Am I a complete nutter, or do I have a plan? Your opinions.

[MacG]

I intend to tithe the produce that the locals grow, keep what I need and trade the rest. This just isn't going to work until people become desperate.

Do you have any ideas about what to do if the locals decide to abandon their part of the agreement? By keeping all the products for themselves that is?

I think folk might be happy for the tithe to feed you and yours - but they might get a bit upset to see you get rich from trading their efforts. Afterall you are hoping to gain some security from their loyality and I don't see this trading helping to buy that.

After digging, planting, tending and harvesting a piece of land, you get a strange feeling of "belonging", both to the land and the harvest. It takes quite some motivation to give away part of the harvest without getting something tangible in return. The classical way to solve the problem is to provide "protection" in return. The kind of protection where you make "an offer they can't refuse". Would you be up to the task? Hiring and domesticating a bunch of sociopathic goons to provide "protection". You better look out for these goons also, since they will constantly be in awe of YOUR position and have a desire to replace you.

Personally I would opt for some egalitarian secular monestary construct, but I'm just a simple guy from rural Sweden.

[Mitch]

Greg, I have a similar arrangement. i have moorings which can accomadate 10 to 14 boats. Have had people living here for 5 or 6 years now, and i don't charge them anything. My attitude is that I'm prepared to share - as long as they are. Your sentiments regarding protecting it have been correct so far. Each looks after his own little "patch", but everyone has access. I have never asked for anything in return, but as soon as they heard I have been made redundant, every last one was super quick to re-assure me that I wouldn't starve. Everyone would muck in to make sure I had what I needed. So yes, I think your plan would work well. There were a couple of people turn up over the years who were rather too selfish, and they always left of thier own accord wiyhin a short while. We have had a nice stable arrangement now for the last 3 or 4 years. I am generally regarded as the land "owner", but I make no rules and never "point" this out. If asked by an outsider who "owns" the land, they defer to me, but we don't treat it like that in our everyday lives. Good luck and great preparation work there!

[Vortex]

greg, I'll come straight to the point.

With 45 or so acres you have maybe ?400k worth of assets.

If you use it well, it can be your living and your pension,.

You needn't be worring about your future - one way or another you won't be starving.

[stumuz]

Just a few little observations about the plan.

1. By the time horses are being used for haulage again, you will have been dead for at least 200 years. The embodied energy in diesel even at ?100 a litre will always trump a horse.
2. If things get as desperate as you think, then the concept of ?private property? will have gone out the window and all you will own will be what you can secure.
3. The serfs you intend to rent a raised bed to will have to be housed heated and fed before they harvest a single lettuce leaf. Where is that all going to come from?
4. When people become desperate your 250 cartridges will not last very long.
5. The people whom will do well in your envisaged world will be those that are of use to others. Helping/showing/advising how to create energy from the sun, how to get five uses out of one energy source. When you do this you will have lots of friends.
6. However as a lifestyle choice it cannot be faulted.

One other thing, are you in IT?

[Vortex]

One other thing, are you in IT?

Cough, splutter ... oops, sorry

[stumuz]

Sorry, I was not intending to be rude. It was a genuine enquiry. Since leaving school I have always enjoyed ?doing things? this is why I am not a great fan of books, films or art. I have changed job many times and probably will do in the future.
But IT people who I come across especially in the last few years seem to be, well, living in a sort of parallel universe to me. They worry about things that seem to me quite trivial, such as losing their job, or were food is coming from. They seem to only operate in a highly specialised, esoteric world, and when the prospect of this world finishing is on the horizon the ones I have met resort to some illogical, for me, behaviour.

For example, a couple of weeks ago a company I do some work for has a very small (2 people) IT dept?
One of them is being made redundant in a month and the grand plan is to sell up in Chester and move to the Shetlands and start crofting, because he will be out of the way when society collapses (not for PO reasons but many weird and wonderful scenarios)
When I ask him what he will do, he believes that some part time IT work and crofting will see him through, but the main reason is that he would prefer to be ?poor? and struggling with other poor and struggling people.

It is this sort of logic that I tend to come across with some of the IT people I meet. It is either feast or famine. Either they live in a highly artificial world or they want to live as a hunter gatherer with no competitors.

I?m probably wrong, but other trades I come across, such as mechanics, builders, doctors etc all seem to be quite multi skilled and will try their hand at anything, but the 30 something IT blokes (the above does not apply to IT girls, because I have not met any) seem to be quite wrapped up in their own world and only leave their laptop to go mountain biking or canoeing or similar.

It could be me just making a sweeping generalisation.

PS
Most of the people I?ve met with friends of the earth and the ones I?ve read about in the transition towns movement seem to be IT types as well?

[Vortex]

Interesting post stumuz.

Long term work in IT does make you think & view the world differently.

As an ex-IT person I still see the world as a cloud of probabilities and possibilities. I also run through options and scenarios all the time in my head.

It drives my wife nuts!

IT staff live in a very fast changing world and so have to develop a lot of flexibility. They also work in a very malleable world - almost everything is possible.

Throw in high incomes and often high IQs you can end up with a touch of arrogance too.

All this can lead to an unusual world view!

[Andy Hunt]

As an ex-IT person I still see the world as a cloud of probabilities and possibilities.

Add to that the judgement you have gained from experience, gut instinct, and you have about as close an assessment of perceived reality that you can really get I suppose.

With peak oil, all things are possible . . . but what is probable?

RETURN

[nepenthean]

It is this sort of logic that I tend to come across with some of the IT people I meet. It is either feast or famine. Either they live in a highly artificial world or they want to live as a hunter gatherer with no competitors.

The fallacy of false dilemma. The premise is not at all exhaustive, I think.

The OP's contingency plan is far superior to anything I have. The blueprint of your survival would work in Va. North Carolina, or even s carolina. I've got no plans like that here in the desert of Phoenix, Az.

Damn. I'll be partof the die off.

[Andy Hunt]

Learn to ride the sand worms . . . fear is the mind killer!

[eatyourveg]

Thanks for your comments.
It is difficult to plan for your own part when the collapse of civilization as you know it is imminent.
But you have to do something, and do it with confidence.
It seems that the plan is sound from what you say, other than in a really fast collapse, but all bets are off then anyway.
My own view is that the inertia embedded in the current system will slow things enough to get at least a few things in place before it goes too far.
I am taking a bet here that if you can keep stomachs full and homes warm, you are going to make more friends than enemies.
If having done that then somebody still wants to be your enemy, then a new set of rules will apply that do not include generosity of spirit.

[emordnilap]

It sounds like a cracking plan, fair play to you; the world could do with more of your like now, let alone in a worse future.

Anyway, that's just my opinion; who's to say which plan will work? Yours is as good as the next, probably better.

As for that 'uncomfortable feeling', yes, I've had that feeling for a good couple of months now and it ain't going away. Everywhere I look, doom and gloom abounds. Even if oil were unlimited, we could be talked into a recession!