Archdruid Watch: The Age of Salvage Societies
by Jason GodeskyI can’t promise a return to regular blogging here, and even this post will be much abbreviated, but Greer’s latest (”The Age of Salvage Societies“) is making me positively itch. This is something we’ve talked about plenty of times here, so seeing blatantly untrue statements like these not only going unchallenged, but recieving a round of praise for their “insightfulness” is really grating for me. So, some quick facts to keep in mind if you read Greer’s article.
- Steel is an alloy. You won’t find it on the periodical table. It’s made from iron and carbon, and while you can work iron in a charcoal fire the way Greer says, he uses some sleight of hand in the article to try to slip that property over to steel, which is an alloy and requires much higher temperatures to work with. The vast majority of the iron we have mined, we have turned into steel, which is stronger than iron on its own, but if you want to rework steel, you’re going to need fossil fuels (usually coal) to do so.
- Yes, rust is iron oxide, which is the same chemical as iron ore. What Greer fails to mention is that as iron rusts more and more, it becomes a lower and lower grade ore. So yes, you can use rust like ore, but it’s a steadily deteriorating ore.
- Bog iron was often a source of iron in Europe and North America. What Greer doesn’t mention is that the societies that had to depend solely or even mainly on bog iron were the same societies where iron was so rare that iron tools and weapons were considered magical, and blacksmiths were considered a specialized kind of wizard. The early Anglo-Saxons relied primarily on bog iron. They produced the myth of Wayland Smith. That’s because bog iron has a rate of replenishment, and not a very fast one. It’s a renewable resource, as it’s created by bacteria, but they produce it quite slowly, holding societies to levels of consumption where iron tools are rare enough to inspire wonder. That also means they’re too rare to really have much impact on how societies work. After all, if your society has swords, but you’re the only one who has one, that’s not really going to make you a feudal lord.
- While copper, aluminum and other metals can make some useful knick-knacks and flashy jewelry, they’re not useful for the kind of economic uses that change the shape of a society. You’re not going to make an effective plow or an effective spear out of any of these other metals.
My own thinking is that there probably will be a “Rusting Age,” particularly near the present-day cities. But this isn’t something that can last more than a few centuries, as the rust becomes too poor an ore to be usable. Bog iron, copper, etc. will make the new world interesting, but they’re not plentiful enough to provide for anything like an iron age society. There will be iron oddities, but for the overwhelming majority of tools, stone, bone, plants and animals will be the primary materials available.
John Michael Greer’s “Archdruid Report” comes out every Wednesday, and one of his favorite topics is the failing of primitivism, or “apocalyptic narrative,” as he prefers to pigeon-hole it. Unfortunately, Greer also thinks that actual primitivists stopping by in the comments to defend their “apocalyptic narrative” side-tracks the disucssion of how looney and wrong their narrative is. Primitivists who try to answer Greer’s attacks are eventually censored and banned. Enter “Archdruid Watch,” a weekly response to Greer’s weekly attack, on a forum that encourages discussion and dissenting views, rather than squelches them from the bully pulpit. If you think we’re wrong, by all means say so. It’s not as though we’ll delete what you have to say just because you make a good point—and that’s not something all blogs involved here can say.
- Last Week: “Cities in the Deindustrial Future“
I’ve thought about this as well a bit. I agree- there will be a ‘rusting age,’ and people will make use of what’s available here in the collapsed cities, but for the most part, people will go where there’s a means to survive, and firstly, that means food. And since it’s easier and actually sustainable to be hunter-gardeners, people will do that where they’re not compeleld by othre forces not to. And if they’re hunter-gardeners, their livelihood is going to depend on wild spaces, and though they may make use of reclaimed urban and industrial goods, they’re going to spend most of their time not in those old centers, but in the wild spaces they depend on for survival. And they’ll also have to realize that there are other ways of providing yourself with your tool needs beside picking through salvaged waste which stops growing, unlike bones, plants and animals. As both you and Greer point out, the salvage age will be self-limiting, and feral people will recognize this and adapt accordingly in order to survive.
Comment by Archangel — 27 October 2007 @ 10:35 AM
Also- welcome back (for the time being)! Enjoy your time of respite, however long it may last!
Comment by Archangel — 27 October 2007 @ 10:36 AM
A piece of steel or iron will last centuries if it is well cared for. There are enough raw materials sitting around in cities that a severely reduced population will have access to lots of materials that were unavailable to primitive people prior to the iron age, for many years. I don’t know how many, exactly, but there will be a significant period of transition between the collapse of the industrial world and the stabilization of a rewilded world.
Also, it seems to me that fossil fuels themselves will be around for a long time after the collapse of today’s industrial economy. Post-Peak Oil costs and declining energy production will mean economic collapse of a world that depends on growth. However this does not mean that every piece of coal will have been mined, and every liter of natural gas will have been burned. These fuels can be used to make steel tools and fertilizer. Only a small fraction of fossil fuels today are devoted to fertilizer production, even if you include transportation of the fertilizer. Most petroleum used in North America is wasted on personal automobile trips (I think it’s about 60%, I can’t find the reference right now). Without that sort of drain on remaining resources, I suspect that the period of transition could last hundreds, or even a few thousands, of years.
“…but they’re not plentiful enough to provide for anything like an iron age society.”
That depends on scale. Everything depends on scale. At any given level of resource extraction, the earth can support a few rich people, or hordes of poor people.
Comment by Too Human — 29 October 2007 @ 11:33 AM
That was an important point raised in the earlier discussion. The important point is: if it’s well-cared for. So we’re talking about the stock of metal tools that’s actively protected. For the most part, heirlooms and the like. There’s attrition: a limited pool with no replenishment, but it’s still going to have deplenishment as some tools are broken or lost. These can make things interesting, but it’s not really going to scale up to really change the face of society without the capacity to make new tools.
Not on the scale usually imagined. Nearly all of the raw materials sitting around in cities are alloyed.
I’ve estimated about 400 years, but that’s with significant local variation. In some areas, the potential for rewilding already exists. The map opens unevenly. In the ruins of old cities, you could see some salvaging going on for centuries. In even just 100 years, I’d be surprised to see much of that activity very far from the old urban cores.
No, just the easiest ones to get to. There’s the real problem: what fossil fuels remain are so difficult to get to that you need fossil fuels to get them. Plenty of fossil fuels will remain–miles beneath the earth where no one can reach them.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 October 2007 @ 11:46 AM
On a technical note, the first step in iron production is actually to reduce its carbon content. Basic ‘pig’ iron has a high carbon content, but it’s not alloyed in a way that makes the iron stronger; pig iron is brittle, and doesn’t make good weapons. For years before the rise of coal-based smelting, the Swedes refined pig iron into low-carbon iron using wood-charcoal air-pumped furnaces. This inspired them to strip the countryside bare of trees. At this time (1500’s, I think) Swedish steel was highly sought after by other European powers, to make shoulder arms, cannons and other heavy weapons.
The Chinese produced low-carbon iron from high-carbon iron sources as long ago as 1000BC, before the age of coal.
Once the carbon content of pig iron is reduced to very low levels, carbon and other elements are added back carefully to make higher-strength alloys. This is an expensive process even today, so most steel materials are actually low-carbon alloys.
The thing is, early iron processes do not lend themselves to ‘industrial’ scale production. The Swedes were limited by their supply of wood for charcoal. It wouldn’t be easy by any means to cut down trees, make charcoal, build small blast furnaces, and melt low-carbon steel scrap into ingots, etc. But it’s possible, even without coal and natural gas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_iron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_Process
By weight, most steel produced today are not high-temperature alloy. ‘Mild’ steels predominate in construction and other utilitarian purposes. High-strength steels for machine tools, automobile crankshafts and moving parts, etc., are the exception, not the rule. Most steel around here is produced as sheets, coils, etc., and are turned into tubing (construction), beams, and other forms. Small quantities are refined into higher-grade steels for machine parts.
“No, just the easiest ones to get to. There’s the real problem: what fossil fuels remain are so difficult to get to that you need fossil fuels to get them.”
It depends on how much you are willing to pay for the fuel. Sure, eventually it will take more than X quantity of fossil fuels to dig up X quantity of fossil fuels…a losing proposition, game over. But for a long time I expect that it will still be a winning proposition to dig up fossil fuels, but not at a scale that makes industrialism practical. It could be 400 years, sure; it could be more, it could be less.
Regardless, although I have great respect for the idea of personal rewilding, and improving our primitive skills, I think it will take a long time before people head back to the forest en masse, living a nomadic life off of wild foods. And really, it’s good that we’ll have this period of transition, because we might want to try to repair some of the damage (to the extent possible) done to the land–un-damming the rivers, breaching the levees, reseeding prairies, planting trees, burying mine wastes. If hundreds of millions of people suddenly decided to head into the national forest to eat fish and game, the system would collapse in no time. We’re going to need some time to make the transition.
Comment by Too Human — 29 October 2007 @ 12:09 PM
Here’s some interesting tidbits:
http://www.auto-ware.com/techref/meltpoint.htm
Melting temperatures of metals Metal Melting Point (Deg F)
mild steel 2730
wrought iron 2700-2900
stainless steel 2600
hard steel 2555
cast iron 2060-2200
copper 1985
red brass 1832
silver 1763
yellow brass 1706
aluminum alloy 865-1240
magnesium alloy 660-1200
lead 621
babbit 480
It seems that wrought iron, the low-carbon derivative of ‘cast’ or ‘pig’ iron, which was being produced by Chinese artisans in the pre-coal era, and by Swedes at much larger scale with only wood charcoal, and which can be worked in a wood-charcoal bellows forge, has a higher melting temperature than stainless or ‘hard’ steel (loose terminology on this site). Sure, cast iron melts at a lower temperature yet, but the 500-700 degree difference can be made up by pumping oxygen through well prepared charcoal.
Comment by Too Human — 29 October 2007 @ 12:22 PM
Even if it’s only 200 years, I’m interested in the age of rust because it’s the age I’m going to see, my children are going to see, and my grandchildren are going to see. That’s the rough patch, the transition period, and I like to spend my time thinking about what to do then instead of what to do in a future I’ll not live to see.
The cities need to be rewilded. We can dismantle them piece by piece to make way for the return of nature, salvaging what’s useful and cleaning up. Or we can leave big, rusted, poisonous ruins. I like option one.
Comment by Andrew Jensen — 29 October 2007 @ 1:52 PM
in the future, I will sell you a pinch from my pouch, all you will need to make cellulosic ethanol, making any metal work possible. These bacteria, or whatever they will be, are our future, not metal…
Comment by TonyZ — 29 October 2007 @ 2:34 PM
$93 Oil today, ‘alternative energy’ mostly in the talking stage, water pollution & shortages a growing issue…
Hmmm, never thought all my research over the years would make my so hyperfocused on the seemingly mundane things such as food & water.
What will be, will be…but what are you doing?
Comment by Bubba — 29 October 2007 @ 2:35 PM
This phenomenon is really only going to be of interest in the cities, where the raw materials will be available. Even in thirty years, metals will be fairly irrelevant to human life over most of the earth. The four hundred year guess is only for those who insist on living in the urban ruins, which will probably be some of the most horrific places on earth, due to the high population density and low food production.
So, the question is, do you want to be part of that? I don’t think many would. And will they be a problem for those who don’t? I doubt it, for reasons I’ve outlined before (search the site for “neo-feudal”). So ultimately, this is something that’ll be going on, but it doesn’t change the basic fact that the only real future open to humanity is rewilding. This whole salvage business will go on, but it’s self-defeating. It may take centuries to entirely eliminate itself, but it will be an isolated phenomenon even in our own lifetimes.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 October 2007 @ 4:20 PM
Even without roads, people will travel far to trade with each other, especially as a side-line to gathering food.
However in thirty years, there will still be asphalt covering huge chunks of this country. There will still be bicycles and bicycle tires, and bicycle carts. Small pieces of useful metal will have significant value. Suppose I live in the remnants of Chicago, take apart leaf springs from cars, make knives and spear points using a water-powered grinder, and haul them out to some place 5 days ride to the West. Someone from 5 days walk further West walks in to meet me. He trades what he’s found for some of my wares.
Back in the old-old days that you are proposing as a model for our return, things like obsidian and flint were valuable trade items. I have extra skins, you have extra obsidian, which I can use to make better weapons for producing more skins.
Metal is just another type of stone, and it will be sitting around in great big heaps for a long time.
Regardless of whether some particular mode of existence is self-defeating in the long run, people will choose to follow it if it provides some advantage in the applicable time frame. I can’t imagine that ‘everyone’ will turn their backs on superior, easily available materials in some sort of purist effort to rewild themselves. People will do whatever it takes to survive, for as long as they can.
Ultimately, I believe you are right, we will be wearing skins and brandishing clubs, or stone-pointed spears. *That* doesn’t change the basic fact that people will remember metals, and will know something about how to turn rocks into metals given enough trees for fuel, and it won’t change the fact that people will scavenge anything and everything they can, and continue to trade.
For that matter, black gunpowder is a really simple thing to make. Charcoal, saltpeter, sulfur, and bingo. You’ll have a hard time putting that genie back in the bottle.
Comment by Too Human — 29 October 2007 @ 5:33 PM
Sure, just like they did in the Paleolithic. That’s not going to make society substantially unlike the Paleolithic.
Alan Weisman actually wrote about roads specifically in The World Without Us; they break up remarkably quick. Look at some abandoned roads left after just 10 years. So they’ll be flat, sure, but most of our roads were paved over the ancient, native trade routes. Again, not much of a change.
I’ve got a 20-year-old bike, and it’s not a pretty thing. 30 years would be even worse. So 30 years out, you’ve got bikes, but they’re becoming rare.
Absolutely. And that significant value will greatly undermine their social importance. They’ll have significant value because they’ll be rare. You won’t be able to have the complexity and energy that assumes common metal tools. They won’t be common enough.
Absolutely. But the energy cost of exporting now gets added to the cost of the metal. Meaning not far from Chicago, metal costs a lot, so it has very little impact on the shape of society. In other words, the impact of metal will be almost completely limited to the urban ruins.
That’s right. And notice that there wasn’t enough obsidian very far from their origin sites to really change the shape of society (flint’s actually pretty widespread, and was rarely a trade item; lapis lazuli would be a better example). These things make great status symbols, but they’re status symbols precisely because they’re too rare and costly to change the way society works except as an exception. These things don’t shape society like metals and farms shape ours; they’re footnotes.
But it won’t. That’s the point.
That’s the very premise of my argument. This isn’t about people giving a pass on metals, it’s about the energy and material costs.
I’m not arguing that. I’m arguing that this isn’t something they’ll be able to scavenge, at least not on any scale that will matter.
You may be right about that; it definitely deserves a closer look into what the prospects will be for saltpeter and sulfur (I’ve learned by now not to simply assume that what’s available now will always continue to be). Even so, without metal, the military applications for gunpowder become greatly limited. But the original applications of gunpowder weren’t the original uses, either. Once again: a legacy that will make the future a very interesting place, not anything you can expect to keep civilization going.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 October 2007 @ 7:17 PM
Hmm, well I suppose I’d need more data to take it further. But I don’t quite buy your idea that metal won’t *shape* society, because it will become very rare. It works both ways. Small pieces of metal, e.g. a sword or an axe, are very useful, better than their stone counterparts for most intended purposes, and can be traded over very long distances; and as you pointed out, paleolithic people covered a lot of ground. Therefore things like swords and axes wouldn’t be restricted to the urban ruins, and frankly, you can’t get very far away from some sort of urban center in the lower 48, or in Europe, or in much of Asia. Even a small-to-medium sized city in the US is on the order of the city of Rome back at the height of the empire, and contains a lot of material. And a well-cared-for sword or axe can be handed down for generations.
Although ferrous metals will deteriorate if left in the open, aluminum, copper, brass, stainless steels, lead and other metals will probably preserve quite well, especially if they are deliberately buried in dry earth.
I’m not claiming that the presence of small quantities of useful metal tools will make the society *susbtantially* different than the paleolithic–e.g. agricultural, industrial, etc. But I think the retention of metal tools is an important difference, and cannot be dismissed.
Imagine a day a few hundred years from now, where a group of 30-year-old bicycles, they work fine, I ride to work every day on a 20+ year old steel-framed bike. Tires will be the biggest challenge, but I’ll be there’s some sort of rubberish goo that can be extracted from plants in our hemisphere (hemp goo?), which can be applied to woven fiber cloth to make solid tires.
Regardless, I shouldn’t have bothered mentioning bicycles. How about horses? Surely you don’t expect them to be exterminated so that we can all return to a purely paleolithic lifestyle? And how about wooden wheels? A HG group equipped with metal weapons, horses and wooden wheels will have a much easier time harvesting buffalo than foot-propelled HGs wielding stone and clubs.
The theme you come back to, that the presence of these items at small scale won’t result in a society that is *substantially* different from paleolithic HG, bears closer scrutiny. Substantial according to whom? From a modern perspective, no, HGs with metal tools, wheels and horses are still HGs, not agriculturalists, and not inudstrialists, so it’s not much different. But go back in time 20k years and give some foot-propelled wood-and-stone HGs some metal axes, metal spear points, strong, sharp arrow heads, lightweight and strong arrow shafts, wheels, horses, etc…then come back in five years and ask if their lives have changed much. Better weapons means a better chance of taking game, at greater range, etc., and the horse and/or cart means you can haul the whole kill back to the group. Little things make big differences.
Imagine this: A group of FEWER THAN 150 HGs equipped with stone and wood weapons meanders to its winter grounds, a seashore rich in shellfish. When they arrive after a long fall season of walking, they find that all of the choice harvesting areas are occupied by HG groups, also fewer than 150 in number each, who are equipped with metal axes and swords, and possibly horses. The stone-and-wood HGs will be forced into more marginal gathering grounds, and will have to move on more frequently.
Comment by Too Human — 30 October 2007 @ 11:20 AM
I’m mainly addressing here the supposition that scrap metal will allow the social forms of an iron age: feudal social structure with a warrior elite and an agrarian peasantry, with fortified settlements and all the rest. This is what I’m arguing against, primarily. This is not going to happen: firstly, for lack of the agricultural base necessary, and secondly, because the metals necessary for it won’t be available, for the reasons detailed above.
Yes, there will be some metal around. Aluminum, copper, etc., which you mentioned, have very limited economic uses, so their biggest impact on the future will be as prestige goods, and probably, for the most part, jewelry. For the shape of a society, it’s really iron you need to worry about, and iron simply won’t be around in sufficient quantities to make any real difference. They may give an edge to the people who have them (that’s why I bought a rapier and have begun learning to use it), but it’s not going to allow for some neo-feudal order. You’re still going to have to hunt and gather.
I’ve never said that this transition will come about because of principle or general acceptance, so no, nobody’s going to abandon horses to maintain the purity of their primitivist principle. But how are you going to raise and feed a herd of domesticated horses in a future where agriculture has become impossible? You’re going to need to let the horses go feral, and then establish a relationship with them not unlike the Saami with their local reindeer herds. That’s going to make it awfully difficult to hook a cart to one, and as the Mesoamerican civilizations found, a wheel’s pretty useless without a draft animal.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 October 2007 @ 11:43 AM
That’ll do it; that means “open HTML tag.” So the whole rest of your post is getting mauled as just a big, verbose HTML tag.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 October 2007 @ 11:44 AM
“But how are you going to raise and feed a herd of domesticated horses in a future where agriculture has become impossible?”
Didn’t the introduction of the horse transform the society of the Plains Indians, at least in the period before agriculture took over the plains and the US Government forced them onto reservations?
I’m envisioning a low human population density, with lots of grassland or prairie in some areas. You don’t need agriculture for horses, just natural fodder. If you have low population and lots of grass, you can keep domestic horses, goats, sheep, etc., and follow them around through the seasons…up to the mountains as weather warms up, down to the plains for the winter.
If there isn’t enough food around for horses, then there won’t be enough for people either. Horses (and cattle, sheep and goats) can eat the most basic foods that can’t support people. That’s one reason why pastoralism precedes agriculture.
And I agree completely that fuedalism will disappear with productive agricultural lands. It’s tough to keep people enslaved when there’s no profit and no way to pay the keepers.
Comment by Too Human — 30 October 2007 @ 12:01 PM
Plains Indians: Not exactly. The Plains Indians didn’t even exist before the introduction of the horse. They were formed from refugees and the broken remnants of other tribes driven west by European contact. Guns played a role in the creation of Plains Indian culture as great as that of the horse, also. So would a post-civilized culture with horses differ from one without? No doubt. Just like the Saami differ from the !Kung. But you’re still not talking about any kind of neo-feudal society, or even anything we’d really recognize even as pastoralism. As I understand it, the Plains Indians had a much less domesticated relationship with their horse herds, just like the Saami and their reindeer.
What you’re describing is perfectly possible, but it’s not domesticated. If they’re feeding themselves like that, then you’re just living close to each other. See the Saami. Search the site for an old article called “On Pastoralism,” you’ll see this all explored in some detail there.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 October 2007 @ 4:34 PM
I view ‘domestication’ of animals as a matter of degree, just like horticulture-agriculture-permaculture-whatever differ by degree. Animals don’t have to be completely captive to be part of human society, and to shape human society. Did you ever encounter a supposedly ‘domesticated’ cow or bull on a National Forest meadows while hiking? I have, in the Sierra foothills. They’re not very friendly, they’re aggressive and territorial. The idea is that you let them wander around for months, then gather them up by whatever means necessary. If they are too wild for the stockyard, they don’t last long.
I suppose that’s why I never referred to the animals as ‘domesticated’ when I suggested horses instead of bicycles. If you live in the open as a forger, more like an animal than like a ‘civilized’ man, then you can meet the somewhat-domesticated animals halfway, you don’t have to subjugate them completely. Some animals would be more compliant than others, depending on how often you catch them, harness them, ride them, whatever.
Regarding Plains Indians, yes, that is what I meant. Sure, if in 1800 you asked a tribe in the region that is now Nebraska whether they were Plains Indians, you would have received a fairly complicated reply regarding their history. The displacement of Eastern and Southwestern people by European encroachment, plus the introduction of horses and weapons, transformed some of them into horse-mounted hunter-gatherer-traders. The important thing to me is that these people were still foragers primarily, so they fit your framework of post-civilized humanity, yet they used artifacts emanating from the distant civilization as their own. In the decline of civilization we will see the same thing happen.
Although the Plains Indians weren’t pastoralists, my understanding is that there were plenty of horse-based pastoralists in the central Asian steppes, during the period when civilization was first starting to emerge, and probably for a long time preceding that. This is why history and every epic of civilization describes ‘barbarians’ coming in from the hinterlands to sack the newly developing civilized areas. Small, rich cities are easy pickings for horse-mounted nomads. The sacking won’t happen again once the cities have disappeared due to lack of agriculture, but I think large areas of the world could host nomadic people living off of a combination of wild food and partially domesticated animals. There’s not much difference overall between following the buffalo herds and following cow herds, especially when the cows aren’t used to people. The herders kill them when they need meat, and keep a few of the tamer animals close by for milk. I think this was a common way of life long ago, and it will be again.
I have jury duty tomorrow, and won’t be able to check the site. It’s a shame, I have a lot of reading yet to do.
Comment by Too Human — 30 October 2007 @ 6:18 PM
One guy in a forum in which I brought up the subject of primitivism thought we would always have iron because the Earth’s crust is made of 5% iron. For one thing, we don’t have access to the entirety of the Earth’s crust (it’s 15-30 miles deep depending on specific section of the crust), and the remaining iron ore to which we have access is plentiful, but the amount of iron in it exists in such low concentrations that I would think that fossil fuels would be necessary to smelt the iron from the ore on any sort of large scale.
Comment by venuspluto67 — 30 October 2007 @ 7:53 PM
I think they key really is scale. There are actually many small deposits of useful things in accessible areas today; they are just scattered about in such small quantities that they are not economically feasible to extract– or rather, ‘justifiable’. A company that produces oil or metal ore today needs to produce it in very large quantities, at lower cost than the other sources, in order to stay in business. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t enough decent iron ore, scattered about within reach here and there, to make handfuls of tools, even guns or basic machinery. It just means that under today’s conditions, there are bigger, better deposits elsewhere. Industrialism doesn’t need iron ore by the wheelbarrow load, it needs it by the shipload. Same with oil. There are plenty of ‘tapped out’ fields that can produce a little bit of oil at a cost a little bit more than oil from peak fields.
An economy in decline with low population density might find isolated, small-scale deposits of industrial materials useful.
Comment by Too Human — 30 October 2007 @ 9:02 PM
It seems more likely that certain areas will experience economic collapse first. I would expect much of the metal in these areas to be sold for scrap to the areas that still have a functioning industrial economy.
Even so, after economic collapse, the age of salvage will last for an extremely long time. Iron and steel take far longer to turn to rust than may be expected.
For examples, I have seen cast iron water mains that have been buried and carrying water for over 100 years, and they are sill intact with just some surface pitting. Water mains left outside in a pipe yard for decades don’t look bad either.
Steel rebar will be protected by the surrounding concrete.
Cars are galvinized and coated and painted to prevent rust. With the hood down, the engine will be kept dry until the hood rusts through!
Barbed wire still trips up hikers decades after the land stopped being farmed.
Stainless, cro-moly and dichromate plated steel doesn’t really rust at all.
Even hard metals can be worked by hand. A hammer and cold chisel can slowly cut iron and steel to approximate shapes. A stone and lots of time can be used to grind it to a sharp edge. A charcoal (or biogas) forge could heat even mild steel to welding (white hot) temperatures.
It will take many generations until people have to learn flint knapping again!
Comment by JoeZ — 31 October 2007 @ 11:14 AM
I don’t think metal will play a role for a very long time, unless the tradition of making tools of bog ore is restored.
The majority of the Iron and steel produced doesn’t have much preserving components in it, like for instance nickel. After 100 years+ of exposure to the elements, the majority of it will be rusted to pieces. After 200 years, what will be found most of the time is only the odd piece of concrete reinforcement, which I by the way will expect major mining of well within that time, further adding to rust exposure of the metal.
Stone tools is what is going to happen in the long run, if we want it or not. I’m going to teach my children to use stone tools and tell them to teach theirs. Because one day they will be needed again. That way, all will not have to be reinvented.
Comment by Torjus Gaaren — 31 October 2007 @ 1:57 PM
TROLL says:
hey Lardesky, let us know your source for “plains indians” never existing.. or how about the fact that there were bison hunters there for at least 14,000 years.
your website and computer should be torched / shit on for spreading bullshit anthropology to all your ass crack lickers.
Comment by THE BEST TROLLS EVER — 31 October 2007 @ 9:42 PM
This Vine Deloria Jr.?
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that he has fans of such caliber as we have seen here today.
Comment by venuspluto67 — 31 October 2007 @ 10:18 PM
Hey, our local troll finally found something substantive to say. So I’ll let one iteration stand (the other three comments that just put “I don’t like you” in new and inventive terms got axed, though). Unfortunately, you picked a pretty lame spot to make your stand on (surprise, surprise). Peter Farb’s unfortunately-titled study, Man’s Rise to Civilization As Shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of the Industrial State, published in 1968 and still considered one of the major works of Native American archaeology and anthropology, goes through a very good overview of the evidence. I didn’t say that there weren’t bison hunters on the Great Plains before them. I said that the Plains Indians were a very new culture, basically created in reaction to European contact, and that much is undeniably true. That’s no more insulting to Native Americans than suggesting that we all ultimately came from Africa.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 1 November 2007 @ 6:36 AM
it seems a lot time is spent thinking about the material side of ‘new-culture’… while we’re all still turning the handle of a faucet to get our water, flushing our fecal waste into it and visiting our local markets to buy new and or used silverware, tools, and such is anyone living this way yet? ie. is anyone making their own tools? and wares to live? is that what’s happening? how many of are smelting, reshaping, making their tools, etc.? are you?
what interest me here is that while i look around and see thousands, millions of homes, offices, cars, and buildings as far as the eye can see that are FULL OF/MADE OF METALS OF ALL SORTS, WIRING, ETC, is it of any real concern NOW, SINCE so much (resources such as “precious metals” iron ore, copper, silver,.,…)have been brought to the surface that we would worry about finding stuff to work with when it becomes ‘necessary’?
environmental determinism has long since been ruled out as the sole shaping factor of societies (farb ‘the rise of man’)… and more or less what shapes our cultures, ‘how we choose to live in those environments’ in conjunction to actually living in whatever environment we find ourselves to a greater or lesser degree… how are you living now that shapes your thinking on these matters?
are we concerned with proliferating our current life ways, using knives to cut the cheese? can openers to release our calories? cooking our food in cast iron pans to procure a meal? WHAT ARE YOUR CONCERNS HERE?
are we wanting to continue living the same way after the “collapse”? that doesn’t seem to be the direction this is all going (the discussion).
my own concerns are invisible, weightless “human technologies” such as ‘getting along with and fostering relationships between myself, others’ and ‘the more than human world’ i am a part of at present. the material side i can’t claim to be all that worried about.
as proof of this, i point to the exchanges here and on other forums where we argue and debate to no end. a fruitless act? i don’t think so. if this technology doesn’t bring us closer to gaining face to face community what are we doing?
got iron? anyone?
Comment by walkswithsun — 1 November 2007 @ 2:17 PM
http://www.androidblues.com/gallery/roadtrip2.jpg
dream come true
Comment by walkswithsun — 1 November 2007 @ 2:28 PM
I don’t view the exchange here as being ‘fruitless’, any more than I view the human race as ‘fruitless’. Culture is what we make of it. I think that what you have seen in the recent discussions here, is a sharp example of how conscious many people are of the impact of material goods on our personal lives and culture. Take my asthma inhaler away from me, and I will suffer consequences in the next 24 hours.
The discussion is an effort to collectively understand the extent to which we are actually dependant on a material culture that we take for granted. Shelter, water, fire, food…in what form?
” tools, and such is anyone living this way yet”
Sure, but they’re not on this blog. We’re a bunch of internet-enabled first-worlders speculating about primitivism, and some practice it in their spare time. But many people in the world are struggling for survival with a bare complement of material goods. In fact, there’s a homeless guy who sleeps under a truck in the parking lot behind the building where I work. His posessions fit in a trash bag. He’s a scavenger.
I think I see what you are trying to say, that in the end it is social relationships between people that will determine the shape of our society after the collapse of the material economy, not the goods we bring with us. But I think this is a more difficult question to debate, and probably more fruitless. We can all sit here and declare how much we love other human beings, or debate what personal relationships will be like in an ‘egalitarian’ HG society, but the range of options is very wide. Within today’s first-world society there exists a very wide range of family dynamics–religious, secular, pacifist, violent, self-centered, selfless, etc. Camping by yourself or with a group of friends for a week or two doesn’t tell you much about what interpersonal relationships will shape and be shaped by a post-industrial pseudo-paleolithic lifestyle. Therefore we may as well debate how one would procure the necessaries of life, and whether or not there will be iron ore left in convenient spots.
Comment by Too Human — 1 November 2007 @ 3:18 PM
I should also note that amidst the usual diarrhea, our dear little troll did manage to come up with a source: Alice Kehoe’s Blackfoot and other hunters on the North American Plains. Although, when summarizing Kehoe’s work, Richard Lee and Richard Daly made the claim that I’ve here repeated:
That’s basically the only things going on in primitive living these days, actually, but no one’s successfully done it for very long for two reasons: (1) it’s not really possible yet, and (2) the emphasis on the technology is a very civilized approach to primitive life, and thus doomed to fail.
Insofar as it’s being used, now, today, to dissuade people from learning primitive skills, yes.
That’s the trend, yes, but I don’t really care about what’s trendy. I care about what’s true. If environment isn’t the sole determining factor, it’s certainly the most important.
Actually, the point here is that you can’t keep going the same way. In other threads, we’ve discussed points like why you wouldn’t want to, or how to do something else, but this one’s about why you won’t be able to, even if you want to.
You should be. You really can’t have one without the other. Just as you can’t survive primitively without those “invisible technologies,” so, too, is it impossible to foster open, egalitarian societies based on something as hierarchical and possessive as agriculture. These aren’t two separate things. You need to tackle both, simultaneously, or the one you neglect will always undo every advance you make with the one you concentrate on. These aren’t separate things at all. The “invisible technologies” emerge from the way we make our living, and the way we make our living can succeed or fail because of our “invisible technologies.”
I focus on those “invisible technologies,” too, but not because making a living is unimportant, but because there’s already dozens of people doing that. I’m doing what I’m good at, and what’s been heretofore sorely neglected.
I saw that on Ran’s page the other day, so I’ll say here what I thought then: roads break up really quick. You know those little plants that grow in the cracks in the sidewalk even in just a few months of neglect? Roads crack and plants start to sprout, and their roots break up the asphalt even more. Have you ever seen an asphalt road that’s been abandoned for ten years? It’s barely recognizable as a road: you’ve got trees growing straight up out of it, it’s more a collection of asphalt slabs placed generally near one another. So that picture’s unrealistic: there’s no way that much of the road would still be there and so recognizable and in one piece.
Thanks for your comment, Too Human. I think you nailed it. But I’d also like to add that the relationships we form don’t happen in a vacuum: they’re informed, and really shaped, by the ways we get our food. These aren’t separate things; it’s one, single phenomenon viewed from two angles.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 1 November 2007 @ 4:43 PM
i appreciate both toohuman and jd’s comments.
it’s good to hear that “both cultural fronts” are being looked at.
i’m personally not deeply concerned for material things (food, shelter, clothing, etc) namely because the shear abundance of these items either already existing, or in the making through plant, animal,.,.,.,… not to mention my own middle class existence at present brings an overflowing trash heap! of things into my life with little effort. and after a few years with the wilderness awareness school and my own excursions into rewilding it obvious how easy it is to meet ones needs are if living is the aim and not ’surviving’. (survival is an euphemism for barely making it/struggling/on the razors edge)
my own experience living “homeless” for several years informs me and gives me absolute confidence in those matters (for myself). so i am working on the latter half, which in my estimation is more valuable to me.
how will the possessive “nature” of my former taker friends influence our sharing of what’s necessary? the cultural elements that i currently view as important are the ones i have not seen in discussion here or well, anywhere in ‘ish’ related forums. steeped in a occupational tribe at present has given myself and those involved an endless source of unexpected emotional topics to look at. and proven to be the key to the leaver treasury.
“a fruitless act? i don’t think so.”
thanks again and much luck to you both.
Comment by walkswithsun — 1 November 2007 @ 5:38 PM
oh, the picture… sure it could be more “accurate” but that’s why its a painting, it’s an interpretation, not real… and if you click the magnifying button you see more grass. not helping?
fifth world could use stuff like this, no?
Comment by walkswithsun — 1 November 2007 @ 5:47 PM
Well don’t forget: living homeless in the midst of a “functional” civilization (in quotes since, even at their most functional, every civilization is quite dysfunctional) is a very different thing than facing collapse.
In general, yes. I just think it underestimates how much the living world can rebound.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 1 November 2007 @ 7:30 PM
“living homeless in the midst of a “functional” civilization”
this is an excellent point you bring up; if the dumpsters weren’t being filled to capacity i would have eaten more wild foods and instead of supplementing my diet with them.
though, it also occurred to me that the whole reason for me living in such a way was to crack the hardened ego that had formed around everything i thought and saw in the world. i wondered, “can i adapt?-to any circumstance?” the answer is a resounding YES. gathering food from a dumpster was “humiliating” for me. eventually it was just where i could get a meal. i pushed myself further and lived in the foothills of the cascade mountains sleeping in a tent for 3 years. there i became more engrossed with collecting and consuming wild plants and animals. i still used whatever “trash” i found such as old coke bottles to boil water in, stitching from the seats of a rusted out car to make snares, sandals from lawn mower tires, etc.
if i were still sitting on my sofa in texas watching democracy now! wondering if the collapsing western world would happen sooner of later i don’t think i there would reasonably be enough time left (for me) to begin changing my life at the present rate of change that i am observing.
if we don’t begin meeting and forming clans, bands, and tribe NOW there is little chance of it happening LATER. the point being, i am seeing a great need to learn how to sit in council … to listen and observe the needs of others emotionally, and otherwise. to begin living in a truly tribal manner for me means the relationship of reciprocity between self, other, land. knowing what to do when emotional imbalance comes, when spiritual disharmony arises, and where and how to move with the season as well as how to meet my own needs and those of my tribe.
i feel that material life is a given: we eat everyday. we dress ourselves and touch the things we use to communicate and make our living everyday. i think its more important for me to change my relationship with these everyday “things” and begin seeing how it brings me closer to others now… and if it isn’t fulfilling a need that is directly related to fostering my relationships here and now i must change this immediately. if we’re only going to ponder the distant future and what we think it might be like… i am not sure it’s going to serve us well right NOW.
i am appreciative of your insight and of the work you’ve done here over the last couple of years, it’s been of great benefit. and this exchange is been especially helpful in allowing me to see/think more clearly what needs to be done in my life right now. thankyou.
Comment by walkswithsun — 2 November 2007 @ 11:53 AM
Comments on Greer’s one view give him power.
Comment by Ben10 — 2 November 2007 @ 12:31 PM
Walkswithsun,
That’s an interesting story. My hat’s off to you for making it work. Personally I don’t see much difference between scavenging and gathering ‘wild’ food. It’s a matter of recognizing what is OK to eat, and having the will to eat it.
One view I have on it, is that to survive in the wild as an unprepared individual in a degraded environment, one must simply be willing to eat bugs–and worms, and slugs, and whatever. Might make you sick, might not, but it’s protein, and lots of ‘real’ foragers eat bugs.
My own experience with survival outside of civilization is quite limited. I’ve lived in a van on-and-off for a period of time, lived in tents once in a while, slept out in the open a good amount.
My personal stance is that I don’t care much for civilization because it puts me in close contact with too many people that I’d rather not deal with. Outside of civilization, it might mean the end of me, but I think I’d rather go it alone, more or less. If I have to sit down and deal with a group of people in a ‘tribal’ manner, I may as well be in the #$$#$#@# office here in Babylon. The nice thing about the internet (and I do see it as mildly revolutionary, despite the position of ‘Unfolding Collapse #2′ here on anthropik), I can find the few people in the world that I feel comfortable dealing with, and communicate with them, yet keep them at arms length.
I think that throughout human experience, there have been those predisposed to go it alone, and those who prefer to form a tribe. Sons grow up, and some wander into the forest, maybe finding another tribe to hang out with, maybe never to be seen again. Others stick around and gather food, hunt with dad to bring game home to the others, maybe learn to plant a few crops from Mom, raise kids, and eventually take the place of their elders. History, though, has been written by the latter. People who go out on their own are forgotten.
There’s a notion that doesn’t seem to come up on the rewilding sites much, that one can live within civilization yet be detached from it, in a sense preparing a part of oneself for this nebulous future-afterwards, and at the same time making it happen today. Even if you’re in that Texas living room, you can turn off the television, eliminate your petroleum transportation, keep the heat off, turn off the AC, eat dandelions from the yard, stitch your own clothes, etc. I fall somewhere in the middle of all that, and every day I try to push myself further in that direction.
Comment by Too Human — 2 November 2007 @ 4:54 PM
TOO HUMAN
it was self-initiation, the kind my soul or spirit or evolutionarily developed expectations earned for, craved, and in essence demanded of me… and once you have a clear and unflinching glimpse of your vision there is no turning back… if you do it’s death (literally or figuratively speaking).
i can’t claim 100% self sufficiency. what my journey taught me most directly is the need for community. even the most amazing indigenous scouts return home. they not only learned from their elders how to live long improbable stretches on their own but the community/tribe was dependent on them and the information they returned with. reciprocity.
it sounds like you would be an amazing addition to any community/tribe with the experience you hold.
it also sounds like many of us, the culture we currently live in is so unsatisfying that you’d prefer to remain at a distance to minimize damage to yourself.
i enjoyed reading the idea of just powering down and eating those plants just outside the door. my partner is always shocked how good she feels after a wild salad or good wild beer!
i hope there will be opportunities to meet… there are tribal gatherings throughout the year, try ish-think or puget-ish in seattle for up and coming events, i will look for you.
Comment by walkswithsun — 3 November 2007 @ 11:04 AM
Sounds like fun, I wouldn’t mind a get-together if it’s reasonable scale. However I live in the midwest, and I don’t travel much these days. I try to minimize fuel consumption, I have a lot of past petroleum sins to atone for.
Wild beer…please, do tell! That is one thing I’d have a hard time living without.
Although I agree that re-wilded living is the ultimate future of humanity, I’m relucant to embrace hunting and gathering today because I think the impact to what remains of our wild ecosystem (especially in the lower 48) will be excessive during the period of transition, which could be hundreds of years duration. I advocate using the remaining industrial resource base (fossil fuels, machinery, etc) to attempt to heal the land and re-seed the wilderness, rather than using it to extract more resources. I believe in gardening, not large-scale agriculture, and I believe in population control. If we can each reduce our footprint, and reduce the population, then rewilding might have a chance; otherwise we will strip what remains before it can take root.
This weekend I harvested about 50lbs of sweet potatoes out of a 5×5-foot plot in my back yard, plus 18 quarts of tomatoes. I know that sweet potatoes are considered evil by the paleo-diet people, but I don’t think that way; they are a reasonable component to a balanced diet. I used no pesticide, herbicide or chemical fertilizer. I compost intensively, I don’t throw away leaves and weeds, and I don’t mono-crop or strip out most ‘unwanted’ plants. That 50lbs of sweet potatoes will last several months over the winter, along with the summer and winter squash, tomatoes, swiss chard, carrots, etc., that I grew. My back yard is tiny, the whole lot is about 45×120 feet, including the house, but I host a fairly diverse population of plants (including many native plants) and (city dwelling) animals.
Comment by Too Human — 5 November 2007 @ 1:25 PM
where at in the midwest? (if you don’t mind me asking)
sounds like you’re ready for a good discussion on land use
do you think that hunting/gathering can play a useful part in bringing balance and health to our wilderness areas?
what if we gardened in/with/as a forest to produce food, medicines, fiber for people as well as food & habitat for wildlife?
Comment by jhereg — 5 November 2007 @ 2:05 PM
too human, i am shaking my head with laughing dismissive-ness of my frustration… this big big world and the distances between those of us whose lives are more a like than different. i wished we shared back yards. together we could garner the type of wealth that is sustainable, renewable, inexhaustible (the constant low-level exchange of human energy).
*sigh*
my partner and i are potentially moving east to ohio or some other state to be closer to her parents as they grow older. maybe…
it’s inspiring to read about your gardening. my own little 5×10 plot yielded enough greens, herbs, root vegies for 5 people throughout the summer. all that is left right now are kale, carrots, and parsley. i used permaculture principles, adding soil and compost instead of digging and disturbing the micro-ecology beneath the soil. my neighbors were a bit baffled when looking at my garden in comparison to the one next to it that was tilled. i had a larger variety of plants growing in such a small space. the plant grew so densely that i did NO weeding as they shaded out any “invaders.” i recently introduced mycelium of a rather auspicious decomposer fugi to break down the cardboard and newspaper that will prevent unwanted plants from growing during these winter months.
hey, them taters are good stuff and i don’t turn my nose up to any food that gives itself to us!
jhereg, forest gardening is very appealing and with the decades/eons of evidence available says it might just be the best start for us (sub)urban-bound types?
toby hemmenway’s GAIA’S GARDEN is my bible right now.
in addition to the thousands of post war victory gardens in seattle i have four seasons worth of gathering from apples, strawberry trees, pears, elderberries, oregon grapes, salmon berries, salal berries, black berries, mushrooms, etc, not to mention the plenitude of wild native plant edibles and european transplants.
and too human those berries and european herbs make those wild beers. blue elder berries are so abundant that we picked two hundred lbs! in a couple hours and i am enjoying the wine from that right now… hick.
Comment by walkswithsun — 5 November 2007 @ 5:47 PM
jhereg,
I live in the city of St Louis. Not by choice, completely. I grew up in Connecticut, lived in California for about 15 years, wound up here a few years ago because of work. It’s not my favorite climate, and I really miss the mountains and public land of the West, but at least I can afford to live within bicycling distance of work. I also own a piece of remote land near the Continental Divide in Montana, in the heart of ‘what’s left’.
“do you think that hunting/gathering can play a useful part in bringing balance and health to our wilderness areas?”
Most of our *real* wilderness areas in the lower 48 (legally declared under the Wilderness Act of 1964)aren’t that far out of balance, in comparison to non-wilderness National Forest, BLM land, private land, etc. However many of them are fairly fragile environments by nature–dry, cold alpine ecosystems, etc., which is why they were given wilderness status in the first place–and cannot take too much disturbance without suffering. Edible plants don’t regenerate very quickly in those areas. The major problem in our current wilderness areas in the lower 48 is lack of predators, because wolves, grizzlies and mountain lions have been eliminated from most of their original range. There are exceptions, of course. There are good wolf populations in Minnesota and other areas surrounding the Great Lakes; there are very tenuous wolf populations around Yellowstone, into Idaho and Montana, and there are a few (very few) grizzlies in that area as well.
I have nothing against hunting per se, but I have issue with what it has become.
Most hunting in *real* wilderness areas in the lower 48, e.g. the Bob Marshall, is trophy hunting, not subsistence hunting. People from, say, New York fly to Mon