How We Will All Be Living Post Collapse??

I have just read Mark Boyle's book of this very adventure - "The Way Home". He lives a wholly off-grid life in Ireland. He has previously lived as "The Moneyless Man" during which time he lived for a year without money. This latest escapade is very interesting in that, although he has rejected modern communications and power, he is still living a fairly modern lifestyle, in that he goes tot he local pub and hitchhikes etc. The book is well worth the read and I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

There is a also glimpse here of what a post SHTF society may be once peace returns

 

It is an interesting life style. It does raise some questions for me. Is this person independently wealthy, or at least have enough means that he doesn't have to earn a living? I know nothing about Ireland, but in this country if you own property you have to pay taxes. How does he pay taxes if he has any? Insurance while it may be optional, is an expense. Does he or can he live completely free of any currency? His clothes and furnishings were modest, but all in good repair. Does he buy supplies to can and store goods he grows? I'm just thinking there must be expenses for which cash would be required. How does he manage this? Is there a bank involved?

 

I suspect that he has some minimal income from his books. The fact is that as long as he is healthy his lifestyle has very few needs. There have always been people more or less like him. They used to join monasteries or become hermits. I had an Uncle that lives much like this. He spent 3 years in a German POW camp and when he came home he wanted to be mostly alone.

The thing that you can take away from this is something that I have often tried to express. When you live in a primitive way you really don't have to do much. The Egyptians built the pyramids because their people didn't have anything better to do and even the Egyptians knew that idle hands are the devil's work shop. (that was semi-sarcastic) The truth is that most of the work that a person does is to pay for all sorts of THINGS. In a primitive or post TEOTWAWKI world, you build a place to live. You grow enough food for you to eat and make sure that you have enough fuel for cooking and heating. That will burn up about two or three hours a day.

There are no bills to pay and very few "things" available for purchase. You may grow a little more than you can use yourself or make a few things that you can use for trade but not a lot is needed.

Depending on the cause of a fall and the percentage that survive. It is somewhat more likely that the ensuing culture will be more like the Native American cultures than any of the "Road Warrior" movies. After the first few years, lots of land with very few people should settle out to a fairly pastoral society. A$$holes will be dead pretty fast. In a world, without cops or hospitals, the meek will inherit the earth because they won't piss people off or scare them and get shot.

If you look at the things that primitive cultures made you will find amazing amounts of work put into things just to make them attractive. Their pottery and clothing weren't just functional. It was often more ART than just usable. They did all of this by meticulous time-consuming hand work. They had a lot of time on their hands and no TV or Radio.

 

Mark has a modest income from his writing, although it is far from a wealthy man's income. He does not completely live free of currency, there are, as you say, taxes in Ireland and on some occasions MB tells us in his book he uses money, for example he goes for a pint now and again at his local. To get the full picture, read his book, it all makes sense.

 

Like Tex mentions in a lot of hunter gather tribes there is a lot of "downtime" almost by design. the more you run around the more calories one needs to find and consume. I read something on this a while back where they used some of the indiginous indian tribes in spots in the Amazon where this is their life style, they hunt hang out in the hut, sleep do a few things but overall they lead a fairly slow paced life. again less exertion requires less energy in. Obviously the need to expend energy increases the farther north we go due to the need for heating in cold months. But again trying to do the minimum needed to get what you need should be a key goal.

 

Here is a vid on a guy I heard about earlier this week, Rob Greenfield (though check out Pete's channel)



This newest deal is that he has to go 2 years, 100% self supported with what he can grow or forage. I haven't saw a lot of it, hope to watch it later today when the rain rolls in.

 

That sounds like a fun challenge. I would like to do that if I had some land to do it on. Wait, we can eat fish and animals too, right?

 

Yes. And if I understood it correctly he's basically spin(?) farming on land he doesn't own. Rather than his own land he's gotten people to let him convert their yards to gardens and I think he gets some of the bounty as payment.

 

True Lonewolf but seems he's hedged his bets in a way in that he has multiple people allowing him to use theei property. So odds of him getting bumped off all of them is probably low. I watched the 2 vids last night and a few of his own vids. Seems like he only plans to be in Orlando area for 2 years so he's limiting what he is and isn't doing. It also looks like he's reliant on a lot of community/ goodwill labor to help him put in the gardens or to build his tiny shack he lives in.

The one vid was interesting in that apparently there is an organization already in Orlando doing this yard to farm concept including doing "community" fruit tree plantings to help build edible landscapes open to anyone to take from. I think Rob mentioned it was one reason for picking Orlando along with the weather and proximity to the coast which I didn't totally get as it's a ways from the beach. Apparently he does a lot of foraging and is where he gets his coconuts which I didn't realize even grow in FL. the community fruit tree/ berry patch is an interesting concept at least during times of "civil" society, but I could see this creating a lot of issues at some point post SHTF.

 

Coconuts and dates both grow here. I have occasionally lucked into some wild ones when I was out and about.

 

So is that something worth trying to grow? I know there are a bunch of "palm trees" when I've been down there but I'm guessing it's a specific coconut palm that grows them or are all palms coconut palms? Seems like from a sustainability thing it could be a great crop to have in the back yard or planted around the neighborhood.

 

There are lots of palm trees in Arizona, and California, but I never saw a coconut. There must be a specific species that grow coconuts. Seems like it would be a good perennial food producer. I wonder how much maintenance they require if any.

 

I will take your word for it. Not an experiment I would care to repeat.

I wasn't thinking a steady diet. More along the lines of having perennial fruit trees that bear fruit every year, so it would be an additional food source. A hideaway garden in plain sight, so to speak.; an added plus.

 

Spent a year on Diego Garcia back in the early 90's, a tiny British atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean, before it's use as a military base it was a coconut plantation back in the 18th century. During the first week there everyone was required to take a tour of the base and the island, pretty standard for all new arrivals to a new duty station, but that one was certainly unique. The petty officer guide/instructor used a machete to slice through a coconut husk in about 6 whacks, then cracked the coconut cleanly in half using the back (dull) side of the machete with repeated light hits while turning it. Pretty impressive and really quick. Passed around for everyone to try the milk, he didn't spill much opening it. Didn't have a machete of my own to try it later, but can tell you getting into a coconut husk and the coconut itself with a small blade (and rocks lol) which I tried a few times later is no easy task. That, and the instructor's warning to only swim in the lagoon and not on the open ocean side ("you're part of the food chain swimming there"), is the only 'survival' training I remember from the tour.

Oh yeah, there is this use for coconuts too, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jtra.20010

 

There are coconut palms, date palms and sabal palms among others. Most of the palms you see in a city are decorative Royal palms or sometimes even Washington palms.

 

Well since the thread started out around a comparison to Robinson Crusoe aren't coconut's pretty spot on topic?

Just because coconuts are "tropical" to you, there are places here in the USA and I'm sure across the south pacific and other areas of the world where they grow be it planted or wild/ native. So post SHTF they could be a valuable food supply. As for the diarrhea issue, I believe that is more so related to drinking green/ unripe coconut or over aged that have started to spoil.

As a "superfood" they are a high caloric/ carb/ fat food and something that can be processed by drying it and they can also be processed down for the fat to produce coconut oil which is a common fat for cooking now days.

One way I plan to survive beyond SHTF is thru my property and the food it produces. Beyond that it is also foraging from what's around us that will help to sustain us. be it game animals or wild plants. Sadly here in the Northeast it'll be without coconuts.

 

Interesting point concerning some of the earlier questions regarding taxes. Artists, singers, writers etc involved in creative arts are exempt from income tax in Ireland, there are further reductions on the property taxes for those who are on low income or live alone.

 

Mr Boyle is classified by himself as a writer (a very good one too as it happens)

 

If that is how he earns his crust I'm sure the Irish taxpayer has no problem with subsidising him. After all Jeremy Irons removed himself to Southern Ireland in order to enjoy the artist tax status there, as have plenty of other big names.

 

Once things have settled somewhat and assuming I am still alive I intend to become a travelling trader
Buying and selling whatever!
Risky yes but everything will be a risk one way or another then.

I will buy the excess hide from a farmer, sell it to a tanner, buy the leather, sell it to a leather crafter, buy the belts, pouches, moccasans etc and sell them to whoever needs them for whatever they have that I need etc etc!
With millions of useless vehicles hanging around some means of bulk mechanical transport should be able to be constructable, probable not highway standard but at a slower speed!

 

Whether it is the fruit of certain palm trees or berries, if you eat nothing but that, you are going to get sick as a dog!! It isn't uncommon for idiots that got lost in the woods to be found dead from thinking that they had to eat a lot of berries to keep from starving to death. they die in a matter of days where it would take them almost a month to starve. If you are lost in the woods, unless you KNOW what to eat and not to eat, you are better to just not eat anything.

If you gorge on berries or the fruit of the palm trees and get diarrhea you can die of dehydration in a hurry. If you are lost and can expect people to come hunting you all you want to do is be alive when they find you. A few berries if you KNOW what kind they are is OK but don't even think about trying to make a meal out of them. Eating anything that you are uncertain of can lead to diarrhea and death so think hard before you eat anything.

Water is a must have but even in that, there are lots of ways to minimize your risk. If worse comes to worst you can delay dehydration by using any cotton cloth to mop up dew in the morning for a water source with minimal danger of infection.

 

A good trick for that is to wrap two shemags around from your ankles to your calves while walking through dewy high grass. Those things will quickly soak up a tremendous amount of water. I still boil the water I collect that way. You never know if those grasses have been urinated on by critters.

 

We will be living very tired, that's for sure.

 

Transpiration bags work anywhere that has plenty of dense green foliage. A small roll of thin plastic drop cloth is a great thing to always have. You can use it like that, over a pit or spread to collect dew and rainwater.

 

It won't be what you think Coffee. What people just can't seem to understand is that farming and growing food for YOU and your family to eat are two very different things. Farming is what someone does for a living. It takes a just horrendous amount of work to grow enough, we will use corn for an example, corn to pay for a house, a car, clothes, TVs, Telephones and all of the many things that people think that they have to have. A silo full of corn is worth thousands of dollars and represents a HUGE investment in time and labor. You can't eat a silo of corn every year. When all you want is enough to eat for a year the amount of labor is tiny in comparison.

Look at it like this, how much work does it take to feed you if you only eat off the dollar menu at MacDonald's and only eat twice a day? Even if you are making minimum wage you can eat on the pay for one hours work. Basic food is only a minor expense if you eat simple basic meals.

We live in big houses and that requires a lot of energy and fuel to keep it warm in the winter. In the past, people lived in much smaller homes. When you downsize your life to only what you need to survive and be reasonably comfortable it is amazing how little effort it takes.

 

Probably not. There is only one species of palm trees which grows coconuts, and it needs full sun, 60-100 in/yr of rain, and a temperature which doesn't get below 40 deg F, even at night. In Hawaii and Micronesia (the only coconut-growing places I've been) the coconut usually doesn't grow above about 100 ft (30 meters) elevation. They are very salt-tolerant; not surprising, because they often propagate naturally by the coconuts being carried by ocean currents from one island beach to the other.

It is a great survival food, if you live where they can be grown.

Could you imagine living in a place like this? This is Yap in the Western Caroline Islands, where I lived as a kid. Here is an example of coconut palm trees; the black monoliths are Yapese stone money. (top)

Looking down from our veranda. Note FIVE food trees (front to back): coconut, banana, papaya, taro, and breadfruit. Add a lagoon full of seafood and fresh-water rains every morning; how could you starve in Micronesia? (bottom)

 

I figure and hope things will not impact me for the first three years post SHTF event. After three years.......it will get sporting rapidly for me.

 

I can expect to make a change in my diet . No running to the grocery store . The most labor intense thing I expect , is cutting firewood by axe and manual saw as I wouldn't be expecting to have for long , fuel for the chain saw .