Post-apocalypse without the militias: The Outquisition
Alex wrote up a great post about this and 24 hours later, some WorldChanging readers created Outquisition.org. I'm not sure what they'll do there, but in my dreams, they're off building a non-secret society of emergency-preparedness Nice People who think that the response to catastrophe isn't lifeboat rules and militias, but humanitarian aid and kick-ass tools.
Link to Alex's post, Link to Outquisition homepage (Thanks, Alex!)What would it be like, we wondered, if folks who knew tools and innovation left the comfy bright green cities and traveled to the dead mall suburban slums, rustbelt browntowns and climate-smacked farm communities and started helping the locals get the tools they needed. We imagined that it would need an almost missionary fervor, something like the Inquisition (which largely destroyed knowledge) in reverse, a crusade of open sharing, or as Cory promptly dubbed it, the Outquisition.
Imagine these folks like this passing out free textbooks, running holistic programs for kids, creating local knowledge management systems, launching microfinance projects, mobilebanking and complementary currencies. Helping rural landowners apply climate foresight and farm biodiversity. Building cheap, smart, quality housing for displaced people (not to mention better refugee camps), or an Open Architecture Network for cheap informal rehabs of run-down suburban housing. Hacking together DIY windmills and ad hoc smart grids, communication systems, water treatment systems -- and getting really good atadaptive reuses of outdated infrastructure. In other words, these folks would be redistributing the future at a furious clip.
So Kevin Costner's The Postman is a seminal Outquisition text?
What would be a little more interesting is the idea of a race of aliens (space, not..across the border) that come down once we've turned the whole world into stone age Afghanistan and steer us to peaceful future vs. a Mad Maxian one. Think Interstellar PeaceCorps.
Then of course the kicker would be a rogue element in the aliens government that wants to turn the newly pacified and dependent Solians (because of course every alien culture calls Earth "Sol") into a slave planet. The one sorta hot female alien PeaceWorker teams up with the anti-hero Hugh Jackman-esque human un-leader and they thwart the plot, and fall in love, but she leaves regardless in the end (due to prior commitments)
You can contact me for the bank account to send the royalties too.
(Yeeg - I need a stiff unicorn chaser just for having been reminded of Costner's The Postman.)
I'd say you may be overlooking some fantastic examples of this genre just because they're often excluded from the SF genre. Nobel Laureate Doris Lessings' Canopus in Argos series is, IMHO, exquisite literature on this theme...her Canopan agents (maybe they should be called Canopaners?) are basically an intergalactic Peace Corps (although as a Disgruntled Returned Peace Corps Volunteer myself, I must say their organization kicks the US Corps' ass), and in "Shikasta" in particular they're trying to help the people of Earth cope with their decline and collapse. "The Making of The Representative" etc. comes to my mind often these days as well, since it's about a planet coping with massive climate change (with Canopan advice). Like the Peace Corps, public school teachers or any realistic Outquisition, the Canopans can only achieve as much as human stubbornness allows, which makes them precious role models for me.
The myth that the postapocalyptic future belongs to gun-toting cowboys fighting for freedom etc. is one of a classic set of swell myths that make fine fiction for firearms afficionados...but if the events of the past few years stateside have proven nothing else, it's that a well-armed citizenry will amiably surrender all their other rights to an oppressive government rather than fight back with bullets or even ballots, as long as the guns, TV and beer are still available...and maybe as long as the price of petrol remains sound?
No one expects the Outquisition!
These "missionaries" would require vast resources to accomplish anything close to what you envision. One can't simply roll into town and establish local knowledge management systems, DIY windmills, communication systems and farm biodiversity. Given a world altering, apocalyptic event, where would these resources come from? Do you envision a Asimov style repository of information designed to help ease the transition for survivors?
One need only look toward New Orleans or the recently flooded Midwest for an example - even on a small scale, rebuilding a devastated community is an incredibly challenging, costly and time consuming undertaking.
Further, would "dead mall suburban slums, rustbelt browntowns and climate-smacked farm communities" accept assistance from a small band of technically savvy outsiders? New systems of communication and infrastructure require leadership and vision - would local leaders step aside or would they react negatively to crusading strangers? I suspect the latter.
The conflict that these well meaning individuals encounter might make for an interesting SF story, but the crux of it would lie in their painfully limited ability to effect change. Indeed, I recall a few Star Trek episodes based on similar themes.
Sounds like the transition towns of the UK. http://www.transitiontowns.org/
We (and my that I mean you) should really work on this because we (see above) will have to choose between a "Mad Max" or "Outquisition" future soon.
Oil is not going to get any cheaper. What's left will be bought by countries with money (IE not the USA).
So we (or rather you) will have to adjust to a more agrarian rural society where almost everyone lives within reasonable walking (human or equine) distance of their jobs and primary food sources.
Or be nomadic, in a traveling salesman kind of way.
Not everyone can telecommute, but the lucky few like Cory et al will.
With less pollution, locally grown food and plenty of exercise, we (and by that I mean you) might be better off!
I will be living in a country with money and oil. If you try to take that from me it will be 1812 all over again bud!
Wrote something once about an "engineering corps" that maintained the wind turbines after the apocalypse--maybe I should pitch it somewhere!
I'd love to read a story of someone resigning themselves to the success of a peace corps; set at a point where American isn't so interestingly post-apocalyptic anymore. Functioning services, foreign peacekeepers mopping up the biker gangs, the trains running on time: that sort of thing!
Oh, for the the good old days of chaos, self-sufficiency and genetic novelties.
What exactly is apocalypse supposed to mean? I can think of a number of scenarios you could call an apocalypse, but in most of them, it would be hard for a large number of people to drive automobiles around carrying vast quantities of cutting edge green-technology and textbooks.
I wish we could do what you propose right now given our pre-apocalyptic society. I have a hard time imagining it would be easier after a major catastrophe.
对不起，我的英文水平不太高。
There are two problems. First, a collapse is when people are d*m tired of experts telling them what to do and they refuse to cooperate or even listen. Even if you really do know what you are talking about, they don't trust you. Second, they are having enough trouble just taking care of basic needs and have no time for heady ideas or philosophical discourse, no matter how much they need it.
What happens in the real world is that monasteries preserve knowledge until the people once again have the leisure time to consider it and the resources to distribute it. Until that time the people are forgetting their history, their heritage, even their language. That is why it is called a dark age.
Michel Houellebecq's book 'The Possibility of an Island' explores similar terrain, but is slightly bleaker and more literary than the confetti of Wired articles described in this post. Highly recommended. (Although, perhaps for aesthetic reasons, the internet appears to survive intact apart from the DNS protocol).
Bear in mind that most of the world as it is right now could benefit greatly from your roving bands of techno-positivists. No need to wait for an apocalypse.
Wow. Like minds and all. I've been writing up a blog for a while now sharing information and ideas on how to form trusted networks for suburban surviving in the event of a serious economic depression/recession, or an apocalyptic disaster - preparedness for any event on a local level, because the government has proven it's not able to respond rapidly or well. Why wait for an apocalypse? By forming such networks now, before any major disasters and apocalypse events, such "outquisition" work would be more viable should such disasters happen.
I know a number of computer techs who are preparing for an apocalypse by making sure the internet survives, somehow. I think that's awesome.
Octavia Butler's books are kind of like this.
Drat. In case of apocalypse, I'm going to end up being a wastewater engineer. Just about everything else I can do requires more significant infrastructure.
#11 - I agree people eventually start to mistrust 'experts'. So an important part of a 'missionaries' skillset would be communication and trust building skills. What a missionary is in this case is a person trying to get these places to stop turning inward and paranoid of the world outside, and start opening up. Its not easy and someplaces won't accept it, so the missionary moves on and tries to help other places... the differences I would hope for these missionaries would be to avoid accepting certain dogmatic requirements in order for this information. Which is kind of hard because acceptance of ideas and technology is in essence acceptance of certain dogma of a sort.
Cory, in a way isn't this much like the missionaries of Down and out of the Magic Kingdom, they would go to places and help bring them into the bitchun society dogma by helping them, eventually showing them stuff like how to cure death. (forgive me if I got things messed up its been a while since I have read Down and out...)
Ironically, one of the things that gives me comfort is that we have already lived in a post-apocalyptic world. One need only look at World War 2 to see every little detail of what a worst-case apocalyptic scenario can be: from food and fuel rationing, to death camps and atomic bombs. We survived, at great cost, and then rebuilt very successfully (though flawed.) There's no need to imagine what a post-apocalyptic world would be like. We lived through the apocalypse (1929-1945) and the post-apocalypse (1945-?). "The Outquisition" seems to me like a 21st century version of the Marshall Plan. If you really want to know how to survive the 21st century go talk to your granddad and grandma before they're gone, and ask them how they made it through the 20th century.
Outquisition, meet metanoia.
RA Wilson recounts a conversation about paranoia with PK Dick. What if, they wondered, the universe were out to help you? They coined the word metanoia (despite it already being a word with a completely different meaning) for "the irrational belief that the universe is out to help you."
Paranoid future - Mad Max gangs
Metanoid future - The Outquisition
In Cory's original post he says ".....the Inquisition (which largely destroyed knowledge)...."
Where did that come from?
Our friends over at Wikipedia say that "Inquisition (Inquisitorial system) is a common legal procedure where the tribunal is actively involved in determining the facts of the case. Inquisition can also mean a systematic procedure used by Catholic and Protestant Churches to prosecute alleged heretics (using inquisitorial procedures)...."
Not an Inquisition therefore cannot be an Outquisition.
In my opinion, the first thing to do is start seeding libraries with all the DIY books you can.
Back in the 70s, Mother Earth News had some paperbacks with all kinds of useful DIY/Back to the Land info and DIY energy.
If Something Happens, the local library becomes the "monastery" preserving knowledge AND dispensing knowledge.
In theory, I can build a power generating windmill. In practice, I can't. I need some info I don't have at my finger tips or in my brain.
However, the Boston Public Library DOES have that info and more, and will happily help me find it.
Anyone remember "Public Works", a huge book filled with public domain documents on everything from building a log cabin to mending the elastic on a bra, its purpose was, according to its compiler, was so that "anyone dropped into the wilds, with nothing more than a Swiss Army Knife, could triumphantly drive out in his hand made Land Rover!" (or words to that effect.)
If the information is already in place, that's half the battle for the "outquisitioners" right there.
Awesomely self-important and condescending presentation of your concept. Bumpkins everywhere await the arrival of their shiny green urbanite saviors. Yeah, sounds great, thanks in advance. We'll be watching for you.
Read A Canticle for Leibowitz.
As a former Peace Corps Volunteer,knowing the efforts (twice) of the GOP to lessen the impact of volunteers: (1) Nixon's administration became aware of the fact that young Americans were returning to the US knowing too much about what was going on in other countries (i.e., how the industrial/military complex operated)and (2) the Bush administration feeling the same way, the following occurred. Nixon tried to place the Peace Corps into a larger agency, diminishing the group and better controlling the exposure of volunteers to the realities of the World. The Bush cohorts did not want former, potentially progressive, volunteers to make contact with present in-country volunteers ... so they have isolated them from "contamination".
My point here is, be careful of anything involving a conservative regime ... such folks aren't really interested in just "helping"; they want to use it as a means of control of other nations.
"Do somethin' smart!"
"I don't think we should be putting Brawndo on the plants."
"But it's what plants crave..."
+1 good idea
Would it be a little corny and sappy to say that the concept expressed in this article was so beautiful that I almost wanted to cry a little?
I remember the Cold War; I remember growing up and maturing in the days when just as things looked good, someone ruined them for you, or being certain that things are fine now, but its all on borrowed time. I've lived on a diet of dark future stories
I've plumb forgotten that people can be good.
This reminded me that they can be. Well, any civilzation that can come up with a thought like this can't be all bad and completely doomed, neh?
I'm glad this got posted. Seriously.
Cory, et al.
Have you heard of a book called
The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen?
Really interesting reading. Set in the influenza pandemic of 1918, it's about a utopian community that cuts itself off from the world.
Unlike the usual "get guns and shoot the zombies" setup Mullen wrestles with the question of how people of conscience would deal with horrid events.
Not quite the outquisition but good stuff.
@ #1 "Kevin Costner's Postman"
Kevin Costner's ??!
argh!!
http://www.amazon.com/Postman-Bantam-Classics-David-Brin/dp/0553278746
Before it was an ego driven abomination, it was a good book. After the abomination, it is still a good book.
"Fire Upon the Deep" had these little handheld thingies which were like an iPhone, but with enough memory to store an entire repository of knowledge inside it, rather than rely on a network connection. I forget what it was called.
Anyway, the device had some super software in it that would figure out how smart/dumb you were and always try to teach you more from whatever level you are at.
Some of these iPhones end up on a planet that is goign through its medieval phase, castles, catapults, and whatnot, and one ends up on each side of an ongoing war. An arms race ensues as each side tries to build cannons.
Which is to say, in the outquisition, you're Monks of Higher Learning are still going to run into the occaissional heavily armed gun nut survivalist who might use that knowledge to make himself warlord.
There's a book series by Jack Whyte that somewhat reminds me of this... about the creation of Camelot in England after the Roman legions pull out in the 4th century... it is essentially very military in nature (in the sense that the two guys who decide to create a colony are most interested in protecting themselves from barbarians et al) but it's more than a singular "let's protect my family" goal. In the end the colony they create is peaceful in nature and tries to deal with the fact that news, roads etc. just eventually collapse due to the absence of the legions.
If modern society collapses, communication and transportation systems break apart and such, it will leave a hole in terms of basic skills. Sure, people know how to plant gardens, but do they know how to collect and store plant seeds? People know how to build stuff but do they know how to make lumber? The common people don't know how basic materials we take for granted are made anymore and I wonder how people would deal with that situation. Once the Home Depots are all ransacked, how do you go about building something new?
Guess I'm biased but this sounds delightfully Reithian!
Also, I have this thing in my mind about the collapse of civilisation- we won't have the metal and fuel deposits near the surface that 'blessed' europe and boot strapped the industrial revolution, but we may have landfill and thousands of square miles of urban wreckage- will they be viable resources?
"'Fire Upon the Deep' had these little handheld thingies which were like an iPhone, but with enough memory to store an entire repository of knowledge inside it, rather than rely on a network connection."
Why are you using a locked, crippled, and DRM-riddled device as a metaphor for a portable library of all human knowledge?
Back to the topic at hand, the primary problem of any apocalypse is mass starvation. If you're traveling and not heavily armed with a shoot first, ask questions later attitude, you're as good as dead, and quite likely, food. All your fancy book learnin' won't amount to a can of beans, literally.
Some of these posts are just laughable. The concept of this book only works in a suburban setting where indeed the culture and connection to the land is lost.
As for the rural part, in reality it would be the opposite of individuals with real hands on skill sets (not academic) that would be sharing what they have been doing for centuries.
This piece is so self important and although well intentioned is offensive to those of us who live in small rural towns. Because instead of talking about help there are those of us who have left the city, and are actually doing this. (& it has been the locals that have taught us the majority of how to succeed in being alt-ag and off grid.)
I really think anyone showing up in these smaller communities during a time of crisis would be laughed at or worse.
Stick to the Linux and lattes, and leave the logging and legumes to the locals.
Haven't you kids ever seen 'Ark II'?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_II
"Once the Home Depots are all ransacked, how do you go about building something new?"
A DVD box set of How It's Made?
Seriously, Cory, I see great potential for a book here. The main conflict could come from the Outquisitors (I'm still not sold on Outquisition. Maybe Unpocalypse?) clashing with factions who have different plans for rebuilding civilization. And maybe one group thinks humanity had it coming and intends to finish the job. Hell, throw in a group who wants a steampunk utopia!
@BucolicHooligan:
You bring up an interesting point, all be it in a unnecessarily snotty way.
I'd counter by saying that while it would be presumptuous in the extreme for some "Outquisition" group to show up in Richland Center, Wisconsin and start lecturing the locals the basics of agriculture, I think you forget just how dependent on scientific infrastructure modren farming has become.
Cut off the supply of agri-business fertilizers and pest control bred insects, even for one growing season, and you'd see some truly epic crop loss. Even accounting for "The Fall" cutting down the number of mouths to feed, you'd still see entire fields going fallow. Think of those crops as addicts, they need those fertilizers at this point to produce.
The assumption that everything is going to be just fine, 'we don't need yer fancy city ways' in rural areas is profoundly mistaken. Many of these communities rely on large chain stores for durable goods including clothes, food and tools. The notion that every farmer can just plant a vegetable garden and be a-ok hasn't held true for the better part of a century.
The solid nature of this "outquisition" concept is that is doesn't assume that farmer john is going to be gunning down lawyer mike over the last ear of corn. Rather it sees tech-savvy people combining skills (organizational, technical, scientific) with people in rural areas who have land and skills of their own. Combining forces to survive rather than fighting in the growing dark.
Shouldn't John Saxon (or Alex Cord), Ted Cassidy and PAX Team 21 come rolling in here in their SubShuttle to save us sometime soon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_II_%28film%29
@ #5
In many circumstances, the most valuable resource is knowledge, and that is something that can be shared without depletion.
Make estimates about outcomes based on Star Trek episodes is a little sketchy, don't you think?
There's a Phillip K. Dick story on this theme. "The Last of the Masters."
Very good story.
Make it less like the handcopied versions of the Bible and more like the printing press. Decentralized and grassroot in each community. And why wait.
Why do all the wandering humanitarian geek squads wait until the apocalypse has already happened? If people were really like that on a widespread scale, shouldn't it be even easier to pull off now while there's still infrastructure?
Whoa...I know your intentions are good, BUT:
Cory, all you're doing here is advocating another conventional "international development" or "sustainable development" movement--movements that have been deemed incredibly controversial since they started being implemented some 20+ years ago (or earlier?).
History has been full of well-intentioned do-gooders who aim to bring the "tools" of well-being to folks who they deem are in need of them. Sometimes these "tools" are Religion, sometimes these tools are Capitalism, sometimes these tools are fancy new technologies (computers, genetically modified seeds, etc.), sometimes these "tools" are systems of governance (like Democracy...hello, Iraq??) The list of "tools" that have been promoted by (well-meaning, but rather arrogant) people who parachute into someone else's community and aim to "show them the way" is sadly, incredibly long.
One problem with this idea (there are MANY) is that it IS knowledge destroying, as what you're advocating is people adopting the new tools and new ways of doing things that these "well-intentioned foreigners" are promoting, while casting their own tools and ways of doing things aside.
Anyway, THIS REALLY NEEDS TO BE RETHOUGHT.
I would suggest familiarizing yourself with the International Development literature tout suite before history repeats itself--or at least before helping it along the same, problematic path.
Start with the International Development entry in Wikipedia. And then, this might be a good guy to read: http://www.unc.edu/~aescobar/
the only important thing is that they convert to the One True Faith in exchange for the help and knowledge.
You want seminal, see H.G. Wells.
Things To Come
You're not catching Raymond Massey with his lamé skirt down. Wings over the World, to rescue! Who knew it would come in the form of begoggled balloonists?
the gauntlets really make the outfit, don't you think?
http://hareball9.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/things-to-come.jpg
#37,
Do-gooders are either scorned or run out of town.
According to John Titor you might also want to pack away an IBM 5100 computer and a solution to the UNIX 2038 timeout error!
In terms of telecommunications over long distances without reliable centralized infrastructure, for distributed coordination, I highly recommend people own and learn how to properly use an amateur FM mobile transceiver (or at the very least a CB and/or marine transceiver).
For those of you with automotive (or marine) vehicles, installing a scanner radio in the dashboard such as a Uniden BCD996T or BCT-15 (using a combiner not a "coupler" with your existing car antenna) can be invaluable for monitoring "troop movements" (friend or foe) in a destabilized region.
(Although I cannot legally recommend unlocking your USA scanner to receive the antiquated 900MHz analog phone bands, the way Canadian and Chinese models can, even though it's almost always just a matter of desoldering a particular resistor. This basic hack should be familiar to anyone who's had to overclock their graphing calculator.)
And of course for international news, everyone owns a portable shortwave radio, right?
For more information, the Radio Reference wiki is most excellent.
(I just wish it used the GFDL as Wikipedia does so content could be shared between them.)
Takuan @ 41
He's simply smashing in sash and shoulder pads.
http://www.library.yale.edu/humanities/film/wrld2com.jpg
it's like "Glen and Randa" all over again!!
cool calculator hack Zuzu!
Hm, interesting that when someone challenges the gun-toting-post-apocalypse view, the gun toters attack with fairly standard "go drink your latte and let real men with real guns worry about real problems like that".
I think someone missed the point.
@ mgfarrelly
"all be it in a unnecessarily snotty way."
As opposed to your counterpoint which comes in the most erudite and gracious of deliveries?
But thanks for proving my point, as you go on to list all of the commonly known issues present within big AG, which no rural farmer has ever come across during either AG school, or experience first hand in the field. (you use em big fancy words mister) Yes, your gifts of wisdom so valuable to those who tend the land.
So, your academic inference that big farming practice leads to lack of long term sustainability is correct. & the answer to this problem is returning to a sustainable model that has been practiced in all rural communities until the 50s, and still exists today.
Which is my very point to begin with, it is these individuals with generations of knowledge who are the assets not those who vicariously follow from academia.
Finally, in this scenario being "tech savvy" is perhaps the least useful skill as org culture, policy analysis, data constructs, mean shit compared to existing social capital of a small community and the ability to fashion logs to build, dig wells to drink, and use traditional farming equipment.
Would you like low fat free trade cinnamon flakes
to go with that? ; )
Perhaps this idea should be mashed with Jane McGonigal's new mmo game for the Institute for the future, SUPERSTRUCT!
@9
不要担心，我们不能讲中文
...if folks who knew tools and innovation left the comfy bright green cities and traveled to the dead mall suburban slums, rustbelt browntowns and climate-smacked farm communities...
This really has to be about the most narrow-minded and condescending thing I've read here.
What? Big cities are inherently immune to the ravages of an apocalyptic event, thanks to high-density geekage? In the case of an apocalyptic collapse of society, I'll put my (now worthless) money on the abilities of the "climate-smacked farm communities" to pull through far better than urban hipsters armed with Make back issues.
I'm betting post-apocalypse fantasies are common among SF readers. I've harbored one since I read 'Earth Abides' when I was fourteen. It's heavily larded with an earlier childhood reading of 'Swiss Family Robinson'— Jesus, that shipwreck had a lot of neat shit onboard!
@mgfarrelly #32
I don't like the sound of those people with organisational skills turning up. You can be sure they'll organise it so they don't have to dig the ditches or the wells, but'll get a share of he food.
an old joke about "appropriate tech": the generator bicycle. The optimist sees light without dependence on the power grid. The realist sees the gun and whip that keeps someone else pedaling.
Why is armed self policing assumed to be a bad thing? I would rather have a just militia of my neighbors any day than a gestapo or stasi police system. Is it reasonable to assume when poeple are starving that the bent morals that lead to raided pension funds and naked short selling will not also motivate bad people to rob families of their last bit of seed or food?
Most of the people with the engineering, medical, agricultural, and personal coping skills required to make it through the coming chances have already moved out into the rural areas, I have been out there with the "yokels" who are not as stupid or useless as those soft handed elite in university may think. I imagine the rurals would be the ones cleaning up the urban areas and universities once the die-off has passed.
I like the idea, and I like the title. But an Inquisition doesn't have anything to do with "missionaries who come to your town ... [then] get on with the business of being happy, well-fed and peaceful."
Inquisitions are when the church looks at itself to root out perceived evil, not when it goes out to evangelize the poor.
pop over to Bosnia and ask around about militias. You may learn a new word: "ethnic cleansing"
In much the same way that gun-toting desperadoes are a neat post-apocalyptic fantasy (where will they get the bullets and gun parts one wonders?), so too are the Outquisitors. Any decent civilization-ending event will leave the survivors in a profoundly local situation. If there's enough left to put together an "Outquisition," it's doubtful they'd have much to add that the locals wouldn't have already figured out for themselves. The most they might offer, other than information, is free labor.
Yep, folks from suburbia know all they need to know about getting by. Don't need any outside help or advice. That's why they happily buy homes on lots that have been stripped of their topsoil.
I'm watching a former farm get converted into a development of McMansions and the very shape of the landscape has been changed. It is truly a depressing thing to watch.
#59, you certainly wear your moniker well.
Why is armed self policing assumed to be a bad thing?
Uh, we've seen what happens when guns are plentiful and there is no government at all. Afghanistan might as well be post apocalyptic.
I'm not so sure the survivors would try to piece everything together anyways. I mean, were I in their position, I'd opt for an inquisition-style post-apocalypse, considering all the rad, life-improving systems and tools are already out of commission, to settle back and just enjoy whats left would be the path of choice. Why rebuild?
"Exquisition" would be a much better name.
re #62
Why is armed self policing assumed to be a bad thing?
Uh, we've seen what happens when guns are plentiful and there is no government at all. Afghanistan might as well be post apocalyptic.
My point exactly, an outside invader from elsewhere was able to waltz in with their Saudi funded and armed Wahabist army and force the mostly unarmed locals to bootlick or die. Afghanistan is post apocalyptic dystopia, and now NATO is their new foreign king.
I, for one, welcome our green urban hipster Outquisition overlords.
Come on, after the apocalypse, you just know someone will want to know how to make a steampunk R2-D2 wastebasket.
Me I just want to continue growing winter crops in my desert greenhouses and drip irrigating my few acres of crops in peace, hipsters please stay in your fortress cities and stop raiding our farms for food and supplies.
I think I'll talk to the Mennonites who live a few miles away if I want to know how to farm without advanced technology. I'll also talk to the people who are really into guns, because my community might need to defend itself from the crazy city folk who think they know all about farming but have never thrown a bale of hay in their life.
I'm with the anti-hipster set on this one. Cory et al, you probably didn't mean to insult, but you really came off with a "we know better" attitude. Remember that the world is filled with comfy bright green little towns, villages and neighborhoods. And
You're more than welcome to visit my nice little community surrounded by trees and farmland to tell us stories. But really, if you come thinking you're the only one who's got something to teach, be prepared to be ... er ... taught a lesson.
Myself, If I was going to "spread the seeds" I'd do it Johnny Appleseed style. I'd pack little boxes with books, instructional material, hard to find pieces of USEFUL technology and so forth. I'd assume people knew how to read and knew enough to understand the value of what I had given them. They may not need it immediately, but they will need it eventually.
That or I'd put all the women folk in underground high tech bunkers run by a brain who controls all, while the men folk would remain on the surface. Givers of pain and delight indeed.
@ BucolicHooligan:
Dismissing everyone who isn't getting their hands dirty at work every day as soft and "latte-sipping" is a very weak point.
Yes, someone showing up with a hybrid loaded for bear with GPS and iPhones for all isn't going to be very useful. "I has come to gives you technology!" No, that's not what we're talking about.
But what about engineers who can get solar panels and wind turbines and simple gas generators running? What about hydroponics? What about creating grey and blackwater recycling systems to help reduce the drain of potable water? What about chemists working to create tailored pest control formulas that don't pollute the water supply? What about communications experts to get information architecture up and running?
All those skills combined, organized, could be a very potent force. Barter and trade for services rendered.
Look, if you want to see it as all the "latte-sippers" are going to die off or go Randall Flagg that's a fine point of view. But John Lennon challenged, "War is over, if you want it" No reason that can't extend to post-war thinking too.
I'm a librarian. All the books on edible plants, water filtration, home remedies and making your clothes last are sitting on shelves. The Outquisition would do well to base itself out of a library.
Where we don't ever serve coffee.
er...
Remember that world is filled with comfy bright green little towns, villages and neighborhoods as well as cities
If only I was a mod and could go back and change my posts without anyone knowing I'd made a mistake...
If only I was a mod and could go back and change my posts
Speaking of which, has everyone noticed that when we approve anonymous comments, the numbers all change and numeric references become unintelligible or even the opposite of what you intended? It's really better to pull a quote or use a name.
"Dismissing everyone who isn't getting their hands dirty at work every day as soft and "latte-sipping" is a very weak point. "
Just as responding to my one quip vs. the actual salient content of my post.
I would just say read above as feel the point has been made far better than I.
Cory,
I'm sure that most of these people who romanticize apocalyptic scenarios and advocate gun control are well-meaning, but they are also quite ignorant. It is because of their ignorance that their ideas are poison. The last thing this world needs is more FICTION. We get enough of that through our "trusted" news outlets. No, we don't need more distractions, gadgets, or techno-babble to keep us occupied and dominated.
Your dystopian future is already here, but it isn't the one you wanted. Sadly, Orwell's prophecy came true in spite of his book (1984). Let that be a lesson to you, and other great writers: We can use your skill, but we need you to expose the actual perpetrators of the world's evils.
Perhaps, if Orwell had identified the Rothschilds, or other banking dynasties, as being war financiers, profiteers, and generally just a group madmen bent on world domination, we wouldn't be in the situation that we're in. I find it impossible to believe that he could have written as presciently as he did without that knowledge, so I assume that he knew.
Anyway, I hope you will consider my opinion. Thank you.
holtt,
Is auto-refresh doing that or is it you?
I gotta agree with several other comments here that this does at first blush come off as a little condescending, though your hearts are certainly in the right place.
It's great to be a creative, ingenious person with some programming chops, but what's a zillion times more valuable in disaster-type situations are creative ingenious people who also HAVE EXPERIENCE. Don't assume that just because you have that charter subscription to Make and that you've watched Mythbusters a lot you're all set to knock out an irrigation system or wire a farm with solar power. It REALLY helps to have some actual experience. If you don't, don't be surprised to be made one of the ditch diggers instead of the master architect when you blow into the rural dystopia.
Happily, getting at least bits of this type of hands on experience is not hard. Even urban dwellers have all sorts of organizations (usually community or non-profit groups) who would love folks to pitch in on building, repairing, or gardening projects.
And if you have your own house, you can go totally crazy! Think of your house as your own experimental facility. Why not build a windmill of your own? Or plow up that lawn and plant some crops? Don't just be a talker and thinker, be a doer!
Afghanistan is post apocalyptic dystopia, and now NATO is their new foreign king.
Yeah, it's too bad too, because Afghanistan was once a dream destination for the rich and famous.
Back to reality for a moment, and a little history. Afghanistan was like the poorest nation in the world in the 70's. Carter sent a few hundred million dollars to import weapons and start a rebellion against the Soviet backed government, the Soviets get bogged down in their own version of Vietnam, the US spends more money to import weapons including stinger missiles and training, which helps bin Laden establish his private religious army called al Queda, and when the Sov's pull out, the US does nothing to help rebuild, Afganistan becomes the epitome of post-apocolyptic war zone. The ensuing power vaccuum in Afghanistan leaves a bunch of mujihadeen with lots of guns and tribal-based armies turn the country into an internal warzone as various factions fight for control. Culminating in the fricken taliban taking control of the capital and a number of southern provinces, and the Northern Alliance retreating to, well, the north. Meanwhile, bin Laden sees the Soviet pullout as proof that his mujihadeen (holy warriors) are capable of taking down a superpower, and sets his sights on taking down the US.
Yeah, lots of guns in a lawless, stateless, post apocalyptic region certain makes the region, and the world as a whole, a better place.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller,Letter to "Micheal" (16 February 1970) Micheal was a 10 year old boy who had inquired in a letter as to whether Fuller was a "doer" or a "thinker".
I think that some of the die-hipsters-die folks on this thread are a little confused about where the knowledge is distributed in this society. Knowledge comes in books, and you can find the widest selection in the city. Knowledge comes in people's skulls, and most of those can be found in cities as well. Knowledge comes on hard drives and lives in server farms, most of which can be found in heavily populated areas. Knowledge lives in universities, which tend to be in cities (even the ones that focus on agriculture). Even the Wikipedia contributions made by rural type persons end up being more widely replicated in cities than in suburbia or rural areas.
There is an online wiki all about how to build solar ovens, probably encompassing just about everything people know about building them. Such knowledge was probably developed in rural areas, but the latte-sipping hipster who comes to your post-apocalyptic suburb with a copy of that information will probably be the expert on the subject. If he also has schematics for turning discarded car alternators into wind turbines, that probably makes him almost as valuable a resource as the guy three towns over who had a backyard full of that sort of thing before the Fall.
Another thing to point out is that networks matter. Cities are where networks grow, because the number of people make it easy to find people with shared interests. You pit a hundred urban organic farming hobbyists against twenty rural farmers who do it for a living out in the boonies, the rurals would probably know more. But it's much easier to get the hundred together in the same room.
Stop whining about how condescending the idea is. It's not that "our knowledge is bigger than your knowledge". Much of the knowledge the invading hipsters would be carrying would come from rural areas, just not necessarily *your* rural area.