The second part of the detour

This is the second SubStack post I mentioned in my previous post here. This one was posted Sept 7. After this I'll be back to posting here and on SubStack at the same time.

What Does Collapse Actually Look Like (Part 2)
Living with L.E.S.S.*

A couple of weeks ago I got into it with someone and in response I wrote What Does Collapse Actually Look Like? I got more than 250 views. (I usually average 25-30 and get a like or two from close friends). I got a bunch of likes, some re-stacks, some comments, and several new subscribers. Woot Woot!! (Bless you all.)

Then I posted the 2nd part of the Build Real Skills series I had already started and got 24 views.

I’ve been writing about what we can do about our predicament since February. So if you are interested in my ideas about how to respond to this very serious situation that isn’t going away please do read some of those earlier posts (and like and re-stack and comment if you find them interesting or useful.)

In the meantime …

Am I going to re-use that title as click bait? You bet!

In my previous post I mentioned JMG’s mantra “Collapse Now Before the Rush.” I’m well aware that the rush is on for anyone who followed the long standing advice “learn to code” or is otherwise in the throes of losing their current job and has very little hope of ever getting another like it. I feel for you.

If you are part of this group don’t let yourself sink into despair. You can reinvent yourself. Adaptation is Our Superpower. You may find Your Niche (and here and here) and Getting Ahead of the Curve (and here) useful.

It’s not too late to find a job in the economy of real goods and services and it’s never too late to develop a better strategic response to the triple whammy I described in Part 1.

In this post I want to go deeper into what we are actually experiencing and what to do about it.

In “Collapse — Part 1: There Is No Outside” Richard Martin describes an ordinary series of small system failures, shortages, and frustrations that we’ve all experienced to some extent. (Cheers, Richard. I’m looking forward to Part 2.)

This is what collapse looks like.

That’s why I say it’s happening right now all around you. Even if you aren’t about to be shoved aside in the rush to make the billionaire’s AI wet dream the only future on offer, you feel it. Shrinkflation at the grocery store, price spikes at the gas pump, and, brace yourself for electricity prices going way, way up.

We’ve been primed to think of collapse as a total Hollywood style apocalypse. “What if it does all end at once?” is a question that comes up fairly often. It’s possible. I know it’s possible. It doesn’t interest me because there is nothing we can do about it.

If you’re just here for collapse porn, great! You’re welcome. I happy to have your attention even briefly but I’m interested in what can be done. I don’t want to talk, or think, or speculate on how awful sudden complete collapse will be.

It’s an excuse to do nothing.

It’s not like there won’t be crises both large and small. Sometimes they will be more frequent and sometimes less frequent. Sometimes up close and personal; sometimes wide spread and large scale. That’s also what collapse looks like. It just that it isn’t like that most of the time and it’s never everywhere all at once.

Most of the time it’s ordinary existence and one day is very much like another with more or less frustration and irritation over rising prices, shoddy merchandise, stock shortages, and bungled services. The dramatic crises are the punctuation in long complicated sentences that are hard to follow and not very interesting.

The economy is contracting.

That means there is less of everything to go around. The billionaires know this and it’s clear they are determined to grab as much as possible for themselves. The rest of us can go hang. They’ve got their eyes on their techno-fantasy AI roll out and they don’t seem to care who suffers.

Are they actively scheming to eliminate us? Who knows? As Brett Weinstein says “I can’t say it’s deliberate but I wouldn’t put it past them.”2

The best response is still LIVING WITH L.E.S.S.

The irony is that not only is the long descent mostly boring with few periods of excitement, the best response is also boring as heck.3

Downward mobility is inevitable for all of us.

If you’re not part of the bunker building billionaire class the most effective strategy is to try to out pace it. That’s the message of collapse now and avoid the rush. Living with L.E.S.S. (Less Energy, Stimulation, and Stuff) means reducing your dependance on fragile systems.

Less Energy: Bring Down Your Energy Needs.

We use electricity and electronic devices for many things that were still being done mechanically as recently as 50 years ago. Electronics are fragile. They have short lifespans and are dependant on multiple complex systems to produce.

The data centre build out means prices will rise and availability is going to drop. They’re going to scoop up most of what is currently being produced and the rare earth elements needed for more are already limiting production. Have you heard much about “the internet of things” since the chip shortage a few years ago? No? Neither have I.

Forget about the electric future.

We simply do not have the resources for everyone to have an electric car. We never have had. There isn’t enough copper in the world to support a more than a small fraction of that particular delusion.4 Let it go.

The future is much more likely to be the golden age of mechanization. Mechanical tools, equipment, and devices will rule … The only question is: how far in the future will that be? We don’t know.5

For now it’s about fragility and price shocks. Start using much less energy as soon as you can.

Less Stimulation: Reduce Your Participation in Digital Entertainment.

Really. For so many reasons. You know most of them already.

Do you really want the people who may be orchestrating your obliteration to be shaping your thinking and curating your information? No? Me neither.

Learn to entertain yourself. It’s good for your mental health. Providing your own entertainment is a revolutionary act.

Less Stuff: Reduce Your Need for Industrial Products.

Avoid anything that has a long complicated supply chain. Shun anything that increases your demand for energy. Beware of Jevon’s Paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox) when investing in anything that needs power but is supposed to save energy.

I’m a firm believer in investing in the tools and technologies that give you more flexibility and independence but rejecting the “consume your way to sustainability” is essential. When you are in a hole the first thing to do is: stop digging.

Become a producer6 of something.

Even if you are only producing for your own consumption you’ll be ahead. Start producing real goods and services that will be useful to other people and you’ll be way ahead. Ready to eat food and beer are good choices. Services like hemming pants or sharpening tools are popular.

Embrace the Salvage Economy.

We are already well past peak industrialism. The abundance of the 20th C is gone. We are in the Scarcity Industrialism phase and heading into the Salvage economy.7 But, in the immortal words of William Gibson “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed.”

The sooner you let go of the past and of the future you were expecting and accept what is the better off you’ll be.

Grab onto the future that is already coming at us at speed.

If you can get ahead of it price shocks, shortages, and economic crises will have less impact. Stop thinking about what might have been.

We are in for it.

That’s not hard to see. But it isn’t the end of the world. It’s not that easy. Mostly it’s about carrying on as well as we are able, helping each other as much as possible, and building toward a future that sucks a little less.

*This concept is from John Michael Greer(JMG), the author of The Long Descent (2008) First edition New Society Publishers; Tenth Anniversary Edition (2019) Founders House and many other books that have informed my thinking. The Long Descent is very prescient and still the best explanation of the slow stepwise pattern of a civilization coming apart. Greer is currently reviewing his prediction from that early work on his blog https://ecosophia.net/

2 Brett Wienstien and Heather Heying do a (sort of) weekly podcast where they talk about current events and demonstrate critical thinking and the scientific method. They are cornucopians but even if you disagree with absolutely everything they say they are still worth listening to. It’s a masterclass in two super important skills that will help you immensely with managing all this collapse shit.

3 I have it on good authority that “heck” is much, much, duller than “hell.” The demons of heck are lazy sods who are completely indifferent to human suffering. They perfected the art of “quiet quitting” long before it was ever a human thing.

4 Apparently world copper production is already dropping. https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/copper-chart-causing-alarm

5 If you are interested in appropriate technology and especially if you have experience using it or expertise with it, JMG is currently requesting submissions to his “Technonomicon” https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/376728.html And

6 Bill Mollison co-founder of Permaculture. “The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens.”

7 These concepts are also lifted directly from the work of John Michael Greer.