Leave it to the Guardian to go where no Canadian or American newspaper would. Talking about what we would do in the absence of the state, grocery stores and electricity won't ever make the front page of the Globe and Mail. But in typical cheeky British fashion, they take the piss out of people like me who are stressing about the end of the world (as if the end of this civilization is the end of the world, right?) and trying to build our own resilience.
It's a fun read and I encourage you to check it out. There's a video too, which in my primitive dial-up state, I cannot access.
But seriously, what would you do?
One problem I had with the article was the psychologist's view that the author should "trust no one". More than skinned rabbit and lean-tos, humans need one another. It's a sad condemnation of our civilization that we are moving away from building strong human relationships. Apart from helping you to find food, build things and encourage you, even just having one or two other humans to cuddle up against on a cold night would make trusting people well worth it.
The funny thing about the end of the article is that it directs the British to build arks and sail to Canada for their salvation. Way to give the secret away!
Apparently the author has read The World Without Us and concludes that our biggest threat is the one thing all our governments want to build: nuclear reactors. Unfortunately without human oversight, as would be the case at the end of the world (aka civilization), they are likely to explode and spread radioactivity across the landscape. Britain with its nuclear warheads and therefore reactors, because you can't have one without the other, is going to be glowing.
You can tell that even with the humour, there's a subtle nervousness. Come back economy! Come back!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
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an excerpt for you, from M.T. Anderson's 'Feed':
ReplyDelete'Then came all these pictures, and I was seeing all over the world, and there were explanations, but I was still asleep, and I couldn't figure them out. I saw khakis that were really cheap, only $150, but I didn't like the stitching, and then I saw them torn and there was blood on them, It was a riot on a street, and people were screaming in some other language, they were in khakis or jeans and T-shirts, and they were throwing stones and bottles, and the police were moving forward on horses, and a man in the crowd waved a gun, and then the firing started. They were in front of factories, and clouds of gas drifted through them and the American flags they were burning started to spark big, and the gas got darker and darker, and the people sped up, like a joke, grabbing at their necks and waving a nd sitting and sleapping the ground. They fell down. I saw a sign with a picture of a head with a little devil sitting in the brain, inside the skull, with these like energy bolts coming out of his mouth.'
'I saw fields and fields of black, it was this disgusting black shit, spread for miles. I saw walls of concrete fall from the sky and crush little wood houses. I saw a furry animal trying to stand up on its legs but the back ones were broken or not working, and it dragged itself with the front ones, whimpering, through someplace with gray dust, and needles coming out of the sand. Its jaws were open. I saw long cables going through the sea. I saw girls sewing things, little girls in big halls. I saw people praying over missiles. I smelled the summer in this rocky place, and the summer smelled like electrical burns. I saw a kid looking at me, he was a kid from another culture, where they wear dresses, and there were all of those shadows all over his face, these amazing shadows, and I thought it was a really cool picture, to get all of those weird shadows somehow, but with nothing making them, and finally, I realized that they weren't shadows, they were bruises, and then the end of a gun, it's called the butt, it came down and hit him in the face and then all the pictures were over.'
Great post, and great website. Thanks for the information! survival seeds
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