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Yes. They are far less resilient and self-sufficient.
Written accounts and, firsthand accounts from some very old people, show that normal, reasonable, day-to-day living back then is something many people would find applaling for just 1 day, in today's society.
Many (but not all), in today's American society are weak, unskilled, soft or, a combination of the 3.
Very good post and the real challenge to current administration
Offering jobs and vocational training to those who want neither
Novel concept: Even drug dealers realize that they want something more than a minimum wage job. The only thing separating them from college graduates is the putting trust in delayed gratification (4 years of paying for an education before you can use that credential to elevate your asking price) and desire for to be accepted by society.
I think this must happen during the formative years. Once this boat is missed, coupled with the few times they prove to themselves they can make money in substances or theft, and they'll never see college as a pathway. It'll be in and out of prison for the rest of their life. Or dead in a ditch somewhere.
I don't think the question is HAVE you been self reliant/sustainable. it is CAN you be. I believe that a large amount of the population in the USA does not retain the ability,capability, knowledge, wisdom, to be self reliant/sustainable or provide for their own survival. AT the same time maintaining their Humanity. Push come to shove I think most would fall back to savagery in a short time......
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, Conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Robert Heinlein.........
Add knap a flint blade or effectively use an atlatl.
"Civilization can be measured by how much you can afford to forget." - Isaac Asimov.
BTW, butchering a hog takes more than one person. Shaving them is a project. And I'm not going to die gallantly. If they try to march me to the gallows, I'm going to die with my teeth in somebody's throat.
Add knap a flint blade or effectively use an atlatl.
"Civilization can be measured by how much you can afford to forget." - Isaac Asimov.
BTW, butchering a hog takes more than one person. Shaving them is a project. And I'm not going to die gallantly. If they try to march me to the gallows, I'm going to die with my teeth in somebody's throat.
This is good in theory, but I fall back on "only so much you can do in one lifetime".
Windows 95 took a team of 5,000 developers YEARS to write. Windows 95.
It seems like a lot of hours prepping for that one day when you might need to do something and there's no one else who can do it. For someone who has a finite lifetime either way, the smartest thing to do is learn disaster prevention. No substitute for self defense, but you don't have to dabble in every discipline and be a renaissance man.
Civilization hasn't collapsed yet, and we live in close enough proximity/accessibility to others who do specialize, that we can easily reach expertise when and only when we need it, without spending time of our own learning to do it.
What should someone practice? The things that will get them through most days independently.
-Learn a specialty you wish to make your money, hopefully it plays to your strengths
-Learn how to take care of yourself so you have a strong body and endurance
-It's good to have a strong hobby that you can use as a backup career should an industry go belly-up for awhile
-Practice SOCIAL SKILLS, these are more important than any trade you can learn, these skills will get you farther than working any trade can
Let me take these one by one: Mental illness. There is more of it than before probably, but how is it being defined?
If it's being defined by psycho-pharmaceuticals being prescribed then that is mostly because doctor hand those prescriptions out like candy, in part because they get kickbacks for it.
To the degree there actually is more mental illness it's because our society is getting more and more stressful due to the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. Poor and middle class people have a lot of stress related to a lack of good jobs and money.
Prison/ Parole / Probation. There are more people in prison today for all kinds of things because the prison system is largely controlled by corporations now (privately owned and operated) so they are in it for a profit. The more people who get put in jail the more money corporations make that run the prisons. Also there are so many people in for drug crimes such as simple possession or low-grade felony sales. Legalize drugs and take away corporate control of prisons and this problem will largely go away.
Learning Disabilities. See above re mental illness. Learning disabilities are often a result of poor parenting and too much stress and doctors handing out ritalin etc like candy. If you weren't screwed up already you may well be after taking ritalin for awhile.
Drugs and Alcohol Dependence. Stressful society is the cause of this. Some issues are:
Lack of job security; Lack of jobs; stressful living conditions (not enough money, not enough jobs) etc.
People turn to drugs when they are unhappy or discontent with their lives. Why are people unhappy? (See above.)
Out of work more than 6 months. During the last recession of 2007 or whatever, some 3-6 million jobs were outsourced to other countries, never to return to the USA. Also baby boomers were let go during this time and never got re-hired because now in the USA it's very hard to get a job if you're over 50 and you don't get the Walmart door greeter job (each town only has a few to go around). I personally know many people who lost their jobs, lost their homes and never got back on their feet after being laid off over the age of 50. There simply aren't enough jobs any more. Also many of the entry level jobs are taken by illegal aliens and the companies who hire them won't hire American citizens because they can pay the illegals less, and treat them like cr*p. Which is how the companies want it.
42.6 million Americans on SNAP. See all of the above. Most people do not want to be on SNAP, I assure you. Of course some do but probably less than 10%. So many jobs outsourced, so many older people no longer being hired, rents and insurance etc going up, so many who lost their jobs and homes, there is just so much less opportunity now in the USA for all of the reasons above.
The reason for most of the above is that corporations buy Congresspeople and Senators etc, and those bought and paid for puppets do the will of the corporations. We live now in the Corporate States of American and the people are only used for cheap labor for the most part. There is little or no compassion because corporations are about profit, not people.
I don't see things getting better any time soon because people are apathetic and don't realize yet that our country is going down the tubes and will soon be much more 2nd or 3rd world, whereas the rich 1-10% have all the wealth and the lower 90-99% struggle to survive.
Right, but my point is that the original settlers and much of the "old days" was exactly the same!
People got others to work for them...this has been the case since the start of civilization (and probably before)...Rome, Greece, Brits, Portugese, etc.
You can't go back to something that never existed...to a fairy tale.
Specialization.....I certainly don't want the HVAC guy doing brain surgery on me, nor do I want a ditchdigger putting the specs on the metal type for my truck axles.
Why should I be able to butcher a hog? Firstly, I'm a vegetarian. Secondly, I dislike pork anyway.
I can build a house - sweat a pipe - create web sites - write books...and, yes, change diapers, drive cars and trucks, invest money and much more. But these pursuits probably only represent a tiny slice of what it takes to keep civilization going.
I can't teach physics and never will be able to. Math either (except at very elementary levels).
Science and Chemistry? Forget about it...
I can sail a boat tho...that counts for something!
I have baled hay, sorted peppers, hoed many a row and cut many a tree (firewood)...
I would have to disagree with you one this one. Settlers pushed into the ever expanding frontiers with very often nothing more then they could carry. They built cabins or soddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sod_house or hacked out a hole to live in. There wasn't anyone to build it for them or fix an ax, shovel, tool They dug their own wells. Planted and hunted or raised their own food. after the populations grew there were stores and people could go buy stuff, that's progress..... That type of intestinal fortitude is gone from the majority of the population....Look at today's Amish They still join together to build a building they don't call a contractor. They are the folks who would survive at least until the savages I mentioned earlier came rolling in from NYC
P.S. I helped build a sod house when I was in high school. Hard backbreaking work
100 years ago weren't certain cancers less prevalent than today?
Probably soem specialized ones due to exposure to carcinogens, but... Many cancers are old people's diseases, and people aged out before they could develop them. Also, back when. many cancers simply weren't diagnosed as such - lots of people died from "consumption" or from secondary effects of cancer. Once the body is weakened, pneumonia without access to antibiotics is a real killer.
I would have to disagree with you one this one. Settlers pushed into the ever expanding frontiers with very often nothing more then they could carry. They built cabins or soddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sod_house or hacked out a hole to live in. There wasn't anyone to build it for them or fix an ax, shovel, tool They dug their own wells. Planted and hunted or raised their own food. after the populations grew there were stores and people could go buy stuff, that's progress..... That type of intestinal fortitude is gone from the majority of the population....Look at today's Amish They still join together to build a building they don't call a contractor. They are the folks who would survive at least until the savages I mentioned earlier came rolling in from NYC
P.S. I helped build a sod house when I was in high school. Hard backbreaking work
That's wonderful and all, but today we aren't allowed to be self sufficient and because of that, we've lost those skills.
You try building a house with your bare hands, even with other people. By the time you get done trying to get all the permits for chopping down trees, and for the x number of square feet that you need to have, the proper sanitation and the correct number of bathrooms, the water that has to be tested every month, you'll go crazy. And just try digging and using an outhouse, unless you live a million miles from anywhere. The health department will be on your back in a nanosecond.
Plus, we can't do this anymore simply because of the way the US is. There is no stream in the continental US that doesn't carry giardia any more. Wasting disease is hitting deer herds. Certain fish species we could have lived on are fished out or non-existent. If we were to all have wood burning fireplaces, there wouldn't be any wood left to burn and the smog would be horrendous.
Then there are a number of other things that keep us from being self sufficient. You can't let your kids walk to school anymore, or walk to the park. They can't stay home alone under a certain age. They have to have x hours of schooling - you can't keep them out to help you take care of a farm anymore, their job attainment without a high school graduation or college degree means they'll be forced into low wage labor jobs.
These are things the society we live in has set up and you just try to buck that system. For instance, there was a mother once in New York that taught her son to use the subway to the point where he could travel all through the NY boroughs by himself - at age 10. His mother ended up being a target for all of those who thought she was endangering her child.
We stress computer skills and reading, yet look at the number of people who wear glasses. If all the electricity goes out, those who survive will probably not be those who wear glasses. How well can you see without your glasses or contacts, anyway? And what good do computer skills do anyone when faced with an electrical outage?
I would have to disagree with you one this one. Settlers pushed into the ever expanding frontiers with very often nothing more then they could carry. They built cabins or soddy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sod_house or hacked out a hole to live in. There wasn't anyone to build it for them or fix an ax, shovel, tool They dug their own wells. Planted and hunted or raised their own food. after the populations grew there were stores and people could go buy stuff, that's progress..... That type of intestinal fortitude is gone from the majority of the population....Look at today's Amish They still join together to build a building they don't call a contractor. They are the folks who would survive at least until the savages I mentioned earlier came rolling in from NYC
P.S. I helped build a sod house when I was in high school. Hard backbreaking work
Nothing more than they could carry included vast amount of steel and iron tools, wheels on their carts, horses they likely didn't breed and firearms they certain didn't make. It included spices and foodstuffs and coffee tea likely from all parts of the world - same with tabbaco. They also were usually promised or awarded free land - "welfare" if you please.
The clothes on their back and their boots and shoes were likely bought - at least partially.
Chances are they also brought some seed...probably purchased in the east.
No doubt that on a scale the wagon train pioneers were more self-sufficient than most, but they represent only a tiny portion of Americans in the old days...and, as mentioned above, could not have survived without industrialization (just the lack of firearms would have probably done them in).
So, opinions, please -- Do you think that Americans are just "softer" these days, do you think that the problems 50 years ago or 150 years ago were just not as well-publicized (and were just as widespread), or what?
Of course Americans are much softer than they were 50 or 150 years ago. I am a white collar guy but my dad was a blue collar guy and growing up I learned a lot from him. So I know how to change the oil on my car do all sorts of home repairs and can work with my hands. But even my dad had it easy compared with 150 years ago. In another 50 years when AI does almost everything for us and we lounge around with our UBI's those folks will think back to 2018 and how tough people had to be to survive. People had to work and drive a car and use a phone or computer for finding out information.
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