[ExI] another open letter, but this one may be smarter than the previous one

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
Sent: Sunday, 30 April, 2023 12:32 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: spike at rainier66.com
Subject: Re: [ExI] another open letter, but this one may be smarter than the previous one

On Sun, Apr 30, 2023 at 6:44 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>   Some within
> the tech advanced world would survive: people who know how to live off 
> the grid completely independent of society for instance.  I personally 
> know one such family.  They would be OK up there.  They can grow 
> enough food on their property to survive and have the mechanical means of defending it.

Spike, I really doubt it.  I did for several years grow a substantial fraction of the food our family ate, and I can state it is hard enough without considering defending.

For what it is worth. a major disruption such as what happened in 536 would not necessarily result in massive starvation with adequate intervention.  People could eat lower on the food chain diverting most of the food fed to animals.

Keith

> spike
>
> _______________________________________________



Ja Keith I am suggesting that even if a bad actor manages to crash the power grid causing the supply-line system to fail and our system of trade and banking etc, resulting is mass starvation, chaos and panic-induced murder in population dense areas, some would be OK.  Survival without machines would not be easy.  My grandfather described the process from his boyhood.  He quarreled with his own father that mechanization was necessary, that in the long run subsistence farming was dead.  His father resisted, said that mechanization was a trap: once you start down that road, there is no going back.  Complete dependence results.

As I write those words, I realize I am repeating my own great grandfather's ideas: we have grown completely dependent on technology and our societal structures are now very brittle, with multiple single failure points.

I go on from there to note that in a few places where population density is low, a few would survive even an apocalyptic meltdown of technology.  Some parts of this old planet have never become dependent on technology.  They would survive to repopulate the planet eventually: much of sub-Saharan Africa, Western Australia, Amazon rain forest people for instance, a few European and north American technology rejectors.  

Keith I have a third cousin I found thru AncestryDNA who was born to what amounted to a feral human and sired by the guy who owned the land she lived on.  The church ladies (we think) stole the baby (my third cousin) and put her up for adoption at some point when (we think) she was aged less than two years.  There were (and probably still are) other squatters up there on that West Virginia property who are not dependent on modern society.  In the event of the Singularity they would not even know about it.

spike