The Collapse as a Process

Within the Survivalist and Prepper community the concept SHTF is often used in order to describe an event that will require the tools often discussed as tactics to handle a massive breakdown of the modern institutions, infrastructure, law and order. WROL or Without the Rule of Law has also started to be used in order to describe such an event.

The main problem as I see it is that this type of thinking focuses on a single event that will suddenly change everything about modern life. History shows us that many previous civilizations have collapsed; the Romans, Mayans and the people of the Easter Islands are just some examples. Modern examples are also available like the collapse of the Soviet Union, the collapse of former Yugoslavia, the Genocide in Rwanda and a number of civil wars and more or less collapsed states like Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo and Somalia. The difficulty of reversing this process has been demonstrated in several conflicts where comprehensive peace building and state building processes have place. So we know that countries, systems and civilizations can and have failed over the course of history. Sometimes a collapse can have absolutely devastating results, but in some cases it can also be relatively peaceful as in the case of the Soviet Union.

What if a Collapse is not an event but a Process?

Within the Survivalist and Prepper movement different types of tactics and solutions has been developed in order to be able to cope with a sudden collapse of modern society;

·         The ability to escape an area buy having kit such as Bug Out Bags, Vehicles and Plans for Escape to safer areas or alternative locations where supplies are being stored.

·         Collecting and storing equipment, supplies, water and other essentials in the home so that one can “Bug In” without having to rely on others.

This type of tactics can be effective for disasters with a fast onset like a hurricane, a nuclear plant meltdown and large scale accidents, but this does not mean that this type tactics is well suited all situations. As the Economic Crisis within the European Union progresses many choose to leave their homes and even their home countries in order to find jobs and livelihoods. For this type of situation a fully equipped Bug Out Bag is not as an effective tool as an education, skills and knowledge that makes it possible to find a job elsewhere.
 

As the situation progresses it becomes clear that the standard of living that many have experienced may become a thing of the past. Things that might be expected are

·         Higher unemployment and a tougher job market

·         Lower wages

·         Higher taxes

·         Higher prices on food, water, energy and fuel

·         Social services like schools, healthcare, law enforcement, military and other functions of states may decrease in size and function.

·         Pensions being lost or lowered and the age for retirement being raised.

These threats present a number of challenges to individuals and families; especially those how already have low marginal in their economic situation. There are no easy solutions for these types of problems but there are of course thing that can be done by individuals and families. It’s also important to say that all regions in the world may not develop the same; some regions may continue to experience economical growth while other regions may go the other way.

Some suggested steps for increasing your resilience

·         Try to reduce your level of debt and pay of any loans you might have, in a situation when the economy no longer grows it can become very hard to pay interest on loans while your salary remains the same or event get lowered.

·         Try to make some savings and put some money away every month; investing money in gold, silver, land and other type of values can also be a way to improve your situation.

·         Learn how to make do with less and save where you can.

·         Work together with your community; it is likely that many services may no longer be available in the same way as they have before. Non Governmental Organizations already provides services for Search and Rescue, Education and Social Services and other fields around the world. 

·         When buying gear try to investment in quality gear that will stand the test of time. Also try to repair and learn to repair gear instead of throwing things away and buying something new as soon as it breaks.

·         Find local opportunities and local options to ensure your basic needs.

 

Conclusion

First of all; I don’t want to pretend that I know what tomorrow will bring. There are however a number of challenges that is not being recognized either as parts or as a whole by the political and economical community. Viewing a potential collapse as a process and not as an event presents a number of problems to actually preparing for such an event. One thing that is clear however is that as things change what we regard as normal will change over time, lower wages, higher gas prices, lowered pensions and other problems will no longer be viewed as imminent disaster, but as everyday life.

The political system in the United States and within the European Union is focused on the notion of growth. This makes it very hard to recognize that there might be limitations like

·        Fossil fuels that provide over 80% of all energy used today are not an unlimited recourse and that we might reach a Peak in the world production.

·         That land is not an unlimited recourse

·         Other renewable and non renewable resource like topsoil, phosphor, fresh water and forests does not exist in an unlimited quantity.

·         That the increase of the world population might create challenges and problems

Adapting to such a situation is not easy and solutions that work in some settings for some people may not work in other settings. Solutions must be based on the local climate, terrain, population and opportunities that exist. Some change may come from the top of the political and economical system but it’s likely that challenges presented will be ignored and that adapting to the changing situation will have to be done by people themselves; you have to take responsibility for your own situation.

Joseph Tainter on the Collapse of Complex Societies

I would like to recommend a series of videos on The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter that can be seen for free on YouTube. Tainter has also written the book “The Collapse of Complex Societies". Tainter can also be seen in a number of documentaries like the National Geographic Documentary “2210 The Collapse?”, “Blind Spot” and “After Armageddon”.

Things That You Can Do In Order To Prepare For Peak Oil

Peak Oil just like the subject of Man-Made Global Warming is a very controversial subject that may give many a very pessimistic outlook on the future. In this post I will make some suggestions to what you can do in order to prepare for a world where the access to oil is not as high as we have gotten use to.


Personal Preparedness
1.) Learn About The Subject
If you don’t know anything about the subject get a overview of the subject. In order to get some basic understanding of the subject you can see a documentary like “Blind Spot” or “The End of Suburbia”. The videos from Crash Course by Chris Martensson or ASPO TV can also be a good place to get started.

2.) Get a Bike
A Bike is one of the most energy efficient ways to travel with muscle power. Many persons use their cars for short trips that might actually be faster to travel by bike. Using bikes does not only save money, it also increases your physical fitness and is good for your health.

3.) Get a Fuel Efficient Car
If you are dependent on a car to get around one way of reducing your vulnerability is to get a fuel efficient car. This way high fuel prices will have less of an impact on your personal situation. Other ways of reducing the cost of travel by car is to
• Always make sure that you have the right air pressure in you tiers
• Take an eco-driving course and learn how to drive as fuel efficient as possible
• Avoid driving at high speeds
• Car pool with other people if possible
• Do not drive more than necessary

4.) Your Home
If oil and energy prices would rise there are steps you can take to reduce the economical impact that it will have on you. If you live in a cold climate increasing the insulation of your home can reduce the amount of energy required to keep it warm. Many also have high indoor temperatures, lowering the temperature inside by just a few degrees can save much energy. Examples of other actions that you can take to conserve energy:
• Take short showers and avoid baths
• Get low energy light bulbs
• Turn of lights, your TV, computer and other appliances when you don’t use them.
• Remember to check the energy efficiency when you buy new electronics

5.) Food Consumption
If the oil prices would raise this might also increase the price of food. In many countries half of all food that is consumed gets thrown away today. If this applies to your personal situation this mean that you could basically be storing half of the food you are buying if you change your habits. In addition to this many in rich countries eat too many calories per day, not too few; overweight, heart disease and diabetes are much bigger problems than famine.

6.) Prioritize
Today much of the things that we consume are things that we might not actually need. Not too long ago it was common to pass on possessions like clothing, footwear, tools and other possessions from one generation to the next. When it comes to Crisis Preparedness it’s easy to get too focused on specific types of items. It is important that you balance your effort over multiple fields.
• When you buy something try to invest in quality items that will last over time
• Learn how to repair clothing and other items when they break
• Take care of your possessions; tools will last much longer if you use them with care.

7.) Start a Garden
For many Survivalist and Preppers the dream is to have a farm or retreat and be self sufficient. However, for most this will remain a dream, over half of the world population lives in cities and the number of people living in cities increase every year. If you live in a house and you can start a garden and grow some of the food that you eat on your own, you might not be able to be completely self sufficient. But you can produce some parts of what you need. Even people living in apartments can grow some of the food or spices that they need on their own, do what you can with what you got. You may not be able to be self sufficient, but you can most likely add some food or spices to your diet.

8.) Your Mindset
Peak Oil as an idea that stands in direct opposition against much of what we are taking for granted today. Many of the people in the world today have grown up during a period when a rise in the standard of living and an incredibly fast technological development has taken place. The idea of continued growth is deeply rotted in our minds, institutions, media and political parties. Many are not even aware of the concept of Peak Oil even if they know that fossil fuels are non renewable recourses. We still expect them to last forever.

The US already imports around half of the oil that’s being used every year today and domestic production is sinking every year and have been doing so since 1970 when the US Oil Production peaked. How would the American society look like if no imports were possible and only half of the amount of oil currently being used was available? How would it look if only a forth was available?

Accepting that this could become the case in maybe just a few decades or even less time is very hard to comprehend and imagine. We might find solutions so that the access to energy will remain high, but we might just simply have to adjust to a new situation. Changing ones perception and mindset is the most critical aspect in order to be able to make this transition.

In Your Community
9.) Watch a Documentary About The Subject With Your Friends or Family.
"Home” or The National Geographic Documentary “2210 The Collapse?” based on the book by Jared Diamond are two suggestions, the first can be accessed for free on YouTube. Some will likely refuse the possibility, but some will learn and understand the concept.

10.) Get Involved
Get engaged in the Transition Network or some other type of organization that work with these types of issues. There are people that are working with Peak Oil and to promote Sustainability – You could be one of them.

11.) Put Pressure On Your Politicians
Many may expect that politicians and other may have a much better understand of this type of issues when they in many cases have no idea about this type of potential problems. Put pressure on your politicians and informing them about the potential problem. Are they aware about this type of problems and what are they doing about it? There are cities and communities that are actively working to reduce their dependency on oil and that do prepare for the possible consequences of Peak Oil. Your City or Community could become one of them.

Summary
Peak Oil is a subject that easily can get the most optimistic person pessimistic. The knowledge about the subject is still not very widespread even if the attention surrounding the subject has been increased the last years. Many within the Peak Oil Movement like Michael Ruppert the founder of CollapseNet are making very negative forecasts and believe that a Collapse is only a few months away. The message is that disaster is imminent.

Personally I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, so don’t see any point in making predictions. The worst could happen, there are no guarantees. But it is also possible that solutions can be found. Peak Oil is a Man-Made problem, we have created the problem and it is my belief that we can overcome it. If we can spread knowledge about the problem and change our ways we can at a minimum reduce the impact that Peak Oil might have both for our societies and for us as individuals. What happens tomorrow is not written, it’s up to us to decide how it will play out.

Other Articles:
Peak Oil
The Limits To Growth

Thanks

I would like to give thanks to the sites that have promoted my blog after I introduced The Free Online Survival Guide. First of all I would like to say thanks to Kev and all the others at the Survivalist Boards for making the post about the guide sticky. I would also like to say thanks to ASPO Sweden, Daily Survival, American Preppers Network and Despierto that writes the Swedish Blog “Blott Sverige Svenska Preppers Har”.

In Sweden the first terrorist attack involving a suicide bomber has taken place and luckily no one but the bomber where killed. A longer article about the topic terrorism might follow later.

I would also like to recommend the new National Geographic documentary “2210: The Collapse?” based on the book by Jared Diamond. The documentary is a high budget project with a number of different researchers from different fields. A new fictional movie project called “Remnants” is also under way; trailers can be seen on YouTube.

The Limits to Growth

More and more scientists have started to suggest that the human civilization uses natural recourses in way that will not be sustainable in a long term perspective. These issues have also gotten more and more attention in the media with movies like “Home”, “Blind Spot” and the National Geographic documentary “Collapse” based on the book by Jared Diamond. This post is an attempt to introduce the concept of “The Limits To Growth”, what the theory is and on what arguments and assumptions it is based.

The Limits to Growth
Even if these issues only lately have started to get more wide spread attention some scientists have been talking about these issues for a long period of time. One of the most criticized and famous reports of all about sustainable development is the book/report ”The Limits to Growth”. The report was written by a number of scientists; Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William W Behrens in the beginning of the 1970s. The report was commissioned by the think tank “The Club of Rome”.

The report starts with discussing the problems of perception for most people, most people are totally focused on their own personal lives, their own work, their own family and what they will be doing the next couple of days. From this perspective many people have a hard time taking the time to get to know what is happening in national or even global perspective. It’s even harder to see how changes will occur on a global scale in a distant future.

Exponential Growth
The report is an attempt to describe our world and its complexity and how different factors correlate with each other through System Dynamics. One of the central parts of the report is exponential growth. Linear growth means that something increases step by step like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. Exponential growth mean that something increase exponentially. One famous examples is the Persian legend about the creator of the chess board how wanted one grain for the first square of the board, two on the second, four on the forth, eight on the fifth etc for his creation from the Prince that ordered it. On the tenth square the number would be 512, on the fifteenth 16384, and more than one million grains on the 21st square of the board. By the 64th square of the board the number of grain would be larger than the number of grain that the Prince owned. Exponential growth can quickly create enormous increases, something that can be seen in for example nature when cell samples increase in the same way until they consume all resources in laboratory experiments. If something increase with 0,1 % every year the doubling time would be 700 years, If something increases with 1% the doubling time would be 70 years, 4% mean 18 years, 7% ten years, 10% seven years and so on.

Limitation in the natural world
The base of the theory is that the world only has a certain number of non renewable resources and that if the human population continue to grow in an exponential way the human civilization will be unable to sustain the population.

The scientist also fear that this can cause an overshoot. An overshoot is a term from biology that refers to a situation when for example a species rapidly increase through exponential growth over the carrying capacity of the environment, causing the population to collapse. The theory is that the world only has a number of non renewable resources that has been accumulated during a long period of time like topsoil, ground water, forests, fossil fuels and other recourses that allow the human population to increase beyond the limits of what that is sustainable in long term perspective. So without these non renewable resources the planet will not have the carrying capacity to support the world population.

Computer models
The scientist has then used computer simulation to simulate different scenarios from the data that was available when the report was made. Some of the predictions have been very precise like the population increase in the world that has gone from 3,6 billion in 1972 when the report was written to the almost 6,8 billion people that the world has today 40 years later. The computer models were created with assistance from researchers working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Perspectives on Technology
The report also discuss Positive and Negative views on technology and what possibilities that future technology will present for solving problems with food, energy, pollution and other issues. I believe that this view can seen clearly today where some researchers believe that continued global exponential growth can cause a collapse and other how believe that technology will find solutions for every problem.

Prospects for the future
The researchers of the book also discuss the possibility of changing the system from the system that we had towards a more sustainable system. They believe that gradual change is desired but that’s it not likely that governments will take actions to ensure a sustainable development. This was written in 1972. The researchers also conclude that the longer humanity wait, the less options there will be to change the system. Another conclusion is that sooner or later there will be a change. The question is only if it will be naturally imposed by reaching the limitations to growth. In this case all we have to do is to just wait and see what happens. From this perspective taking no action is making a choice. Every day of continued exponential growth brings the world closer to the ultimate limit of growth. The solution suggested is to find a State of Equilibrium where humanity can live on the earth finding sustainable solutions without exponential growth.

Summary
The Limits of Growth suggest that if the human society continues to grow at an exponential rate the human race will sooner or later deplete the non renewable resources that it depends on causing an overshoot resulting in a situation whne the human population no longer can be sustained. There has also been two updates to the book, one 20 years after the first book was first published in 1992; “Beyond The Limits: Global Collapse or Sustainable Development” and another update 30 years later ;“The Limits On Growth the 30 years update”. The original 1972 report was written during the cold war and whole different time than the one we live in today, but the theory presented is very similar to theories presented by contemporary scientists and writers.

New additions
Many researchers view the world from a similar perspective, two new examples are Joseph Tainter, author of “The Collapse of Complex Societies” and Jared Diamond author of “Collapse: How Societies Choose To Succeed Or Fail”. Both Diamond and Tainter has done research on past human societies that have failed or collapsed and directly and indirectly support the theory that human societies often have depleted the resources and destroyed the environment on which they depend, sometimes with disastrous consequences like the case of the Eastern Islands. The Peak Oil Movement can also be viewed from a similar perspective even if it’s mainly focused on the depletion of fossil fuels and the consequences of this. Partly this concept has also been adapted by other writers like Michael Ruppert and Dmitry Orlov.

Analysis
The Theory of the Limits of Growth raises some serious question about how human societies work and the future for the human civilization project. The theory is also in sharp contradiction with current political ideologies that all favor and speak of growth, no matter if they present a perspective that’s from the left / right, conservative or liberal, socialist / capitalistic or even a green perspective. Exponential growth has been the truth for the human civilization since the beginning of the industrialized revolution and is something that is deeply rooted in our minds and ideologies. This produces an enormous ideological difference between those how believe that growth has limits and those how believe that there is basically no limits to growth, a view shared by many within the economic community.

It’s my personal belief that today’s economical system is largely focused on short term profits. The focus of this system is not what will happen in ten or twenty years, but what happens with the profits and budget this year. This short term perspective is profitable for many; states, individuals and companies but may prove to be a bad lens in order to identify long terms threats. In short: We are too focused on the present to think about the future. Exponential growth has been a truth for a long time, why would anyone expect that’s this will not be the case in the future?

Personally I do that there are limits to growth and that the earth can’t sustain an unlimited amount of people. When this point will be reached and exactly what consequences this will have is hard to say. Some researchers say that we may already be there, others that it may take place within decades or hundreds of years. So what can one expect if this scenario would come true? One obvious factor is that economic growth will slow down and eventually start to decline on a regional or global level. Starvation and Famine will start to increase and the people suffering for malnourishment will start to increase. The access to other commodities like oil, land, fresh water, energy and metals will become more scares when more people will have to share fewer resources. It’s also possible that new solutions may solve problems with energy and other issues, if this will happen can only time tell.

Survival and Preparedness
If the theory of “The Limits to Growth” would become a reality the world as we know will change in drastic ways. One can only speculate how the human societies will manage such a situation, but my guess is that politicians and others will have a hard time identifying the reasons for why this decline of growth takes place and that there will be major ideological clashes between different groups. This will mean that we would have to redefine the way we perceive the world.

So how does one prepare for such a scenario? The first part that would be hard to overcome is the perception that we will always have continued economical growth. The other part would be to find sustainable solution for issues like food production, water sources, energy and eventually learning how to make do with fewer resources.

There are also organizations like the Transition Network that works to teach people self sufficiency, self reliance, canning and other skills. Some of the threats that they envision are Peak Oil and resource depletion. This type of groups does not only offer the possibility to learn skills for long term survival and self sufficiency but also offers an opportunity to get involved, network and get to know people with similar interests.

The Collapse of Civilizations and Societies: Part Two

Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond has written one of the newest books about the collapse of Civilizations in the book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”. The previous book from Diamond “Guns, Germs and Steel” has an almost reverse theme where he describes the human development the last 10.000 years. In the later book Diamond formulates a theory that builds on five factors on why societies collapse that he later tests against a number of cases where collapse have taken place. The cases range from a number of cases like the Easter Islands, the Vikings on Greenland, and The Mayans to modern examples like the Genocide in Rwanda.

Diamonds Five Factor Theory
1.) Manmade environmental destruction that affects the sustainability of a civilization.
2.) Natural climate change that affects civilizations in an negative way
3.) Hostile neighbors
4.) Decline in support from friendly allies is a major factor in combination with
5.) How the Societies respond to these problems
Its Diamonds theory that these factors in different combinations lead to the collapse of civilizations.

Diamond also views the conflict between short term and long term interest as reason for collapse when elites how makes decisions that give the short term advantages instead of think of the long term consequences. I strongly recommend the book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” for those how are interested, Diamond have also had a lecture on TED that can be seen online for free called “Why Societies Collapse”.

Joseph Tainter
Joseph Tainter has written the book “Collapse of Complex Societies” where he analyzes a large number of collapsed societies from a number of different perspectives. Tainter has also been one of the experts consulted in the TV documentary “After Armageddon” that has aired on the History Channel where a number of experts describe what could happen after a global collapse. Tainter has also appeared in the Peak Oil documentary ”Blind Spot”. Tainter has approached the phenomenon of collapse differently than Diamond. Tainter instead first presents different cases and theories concerning collapse and there after formulates he’s theory.

Tainters theory about The reason for collapse
1.) Human societies are problem solving organizations
2.) Energy is required to maintain these organizations
3.) When the complexity of a society increases so does the energy cost per inhabitant to maintain the system
4.) Investment in sociopolitical complexity as a problem-solving response often reaches a point of declining marginal returns.

Analysis
Both Diamond and Tainter have constructed multiple factor theories that attempts to explain the complex underlying factors that causes societies and civilizations to collapse. Neither of the scholars relies on single factors but a combination of factors. Two important elements in both theories are that civilizations have a choice to take different paths during its development. The other important factor is sustainability; a society must find a balance with the environment and resources that it depends upon.

One drastic example from Diamonds book is the Easter Islands. The Easter Island today is a wasteland with a number of big stone statues. These statues haven’t been brought to the Islands; the statues were built by the rather large civilizations of human that inhabited the Islands. The population started to build these statues and in order to build them and transport them over the Island the inhabitants had to use timber from the forest that used to cover the Island. The topsoil was removed when the forest no longer protected it from rain and there would be no more forest on the islands. Agriculture was also affected. Starvation, war and famine followed. When there was nothing left to eat the inhabitants resorted to cannibalism. Diamond draws the parallel between the island and the earth: The inhabitants couldn’t escape the Islands when it could no longer sustain their civilization and either could the human race if we would find ourselves in the same situation.

The human impact on the environment has been more and more discussed and international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol have been signed by many countries, but not by all. The last big meeting in Copenhagen did not reach the agreement that many had hoped for. Recently a number of large multinational corporations have sponsored the making of the movie “Home” where the question of sustainability and energy depends are important topics. This movie can be viewed for free online on “You tube”. So where should one look for answers? Do we look at into the past like Diamond and Tainter in order to find pieces for the puzzle? Or should one look at the closest examples that we can find like Orlov? Or should one look at the resources we depend on like Ruppert? The collapse of the society around is something that’s feared by many survivalists. Some believe that it could happen, some that it certainly will. The current situation in the world has never existed before in human history. I personally find it hard to make predictions based on historical examples. I believe that the in a long perspective we will have to find sustainable solutions for many aspects of everyday life. These factors range from environment to transport, agriculture, energy, water and many other factors.

The National Geographic Documentary
National Geographic has recently produced a documentary based on Jared Diamonds book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” that also features a number of other researchers like Joseph Tainter and psychologist Dan Gilbert. This one of the most well made documentaries about the subject and I highly recommend it for anyone how would like to learn more about the subject.

The Collapse of Civilizations and Societies: Part one

From the beginning of human existence societies and civilizations have risen and come to an end. Today we can find evidence of previous advanced civilizations and their engineering feats in Rome, the Pyramids in Egypt, and the statues of the Easter Islands and in the Pyramids of the Mayans. The world that we live in today is the most complex of all human civilizations that have ever existed. Globalizations mean that we can travel around the world with jet aircraft in a matter of hours and communicate with people around the world in matter of seconds with electronic communications. Products are made in one country and shipped around the world to be sold in various markets. The world is today partly governed by International Institutions like the United Nations (UN), The World Bank and The International Monetary Fund (IMF). Regional organizations like the European Union (EU) have also become more and more important. It’s hard to imagine that our civilization could come to an end like the civilizations before us.


This series of posts will try to give a picture of the research and theories that covers this subject. What can be learned from historical events and the societies of the past? Why do civilizations collapse? When have they collapsed? One of the most recent examples of a collapse is the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Collapse of the Soviet Union changed the nature of the international system from bi-polar with two super powers during the Cold War to a uni-polar system with one remaining superpower. After the collapse many people lost their jobs, lost their savings, crime increased drastically and the access of many consumer products was reduced.

The first theory that will be presented is the theory of Super Power Collapse by Dmitry Orlov. Orlov is a Russian/American writer that has written about the collapse of Soviet Union and he’s theory about why superpowers collapse. Orlovs theory is that four factors in combination lead to this collapse.

• The first factor is the severe shortage of crude oil
• The second factor is severe and worsening trade deficit
• The third factor is a increasing military budget
• The forth factor is an increasing foreign debt. Its Orlovs theory that these factors will lead to the end of the United States as a super power. Orlov has written about this theory in the book “Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet example and American prospect”.

Orlov similar to Michael Ruppert focuses on the importance of oil and fossil fuels for the contemporary societies. Oil is important for a number of sectors like transports, electricity, food production for fertilizers, mechanized machinery, pesticides, energy for irrigation, packing of food in plastics and transports of the food. Orlov does not only present the reason for a collapse but does also present lessons that can be learned from the Soviet collapse and how ordinary people continued their lives when the political system that surrounded them collapsed. Orlov have also held lectures that can be seen for free online. One of the lectures is “Social Collapse Best Practices” from 2009 and can be seen at FORA.tv . Orlov writes and presents he’s message mixed with black humor and sharp analysis. I recommend both the book and the lecture for those that are interested in the subject.