First, a quick bit of feedback from our resilient brain trust. It was in response to my claim, in last week’s letter, that Greece is in a level 4 social collapse (on the Orlov scale):
Bailey says: John, I actually thought this level 4 assessment was way off, more media driven drama than truth, but after speaking with a acquaintance there I’d have to say it may be spot on. He’s a working class guy not prone to drama or doom n gloom, but it sounds absolutely horrid there. No confidence in the govt leadership to make things anything but worse, and it truly sounds like it’s turning ugly. You can trust family and perhaps your tight knit crew but beyond that, trust is gone.
It’s pretty clear that Greece, or situation as bad but for other reasons, is our future. It’s just a future that’s just not evenly distributed yet (Gibson). It’s also a very good indicator that we are on the right track with our efforts to build resilient communities. This makes the following question important:
Rusty asks (I’ll paraphrase): How do I explain what a resilient community is?
I suspect that many of us have the same problem. So, here you go.
A resilient community is the path to a safe, prosperous, and vibrant future for us, our kids, and our neighbors — despite an increasingly chaotic world.
This answer should spark this question: What (the heck) do you mean by that?
Here’s the short version. The world’s economic, financial, and political systems are breaking down. You can smell the stench of financial panic, sovereign bankruptcy, economic depression, and political chaos in the air.
It’s pretty clear that our situation is going to get very ugly over the next decade and that isn’t even taking into account the global pandemics and environmental catastrophes that are lurking on the horizon.
But what really concerns me is how dependent we have all become on this out of control global system. We are as reliant on it as newborns. If it starts to periodically fail, as global conditions deteriorate, our lives will become intolerable.
Despite that nearly inevitable future, nobody seems to be doing anything to prepare for it. The loss of jobs, income, and pensions. Government bankruptcy, corruption, and repression. Food, energy, and water shortages, rationing or pricing of those basic items at levels beyond our means. Social breakdown and soaring crime.
So, what do we do? What can we do?
We take control of our future. We implement the only solution that can give us the a safe, secure, and prosperous future. We become resilient. We find ways to help local people, businesses, and municipalities to PRODUCE, and that’s and important word, more of what we rely upon.
Fortunately, we now have the technology and the insights required to produce with quality and efficiency at the local level like never before. In fact, the changes are so dramatic, they could almost qualify as a revolution in local production.
Here are some examples. Local food from intensive gardens to high quality organic mini-farms. Local energy from home solar to community energy systems. Local products from personal fabrication machines (if you don’t know what this is, I’ll explain).
The capacity to produce is there. But we don’t need to replace 100% of what we need to become resilient. Most of what we need and the capacity, from skills to infrastructure to produce more, is enough.
How do we do it? That’s the journey. It’s definitely possible since people around the world are doing something close to it right now. We’re also finding the ways to make it happen in this online community and if you are interested, I hope you join us.
One last thing friend. What I think we’ll find, when we’ve successfully completed the work to build this resilient community, is that we’ve actually built an amazing future for ourselves, our families, our friends, and our neighbors. A future that is truly worth living in.
Your happy to be on this journey with you analyst,
John Robb
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John,
When can we put together our first meetup? Even if we just did something like a skype chat to discuss a few sub-topics, just to start.
Bret
Bret,
Definitely need to do this and get Dmitry involved.
JR
I’ve been talking with a couple fellow members of the Free State Project here in New Hampshire and there is some interest in attending a monthly get-together in the Boston or Cambridge area.
JR, PorcFest is coming up in July. It’s in Lancaster, NH. If you think you would like to do a speaking gig I can put you in contact with the organizers.
Mike,
Thanks. I’m putting off my speaking gigs until I can get some of things on my plate done.
JR
Printing with metal-laden glue will never compare to any light machine shop. Two grand spent on cheap machine tools and some brain power will be better than any RP hardware until we get intelligent workshops.
The rest – the rest is good…
Susan,
Won’t have to wait long. Additive manufacturing/fabrication is already being used to build aircraft engine parts. It’s only going to get better from here on out.
JR
I’m beginning to think that http://www.resilientcommunities.com is going to be our future DARPANET. When our economic, political and social systems suddenly become totally unworkable (nuclear attack equivalent), we will logon to resilientcommunitites to see what assets remain.
Alan,
We’re working on that.
JR
interesting – and will that “ReNET” (resilience net) have a AR layer (Google did just announce AR Glasses by end 2012 for the masses) , be designed to be a non bot – mediated reality ( ala D. Suarez Long Now Talk 8/18/2008) and have game theory employed from the start to create learning platforms that people voluntarily use/ play and through such develop skills that serve the greater good of the community (see C. Stross – Halting States ex. SPOOKS) ?
If yes, would you like some help?
Kevin,
We may see that. Will know more after the Google launch.
JR
Everyone needs a little pangloss and techno-utopian hopium to get through the impending bottleneck.
Mostly kidding but you have to hang your hat on something and this post is as good as anything else.
PS,
True.
JR
I would bet that this revolution has created far more losers than winnners, so a number of people might not consider that a good that turned out to be worth pursuing.
Do you have a link that supports the hypothesis that religious belief is what drove Western Europeans to dominate the world?
My perspective is that Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” has a lot of explanatory power and not a lot of high quality criticism that undermines his model.
Amen –and amen
Thanks. JR
John, I’m a bit troubled by your reliance on technology and efficiency.
HT Odum taught us that complexity — and thus technology and efficiency — is a function of energy. When energy goes down, technology does as well.
Also, efficiency is not all it’s cracked up to be. Consider that some 450 million years of evolution has not resulted in a solar conversion efficiency of more than about 6%. Theoretically, 100% efficiency would require infinite effort, and the closer we try to get to that idea, the less resilient are the resulting systems.
Consider the most efficient auto technology — hybrid vehicles require global supply chains for rare earths and other exotic materials, and their computerized control systems require a billion-dollar semiconductor wafer fabrication plant — and 400 highly educated, highly skilled workers, which requires not only 40 houses and 400 middle-class life-styles, but also the entire industrial education system.
We need to be seeking appropriate technology, and “good enough” efficiency. Anything beyond that only continues the present brittle systems.
Jan,
Yes, unlike many of the other people working resilience, I don’t reject technology and efficiency out of hand. I also believe that if you reject technology and efficiency, you will fail at meaningful change (on any other scale than the occasional showcase project).
Re: the relationship between complexity and energy. I don’t disagree. However, there’s a little confusion here.
The high energy cost of our complexity isn’t found in individual technological artifacts themselves. Those products, while intricate, are engineered to limit and control known factor inputs.
No, the real, dangerous complexity is found in the socio-technological systems (governance, finance, supply chain/production, etc.) that are being used to run this world. Those systems are hideously complex. Nobody understands how they work. Worse, they are already exhibiting emergent behavior. These systems will be inevitably be replaced due to their enormous energy cost/per unit of benefit. The only question is by what new social system and how fast. My hope and belief is that networked resilient communities can accomplish this.
Finally, appropriate technology isn’t really that useful of a buzzword outside of developmental economics. Largely because “appropriate” is very subjective term.
Sincerely,
John Robb
On the other hand, I have always found the Kubler-Ross stages of grieving to be a useful model for managing people and the delusion of exponential growth is shattered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
I realize the science has moved beyond the K-R model in some respects but the ability to identify the stage that the participant is in as being helpful in communicating effectively with them.
If the other way has the potential to be much better, why should you grieve? JR
Asking the general population to change, even for a putatively better way (we don’t know for sure yet), will put a significant percentage of them into a Kubler-Ross model of grieving.
The happy motoring, consumer culture provides significant, near instant dopamine rewards, that is why it is the norm. Anything that actually requires work to develop skills (over 10,000 or so hours) doesn’t provide that same level of dopamine quick hit that consumption does.
http://www.postcarbon.org/article/331819-the-psychological-roots-of-resource-over-consumption
That is why change agents will need to keep the Kubler Ross model in mind.
Who’s asking the general population to change? To me RCs are about people who recognise the problems and start doing something within their control to mitigate them. Not some kind of proselytizing social movement that needs the general population to join in like a giant ponzi scheme or nothing can be achieved. Which is really an elaborate way of doing nothing.
I’m part of a community that I hope to make more resilient and none of the community are even aware of it. Whatever I do must make sense now and in the future and people go along with it because it makes sense to their lives now. Things should make even more sense to them as we go deeper into collapse.
Burgundy,
Exactly. Lots of people still think in terms of ideology: that it needs to be everyone in order work and everyone needs to be sold.
Not so. Just focus on building your community and networking with the others. That’s sufficient.
JR
Way to go.
Thanks Jim. JR
Steinman: rejecting technology is perhaps just as non-optimal as over-reliance on same. One can leverage technology to make resilient things. As a for-instance, I work in a research lab where we have developed a bacteria that has been genetically engineered to produce 5 of the most common vaccines, and also engineered to make the extraction and purification process cost less than $500 total, in a single step lasting less than 10 minutes. While we currently use electricity to do so, there are off-the-shelf technologies that would enable this to be done using hand power. And I suspect, should the SHTF, having a means of independent production of vaccines would be very useful. This same technology could be made to produce a whole host of useful substances (we are working on a novel antibiotic, and may stretch to thermostable insulin). I suspect that it is just this kind of technology that is needed.
Thanks Grouch.
Concur.
Very Nice: As a for-instance, I work in a research lab where we have developed a bacteria that has been genetically engineered to produce 5 of the most common vaccines, and also engineered to make the extraction and purification process cost less than $500 total, in a single step lasting less than 10 minutes.
Sincerely, John Robb
May I submit the following community as an example?
http://www.homesteadheritage.com/
Please also see the link to the “Ploughshare Institute for Sustainable Culture” under the “more links” section at the top
I mention these folks because one of their primary functions is education in lots of things we can use. I took one of the carpentry classes, and the quality of instruction was amazing
Grouch,
Sure. Thanks for sharing it.
JR
Good morning, John. I think General Gavin was onto something when he came up with LGOPs. Works for me, but then, I’m biased.
http://jmarke.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/the-rule-of-lgops-little-groups-of-paratroopers-a-metaphor-for-resilience/
The *original* concept for FEMA’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) was similar; give the broadest range of community members basic training in preparedness, fire fighting, first aid, light search and rescue, communication and triage, etc. — so that they can take care of themselves and their immediate neighbors, freeing up the first responders to deal with more serious issues.
I think the way a resilient community will actually be built is in single individuals just going out and getting on with it, and working with whoever actually shows up. If we have a slow slide (and I’d love to hear Dmitri’s thoughts on that), this *may* be the optimal way; in a quick crash it *may* be the *only* way.
Just my two cents worth. Thanks for the great word; I continue to spread the gospel on Google +.
cheers, m
Thanks Marcus,
That will get you through the first couple of weeks of a disaster. Not really that useful for slow burning failures or long term success.
Only the surface of resilience is bootstrapped responses to natural disasters.
JR
Hey John — Agree. I’ve found it to be an essential first step in overcoming psychological barriers to the larger concepts required to do more and larger work in resilience. Someone who is unwilling and/or unable to prepare for short-term disaster response that directly affects them is, in my experience, unlikely, unwilling and/or unable to tackle in any effective practical way work towards larger and long-term resilience. Hence I use that as a “selection criteria” when working with people on longer-term resilience. It’s a simple binary test: are they capable of getting themselves and their immediate circle through a short-term test of personal resilience, or not?
So I think it’s a useful (maybe essential) first baby step, especially in coaxing, persuading or dragooning people into the larger work. I was involved in the Transition Community movement here in Chambana for some time, which started out as a web-based social network; it rapidly degenerated into political polemic, arguments over definition, and endless viewing of politically correct movies about peak oil, etc.
I dumped it and went to find the people who are actually doing things, most of whom have their own circles and tended to eschew the more formal online forums: makers, bike repair men, outlaw farmers doing guerrilla marketing, etc. And almost unanimously, those people are well prepared to deal with short term issues, which is why they’re free (mentally and emotionally) to focus on longer term issues. One of the Maker spaces I visited has a bio-diesel operation going on in a warehouse; that guy has a deal with the machinist and wood workers who are on either side of them to provide them power when the grid goes down; his wife is a master gardener who’s teaching the girlfriends of the others how to can.
So, at least in my experience, that’s how really effective (as in taking action) resilient communities get started.
Thanks!
cheers, m
Marcus,
Thanks so much for sharing your experience. Very useful to others working on resilience.
The Transition movement is good at building the culture required for change. However, that process can get bogged down as you point out. Outlaw farmers and guerrilla makers make a good starting point if you want to actually get your hands dirty.
I like the short term thinking test. Are you willing to actually do something rather than just talk about it.
Thanks again, John Robb
I have ten chickens, they produce more eggs than I can eat, I have been trading eggs for cooked foods. Today I traded two dozen pastured organic aracauna eggs for a loaf of home made bread and about two cups of homemade beef soup. I have muffins, bagels and turnovers that I’ve traded for eggs. This is how communities are built, although the scale is tiny in this case, the effect travels out from this exchange to others whose lives are changed just a little. This is the path to resilient communities, it starts by living a fully human life, a web of interactions between plants, animals and us. I believe that this is the revolution, many small acts that affirm our disconnection from the Machine.
Lee, Thanks. Nice detail. JR
It is very important not to play down the “community” aspect of this notion of resilient communities. A resilient community is more than the sum of its parts. I’m doing a lot of work on this over at my website, for example at this post: http://www.integratedlifeproject.com/2012/02/20/the-good-life-the-question-of-community/
Synopsis:
(1) Communities can leverage specialization at a scale compatible with household self-sufficiency
(2) Communities can pool resources and capital to leverage economies of scale
(3) Communities can faciliate networks of trust based on face-to-face relationships
Note that specialization and economies of scale is currently what large corporations and governments bring to bear, economically. Once upon a time town councils made a lot of the important decisions about local resource management, and in Amish communities specialization and economies of scale are still mustered very effectively and efficiently in response to natural disasters (hurricanes taking down woodlands and barns, for example).
But as far as I can tell, there are at least two requirements if a community is to function this way:
(1) A community needs to organize – e.g., cannot be afraid of some collective action, decision-making, or investment
(2) A community needs to develop a degree of advantageous interdependency so that neighbors will lean on each other instead of the government/corporation when times get tough
“In [our] environment, businesses and governments are the only operators capable of mustering capital and deploying it in an organized fashion. Atomized households do not form cohesive social units capable of organized, sustained responses and adaptations to changes in their economic and political environments. They don’t pool capital to use it efficiently, and without the social supports offered by traditional communities, kids tend to pack off to the city in search of greener pastures.”
Matt,
That’s definitely a critique of our current situation.
JR
Matt,
Thanks. Will definitely be doing much more on community in the future. Gathering lots of stories/experience right now (research).
John Robb
Morning, John. A lot of the *useful* research (in terms of practical application of social structure, convention, etc. as a way of moving efficiently towards the goal of resilience in the absence of larger infrastructure) has been demonstrated as “proof of concept” in the success of Burning Man and The Rainbow Gathering. While many scoff at these “hippy gatherings” the logistical expertise and social structure is proven over and over again, rigorously, in the real world. I’m big on first hand experience, and went to see for myself. I came away convinced that there are some excellent and proven principles and practices that apply from someone who goes there and looks at what’s happening from the eye of a researcher/analyst.
I apply those lessons everyday.
Oh, and radical art, great music, lovely naked people and occasional libations aren’t bad either .
cheers, m
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Gathering
Marcus,
Definitely. Stewart Brand has been telling me the same thing. Would love to see a write up on the lessons for resilience.
JR
Hey John — I’m scrambling around right now trying to get a start-up going, but I will add that to my to-do list and send it to you via e-mail. This is becoming an excellent resource online. Great work, and thanks for doing it.
cheers, m
Thanks, I look forward to it! I think “community” is the sweet spot of your idea of resilient communities. The individual and disaster response stuff is pretty well covered on by the survivalists.
Matt,
I don’t do canned goods. I’ll leave the discussion of peaches or spam to other folks.
JR
Just before I read this post I had read this post which I hope people will find interesting. http://s.coop/80nf .
I’ve also been collaborating with others to develop ideas for enterprises that attract major community participation (and in a sense help to create/grow community)
Ideas are concentrated on production. Looking at things that are needed first. Community agriculture for food, community forestry for fuel (firewood / wood chip but also other wood products) etc.
Welcome inputs here -
http://piratepad.net/community-agriculture
I’m doing a fair bit of research around these issues – my bookmarks are at http://www.diigo.com/user/dazinism
Darren, Good luck. Keep us up to date with any success/great ideas. JR
I just wanted to subscribe to the newletter, but it requires me to like on Facebook. I don’t use Facebook and don’t intend to (for privacy and political reasons), so your newsletter is out for me
Arne,
You don’t need to be on facebook to sign up for the letter. All you need to do is put your e-mail address into the slot below and the right and follow instructions.
JR
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