Joined: Dec 01, 2004 Posts: 1 Location: Edmonton, Ab, Canada
Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:11 pm Post subject: Regarding the future of Trades and skilled labor
Whelp, by the way things are going, it looks like pursuing a career as a cartoonist won't exactly benifit me with any practical skills for a post PO world, so now I'm toying with the idea of giving up on that and picking up a trade...
Now, the three trades that appeal to me right now are:
-Locksmithing
-Carpentry
-Electrician.
Do you think these would have any place in a post PO society? Can you think of any other trades or forms of skilled labor that would make survival a little more certain?
Carpentry and locksmithing should be good. Plumbing might be good. Gunsmithing might have potential.
Perhaps the most lucrative career (I say this in jest) would be to become a moonshiner. Ethanol tends to be a popular product.
What about pot grower?
I know, of course, that your comment, like mine, was entirely in jest.
That being said, a friend of mine in law enforcement and I were discussing the finer points of drug smuggling. He pointed out that, at the time, one could run 40 lbs. of the stuff from the Mexican border to Chicago and make $800 per pound for their trouble. At 50 lbs, the offense would be prosecuted as a federal crime, so that's why our hypothetical drug runner would choose 40 pounds.
Bottom line, one could make six figures by taking 4 such trips per year. It illustrates the challenges faced in opposing illicit use of controlled substances.
Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 1927 Location: kiwibush
Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 9:56 pm Post subject:
I think Twitch was talking of post PO, not pre PO, when there is a market and currency for drugs illicitly run. I reckon that post PO, there will be a demand for working the raw materials that proliferated pre the industrial revolution, such as wood, so go for it Twitch.
I am sure many more, several of which would likely fit into broader categories. I have personally acquired material on hide tanning, wood working, blacksmithng (including building your own forges) and took up hunting about three years ago. Eventually I would like to build my own metal working shop and forge.
I participate in a medieval living history group, so have made things such as clothes, leather boots, wooden chests, etc... Skills that I think many people will need in the very near future.
Olaf _________________ "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau
Joined: Sep 09, 2004 Posts: 393 Location: Upstate New York, U.S.A.
Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:12 am Post subject:
Small locally run communities with trade between neighbors, and some beyond. Much less national structure and rule, with a need for skilled laborers of all sorts and requiring most to be jacks-of-all-trades. Very colonial or late medieval in comparison. That is of course...if we don't trash things too much to transition that far.
Olaf _________________ "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 3429 Location: California, USA
Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 5:00 am Post subject:
Basically any skilled trade could be of some value. Think of things that everyone needs, and think of things that require ongoing service or maintenance.
The key economic components of civilization are:
physical production (food, clothing, shelter, transport, communication, etc.);
creation and conservation of knowledge (anything in science/engineering, teachers, librarians, etc.);
and defense against barbarianism (anything in law enforcement, defense, security, protective infrastructure such as locks, alarms, firearms, etc.).
Ideal case is to pick up at least one viable tradeable skill in each of those three areas. The more the merrier. Whatever skills you have, practice teaching them to others. Get good at teaching and you can also start an economic unit (small company or guild, etc.) and train up the members / employees from scratch, which is also good for building loyalties.
Also important: what you can *do* is more important than what you *have,* for example the skill to produce a fuel product is more important than a stockpile of fuel. Stockpiles make you a target, where you're less valuable than your possessions. Skills make you an asset, where you're far more valuable than your possessions.
Stay away from illegal stuff. Smugglers are also prey. You don't want to spend the decline & fall times stuck in a prison cell or worse.
Producing distilled alcohol is primarily useful as a fuel production skill. You do not want to be responsible for spreading distilled drinking-alcohol around; in hard times, distilled spirits tend to be consumed for the sake of intoxication, and alcohol abuse is a leading contributor to violent behavior. Running a moonshine still will get you friends who are unstable at best, and make you the natural enemy of people who are trying to preserve social stability.
However, producing wine and beer, i.e. homebrewing, is a useful skill in terms of alcohol-beverages; these are far more likely to be consumed in moderation, in a social atmosphere that is not conducive to habitual intoxication and abuse.
As far as cannabis goes, regardless of neo-hippie propaganda, the stuff is useful as a medicine and as an industrial feedstock. Learning to grow one or two plants at a time, and learning how to optimize them for their medicinal components (flowering tops) or for their industrial feedstock components (woody stems) could be a useful skill (these two uses are mutually exclusive in terms of the characteristics of the plant): it can be scaled up to larger scale cultivation under the proper circumstances. However do not get involved in significant illicit cultivation.
While we're on the subject of producing things that people smoke, learning to grow tobacco could be useful. The stuff will grow in many regions, however it does take skill to process it into a smokeable product. Even if you don't smoke and don't like tobacco in any form, it's a highly valuable tradeable commodity and was used as a form of currency in the early American colonies.
I have a sailing boat and did a navigation course last year. Doing the second module on navigating by the stars this year. That way I can sail to the US post peak and trade with you folks.
Anyone for coloured beads?
My current profession of soldier looks like it will be useful during the peak as well whatever about my life expectancy as a result
I have a civil engineering degree which will not be as useful as you think as I expect the number of multi-storey car park being constructed to drop
At least I have learned alot of DIY in my time. To be honest, Ireland has such a mild climate, fertile land and massive rainfall that we should be better than most + we are an island. _________________ www.askaboutenergy.com
Joined: Oct 25, 2004 Posts: 378 Location: Southern California Desert
Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 11:32 pm Post subject:
I don't think we'll sink that far back into the ages.
I'm going to stick to getting my mechanical engineering degree as long as possible.
While I'm doing that I'll pick up a welding cert along the way.
Ships and diesel/electric trains will be the most efficient forms of tranport/transit during post-peak times.
I would want to continue research into air and spacecraft propelled by other means.
In the meantime of the post-peak, you could still power some emergency law enforcement helicopters and aircraft to quell Barbarianism.
In fact I kind of picture a mixed-era sort of future.
People riding horses while the banditos harrassing them get ripped to shreds by an ethanol fueled Apache or Cobra.
I think the most important thing is to do something that suits your interests, aptitude and personality.
The issue reminds me of an article i read a few months ago on building your own micro-hydroelectic plant from scavenged parts of old electric washing machines. A lot of highly practical engineering/mechanical/electrical skills are called for.
I really think people who can repair machines or tools and/or scavenge parts from old stuff for practical use will be hugely in demand after TSHTF.
I come from NZ and this kind of culture of everyone fixing their own cars and building their own houses, even if you weren't a mechanic or carpenter, was just what everyone did up to the 1970s. I think it has really started to die out but there will definitely be a revival.
BTW, for anyone interested, the article about building your own micro-hydro is here
Unfortunately, the people whose magazine published the article have taken down the page, so no photos.
Joined: Oct 25, 2004 Posts: 378 Location: Southern California Desert
Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:09 pm Post subject:
Well, when aircraft start getting cheap, I'm definetely going to figure out how to fix those.
Buy myself one or two Jetrangers and fuel them with ethanol from rice paddies or hemp plants, whichever comes first.
Joined: Oct 10, 2004 Posts: 476 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2004 9:58 am Post subject:
I have decided to stick to English. I doubt any eco-communities will want their children to be a bunch of illiterate mongoloids. _________________ "Abortion doctors aren't baby killers. They're life un-ruiners"
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
News
Discussions
Resources
Members
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
