This page will contain a non-exhaustive list of methods you can use to ride out the short-term chaos caused by the Reboot passing or the long-term crash that could happen if it fails. If you have any advice to add, hit me up @gkmasterson over on X.
There are already some organizations that have serious chops and experience in helping weather crises. The Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and the LDS Church all have manpower, infrastructure, and experience that could be tapped into to help keep things from getting too crazy during the transition or crash. I would suggest reaching out and coordinating with them in addition to the things listed below.
If you are in the suburbs:
- Make friends with your neighbors who are of a like mind. Keep it open to everyone but don’t let naysayers or people with normalcy bias stop you. Agree on who will grow what crop and check out which plants work best for your soil and region. Have everyone grow something different and prepare to trade.If your HOA allows it, have someone raise chickens and goats. You can get eggs, milk, and cheese from them. It might not be what you’re used to, but it’s better than nothing.
- Start planting now. Don’t wait for the last minute. You will be learning as you go and it would be better to screw up now when the shelves are still stocked than to wait until you’re nearly starving to try and find out it’s not as easy as you thought.
- Check your local laws on capturing rain water and learn how to purify it for drinking. Everyone should do this.
- Get heirloom seeds and make certain to keep a certain percentage back after planting. This will come in handy when reality slaps the normalcy bias people out of their cloud and give them a way to get on board.
- Invest in solar panels and talk with an electrician about how to set up small wind-mills or water-wheels to grind grains or power turbines. Having some batteries to act as a backup (big batteries, not the little ones) is also a good idea.
- Buy rifles, handguns, crossbows and learn to use them. Map out your neighborhood and figure out the best choke points for access/exit. Come up with a defense plan to protect against marauders. Mentally prepare yourself for controlled, dispassionate violence if law and order breaks down.
If you live in a rural area:
- Do all of the stuff for the suburbs but on a larger scale. Look into getting cows and horses and having someone who can care for them. Maybe create a livestock library type deal where you can borrow a bull or horse to pull a plow if you can’t get diesel for your tractor.
- Form local coops and start trading. Have meetings to teach people how to farm effectively, read the weather, deal with blight and other issues, ward off pests without pesticide, keep soil from being depleted of nutrients by using rotations.
- Teach people how to can, preserve, and make food stretch.
- Set up a local guard force to patrol borders and warn of marauders in the event of a complete breakdown of law and order.
If you live in a city:
- Leave. Leave now. Cities will turn into mausoleums and there is not much that can be done to stop it.
Suggestions for everyone:
- Make friends with your local Amish community. They know a lot about how to build houses that don’t need A/C or have practical heating. They also know a lot about the physical labor involved in no-modern-tools farming. Learn from them and trade with them. Offer to act as a defense force to protect them since I think they’re all pacifists (not sure).
- Talk to your local law enforcement agencies. Get them on board. Work with them. Offer to trade them food in return for them maintaining law and order. You can make the same offer to local judges, lawyers, and doctors.
- Go read Clan of the Cave Bear. Skip all the sex stuff. There’s good info on practical botany and basic medicine there. Get a book on botany and learn what grows around you, what you can cultivate in a green house, and how to best guestimate doses of things that could be dangerous (like digitalis for heart problems). You won’t replace modern medicine or a hospital, but you can help alleviate the load in the event that the entire system crashes.
- Accept the fact that there are a lot of communities that have gotten lazy and reliant on hand-outs. Create mobile kitchens to help keep them fed, offer to help them learn to be self-sufficient, but enforce polite behavior. If they can’t be a little grateful and gracious for the help, then dust your shoes of them as the New Testament says and let them figure it out on their own.
- Make certain you take care of yourself, your kids, and your parents. Don’t set yourself on fire so that someone else can roast marshmellows.