What Year Are We Headed To?

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I've heard various answers to this question - What year will resemble the way we will live in 2000? I've been told 1970, 1940, the 19th century, the 18th century, the 13th century. What do people here think?

-- Jammy (wesleyan@dog.com), June 19, 1999

Answers

We are heading into something completely new. We will have millions of people in this country who are technically trained. They may or may not have the tools they are *used* to working with.

We know what we had pre-2000. We have people who know how to design/redesign things. But, will they be able to work with the expediencies, the clunkiness, the lack of familiar tools and resources?

For instance, I was recently asked to find a designer who was familiar with "board drawing". Not CAD, the company is not computerized. Schools today do not even TEACH board drawing. Students go straight to the computers.......

So, in my opinion, we cannot compare what we will see to any particular time period. Even if we go to a "10", there will be vast amounts of salvage available for quite some time that did not exist in other centuries.

-- Jon Williamson (jwilliamson003@sprintmail.com), June 19, 1999.


Milage will vary. Will depend on where in the world you live and will vary somewhat even in states.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), June 19, 1999.

Take your pick Jammy. This won't resemble anything ever seen before. Combinations perhaps. You know, like "Amish GI Joe's in dune buggies". It's up for grabs and should be interesting. What will make it? What won't? What will result? Makes preparing rather difficult. It tends to tax a person's imagination. Comparing it to the gas shortages of the 70's is pretty "small potato's" in my opinion! The Great Depression fights Civil War? Who knows. Just be as ready as possible. Be sure to ask youself who, in the world, might take advantage of this problem? That's quite a kicker, eh? Interesting question, really. Can't wait to see some of the other answers!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 19, 1999.

A better question to ask would have been, "The average productivity per worker will drop back to the level of what year?" There will still be working PC's in 2000.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 19, 1999.

Depends on the food supply...Know why the lion is King of the Jungle?

-- BiGG (supersite@acronet.net), June 19, 1999.


-- Jon Williamson (jwilliamson003@sprintmail.com), June 19, 1999.-- wrote:

*****We are heading into something completely new. We will have millions of people in this country who are technically trained. They may or may not have the tools they are *used* to working with. We know what we had pre-2000. We have people who know how to design/redesign things. But, will they be able to work with the expediencies, the clunkiness, the lack of familiar tools and resources?

For instance, I was recently asked to find a designer who was familiar with "board drawing". Not CAD, the company is not computerized. Schools today do not even TEACH board drawing. Students go straight to the computers.......

So, in my opinion, we cannot compare what we will see to any particular time period. Even if we go to a "10", there will be vast amounts of salvage available for quite some time that did not exist in other centuries.******

Jon,

I submit that people can be very flexable and quick studies when necessary.

For instance "board drawing is not really all that different from CAD, the output is similar. Speaking as one old enough to have done the former as well as the latter. The real problem is that many of the tools to do the former are now harder to find and if significant numbers of computers don't work due to power availability just how many of those scarce T-squares can you get?

This is the cascade effect of lack of proper tools for the environment and will cause many more problems than the lack of skills.

Unfortunately how much destruction occurs before the cascade stops is difficult to determine, there are way to many unknowns. In my more optimistic days I belive in a small short recession. After reading a few posts here I see 1800 as a possible outcome.

Interestingly I believe that it will be possible to determine how bad it will get as the event unfolds. If it spirals out of control quickly (days) then it will be much worse that if it deteriorates slowly (months). This does nothing for you now unless you have prepared more than one fall back position (I'll stay here if A, I'll go to there if B, I'll just die if C). If there is panic in October that will be better than panic in December (more time to prepare and adjust).

Me, I'm just going to ride whatever out right here in the country. And if I have to milk the cow by hand then that is what I'll do. No I have never had to milk a cow by hand, always used a milk'n machine but do I think I could figure it out? You bet I can. Never had to weld in a forge, always used a weld'n machine but again I think I could figure it out. I sure hope it doesn't come to that.

LM

-- LM (latemarch@usa.net), June 19, 1999.


While there is a lot of knowledge and salvageable materials, there are also a lot of problems that have never existed before. The major one being the earth's population. If we had the population of the 1800s, it would be duck soup. We could rather quickly go back to that agriculture community. But its not going to be that easy as we have the millions who live in the cities that have not a clue. We have generations now that don't know where milk and eggs come from. We have terrorists, both domestic and off shore. Just look around your house, garage, etc. and spot all the things that you could/would throw away if the grid went down and stayed down for years. What other use can you put a TV, Computer, VCR, video tapes, microwave, electric stove/heat/air conditioner, (refrigerator and freezer could be used for bug tight storage), table lamps, electric can opener and knife, electric fans, copy machines, fax machines, telephones,blenders, bread machines, mixers, electric tooth brushes, shavers, hair dryers, printers, scanners,cameras (who and how going to develope film), electric blankets, street lamps, traffic signals, gas pumps, current IV pumps, life support systems, laser surgery,electrical dental tools, and on and on and on. With the exception of a very few of these tools we now have, none will have any value other than to take up space and as sad reminders of a life style lost. I am not promoting this scenario of long lost power, but its a good excercise in judging what will be needed and not needed if the grid goes down for a time. Which would you rather have, a hand powered grain mill or a digital large screen TV? Certainally would change our priorities. This is what I suspect the Pollys cannot imagine, let alone accept. Few Pollys are old enuff to even remember the rationing and lack of foods and supplies during world war II. They have never not had all these electical tools. Its difficult to imagine something if you have no prior knowledge, even if the knowledge comes from reading a novel such as Grapes of Wrath. Few minds in the world can come up with NEW concepts. Most genuises build on the concepts of others. And if you have had the privledge of being around a person who tosses out new concepts, you will know just how humbling and mind boggling that is.

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), June 19, 1999.

LM -- Hope you're right but personally, I disagree. A slow disintegration is BAD NEWS, because it will mean that the serious systems are collapsing. It will take years to put them back together again, if ever, because of their effects on all other systems. Initial big bang and long disintegration not incompatible, btw.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), June 19, 1999.

Initial reports indicate that the year 2000 will be following directly after 1999, but so far nothing has been confirmed.

-- (ignorance@is . bliss), June 19, 1999.

Or let me put it another way....

Uh deeerruuhhh, what year is it????

(What year did you think 2000 was going to look like? Most people I know describe it as being a two with three zeros after)

-- (ignorance@is .bliss), June 19, 1999.



Thanx, you've given me much to think about.

-- Jammy (wesleyan@dog.com), June 19, 1999.

"What year will resemble the way we will live in 2000?"

2000... of course. It will be what we ALL make of it. Or not. And will be a year like no other we've ever experienced. (True of every "new" year).

It's all local... to coin a Koskinen phrase.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), June 19, 1999.


My son told another kid at school about y2k. He told him that we might not have any electricity - no computers, tv, cd players, telephone. The other kid looked at him and said - so? Turned out his family doesn't have electricity now. (Some of our remote areas don't and the kids are shipped to relatives "over the mountain" to attend high school.)

It is obvious that as long as there is diesel to run tractors, pump and transport irrigation water and move crops, rural areas will cope far better than urban. In many respects, some farmers and ranchers still live with one foot in the 19th century. If there is diesel and crop yield doesn't dip too far from a loss of chemical and hybrid inputs, there is a chance that we can continue to feed the current level of population for a prolonged period, but diet will be a whole lot simpler (less processed and "fast food." That is, if we can get it to market.

Should this basic division of labor break down, people will have to spend so much more of their own time producing food and fiber for their own survival, (if they have the means,) that other pursuits will become superfluous. In such case, other divisions of labor and specializations will begin to topple.

Every "ag" dollar circulates about 10 times in the value added and service economy. Ag, timber, mining (e.g. natural resource industries) are the bottom foundation of the economy. The basic history of civilization tells that tale.

I read the "Little House on the Prarrie" series to my daughter when she was little. Almost all of their waking hours were spent producing food and fiber and the means to create and develop it. But even in the 19th century, there were large cities with a manufacturing and service economy. All it needs is a surplus in production of food and fiber beyond ones own family's needs to enable trade - e.g. an economy.

A lot is dependent upon whether less than 2% of the population can technologically continue to feed the rest without disruption and whether that question will be elevated to its proper place of priority. IMHO, fuel, ag and then electricity should be the first and foremost concerns. Food and shelter are "needs," not "wants." Whether I will be able to plug in my vcr or travel by plane, pales in priority to whether I will be warm and fed. Unfortunately, ag seems to remain in the shadows like a poor step-child waiting for attention. But that is not news.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), June 19, 1999.


Well, it can't possibly be 1900, because there are not enough horses.

-- dave (wootendave@hotmail.com), June 19, 1999.

I recommend the book "Memoirs of a Survivor" by Doris Lessing. There is one scene where they are in a marketplace which is for taking all those unused machines to be taken apart for their useful pieces. She traded *all* of the appliances from her "lavishly furnished flat" for, if I remember right, two sheepskins.

It makes really good reading in terms of getting your imagination into the mode of 'what might it be like?' For instance: sheets of asbestos were laid on the floors of houses, and they built fires on them.

-- Mommacares (harringtondesignX@earthlink.net), June 19, 1999.



hmm, building fires on top of sheets of asbestos...

LOL, now THERE is an award winning idea. The Darwin Awards that is...

-- (asbestos=cancer@last I. heard), June 19, 1999.


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