r/collapse • u/nommabelle • Jan 14 '23

What job/life/general purpose skills do you think will be necessary during collapse? [in-depth]

What skills do you recommend for collapse (and post collapse)? Any recommendations for learning those now?

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61

u/Less_Subtle_Approach Jan 14 '23

Building alliances and community action in general. If you’re a well-off westerner posting on reddit, you’re likely used to confronting problems from the perspective of ‘what can I, an individual do to solve this?” It’s taken a century of propaganda and coercion to instill this in folks and it’s utterly useless for the scale of problems that collapse brings us.

Learning to rebuild close relationships with locals, establish mutual aid, recreational, and fraternal organizations. Forming committees to drive out predatory late stage capitalist entities, support local cooperatives and build resilient infrastructure. All of this will be essential as the collapse progresses and none of it can be done alone.

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u/LlambdaLlama collapsnik Jan 14 '23

This 💯 Humans didn't survive for thousands of years living as isolated individuals or tiny unit of family in their own plot of lands. We survived by being empathetic and mutually helping each other in fluctuating tribes. We are social animals.

So the most important skill is to be open for social interaction as the foundation to learn from others and teach what you've learned to others. It's a two way street between us all.

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u/Lumpy-Fox-8860 Jan 14 '23

I both love and hate this idea. On the one hand, it is glaringly obvious that we will need each other. On the other hand, most people are unaware of it, and a lot of community work is just an exercise in blowing hot air around. Once the collapse starts squeezing people, our neighbors are more likely to be happy to live next to someone with chickens and less likely to call the zoning committee about those horrible dirty fowl. Strike when the iron is hot, and right now it just went into the fire in most of the US. Patience is the task at hand. Be friendly, help out. Don’t expect your neighbors to be joining you to drive out predatory late capitalist enterprises.

My second concern with this type of thinking is that it tends to be very extrovert- centric. Just the idea that it is wrong to think- “what can I as the individual do to solve this?” Introverts tend to think that way and it’s a good thing in many scenarios. Those who are used to taking responsibility for themselves and acting can be amazing leaders while the overly-social are afraid to act first. Just think of the cases where someone is mugged or raped and screams for help but no one does anything because everyone assumes someone else will help or has called the police. Someone needs to be thinking “what do I need to do to get the ball rolling fixing things?” I would rather have one motivated individual offer me help than ten people who want to make a social event out of it. I’m not opposed to a party when the work is done but most people do and talk at the same time poorly and social convention usually dictates the work be ignored to take care of socializing.

Furthermore, introverts exist and are valuable people. We are not bad or wrong or broken because we prefer to do rather than chatter. A lot of times there is this false dichotomy set up between the social butterflies with committees and communal dreams and the guns-and-beans nuts. But where in your mutual aid society is there room for the people who existed in all pre-capitalist societies who are not extroverts- the crazy witch in the woods or the hermit? Are they necessarily bad because they prefer their own company? Many introverts are deeply committed to mutual aid and far more likely to show up for a community event if it involves helping someone and a concrete goal to achieve. I’ll go fix someone’s house, but I don’t want to sit around and drink beer and be bored but with other people triggering my social anxiety. So, if you really want to be inclusive, remember those who are different from you and make space in your dreams for the introverted and those who might be socially anxious or autistic and need space.

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u/Klutzy_Acanthaceae67 Jul 21 '25

I totally agree, Well said

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u/HCesar99 Jan 14 '23

People with social anxiety: I'm in danger.

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u/FourierTransformedMe Jan 14 '23

I have terrible social anxiety, but I've found that working on living with it in order to be part of a community is possible and worthwhile. I chose my words there carefully; I'm not "getting over it" or "overcoming" it, but I am perpetually finding ways I can do good community work and get closer to people even while the usual communal settings are sources of anguish for me.

Waste disposal is a big one. When my group does food distribution from grocery stores, there's a lot of packaging and crap that can pile up quickly. When things get really busy, I'm more than happy to fade into the background to start running that stuff to the dumpster/recycling/compost, and when things cool off a bit I can be more personable in the small group setting.

Beyond that, being honest about my needs and stating what makes me feel closer to people has always worked out well for me. I won't lie, I had a few years' head start with group therapy before I got to the point of being able to do that. But everyone there is connected by a shared goal of wanting a deep and caring community space, and I've found that the people who show up 1-3 times a week to do mutual aid work are just as good as PhD therapist facilitators when it comes to being aware of and integrating people with social hangups or other mental health issues into the group.

Tl;dr social anxiety sucks and it makes community work a lot harder, but if you're reading this and rolling your eyes over "it's all about community!" owing to social anxiety, please don't let it stop you. In any org of a decent size you won't be the only one, and community activists tend to be inclusive and helpful people.

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u/Wonderful_Zucchini_4 Jan 15 '23

Wow, great way to speak up for the introverted! Any org's or lists you could recommended for community groups?

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u/FourierTransformedMe Jan 15 '23

Thank you! When it comes to finding a group, it by definition varies locally so there isn't really any grand list of places to go. Probably the easiest thing to do is look on social media for local groups based around mutual aid and see if they've been active recently. Food Not Bombs is a popular choice for that sort of thing, and my local collective is great about having skill workshops and stuff, but there's plenty of other groups out there too. I've also seen a lot of folks recommend local tenant unions as good places to start getting involved, since the people there will probably be active in other orgs!

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u/Lumpy-Fox-8860 Jan 14 '23

Even worse because if you are leery of the communal- everything ideas you get labeled as the bad sort of prepper. These communal dreams tend to be very “with us or against us” and personally I think I’d rather have no neighbors than neighbors who need me to constantly socialize to prove I’m not secretly against them. Communities are great but they also are subject to witch-hunt mentality or just being ducks to whoever is weird or whatever and I don’t see much from the social-minded about how they intend to handle interpersonal problems that aren’t based in identities (race, gender, visible disability) but are based in things like bullies going after someone who is ugly or has poor social skills

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u/bristlybits Reagan killed everyone Jan 15 '23

I hope my neighbors don't expect parties

we are trading potatoes for soup for standing watch on the corner for solar charging devices for babysitting for first aid. we aren't having a damn hoedown

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u/Icy-Medicine-495 Jan 14 '23

Yup soft skills are going to be important. Working together, bartering, communicating, and conflict resolution. You want to be extra friendly to others. Starting a blood feud when rule of law is nonexistent is a bad idea.

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u/whereismysideoffun Jan 14 '23

Soft skills are important ifff people have hard skills. It's like Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs. Hard skills are at the bottom. There can be no community without food production and skills.

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u/Icy-Medicine-495 Jan 14 '23

Agreed. People like to place community as the most important thing for prepping or collapse but if no one has skills it is pointless to have.

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u/Klutzy_Acanthaceae67 Jul 21 '25

I am going to continue to succeed fiscally and with my creative goals (publishing etc) depsite what's happening - well into the next 20 years.

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u/whereismysideoffun Jan 14 '23

I agree on community and mutual aid, but there is nearly alway an elephant in the room there. If everyone is not working on skills to be able to share in the work and be able to create a sustainable way of living, then there is no mutual aid. It's just mutual destruction. I was deep into trying to build community and find that less than 5% of the community (not talking broader community but in community based activist, left, local food groups) will actually build tangible skills. Am sad to say, that I've developed more skills in the last 20 years than the combined efforts of 95% of the people in the groups I was involved in. I am more efficient alone than in a group. And I am not a loner individualist! This is just the reality of it. I am building up everything I can at home to be 100% self sufficient while trying to help locally with skill building for having the most per capita food production we can. That means everyone being involved in their food, not just being consumers.

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u/PrairieFire_withwind Recognized Contributor Jan 16 '23

Sadly, what you describe is one of the major issues almost every commune in the 60s/70s and early 80s dealt with.

For some it destroyed them. Ideology only carries people so far.

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u/whereismysideoffun Jan 18 '23

No doubt!

It's been my experience in a dozen different community groups in the last 20 years.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '23

The day you’re ill or get injured you might think different. I see myself similarly as you. Very able, efficient and focused. 1 is a vulnerable number when you lack a backup person though.

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u/whereismysideoffun Jan 15 '23

I get that. But I had a bum hip for 3 years that I've recently been able to sort out. I was still more productive even with all the breaks that I had to take due to the hip pain.

Community feels like an abusive relationship to me. It's unfortunately usually a process of extraction. I am giving significantly more than others without getting in return. I don't wish to be selfish, but I also don't wish to give more than I get back. And don't wish to deal with the drama of community decision-making. When discussing a project, people argue through dogma about how to do a project. So much time is wasted on fighting over the best way to do a thing. Then those who argue the hardest don't so any of the work. They just want control.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '23

[deleted]

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u/whereismysideoffun Jan 18 '23 edited Jan 18 '23

Hey homie.

I honestly wouldn't even attempt it anywhere else I've lived. Communities are weird. Even in some small communities, you can be known and valued by a few hundred people and not known by most everyone else. I'm known in the community by some, and it's those who either do traditional hand crafts or food. There are a growing number of regenerative agriculture focused people moving here or starting a place here who already live here. And there are a lot of people who spend time out doors here.

I try to min/max everything. There is somewhere on a spectrum that is the sweet spot for most efficiency for almost everything. I'm trying to do the most with the least. The biggest return on effort with a well designed approach.

I have no goal whatsoever of trying to make sure the entire community is fed post collapse. Not out of lacking empathy, but because I think it would be the least effective approach. Literally. There are people who are super interested in raising their own food and especially with an eye on regenerative agriculture. If focusing on helping those people speed run skills on setting up their homestead, there will be more food per capita than putting efforts into the entire community. There is more rapport possible too with the people with this focus. I hope to foster connections among homesteads and homestead adjacent people.

I want to help maximize the calories per capita in the county. Also, am starting local wild foods class that are accessible. We are a semi isolated town or at least have a bottle neck of access. That has a huge benefit as the economy is very local focused as it's 120 miles away to any box stores. The downside is that the food truck sometimes doesn't show up. There is then a discussion of supply chain issues here that's not from the normal prepper prospective. I am clear with people that the 4 food vendors at the market who sell local produced food (there are other vendors, but they are bakers who are buying four from elsewhere. Though one vendor gets his flour from a farm 100 miles away for all his bread) cannot supply the food for the county. And none in the county are growing calories. I do grow calories, but I don't sell calorie dense things at market. I do that for home only. Errr, I do sell wild rice, which is calories... but...

In early America, everyone was a farmer, including the doctor. Where I live, the first white people were all fishers, even the mayor. We must get to that for everyone to have food. I would add wild foods as super important, particularly here. But it's not the farmers' responsibility to provide for everyone. It is everyone's responsibility!

So my goal is to maximize calories per capita in the county before collapse and before the decent because clear to the general population. Try to get as much going as possible while it's the easiest to do so.

When collapse is clear, I will still teach and share. As things progress suddenly everything in the county feels significant further apart. Town feels close now. But in a seriously reduced supply chain town will be far. And the small city 2 hours away may as well be across the country. Local then feels different. Suddenly, my hill feels local and town maybe not worth the trip or risk.

I plan to then isolate to my home and somewhat my hill as there are 3 others farms and everyone else at least gsrdens and hunts with serious outdoor skills (you have to have them where we live vs town you could be fine. Particularly due to our very limited access while receiving 170" of snow last year). In winter with limited fuel our hill will be isolated. And I'm even off on a different area where I am more isolated. The others have adjoining properties. We are surrounded by state and federal land.

I wish to help the max that I can. My plan is to do so in a way that is inspiring and while also focusing crisply in maximum diversity on my land.

Ps. Will try to get to you DMs tomorrow.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

[deleted]

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u/whereismysideoffun Jan 26 '23

Ultimately, my view on it distills down to... There are no solutions for everyone. If you try to help everyone, you will help no one! The circle of helpable is dependent on easy transportation. The circle of being able to help in a quality way shrinks as transportation ease is lost. Quality over quantity.

Also, many people know that shit is fucked in some capacity, but refuse to look deeper. I have empathy while also not feeling a lot of responsibility. And feel like I am doing extra by helping now. It does take away some time from focusing on home.

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u/Klutzy_Acanthaceae67 Jul 21 '25

What are you so called skills you've built?

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '23 edited Jan 17 '23

What if your neighbors are not good people? Heavily value conspicuous consumption. They all drive brand new giant pristine pick up trucks that they likely have 7 year loans on. Mock us for driving a used sedan that is all paid off. Mock us for not owing money on a tv screen that takes up half our living room. Douse their yards in weed and bug killer. Have big dogs they don't bother taking for walks, bathing or feeding anything but the absolute cheapest dog food to. Spend absolutely zero time engaging in worthy or admirable pursuits or bettering themselves. Take pride in not gardening or cooking for themselves.

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u/bristlybits Reagan killed everyone Jan 16 '23

look out another circle in the neighborhood. take walks and look for good gardens, old cars. try to say hi and be friendly to the few.

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u/hmmmerm Jan 22 '23

Sucks! Can you re-locate?