[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Burning our Bridges to the XXI Century

[Bill Totten]

by Dmitry Orlov

Club Orlov (April 06 2009)


The future does not resemble the past - or does it? When the lights go
out, people burn candles and oil lamps, just like they used to before
the electric grid came into existence. No longer accustomed to working
with open flame, they tend to set things on fire, and for a while, until
they regain this experience or until natural selection whittles away the
truly incompetent, the neighborhood is a constant blaze.

When we find out that the supermarket is out of food and that the
cupboard is bare, we hunt, fish, forage, plant kitchen gardens, and
start experimenting with raising poultry and rabbits. Those who are
incapable of doing so, or who feel that such lowly pursuits are beneath
their dignity, become dependent on the charity of those who are more
adaptable, or starve.

As modernity runs out of resources (those photons sequestered eons ago
in fossil form, now released as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere)
patterns of life naturally retreat to their pre-modern forms. If there
are no more sneakers from China, we sew moccasins or whittle clogs. If
we are resource-poor but resourceful, we can still weave basket-like
shoes out of birch bark, stuffed with straw for insulation, called
lapti. If we are truly destitute and feckless to boot, then we go barefoot.

It seems commonsense to accept this reversion to norm as natural, and to
strive to have enough of whatever we are going to need, be it tools for
working leather, a stock of paraffin, seeds, fishing tackle, and a
myriad of other similar items that comprised the pre-industrial survival
kit. The last thing we should want to do is to throw these things away
at first sign of economic distress and for trivial reasons. And yet that
seems to be the prevailing pattern.

For instance, if the expectation is that foreigners will no longer want
to trade their dwindling crude oil endowment in exchange for worthless
US Dollars, and that the US will lose access to two-thirds of its liquid
hydrocarbons, it would make sense to make some provisions for raising
food and for moving freight. Since a John Deere won't run on hay, that
calls for some horses. Furthermore, now is a perfect time for farms to
get "horsed up" because so many horse-owners can no longer afford the
luxury of keeping a horse, and it is possible to buy a horse very, very
cheaply. Many horse-owners would be perfectly happy to donate their
horse and take a tax write-off rather than see their beloved pet turned
into glue. Instead, horses are trucked to rending facilities across the
border in Mexico, to endure incredible suffering while in transit, and
then to be incompetently hacked up with machetes.

Before the advent of fossil fuels, freight that could not be moved by
horse and wagon moved by sail. It would therefore make perfect sense
that we keep all the sailboats we currently have, because they will
surely be pressed into use once other transportation options are no
longer available. Keeping a sailboat afloat is not particularly
expensive; there are protected coves where a boat can be kept anchored
free of charge, provided it is tended to once in a while. The smaller,
trailerable boats are also useful, and can keep for years on the hard,
under a tarp in someone's back yard. And yet what is happening now is
that sailboat owners, unable to pay the slip fees and the upkeep of
their luxury toy, abandon it, simply letting it float away and
eventually sink, with its mast protruding out of the water at low tide,
or to wash up on a beach, where the surf pounds it into rubble. Even if
the boat itself is unsuited for any practical purpose (and, thanks to
the combined detrimental effects of sport and luxury on the sailboat
market, there are far too many of these) then at the very least they
could be stripped of Dacron sailcloth, stainless steel and bronze
fittings, lead ballast, marine-grade stranded copper wiring, aluminum
spars, and many other items which are both very useful and unlikely to
be manufactured in the future in an economy that runs on wind, hay and
firewood. The remaining hollow fiberglass husks could make interesting,
long-lasting treehouses.

Not that, in general, there is a lack of effort to save things. We are
making an effort to save financial institutions, which are the ultimate
ephemera of industrial civilization, and are absolutely guaranteed to
have no reason to continue into a future in which debt, denominated in
future earnings that will be meager at best, and money, which will only
hold its value for as long as it guarantees access to sources of pure,
concentrated energy, all steadily dwindle to nothing. It is as if the
doctors decided to only try to save persistent vegetative quadriplegics
with terminal cancer, or if the environmentalists decided that the
endangered species list only has room for one animal: the vampire bat.
It would make much more sense to try to save small businesses, such as
family businesses that serve local communities, because there is a good
chance that they will find a use in the future, or at least facilitate
the transition. Instead, we are squandering the remaining resources on
the various dinosaurs of the industrial age.

I believe in providing a hopeful vision of the future as much as I
believe in providing a sufficiently horrific vision of the present for
it to be, in my opinion, a realistic one. However, I am beginning to
feel somewhat thwarted in my efforts by this new compulsion sweeping the
land to shoot oneself in the foot while simultaneously setting one's
hair on fire. The only hope I can offer you today is that this current
trend toward suicidal stupidity is temporary, and that it will run its
course long before we completely ruin our chances for an orderly regression.

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/04/burning-our-bridges-to-xxi-century.html


TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this
essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/