Over at First Draft there’s a sort of informal poll on whether cell phones are a staple or a luxury. What sorts of things — extra-governmental *things* — do you consider necessities?
I don’t regard a cell phone as a necessity.
I’m not a big fan of plasma TVs.
I don’t have to have a new car, but my vehicle must be dependable. Old is fine (it’s often better, as it frequently comes with lower or non-existent payments and costs less when it must be fixed). Sharing a vehicle is also fine. Likewise computers — these are appliances, and needn’t be SOTA-hot; but they need to *work*.
It’s good to have clean water and a roof that doesn’t leak, and electricity. I also enjoy having an electric fan. (It cuts my A/C bill dramatically.)
I like having a gas stove in the kitchen.
I like having a washer at home — it cuts down on gasoline use.
How about y’all?
Front page
Internet connection?
Clean HOT water?
Lots of abilities: To read, to fix stuff.
Surely a toolbox with:
Hammer, saw, screwdrivers, measuring tape, clamps…
Whatever is needed to keep our shelter sheltering.
I’d say a cell phone is a necessity if you’re going in the woods or on a long long stretch of vacant road, but definitely not otherwise.
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
Lambert, that's a great point
There’s a small crescent wrench and a big leatherman in the fanny pack I carry everywhere I go, and a hammer in the house. (Not at the house, I can make do with the tire tool or a rock if I have to.)
Skills.
Reading, typing, taking notes, embedding YouTube (thank you for the lessons) videos into posts … yeah. Um, scrambling eggs, mixing biscuits, cooking over charcoal.
I still subscribe to the “tell someone who isn’t on the trip with you where you’re going and when you’ll arrive and when you’ll be back” philosophy — leaving a note doesn’t leave you at the mercy of insufficient tower coverage or a cell phone battery that’s not up to snuff.
(If you’ve got clean water to start with, there are nearly innumerable ways to make clean HOT water out of it. If you don’t have clean water to start with, not so much….)
Forgot wrenches
Cooking equipment?
Fire?
I guess at some point we shade over into the house vs. tent and backup area ;-)
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
besides clothing and shelter
1. stuff to make a fire with
2. soil
3. seeds
4. water
maybe a stick to dig a hole to plant the seed in.
Emergencies only happen
when you’re along in the middle of the night, don’t they? and you forgot to charge the battery. Tho my cell phone’s first use was to get help for a cow that was in the middle of the road in the dark.
Ruth
Cell phones are more of a
Cell phones are more of a necessity than they used to be (pay phones are much harder to find these days), and basic service is about the same cost as a land line… not quite, but close.
Laundromats don’t require gasoline if you live within a few blocks of one. Put everything on a bed sheet, fold it up and twist it, then tie the ends together and throw it over your shoulder like a messenger bag.
Dude,
Laundromats are a gift.
Unfortunately the closest one charges $3 per load BEFORE the dryer.
there's always hand washing and line drying
which is what i do with my delicates. sunshine is still free.
this is the second or third time you’ve put something like this up, sarah. is it in service to a larger project? i know what i can get by on, having had to do so for the Marines Corps i’ve learned that indeed it’s not that much. but would i want to live like that, all the time? of course not.
i’ll be frank: i like luxury. i like civilization. i think having a cell phone and a computer and a spacefoam mattress and all that are good things. i also like modern medicine, antibiotics, life-enhancing and extending medications. i like having the free time to do things like blog, and play with my cats. i like the fact that i can get in my car and go long distances, assuming i can afford the gas. in short, i’ve enjoyed my life as a spoiled american consumer.
but i understand that many of these things come with a cost, often a bloody, human cost. i also understand that many of them will dry up and disappear, at least for those of us down here on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. so i’m prepared to make do with less. i won’t miss things like cable or plastic junk from china one bit, just as i believe that there are many “alternative” consumer options that will become more attractive over time. locally made things, in particular. i don’t think that will be a bad thing.
There go the delicates!
Damn, Google just takes all the fun out of quoting the old songs…
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
An essential
there’s already been talk about Water, of which I knew we had had not a lot lately but wanted to quantify matters before saying anything.
According to National Weather Service yesterday:
Not sure why they cut off at 1948; records have been kept here for a good bit longer than that after all. But that’s what I can find.
So no more getting me excited. Having my hair on fire is no longer something I can count on dealing with easily.
(No, the well has not given out yet. But I am watering nothing but the remnants of the garden and keeping the pond up. I sit and watch WGN out of Chicago about the storms and the floods that are going on in a fucking circle of states around TN and am just agog.
I never thought a year without thunder/hail/wind storms would be a disaster in itself. But the way this high has parked itself over the TN/KY/MS region is keeping even mildly cold fronts from sweeping through like they “normally” do, so we just sit here with temps over 100 day after day for the last 3 weeks and no prospect of improvement they say until the end of the month. Maybe.
I'm developing an obsession, I guess, CD
because I really think we, or if not ourselves our children, are going to look back at the last 10-15 years as “the good old days” and it’s not going to be that much longer before the crash.
I want people to think about what they need.
I want them to see that much of what TV tries to sell you isn’t a need at all.
I think you're right, Sarah.
There will be no alternative energy. There will only be the fall of the oil suppy curve, over the next fifty years. The grandchildren of people who are children today will be amazed by what we lost.
Incidently, cell phones aren’t a staple OR a luxury. Cell phones are a pain in the ass, and ultimately a way for Authority to have your number. If I had wanted to wear a 24h a day pager, I would’ve gone to medical school instead of graduate school.
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
I hope we're wrong, Kelley B.
I want us to be wrong, so bad.
I want solar to catch on, and windpower, and maglev trains.
I want it to be sexy to ride the bus to work or the subway, instead of buying an SUV.
I want people to figure out that this little blue third rock from the sun is the only home we’ve got, and we’d better take really good care of it.
I think you are right to be pessimistic
about the likelihood of there actually being a change in the energy usage or energy infrastructure.
CorpoRat Murka may have some alternative in the bag, but if they do, it will not be produced in any commercially significant quantity until every last drop of oil has been wrung from the earth—AND passed through their refining machineries.
by then, it will indubitably and inevitably be too late…
woody- don't forget coal!
turning coal sludge into “oil” is another rapidly growing industry, despite the fact that it takes more energy to get it out of the ground and process it than it ends up returning to you. and- you can charge more for it, as real oil runs out, so yeah! if you’re an oil or shale oil speculator.
that’s “alternative” for ya.
It's the same scam as ethanol from corn
Which also sucks down more energy than it produces.
I remember, a long time ago, an article about the automobile industry in the Soviet Union. Turns out that they would have been better off leaving the steel as steel, and the rubber as rubber, since the process of turning those commodities into cars actually subtracted value from them.
Same thing with the insane corpse that’s running this country: Real outputs in the aggregate are of less value than the inputs, but some gatekeepers cream off the rents, so…
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
I’m glad you mentioned
I’m glad you mentioned ethanol, Lambert. I get so tired of hearing about how putting a little in your tank is going to free us from dependence on oil.
At this point in my life, I would say glasses are a necessity or I would not be able to type this comment. Though on the street, things look a lot better without them.
Comfortable shoes. I am thinking it might be a good idea to have a bed too.