A future that may ask a lot of you
Mar. 22nd, 2022 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: apocalypse]
(part 1)
---
#domesticity #101uses for infrastructureless computers
I think about Siderea's "Nesting as Prepping" post a lot, TBH.
And while I'm on that subject:
I was reading a prepper forum thread recently talking about panic and crisis-leadership and thinking-on-your-feet and suchlike, and they theorised that the sort of people who get into prepping tend to be the sort of people who think well on their feet and take charge in crises. Which...feels like the *opposite* of my truth. I prepare in significant part *because* I know myself too well to think that I will be able to cobble together a plan at the last minute: my ability to make split-second high-stakes decisions is bad enough that in the end I surrendered my learner's permit, accepted a role as a second-class citizen because my thoughts run too slowly to be granted full membership in my society.
Working out how to deal with problems *in advance* lets me lean harder on the *quality* of my thoughts rather than their speed. *Quality* I can do, given time.
The top four highest-casualty disasters in Ontario, 1900 - 2016, were all plagues. There is, I suppose, a certain comfort in that: plagues rarely require split-second decisionmaking. The last two years have not demanded speed, but caution and skill. If those are what the future asks of me, then I may yet do well.
If not, then I will route around my weak points as much as I can, and aim for favourable terrain.
(part 1)
---
#domesticity #101uses for infrastructureless computers
I think about Siderea's "Nesting as Prepping" post a lot, TBH.
And while I'm on that subject:
The preoccupation with "can't stay" disasters focuses attention on a narrative of disaster which can be false for some kinds of disasters and will be false for the climate catastrophe as a whole. It's an assumption that disaster involves suddenness. Suddenly there's a flood; suddenly there's a fire. But you'll note that the pandemic wasn't sudden that way. I appreciate that for people who were not paying attention, or who scoffed at the warnings, and thus were caught unawares, it felt like that. But those of us who were paying attention had literal weeks of warning. Five, in my case.
The climate catastrophe as a whole is like that too. It's creeping up on us as an increasing frequency of calamities, increasingly unusual. If states or civilization as a whole is going to fail, it's not going to be all at once, overnight. It will be gradual, or at least step-wise. Probably.
I was reading a prepper forum thread recently talking about panic and crisis-leadership and thinking-on-your-feet and suchlike, and they theorised that the sort of people who get into prepping tend to be the sort of people who think well on their feet and take charge in crises. Which...feels like the *opposite* of my truth. I prepare in significant part *because* I know myself too well to think that I will be able to cobble together a plan at the last minute: my ability to make split-second high-stakes decisions is bad enough that in the end I surrendered my learner's permit, accepted a role as a second-class citizen because my thoughts run too slowly to be granted full membership in my society.
Working out how to deal with problems *in advance* lets me lean harder on the *quality* of my thoughts rather than their speed. *Quality* I can do, given time.
The top four highest-casualty disasters in Ontario, 1900 - 2016, were all plagues. There is, I suppose, a certain comfort in that: plagues rarely require split-second decisionmaking. The last two years have not demanded speed, but caution and skill. If those are what the future asks of me, then I may yet do well.
If not, then I will route around my weak points as much as I can, and aim for favourable terrain.
