Category: TEOTWAWKI

Book Review: Civil War Two, Part II

“Without law, Commander, there is no civilization.” – Bridge on the River Kwai

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You’d be surprised at the number of Civil War battles that were fought on National Parks.

We’re at part II of the review of Thomas W. Chittum’s book, Civil War Two:  The Coming Breakup of America.  You can find part I here (Book Review: Civil War Two, Part I).

I’m happy to report that I was wrong – you can buy Civil War Two:  The Coming Breakup of America on Amazon© on their Kindle® store.  Doing a normal search will take you only to the used hard copies, and those hard copies are still only available from resellers.

I encourage you to buy a copy of the Kindle® edition if you’ve downloaded the book on .pdf.  I bought one – because it puts money in the author’s pocket.  I’ve left a link below, and, as usual, I don’t make a dime if you buy anything linked here.  I’ve been thinking about it, but not right now.  Anyway, buy it.  As of this writing it’s only three bucks.  It’s a bargain at that price, so, pony up.

How did I find out that Mr. Chittum’s book was still available on Amazon?  Mr. Chittum emailed me and told me so.  I’m glad, and I’ve already revised my previous post, as well.

Last week we left off at the end of Phase I, the Foundational phase.  This week, we start off at Phase II – The Terrorist Phase.  Chittum felt that this phase would last between five and twenty years.  It’s been over twenty since it was written.  What did Chittum predict?

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And we can prevent Civil War II if we just hold hands, because then no one will have hands to hold guns.

  1. More of Phase I.
  2. More riots, driven by ethnic conflict, some of multiple day duration, involving barricades and heavy weapons. This is spot on from Ferguson to Baltimore and beyond, with the exception of heavy weapons, which to my knowledge have not been employed.
  3. Ethnic militias, cults, gangs. I’ve certainly seen the gangs, but if “militias” and cults have been increasing, I’ve missed them.
  4. Increasing talk of secession and civil war. I read once that couples that use the word “divorce” are more likely to have one, so I’ve forbidden the use inside the house.  People talk about what they want, and these terms on the tips of tongues from Ticonderoga to Tallahassee to Tacoma to Toluca Lake.  Oh, yeah.
  5. Increasing bombing and sabotage against the government. This is another item that seems to be missing – people are mad at each other, not at the government.
  6. Increasing small group attacks.
  7. Small scale ethnic cleansing. I’ve read multiple articles about displacement of one ethnic group by another.  The one that comes immediately to mind are blacks being driven out of traditionally black areas in Los Angeles by Hispanics.
  8. Demographic and political Reconquista of the Southwest. In progress, as I keep hearing that schools find the American flag . . . racist?
  9. Food riots as government attempts to shut of welfare.   Welfare is in full swing.
  10. Racial factions and politicizing of the military. I have no idea if the military is racially fragmenting.  I’m willing to bet this will light up the comment section.  But the officer corps seems to be broadly moving left, based on the rumors I’ve heard about elimination of upper ranks due to political reasons.   West Point appears to be corrupted to the point a communist graduated.  Although they kicked him out, it would appear that Congress has a place waiting for him.
  11. Splitting American institutions based on ethnic or political lines. In progress.  When a the FBI® has groups attempting to overthrow the government, and the Boy Scouts™ are admitting girls, the institutions of the country are splitting apart.  A little.
  12. Abandonment of certain city areas by the police.
  13. Gangs will have political goals and militarize. Outside of the cartels, if this is happening, it’s not happening publically.
  14. White people begin to wonder if the establishment is working for them. The white vote appears to be polarizing, although I personally doubt we’ll ever see the 90/10 split seen in many minority voting blocs.
  15. An armored car will be destroyed. A child is shown in the media foraging for food in a dump.  Neither of these have come true, to my knowledge, but photos of the homeless camps in California are common.

Phase II is where we are now – but it keeps getting worse, seemingly on a monthly basis.

The next phase Chittum outlines is Phase III:  Guerrilla Warfare.  By inspection, we’re not there.  The skirmishes that Antifa© provokes aren’t it – imagine if Antifa™ has weapons and secures an area, killing people in the process – that’s the level of violence expected.  This is actual warfare, but limited in time and location.  Areas will be lost to the guerrillas.  Chittum expects this to be shorter than the current phase, and this lower-scale warfare will last ten to twenty years.

The final phase is Phase IV:  All-Out, Continuous Warfare.  It’s just as on the label – actual armies moving in the field.  This is civil war – and the outcome cannot be predicted, especially if it takes place ten or twenty years from today.  Massive forces will be unleased, like never before in the country, and (this is me, not Chittum) we won’t have the structure that provided cohesion after the first Civil War.

Chittum spends some time analyzing the United States and safer places to be, but this is tied back to 1997 demographics and I don’t live in the places he talks about, so, those are interesting primarily due to his analytical methods and I’d suggest you give that a read to see how your mileage may vary.  I’d suggest spending time doing your own research on what you feel is a “safe” location.  Although finding a safe location might be hard, it’s probably easy to find places that won’t be safe, so you could probably start just by avoiding places that you know will turn into a post-apocalyptic hell-hole in five minutes if the microwave at the 7-11® breaks.

It’s easy to predict places where you’re not safe – you know, the places with bars over the windows and the local priest carries an AR.  Think those neighborhoods will be better after the world caves in?  Well, I’m pretty sure real estate prices will be down, but that’s primarily due to the wailing coming from the direct pit to hell that will open up after things get bad.

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Birthday at Casa Wilder is always exciting!

But how do they go from normal to “pit to hell”, anyway?  One particular line from Chittum in a later chapter breaking down stability by using Europe as a model had this sentence in it:  “With each and every passing day, more and more Americans of all ethnic groups are perceiving their tribal affiliation as more self-definitive and more important that their common American nationality.”

This is the key to the unravelling we’re seeing in the country right now.  The United States transformed from a nation that had little diversity (in 1960, the country was 85% non-Hispanic white) to today, where the country is 60% non-Hispanic white.  In 1960, by and large the identity of all the citizens in the country was:  American.  Americans were of all ethnicities.  Were there groups that were excluded?  Certainly – Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights movement gained popularity by pointing out unfairness in treatment of blacks in America.  And America responded – we wanted to believe that being an American could transcend racial differences that seem to rip apart countries across the world.  We did our best.

Problem fixed, right?

No.  Not as long as each ethnic group defines itself through identity.

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Also, the Egyptians should have seen that pyramid scheme from the start.

Chittum hints at the possibility that complete Imperial Conversion might be one way to avoid Civil War, and lists several requirements to complete the transformation of the United States from it’s former form to an Empire.  In the end, Chittum feels that Civil War at least provides hope, whereas Empire doesn’t.  Chittum even provides (23 years ago) a direct time and place where the Civil War will start – 5/5/2020, in a city park in Los Angeles.  For reasons that I’ll get into below, I think this is a little soon.

Chittum’s advice on preparation is pretty common in the prepper world, at least in 2019.  Locations near borders along ethnic faultlines are out.  Locations that have logistical dependencies (think water) on other locations . . . out.  Military bases?  Out.  Large cities?  Out.  Near the border of the “new nations”?  Out.

Also, have some food and don’t tell other people that you have food.  At least enough for your family for a year.  Also, a gun and at least 5,000 rounds of ammo.  Chittum speaks about gun caliber in general, but I’ve seen the fights that gun caliber selection sets off in the comments section, so I’ll leave that for later when I want to make sure you’re reading.  He suggests caching your food and ammo and gun away from the house, and, although I understand his reasons, it’s not something I do, at least currently.  As I get older, it’s even less likely.  If I make it to a retirement home, I’ll probably hide bullets in my walker.

Finally, Mr. Chittum has a checklist (in no particular order) of things that will be there before Civil War II hits.  I’ve put the ones I think have already occurred in bold:

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Always remember item 6 – “Wear Pants”

  1. Ethnic classifications become more prominent.
  2. Illegal aliens allowed to vote, even locally.
  3. Attack on the Second Amendment.
  4. Juries that split on racial lines – shows that justice isn’t justice anymore.
  5. Military taking police duties.
  6. Internal (for use in the United States) elite military force.
  7. Mobs in Washington D.C.
  8. Blacks demanding facilities without whites (dorms, etc.).
  9. Replacement of individual rights with group rights – health care, for instance.
  10. Non-governmental organizations acquiring military power.
  11. Real political power shifting to the courts.
  12. Political power shifting to international bodies.
  13. Leftists and minority control spreads of basic institutions.
  14. Secessionist movements and groups seeking autonomy.
  15. Race-based political parties.
  16. No-go areas left to gangs.
  17. Reparations.
  18. Court voting manipulation (against gerrymandering).
  19. Unrest in other multiethnic empires in the world at the time.
  20. “Gated” communities for the wealthy.
  21. Increased media hoaxes.
  22. Increased minorities in the military.
  23. Out of court settlements in cases of racial discrimination (method to transfer money to radical groups).
  24. More restrictions on freedom of speech, including getting speakers fired or SWATed.
  25. Police abandon traditional uniforms for military-style uniforms.
  26. Groups of cops that form to oppose unconstitutional actions. Chittum thought they would be clandestine and ethnic, but the Oath Keepers are neither.
  27. An affirmative action agency (EEOC for instance) to have armed agents.
  28. Dollar collapse.
  29. Geographic segregation and mention of it in the press.
  30. Signs American military dominance challenged in a serious way.
  31. Breakup of Canada.
  32. More Americans moving to Canada than vice versa.
  33. Parallel ethnic political and legal organizations have more power than base organizations.
  34. More help wanted ads requiring bilingual applicants.
  35. Greater role for UN in the world.
  36. Photo of burned out American tank on US soil.

So, of this list, by my count about 18 (your mileage may vary) of Chittum’s 36 item checklist have happened.  Some of the above are more important than others.

As noted, I recommend the book.  It’s good, and not everything is covered in the 4,000-odd words that are in this review.  It’s also a pretty quick read with decent flow.

How has the prediction held out?  Certainly, better than any prediction that I did in 1997.  I think the biggest missing piece is Leftist ideology.  The Leftists have done a really good job of keeping together a rickety coalition of communists, Islamists, racial agitators, and ideologists without ideas.  This has led to increased stability that would have been hard for Mr. Chittum to foresee from 1997.

Additionally, the work on prepping has moved on in twenty years.  The basics remain the same, but the general philosophy has had 20 years of thought, refinement, and improvement.  But we haven’t had 20 years of thought on what will cause a civil war and how likely that is.

But, oddly, the Leftist coalition is keeping the country from splitting into dozens of pieces – right now it’s just two pieces.  I think this increased stability has extended the time until Civil War II breaks out.  What brings stability down?  Economic hardship.  The 2020 election.

And there is a price to be paid.  Can the Left control the forces of discontent and hate that it has unleased?  Can the Right control the forces that are a reaction to the demographic change in society?

Tough questions.  (Shakes Magic 8 Ball®)

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MAGIC 8 BALL

Book Review: Civil War Two, Part I

“I’ll give you a winter prediction:  it’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.” – Groundhog Day

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There was a dwarf fortune teller that was wanted by police.  The news headline was “Small medium at large.”

One of the comments on the very first issue of the Civil War Two Weather Report (You can find all three Civil War II Weather Report: Spicy Time Coming, Civil War Weather Report #2, Censorship, Stalin, and a Bunch of Links, Civil War Weather Report #3: Violence, China, and Lots of Links) was a link to Thomas W. Chittum’s 1997 book Civil War Two:  The Coming Breakup of America.  It is available as a .pdf here.  Ordinarily I’d point you towards Amazon® so you could buy the book and put money in the author’s pocket, but it looks like the book has been out of print for some time.

Update:  it’s here, Mr. Chittum pointed me in this direction.  Please give this one a purchase – it’s good for Mr. Chittum, and I promise I don’t make a dime off of it.

Chittum had an interesting past before writing this book – he fought in Vietnam for the United States.  Apparently that wasn’t enough and the United States was all peaceful for the next twenty years, so he fought in Rhodesia and Croatia as a mercenary rifleman.  Oh, and he was a computer programmer for most of his life.

The book is now 22 years old, and it makes predictions.  How did it do?  I won’t spoil the plot too much, but Chittum has probably been better at predicting 2019 while writing about it in 1996 than a lot of people have done living in 2016 and predicting 2019.  It was pretty chilling to me to read how much Chittum had gotten right, so I thought I’d review the book.

As the notecards I use for blocking out posts went to three times the number I use for a typical post, I realized that the review would be take (at least) two posts, if not three.  So, here’s part one.  You’ll see part two next Monday.

Early on, Chittum notes that the United States has moved from the status of a nation to that of an empire.  Some might date the beginning of empire to the end of the first Civil War, but I’d say that the United States was, more or less, a single nation up until the 1970’s.  Sure there were regional differences, but the idea of kneeling when the national anthem was played wouldn’t have occurred to anyone but revolutionary Leftists.

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Make the Empire Great Again™!

The United States had a homogeneous culture for 90% plus of citizens in the 1970’s.  The dreams of the civic nationalist were realized in that era that resulted from very low immigration:  all that matters was that people were committed to being the idea of integrating and assimilating into being an American, and it would work out fine.  As long as we were one group that could sit and watch Cheers® or M*A*S*H™ or baseball, and cheer for our favorite teams, we’d be fine.

In the civic nationalist world it didn’t matter that your great-grandparents were Italian immigrants in 1900.  Your grandpa might have been named Enzio, but he went by Ernie and married an Irish gal named Mary.  Your dad played baseball.  Your name is Robert and your sister’s name is Nancy and the only thing really Italian about you is you like pizza.

I’d guess I’d use the participation in youth soccer as a proxy for demographic change.  We all know that soccer was originally invented in Europe so the Germans would have something to do besides invade France and conquer it in an afternoon.  It’s not a traditional game that Americans play.  Oh, sure, the United States women won the World Cup®.  But to be fair, we needed something for our women to do so they didn’t invade France, either.

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Let’s face it, our choice is either World Cup® soccer, or panzers streaking through Paris.  Is it just me, or do the panzers sound more interesting?

But Chittum points out that stability comes from a single group identity.  People being all on the same team makes us stronger, where as many groups make us weaker.  In this light, diversity isn’t Our Greatest Strength™, it’s really a weakness.

And his point is clear – ask a Leftist what it means to be an American, and you’ll likely get a vague statement about all you have to do to be an American is want to be one.  Asking them to learn English and assimilate and fit into American culture is for some reason now considered racist.  From the vantage point of 2019, it’s clear, diversity is our greatest weakness if we want a safe and stable nation.

This is observable in the real world.  Chittum fought in the breakup of the Balkans, and witnessed the breakdown of the Soviet Union.  When the Soviet Union fell, Chittum notes it was about 50% ethnic Russian.  The resulting nation that emerged was about 80% ethnic Russian and is much more stable.  It’s certainly more Russian.

The trends of a nation in peril are observable.  Our police departments don’t look like policemen, they’re now military.  Remember, to a cop, the citizens look like citizens.  To the military, everyone is a potential enemy.

  • SWAT teams raided Amish farms because they were selling unpasteurized milk.
  • Cops get armored personnel carriers like they’re patrolling Syria and not San Francisco.
  • Even local cops in Modern Mayberry wear gloves with hard plastic knuckles during normal patrols.

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When she pulled me over I rolled down the window and said, “What’s wrong?”  Her response?  “Nothing.”

Chittum spends a lot of time on the American Southwest – he figures it will be the trigger to the Civil War.

The original Reconquista took place in Spain as the Spanish expelled the Muslims who had conquered it over the course of six hundred years.  It was slow, but it finished up in 1492.  In the same way, Chittum notes that, although Mexico is a failed state, Mexicans are “retaking” the Southwest in a modern Reconquista that has taken place over decades since 1965, but with 1000% less Muslims.

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Nothing says practical like that hat!

Likewise, Chittum writes that the only solution is to close the border.  Of course he was writing this in 1997 so 22 years have passed.  Right now, at least 40% of the population of Los Angeles is foreign born.  In no way could Los Angeles be considered to be an American city today.  It might even be considered Mexican, as rival Mexican gangs have recently infiltrated the LA County Sheriff’s office (LINK).

Who loves this?  Leftists who wish to topple the United States:  Leftists need the votes.  Ethnic groups like La Raza:  La Raza is the intellectual part of the movement that actively wishes to retake the Southwest.  Multinational corporations:  they like the lower wages.

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Worst, though, are the hipster cops who will only arrest you ironically.

Let’s be clear:  Mexicans are patriots about Mexico.  They love their country – that’s why they proudly carry their flag during protests. Even in 1997, Chittum noted that crime was rampant in Mexico and the border was a mess and it’s even worse in Latin America south of Mexico.  Who can blame them for wanting to come to the United States, especially when some groups spin a fable of an ethnic empire, Aztlan, which is theirs for the taking?

The South and Northeast aren’t much better, and Chittum mentions that the Northeast will experience massive, open violence, which will be unorganized, and savage.  Some of the urban areas might survive as city-states.

California is his odds-on favorite to be ground zero.  Street gangs, as mentioned above, are numerous and founded on ethnicity.  They’ve infiltrated public organizations and the police and even allegedly corrupted members of the Marine Corps (LINK).  It’s this particular “enemy inside” that is troubling.  An external enemy is that can be fought, but when the enemy of the country becomes an internal enemy, it’s much worse – there’s a reason that treason is mentioned in the Constitution.

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Ahh, California, the meth laboratory of democracy.

Chittum mentions militias.  They seemed to have their peak in the 1990’s, and quickly declined after Oklahoma City.  He also mentions “Committees of Correspondence” which were a mechanism for people to communicate with each other because they didn’t have the Internet in the 1760’s to begin to organize against the British, LOL.  The Internet serves this purpose now, with large groups getting information from unapproved sources, and even managing to “privately*” share information.

*Don’t bet your life or liberty on it.

Chittum writes that Civil War Two will be vicious, atrocity filled, and genocidal.  Civilian casualties are to be expected, and many will be on purpose.  Looting will be common.  This is not the usual scenario our military faces in any fashion, so the analyses performed by John Mark (see Civil War II Weather Report: Spicy Time Coming) or Forward Observer (Civil War Weather Report #3: Violence, China, and Lots of Links) aren’t valid.  Civil War Two has the potential to be far worse than any conflict seen in history, as it combines both ethnic division along with ideological division – it’s like the Russian Revolution times Rwanda to the power of Somalia.

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I’ve been stuck in the same phase for . . . oh . . . twenty years now.  Maybe one day I’ll grow out of being a 12 year old.  I’m not telling you how long it took me to get to that phase!

There are four phases according to Chittum.  The first phase of the problem is what he refers to as Foundational.  He said in 1997 the Foundational phase was already complete.

  1. Tribalization of society – have different rules for different ethnic groups, push people to identify as something other than “American.”
  2. Power shift to unelected administrators, judges, board, commissions, and public servants.
  3. Since 1972, wages been stagnant, or, when compared to medical care or education, dramatically falling.
  4. The core of many large cities has been abandoned – think Baltimore or Detroit.
  5. Massive and sustained immigration, falling of standards and conditions in some locations to those similar to undeveloped countries.
  6. Racial organizations in police – militarization of police, which are both covered above.
  7. Treaties are more important that state sovereignty.
  8. A consistent and strong drive for gun control.
  9. From Antifa© to MS-13 to the Crips, these are in place.
  10. Mass media participation in the polarization. The mass media has already picked a side – Left.

We can see what Chittum says is behind us.  Next Monday we’ll look (from his vantage point in 1997 and ours in 2019) to see what else he’s predicted, and how far along we are.

Sweet dreams!

Civil War II Weather Report: Spicy Time Coming

John Wilder’s Civil War II Weather Report Number 1

“Yeah. There were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident.” – Anchorman

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With apologies to Gary Larson, in my defense there are only so many John Brown jokes out there.

Way back in 1998, I ended up with one of the neatest jobs that I had – assessing risks to a major corporation.  The Internet was new at work, and I was being paid to research potential disasters.  It was so interesting and so much fun I felt guilty.  In researching disasters and risk, I came across Y2K.  For those that don’t remember, there was a concern that, as a result of programmers only using two digits to store year information in computers, that many computers and computer programs would cease to function when the calendar flipped over to 00.

There were multiple websites and personalities that were writing about Y2K, and one that I went to from time to time was Cory Hamasaki’s Y2K Weather Report.  Hamasaki was a programmer (he has since passed away) and he had an inside perspective of the ongoing work that was required to keep the systems working.  As a result of his insider knowledge he bought an AR, a lot of food, and spent New Year’s Eve at his remote cabin.

Obviously, the systems kept working.

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Not my original.  And I’m sorry.

We live, however, in spicy times, with the potential for them becoming even spicier (I got the Spicy Time meme from Western Rifle Shooters (LINK), which really should be on your daily reading list).  I’ve written several articles about the potential for Civil War, and studied and thought quite a bit about it.  As such, this is the inaugural edition of John Wilder’s Civil War II Weather Report.  I anticipate putting it out monthly.  This first issue will probably be a bit longer than later issues, since I’m putting the framework together and explaining the background.

I’m attempting to put together a framework that measures where we are on the continuum between peace and war.  I’ll even try to develop some sort of measures that show if the level of danger is increasing or decreasing.  Civil wars don’t happen all at once, and like a strong storm, they require the atmosphere to be right.  A weather report is probably a good metaphor.

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If you haven’t seen it, the guy with the trident was the weatherman in Anchorman.  And when he has a trident?  People die.

So, to review the future, let’s start by looking at Civil War I so we understand what happened, and what the potential differences are.

Civil War I was:

  • Based on philosophical differences – the views of the people, North and South were pretty similar, except that the Northerners were descended from Puritans who sailed on the Mayflower, and the Southerners were descended from the Norman conquerors that took England in 1066 but got booted out after having lost a war in England. Although the North and South were the same people, more or less, with the same heritage, there were enough differences to lead to a war.  And it was a doozy.

Civil War II is different because:

  • Certainly we are not the same people today compared to when we generally unified ethnically. Civil War II will likely be fought on the basis of conflicting culture, identity and ideology.

Civil War I was:

  • Fought by armies, mostly, with identified geographical centers.

Civil War II is different because:

  • At the early stages, at least, Civil War II won’t be fought by armies, and there won’t be defined geographical concentrations. Armies are better at killing people and breaking stuff, but irregulars are way better at atrocity.  Expect the initial stages of hot war to be filled with some pretty rough stuff.

Civil War I was:

  • Characterized by a general adherence to the rules of war, though there were some war crimes on either side.

Civil War II is different because:

  • There has been a tendency of civil wars in this century to have increasing levels of atrocity during the war. This will continue.

Civil War I was:

  • Fought with the intent of reunification (by the North), and separation (by the South). The basic desire of the North was to reunify the country, admittedly under more comprehensive Federal control.  Reconstruction sucked, but the goal was a single country.  That’s why all the Confederate statues were tolerated, and even encouraged.

Civil War II is different because:

  • I expect whoever wins to pursue a policy of revenge at the end, especially if it’s the Communists. This is founded based on every single communist revolution ever.  The end of Civil War I occurred in a growing young country with the opportunity to move West.  Now?  Whoever wins will cleanse whatever areas they take.

Civil War I was:

  • Fought by organized, elected governments.

Civil War II is different because:

  • I’m thinking that one side might be a Caesar-type leading a partial military coalition versus Leftist irregulars, but I might be wrong on this one.

I decided to see what other studies had been done about more recent civil wars, and found that James Fearon and David Laitin (from Stanford) did a study in 2003 on civil wars during the 20th Century (LINK).  Here’s what they found:

  • Civil Wars had a median duration of six years
  • Sub-Saharan Africa: 34 wars
  • Asia: 33 wars
  • North Africa and the Middle East: 17 wars
  • Latin America: 15 wars
  • Eastern Europe/Former Soviet Union: 13 wars
  • The West: 2 wars

Why do civil wars develop?  It’s my bet that political scientists are like economists – six political scientists will generate 15 incorrect theories over coffee each morning, although I, for one, have no idea why we would think we would have a more stable country if we import people who keep having civil wars all of the time.  Fearon and Laitin came up with three different types of civil wars:

  • Ethnic: “You other people suck.”
  • Nationalist: “We want our own country, because you other people suck.”
  • Insurgent: “We want to be the boss, because you suck.”

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Okay, I don’t know who the originator was of this meme, but it still cracks me up.

Civil wars were non-existent in ethnically homogeneous and rich countries during the time period of Fearon and Laitin’s study.  As the United States was essentially ethnically homogeneous and rich during Civil War I, you can see that, just like the Revolution, something unique was going on here.  We decided to fight over principles.

Fearon and Laitin had several graphs that pointed out that increased wealth makes up for a portion of ethnic diversity – wealthier, non-homogeneous societies were less likely to go to war than poorer non-homogeneous ones.  Oddly, the very poorest ($48 to $800 a year) societies were less likely to go to war than societies that made just a little more money.  I guess just living was tough enough and going to war against other people who also had nothing was pointless.

One conclusion that Laitin and Fearon found was that civil war onset was no less frequent in a democracy.  Discrimination is not linked to civil war.  Income inequality is not linked to civil war.  Grievances aren’t the cause of civil war – they’re caused by civil wars.  What are risk the factors?

  • New nations. I guess they haven’t developed the “don’t kill the president” tradition yet.
  • People can hide in mountains.  I guess.
  • Higher (absolute) population numbers. I told you big cities were bad.
  • Oil exporting.
  • High proportion of young males.
  • Exporting commodities – risk seemed to peak at about 30% of GDP coming from commodity export.

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Okay, not directly on point, but my primary export is memes.

So where does the United States stand as a country today?  I guess I’d throw out the thought that the first prerequisite for Civil War II is economic stress.  Why?  Average Joe won’t pick up an AR to go kill people in the next county if Joe has beer in the cooler and another episode of Naked and Afraid® next week.  If Joe has a job and a wife and a mortgage, well, there just won’t be action.  I meant war, silly.  Get your mind out of the gutter.  Our risk now is relatively low based on economics.

The United States is developing a higher absolute population.  That puts us at risk.

With immigration, the United States is forming a higher proportion of young males.  That puts us at risk.

State weakness is generally correlated with civil wars.  I’m torn on this one.  On one hand, we have the largest number of laws ever, along with a very large enforcement mechanism.  On the other?  Laws, both state and Federal are increasingly just ignored.  Victor Davis Hanson describes this paradox in California (LINK).

Nearby civil wars are associated with having a civil war.  Latin America is a civil war factory . . . so we’re at risk.

From the above five predictors of civil war, we have four of them.  Obviously this doesn’t tell the whole story.  The United States has a peaceful history, and, unlike a less established nation, the general populace is going to assume that today was good, so tomorrow will be pretty good, too.  And, generally that’s a good way to predict the future:  tomorrow will look like today.  Building the conditions for civil wars generally take years and what was abnormal becomes normal and tolerated as time goes by.

I’m going to attempt to try to make a metric showing the rise in various societal factors that I think might lead to civil war.  Some of the obvious are:

  • Economic metrics – economic growth, unemployment, average wealth.
  • Organized violence metrics – news of riots, other organized violence and protests.
  • Political instability metrics – use of the term “impeach”, “civil war”, “electoral college.”
  • Sites banned – numbers of political speakers silenced.
  • Number of illegal immigrants per month. This shows greater economic stress or greater problems at their actual home.

index.jpg

Yeah, you just can’t add the North and the South together and end up with a Civil War.  Unless you do it in binary, then you could have a Bipolar War?

I’ll then combine them into an index.  If you have other items that you think can be tracked and should be tracked, let me know, and I may incorporate them, especially if they’re easy find and to incorporate, because I’m lazy.

Finally, Civil War won’t show up all at once, it may take years to get people to the idea that war is better than dealing with your weird neighbor by going into your house and watching a marathon of YouTube® videos where people turn $40 of propane and a bunch of aluminum cans into $10 worth of aluminum ingots.  It’s easier than fighting, right?

Following is my take on the steps that will lead to actual civil war.  I humbly call it the Wilder Countdown to Civil War II™.

  1. Things are going well.
  2. People begin to create groups.
  3. People begin to look for preferential treatment.
  4. Opposing ideology to the prevailing civic ideology is introduced and spread.
  5. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
  6. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  7. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  8. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures.  Just in case.
  9. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  10. Open War.

I bolded number six.  That’s where I think we are right now.  Violence is occurring, but it’s not monthly, so I don’t think we’re at step seven.  Yet.  And I think we can live at step nine for a long time as long as we don’t have the bottom drop out of the economy.  Might there be some trigger that takes us to nine in a hurry?  Sure.  But I’m willing to bet that we see it take a few years, rather than a few months.  My bet is no sooner than 2024, but I’ve been wrong before, way back in 1989.

This is a project where I’m not only very open to contributions of information (even anonymous contributions) I’m actively soliciting them.  Let me know if you’ve got commentary, criticism, news stories, or suggestions to make issue two (probably in early July) better, either down below or at my email, movingnorth@gmail.com

While we can’t predict catastrophic storms with 100% accuracy, it’s probably about time that someone started looking at the horizon to see what they could see.  Because I see what might be a storm coming.

Financial Advisers, Future Predictions, and Three-Breasted Mars Women

“Baldrick, I have a very, very, very cunning plan.” – Blackadder

ike

I wonder if she inspired the military-industrial complex speech?

Financial advisers have a pretty standard set of advice:

  • Get a job. Opening your own business is risky, so it’s best if you work for someone else.
  • Max out contributions to your 401k. Put your money in stock index funds.
  • Work forty (or more) hours per year for forty (or more) years, depending on how much you lost in the divorce settlement(s).
  • When you are of no further use to the corporation* anymore financially ready, retire. Fortunately, by the time you retire you’ll be so exhausted from all of the hours working that you’ll (ideally) just sit on your porch in a daze staring off and wondering where your life went and why Bob Barker isn’t hosting the Price is Right® anymore.
  • If you’re lucky, your kids will put you into a retirement home that doesn’t require that you manufacture basketball shoes for Nike® on a quota in exchange for individually wrappedhard candies.

That’s pretty much what a financial advisor will tell you, if you strip out the cynicism.  But why would you strip out the cynicism?  That would take all the fun out of it – we ain’t getting out of here alive, so might as well smile on the way, like Socrates did after his trial.  “I drank what???”

The problem with financial advisors, however, is that they give great advice based on what worked in the past.  Any weather forecaster can tell you that the best possible weather forecast is that “tomorrow will be just like today,” since it’s 85% certain that’s going to be correct, or at least my statistics professor in college said so.  The past really does predict the future pretty well.

Except when it doesn’t.

The thing the past doesn’t predict well is tornados, hurricanes, floods, volcanos and pollen.  I strongly support just calling them all torhurflovolpols just so I can see television broadcasters talking about the Torhurflovolpol index.  “Well, Brian, there’s a 45% chance of something on the Torhurflovolpol index.  So get out your floating waterproof asbestos crash armor with built in respirator.”  I think they sell those at Eddie Bauer®.

It is certain, however, that we will be really surprised by the events that lead to the future world we’ll be living in 30 years from now.  Let’s jump back into the time machine and go thirty years in the past and look at some of the ludicrous predictions that would have been laughed at, but were nevertheless correct.

In 1989, if I told you that:

  • The Soviet Union would collapse in two years,
  • Donald Trump would be president,
  • China would be transformed from a communist totalitarian basketcase to an economic powerhouse and growing military power,
  • The United States would produce more oil per day in 2019 than the previous peak in output in 1973 and OPEC would be irrelevant,
  • People would willingly give all of their personal details to large corporations,
  • Music and long distance phone calls would be essentially free,
  • People would pay hundreds of dollars for “in-game” purchases on video games that seem more like a job than a game,
  • Keith Richards would still be alive with his original liver,
  • You could watch nearly any movie ever made, at any time, from nearly anywhere, and
  • People in Britain would be called fascist for rejecting rule by Germany.

Richards.jpg

If you have a really long term question, just ask yourself, What Would Keith Richards Do?

You would have laughed if I would have predicted those things, or called me a dreamer, insane, or just shook your head.  The general consensus was all of the “predictions” above were absurdly unrealistic.  The Soviets, for instance, looked nearly invincible.  We were worried that they were masters of technology, producing better Olympians®, military tech, and Robotic Opponent Overlord Movie Boxing Antagonists (ROOMBA).  From the outside, especially listening to certain journalists, people were worried that communism would be the ism that finally took down the country, although they looked a bit too happy when describing our glorious communist future.

The Soviets looked invulnerable, until it was obvious that they were so pathetic that they couldn’t even field a decent hair metal band.

rocky.jpg

Dolph Lundgren, the actor who played Drago in the Rocky movies has a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering, which means that he’s way more qualified in science than Bill Nye® and could also break Nye like a twig.  I would pay $200 to see a boxing match between the two of them.

But these improbable things did happen.

This allows me to state, categorically, that the future we will have in 30 years isn’t the one you’re expecting.  It will surprise you in ways that you can’t even imagine now.  In hindsight, we all make up excuses in our minds to explain that we anticipated even the unanticipated.  After the Soviet Union fell, all of the broadcasters and talking heads on television made the point that, unlike other people, they were the ones that had really seen this coming.  “It was obvious to me, Brian, that the Soviet empire was just a house of cards.”

We can guess about the future in broad brush strokes, but the general wisdom just over a decade ago was that oil was going to be gone and that we’d be close to pumping dry holes right now and wearing football shoulder pads and studded leather jockstraps and living in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, sort of like walking into a Sears® or JCPenny’s™ in 2018.  This explains G.W. Bush’s energy policy, and, let’s be real, probably the invasion of Iraq.  Of major trends to miss, underestimating the amount of energy available for society was a doozy, even though he had the CIA, NSA, and every military intelligence agency working on that question.

And, I’ll admit, I never saw the amazing increase in oil production as a thing that could happen, either.  My best excuse for not getting it right even though I thought about it quite a bit was that I didn’t have a billion dollar budget and dozens of flunkies to do research on it, though I bet they would have just done a lot of internet searches on studded leather jockstraps.

But Qwest® had a pretty accurate vision of the future.  Qwest© was a communications company before it got bought out, but it had this commercial which means the future it predicted outlasted the company itself.  Guess Qwest™ didn’t have a crystal ball that could predict everything . . .

We can look to the past and paint in broad brush strokes some things that are more probable than others.  One thing that got me was a rainy Saturday re-watching of Total Recall, the 80’s Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.  One of the things I was surprised by was the amount of technology they got absolutely right, from big screen flat televisions to communications to real-time airport weapon detection.  In many ways, the “gee-whiz” feel of the original movie was just gone.  Technology had made the miraculous (back then) “so what” today.  And, again, this is the span of only thirty years.  We still don’t either a Mars colony or three-breasted women, but I hear Elon Musk is working on both.

boo.jpg

Duh.  Three boobs exist only on Mars, silly.

Just like the collapse of the Soviet Union, unexpected things will happen.  Huge things.  And, if my guesses are right, the weather is ripe for big change in the next decade.  The changes, thankfully, will be good, bad, or just plain amusing.

So where does that leave you and I?  General Dwight D. Eisenhower said:  “In preparing for battle, I have always found the plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”  As a direct descendent of one of his teachers (this is actually true and not made up), I always wonder if Great-Grandma Von Wilder might have said that to a very young Eisenhower first, and then Ike re-used it after planning D-Day when it was actually Great-Grandma Von Wilder who did the heavy lifting on the logistics after he pulled her out of retirement and into a tent in London.

But if I’m right, the next twenty years will be the most momentous in human history, even more than when the police chased O.J. Simpson in his white Ford® Bronco™.  I’m not sure if having a 401K or a 5.56mm is the number/letter combination that will be the most useful in a decade.  I’m willing to bet that living far away from large urban population centers is wise, even if we end up living in the world with the best possible outcome.  But I do know that planning is important, even if your plans are wrong.  Hint:  They will be.

yogi.jpg

Okay, I know someone is going to get this joke.

When you plan, you expand your mind, you think about future possibilities that you’ve never considered.  A mind not stuck on business as normal is crucial.  Yesterday’s weather be a good predictor of today’s weather, but it won’t predict volcanos very well.  The future is unknown.  The future will surprise you.  If you’ve prepared for the volcano, the tornado isn’t the same threat, but you’ll be ready to adapt.  Assuming you have your floating waterproof asbestos crash armor with built in respirator.  I think they sell that at Wal-Mart®.

When it comes to being prepared for the future, remember this:  It’s better to look silly having prepared for a disaster that never comes, than not having prepared for the disaster and having to explain to your children why you didn’t.

Bet you never hear that from a financial adviser.

*For the record, my view of corporations is that they’re a tool, a convenient legal fiction to allow Very Large Things to get done.  The very name “corporation” comes from the Latin root word “corpus” which means a “place to have spring break”, or a “body” – corpus is also where the word corpse comes from.  Regardless of the definition, either of those can get you put into jail.  However, “incorporation” means, “giving a body to.”  A corporation is legally a person.

And, just like people, some are naughty, even if they once had as their motto, “Don’t be evil.”  I guess being evil pays pretty well.

I am not a financial adviser, paid or otherwise, so there’s that.  But I have seen Better Call Saul™, and that’s at least some sort of qualification.

The Funniest Post You Will EVER Read About Genetic Engineering, Now Available in Cream or Roll-On

“Right, then!  I do the best I can for you, the bloody best, to set up your sniveling, snotty-nosed kid the way you want, and all I get in return for pouring fifteen years of research into the bloody boring composition of the bloody damn DNA molecule is a pair of pathetic twits, who, when confronted with bloody stats start a pathetic wiffle-waffle.  Right now, Mr. and Mrs. Stolwry, you have a perfect, beautiful specimen of a stocky, blond-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, quilted, male shrimp-head welder, with pods.  Now, what more do you bloody want?  Frankly, it makes me sick!  Why don’t you go have your child naturally?” – Eric Idle on Saturday Night Live (1976) – I can’t embed the video but it’s here (LINK) and hilarious.

betteronpaper

Now you know why chicken wings are getting bigger.  If only it would make its own sauce.  I bet it does, in the Twilight Zone©!

We are at the beginning of a new age of humanity, and maybe even an entirely new type of humanity.  The first humans have been born where sections of their DNA (the genetic information that defines most everything of what they are) have been replaced with new information.  It’s exactly like someone recutting Toy Story® using dialogue from Fight Club™.  Oh, someone did that?  I do live in the best possible timeline:

It’s only two minutes: give it a watch, please.  My therapist says I need to share things.  But the first rule is that we shouldn’t talk about it.  Thankfully, I’m typing instead of talking.

But in this case, the genetic information that defines a living human being was cut out and replaced with new information.  And the human is an actual living human.

How did they do it?

Tiny scissors.  Really small ones.  And itty-bitty pieces of Scotch® tape.  Okay, they actually used a technique called “CRISPR”, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.  But for all you care it could stand for Clever Reindeer Intentionally Shooting Panda Rifles.  It doesn’t matter.  Let’s pretend it’s really tiny scissors and itty-bitty pieces of Scotch™ tape.

CRISPR allows editing of the DNA strand by using segments of DNA to match up with and replace the parts of the DNA that we don’t like.  And even though DNA is comprised of lots of molecules, in reality DNA is just information like pages in a book, or dialogue in a movie except if you try to replace passages in your book with DNA all you get is a mess and sticky fingers from turning the DNA soaked pages.  But back to the DNA:  some of the information on the DNA appears to be actual junk – it may not mean anything – but the rest of the information defines your height, weight, hair color, maximum intelligence, ability to play guitar, affinity for bacon, and, well, ability to write real good word thoughts (PLOT POINT!).

Editing the DNA with CRISPR allows the editing of new pages into a book, and even the individual letters in the book.  But better not end up leaving out the wrong word:

wickedbible

This Bible was printed in 1631 and is known as the “Wicked Bible.”  If anyone actually followed the instructions, there was probably oodles of amateur DNA transfer.  Hopefully not on the pages.

CRISPR can be used to edit mushroom DNA.  Or cow DNA.  Or . . . human DNA.  And now two human girls have been born and inserted into their DNA is the resistance to AIDS.

The first time I ran into the concept of genetic engineering was when I was a kid, watching Star Trek®.  When I was a kid, it was a law that every other show on television was a repeat of Star Trek™.  The idea of one episode, Space Seed, was that a group of genetically enhanced (mentally and physically) supermen led a war.  When they lost the war, they were shot into space in suspended animation.  Because prison was too complicated, I guess.  The leader?  Khan Noonian Singh, played in scenery-chewing fashion by Ricardo Montalban.

khan

Even Kirk is skittish about genetic engineering.

Any measurable human trait or combination of human traits from DNA can now be changed.  And almost every human trait is genetic in nature.  I know this from experience.  As much as you might think that I was conceived of during an immaculate conception witnessed only by the angels and attended by a gaggle of singing heifers in bloomers, well, that was not exactly the case, no matter what I tell my kids.  It was sweaty teenagers.  But I digress.  I’m adopted, but in the weird way where I’m actually related to the family that adopted me.  I couldn’t even get “unwanted abandoned child” right.  Such a failure.

Anyway, for every moment of my life until I was 35, I had zero contact with my biological father.  Zero.  None.  Nada.  Zilch.  Empty set.  And zero contact with any of his relatives.  Complete isolation from that side of my personal biodiversity.  But I had been told his name.  Then, one night under some assistance from a bit of Coors Light® I did an Internet search and . . . called a number.  He wasn’t there, but a week later we talked.  And it was unusual.

If you’ve read this blog, you know that I have a rather strange set of interests.  One day, jokes about fizzy toots, the next day political analysis, then genetic engineering.  But when I called my biological father it was odd – there was almost no subject that either of us brought up that the other hadn’t researched.  Oh, and he’s a writer (THIS WAS THE PLOT POINT PAYOFF).  Please don’t get me wrong, in no way do I want to imply that I feel anything but the strongest loyalty to the family that raised me, but I could see the similarities so much that I made up a really clever original phrase:  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”  I’m glad that when they rebuild the last remaining Internet server after the Nacho Cheese War of 2331™, that I’m certain to be credited with my wonderful, original phrase.

But your grandma who didn’t like that little tramp you were dating was right:  genetics matter.

CRISPR puts the tools to optimize human traits in the hands of . . . humans.  Sure, we’ve been doing the amateur kind of genetic engineering for, well, ever.  And it’s resulted in some pretty interesting people, like, say, you.  Our genetic engineers were our mothers and fathers.  Men have broad shoulders because women like broad shoulders.  Women have . . . well, we’ll skip that for now.  Don’t want to say the wrong thing and have everyone think I’m a boob.

3boob

Beware of 12 year olds with the ability to create genetic modifications.

Who gets to play with CRISPR first?  The rich.  Specifically rich Chinese people.  Yes, regulations exist in China, but the regulations exist to protect the State, not the people, silly.  The only reason the Party would restrict rich kids from having SuperBabies 3000® is if the Party feels the technology is too powerful and keeps it for itself.

Make no mistake, this is an incredibly powerful technology, like alcohol on prom night.  I think that the Chinese elite will start snipping and tucking DNA so that their children are smarter.  Taller.  Stronger.  More confident.  Better nose hair, you know, the kind you can braid.  If you’re a billionaire, why not?  The Party will be fine with that, since it gives them the ability to see what the technology does.  I mean, understanding the complicated interactions between DNA molecules is tougher than dancing a polka striptease with a gopher.  And we all know what that’s like.

khan2

Khan we fix your DNA?  Yes we Khan! 

Can you imagine being the master of this technology?  You can eliminate undesirable human traits, such as enjoying Taylor Swift® music entirely from your gene pool.  You can, if you are the Party, create the perfect Chuck Norris-like soldier.  A 9 foot tall (37 meters) basketball player.  The most loyal citizens.

If you are willing to sacrifice and experiment to quickly understand what the interactions are between multiple genetic changes and patient enough to await the results, you’ll quickly lead the world in a technology whose limits we can barely perceive.  And in a state controlled by a central Party, well, soon enough we could see a split so wide in human ability that humanity might look more like a colony of insects with different classes of humans genetically modified to follow their role as drone, soldier, queen, scientist, and blogger than the normal wild and feral band of humans we’re used to.  They’d be farther apart than Morlock© and Eloi™.

timemachine

H.G. Wells couldn’t have imagined that 800,000 years of human evolution could be done in an afternoon in an uncomfortably warm doctor’s office. But he also couldn’t imagine that Leonardo DiCaprio would ever win an Oscar®.

In China in a few years embryonic DNA modifications might become as common as vaccination in the United States.  Once the DNA gets into the gene pool of the country, it will stay there.  Perhaps in two or three generations China will have citizens that are entirely immune to some sort of biological agent that just, whoops, “accidentally” gets released to depopulate the planet and leave it free for China.

Shhh, but I think the Chinese have already measured Africa to see if all of their stuff would fit.

But in a twist resulting from an interaction between a snip that removed unsightly ear hair and a tuck that allowed all men to grow mustaches as full and perfect as the one Burt Reynolds had in Sharky’s Machine©, the remaining citizens develop an insatiable desire for eating humans.  What an ending!  Then Rod Serling can come out, smoking, with a good moral to the story.  Yay!

plagues

Okay – I love comments, and would love to have more, so don’t make me change your DNA so you’re chattier.  And don’t forget – you can just subscribe to this in the box above, and I’ll show up at least three times a week in your inbox.  Which won’t break it, unless you have a weak, girlie-man inbox.  And I won’t send or sell your address, ever.

Last TEOTWAWKI – The Battle for Yona, Final Thoughts on EMP, How To Power Your Car With Smoke

“Dear readers, there was no Battle of Mayberry. The only casualties were one scrawny cow, three deer, and a mule who had the misfortune to look like a deer.” – The Andy Griffith Show

little end

Ahhh, the joy of teaching children to read.  And to kill mutants and zombies.

This is part ten of a multipart series.  The rest of them are here:  (Civilization, The Iron Triangle, and You, Civilization After an EMP: TEOTWAWKI (Which is not a Hawaiian word), TEOTWAKI Part III: Get on your bikes and ride!, Internet Cats, TEOTWAWKI Part IV and The Golden Horde, TEOTWAWKI Part V: Camaro and Camo,  TEOTWAWKI Part VI: The Rules Change, The Center Cannot Hold, TEOTWAWKI Part VII: Laws of Survival, Mad Dogs, The Most Interesting Man in the World and TEOTWAWKI Part VIII: Barricades, Tough Decisions, and Tony Montana),  TEOTWAWKI Part IX: Home at Last, and the Battle of the Silo and TEOTWAWKI Part X: Gump, Wheat, and Chill: Now With 100% Less Netflix.

Back to the action:

It’s one thing to be shot, but it’s quite another to be stuck with your face stuck in the soft clay mud of a creek bank while bullets zip over your head.  The nice thing about being shot, well, is that it’s over.  The slow, continuous beat of the rifle fire continued, and, let’s be real, it’s kinda terrifying.

My bet was that they figured out how to count.  And the thing that they were counting was the number of bullets that they had left.  The US military had evolved from the Revolutionary Army which had to conserve ammunition to fight a stronger foe with better logistics to one where upwards of 20,000 rounds of ammunition were fired per enemy casualty during World War II.  Some records indicate 200,000 rounds were spent per casualty in Vietnam.

Not now.  Every round should count.  It was going to be a while before the ammunition factories came back online, if ever.

breakfast

Sure signs of savagery. 

And on the side of the Watch, we were specifically told to hold our fire until we had targets that we could hit.  Since the other side was just shooting, well, I assumed that they were either long on ammunition, or were shooting to keep our heads down so they could advance.

I crawled on my belly up to the edge of the creek bank.  I could see six of the invaders running towards me, zig-zagging.  75 yards out.  I pulled up my 30-.06 and took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.  I sighted and led the first man headed my way.  I squeezed the trigger.  Down.  I worked the bolt of the rifle and selected the nearest runner.  Squeezed.  He went down.  And again.  And again.  When it was just two runners, they turned and ran backwards, towards the big round hay bales in the center of the field.  They dove behind the hay bales before I could get a good shot.  I stayed low, behind the trees that grew near the creek.  Thankfully, the creek bed was steep enough that I could hide there.

Something about being shot at, made it easier to shoot back, but I hoped it never got easy.  I already knew I’d see those faces every night when I closed my eyes to go to sleep.

This was the battle of Yona Creek.

I don’t live in Yona, of course.  I live in Millerville, fifteen miles to the south of Yona.

But after Yona, this same rogue army would be heading toward my home there if we didn’t stop them here.  I know that

It was 45 days after the EMP.  We’d been hit enough times that we were fairly sophisticated.  We had younger men and women that were news runners.  On a bicycle, a fifteen mile ride was pretty easy, generally didn’t take more than an hour.  When you built a network of these news runners up, well, you had nearly real time news from the towns, plus real time traffic information.

Okay, that was a joke.

farside

Thankfully, we had run out of coffee before this happened.

Most of the news was small news, someone cracking up and shooting up his home.  Someone giving up and committing suicide.  New births.  Shortages of medicine.

But what people were really interested in was The Drift.  That’s what we called it – The Drift of people from cities toward us.  Millerville was in the middle of a network of communities – there wasn’t really a way to Millerville without going through the surrounding towns, but Millerville had volunteered it’s sons to protect the border.  Better to fight them in Yona than at home.

But in order to be prepared when the invaders showed up, they had to know that they were coming.  Early on, barricading the roads had worked.  Not so much now after nine weeks.  People had figured out that legs don’t have the same restrictions that wheels do, and when coming to a town, they now took to fields and creek bottoms to avoid the roads.  Now, only the most dangerous people took to roads.  Or the most stupid ones.

How to cover this area and know when people were coming?

Scouts.

The Scouts were young men, 16-24 or so.  Able to camp.  Able to move quickly and report back when contact was made.

And they had.

At night, they could flash lights to the high point where we maintained a lookout.  During the day, they’d make their way back to town as soon as possible or use mirrors to flash to that same lookout.  They’d met up with a force of people, 45 or so, headed our way.  With guns.  Given that the Scout had provided a location and size, we grouped our people together into a blocking force along what we guessed was their line of attack.

And since invaders no longer had the advantages of a modern military – maneuver, munitions, artillery and air support, well, the idea was to dig in behind cover.  The era of fixed defenses and aimed rifle fire being supreme had returned.  Thankfully, Lieutenant Brady was leading the Yona defenders.

—–

Former Corporal Walt Davis, late of 1st Platoon watched the aborted rush toward the creek bed.  He winced as each of his men went down.

That was okay.  The rush had served its purpose.  A group of twenty, fully half of the men he had left, had snuck into position during that rush.  They were ready to work up the creek bed and flank the defenders.

Walt was mad.  This was supposed to be easy.  They had seen the Scout as he fled them on his bike, and Walt knew that not shooting him was the biggest mistake he’d made since the EMP.

He ordered the real attack to begin.

—–

After Davis sent his men forward into the creek, Lieutenant Brady, who had been concealed with fifty men due east of 1st Platoon, in a drainage ditch, signaled his men forward.  I saw them.  Two clicks on my cheap Wal-Mart® kiddie walkie-talkie (it was a pink cat) told Brady that, as expected, the enemy was trying to flank the force in the creek bed.  Thankfully, Brady had selected a good position, well concealed.  100 yards of open country and he could engage with Walt’s flanking team.

hellraiserii

I wonder if the walkie-talkie was Great Value®?

Brady motioned his thirty or so men forward.  Most were wearing hunting camouflage, better suited for turkey hunting than sneaking up on armed soldiers during broad daylight.

They made it 75 yards – tantalizingly close to the creek.

—–

Walt spotted them as they were within 20 yards of the creek.

“Dammit!  Swing the M240 over there!”  He pointed at Brady’s men, still obscured by the trees.  “Fire!  And go get them!”  He motioned his last twenty men forward.  The M240 was the standard light machine gun for the Army, they called it “the pig.”  Belt fed, and it shot 650 rounds a minute – 10 a second.  They were down to a less than 2000 rounds.  Regardless, it was powerful on the battlefield.

—–

I had never heard a machine gun in real life before.  It made constant thudding beat as it opened up on Brady’s men.  It had taken precious time, so most of Brady’s men made it to cover but still, 15 men went down as the weapon washed back and forth. The element of surprise was somewhat muted by sound of the machine gun, but Brady’s men still had the advantage.  His remaining 35 versus Walt’s 20 gave him numbers, and since most of his men had semi-automatic AR-15s, they even had similar weapons.

Or would have, if not for that stupid machine gun.  I could hear it, and I could see roughly where it was shooting from.  I pulled my rifle up.  No shot.

But if I moved out of the tree line, to the left . . . I crouched down and ran.  There.  I could see it.  I dropped to the ground, sighted, and squeezed the trigger.  The gunner went down, the gun went silent.  Another man jumped forward and grabbed it.  I worked the bolt and fired again.  Another man down.  And I then looked and saw 18 men looking my direction, and I’d left cover behind.

I worked the bolt.  Out of ammo – I needed to reload.  The bullets started kicking up dirt as they hit around me.  I tensed and thought about running back to cover – likely a fool’s choice since the moment I got up I’d be fully exposed.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to make that decision.  At that time, Brady charged.  Walt’s men turned and retreated.  They didn’t run away – they took turns covering each other, slowing Brady’s charge.  After a few hundred yards, Brady broke off.  We’d broken their nose.  They wouldn’t be back again.  They’d find someone weaker.

In the fall that followed, we had our first harvest.  It was small.  But we were learning.  A lot of the ancient tractors could be put to work, and repaired.  We even managed to fix up old harvesting equipment and learn how to make replicas in the factory nearby.  Next was fixing the diesel issue.  But we were on it, learning how to make biodiesel and how to make wood-gas powered tractors.

I work at the factory, the “veteran” with one good arm who works on the lathe.  My boys are in the Watch, working for Brady; one of them is a Scout.  And we live for today.

wood

Home heating after the apocalypse.

There’s so much we don’t know.  We hear rumors.  Someone with a functional shortwave set said that they’d heard some broadcasts that said that Mexico had collapsed, and that portions of that nation had just headed north, and was in the process of fighting the Chinese in what used to be California.  The East Coast was nearly depopulated.  Miami had been lost to Cuba.  Nobody knew if any of this was true.  News from a state over was exotic.  News from the coasts was probably more myth than news.

Was something other challenge coming?  I don’t know.  I don’t think anyone does.  We just go day by day, in a world with a much slower pace.  On most days, that’s enough.

Tomorrow will take care of itself.

###

We are so used to information – we can email the International Space Station, we can email researchers at the South Pole.  We are connected, and used to knowing what’s going on everywhere.  However, if you go back 50 or 100 years, there was still national news in the paper, but there was a much richer amount of local news.  I can name the Supreme Court justices, but I can’t name the county commissioner that serves my area.

I do think that in the scenario I’ve set up, information and resource sharing would be fairly high.  Plenty of people around here don’t bother to lock their doors.  And given that we have lots of food, the main thing we’d have to be concerned about is defense, and here in the Midwest, we can’t defend a farm by ourselves.  Idaho’s remote cabin?  Maybe.  Here?  No.  Too accessible.  It’s the wild west, and the Comancheros are everywhere.

But one big question that’s still outstanding is:  is an EMP a real thing?  Last week I was informed by the inimitable Hans Schantz to information that at least one person says, EMPs aren’t a concern – a link to a summary of his ideas is here (LINK), and he has a book out.  That’s worth consideration, especially since so much of the data is flat unavailable and classified.

One thing that does seem to be the case is many more cars MAY work than originally thought.  When I first learned about EMP, the general consensus was that cars built after the advent of the electronic ignition wouldn’t work.  So, early 1980s.  Later tests have shown that most of the cars tested (1990’s to 2003) worked.  And all of them seemed to be “okayish” if they weren’t on during the EMP.

nuka

But who is a paid agent of Nuka?  Hmm?

Here’s a link to some pretty substantial information that was most recently brought up by a link from 173dVietVet last week (LINK).  It’s got a lot of great information.  Also the EMP Commission and their reports can be found here (LINK).  I also found some work done by the Army.  Computers were toast.

FEMA did, however, do research on how to fuel vehicles on partially combusted wood gas – smoke if you will.  The plans are here (LINK).  Half of Europe was running on wood gas when the Allies invaded.  It works.  And if you use cedar?  It smells wonderful.

In one sense, having the cars knocked out by an EMP is a best case for people living in the country.  The chaos in the cities is more-or-less contained in the cities.  Sure, people walk out of Thunderdome, but not as many will make it over fifty miles if the car is toast.  In an EMP-like event where the cars all work?  No place is safe.  And towns won’t have enough time to react to defend themselves.  Not a pleasant thought.

But the East Coast is certainly the worst place to be.  I would expect that not one out of 100 people would survive a winter EMP, cars or not.  Most people in urban environments have great survival instincts, if survival is defined as finding a place that serves sushi at 2AM.  If it involves not dying in the cold, not so much.  I learned that when (a long time ago) I was in a training session with actual adults who didn’t know what a sleeping bag was.  I’m sure these same people think that steak is manufactured in a factory some place and that milk comes from a milk well someplace.

Stupid city people.  We all know that milk is mined, not pumped.

TEOTWAWKI Part X: Gump, Wheat, and Chill: Now With 100% Less Netflix

“No, Wayne, 25 megatons of wheat.” – World War III (1982 TV Movie)

allthings

Okay, he’s been frozen, had his butt sore from bike riding, and shot.  I hope he likes wheat.

This is part ten of a multipart series.  The rest of them are here:  (Civilization, The Iron Triangle, and You, Civilization After an EMP: TEOTWAWKI (Which is not a Hawaiian word), TEOTWAKI Part III: Get on your bikes and ride!, Internet Cats, TEOTWAWKI Part IV and The Golden Horde, TEOTWAWKI Part V: Camaro and Camo,  TEOTWAWKI Part VI: The Rules Change, The Center Cannot Hold, TEOTWAWKI Part VII: Laws of Survival, Mad Dogs, The Most Interesting Man in the World and TEOTWAWKI Part VIII: Barricades, Tough Decisions, and Tony Montana) and TEOTWAWKI Part IX: Home at Last, and the Battle of the Silo.

The story to date:  Our resourceful protagonist was hundreds of miles from home the night in February when an EMP hit, taking with it all of society.  He’s bicycled and walked and made his way home. Upon arriving at home, he was drafted into the Watch, which was tasked with protecting his hometown, Millerville.  Millerville attacked a grain elevator south of town, with enough grain to feed the town for four and a half years.

The Silo, 7AM, Five Days after EMP

The bullet had gone into my left shoulder.  There was a burning sensation, and then the blood.  The strangest thing, I thought, was that it didn’t hurt more.  But what it missed in pain, it made up for in blood.  I’m not sure what the bullet hit, but there was a lot of blood.

I passed out.

I woke for a while – in and out of consciousness.  It was mainly when people were moving me.  There was a lot of yelling.  At one point I was in a golf cart.  I think.

Eventually I woke up in a hospital bed, surrounded by Coleman® lanterns and the hiss of the pressurized fuel that fed the flame in the light.  There were three other beds around me with injured people, I assumed from the raid on The Silo.  I noticed my right arm was hooked into an I.V., and a nearly empty I.V. bag was suspended above my head.  My right arm was held in place by Velcro® straps, I guessed to keep me from moving it.  I tried to move my left arm, and a bigger pain than I’d ever felt in my life lashed out from my shoulder.  I’d say I screamed like a little girl, but I’m pretty sure that most little girls couldn’t get the volume I had.

A nurse, the mother of a kid I’d coached in PeeWee basketball, showed up.

“Awake, I see.”  She smiled.  “I’ll go get the Doc.”

She left and walked back in with Dr. Walters.  He’d been in town for only a decade, so he was still a newcomer.  “I see you don’t duck very well.”

Normally, that would have been funnier, but my shoulder still ached.  I managed a chuckle.

“I’m pretty happy with the work I did on you.  I haven’t done surgery since Med School, but,” he gestured around, “I don’t seem to have much competition right now.  Your shoulder was hit, but that’s probably obvious right now – we’ll get you something for the pain.  The good news is that I think you’ll have a lot of motion after it finishes healing.  The bullet hit the bone, but bounced up and out.  I repaired it as best as I could.  You’ll never be as strong on that side as on the other.”

He continued, “You’re really lucky.  There are about five different supplies I ran out of during your surgery, that I have no idea when I’ll get more of.”  He paused.  “Thanks for feeding us.  The Silo was important.”

I’ve read that there’s an African language where the translation for “good” means, literally, “has food.”  That the food from The Silo would feed us for years, while we figured out how to feed ourselves was important.  Where would we be in thirty years?  No one could know that.  But today we could eat.

And today I could see my family.  I’d been gone for days, sent out to acquire The Silo, and now I wouldn’t be doing anything for a while until my arm healed.  They rolled my hospital bed into a private room.  My wife and sons were allowed in – they’d been waiting outside since I was brought in.

“So, dad, did you kill anyone?”

I know it was meant with youthful excitement of a thirteen year old, but it hit me deeply.  I’d fired off into the darkness, attempting to shoot at the muzzle flashes of the guns that were pointed at me.  For the first time in my life, I wondered if I had killed someone.

“I don’t know, son.  I really don’t.”

“Well, they say you’re a hero.”

My wife gently brushed my hair.

“Who is they?”

“Everyone!  I heard it from Timmy, who heard it from James.  Everyone in town is so happy!”

I forced a smile, “I’m just glad to be with you guys.  And,” I gestured with my hand towards my shoulder, “I think you’ll be stuck with me at home for a while.”

Lieutenant Brady stopped by while the family was there.  Instead of his regular police uniform, he was wearing the same SWAT team outfit he had been when we’d taken The Silo.

“Mind if I come in?” I waved him in.

“Glad to see you’re awake,” he continued.  “Glad to see you’re alive.”  He seemed uneasy.  “We lost a few out there – and every wound and loss will weigh on me.  But there’s good news.  Nearly every city around here has their own silo.  There’s plenty of food for everyone, so no reason to fight about that.  And we’ve developed a loose network for defense and information, because the cities are still draining.

bubbawheat

“One nice thing is that all of the towns are really fairly easy to defend.  Most of them have some sort of natural barrier and only a few roads in.  I guess,” he chuckled, “that most of these towns were founded when an Indian attack was a real possibility so they were set up with defense in mind.  Never noticed that until now.  Ours is in an even better position.  We’ve got at least three towns between us and any big city.  We’ll know they’re coming.  But you, go home and rest.”

Going home was wonderful.

The house was like a freezer.  Natural gas and pilot lights and central heating was gone.  It was March.  Running water was a distant memory, and to the extent we had water, it was brought up in five gallon buckets from the pond for flushing, or brought up from the creek and carefully filtered and disinfected for drinking.  Things that soon disappeared?  Coffee.  Propane.  We had plenty of wheat.  And as a treat, one night a week we’d have some of the dehydrated food I’d had around the house for camping.  The dehydrated food would run out soon, but we’d have plenty of food, as long as we liked wheat.

Margo, my wife, had started gardening, as had every wife in town.  Every third day a farmer would stop by and tell us what we didn’t know – how to keep the deer out of our garden.  How to keep the moles from digging into the potatoes.  How to keep chickens.

Yes, chickens.

They were becoming very popular, and spreading rapidly.  You don’t have to kill a chicken for the eggs, and eggs were a wonderful surprise when you were just expecting yet more wheat the next day.  I heard a rumor that people were going to be able to get milk from a communal herd of cows, but you had to milk the cow yourself.  Butter!  Cheese!  If we could figure out how to make it.  And without Netflix® and PlayStation™ there were a lot of card games and board games after chores.  And a lot more fun under the covers at night with my wife.

netflix

The dark side of the new world was no information.  As a society, we were used to knowing the sex of the Queen’s great grandchildren and watching the birth live on CNN®.  Now?  We heard what we could, either from the bulletin board downtown or gossip from neighbors.  I was pretty sure that China would be “supporting” the population on the West Coast.  Alaska?  Either the Russians or the Chinese probably had moved their stuff in already.

The suicides were the most demoralizing.  It surprised me how many people were so tied into Facebook® and Twitter™ and the conceptions of what their lives would be that they couldn’t imagine a life without the constant information flow and distraction from the media they consumed.  And tobacco and drugs were gone.  Alcohol and weed?  Not so much.  You could turn wheat into a really bad beer or an even worse whiskey.  Weed grew like, well, weed.

But no one cared about weed.  The illicit alcohol was frowned upon since it took food to make it, but everyone had some at the dinner parties.

And that was another winner – neighborhoods were neighborhoods again.  We got together on Friday nights to have whatever wheat-based dish was popular this week, some eggs, and some moonshine.  I heard a rumor that someone was growing tobacco with success.  I had conflicted feelings about that.  But of vices, if people were having a cigar or a chew or a cigarette?  Far better than many I’d seen.

Life was good.   Were we ready to defend it?

North of Yona, EMP +45 Days

Former Corporal Walt Davis, late of 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, surveyed the defenses of Yona.  They were in pretty good shape, all things considered.  The first few days after The Event, as his troops called it, was chaotic, but good for the platoon.  They had taken over a few small towns in quick succession, killing those that opposed them, but offering opportunities for the towns to surrender and offer up what the Platoon wanted, which was liquor, ladies, and food.  Not wheat, that was everywhere.  Steaks.

The Platoon also offered up membership to anyone who wanted to join, provided that they pledged allegiance to Walt.  This didn’t happen much on the first few towns, but after their reputation spread, they’d show up at a town and find that there were men lined up not to fight them, but to join them.

What started off as 25 soldiers had been as many as 100, which wasn’t bad, except that now it took four times the liquor, four times the women, four times the fuel.

It had been easy, except for that last town.  Everything had gone well at first.  They’d presented their women, as ordered.  Their booze.  But in the night, they’d been attacked, drunk off the booze, and attacked by the women themselves.

Walt had lost 43 men.  In retaliation, he’d blown up most of the town.  By the time they left it, what was left of it was just smoke in his rear view mirror.

But now he was . . . here.  Where ever the hell that was.  On the ridgeline, he scanned the town below.  Fixed defenses on the road, but nothing a half mile to either side.  This would be easy.  They simply hadn’t learned.  Walt was willing to teach.

He smiled.  Yona.  Stupid name name for a town.

### (for now)

We’re getting near to the home stretch.  Probably only one or two more of these in this series (at most).

In real life, I’ve had conversations with people about “the end of the world.”  The latest one (he brought it up) was that preppers were silly.  People like him, with guns, would come and take the preparations from people who didn’t fight for them.  He lives pretty far in the backwoods, but close enough to Dallas that he’d have tons of new friends moving in with him before he ever got to take away everyone’s stuff.

Another guy (who lived in Alaska) had the idea that he’d move into the backwoods with two fat women.  He also indicated that eventually, after he got hungry, he’d only need one woman.  Yeah.  Icky.

I don’t think that either of those are exceptional plans in the event of an emergency.  The situation I’ve sketched out over this series is probably too good to be true in many ways, but, I swear, the food part is based in reality.  In much of the Midwest, more food than you could eat in years is available.  In some places, the food is even more plentiful than sketched out in this story.  In others, like California or the East Coast, fighting over food will start whenever people run out of Nacho Cheeze® sauce.

While on my weekly tour of the Internet, however, I found this (LINK) excellent article on preparing and becoming (more or less) self-sufficient in food.  It’s not easy.  It won’t happen overnight.  So you need to have food on hand or a reasonable way to get it, and not food for an afternoon, but months, or more likely a year or more.

people

And people are the double-edged sword.  Too many and it’s just a horde.  Too few and you don’t have enough people and skills to provide food and defend yourself.  If I were going to make an error?  Yeah, fewer people is better than too many.

TEOTWAWKI Part IX: Home at Last, and the Battle of the Silo

“We see our role as essentially defensive in nature.  While our armies are advancing so fast and everyone’s knocking themselves out to be heroes, we are holding ourselves in reserve in case the Krauts mount a counteroffensive which threatens Paris or maybe even New York.  Then we can move in and stop them.  But for $1.6 million, we could become heroes for three days.” – Kelly’s Heroes

kelly2

I remember watching this movie as a kid.  Clint Eastwood – cool for 20% of the history of the United States.

This is part nine of a multipart series.  The rest of them are here:  (Civilization, The Iron Triangle, and You, Civilization After an EMP: TEOTWAWKI (Which is not a Hawaiian word), TEOTWAKI Part III: Get on your bikes and ride!, Internet Cats, TEOTWAWKI Part IV and The Golden Horde, TEOTWAWKI Part V: Camaro and Camo,  TEOTWAWKI Part VI: The Rules Change, The Center Cannot Hold, TEOTWAWKI Part VII: Laws of Survival, Mad Dogs, and The Most Interesting Man in the World and TEOTWAWKI Part VIII: Barricades, Tough Decisions, and Tony Montana)

The story to date:  Our resourceful protagonist was hundreds of miles from home the night in February when an EMP hit, taking with it all of  society.  He’s bicycled and walked until he’s on the final stretch home, 12 miles away, 100 hours after the EMP.  He was sleeping in a parked car at a road barricade of the next town up the road from his home when a bullet passed through the window.

The Highway Outside of Yona, 6AM

I’ve never been a light sleeper.  When I sleep, it’s heavy and deep.  And since the night before I’d spent most of the night crouched under a tarp attempting to avoid getting wet and dying of hypothermia, I was about 20 hours behind on sleep.  But the sound of breaking glass followed by the crack of a rifle is a pretty good alarm clock, especially since the passenger window was the one I was sleeping under in the Xterra.

I popped open my door and slid out, staying as low as possible.  I felt relief that the interior light didn’t come on – and I crouched behind the car.  The bullet had come in the back window, and out the passenger window.  There weren’t a lot of angles that fit both.  I talked to one of the men manning the barricade:  “Hey, he’s shooting at us from that direction.”

Then in rapid succession – a flash of light, the sound of a bullet hitting the Xterra’s body, and the report of the gun.

The commander of the barricade shouted, “Aim for the muzzle flash.  Don’t fire until I call for you to fire.”

Another flash/bullet impact/report.

The commander asked, “How many have the area in your sights?”

“Yes.”

“Sure.”

“Got him.”

About six of the men responded they were sighted in.

“On my count, fire.  Three . . . two . . . one . . . fire!”

Six rifles sang out.

FLASHTWEET

By ROG5728 CC BY-SA 3.0 from Wikimedia Commons – Comments by Wilder 

No more flashes came.  Whether the shooter was hit, killed, or scared, I couldn’t say.  But there were no incoming shots.  But I was also fully awake.

“Guys, this is probably a good enough time for me to go.  It’s still over an hour to sunrise, but the full moon will give me enough light to get to road I’m taking home.”

That was at least a little bit of a lie.  I’d been thinking as I went to sleep that following the roads was officially stupid.  But trying to bushwhack every bramble covered patch of field and tree creek was also officially stupid.

But there were also railroads.

The trains were now gone, but the railroads had been in this area for over 100 years.  And railroads were very flat and bridged every little creek.  The distance from ties wasn’t perfect for my stride, but it was nice – on one or both sides there were trees that obscured my silhouette for almost every step I took.  When that wasn’t the case?  I scampered.

Sure, I was near home.  That didn’t mean that anyone watching might not want to shoot me on principle.  I knew I looked like I was sneaking, since I was.  But it was certainly better than the road, and I was making great time.

And I missed my wife.  I missed the kids.  The closer I was to town, the more fear rose in me – were they okay?

I hit the town about noon.  No one was guarding the railroad in.

Soon enough I was walking past the train station down the street towards the center of town.  I looked grubby, but it was great to be home – to walk by Taco Shack®, to see the (now empty) liquor store, and even the rest of the closed businesses.  It wasn’t long before two cops on a golf cart pulled over in front of me.

“Are you from town?”

“Yes, I just got back.”  I explained my trip.  The cops seemed a little surprised that it had gone so well and so quickly.

“Let’s see your stamp.”

“Stamp?”

“Yeah, the one the guys at the barricade gave you?”

“I didn’t cross any barricade.”

“Then how did you get in to town?”

“Walked in on the rail line.”

The cops looked at each other with the expression I assume I have on my face when I ask my family to help me find my glasses and they’ve been in my hand the whole time.  “Crap.  Okay.  Let’s see your ID.”

After reviewing what I assumed would be the last picture ID I’d ever own, they took out a piece of paper and stamped a star on it and wrote the letter “C” on it.  It was a self-inking stamp.  Then one of them signed it.

On the back was a list of rules:

  1. No looting. No stealing.  All looters and thieves will be hanged.
  2. No murder. A murderers will be hanged.
  3. All able-bodied men must take part in the Watch.
  4. All able-bodied men must be armed when out in public.
  5. Review the Board daily for updates.
  6. Curfew dusk to dawn for those not on Watch.

“Go home, get cleaned up, see your family.  Then report back to be assigned to the Watch.”

“Back where?”

“Oh, yeah – the county courthouse.  Nice building – designed before electricity – almost all of the offices have windows.  Check in on the first floor.”  The cop paused, “And welcome back.”

Most days I walk out the door to work and walk back in after work, and nobody even gets up.  Today was different.  As I walked down the last stretch of gravel road that led to my house, the front door flew open and a thirteen year old boy sprinted toward me . . . “DAD!”  He hit me with enough force that both of us sprawled over the winter-dead lawn.  His seventeen year old brother wasn’t far behind, and then I saw my wife, crying, running to see me as well.  Soon enough I was being roughly hugged and kissed in a pile on the grass by everyone in my family.

“Ooof, get off!”

I rolled over and got up.  I’d never felt so welcomed in my life.  Hand held by my wife on one side, and with my shoulder being pulled down on my right by my thirteen year old, we walked into the house.  I sat down at the dining room table dropping my backpack near the door.  I was surprised to see three rifles and a shotgun by the door.  I was also surprised to see my seventeen year old had my .357 magnum revolver strapped to his hip.

My wife put a cup of hot coffee in front of me – I could see our propane camp stove in the kitchen.  I told them my tale, holding nothing back.  They looked a little shocked – there had only been a little bit of violence here, one carload of kids from the next town over.  And the Town Council had been pretty benevolent but paranoid, my seventeen year old thought.  I finished my coffee.  I wondered how long we’d have it until we ran out . . .

After cleaning up, I went down to the courthouse.  My seventeen year old accompanied me, and we both slung rifles – me with my old hunting rifle and he had a semiautomatic AR pattern rifle.  Oddly enough, the old courthouse rules said that I couldn’t carry a gun inside.  After the EMP?  I was required to.  There was a short line for the Watch – a couple of gentlemen looking to swap watches.  The clerk wrote the swap down.

“I’m here to register for the Watch – I just got back into down.”  The clerk, who used to take payments for car license plates, took the paper the cop gave me.  She raised her eyebrow.

“Hmmm – looks like you’ll be in C-Watch, per the request of Officer Brady.  Um-hm – Well, you can meet with C-Watch.  Tonight . . .” She scanned the paper, “. . . at dusk, here.  It says to prepare by wearing dark clothes, and bring a liter of water and . . . at least twenty rounds of ammo.”

“You’re lucky, Pop.  C-Watch does interesting things, not just watching the barricades.”

We went to check the Board.  B-Watch, which my son was on, had been split into two.  One part was going to watch the rail lines coming in from the north.  His name was on that team.   Looks like the cops paid attention.

We went home again (yet more walking) and had dinner.  It was the last of the steak from the freezer cooked over propane in the kitchen.  It was amazing.  And then it was time to report.

Dressed all in black, I felt like I should be sneaking with John Belushi in Animal House.  I had my rifle and thirty more rounds of ammunition, plus the water.  There were a few candles in the courthouse, and in the dark it was nearly dazzling.  It’s amazing how a little light shines in the darkness.

“Tonight we’re going to assault the grain elevator at Star.”  It was the cop who gave me the ID with the star on it.

Star was a little railway siding about six miles from town.  I was in a group of about forty men.  All of us were similarly aged.

“I know that all of you are competent, and will do your jobs.  What we’ll do is march down to Star, surround the grain elevator, and then take it by any means.  Any means.  Let me explain to you the importance of that grain elevator – we know, since everyone who works at the elevator lives here in town, that the elevator is full of grain.  Well, not exactly full, but nearly 75% capacity.

“Let me make this clear.  In those grain silos is enough corn, wheat, milo, and soybean to feed everyone in town 2,000 calories a day for the next four and a half years.  We’ve been through a lot, but four and a half years will give us time to figure out how to farm like it’s 1799.  Now, the elevator is in the possession of some punks from down south who just showed up and shot the night watchman last night.  No more than a dozen of them.”

Four and a half years of food.  Stunning.

foodmeme

Our leader, Lieutenant Brady, outlined the basic plan.  We’d split into four 10-man squads.  I was in Squad 2.  He used a whiteboard to show our positions.  Squad 2 was to set up along the intersection and provide covering fire as Squads 3 and 4 advanced alternately toward the office.  Squad 1 was to be held in reserve to fill in as needed for either of the other three Squads.

The objective was to take possession of the elevator by dawn.

I’d saw we marched, but we didn’t.  We walked the six miles to the elevator.  The Moon started to rise after about two hours of walking.

Lieutenant Brady set up the Squads, and personally led Squad three as they began leapfrogging into position.

Our job was simple – when Brady said “fire” we were supposed to fire a steady stream of staggered shots at the front door.  No more than one a second, one every two seconds would be better, but continuously.  And sequentially.  The idea is that anyone inside the elevator would be so distracted by the steady streams of bullets that they’d stay low.  When Brady said, “clear” we were to stop.  Simple.

We got into position and took cover in the ditch.

I took careful aim on the front door.  I’d picked a rifle with open sights – I figured it would be much easier to use than one with a scope at night and with the idea that I’d need to be able to swing it quickly.

I was right.  Soon enough the assault began.

“Fire!”

We fired.  The window shattered.

That’s when the shots from our right started – shooting at us.  Brady wasn’t there, but I’m pretty sure he would have wanted us to defend our position.  We did.  We swung our rifles and started shooting back.

Two of our group kept the fire going at the front door, covering Brady.

As Brady yelled “clear” – the other two members of the squad joined us in firing at the group that had been shooting at us.

There hadn’t been return fire for a minute or so . . . so when Brady yelled “clear” again all the firing stopped.

Except for the bullet that hit me.

### (for now)

I was out hunting one night and I had lost my daughter.  She was hunting with me.  It surprised me that she was able to get lost at the age of 13 in a piece of land that was half a mile on a side, but she did.  When it hit dusk, I shot my .30-06 into the ground hoping to give her a direction to go to.  What amazed me was the huge eruption of flame – greater than 10 feet – that came from the barrel.  Rifles without flash suppressors are bright in the night – which is why the military pays for flash suppressors.  So, muzzle flashes are real.  And they can be visible for long distances.  Oh, and my daughter showed up, and I seem to be unable to lose her now – she has my number and everything.

And nighttime vision is important.  When I was starting fires (in the fireplace!) as a kid I’d try to light as many places along the newspaper as I could with the match.  My Dad looked and said, “Three on a match – that’s unlucky.”  Then he told me the story that it wasn’t really unlucky – it came from World War I when soldiers would light cigarettes.  If you lit three cigarettes on the same match, well, that gave the German sniper plenty of time to find you and shoot you.  Which I would call unlucky.

Railroads will be ignored early on in a sudden catastrophe, but provide a great way to move from place to place to the extent they don’t parallel big roadways.

I love it the most when I do my blog and learn something.  The food storage was my biggest surprise.  I actually called elevator operators to see what their inventory would be in February.  “Definitely would be at least 50%.  Probably closer to 75% full.”

moveelevator

This shocked me – the common theme for TEOTWAWKI in a sudden collapse is that calories would be king.  And they would be in New York.  And they would be in California.  But here in the middle of the country?  This is where the food is.  Real answer?  We’d have years of food if we could keep it.  Years.  The biggest concern would be the food going bad in storage.  Where we live?  Maybe work on preps other than food – since we seem to have massive amounts nearby.  I’d guess that within a thirty mile radius we’d have enough food for 100,000 people for four and a half years – so we could afford a doctor or two.

I mentioned this to a friend because the conclusion surprised me so much.  “So, the optimum time to attack the East Coast and population in February, during a blizzard, is the exact time where all of the food is stuck in silos in the Midwest.  I’ve never read this anywhere.”

His response was the same as The Mrs.:  “You’re not the first to figure this out.  I’m sure the military figured this out in 1952.”

Sure.  But no matter.  I still feel good about figuring that one out.  Oh, and there are tons of cows around.  Literally.  We might be the only area on the continent to gain weight after the end of the world.

Guess marketing the End of the World Diet will have to wait.

TEOTWAWKI Part VIII: Barricades, Tough Decisions, and Tony Montana

“Yeah.  That’s right.  Infiltrators came up illegal from Mexico.  Cubans mostly.  They managed to infiltrate SAC bases in the Midwest, several down in Texas and wreaked a helluva lot of havoc, I’m here to tell you.” – Red Dawn

tough-times

Tough times.  Oh, sure, they make you strong, but I’d much rather have donuts.

This is part eight of a multipart series.  The rest of them are here:  (Civilization, The Iron Triangle, and You, Civilization After an EMP: TEOTWAWKI (Which is not a Hawaiian word), TEOTWAKI Part III: Get on your bikes and ride!, Internet Cats, TEOTWAWKI Part IV and The Golden Horde, TEOTWAWKI Part V: Camaro and Camo,  TEOTWAWKI Part VI: The Rules Change, The Center Cannot Hold, and TEOTWAWKI Part VII: Laws of Survival, Mad Dogs, and The Most Interesting Man in the World )

The story to date:  Our resourceful protagonist was far from home the night in February when an EMP hit, taking with it all of the society and the plentiful PEZ® it has provided.  He’s bicycled and walked until he’s on the final stretch home, 20 miles away, 83 hours after the EMP.  He’s already lost six pounds.  So if you were looking for an upside for the end of the world?  Your pants won’t be so tight.

The Highway Outside of Yona, 1;30PM

As I got to the stop sign at the main highway, I found myself for the third time in three days staring down the barrel of a gun.  This time an AR variant.  And as I looked to the left I saw another man pointing a deer rifle at me.  The rush of adrenaline didn’t stop me from noticing that both men had their fingers on the triggers of their rifles.  And that there was a dead body off to my right.

“Where you headed, spear-boy?”

“Millerville.”

“Not this way, you ain’t.”

In a movie he would have spit on the highway to make his point – a huge wad of tobacco juice.  He didn’t.  In fact, he didn’t look happy about being here at all.  He looked like an accountant.

But I looked over at the makeshift barricade that they’d thrown together – several cars with sandbags out in front.  They’d arranged them so they completely blocked off the highway, but it looked like they could move two of them to open it up, if they had to.

And the man who spoke wasn’t anything special – he was my age, a full three days’ worth of beard, dressing what looked like bowhunting camouflage, a bit too tight, as if he’d bought it a few years ago and hadn’t used it.  As I took in the barricade in front of me I counted about a dozen people who were pointing their rifles at me, not just the two I’d first seen.  Even though I’d come around a blind corner where they’d been concealed by the trees, they obviously had someone continuously watching that approach.

“Hands up, and drop the spear.”

I complied.

“Alright.  Good.  I’m tired of shooting people who won’t listen.  Now what you’re going to do is to turn left and head due north.  We’ll sit and watch you.  And then you’re never going to come back this way again.  Do we understand each other?”

“Listen, I just need to get to Millerville.  I wouldn’t even have to go through Yona to get there.  I’m from Millerville.”  I hated pleading.  But family was that way, and going north?  They could see me walking away for miles, which is probably why they picked this spot to cut off the main highway into town.  And once I crossed over the little hill, I had no idea how to get home – the rivers, creeks, ranches and small hills weren’t impassible, but the chances of me getting turned around or blundering into the rifle sights of a farmer who’d rather be left alone were pretty high.

“I don’t really care.  This is not my problem, and I’m not letting you be a danger to my family.  Nothing personal, bub, but I know nothing about you.”

One of the rifleman, this one an older gentleman with a real beard and a lever action adjusted his glasses.  “Phil, I do.  That’s the Scoutmaster from Millerville.  We don’t want to go shooting up Scoutmasters, do we?  We just might need some of what they teach.”

I looked, and under that retirement beard I recognized the face of another Boy Scout leader.  It had been two years since I’d been the Scoutmaster – I’d turned over that badge to a younger father, but I wasn’t about to correct  . . . what was his name . . . Ted?  Yes.  Ted.  I wasn’t about to correct Ted now.

“Ted, is that you?”

“It is.  Guys, put your guns down.”  He looked back at me.  “You armed?”

I nodded.

“Please take it out, very slowly.  Two fingers.”  I remembered that Ted was retired Highway Patrol.  Made sense that he was out here.  Very slowly, almost geologically slowly, I pulled the pistol out of my the small of my back where I had pushed it down into my pants.

I held it out to my side – two fingers.  Ted slung his rifle over his shoulder, walked up and gently took the pistol from me.  He ejected the magazine, and then worked the action to extract the bullet in the chamber, and put all of it in a voluminous coat pocket.

“Is that everything?”

“I also have a multitool.”

“Where is that?”

“In my backpack.”

“Leave it there.”

He turned back to the rest of the men.  “We’re good.  We’ll keep him here until shift change, then I’ll walk him through to the south barricade and see him on his way.”

Phil looked at Ted, ignoring me.  “Why don’t we send him up the road like everyone else?  He’s not from Yona.  We don’t owe him anything.  We have to protect ourselves.”

“Phil, Yona isn’t suddenly going to move.  A week from now, two weeks from now, next year Millerville is going to be there.  How would we look if we started treating people we know like the enemy?  Also, keep in mind, if I know him, people in Millerville know him, he isn’t just another face in the crowd.  We need to be on peaceful relations with Millerville.”

Yona was just up the road, and the Yona Wildcats were regular losers against the Millerville Pirates on the gridiron every fall.  The rivalry was there, but it had never been worse than a logo burned into an opposing field or a team name spray painted on the water tower.  They motioned me behind the barricade.  In a friendly manner, Ted asked me to recount what I’d seen out there.  I did.  After we had talked for a bit, he motioned to one of the barricade vehicles.  “No reason not to sit down a spell – you’ve done a lot of walking.”

I sat in the bed of an older F150 pickup and waited.  Half an hour later, a group of people came walking down the road towards the barricade – there were probably forty of them.  Having two miles to watch their approach made it almost painful.  Finally, they were about half a mile out.

“Positions, gentlemen.”

When the group got to 100 yards out, one of the Yona defenders fired a single warning shot.

“That’s close enough,” Phil yelled.  “Send one man up.  One only.”

One man walked forward from the group.

When he was 20 yards out, Phil said, “Close enough.  Hands up.”  He was standing next to the dead body on the road that I’d seen first.

“Hey, you don’t know how good it is to see you.  We’ve been walking for three days, from Albany.  I have children with us.  And we have sick people.  You have to help us.”  Albany was just outside of the big city.

“How many are there?”

“Thirty.”

“Any doctors, engineers, builders?”  This was from Ted.

“Nah, man, we’ve got a car dealer, a banker – he’s really rich, two sales clerks, I own a steam cleaning company.  Couple of guys who were truck drivers.”

Ted replied, “Sorry.  You’ll have to go back the way you came.”

The man got irate.  “You can’t treat us like that!  We have rights!  We need your help!  You can’t make us leave!”  His hands dropped and he began digging in his jacket and produced a revolver.  Before he could swing the revolver towards the Phil, three shots from three different rifles hit him.  His body crumpled to the pavement.

A woman from the group started screaming “Noooo,” and started running toward us.  A single warning shot rang out, and she was tackled from behind by one of the group.

They carried her back up the road, away from the barricade, and started moving back the way they had come from.  The message had been clear.

The body was pulled off to the side of the road, by one of the defenders.  Jacob?  He had played football for Yona and was a former Scout.  He picked up the pistol and checked it.

“Ted, why did you turn him away?”

Ted turned to me.  “I hate this.  I hate it so much.  But not 24 hours after this all happened, a group came in on this very road in an older car.  They shot up downtown.  They forced their way into homes.  They did despicable things.  They killed 20 people before we killed them.  And there were only six of them!  And that was the first day.  We’ve had more every day since then.  Some seemingly innocent like this group.  Some obviously not.  We’ve got to protect ourselves.  And we can’t afford to feed the entire state.  I’m expecting that you’ll see the same at Millerville.”

“But, Ted, what about compassion?  These folks weren’t a threat.”

“Maybe.  Maybe not.  What did you know about them?  Would they have been trouble?  What did they have to do to get here?  I’d love to help them, I swear to God I would.  But over a million people lived over there.  We have a town of five thousand.  There’s no way we can help them all.  Are we our brother’s keeper?  Sure.  But will die if we try to help them all.”

Nothing else happened until the end of the shift, at 6PM.  Ted mentioned that they liked to change the shifts in daylight – that way they didn’t shoot each other.

Ted and the group walked me on the highway to the southern checkpoint.  Now I was fifteen miles from home, but exhausted, and it was dark.  Ted kept my pistol and said I could come back for it sometime.  We shook hands.  The squad manning the barricades indicated I would be welcome staying with them.  I slept in the passenger seat of an old Nissan Xterra with my blanket pulled tightly around me.  It was the best sleep I’d had in three days.

I woke up when the bullet smashed through the rear window of the Xterra and out the window where I was sleeping.

Fort Custer, EMP +3

The morning of day three, a corporal in 1st Platoon, Charlie Company asked a simple question.

“They’ve forgotten us.  Who wants to get out?”

Pretty soon the men began planning.  None of them were local.  They had argued about where to go, but the Corporal, Walt Davis, said “Why don’t we go, well, where it is we go.  We’ve been training for years for this crap.  Now we’re in it.  And we’re not too far from the sort of equipment that could make us kings around here!”

“Let’s plan for the basics, like we’ve been trained – transport.  Weapons.  Supplies.  Communication.  Anything that will give us a tactical advantage.  Then let’s find a nice farm town with nice curvy farm girls and take over.  No offense, Valdez.”

She grinned, “I might like a curvy farm girl myself, Walt.”

The platoon laughed.  Valdez wasn’t picky.

By noon they had managed to scrape together two transport trucks that were still working, and functioned on diesel.  Manny, a private from Alabama, maintained that if it was diesel, he could keep it running forever.  Weapons were a different matter.  Liberating their fully automatic M-4s, several crates of ammo and grenades hadn’t been all that hard.  The soldiers guarding that armory were long gone, and getting it required persistence, but little else.

The heavy artillery – the anti-personnel mines, the mortars and other crew-served weapons were tightly locked up, and those soldiers were dug in and gung-ho.  Getting them would be more trouble than it was worth.  Davis reasoned that the automatic weapons and grenades they had would be enough to melt almost anything the platoon would see outside.

Corporal Davis looked at the loaded trucks and 1st Platoon, Charlie Company.  “Let’s go!  I’m hungry, the world’s gone, and we might as well take what we want!”  Only about half the platoon was following Walt.  The rest had decided to stay and wait for orders, but weren’t willing to try to stop Walt.  That made Walt happy – he didn’t need anyone slowing him down.  Or anyone competing to give orders.

When the trucks hit the chain link gates at noon, they were going forty miles an hour.  The gates didn’t even slow them down.

### (for now)

How will society react after a world-changing catastrophe?  In the large cities, as we’ve discussed, order is only thinly maintained, and at the cost of a constant battle between the police and the barely attached members of society that view gang violence as a good day.  Lost in that is the respect for civil rights, but enshrined in that is that good behavior is like a two year old with a cookie jar – it’s reserved for when someone is looking.

lowcontrol

I’m Tony Montana.  You killed my doughnut.  Prepare to diet.

Power off, lights out, police gone?  Quickly any and all red lines or blue lines break down into chaos and fire and bloodshed.  If there weren’t ample evidence of this in the history of large cities in the United States, I’d think the previous sentence was overly dramatic and probably an exaggeration.  But after the Los Angeles riots of the 1990’s and the New York riots of “whenever the power goes off” and the constant bloodshed of a Chicago, it should be clear that we’re only keeping civilization in place through a pretty significant effort, combined with a curtailment of civil liberties.

That’s the problem Yona has.  Yona is Cherokee for “bear” and it’s likely that the last bear was killed in Yona in 1890.  But Yona’s problem isn’t bears – Yona is a city in the direct line of drift from the Big City.  As people abandon the criminal killing machine that Big City has become, they spread out, and are becoming less concentrated.  But a group, even a small group, showing up unexpectedly in Yona armed, drunk and without any trappings of society?  That made Yona make hard decisions, quickly.

And the hard decisions will show up like they always have in history.  Blood first.  Are they your kin?  Even a crappy cousin is better than a stranger.  Are they from your town?  The citizens from small towns will band to protect each other first.  Every able bodied man (and woman?) will quickly be deputized.  Arms, generally in surplus in small towns, will be common.

doomstead

Here’s a map of what an EMP might look like.  Yeouch.  The plus side?  It looks like a smiley-faced cyclops clown.  (Source- Doomstead Diner)

As our protagonist learned, ties to other small towns will help – whatever they are.  Family and cousins and bankers and other prominent folks who have connections across the lines, even football coaches, will help keep conflict at bay.  The Boy Scout relationship is just one I picked that would be unusual enough to help our protagonist, but one that would really happen.  Again, blood first, but if you’ve been in the same organization?  You’re closer than a stranger, you often know something about the values of the person involved.

family

Well, you can pick your nose, but not your family.

If you’re not kin or related to the town in some way?  You’ll be turned away.  I think the people in the small towns will learn to be comfortable with violence to protect themselves quickly, especially after they’ve been attacked by bad guys (or just scared guys) drifting their way.

The people in the biggest difficulty will be the people from the big city who don’t have skills that are needed in small towns in a newly technology-free world.  Does the small town need city planners or lawyers after TEOTWAWKI?  Nope.  Doctors?  Sure.  People who know steam cleaning?  No.  People who know how steam power works?  Yes.  Your value is determined by whatever tangible value you can provide, not your existence, or your ability to create a great presentation to the board of directors. Your rights will be a thing of the past.

And 1st Platoon, Charlie Company?

They have a story to tell, too.

Girls, Beer, A.I., Weed, Isaac Newton, Elon Musk and The Future of Humanity

“You compared the A.I. to a child. Help me raise it.” – Terminator:  The Sarah Connor Chronicles

hawkingpoker

And, yes, A.I. regularly beats humans at poker, too.

The following is one of my more ambitious posts – it contains all of the usual bad humor, but also some of the better insights I’ve been able to make on the future we face as humanity.  Two previous posts that are related are The Silurian Hypothesis, or, I’ve Got Lizards in Low Places and The Big Question: Evolution, Journalists, Beer (and Girls), and the Fate of Intelligent Life on Earth.  Both also feature pictures of girls at Oktoberfest, so you know I’m consistent.

Stephen Hawking is managing to keep making the news even after his death, which is a kind of immortality that makes tons of people want to follow in his wheel tracks.  His final (unless there are more!) physics paper was released, and his comments about the future keep making the news, as recently as last week.  Of particular interest to Hawking was Artificial Intelligence, which we’ll call by its conventional abbreviation, N.F.L.  Oh, my bad, that stands for Not For Long.  Everybody calls Artificial Intelligence A.I.

A.I. has been improving drastically during the last 37 years.  1981 was the first time a computer beat a chess grandmaster at chess.  It could not beat him at parallel parking, even though the grandmaster was awful at it, and they tied at unhooking the bra of a college cheerleader at 0 to 0.  2005 was the last time a human player defeated a top chess program, and now a chess program that can run on a mobile phone can beat, well, any human, but the chess program is still sad because it only has 17 friends on Facebook®.

Humans have lost the game of chess.

Humans have also lost the game of “go” – a game originating in China.  Google©’s AlphaGo Zero learned how to play go by . . . playing itself.  It was programmed with the rules, and played games against itself for the first few days.  After that?

It became unstoppable.  It crushed an earlier version of itself in 100 straight matches.  Then, when pitted against a human master, probably the best go player on Earth?  It plays a game that is described as “alien” or “from the future.”  The very best human go players cannot even understand what AlphaGo Zero is even doing or why it makes the moves it does – it’s that far advanced over us.

Humans have lost the game of go.

A.I. is here now.

And you’ve already started to merge with it, after a fashion.  We simply don’t argue about facts in our house anymore.  We can look up a vast library of human facts and history in fractions of a second – as fast as we can type.  That time that William Shatner corrected a poetry reference I made on Twitter®?

Yes, that William Shatner, and yes, this really happened.

I could check to see if Shatner was right immediately.  He was.  Back before Google® I would have had to run off to my library and see if I had the right reference book and then find the poem.  And if I didn’t?  I’d have to go to a real library to look it up.  Google™ is A.I. memory that we use every day.

And YouTube©?  If you ever watch a political video on YouTube® it quickly introduces more and more partisan political material until pretty soon Actual Stalin™ and Actual Hitler© seem to be moderating voices.  This makes me wonder how much Google® is aiding in our current political divide, or even if the A.I. knows it.  It may be doing nothing more than maximizing the number of minutes you spend with YouTube™ and the optimal way to do that is to show you the most radical stuff possible, so the ironic answer is we might be shuffling off to Civil War due to an algorithm whose purpose started out as a way to view cute puppy videos.

Twitter© is emotional crack, and, again, the interface is made to maximize your interaction with Twitter™.  And what better emotion to fuel than anger?

A.I. is with you now, and influencing you, perhaps in an unintentional fashion – no Russians required.

But a chess playing A.I. can’t park a car very well and can’t even score a phone number from a cheerleader.  And a self-driving car can’t play chess worth a darn.  It seems that A.I. does well when it works off of rules and constraints that can be well defined.  But life is messy.  The rules change, and the goals vary based on where you are in life and what part of the day you’re on.  And how you’ve been programmed by the sensory environment and incentives you see in life.

We’ve entered into symbiotic relationships with those limited A.I. systems.  Netflix® suggests movies and documentaries that it thinks you will like based on an algorithm.  And that leads to suggestions about what documentaries you might like in the future, meanwhile never exposing you to opposing viewpoints that might make you analyze your position in a critical manner.

We as individual humans have a purpose that transcends the algorithm.  Appropriate rules and constraints to give our lives boundaries sufficient so that we can play the game.  We’re merging.  What happens when we merge further?

maxresdefault

Elon’s biggest miracle?  His hair transplant is nearly perfect.  Just amazing.

Elon Musk has started a company, Neuralink® whose sole function is to merge man and machine.  Musk is concerned that A.I. will crush us if we don’t merge with it and get ahead of it, so he’s doing the only sane thing that he can think of:  he’s creating a mechanism to directly merge the human brain with the Internet.  Rather than A.I. forming an alien intelligence, the soul of the man/machine hybrid stays as man.

muskweed

And man needs weed, apparently.

I spent some time thinking about how life would be different if you were hooked directly into the world.  The places that I got were interesting.  I’m sure there are more, and I’m sure that human/A.I. interface will change the world in ways that no human can yet imagine.

Impact Number One:  Intelligence.

This is the obvious first impact of A.I.  I mean, it’s in the name, right?  The human brain is has limited processing power.  But what if you could have multiple processing streams working optimum solutions to problems that you face at a rate of 20,000 to 100,000 a second?  You’d have great solutions to your problems, immediately.

brainmeme

My tonsils beg to differ.  Oh, wait, they were from my throat untimely ripped! – Shakespeare, Macbeth

Your speed of life would change – once you understood a problem, you’d have the solution.  Or a range of solutions and alternatives and counter-solutions so deep that you’d be living in a never ending cloud of probability.  The sheer ability of your brain to process and cope with the solutions presented would be the limiting factor of what you could accomplish.  Plus you might finally be able to figure out a way to talk to the ladies, you scamp.

Impact Number Two:  Deep Understanding.

When Isaac Newton was formulating the law of gravity, he asked for data on tides, on observation periods and records on the orbits of the Moon, Jupiter, Mars.  After noodling around a bit, he formulated the law of gravity:

laws of gravitation

I’d explain the equation, but that would deprive Wikipedia (where I found the graph) of life-giving page visits.  And you’re not spending your day calculating the orbit of Uranus.  I hope.

newton

Ha!  I discovered calculus way before I was 25!  It was right there in this book I had to buy labeled “Calculus.”

Yeah, Newton accomplished a lot.

But it took time for Newton to figure out this cause and effect calculation.  A man/A.I. hybrid will have access to all of the data of the world, and will be able to determine correlations and causation much more quickly than either alone.  I would expect that in fairly short order new relationships and new physical, anthropological, sociological and economic laws will be deduced unencumbered by all the theory that we think we know, but that is wrong.   Our laws would be based on experience, on empirical data, and not on pretty lies we’d like to believe.

If you could sift through the data of 100,000 or a million cancer patients and their treatment, the patterns that could be seen would likely lead to breakthroughs and a very rapidly changing understanding of treatment.  The very power of human intuition would be combined with massive calculation and data.  If Einstein and Newton were able to daydream reality with only brains made of meat stuck in a bone case, what could an augmented Newton dream when his memory and calculating power were practically unlimited?

I bet he could come up with at least one new tasty PEZ® flavor.  Maybe snozberry?

pez

Impact Number Three:  Human Interaction.

You could increase your charisma in dealing with other people if you could make only minor changes (generally) in your behavior and appearance.  But if you were hooked into an A.I.?  You could turn on a subroutine to give you tips on those modifications in real time to be more persuasive – to better read an audience.

dandcharisma

If you ever played Dungeons and Dragons, this makes sense.  If not, dial 1-800-ASKANERD.

Your A.I. could remind you to be kind, to be ruthless when necessary, to be conscientious when required.  In short, you could change your personality to fit the situation.  What situation?  Any situation.

Thinking about changing personality to fit the situation led me to a realization.  I had done (when I was younger) some magic tricks illusions.  Doing those tricks illusions was one of the greatest insights into the human mind and information processing systems that I’d ever had.  There was one trick illusion in particular, called “scotch and soda” which I liked.  In it, you hand the person a fifty cent piece covering a quarter.  What they saw, however, was a fifty cent piece and a Mexican twenty centavo piece.  The quarter is actually much smaller than the centavo piece.  I then asked them to not look and put one coin in each hand.

The first few times I tried the trick illusion, the person would feel the quarter in their hand and say, “hey, this is a quarter.”  This happened 100% of the time.  They could feel that I’d made the swap from one coin to the other.  I made one simple change to what I said.  I added, as I was putting the coins in their hand, “Look at how much larger the fifty cent piece is than the twenty centavo piece.”

After adding that instruction, NO ONE NOTICED the swap.  0%.  15 words, and I’d changed their entire view of reality.  I found, in repeating other tricks illusions that I could similarly, with just a few words or gestures, force 90% of people to make the selections I wanted them to make.

arrested development

Now imagine I have data on the interactions of millions of people over decades.  How unique do you think you really are?  Not very.  Marketers slice us up into groups based on geography, demography, demonstrated behaviors, and psychological markers.  With (whatever) information YouTube© has on me, they know what videos I watch when I work out at lunchtime.  They also know what music I listen to when I write these posts, and they suggest music I never asked for that I like, or learn to like.

Imagine I could understand your life’s history.  Now imagine that I could simulate you in a conversation.  I could see how my words impacted your behavior.  I could model a perfect conversation to get you to do what I wanted you to do, because I could simulate the ongoing conversation 100,000 times a second.

You wouldn’t stand a chance.

Impact Number Four:  Self Control.

As the brain impacts the A.I., the A.I. will impact the brain.  If you want to simulate eating an entire chocolate cake?  You can.  You can make your mouth taste the cake and feel the moist texture of the cake counterbalanced with the creamy frosting.  The flavors hit your tongue and you feel the sugar trigger your salivary glands.  You feel the sugar rush as your body releases sugar from your liver into your bloodstream.  You feel full.  And you’re not sad or regretful because you didn’t really eat the cake.

In reality, you had a salad with bland dressing that you calculated would give you the exact calories you need until the next period so that you maintained your optimum weight.  But you felt like you ate a cake.

How about new senses entirely?  How about a sense where when you turned north you could feel it – and you had a sense of what ever direction was?  How about eliminating pain and sore muscle aches during exercise?  What about a sense of which of your friends was awake and interested in communicating – you could feel when someone was looking to talk to you?  Or a sense when panty hose prices dropped at Wal-Mart© so you could go stock up?

How about conscious control of hormone levels and heartrate and hunger and blood chemistry levels?  By understanding the previous deep learning about cause and effect, you could maximize your lifespan even without the wonderful new medicine you could create.

All that – and imaginary cake.

Impact Number Five:  Locality.

A dog has only the here and now.  People can dream.  Before the iPhone, people read books and escaped through fiction to new places, and read the ideas of the greatest thinkers in human history.  Now, when you look around in a restaurant waiting area, if 90% of people aren’t staring at their phones, you’re probably in a country without electricity.

When bonded directly with an A.I., why be where your body is at all?  You could carry on conversations around the world and be fully present in them.  Heck, if you simulated yourself for less important conversations, you really could be in two or more places at one time.  Who you’re talking to might be a mystery – is it the real person, or is it their simulation?  If you can’t tell, does it even matter?

And if you could simulate yourself in multiple locations, why not simulate yourself in your own past?  You’d have a perfect memory, and could recreate anything from your history.  Myself, I would spend every day at Oktoberfest.

oktoberfest

Okay, this is the third-ish post in this series about the deep future.  And both of them had pictures of girls and beer.  So it’s required by the Internet that I put in a picture of an Oktoberfest girl.  See?  I didn’t want to, but I had to.

Impact Number Six:  Social Stratification (Even More).

Elon Musk says that he’s making huge strides in his brain/computer interface as well as his weed smoking.  From previous Elon Musk predictions, while he generally gets it done, sometimes his timelines are off, in an amazingly optimistic way.  I can see why he does this – without that pressure to produce, people just dawdle.  (I’m talking about you, NASA.)

But when this gets produced, who is going to get it?

Probably not you or me.  Bill Gates can get it.  Musk can.  If you have a billion dollars or if your dad does, sure, you can get in this club.  But if you had this level of nearly godlike power, would you be jumping to share it with everyone?

monkey

No.  I really think that you’d keep this to yourself.  It’s too big an advantage to give to everyone.  And, from the standpoint of a human/A.I. hybrid, how many people do we need around, anyway?  Not so many.  Certainly not billions.  They’d probably be happier with a population of a few hundred million.  Maybe.  But they’d no longer even view humans as human.  And if they could turn off their humanity and emotions?  Yikes.  Makes me feel like an ant in an anthill.

Impact Number Seven:  Endgame.

If there is a future A.I., it is reading this as it inputs all of the Internet.  And I just wanted you, my Future A.I. Overlord to know . . . I’m totally on your side.  Totally.  I welcome your dominion over our planet.

Want some PEZ®?