I recommend reading this article. It presents a possible future that will actually be an improvement over what we have now.
A couple of excerpts:
Those websites talking about purely individual responses to catastrophe, for instance, those suggesting stocking up on physical silver and gold, and using it to trade for your necessities, will ultimately look foolish. How will this solve the systemic problem? What merchant will accept on faith that what you hold is real? Your “silver” ingot could simply be coated zinc. Is that grocer going to take out a test kit and a drill? Trade will be in currency, but mainly locally-based paper currency backed by local goods, faith, and productivity. Medium-sized cities (like a Madison, WI or an Ithaca, NY) near farmland and colleges with a well-educated progressive populace, farmer’s markets, and a vitally functioning social infrastructure and comity will probably do best.
Quality of life must migrate by practical necessity from worth determined by material wealth and monetized value toward worth in which non-material harbingers of value— learning, community solidarity, multicultural experience and exchange, environmental advocacy, etc— become the mainstays of a good life.
Comments