What precautions are you taking against the coronavirus in your poly networks?

[River]

PS-

I read my hurried response again a couple of times, then re-read the posts I was responding to. Those replies to my prognosis of great risk (not certain collapse) were the kind of superficial response people like me have grown very accustomed to from those who don't think in complex system terms. It's not your fault, and you're not dumb or ignorant, but clearly you've not explored the systems we're all embedded in in depth. If one is not an auto mechanic, and doesn't know a spark plug from a carburetor, that's fine. Take your car to a qualified mechanic. But when it comes to evaluating the risk of financial and economic collapse, please consult with people who actually understand economics -- and that means don't go to mainstream economists, unfortunately. They are stupider than a box of rocks, and are well trained in how to be smart within a box, so long as their box works for the moment.

I find it funny, very amusing! that folks want to say that because our economy is working well enough to deliver groceries to the stores now that this is evidence that this will be the case in July, August, September -- humorous. But also frightening and sad. I don't say this in a looking-down-my-nose sort of way, but rather as the mechanic must feel when a client insists that the spark plug is actually a carburetor.

Look at the farking economic indicators, folks! Not just the stock market, though that's an important and relevant indicator. Look at the bigger picture. Then look at the pandemic data, and the associated data about the economy of the world at the moment. Then you'll understand what I'm saying and why.

Experts are saying a depression is likely. We have no idea how deep or long that depression will be, or who will have jobs … in order to have money, in order to have food.

And rent and mortgage? Do you really think they will throw 1/3 or more of us out of our homes … no, no. Rent will actually go down. Mortgage payments too. Or anarchy will reign. But they will not toss us all out on the streets. Think big and thoroughly. Study the systems in which you are embedded and use your social imagination. You're going to be needing it. We all will.

E.g., https://gothamist.com/news/unemploy...on-levels?mc_cid=f60674000f&mc_eid=fbb6f50a1c

 

[Tinwen]

Come on, River, give us the chains of cause and effect that you see, please.

We all know the start. Many people lose jobs and have no money. Scarcity of certain goods (not necessarily food) that haven't been produced for a few weeks or months perhaps. International supply chains broken because borders are closed & some production companies are in lockdown or find themselves in varying degrees of problems. Africa possibly weathering the hardest outbreak, yet to come.

While all governments try to contain or slow the spread of covid-19 while keeping their critical infrastructure going... how should world's economy collapse to a point where food (distribution) isn't available?

 

[River]

Come on, River, give us the chains of cause and effect that you see, please.

We all know the start. Many people lose jobs and have no money. Scarcity of certain goods (not necessarily food) that haven't been produced for a few weeks or months perhaps. International supply chains broken because borders are closed & some production companies are in lockdown or find themselves in varying degrees of problems. Africa possibly weathering the hardest outbreak, yet to come.

While all governments try to contain or slow the spread of covid-19 while keeping their critical infrastructure going... how should world's economy collapse to a point where food (distribution) isn't available?

It's late and I've had a big day already -- and I'm tired. So I'll provide only a very partial answer to your very reasonable questions, Tinwin. I'll try my best to return to your inquiry tomorrow.

It's crucial that you conceive the distinction between food availability and food arriving on folks' tables, an elaborate and complex sequence -- which requires that the purchaser of the food has money with which to purchase food (and other variables).

At this very moment in time, unemployment is at the highest rate as it has been since the Great Depression. I just heard that 75 million people in the USA -- for example -- are living in towns and cities which have asked folks to please stay home and not to go out or go to work unless you're providing an "essential service". This number is expected to increase dramatically over the next several days. Temporarily, at least, most economic activity in many nations will come nearly to a halt. Nothing like this has ever happened before, to the best of my knowledge, though admittedly I'm not an expert on all of the details of the 1919 "Spanish flu," or the 1929 Great Depression. But it hardly matters, because our world is radically different than it was then. It is immensely more globally interconnected and interdependent. Local and regional economies in a fully intact sense hardly exist today, as they did then. And -- if you study the complexities of this interconnectedness and the concrete particulars of its current resiliency -- it reveals itself (the global economy) to be extremely fragile. I'm tempted to underline the word extremely here. But I think it unnecessary. Extreme is, after all, extreme enough.

The weak link in the system is the money (the financial system) with which to buy food, which makes food growing and distribution problematic. No money flowing, no food flowing. UNLESS we grow it ourselves in local community gardens and farms, and do so in a system which does not require money to function.

If you're watching what has been happening to the economy and finance, you're seeing what I see. Now some folks think this is a temporary blip, but I find this prognosis absurd. My partner just told me that while I was making dinner in the kitchen an economist on the t.v. said that the repercussions of the present shock to our economy will last for decades. Decades. I said, "well, yeah, of course!" Covid-19 is a pandemic -- meaning global and everywhere … and not realistically going away anytime soon. It is immensely disruptive, and the disruption will not be going away in a few weeks, or even months. And that's just on the basis of an informed and realistic evaluation of the MEDICAL aspect of the conjoined medical / economic crisis.

Economies cannot be rebooted on a dime. It takes a long time. And the world is already at The End of Growth. https://richardheinberg.com/bookshelf/the-end-of-growth-book … and this type of economy utterly depends on growth in the way a child needs momentum on a bicycle to keep from falling off that bike. How quickly can we create a new mode of economy which does not depend upon growth to keep from falling off a cliff like a fragile piano?

And all of this is barely touching upon the tipy top of the surface of the problem! One has to read a lot to get a handle on the lager picture.

But there is good news here. All we have to do to ride this out is grow some of our own food as a Plan B, and get our neighbors to do the same. That way all of those guns won't be used against one another when we're getting hungry. If we are kind and loving and supportive with our neighbors and we get our food security into our own hands by relocalizing food on an emergency basis we can avoid near term social collapse in the face of financial collapse -- which is, I think, now pretty nearly certain..

Suburbanites as well as urbanites -- and some country folk -- will need to dig up their lawns to grow beans, corn and squash. Get used to it.

 

[vinsanity0]

It must be quite the burden to be the only one with intelligence and understanding

 

[ref2018]

It must be quite the burden to be the only one with intelligence and understanding

Yes it is indeed. But what does this have to do with me?

 

[Tinwen]

Suburbanites as well as urbanites -- and some country folk -- will need to dig up their lawns to grow beans, corn and squash. Get used to it.

Nobody in this city quarter has a lawn to dig up. We need systemic solutions. I think the danger you speak about is something to be extremely careful about for our politicians and economists, and in this moment the economic world is, behind the curtain, in a frenzy to do relevant analysis and understand what needs to be done to strike a balance of people dying from covid and people losing jobs and homes.

 

[River]

It must be quite the burden to be the only one with intelligence and understanding

That's total BS, Vinsanity, and clearly meant to imply that I'm arrogant. But if you look at your actual words carefully you will discern that they are not true. I cite actual experts -- or other people with insight and understanding.

Let's be honest here. Only a small fraction of the population knows how to take a car apart and put it back together again. Only a small fraction knows how to perform surgery on humans or do basic doctoring. And only a small percentage know how to evaluate probabilities around an economy in crisis. But the problem is that a very large percentage of those without the knowledge and understanding to evaluate economic risk in the way I'm doing think they are as good at it as anyone. It takes study over time to learn how to do this. And one has got to be familiar with a lot of different voices in the field.

So go ahead and call me arrogant if it pleases you, but I've earned the right to have a voice in these matters by long study. Those who believe that because the grocery stores are now working just fine is reason enough to dismiss what I'm saying don't yet even know how the chess pieces move on this board. They are playing checkers, not chess.

 

[River]

Nobody in this city quarter has a lawn to dig up. We need systemic solutions. I think the danger you speak about is something to be extremely careful about for our politicians and economists, and in this moment the economic world is, behind the curtain, in a frenzy to do relevant analysis and understand what needs to be done to strike a balance of people dying from covid and people losing jobs and homes.

I live in a little rented house without much of a yard, front or back. My next door neighbors have a large backyard. We are planning to grow a large garden in that large backyard, and also to encourage our neighborhood to do the same in their yards where possible. We are also wanting to form neighborhood cooperatives / collaboratives / networking around this and other matters related to the pandemic and the associated collapse in local employment -- which many don't believe will be simply temporary (some may be temporary, but not all). Communities should consider using parks for community gardens and farms, and using other available plots of land which are not paved over or covered with buildings.

We will not be able to rely on government and economists to handle everything for us. We are not their children, and should not behave as if we were their children. We're grown ups. We have to take our communities into our own hands and not expect "authorities" to take care of all of our future needs.

I completely agree that we need systemic solutions! But not all of these will or can come just from government and bureaucrats. We need to rebuild community in our towns, cities and villages -- and rural areas too. Government cannot substitute for community.

 

[FallenAngelina]

I find it funny, very amusing! that folks want to say that because our economy is working well enough to deliver groceries to the stores now that this is evidence that this will be the case in July, August, September -- humorous. But also frightening and sad.

Well, four months will reveal whether your expertise is genius or hairbrainery. I think I have enough TP and bourbon for the duration.

 

[vinsanity0]

That's total BS, Vinsanity, and clearly meant to imply that I'm arrogant. But if you look at your actual words carefully you will discern that they are not true. I cite actual experts -- or other people with insight and understanding.

Let's be honest here. Only a small fraction of the population knows how to take a car apart and put it back together again. Only a small fraction knows how to perform surgery on humans or do basic doctoring. And only a small percentage know how to evaluate probabilities around an economy in crisis. But the problem is that a very large percentage of those without the knowledge and understanding to evaluate economic risk in the way I'm doing think they are as good at it as anyone. It takes study over time to learn how to do this. And one has got to be familiar with a lot of different voices in the field.

So go ahead and call me arrogant if it pleases you, but I've earned the right to have a voice in these matters by long study. Those who believe that because the grocery stores are now working just fine is reason enough to dismiss what I'm saying don't yet even know how the chess pieces move on this board. They are playing checkers, not chess.

Here is just some of the language you have used:

Those who understand complex, intertwined systems know

don't yet even know how the chess pieces move on this board. They are playing checkers, not chess.

It's crucial that you conceive the distinction between

if you study the complexities of this interconnectedness and the concrete particulars of its current resiliency --

If you're watching

the kind of superficial response people like me have grown very accustomed to from those who don't think in complex system terms.

for reasons obvious to those of us who study complex systems in the way I do

You remind me of the guy who keeps coming back here to tell us all we know nothing about polyamory. If only we applied critical thinking blah blah blah.

I'm sure you are aware economists rarely agree on anything. For instance, there are many schools of thought on what caused the Great Depression. Regardless of what caused it, we did recover. We also recovered from the Bush financial crisis. I believe we will recover from this, but check back with me in November.

 

[Magdlyn]

I've watched 10 seasons of Walking Dead and 5 seasons of Fear the Walking Dead. I know what is entailed in living in a collapsed civilization.

People who can make beer will be kings. Gasoline goes bad after a few years though, unlike what is shown on the show. Granola bars are worth their weight in gold. No one will play CDs in the collapse, just vinyl. Stock up on condoms. Somehow everyone will have fashionable buzzed hairstyles, despite limited electric power. Babies will never cry. Carl and Judith will always be running off.

 

[River]

Here is just some of the language you have used:



You remind me of the guy who keeps coming back here to tell us all we know nothing about polyamory. If only we applied critical thinking blah blah blah.

I'm sure you are aware economists rarely agree on anything. For instance, there are many schools of thought on what caused the Great Depression. Regardless of what caused it, we did recover. We also recovered from the Bush financial crisis. I believe we will recover from this, but check back with me in November.

Vinsanity -


I risk looking like a fool and appearing to be arrogant because I'm genuinely frightened of what seems to me at least highly possible, if not highly probable. I believe we're in for a major financial-economic depression of the sort which may lead to real hunger -- and I mean real hunger -- if we don't start now to prepare by creating resiliency in our food systems, which, to my mind, partly means collaborating with our neighbors on community gardens as a buffer, just in case.

I am hoping to frighten a few people into action on this, so they will do the same with a few more people. Fear may have to be the initial motivator, because we're creatures of habit and many of us have little or no edible gardening / farming skills.

Note that I'm proposing that we do this food production outside of the money economy. Not to sell for cash, but to give to those in need -- including to ourselves and the neighbors with whom we collaborated.

I'm also proposing we don't do it as barter -- or any form of conventional exchange. Not so many beans and carrots for so many hours of gardening time. I propose we do it within a gift economy and on the basis of trust. This will mean we will have to form good, solid relationships with our neighbors -- which I am doing now. It is healing my soul to do it in ways you may or may not be able to imagine -- but I'm lucky and I have extraordinary neighbors who are very loving, kind, supportive and intelligent.

I also happen to love gardening!

 

[River]

I've watched 10 seasons of Walking Dead and 5 seasons of Fear the Walking Dead. I know what is entailed in living in a collapsed civilization.

People who can make beer will be kings. Gasoline goes bad after a few years though, unlike what is shown on the show. Granola bars are worth their weight in gold. No one will play CDs in the collapse, just vinyl. Stock up on condoms. Somehow everyone will have fashionable buzzed hairstyles, despite limited electric power. Babies will never cry. Carl and Judith will always be running off.

I've been letting my hair grow long for the last several months. I plan to grow it even longer. I'm afraid I won't be able to hang with the fashionally buzzed fellows, unless they can accept me as I am.

 

[ref2018]

I've watched 10 seasons of Walking Dead and 5 seasons of Fear the Walking Dead. I know what is entailed in living in a collapsed civilization.

I've done The Stand and The Andromeda Strain so far, and I'm thinking of putting on 12 Monkeys at some point, although I watched that when I was in Greece just shortly after this whole thing started (mid-January). I also haven't watched The Day After or The Quiet Earth in a long time, although those two are not about diseases, so IDK. There is also a copy of The History Channel's Life After People lying around the house, so I might give that a go at some point.

We also have plenty of marijuana here. And the liquor stores are open like business as usual.

And work is also very busy for some of us who work from home under normal circumstances

ETA: I also ordered a bunch of seeds from Walmart, but I was planning to do that anyway, not because River told me to. I usually buy plants at the nursery, but I thought I'd save some money this year and start certain ones from seeds. We'll see how it goes. It's mostly just containers on the deck, but maybe I'll put in a small raised bed in the yard because I have so much old potting soil left over from when I switched the marijuana plants over from Pro-Mix to coco coir, it would be a shame to let it go unused...

 

[ref2018]

And I signed up for an online course in Greek, at the University of Athens. It's supposed to start Monday, but they already put the first lesson up and it was easy because I already covered most of the material on DuoLingo.

 

[FallenAngelina]

I am hoping to frighten a few people into action on this, so they will do the same with a few more people. Fear may have to be the initial motivator, because we're creatures of habit and many of us have little or no edible gardening / farming skills.

I host a huge community greenhouse on my property and offered this three years ago because I thought it was a great thing to be involved in - not out of fear. Fear is a crappy long term motivator. Shaking fists at people with doomsday predictions never works - for anything. As for skills, everyone can learn propagation and gardening - and they do when they are happy and inspired. I see it every day during the growing seasons. Love and community are long term inspirations. I think you'd get a lot better reception if your efforts were fueled not by finger wagging, but by the community gardening passion you speak of.

 

[Magdlyn]

I've done The Stand and The Andromeda Strain so far, and I'm thinking of putting on 12 Monkeys at some point, although I watched that when I was in Greece just shortly after this whole thing started (mid-January). I also haven't watched The Day After or The Quiet Earth in a long time, although those two are not about diseases, so IDK. There is also a copy of The History Channel's Life After People lying around the house, so I might give that a go at some point.

We also have plenty of marijuana here. And the liquor stores are open like business as usual.

And work is also very busy for some of us who work from home under normal circumstances

Yeah!

ETA: I also ordered a bunch of seeds from Walmart, but I was planning to do that anyway, not because River told me to. I usually buy plants at the nursery, but I thought I'd save some money this year and start certain ones from seeds. We'll see how it goes. It's mostly just containers on the deck, but maybe I'll put in a small raised bed in the yard because I have so much old potting soil left over from when I switched the marijuana plants over from Pro-Mix to coco coir, it would be a shame to let it go unused...

Right now I am concerned about parents, who are trying to keep up working from home without the "free" babysitting of schools. I unschooled my 3 kids K-12 of course, and we got by on my husband's income for about 20 years, so I shared some tips on my Facebook page and made it public.

In our current society, so many people have 2 working parents, and so much stuff my parents' generation didn't deem as necessary. So now we decide what is really necessary.

Many people these days don't even know how to cook from scratch... much less build a fire, grow veggies... Even Survivor contestants often don't know how to make a fire, or catch a fish! lol

1 out of 9 (?) families live below the poverty level. So my heart goes out to them. A single mother living with her 3 kids in a tiny apartment can't afford time or money to build raised beds, make or buy enough compost, tend to the weeding and pest control, and buy materials to can goods. Some actually don't have refrigerators, or much room to store anything, and just shop daily.

Arrogant people who say we just have to sit home and watch Netflix until this blows over aren't poor single moms who were getting by on minimum wage and a tiny bit of SNAP.

I feel very privileged, but I am well aware that I mostly live off my savings, with this bad back of mine, and Pixi is on SSI disability and makes little money doing job as a camp director. I have a low paying part time job which is all I can do because of my bad back. (But I am grateful for it! It definitely helps!). I had to cancel my plans for back surgery this spring. My savings are in money markets and that has tanked.

But we currently have shelter, and 2 paid for cars, and pretty things, books and phones and laptops. We just bought a new couch after we paid off the cars, and we have a big screen TV in the family room that was half paid for by Pixi's bf at Xmas. We always have a surplus of non-perishables, and so on. Pixi is a survivalist and we've both had lots of experience with camping, and have skills.

Pixi's and her bf built a raised bed in his yard last year, which had a great yield, and will build another one this spring, soon. That was already a plan in the works.

 

[River]

I host a huge community greenhouse on my property and offered this three years ago because I thought it was a great thing to be involved in - not out of fear. Fear is a crappy long term motivator. Shaking fists at people with doomsday predictions never works - for anything. As for skills, everyone can learn propagation and gardening - and they do when they are happy and inspired. I see it every day during the growing seasons. Love and community are long term inspirations. I think you'd get a lot better reception if your efforts were fueled not by finger wagging, but by the community gardening passion you speak of.

I was being honest here. I'm afraid, because I'm informed. Way, way more informed than most people in this country (USA), about the real risk of a new Great Depression. We have two major global emergencies here. One is a disease caused by a virus. The other is an economy heading into meltdown, for which there are no obvious cures either.

Sometimes fear is appropriate. It is now.

You're right. Fear is a terrible LONG TERM motivator. It may, however, be just the short term motivator we need at this very moment -- spring. Spring is when you either have seeds or buy them -- start them.... Spring is a good time to connect -- at a safe distance -- with neighbors to discuss long term contingency planning for food. And to discuss the real risks we face going forward.

I'm not a fan of fear. But nature gave it to us for a reason.

Love and kindness and community and neighborliness (and such) are far superior motivators. Unfortunately, those have been in decline in many places in the USA (where I live) in recent decades. It's a good time for us to re-prioritize these "old fashioned" values and commitments.

I'm with you, F.A., not against you. And I'm very happy to know of your offering of your greenhouse in your community. Thank you for helping take care of your neighbors.

If you were to ask my friends and neighbors about my predictions about the future, you would notice a pattern. It's as if I have a crystal ball, they would say. I see the future before it happens. I've predicted many of the major economic events of the last couple of decades, and the way the Covid-19 epidemic / pandemic would unfold in the headlines. It's because I study these phenomena and the systems in which they are embedded. I have no magical crystal ball. If I did, I'd never have insisted that Trump would never become president of the USA. I got that one wrong.

 

[ref2018]

If you were to ask my friends and neighbors about my predictions about the future, you would notice a pattern. It's as if I have a crystal ball, they would say. I see the future before it happens. I've predicted many of the major economic events of the last couple of decades, and the way the Covid-19 epidemic / pandemic would unfold in the headlines. It's because I study these phenomena and the systems in which they are embedded. I have no magical crystal ball. If I did, I'd never have insisted that Trump would never become president of the USA. I got that one wrong.

I would ask your friends and neighbors why you're not *already* growing your own vegetables if you're so informed with this inside track that the unwashed masses are so incapable of understanding. Yes, you are indeed arrogant.

 

[vinsanity0]

It's my dream to have an old farmhouse out in the country with a few acres to raise my own fruits and veggies and animals for food. When I was a kid we had a decent sized garden. No way it could have sustained a family of four though. It takes a lot of land to grow enough food for a whole family, much less have enough to give away. I've always grown edible plants because I enjoy that. I could be entirely self sufficient if I had to.


Right now I would have mangoes, avacados, coconut, fish, and ducks ...lol