I’ve been getting really bad vibes they lately about the stability of our society. That’s on top of my regular doom and gloom about climate, population, and the environment. Despite the official line of bullcrap we’re hearing about the recession being almost over, I don’t believe we’ve even begun to see the worst of things. I still think we’re heading for something absolutely catastrophic—far worse than the Great Depression. They keep pumping fake trillions into the economy, as if that could possibly create any real change. It’s mere slight-of-hand. What’s the point of any of that when the dollar is totally worthless?

For so many reasons the time is now or never for converting to a steady-state economy. But it won’t happen.  The machine is too big. The only way it will happen is through catastrophic collapse of civilization, with the survivors having to rebuild from nothing—and who’s to say those survivors will be smart enough to do it right?

Personally I would like to survive the coming collapse just for the adventure of it, but at the moment I feel very ill prepared.

My most immediate goal is to deal with the food issue. I’d like to have a year or two of staples stockpiled. I normally have at least a month of food on hand simply because I tend to only do one shopping trip per month. But one month’s worth of food isn’t going to cut it. I need a big stockpile of beans, rice, flour, sprouting seeds, salt, yeast, sugar, etc., etc. I need a grain mill and a pressure canner. I need rabbits and chickens.  The list goes on and on. I need to practice foraging.  I need to learn about hunting and trapping. There’s so much to learn and acquire. Fortunately this is stuff I’ve always wanted to learn and do. Even if everything were peachy in the world at large, I’d still be working towards self-sufficiency. This just adds a sense of urgency to the process.