decline v collapse

DECLINE V COLLAPSE


Well, I wish to thank the loyal minions who took the time to scream at me through the comments section, “get a mattock pick”. I know this wasn’t the first time. But this time it resonated in my brain, whispering seductively to me, “buy me, buy me!”. Most likely because last time I wasn’t actually digging at the time. Let me tell you, this new and improved pick makes the other one look like a weak and pathetic nerd going up against a muscled bully on the beach. Now a long ago comment actually makes sense, when it was suggested to me that a pick was great for clearing the lot of scrub brush. I tried it and the pick did one of two things. It either bounced off leaving nary a scratch or the metal bent. At first I just thought it was cheap Chinese metal, but now I know I had just bought the wrong tool. Of course, I was raring to go and after we got home I went straight to the earth tube trench and started digging. Well, I tried to. There was so much water in the ground, still, that it is now frozen mud. And last week I just thought I was weak and pathetic from lack of calories when I could only scoop out a couple of top layer inches rather than the typical foot down. But I did get to kill a few scrub brushes with it.

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While I was in CAL Ranch store ( the local ranch supply, mostly in Utah with a few Idaho and Nevada stores thrown in- good place ) headed to the tool section, I veered off to look at the gun supply section. I don’t know why, other than the hand of Baby Jesus was guiding me. There it was, in all its glory, a rimfire scope mount for only $7. I’ve needed one of those bad boys for years but Wal-Mart wanted something like $20 for theirs. It would have been mighty embarrassing if the apocalypse had happened and I hadn’t had this basic piece of equipment. Without it the rifle doesn’t do you much good. And speaking of the asshat Wal-Mart, those whores charged me 25% more for their aluminum foil than the dollar store did. My newest project is to replace the mud on the skirting with glued on foil, to keep the sun from killing the rigid insulation board. Low price leader my aching swollen scrotal sack.

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A former guest writer brought up a subject to me that I felt I needed to steal. The same writer that cashed in savings to pay off the mortgage four months before they went from a two to a one income household for awhile. So this individual is pretty damn smart about the prep business. It isn’t life altering, but it is interesting. What if TPTB decided to get smart about their guns for food exchange program? Before, idiots from far and wide would trade in their Saturday Night Specials for a coupon 2 for 1 free ass scratching, or a coupon for something else free. Or got $50, or whatever. Instead of giving out such lame prizes, what if the new program were food for ammunition? All the cheap crap has been turned in and destroyed, and nobody in their right mind is going to trade a four hundred dollar gun in for a puissant prize. But if you offered to buy ammo as people were slowly going hungry as food prices shot up, you would get a lot more suckers. And ammo scarcity would make gun control unnecessary.

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Yes, we have covered this before. I believe the article was “collapse semantics”. That stated, basically, that when you interchange and confuse the terms die-off with collapse you muddle the issue of velocity. How fast are we collapsing is a darn good question. In that previous article I once again used the wrong terminology. It should have been Decline versus Collapse, not Collapse and Die-Off. Because ancient civilizations have had decades to century long declines the assumption is that modern man has plenty of time left before the final ending where we are scratching in the dirt with sharpened stones. Hence, Yuppie Survivalists take thirty years to pay off retreat mortgages and Organic Gardening Homesteaders calmly plant another row of turnips as the only preparation they feel necessary to survive the storm. There is nothing wrong with either approach, unless it is their sole preparation. As I keep saying, bare minimum first, just in case, then do it better a little at a time. I don’t know why everyone seems to think it is okay to confuse low probability with impossibility. Sudden collapse might be the same as far as probability ( obviously I disagree, but I’m making a point here ) with Yellowstone blowing or global nuke war, but it is still possible. Not impossible. Why not take a tiny fraction of what you are eventually planning on spending on preps for a low probability but still possible outcome “better than nothing, extreme low cost” block of supplies? But I digress as usual. The point is that we’ve already been in decline for some time. And a decline certainly isn’t a collapse. In a decline, luxuries are sacrificed. In a collapse, necessities are lost and fought over. You might argue that a life in a hut eating cassava in Africa is far worse than living in a McMansion with an SUV, but as long as you are eating and out of the weather the difference is merely one of convenience. When you aren’t eating and the neighbor is trying to stuff you in the stewpot, that is a collapse. We are by no means in a collapse. The last forty years has been a decline.

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I’ll argue tomorrow that a solar economy declines far longer than a petroleum economy. We don’t have centuries. And most likely not even decades. Even if you are nodding your head in agreement, have you really wrapped your head around the possibility of collapse? Or are you still just prepping for the decline? You’ve been living in a decline, so don’t congratulate yourself on foresight and sacrifice just because you responded to your surroundings. Sure, you’re awake while most are asleep. But you really need to be thinking several chess moves ahead, not responding to what already happened.

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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