Recently, I picked up the book “ When Technology Fails
” although I have not started reading it yet, I came across this video this morning, and wanted to share it with you.
Before I even start to read When Technology Fails , I was starting to ponder, what might happen if it were to fail. I don’t think, no, I know I don’t have the necessary skills to survive in a REAL long term TEOTWAWKI situation. Several months ago someone asked me (another prepper ) if I knew how to put a harness on a cow or horse to pull a plow? Well, the truth is I think I read about it once. I really don’t have the raw skills that even a farmer would ask, I think, making me non employable if I asked to be taken in for a meal in return for work. Not that I hope that is ever the case, but I am clearly behind the proverbial eight ball.
The guy in this video makes a pretty good case around how dependent we are on technology that runs on services that we take for granted every day. We sit in front of our TVs like we depend on them whether for entertainment, news, or some sad reality show that admittedly even I have gotten sucked into from time to time.
It is clear to me I have a LONG way to go. The suburbs, work, business travel all seem to get in the way of learning and expanding my knowledge of these long forgotten homesteading skills. I do have several books on homesteading. Some of them are in my electronic survival library , and some of them are in hard cover. Two of which, I really like are “ Homesteading: A Back to Basics Guide to Growing Your Own Food, Canning, Keeping Chickens, Generating Your Own Energy, Crafting, Herbal Medicine, and More ” and “ Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition ” I do not recommend the Kindle editions of these, as there are many images that you will lose color and resolution on that help to illustrate the descriptions.
I agree with MasterPO completely. I think many, like myself, have not necessarily caught and butchered an animal to eat (I’m not a hunter) But, I believe that mind-setting and simply considering having to do such things will help.
That’s another problem in densely populated areas. How many wild animals will be available to eat when 8 million people are all swarming the area looking for the same thing? That could get ugly.
It would be very tough. I think an aspect of banding together amongst neighbors would be essential for surviving such an event.
I also think too many people have bought into (or brainwashed into) a whole host of “enlightened” PC think that they just would rather sit and starve in the cold rather than do what it takes to survive. Like catching, dispatching and cleaning an animal for food.
Maybe, at the very end when the mind is warped by hunger they will get over it. But I suspect a large number will in fact starve before that happens. 30–40 years of such drivel has numbed too many people to the reality of how the rest of the world lives, is natural to live, and refuses to see reality in light of an emergency.
In reply to Nobody .
@Nobody — I agree completely… Technology is relative based on your situation. The horse drawn carriage in the photo may have been state of the art in its day.
People have always been dependent on technology. (Even the horse-drawn plow is a form of technology.) Those sorry-looking settlers in the picture are surrounded by the technology of their day.
I think we are, rather, more isolated from the process by which we so easily acquire things like a hamburger, a way to light up the kitchen, or know there will be hot water for a shower.