Personal Open Manufacturing Manual
marc fawzi
post-supervolcano world, for tools to make the things I need to live:
1. Tools for Food production
2. Tool for making fire without using optics (no sun light) or hard to
find chemicals
2. Tools for building a shelter
3. Tools to make paper and ink from natural resources
4. Tools for making rubber (for wheels)
5. tools for melting, extruding and shaping metal
6. Some form of low tech long distance communication tool better than
smoke signals but built from what exists in nature
7.tools for beer making (for hydration)
8. Tools for making the tools above on more mass basis
...
Just thinking ahead
On 12/31/08, Paul D. Fernhout <pdfer...@kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:
>
> Something funny for the Western New Year:
> http://spikedhumor.com/articles/171240/Hamster-Powers-Paper-Shredder.html
> """
> A design consultant has constructed an environmentally friendly paper
> shredder powered by a hamster running on its wheel.
>
> The hamster has to run flat out for 45 minutes to shred one sheet of A4
> paper.
>
> The paper then falls on to the base of the hamster cage, providing fresh
> bedding for the furry pet.
>
> Tom Ballhatchet, 29, developed the product using a friend's hamster for his
> masters degree in industrial design.
>
> The London-based design consultant said: "I wanted to come up with a product
> that would capture people's imagination while addressing issues of topical
> concern such as climate change, recycling and identity fraud.
>
> "The hamster shredder provides a solution to all of these things because it
> relies on the hamster to generate power, destroys confidential documents and
> turns paper into bedding.
>
> "Owners can put their paper in the top before they go to bed and wake up to
> find the hamster has been on its wheel and shredded the paper in the
> process.
>
> "The hamster just has to go about its normal life."
>
> Several companies have expressed an interest in turning the working
> prototype into a fullscale production.
> """
>
> I don't know how practical that is, but I like that kind of integrative
> thinking. :-)
>
> There is a picture on the site.
>
> --Paul Fernhout
>
> >
>
Bryan Bishop
> I want to put together a personal open manufacturing manual for a
> post-supervolcano world, for tools to make the things I need to live:
I thought we were doing something like this anyway, and not because of
any fear of the world coming to an end, but just because we want to.
Why bring this up only in the context of doom and gloom? Most of us
are interested in doing it regardless of the end of the world.
What exactly are the characteristics of a post-supervolcano world,
anyway? Is this a doomsday scenario where you can just run around
anywhere and pick up metals and supplies freely? If so, a lot of this
is going to be pretty easy. But just talking about how to do things
"From the Vacuum" isn't going to work out. For the doomsday scenarios
that let you run around freely and pick up materials, you might want a
map from mindat.org describing where important material resources are.
A map of manufacturers would also be useful.
> 1. Tools for Food production
>
> 2. Tool for making fire without using optics (no sun light) or hard to
> find chemicals
>
> 2. Tools for building a shelter
>
> 3. Tools to make paper and ink from natural resources
>
> 4. Tools for making rubber (for wheels)
>
> 5. tools for melting, extruding and shaping metal
>
> 6. Some form of low tech long distance communication tool better than
> smoke signals but built from what exists in nature
>
> 7.tools for beer making (for hydration)
>
> 8. Tools for making the tools above on more mass basis
That list of yours would make a good request for things to be formally
packaged. Existing websites cover a lot of these, but there's little
consistency. Try also CD3WD.
Paul D. Fernhout
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/31/2248210
http://www.armageddononline.org/known-super-volcanoes.html
Going with my previous note, I'm tempted to suggest point-by-point as a
thought exercise how all these needs can be met using hamsters (either
natural or genetically enhanced), but I won't. :-)
Seriously though, the supervolcano situation an interesting and very
realistic scenario of global economic turmoil.
On beer, one of the reasons weak alcoholic beverages became popular hundreds
of years ago (or earlier) is that they are safer to drink than biologically
polluted water supplies in population centers.
I find Cuba (currently in the news for a 50th anniversary) an interesting
cautionary tale, just like with the failures of Greece and Iceland:
"As hard times bite, Cubans show little appetite for celebration"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/01/fidel-castro-raul-castro
Like Greece, Cuba has plenty of sunshine and seawater, and yet they can't
make abundant industrial production work on a (mostly) self-reliant basis.
And presumably they are not restricted by Berne convention copyright issues
or patent treaties.
I feel there is one big issue is indicated in that article why Cuba failed
to deliver on prosperity -- they confused schooling and education:
"Education [they really mean schooling] is also under strain because so many
teachers, fed up with low salaries and an ideology-imbued curriculum, have
quit. ... "Pupils are not encouraged to think freely, to develop their own
ideas and curiosity," said Enrique, 25, a disillusioned teacher."
So, there you have many of the preconditions for radical success, but the
need by an embattled regime to maintain ideological purity destroyed a
chance at true self-reliance. So, Cuba faced the same issues the USA faces
now, just at an accelerated pace (schooling destroying initiative). Does
Cuba today show the future for the USA? This is the first New Years day I
can remember with economic news so gloomy:
"Economy puts damper on New Year's Eve celebrations"
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gBGAk0AYg77ZcVAKqVyAqNwSAmiwD95E3OU00
"Markets Limp Into 2009 After a Bruising Year: Down $7 trillion"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/business/economy/01markets.html?8dpc
I've remained hopeful because of the potential for abundance by advanced
manufacturing, but as I think about it, with the themes of Manna or the
Triple Revolution, the increased automation leading to layoffs is part of
this whole economic meltdown.
Another disaster created in part by a direct focus on decentralization
happened in China in the late 1950s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
"The Great Leap Forward is now widely seen – both within China and outside –
as a major economic failure and great humanitarian disaster with estimates
of the number of people who starved to death during this period ranging from
14 to 43 million."
When I was in college in the 1980s, one of the reasons the department
chairman of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department there was
mostly unsympathetic to the idea of decentralization of industry was his
Chinese ancestry and dislike of what happened there (something I only really
understood much later).
So, one can point to several serious economic disasters which were related
to trying to promote prosperity by revolutionary means (education,
decentralization, the market) that each got a big part of the picture wrong
(respectively, schooling, terror, and kleptocracy).
It's ironic that as decentralized abundance gets easier, it seems to also
get more disproven as possible historically. :-)
Now, if the Amish ran Cuba... :-)
Anyway, maybe you should ask the Amish for answers to those issues?
Of course, Amish technology presumes an intact ecology (like relying on wood
from trees and food from open-field crops), and a supervolcano will disrupt
that for years. So, we really need something better.
Just rambling, sorry. :-)
--Paul Fernhout
marc fawzi
I think our generational gap is the reason you don't pick up on my sarcasm.
It is tempting to poke at the new year with a story about how he world
will end. Maybe its the cynicism not sarcasm that your generation
doesnt share, which is the reason we keep going, which is essential if
he trans^human race is to conquer the galaxy and for the
trans^galactic race to conquer the universe and for the meta^universal
race to conquer the next layer of reality and so on.
Paul:
The Slashdot story came after I posted I here. But yes its in the news
again because its new years and what is new years without a story like
that.
You definitely got my poin about post supervolcano being a good
example, not because its any likelier to happen now than las week but
because its a valid case, and we learn more from addressing the
uncommon case than from the common case.
How would you go about surviving and what kind of tools and processes
would you care about?
Josef Davies-Coates
As for super volcanoes, we don't need one of them - the economy is
gonna get worse and worse from here on in.
I reckon* in the US things might seem okayish until the end of the
summer due to (foundation-less) hope in Obama, but by end of '09 no
heads of state will be able to ignore the facts that things just aint
gonna go back to "normal", ever.
Josef.
* actually, I stole that prediction from here:
http://sharonastyk.com/2008/12/15/2009-predictions-its-hour-come-round-at-last/
2009/1/1 Paul D. Fernhout <pdfer...@kurtz-fernhout.com>:
--
Josef Davies-Coates
07974 88 88 95
http://uniteddiversity.com
Together We Have Everything
Paul D. Fernhout
a good way to think about a self-reliant community.
In roughly increasing order in a typical situation (and any manual on
wilderness training might say roughly the same thing):
* A person can only survive a few minutes without air, so for a
Supervolcano, maybe this is an issue depending on proximity. Otherwise,
people ignore this unless they are underwater or in outer space.
* A person can only survive a few hours if they are in an extreme
temperature (hot or wet cold), so shelter or other protection can be a must
in an extreme situation, otherwise, in a good climate, this is not that
important.
* A person might need immediate medical care for severe injuries, though
other than that, generally healthy people might go without a need for
medical intervention for years.
* A person can only survive a few days without water, so water is a next
priority (usually this need is the most critical in many situations). These
people have at least that priority straight:
http://www.rense.com/general53/asgi.htm
"TIME wrote: "Deep under Raven Rock Mountain, Site R is a secret world of
five buildings, each three stories tall, computer filled caverns and a
subterranean water reservoir. It is just 7 miles from Camp David.""
* A person can usually go some weeks without food.
* One can collect human wastes in pits for weeks or months, though
eventually there is a problem and you need a new pit at least. Plus, these
are possibly wasted nutrients if you need to grow food later (Google China
and "night soil").
* A person can go months without a lot of other things we usually think are
important (media entertainment). Still, people tend to go nutty eventually
without access to entertainment or other people (it depends on the person
what the time constant might be).
* A person may need protection from wild animals, insects, dangerous plants
like poison Ivy, or, sadly, even other people. (Although, what "protection"
may mean is a complex topic) -- but the time constant for needing this might
vary.
* You generally don't need electricity if you can otherwise get the things
we use electricity for -- heat, light, water pumping, refrigeration,
communications, calculation, planning, etc. But obviously solar panels are
the most reliable here -- except a supervolcano might darken the skies for
years. I don't have a good answer there -- wind power might still be
feasible once the ash settled down if the weather was unsettled. There are
obvious other possibilities -- hydro, nuclear, fossil fuels, geothermal.
Long term, solar is just so reliable that after the first few years of
darkness, any solar panels might be very valuable.
* Many pieces of equipment like garden tools, machine tools, carpentry
tools, and so on, if treated well, may last for many years, even many
decades, or even potentially centuries. So, focusing on replicating the
things that last a long time isn't much of a priority in a survival
situation. Still, it is possible that being able to *make* tools may mean a
survival set up is cheaper or smaller, and that might have an advantage. For
example, if you have a 3D printer that can print metal tools, then you can
just have one of those and some toner and some power, and that may be
cheaper and more versatile than stockpiling a lot of other things. In that
sense, the development of versatile 3D printing would be a great survival
tool -- though on the other hand, one could make dangerous things with 3D
printing too. But, since we do not have that, a shared community machine
shop could be a good investment.
But to go much farther really means going into all the details which we
should eventually go into for supporting any community in the long term.
An interesting related sci-fi story is "Farnham's Freehold" which details
the inventory of a long-term survival shelter (if you can ignore some of the
more offensive social bits):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnham%27s_Freehold
"... Heinlein drew on his own experience in building a fallout shelter under
his own house in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1950. The book is popular
with survivalist groups as it combines the civil engineering and physics of
fallout shelter survival with the social dynamics of "lifeboat rules," or
autocratic authority under extreme conditions, ..."
A few related ideas:
While I'm not a big worrier about "peak oil", I still find this comment by
Michael Ruppert insightful (as well as his whole recent story as a
cautionary tale):
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110706_mcr_evolution.shtml
"""
Living in Venezuela has been an amazing, brutal, and illuminating lesson. It
is a truly alien culture that I find simultaneously beautiful, hard, giving,
unfamiliar, uncomfortable and definitely self-protecting to the extreme.
That is why I am confident that Venezuela, and most of Latin America, will
survive the coming crash of Peak Oil better than any other region of the
world. I believe it is already starting to protect itself. It doesn’t need
me or any outsider to survive. But as a general rule, only those who are
native here will be protected by its blessings.
It is not just that I am blond haired and blue-eyed, which does get me a lot
of double takes – some hostile. It is as though I am a fish used to swimming
in a different kind of water. The way that I swim affects the other fish
here, already swimming too much in a superimposed American cultural blanket
that has been enforced by scores of coups, debt enslavement, colonization,
exploitation, genocide and war over the course of the 20th century and into
today. In order to understand this picture a British citizen trying to drive
in super-crowded Caracan traffic where there are few rules. Under stress the
Brit might instinctively react in a way that might tie up streets. Now
change the image of traffic to a culture adapting to dwindling energy
reserves, conflict or panic. The Brit would be singled out quickly and
forced off the road so that the rest might “function” in ways they were
accustomed to.
However, the powerful lessons and principles of human justice,
sustainability, harmony with the land, freedom from the mandate of endless
capitalist growth, openness, and localization contained in the Bolivarian
Revolution led by Hugo Chavez are powerful survival tools that can and must
be studied and adapted to other regions. If one reads Richard Heinberg, Matt
Savinar, Megan Quinn, Post Carbon Institute, FTW, or any of the great
sustainability writers, one will find those same principles; arrived at
through different means.
Forget labels. This is what will work.
The Bolivarian Revolution is different from the main body of sustainability
literature in one key respect. It is the practical, hands-on implementation
of these principles on local, national and continental levels; something all
European and North American sustainability advocates know little or nothing
about. How could they? While US and European sustainability advocates write
about “shoulds” the Bolivarian Revolution is an evolving process of actual
doing. It must be watched closely by all who would learn from it.
The irony is that for the most part, the Bolivarian revolution does not see
itself as a sustainability movement but rather as a political and economic
one. Now for another of my trademarked quotes: Until you change the way
money works, you change nothing. The Bolivarian Revolution is doing just that.
...
Another one of my trademarked lines is that Post Peak survival is not a
matter of individual survival or national survival. It is a matter of
cooperative, community survival. If one is not a fully integrated member of
a community when the challenges come, one might hinder the effectiveness of
the entire community which has unspoken and often consciously unrecognized
ways of adapting. As stresses increase, the gauntlets required to gain
acceptance in strange places will only get tougher. Diversity will become
more, rather than less, rigid and enforced.
As energy shortages and blackouts arrive; as food shortages grow worse; as
droughts expand and proliferate; as icecaps melt, as restless, cold and
hungry populations start looking for other places to go; minute cultural and
racial differences will trigger progressively more abrupt reactions, not
unlike a stressed out and ill human body will react more violently to things
that otherwise would never reach conscious thought.
Start building your lifeboats where you are now. I can see that the lessons
I have learned here are important whether you are thinking of moving from
city to countryside, state to state, or nation to nation. Whatever
shortcomings you may think exist where you live are far outnumbered by the
advantages you have where you are a part of an existing ecosystem that you
know and which knows you.
If the time comes when it is necessary to leave that community you will be
better off moving with your tribe rather than moving alone.
"""
Still, by investing in "lifeboats" instead of infrastructure, we may well
trigger the very collapse that we don't want. :-)
But, you can see by that comment that in a global collapse situation, there
may well be other countries that do far better than the USA in weathering it
-- countries where knowledge about how to make things or grow food is more
widespread, or places with better social cohesion. However, as Ruppert also
points out, access to those countries (especially in an emergency) is
essentially denied to US Americans. A good life for a native does not
necessarily mean a good life for an expat.
Then you have people thinking about these issues from a different
perspective (usually nuclear war survival):
"Bruce Beach Nuclear Survival Resources & Ark II Fallout Shelter Site"
http://ki4u.com/nuclearsurvival/
Some interesting photos:
"Photos of the Inside of the Ark II Shelter"
http://ki4u.com/nuclearsurvival/arktwo/photoinside/photoin.htm
You need to click on the links for each one.
Such things are expensive to maintain, and I vaguely remember reading about
that shelter being abandoned? Stuff rusts. Pests get in. Vandals destroy
stuff. Oil goes bad. Medical supplies and stored rations go past their
dates. And so on. Example from above: "The dental room has been a prime
example of the problem of maintaining systems in the shelter. Vandals broke
the X-ray (we have a replacement in storage) and humidity has caused
considerable rust on the chair. We have left the chair in place because it
is so heavy to move and we feel that we will be able to clean it up once we
activate the shelter."
More bunker pictures from around the world:
http://www.bunkertours.com/
A related story:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0703/p04s01-woeu.html
"Nothing indicates that in the forest just a few hundred yards away is an
underground bunker built to save elite East German leaders from a nuclear
attack. The concrete-and-steel structure serves as a powerful reminder of
the prospect of mutually assured nuclear annihilation when the US and USSR
faced off in Berlin during the cold war. The bunker will briefly drop its
veil of secrecy this August, as a volunteer group opens it for three months
to give the general public their first and final chance to see this bastion
of a bygone era. It will then be permanently sealed. "
Other ideas are to live near one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_city
Still, like purchasing personal health insurance, it is a bad mental
exercise in some ways investing in a bad future (compared to positive health
efforts like eating right and exercising and getting good sleep and having
friends). (I'm all for societal health insurance in part because I feel that
asking people to make the choice to buy it for themselves is a bad mental
situation to put people in given the mind-body link -- by asking them to
gamble they will get sick.)
But for those two big reasons (investing in dystopia, and upkeep costs) I'd
say it's better for anyone interested in survival-ish ideas to think about
upgrading your daily processes (or your neighborhood's daily processes) with
an eye to sustainability than to focus on a separate facility for surviving
the worst you can imagine. If you focus on general sustainability (for
example, installing home insulation, or putting together a home machine
shop, or growing a home garden),
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/
then you will have stuff at hand you probably use or have fun with almost
every day, and it may lower your daily operating costs, allowing you to do
even more later. And people won't think you are a nutty survivalist for
having a flexible machine shop, a pretty garden, and a well-insulated home. :-)
The choice is not build a shelter or do nothing. There are lots of
intermediate choices that may be quite useful in intermediate situations
(say, an extensive ice storm, or a hurricane, or an earthquake, or some
smaller natural or unnatural disaster).
Ultimately, good relations with neighbors is probably the best insurance for
surviving bad times. Ruppert is at least right when he essentially says that
survival is a thing that communities do, not a thing that individuals do. I
read the same thing by someone who studied "primitivism" -- he said it takes
a village to live well in nature, which was always his answer to people
saying, why don't you just go out by yourself and live in the woods.
So, that is all another reason to work towards a social semantic desktop
version of open manufacturing (for enhancing the community aspect of
mutually assured survival).
marc fawzi
But if you find a way to build useful tools that manufacture things you need for survival and then build tools that build those tools then you will have an abundance society from the get go even under post super disaster conditions.
I was hoping the Amish had figured that out for everyone's benefit but if they have no sun they too will die since they're not versed in the agriculture of deep sea vegetables .... maybe those can be planted on the surface in water tanks under artificial pressure?
Maybe this should be called "post apocalyptic personal open manufacturing manual" ... as one type of manual or one type of scenario that needs to be covered by a " personal open manufacturing manual"
?
Josef Davies-Coates
blog/delicious account/twitter/facebook etc? I'd like to connect. :)
Also do you have more info about how Bolivarian Revolution is changing
how money works?
(I've read this http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2310 seen this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3qa6kVMjTY but would like more
info...)
I was lucky enough to be part of a team who were funded my SAPI
(Venezuela's Intellectual Property Dept) to help organise and run a
free software festival in Caracas during the World Social Forum in
2006.
The guy who sorted it all out is a gov't advisor and when I asked how
it was all going I said: what has been most inspiring is that people,
taxi drivers, kids in the park, seemingly everyone, understands how
important democratic media is. Now we just need them to realise how
important democratic money is too and then they might be some hope in
the world" or something like that.
It was also totally inspiring how co-operative values and organisation
is just common sense there, whereas here in the UK (frorm where the
standard co-operative principles emerged) everyone assumes that
anything co-operative wont work (despite the Co-op group have a
turnover in excess of £10billion)
I also noticed an apparent total lack of awareness about
sustainability issues, although there is very much an awareness of
food growing issues that are being (and to a large extent have been)
addressed.
I've got a very good contact in Caracas who you should definitely hook
up with if you're still there? (he used to work for Royal Sun Alliance
but lost his job due to being a Chavez supported and is the son in law
of the official "illustrious mother of venezuela"!)
Smiles,
Josef.
2009/1/2 Paul D. Fernhout <pdfer...@kurtz-fernhout.com>:
--
Paul D. Fernhout
triple quotes at the beginning and ending of quotes with blank lines in them
(like Python the programming language uses), but I can see how that can be
confusing.
--Paul Fernhout