Knowledge and Skills versus Materials

Dane · Tar Sands Joined: Dec 17, 2004 Posts: 23

"Fill your house will gold and jade,
And it can no longer be guarded.

Set store by your riches and honour,
And you will only reap a crop of calamities"

I think most of us realize, atleast in some part of our mind, that knowledge and skill are more valuable than materials. Sure if you get some land in a remote area, buy guns and ammo, have a stock pile of food and water, and start growing food, you will be in a comparatively good condition when things start to get ugly. But say a mob of hungry suffering people know of your stockpiles. It could even be your neighbor; if your family were starving to death, would you think twice about stealing to save their lives?

If you invest all of your preparations into materials, and set yourself up so that your life depends on these materials, than you will defend them at all costs, even when logic urges you to abandon them and save yourself.

Materials are only tools to aid in applying your knowledge and skills, without which the tools would be almost useless. Of course a good supply of food and water would be nice to have, a little gold too. But if your life depends on them you will lose your life defending them.

My question is: what knowledge and skills do you think are important to gain in order to free yourself from a dependence on materials? Which materials should you have anyway, no matter how skilled you are? What will your strategy be when others ask you to share your materials? How about when they demand you give them your materials?

roebuck · Tar Sands Joined: Dec 19, 2004 Posts: 50

There is one skill that seems to me to be at the top of the heap. That is knowing how to grow food. There are plenty of other skills that will be very useful WTSHTF, but everything is secondary to food. I suspect that you'd be able to trade food for whatever else you need.

It's fun to talk about hunting deer, and "what's the best firearm" and such, but really, we're talking about growing food. Knowing how to save seed. Knowing how to do without petroleum-based fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc. Knowing what works in your area. This is knowledge that takes a while to accumulate (I actually teach college courses about it), but...

The beauty of it is that you can start now and enjoy the benefits while you learn! And if TS does not HTF, you've still come out ahead - you'll be eating fresh, uncontaminated, organically grown food.

The material side of this is to gather up the tools... simple, non-power tools. Things like shovels, rakes, trowels, pitchforks, etc.

This is obviously a huge subject, but there's a start...

- roebuck

spear · Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 3:34 pm Post subject:

Strange,I was watching a documentary on Holland duringWWII just earlier.16,000 people died of hunger and cold in 1944 while waiting to be liberated.They were screeding the ground around the train tracks for coal.Gutting houses for firewood.Intense scenes.Children in the streets starving,.All I could think of was history repeating itself.
Some material things are necessary on a homestead.Its that simple.The material things in the city may vary to some degree.This has been adressed many times in the past in bits and pieces on other threads.
Be prepared to do what is necessary.Be prepared in the mind or die.
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spear · Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 3:42 pm Post subject:

Justonemorething about that documentary:Black market was king.
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uNkNowN ElEmEnt · Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 3:52 pm Post subject:

well yeah, when it costs 10.00 for a loaf of bread and 15.00 for milk, you think anyone wants to pay tax on it? on this side of our country we only pay 14% at point of sale. thats not including what taxes are embedded, but the other side has a tax rate of 22-23%.

forget taxes man, eveything will be black amrket then of course since the taxes aren't getting paid the social net will fall since that is usually the first thing governments axe.

if there is avery hard crash, I'm planning to build a road side cart so taht if I have to, I can put produce in it and haul it into town. Taxes?not bloody likely.