Steering Limits

Moderation is a lost art.
A fundamental evil of Western Civilization is objectifying everything. We end up with the paradox of fearing death while we commoditize human life. The only people who don’t fear death tend to be nihilists. What a wonderful culture we have!
A primary feature of this objectification is the push to extremes in everything. Against the vast range of uniqueness in humanity, we have the bureaucratic impulse to force uniformity into every last corner of human existence. And, of course, we can’t organize anything without bureaucracy. We simply don’t know how, can’t bear the thought of anything else. Fairness and equality by design? We will all suffer equally. We know instinctively those who don’t bureaucratize are looking for an excuse to plunder. We are utterly lacking in the ability to even conceive of magisterial care and charity — the definitions of the words make it sound silly. Yet this very thing was a human ideal for thousands of years of human history, with numerous examples of those who achieved it, until the rise of the West. There is no such thing as humane treatment from a bureaucracy because it’s all so utterly dehumanizing. We are uniquely mistaken about most of the really important things in human history.
The current fears about the future difficulties are not completely mistaken. We are in for tough times, and only Pollyanna isn’t aware of it. But the centuries of human condition and cultural mythology raises these fears to fever pitch where folks are paying attention at all.
Take for example, something simple. Try as they might, the best military training in the world can’t change one thing: fear of injury. Real combat experiences do help a lot, but without surviving a few injuries, men just don’t quite get it. They may be able to handle their fear well enough, but the high degree of agitation still won’t die until the man himself has been near death more than once. Because of this, most people who train to fight, but don’t do a lot of real fighting, won’t be any good at it. Sparring is of limited value, and even tournaments have rules which reduce the risks. The problem is not human nature, but culture. Plenty of cultures outside the West have defeated this. Getting it through your head you will surely get injured, and it will hurt, and you can’t always win despite the duty to try, is foreign to our culture.
We give lip service to “rolling with the punches” but simply have nothing real behind it for the vast majority. It boils down to a rare inborn trait for a precious few elites. It can be trained, but it won’t happen unless you are fully aware of the cultural assumptions, even the epistemological assumptions, and beat them down first.
So in our culture, we have Preppers and Survivalists going to extremes. A few writers in the field understand, at least intellectually, the necessity of preparing first one’s own head. Good survival training will make you feel more confident, but much of what’s available fails to take into account real disaster experience from survivors. In the end, the only folks really ready for any measure of disaster are the human cockroaches, those who already survive without most of the benefits of civilization. Those socially excluded for whatever reason don’t need civilization. When it fails in whatever degree, they’ll be the first to shrug it off. What do they have to lose?
It would be easy to shock you with discussions of, for example, using leaves for toilet paper, but even that misses the point. Okay, can you ID poison ivy?
The real point is not just a survivor’s spirit and intelligence, but the real truth ignored from human history: Aside from Mount Vesuvius type events, future troubles will not destroy everything we know. All the evil being cooked up for us by the likes of the Illuminati does not include total collapse. We could conceivably have that total collapse, but They certainly don’t plan for it.
Here’s a more likely scenario. The biggest issue in human behavior is always economics. Reduced food supplies in the West always means trouble. Some cities will erupt in violence, but that’s not really news. Where there has been a reliable supply of it in the past, it will indicate a very serious and pervasive problem during bad times. Those in power will strive to insulate themselves by various means. Not all cities are cutthroat places, though. Regional subcultures can make a world of difference. Much depends on how thoroughly the local population thinks of each other as neighbors. Locales which have experienced disasters in the past will be the most stable — think earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. Strangely, terrorist attacks don’t offer that sort of benefit, unless there have been a huge amount of them. People fear most what’s rare.
Things will get tough, but most of us will get by. Depending on the depth and suddenness of change in food availability, there will be an initial panic and violence will soar. The idiots will die quickly, whether predators or victims. Then things will settle somewhat into a new social truce. Spontaneous social organization is generally dependable, and that includes reorganization. The real threat is a violent group of government officials refusing to adapt, trying to assert continuity in what they consider their legitimate control. This comes in all flavors, and it really does depend on who’s making the decisions. All other things being equal, nimble-minded officials are worth their weight in gold, and they do exist.
Economic shifts will hardly be uniform. Some places are sitting on top of all the resources and equipment necessary, as suppliers to others. Dependent places will be Hell on Earth, particularly in relation to whatever it is they have to import. Local governments will likely go to war, sometimes literally, because of this. Agencies with too many inflexible officials will die quickly, loudly and painfully once the first shock wears off.
The one best hope for the likes of the US federal government is no abrupt changes. If they can engineer holding off dramatic changes in favor of engineered incremental shifts, they will remain in charge much longer. They cannot realistically expect to stay there forever; there are limits. If nothing else, their social engineering has to fail at times. The obvious course being steered already is to remove elements which enable independence: communications (particularly high volume/high speed), transportation, defense, and wealth (stored goods and value). Each is being shaved a bit here and there.
All this noise and panicky hoorah is just trying to sell eyeballs to advertisers. The vast majority of recommendations for this or that particular survival item is pure sales pitch. Most of the folks presuming to advise you of secrets uncovered in the plot to enslave us all make their living that way. Frankly, there is almost nothing you can do about, say, HAARP and weather control, or whatever else it is they claim HAARP does. You can try to avoid GMOs and industrial toxins in your food, but there are limits. Nuclear generators will break and irradiate the environment without anyone honestly reporting how bad it is. Other threats from oversized entities are the same.
Until the system feeding those giant industries collapses, you’ll suffer some health problems, some permanent. Until the currency or the economy goes through some sort of collapse, you’ll suffer yo-yo effects from the bumps along the way, such as gasoline prices fluctuating all over the place. Unless you have a great tactical awareness and carry a weapon, you’ll be vulnerable to predators. Unless you’ve had a good long talk with your family about emotional leveraging (hostages, etc.), and prepared each member for escape strategies and the limits to rescue measures, you’ll carry a nagging fear no matter where you are. You’ll suffer losses, but they will be limited.
There is only so much any evil genius, or groups of them, can do to you. There are limits to what technology can do. There are limits to what you can do to prepare. For this reason, there are limits to what your suffering will be, but the biggest deciding factor is not externally controlled, but what’s in your own head.