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Post by milspec on May 10, 2022 20:35:48 GMT 10
I'm a good way through this book at this stage. It has articulated many of the issues we as preppers have lamented as reasons for us becomming preppers in the first place. The changes it forecasts are already happening (widely) and I suggest that as preppers it would be in your best interests to read or listen to this book so that you can consider just how much worse the future is going to get for some... aka the average Australian as the welfare state we know to be unsustainable actually collapses.
For a long time Ive thought something has to change, and now I think I can see that it will. Sadly the change is going to be for the worse as the trends in society continue to undermine free speech, freedom, wages and quality of life in general. Crime isnt going to get fixed, its going to get more commonplace as more and more people find themselves falling below the poverty line.
The language of the book isnt the easiest to follow at times but there are some truths in it which may just influence your future plans.
For the Audio book the preface is narrated by no less than the Millionaire founder of Paypal.
‐‐-----------------------
by James Dale Davidson
Rated 4.25 out of 5 by 2,166 ratings 277 reviews
Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the bestseller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century.
The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization.
Few observers of the late twentieth century have their fingers so presciently on the pulse of the global political and economic realignment ushering in the new millennium as do James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. Their bold prediction of disaster on Wall Street in Blood in the Streets was borne out by Black Tuesday. In their ensuing bestseller, The Great Reckoning, published just weeks before the coup attempt against Gorbachev, they analyzed the pending collapse of the Soviet Union and foretold the civil war in Yugoslavia and other events that have proved to be among the most searing developments of the past few years.
In The Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg explore the greatest economic and political transition in centuries—the shift from an industrial to an information-based society. This transition, which they have termed "the fourth stage of human society," will liberate individuals as never before, irrevocably altering the power of government. This outstanding book will replace false hopes and fictions with new understanding and clarified values.
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Post by spinifex on May 10, 2022 21:30:24 GMT 10
The future will be a smaller, quieter and more austere place. With a distinct lack of law. Self reliance, in a group setting, will be a critical success factor for a good quality of life.
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tactile
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Post by tactile on May 11, 2022 9:53:54 GMT 10
Peter Thiel was a co-founder of PayPal and he's a billionaire.
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iceage
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Post by iceage on May 11, 2022 17:47:45 GMT 10
Peter Thiel was a co-founder of PayPal and he's a billionaire. Ive not read the book yet, but it was an interesting bit of info on the amazon review for the book. "The example highlighted by Peter Thiel in the opening perhaps sums up the optimism of the authors. They predicted Hong Kong would be a paragon state for the new age. However, as we have seen, authoritarian China has squashed Hong Kong into submission." It is a model of excellence if you ignore human rights abuse! |
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tactile
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Post by tactile on May 13, 2022 13:24:30 GMT 10
What this book endorses (from my perspective) is the rise of a tech-savvy, ultra-libertarian elite. All good if you are in that niche but if you're not...well, life will be a shit sandwich to say the least.
I actually don't have a problem with any of the (some are a bit dated obviously) ideas in the book, but I, like a lot of reviewers, am uncomfortable with the outcome for the majority of humanity.
Having said this, I cant for the life of me see an alternative.
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Post by milspec on May 13, 2022 21:07:52 GMT 10
What this book endorses (from my perspective) is the rise of a tech-savvy, ultra-libertarian elite. All good if you are in that niche but if you're not...well, life will be a shit sandwich to say the least. I actually don't have a problem with any of the (some are a bit dated obviously) ideas in the book, but I, like a lot of reviewers, am uncomfortable with the outcome for the majority of humanity. Having said this, I cant for the life of me see an alternative. Yeah, I agree, the lack of a way out is clearly a problem for your average Joe as the rich move to tax havens and governments see significant drops in tax revenue from them. The book at various points describes groups of people who will be losers, groups who will resist change and groups who will be outright luddites. TBH it was eye opening if not confronting to realise that I belonged in some of those groups. I perceived a need to wind back globalism and increase nationalism in certain areas to restore our resilience as a nation ... after reading that book it dawned on me that I was kidding myself, those things arent going to be fixed. Governments all over the world are massively in debt and in no position to fix the problems we often lament, especially in the face of declining tax revenue. With that in mind I think the key thing is to be prepared as a family to endure financial burdens from reduced wages/pensions and increased taxes and steadily rising cost of living... as well as the social fallout aka crime resulting from declining welfare payments & services. Chuck in a war and a supply crisis and hey god only knows where it goes from there. |
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bce1
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Post by bce1 on May 14, 2022 2:53:44 GMT 10
This was one of the books that turned me from a ‘prepper’/survivalist into a full blown collapsenik 15 years ago.
For me the preparing for floods and fires and having a few months food set aside was always the easy bit. Getting your head around an actual failure of the world as we know it and a variably slow/fastc decline was a big head shift.
I jokingly refer to my property as a doomstead instead of a retreat, because I think self-sufficiency and having the numbers and ability to defend from the social fallout is going to be key.
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norseman
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Post by norseman on May 14, 2022 6:30:15 GMT 10
This was one of the books that turned me from a ‘prepper’/survivalist into a full blown collapsenik 15 years ago. For me the preparing for floods and fires and having a few months food set aside was always the easy bit. Getting your head around an actual failure of the world as we know it and a variably slow/fastc decline was a big head shift. I jokingly refer to my property as a doomstead instead of a retreat, because I think self-sufficiency and having the numbers and ability to defend from the social fallout is going to be key.
Mate I'm amazed it took you so long! "I jokingly refer to my property as a doomstead instead of a retreat,"
Now our retreat is referred to as the Forward Operating Base! Like a visitor once said we built a fort and then convinced my family it was a home! |
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Post by milspec on May 14, 2022 8:22:24 GMT 10
This was one of the books that turned me from a ‘prepper’/survivalist into a full blown collapsenik 15 years ago. For me the preparing for floods and fires and having a few months food set aside was always the easy bit. Getting your head around an actual failure of the world as we know it and a variably slow/fastc decline was a big head shift. I jokingly refer to my property as a doomstead instead of a retreat, because I think self-sufficiency and having the numbers and ability to defend from the social fallout is going to be key. Having read the book I can completely understand that shift in focus it triggered for you. I like to think I'm forward thinking and various things led us to becomming preppers before reading the book. Nonetheless the book still feels like a bit of an awakening to me. I feel like I have more understanding about the 'why' of the Slo-mo SHTF we are in and that facilitates a better approach (more encompassing) on how to deal with it... specifically financially and perhaps also locationally. |
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norseman
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Post by norseman on May 14, 2022 10:43:22 GMT 10
This was one of the books that turned me from a ‘prepper’/survivalist into a full blown collapsenik 15 years ago. For me the preparing for floods and fires and having a few months food set aside was always the easy bit. Getting your head around an actual failure of the world as we know it and a variably slow/fastc decline was a big head shift. I jokingly refer to my property as a doomstead instead of a retreat, because I think self-sufficiency and having the numbers and ability to defend from the social fallout is going to be key. Having read the book I can completely understand that shift in focus it triggered for you. I like to think I'm forward thinking and various things led us to becomming preppers before reading the book. Nonetheless the book still feels like a bit of an awakening to me. I feel like I have more understanding about the 'why' of the Slo-mo SHTF we are in and that facilitates a better approach (more encompassing) on how to deal with it... specifically financially and perhaps also locationally. Either way we've (Western World) been in a serious and now accelerating devolutionary / downward spiral commencing the late 70's to maybe mid 80's! |
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Post by Joey on May 14, 2022 12:21:39 GMT 10
The world has been on a downward spiral since the mid 70's when the UN overstepped its boots as a "world court" to enable countries to take their beef out without using their armies and became a power-hungry NWO type mentality.
in 1975 everybody signed the "Lima Declaration" (including us under Gough Whitlam [the day that labor stopped supporting the working class]) which stated that developed countries were to "wealth share" their manufacturing to developing countries to boost their emerging economies. Naturally big business jumped right on board at a chance to drop the high costs of the Aussie manufacturing sector in favour of paying pennies in China or India for their goods. This has, in turn, led to Australia for instance, becoming almost entirely dependent on imported goods to stock our shelves and China to become the superpower bully it is today because it knows the west shot itself in the foot a long time ago and is now reliant on Chinese manufacturing. Since the Lima was signed, more oversight has come out of the UN and their lackeys in parliament house in the way of red and green tape stifling any chance of starting up any decent local manufacturing in the future.
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Post by SA Hunter on May 15, 2022 22:09:38 GMT 10
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frostbite
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Post by frostbite on May 16, 2022 9:12:55 GMT 10
I've just read part of this book, written in the late 1990's, and so far it seems to suggest that the power of nation states will decline. I can only see the opposite happening. Since the mid 1990's, here and in many other countries, government's have greatly increased their power over the people.
In 1995 I could legally buy assault rifles, keep them in a state of readiness, travel freely almost anywhere, not be subjected to almost constant surveillance, not be forced into being injected with government sponsored drugs, not be forced into a monetary system where all my transactions are recorded.
How does this reality fit with the forecast in the book?
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tactile
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Post by tactile on May 16, 2022 10:21:10 GMT 10
You're right FB, they got a lot of stuff wrong. But as he states in the book that he and the co-author were just throwing out ideas at the time.
I remember the tech-exuberance of the 90s and even into the early naughties, but the wheels fell off with the web 2.0 thing in my opinion...everyone focused on software on new mobile devices and the focus became how to rip free and personal data off people and make money out of it. I was going to tech meetups where these clowns were telling people to forget hardware - you couldn't scale it and make fast money...I despised this outlook. Software has it's place but I think people need real things in the real world to make their lives better.
I think some of their ideas hold true, but it might be on a much longer time-line than they thought...
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frostbite
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Post by frostbite on May 16, 2022 10:29:17 GMT 10
All I can see in our future is more government control.
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on May 16, 2022 10:50:46 GMT 10
In relation to software, read my posts re software control of modern vehicles, and especially farming machinery.
You know you own an old tractor when.....You start looking for parts sources for an item you haven't fully identified yet.
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tactile
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Post by tactile on May 16, 2022 13:15:06 GMT 10
All I can see in our future is more government control. Until that government loses control...
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frostbite
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Post by frostbite on May 16, 2022 13:23:55 GMT 10
All I can see in our future is more government control. Until that government loses control...
That is technically possible, but IMO unlikely whilst they are being controlled by the global elite. |
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Beno
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Post by Beno on May 16, 2022 17:12:43 GMT 10
Being controlled by global elites is a failure of the nation state. Just about all the examples given above suggest the nation state is so failed that the political system is just a big puppet show. The tech revolution had promise but one thing got in the way. The human reptilian brain.
The internet could have been used to make geniuses of all of us. Instead we chose porn, facefart and online shopping. We still refuse to believe that boys will be boys and that we have emotions that are hard to control. We’ve had PC rammed down our throats as well as other super fringe and minority issues that simply don’t concern most of us. As a result we let the vermin slip in and make their nests of discontent, manipulation, wealth theft and personal attacks.
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on May 16, 2022 17:24:24 GMT 10
And a PM who gets $10 K per WEEK.
You know you own an old tractor when.....You cant use your tractor to slash the yard because there are too many other tractors around.
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