So what can you to as work after TSHTF has settled? Any good at carpentry, tanning leather, leatherworking, blacksmithing, shearing, spinning, weaving, boot maker, tinker, tailer, candlestick maker, miller, baker, tobacco grower, brewer, Inn keeper, glass blower etc etc! Whatever is left will need all these skills to a greater or lesser degree and more! Just might be handy to be setup to persue one or other of the above so one may prosper in the new economy! There are a few above and a few not above that I am already semi setup to do! What resources are available in your location? If you are coastal can you sail a small boat and net fish? maybe dress hang and dry excess for winter and sale? maybe evaporate seawater down to brine to salt the excess! Collect seaweed and process to sell to farmers as fertilizer etc!
very few people in Britain can do any of the above, people these days are "specialists" and know nothing outside their everyday occupation, anything needs doing and they "get someone in", most don't even know where their food comes from, they think it grows in those little plastic packets in the supermarket.
Too right there! Some will fail some will adapt and learn new skills, there will be books and most are educated enough to learn, some better than others This is where recent immigrants may have old dormant skills they can restore to use, some will turn hobbies to employment some will prey on others as they do now! Some will indenture themselves to others to learn etc etc It is quite amazing what some will do to survive! Not all need skills but skills need labour to produce You don't need to be a skilled farmer to dig, just supervision!
depends on the survival rate, people without skills don't usually survive, mind you we could do with a clear out of the gene pool anyway, too many in the welfare dependent class these days. the one thing they know how to do is breed and boy do they!!
Same over here! Due to major health problems and age I am now one of those beneficiaries that need cleaning out of the gene pool as you say! Health wise I am as good as I will get but being nearly sixty no one wants to employ me! Maybe I should just top myself as clearly I am of that class you described!
whats employment got to do with TSHTF? whats important is what you can do for yourself post event not what some employer required. I was self employed for the last 30 years of my working life, best thing I ever did.
if someone over here hasn't got a job/ is unemployed in their fifties, forget it, their stuffed! no employer wants to employ anyone in their 50s, hell some don't want people in their 40s!!
health wise and physically speaking i'm in better condition than some 20 and 30 years younger going by some of the sights I see!! most people seem to be so out of condition they wont last 5 minutes after TSHTF.
I was thinking more of the "never worked/wont work" brigade, we have a high welfare dependency in this country who wont work but keep pushing out babies to increase their income from the state.
I like thinking about stuff like this. I'm out of exotic talent though. I know a couple of chords on the guitar and I atleast average when it comes to chopping wood I suppose. Im a good swimmer but who would pay anyone to do that? I would say I know a couple of good stories but my family would disagree.
Physically I have scads of valuable post apocalyptic skills but more than anything I have spent 60 years soaking up all manner of information. I have always been an info junkie and over the years seemed to specialize in the old ways and old lore. When I was young I had LOTS of old friends and I loved sitting and listening to them. With the end of my generation so much will be lost because I got to see the last of the old ways and was taught many of those things as a sort of lark that they had done as an everyday fact of living.
Agreed TexDamn, I can read tons of books to learn but the best knowledge ive obtained is from older people who learned these skills from generations before
I think it will be and for my own sake hope that the skill set most needed will be a Mr. Fixer. Buying new will likely be a rarity, therefore people will be attempting to resurrect that which they already have, even if the machines are broken. Repair people will be needed. I think having a hardware store will be better than owning a bank. Just gotta be able to protect your spare parts from thieves. Everybody is going to be trying to grow gardens -- well, good luck with that if you are without tools. I'm gonna buy one of my sons a welding kit; he's trained, yet needs equipment.
I'm sort of afraid that if something "bad" doesn't happen before my generation and the one right on my heals is gone that, at least in the US, our survivability will be near zero. Over the years I have been totally unable to find any young men that have any interest in learning any of the several trades that I have made a good living doing. They all want to go to college and be middle management and play with their video games. Their attitude is at the root of our throw away society. "Don't fix it, just buy a new one on credit." seems to be their mantra. I made a young guy a knife a few years ago as a gift. It was made out of tool steel with black micarta scales and came with a hand made leather sheath with a basketweave pattern done on it and his name. I later heard that he thought it was a rather cheap gift and griped that it rusted. I should have spent 10 bucks on a cheap China knife made from junk stainless and a vinyl sheath. You wouldn't BELIEVE how many young men these days don't know which way to turn a bolt to get it loose! What is just scary as hell to me is that most of them are proud of it. To them the trades are low value work only done by people too dumb to go to college. Skills are not only disappearing they are actually being looked down on by some of these ignorant punks. I was basically charging $100.00 and hour when I retired to fishing at 62. I wonder what middle management will get them?
most kids these days seem to think the world owes them a living, they either want to be a computer games maker or they want to be "famous for being famous", try getting a plumber, or an electrician these days- we HAVE to have these people to do work in the UK as this type of work has to be certified- even if you can find one which isn't easy they are booked up for the next 12 months if not longer.
Any marketable skill will be of value post SHTF. Labor is just one side of the equation. Those who have knowledge & can teach and or supervise the labor into production will be revered. So fret NOT that you may have aged past the bull labor stage in life. Your hard earned wisdom will carry the load your back used to bear in youth. I have learned so many valuable things from the oldest and wisest people I've had the pleasure to associate with. I have placed myself in positions of service just so I could gleen those bits if knowledge. I'm better for it.
Being a guy in his 20's that was raised where I was expected to help out on the property. It drives me crazy to work with other people my age that can only work for 20 minutes and then need to take a break. I'm fortunate to be learning the millwright trade from people who will rebuild instead of just tossing away and buying new. It's a shame all the skills that will be lost because my generation want things handed to them and won't put in the effort to learn.
When I was 16 another boy about my age and I "helped" two older gentlemen do the plumbing for a new building for my Church. This involved digging long perfectly done ditches to give the sewage pipes a very specific slope. We also ran water lines and underground conduit for power lines. The two older gentlemen were 76 and 74 respectively. They worked right along beside us and literally worked us into the GROUND. They made us go sit in the shade and rest because we were worn totally out! It was humiliating. I was NOT out of shape and no stranger to hard work or using a shovel. What I learned that summer was that PACE and efficient effort for our does hard work and going at things hard and fast! These two old men had worked their entire life and the elder was a master plumber who was not yet retired at 76. I think that I learned more from them than I did the entire time I was in highschool about things that truly mattered. I became fast friends with the younger man and he was a wealth of lore and information about the old days. I don't think that men like these two even exist anymore. They were raised in a world where you did everything pretty much for yourself. If you wanted to eat you worked in the fields with your family. If you wanted your food cooked you chopped and split wood for your Mama. If you wanted to go someplace you either walked or if it was more than 5 miles you might get to ride a horse. Even water required work and had to be hauled. If you were lucky you had a cistern and could catch some water off of the roof but most of it you had to go and fill barrels. There was an old woman that I spent a lot of time with when I was young. In her entire life she never had indoor plumbing. My Grandmother never owned a washing machine. As far as she was concerned having a bath tub with hot and cold running water was just more luxury than she had ever imagined!! Her rub board hung beside it and THAT was the washing machine. These people were HAPPY. They appreciated all the multitude of things that we take for granted but at the same time they really didn't care if they didn't have all of those "things". My Granny refused several offers of a washing machine. My lady friend couldn't see any point in a toilet in the house. She thought that having running water on her back porch and electric lights was just amazing and more than she needed. Most times when I went to see her we sat on the porch and if it got dark she lit a candle or kerosene lamp. She said that made it feel homey where the "lectric" lights were too bright. From these people I had my nose rubbed in the fact that THINGS don't make you happy. They are actually a major source misery as people spend too much time trying to keep up with the latest crap and are in debt up to their ears. These people took life as it was and were happy with what they had. They weren't in debt and didn't feel the least bit bothered by the fact that other people might have more than them. I would give anything to go back in time so I could sit under the trees with my parents and grandparents shelling peas and listening to their stories again. We worked the garden in the morning and evening but sat under the trees and did other stuff in the middle of the day. After supper we would go out on the porch and sit while the house cooled off or maybe play dominoes at the table on the porch. Those were some of the best days. Work was not a misery, it was something you did together and there was lots of laughter and fun. It some point a water fight would break out and then cooled off we would go back to work. THAT ability to have a job and get it done seems to be missing these days. Every young man that I tried to teach was more work than just doing it myself because the second I left them to it they stopped and started just messing around. I would have to tell them the same thing over and over and over. They didn't even seem to be able to pay attention or listen. THAT ability if someone has it will be a marketable skill because there just isn't anyone that knows how to work anymore. BOY do I sound like an old FART!!!
In the entries above, I see folk expressing what I've been ranting about for years. Where urban areas have landed there exists a fragility that cannot be sustained. I have been told by people in managerial positions that my ideas bespeak mental instability. I tell them to open a history book. Tell you what, allow me to confess, I now want the cities to collapse into raw chaos. I want Rodney King riots to be occurring on a 1000x basis well into unendurable and beyond crushing annihilation into final reckoning. I don't care if I get killed during the festivities, however it would be peaceful and fulfilling to be there when the screaming goes silent and the fires die out. It's not just that the urbanites have gone weak, it is that they have gone arrogant. History books and religious books are very clear about what happens at such junctures. Civilizations get burned into cinders then crushed. Good! Matthew Chapter 13: 37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. 40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. 41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. Amen!
Tex, I disagree! Those men do still exist. You, Keith, Old Geezer & many others here have become the men with the wisdom. Keep passing it on. Continue bringing light to those in darkness. That is a true legacy my Brother!
The knowledge is definitely still out there just depends if enough people from my generation and the one after take the time to learn it and pass it along before it's gone.
