was simply phenomenal compared to what we know today. As industrialization drew farmers to cities, and created a whole new economy based on the convenience of being able to purchase the products and services we used to have to provide for ourselves, our knowledge of how to keep ourselves alive, housed, fed, and clothed has dropped precipitously. Today, very few of us could survive six months on our own, let alone create a viable life from the work of our own hands and the knowledge stored in our own brains.
Enter Survivor Library, an online resource. Survivor Library has been dedicated for some years, now, to digitizing old books and technical manuals in the public domain that provide guidance on how to build pre-industrial tools and equipment, and how to rebuild the resources of early modernity. All of the books can be downloaded and printed out; or the whole current collection can be purchased on hard drive, blu-ray, or flash drive.
This mission description is from the site’s “About” page:
"There are many websites, books, videos and classes that teach ‘Survival Skills’. How to make water safe to drink. How to build a weather proof shelter from available materials. How to build a fire. How to operate in a tactical combat environment to neutralize raiders seeking your food supplies.
"All of them deal primarily with the immediate effects of a disaster and how to survive them. All of these are excellent skills to have. A year’s worth of food is an excellent way to help safeguard yourself and your family in the event of an emergency or a large scale disaster.
"Unfortunately many large scale disasters such as Solar or Nuclear EMP events, Pandemic disease or Cyber warfare could result in a collapse of what has become an increasingly fragile technological and industrial infrastructure. The collapse of that infrastructure means the likely death of the majority of the people affected. Some scenarios have expected death rates of as high as 90% within a few months.
"The Survival Skills most often taught and disseminated will get you through the immediate danger.
"Few if any of these resources focus on what happens afterwards beyond speaking of ‘planting a garden’.
"What happens AFTER…?
…"The factories are gone. The transportation system has stopped. Now it’s time to start planning for the long term, for your children and grandchildren.
"The infrastructure that crashed can’t be ‘turned back on’. The local power plant can’t be restarted when the coal it uses comes from several states away which was transported by trains which depended on diesel fuel refined in other states and delivered by pipelines which no longer function. The infrastructure is too complex to simply be switched back on.
"Tools and equipment and supplies can be salvaged for a while but will inevitably run out. There is only so much fertilizer stored in stores and warehouses. There are only so many batteries and flashlight bulbs in inventory. It will all run out in time and no one will be making replacements.
"Which means you will have to build a new infrastructure which can eventually replace what was lost.
…"Once the fuel runs out the cars and trucks stop do you know how to build a carriage to put behind a horse? Do you know how to make the tackle with which to attach the carriage TO the horse? There are books on that. There are books on building sailing vessels and steamships. Books on how to build steam engines to put in steamships.
"The library contains thousands of books on technologies that can be produced by most reasonably skilled craftsman using tools not as sophisticated as what can be found in many modern home workshops.
"The Library is broken in many different categories. Some are very broad. Some are more specialized.
"All of the books are scanned copies of the original book stored in PDF format. That makes it possible to both read the book and, if desired, to print it.
"As the library has grown over time we’ve tried to cover both the simplest, more basic self sufficiency skills such as growing food and raising livestock through the most advanced and sophisticated technology of the time such as aeroplanes and communications systems like telephone and telegraph.
"Where there books on Industrial processes, methods, formulas, techniques we included those as well. Even the more advanced technologies of the periods are within the reach of people starting from scratch. Steam engines may seem primitive to most modern people but they powered the industrial revolution in much of the world well into the 1900s.
"Basic knowledge of chemical formulas and processes are recorded in books from these periods ranging from the most basic industrial chemical needs through household materials in common use.
"The Library in it’s entirety is a compendium of the Technological and Industrial Knowledge of the 1800 through early 1900s.
“It is the knowledge needed to rebuild a technological and industrial infrastructure from scratch when the modern infrastructure ceases to function.”
No one can master every old skill or knowledge. But each of us have areas of personal interest, and areas of mental inclination that we can enhance with resources dating back. I have thick binders of key materials printed out from this site that cover specific areas of my 12-metric plan. They help inform my work, and can inform and equip future generations of my family with knowledge essential to self-sustaining on this bit of land for the next century.
Everyone can develop both an electronic and a paper library of “lost knowledge” that we or our children might need to rediscover some tomorrow. I think everyone should.
I also think personal libraries ought to contain books on culture, history, and classical past and current fiction, because those are slowly being purged out of print, and many of them are deeply embedded with a sense of personal responsibility, integrity, and perseverance that seems out of step with our emerging post-modern ethos. (Post-modernism is not a long-term survival strategy; it cannot exist apart from an urbanite view of the world, and urbanism doesn’t survive without cheap energy.)
IMO, Survivor Library is one excellent source from which to curate a set of resources for what to do to prepare for and thrive in the “after.” Explore the library here: http://www.survivorlibrary.com
