Category: Preparedness

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Community Preparedness

Day 572 and Internet Barn Raising

About twenty four hours ago the first “crisis” of the move to Montana appeared on the horizon. The very expensive, and corporate, moving company we’d hired called to cancel on our move to Montana. Three days before the move date. Which we cannot change as new tenants are moving into our soon to be former townhouse.

At first they claimed it was a lack of trucks and then it was a lack of labor. It was some series of issues you hear more and more of during these crumbling times. It was messy and chaotic. I’m not entirely sure on the full timeline or set of excuses as my husband Alex is “king” of the move as he’s the operational talent in the family. I’m just here to follow his edicts. The details are not completely crucial to the wider lesson.

We put out the bat signal that we were in trouble. We tweeted and put questions out in Discord. What do we do? What our options? Our extended community sprang into action. People called with truck rentals suggestions. People sent over recommendations for labor and talent. People called in favors to locate what we needed on both ends. And the truly incredible part is that people physically showed up. Like get on an airplane level. And more than one of them offered to physically come out.

I don’t want to put any identities on blast as not everyone is quite as social on social media as I am. But our internet community is all very much active and close in our lives. And it just showed. In ways that I don’t know I fully appreciated until we were in the lurch.

A dear fellow traveler friend who has been an “internet friend” for sometime, but because of the pandemic hasn’t been able to IRL with us, offered to get on an airplane and help us drive up the truck. We bought them a ticket. Locked it in. Let’s finally do the bonding. The perfect synchronicity of social capital and actual capital solving a problem money alone couldn’t fix. Because there are some things money can’t buy and you almost always learn what in a crisis.

Members of our preparedness community (some of whom will soon be our actual physical neighbors in Montana) stepped in as well. They also offered to fly down and help on our Colorado front end. A truly astonishing gesture of friendship and community. Alex coordinated on our end to meet them on arrival. A veritable barnstorming of new neighbors is set to welcome us. And we aren’t even their actual physical neighbors yet. The trust and humility one must have to welcome people in like this.

My heart must have grown a size in one day. It was a balm for any kind of civilization cynicism I might have harbored. Our people showed up. I’ve got tears in my eyes just thinking about it. I will say that our special interest in resilience and connection has been key in this whole beautiful experience.

Our people are those who feel the concerns of modernity and atomization, but who rather than blame our technical tools like social medics for decay simply leverage them to bring us all back to our humanity. If America is in for harder times, I’ve never been more optimistic about the people that will survive them together with me.

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Preparedness

Day 569 and Scarcity

There are a number of memes that have taken off in the last few years related to food scarcity as a mechanism for elite control Coverage of climate change and the need for change in agribusiness has been covered extensively in mainstream media so it’s no surprise there is backlash.

I Will Not Eat The Bugs is one of the originating memes in the wider World Economic Forum conspiracy universe along with “You Will Own Nothing” Great Reset discourse. It’s a rich memespace and one that every doomer should be watching closely. Twitter went nuts when a cultural review of cannibalism in literature and tv got posted by the New York Times.

Unfortunately the memes were a harbinger of the fundamental challenges of moving towards greener policies through dictate. Especially when you do poor planning that doesn’t account for transition times and significantly lower yields. Sri Lanka’s attempt to go cold turkey on industrial fertilizer turned disastrous.

With the war in Ukraine grinding on, the world is slowly realizing that chemical fertilizers and cheap grain are in danger of being in short supply. Commodity watchers reminded us that China stopped exporting key fertilizer components last year.

It’s not that Americans haven’t noticed the higher costs of food before. The inflation issues plaguing the country are often framed in terms of simple costs like eggs, milk and chicken. Doomberg sounded the alarm in January that we would see a significant food crisis. But there is a new urgency around scarcity that is exploding into the spotlight. My favorite preparedness website Unprepared published a whole guide to dealing with the coming food crisis.

I personally don’t know what will convince people that we are in for much higher prices and harder times. A lot of cascading factors are converging. But I think it’s wise to keep a close eye on scarcity discourse. If you want to keep ahead read things like AgriNews and Bloomberg’s commodity and supply chain newsletters. It’s better to go in with eyes open.

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Emotional Work Preparedness

Day 532 and Mortgage

I signed the mortgage paperwork for my first house today. We are moving to Montana. I don’t know how I made it well into my thirties without every owning real estate but I’m going to guess it involves the Great Recession.

Hell if you go further back it probably involves the bankruptcy my parents endured when Web 1.0 crashed. Point is that millennials haven’t had the best hand when it comes to home ownership. We were either totally broke or housing was so expensive it was comical to consider purchasing anything.

I was quite opposed to it for a long time. Why would you tie up your precious capital? Why would you lock yourself into one place? Why would you cut off optionality? And then the crumbles began. The pandemic hit and we were no longer constrained by geography. We could actually assess long term priorities and ambitions for how we’d live our life.

Which ironically made it even harder to decide. Do we want to live in a city? Do we want a suburb? What states will we consider? How does climate change factor into a purchase. How about resilience issues related to power and water? What about sociopolitical risks? We invested nearly two years into working through these questions.

Montana ended up topping the list even though we considered Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York and Connecticut. Our goal was a colder climate with a bit of remove from the world with minimal invasive politics. We also wanted some yuppie amenities like decent grocery stores and a good airport. My husband doesn’t like New England and I don’t like heat. But we do love mountains. Montana just kept coming up to the top of the list.

I feel relieved that after all of this effort we were finally able to buy a house. Would I prefer buying without the almost certain knowledge the house will be under water during a recession? Maybe. It’s not optimal. I don’t love the idea of having a mortgage at all.

But the idea of having a home I can rely on for years to come fills me with relief. I’ve quite literally never experienced it. But I think it’s going to be good. My body sure seems happy about it. I felt like I could actually plan. The second we were done with the notary I felt a weight lift. My mind cleared. I felt optimistic. I wanted to plan. I wanted to build.

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Preparedness Travel

Day 528 and Oppressive

I would love to be writing about my impressions of the Consensus experience in Austin. I had a terrific time seeing friends & colleagues, the content was good, my talk was well attended (and well received) and I genuinely felt the experience was worthwhile. My general impression is winter is good for crypto as we will get back to building.

But as I wrap up my trip all I can really focus on is how oppressive the heat feels. How exhausting it is to consider it’s consuming nature at every step of your day. The heat is edging towards the point of being hostile to life. 29 million people live in Texas and there is no focused effort to harden infrastructure for climate extremes or drought. If you want to picture what life might be life here for your children read the Water Knife by Paolo Bacigulipa.

Last night I found myself literally sitting on top of an air conditioning vent in the attic of a private house to avoid the evening heat. I was hosting a little gathering with a few close friends (and new folks) on top of what eventually turned into a Burning Man reunion. As the older folks (otherwise known as anyone over the age of 35) and the square folks decided it was time to head out for dinner, we piled back into the night heat. The sound of revelers dancing and laughing in the 95 degree heat impressed me. Texas was showing life in the face of death.

In what I can only call a rookie move, we went to a community meet up in the backyard of some sort of coffee house and Eastern European bun shop. Even at 10pm it was too much for me. The adults decamped to a nice restaurant for air conditioning and steaks. It was bliss. Expensive privileged bliss. And yes I enjoyed consuming more than my share of resources. I’d contributed to the resource depletion that has changed our climate and made me suffer.

My period started this morning so I’m obviously tired, bloated and cranky. The last thing I want to do is cope with heat that’s supposed to get up to 109. I’m doing the dance where I rush as fast as I can into a waiting car. I try to avoid the natural world and it’s cruel requirements. We’ve not conquered nature, merely found ways to shield ourselves from its worst ravages. But those protections only intensified the natural patterns of our planet.

I idly thought to myself if I was ever to have a daughter I’d name her Cassandra. That could be quite a parental trauma to give a child. Imagine the anger she might feel dealing with a world where it’s either innovate your way to safety or accept a declining living standard with degrowth. It’s a horrifying choice. I want to be an optimistic natalist that thinks we can innovate a better future for our children. I want their confidence.

But it’s hard to be confident about a future where an enormous vibrant place like Texas will be forced to run the gauntlet of a chaotic age to a singularity not everyone will live to see. I wouldn’t place my fate in a place with drought, extreme heat and reactionary right wing populism. But I’m also not sure I’ll ever come back. But I hope I do.

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Preparedness

Day 518 and Liminal Housing

The appraisal walkthrough for our Montana homestead was yesterday. We’ve never bought a house before so the process still has a lot of new twists and turns that seem to stretch our forever. Every time I think we are closer to having the deal be actually done there seems to be another step to consider. The next two months are going to be liminal housing space for Alex and I.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling being in between homes. Our townhouse in Boulder will be rented out once we’ve confirmed we have purchased the Montana homestead. The Boulder rent is going up quite a bit which figures. But we can’t move into the Montana house until August. Instead we’ve got this two month period where our old home isn’t really home any longer but our new home isn’t ready for us to move in either.

I don’t exactly know how I’ll spend my time during those two months. Alex has some travel and I’m considering doing some of my own. I’ve got Europe on my mind. The Mediterranean seems popular during the summer months.

I’d like to be preparing for when we arrive in Montana so we can hit the ground running but there isn’t that much to do here as the packing can’t be done too much ahead of time. Couple that with finance being in a messy panicky and I doubt I’ll get much actual work done.

Many LPs aren’t allocating, startups are holding back from fundraising if they don’t have to, and even my own plans for how I structure our investment vehicle looks a bit up for debate until certain things get wrapped up. Ironically I’ve been told they need about six to eight weeks.

So maybe my best move is to just get in an airplane and go. Take the summer. Enjoy the in between and simply stop worrying so damn much.

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Preparedness

Day 506 and Walking The Talk

I had a spectacular two weeks of writing from the deepest places in my soul. We made significant and long lasting decisions for the family and the direction we want to take our lives and our investments. And yes I do mean that my husband and I are moving to Montana. One day I’ll be so proud to have captured that moment in our lives on paper.

So of course this past week I’ve done nothing but worry and fret and write about that worry as my physical body decided it was safe to be a bit sick now that we’ve done that hard work on making a big life decision. Even that mess of feverish writing ended up delivering some amusing written insights.

I’ve had to remind myself basically hourly that I’m alright. That all the uncertainty of the world is something I can live with. Indeed, it’s something I’ve planned for over the course of years. When I jokingly insisted we should name our family office chaotic.capital it seemed like an amusing and edgy piece of branding. Now I’m caught up in the reality of just how fast the thesis is playing out.

Frankly I am scared. I am scared because I can see just how hard things will be. Some days I feel like I’m beyond excited to actually be right. But then I remember the chaotic thesis sucks to live through even with the best resources and preparation. And all I can really do is walk the talk. Nothing is as terrifying as being prepared for hard times and then simply having to live all the shit you said would happen.

Because of course all of the macro big picture things that I’m planning to invest against are things that make my life harder too. I’m disabled with a chronic health condition that is annoying to manage in good times. My personal wealth is subject to the same market forces as yours. I have had to deal with the overheated housing market as a non-homeowner. I still have to act in the same face of the fears as everyone else. Am I modestly protected and buffered by privilege? Yes I’ve been sprinting to acquire it for year to get it. But here we all are and now is the time when a steady hand with a prepared mind can thrive.

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Preparedness

Day 498 and Safety

The reality is sinking in that my husband and I are actually moving to Montana. And it’s unleashing all kinds of powerful emotions and realizations.

Alex told me he’s much more willing to honestly look at unpleasant political realities in America. He’d been ignoring the news for fear it would distract him. But even if Trump wins another term, the populist wing of the GOP sweeps and Roe is overturned, at least we are safely in the demilitarized zone of the inter-mountain west. Want to fuck with us? You are armed. We are armed. Let’s keep it polite. Our libertarian preferences might still have a chance out here and if not it’s awfully hard to subdue gun toting mountain people.

That libertarian zone means business gets done. The important work of capitalism doesn’t stop because of conflict or silly culture wars. The companies that will do the best will be the ones that can get away with ignoring culture wars and focus on making stuff people need to keep their lives afloat.

We also feel safer about our personal resilience. We will be less reliant on failing electrical grids with backup power from both solar and fuel generators. Considering the warnings being issued for this summer’s black outs and I suspect we will be glad to be less dependent on the grid. I’ll be glad to be somewhere cool where my air conditioner won’t be going out. And in the winter I’ll have a wood burning stove. I’m excited for having a stream on the property along with a pond and a well that does 25 gallons a minute. I look forward to making it a home that has backups for any emergency.

I’m also a big believer in traditional skills. Having a close relationship to the land benefits our bodies and souls. Putting time into the natural rhythms of the planet keeps us healthier. I want my circadian cycle to be nurtured. And if I am ever so lucky to grow some of my own food not only is that good preparedness but it’s certainly next level wellness shit. I want that kind of power for me.

The kind of safety and sense of security we are accessing with a homestead will help us access our deep talents. There are no excuses anymore to ignore the instabilities in our dusky lives. The crumbles have arrived. And I’m so deeply relieved we are finally taking the right steps to live with them.

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Preparedness

Day 497 and Collapse

You ever find yourself so stressed by a big decision or important event that you become sick as soon as it’s end is in sight? Adrenaline and cortisol take a strained body pretty far, but eventually your central nervous system is like no. I’m not at all surprised by how poorly I feel now that we’ve resolved our dilemmas on housing. In fact, the offer on the house was accepted today. If all goes well, we will move to Bozeman Montana in August. Prayers and chaos magic sigils.

I went to the urgent care center to get tested for Influenza A this morning as my husband had it last week. My Covid test was negative as was my influenza test. But I am coughing so hard it’s a challenge to get a breath in if I so much as talk. I got handed codeine cough syrup and Tamiflu and told to get back in bed. My body knows it can let go. We’ve got the house.

I want to be excited. I want to feel the joy and relief that I know is underneath the exhaustion and sickness. I want to feel the security from knowing my my job is done. We’ve been working towards buying a homestead for years. My husband and I have been doing our homework and working through preferences on the ideal land for what seems like our entire marriage.

But with the pandemic, we finally set about finding a home that could house us for decades. We’d been freed from dreaming about rural living while being stuck in cities and could now go about doing something with our desire to live in the mountains. Work from home changed the game for us completely. We could finally live where we wanted.

I want a homestead because I think we are in for hard times. Abundant opportunity exists to be sure but only for those that are prepared. My husband is skeptical on how extreme any event will be but trusts me to care for our family. Look at me doing the ultimate feminine act and standing for the home and hearth.

And I simply want harder times to be easier for my family. I don’t want my people to suffer because the world is changing too fast for them to adapt. I want to set up my tribe to succeed and thrive in a new chaotic world. Preparation takes work and making strange even crazy sounding bets before anyone else thinks it’s sane. I don’t mind being seen as crazy so long as me and mine are safe. I am a woman. You should fear this primal energy. It’s strong.

Close over the horizon we’ve got a new world of uncertainty coalescing into possibility that is emergent. Chaos will reign. How? Who can guess. Our simian minds can barely grasp the first order effects of our current landscape. Of course, we haven’t figured out second or third order issues from war and pestilence just yet. We just aren’t that smart. How could we ever predict the future? We are struggling to make sense of the present.

We are just now seeing the supply chain issues and commodity shortages from the pandemic collide with our globalized economies. This is just the start of the complexity era. Just wait till fertilizer shortages in global farmlands intersects with the war in Ukraine and the super hot and super dry summers brought by climate change. That doesn’t scar you enough? It should.

Wealth has bifurcated and American cultures are at war. It is literally a culture war playing out as fifty years of consensus in reproductive rights collapses. I don’t kid myself on it stopping there. Our sex lives are about to be the governments business and some folks feel good about it. Some fuckers are celebrating it. We are about to face some weird times and I want to face them on my own land with my own guns.

I am preparing myself for much harder times ahead. Because hard times create wealth. I am putting myself somewhere remote with a cold climate to mitigate climate disruption. But until it’s an emergency I’ve got a top notch airport with daily flights to any city where finance or technology does business.

I’m still on good supply lines but I’m also in a community that can do a lot of trade on the basics of food, water and services. I picked a state that has abstained from the culture wars. I pray it remains a libertarian “live and let place” as I fear for the theocracy that is coming for southern states.

Equally I’m disinterested in liberal states that want to decide how to best allocate my resources. I’ll build my own communities and see to them if I can. Bozeman was a very deliberate choice that came from literally thousands of variables. It’s my last stand where I think I can battle the future and win.

People talk a good game about their vision for the future. They talk up their investments and their bags and their confidence in a whole new world and yet they live in precarious cities and lifestyles a single crisis could derail. I’m telling you that I see chaos and it will not ruffle my feathers. It won’t disrupt my breakfast. And I intend to set myself up to be able to ride it out in as much comfort as possible with as little disruption as possible.

Because I want to win this churn. I want to make money. If chaos is a ladder I will climb. And I’d suggest you consider what you are willing to do to win the next decade. It might not be the collapse. But even the crumbles will require you to change. And if your answer is nothing. I cannot guarantee your comfort in the future.

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Preparedness

Day 492 and Good on Paper

We saw a property today that was basically perfect. It’s a bit expensive but otherwise has everything we’ve said we’ve wanted. But somehow we weren’t in love with it. I found myself thinking of Sex and the City episode where “good on paper” just didn’t translate into a spark.

The property had a number of productive acres, running water that fed a pond, a layout that can accommodate an orchard, raised beds and a chicken coop, a two story workshop garage and a newly renovated farmhouse. It was a lovely home that is ideal for any discerning wealthy family looking to invest in Bozeman.

Of course, seeing what you think you want and not being immediately enthralled gives you a really opportunity for clarity. You have to assess what you are really prioritizing and why your mind isn’t aligning with your heart.

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Preparedness

Day 477 and Extreme Risk

It’s been hot, dry and windy today on the front range of the Rocky Mountains. A rare “extreme” fire danger warning was issued for much of the state of Colorado. One hasn’t sent been issued for over a decade even though clearly we’ve seen massive conflagrations just in the last four months.

As is typical for a day where I know a storm or natural disaster is looming I felt anxious. My whole body felt achy and inflamed. It was enough of a challenge I didn’t even try to do my usual shower and clean routine. I made an attempt at doing some food inventory as that seemed brain dead but I barely finished one drawer before I had to stop and rest.

I have been considering packing a more extensive go bag as the risk of evacuation seems to have heightened. If this kind of evacuation is a regular occurrence I’d rather have nice clothing and good skincare in my bag bag when I flee to a hotel or a friend’s place. Right now I’ve got boots, Mylar wraps and other traditional emergency gear. But if I’m going to have to maintain a normal life while the world crumbles I guess I’ll need mascara & little back dress just as much as water purification tablets.

I wish this was just paranoia. In just the past 48 hours we’ve seen two evacuation notices in Boulder. One evacuation was around a trailhead by a neighborhood where I lived in fifth and sixth grade and another one on the north side of town where I used to board my horse.

I cannot tell you how jumpy it makes me to see regular fire evacuation notices in your hometown. Our town sub-Reddit is filled with folks who are still recovering from the Marshall Fire and are rightfully concerned to be facing the possibility of another fire. I personally hate it. It makes me long to flee to somewhere with less existential climate change risk. Of course, those places are getting harder and harder to find.