The new emperors in the roman empire came from the military because they had to be somewhat real because if you weren't actually successful in real life in that age you'd die, but I don't think we could pull from the military today since it's so decadent. You can become immensely successful in the military without having won a single battle or perhaps even fought a single battle.
Who are the barbarians who will take over after the collapse? I think that's important to think about.
Who are the barbarians who will take over after the collapse? I think that's important to think about.
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It'll be terrible -- I'll have made decisions that ensure I'm secure against economic, social, and environmental shocks... I'll have been responsible with my finances... I'll have spent time with my son raising him to be a responsible and moral person even when things around him are spiraling out of control -- and for nothing!!!
Really depends on how you balance your decisions. Often you can make decisions that'll be ok in either case.
For example, in 2020 I expected massive increases in interest rates so I refinanced my mortgage for as much time as I can get (Most places don't have 30 year mortgages, I locked in for 10 years and that puts me in a tiny minority) and reduced by amortization by 10 years. I turned out to be right, and now even though 1 in 3 Canadian mortgages are in reverse amortization (meaning the people with those mortgages will owe more to the bank when they're done then they did at the beginning), I'm fine until 2030 and I won't owe much when I need to refinance anyway. If I turned out to be wrong, after 5 years a 10-year mortgage closed mortgage reverts to an open mortgage so you can refinance for the cost of 3 months interest so you can choose to refinance anyway.
I expected there would be food and fuel shortages. Well, staple food is cheap, so I was able to get enough rice to last my household 3 months for basically nothing. Cheap insurance. Turns out the shortages did happen but not where I live, so it just means I get to eat rice. No biggie. I picked up some extra fuel with some fuel stabilizer. Turns out the shortages did happen but not where I live, so it means I haven't needed to buy gas for my snowblower or lawnmower. No biggie. I picked up electric heaters and electric generators because I was concerned about natural gas shortages, which did happen, but not where I live. That actually saved my ass because my furnace broke in the middle of winter and we were able to use the heaters I bought to keep the house from freezing while we waited for a new board to come in.
Some other stuff was also pretty cheap because things haven't collapsed but would be important if they did, like grabbing a trauma kit and a first aid manual, making sure we have paper copies of important books in general.
It's all about balancing your decisions. If I spent every penny on food and ammo and built a fallout shelter in my back yard I'd be in some trouble, but you can mitigate an awful lot of risk for not a lot of money and also make sure you're prepared for non-collapse scenarios like your furnace breaking in the middle of winter.
For example, in 2020 I expected massive increases in interest rates so I refinanced my mortgage for as much time as I can get (Most places don't have 30 year mortgages, I locked in for 10 years and that puts me in a tiny minority) and reduced by amortization by 10 years. I turned out to be right, and now even though 1 in 3 Canadian mortgages are in reverse amortization (meaning the people with those mortgages will owe more to the bank when they're done then they did at the beginning), I'm fine until 2030 and I won't owe much when I need to refinance anyway. If I turned out to be wrong, after 5 years a 10-year mortgage closed mortgage reverts to an open mortgage so you can refinance for the cost of 3 months interest so you can choose to refinance anyway.
I expected there would be food and fuel shortages. Well, staple food is cheap, so I was able to get enough rice to last my household 3 months for basically nothing. Cheap insurance. Turns out the shortages did happen but not where I live, so it just means I get to eat rice. No biggie. I picked up some extra fuel with some fuel stabilizer. Turns out the shortages did happen but not where I live, so it means I haven't needed to buy gas for my snowblower or lawnmower. No biggie. I picked up electric heaters and electric generators because I was concerned about natural gas shortages, which did happen, but not where I live. That actually saved my ass because my furnace broke in the middle of winter and we were able to use the heaters I bought to keep the house from freezing while we waited for a new board to come in.
Some other stuff was also pretty cheap because things haven't collapsed but would be important if they did, like grabbing a trauma kit and a first aid manual, making sure we have paper copies of important books in general.
It's all about balancing your decisions. If I spent every penny on food and ammo and built a fallout shelter in my back yard I'd be in some trouble, but you can mitigate an awful lot of risk for not a lot of money and also make sure you're prepared for non-collapse scenarios like your furnace breaking in the middle of winter.
It's only been a few times in history that a collapse like that has happened. When they do, all bets are off. You can have all kinds of guns, but if the gang coming after you has even more then it probably won't matter. At that moment you're living by the seat of your pants, for all we know you could end up joining them. In the bronze age collapse or the collapse, something like 50% of people died, and it doesn't matter how paid up they were on their homes or not, because the cities were completely abandoned. Even the fall of the Harrapan civilization wasn't quite like that.
We've seen a lot more collapses where people are just trying to keep on doing what they were doing before, but the material wealth just isn't there so the dollars that they're spending become worth less and less and people struggle for basics. There are quite a bit few examples in South america, but also after the fall of the Soviet Union. In that case, the key to survival is quietly having access to the essentials.
The phone with the Roman empire had a little bit of both. Depending on where you were, you could have had it where just a new ruling class to go for such as in Gaul, or you can have a situation where there was more widespread societal collapse and you had issues with bandits, such as in england.
We've seen a lot more collapses where people are just trying to keep on doing what they were doing before, but the material wealth just isn't there so the dollars that they're spending become worth less and less and people struggle for basics. There are quite a bit few examples in South america, but also after the fall of the Soviet Union. In that case, the key to survival is quietly having access to the essentials.
The phone with the Roman empire had a little bit of both. Depending on where you were, you could have had it where just a new ruling class to go for such as in Gaul, or you can have a situation where there was more widespread societal collapse and you had issues with bandits, such as in england.