The GreyMouse Presentation

"Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions." — John F. Kennedy.

Foreward

TLDR: This is about forming a local organization within your city or town that enables its members to respond to a broad spectrum of disaster and/or collapse scenarios without bankrupting themselves with preparedness spending or joining some sort of militia or cult. It is also not about converting your entire community like the Transition Towns movement. That's too much effort at this late date. If this is of interest to you, read on.

If you got here from a link posted online, chances are you won't go any further than this page or the next, and that's OK; just keep this in mind for later.

If, however, you got here from a link posted on a physical bulletin board, or better yet, a physical card handed to you or left at a local event, it means there are people in your community trying to get started or already on the way. The road will be less hard; there's a bigger light at the end of the tunnel.

That tunnel is composed of a lot of reading combined with a series of actions. Collapse is a very complex topic; millions of words have been written over decades just to describe the different aspects. It's reasonable to conclude that responding to collapse will be complex as well.

— Greymouse

AM

The Question and the Answer

The notices were tacked to a variety of bulletin boards at hardware and hobby stores, game stores, banks, fire stations, recreation centers, and so forth. Some were left on tables at a local Renaissance fair. All in all, about 20 notices were posted around town about two weeks before the date on them:

What to Do About Collapse?

Environmental, Financial, Social, Resource…

There is something you can do
that does not involve spending thousands on stuff,
paying dues, subscribing,
or protesting about whatever.

Lat/Long: 44.5495,-123.2994
Saturday, June 10, 2023
(Alternate Weather date: Sat June 17)
10 AM

Gen Z and late Millennials preferred

June 10, 2023

GreyMouse walked to the center front of the stage, which, strangely, had a tripod made out of five foot sticks with horizontal sticks lashed across each side. He arrived without anyone announcing or introducing him. It was early summer in a park in a mid-size northwest town, nice and warm, a fair weather day, so he wore light work clothing – light in color as well as lightweight. He wore leather work boots and a brown fedora. He took off his vest and hung it on the tripod, thus revealing its true purpose.

The tripod-based “podium” was on a stage in a small outdoor amphitheater, located in a clearing in a forested park. Most members of the audience had mistaken him for a helper of some sort. Until, that is, he claimed ownership of the presentation space by hanging his vest on the tripod.

Mouse pulled a top-bound spiral writing pad from a bag at the base of the tripod, flipped it open, and looked at the first page. He looked up and scanned the audience again, then loudly said “Doooom!” He paced back and forth behind the podium while the audience settled down. “Doom, doom, doom…” he kept repeating, then held up his pad and began reading from it:

“Global Warming, Economic Collapse, Ecosystems Collapse, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot, Resource Constraints, Catabolic Collapse, Feedback Loops, Tipping Points, Supply Chain Failures, Bank Failures, Drought, Famine, Heatwaves, Blizzards, Soil Depletion, Polar Vortex Distortions, Electrical Grid Failure, Sea Level Rise, Atmospheric Rivers, Dry Riverbeds, Failing Reservoirs, Failing Aquifers, Superstorms, Solar Flares, Pandemics, Reactor Meltdowns, Infrastructure Failures, Toxic Chemicals, Nukes, Misinformation and Disinformation, War and Rumors of War…” He stopped, looked down at his feet, then out across the audience. “Did I miss anything? Of course, but it’s quite a list already, isn’t it?”

He lowered the spiral pad, looked across the audience, and said forcefully, “It’s a swirling nightmare of shit amplified by a wide variety of talking heads.” He paused, then said “Nearly all of the talking heads are just in it for the money; clicks, subscriptions, product sales, or whatever. They have the same agenda as most media these days; keep putting exciting stuff in front of you to get your attention. Because your attention equals money in their pockets.” He paused, then “Forget about them. Ignore them. They’re part of the problem and have no viable solutions for you. You’re here for an answer to the question.”

Another pause, then “What to do? Actions that you, personally, can take in the face of all this doom, and that doesn't involve buying thousands of dollars worth of stuff, traveling to a protest that will probably get out of hand, or buying property you can’t afford? Not a lot of those kinds of answers floating around, are there?” he asked as he paced back and forth across the stage.

He stopped at the tripod. “I’m GreyMouse.” You can call me Mouse. It's my chosen handle.” You don’t need my real name because that leads to research and doxxing and social media activity which I won’t see and don’t care about because I have no social media.” He paused, then strolled to one side of the stage. “All of that social media stuff is a distraction, and it’s on purpose.”

Mouse strode to one side of the stage, paused, and carefully looked over the audience. "The notice said Gen Z and late millennials preferred," he said, "but I see a few older folk as well. That's a good thing. What I'm about to describe will need a mix of different ages. Heavy on the young side, but we're looking for something like a typical pyramid-shaped demographic structure as far as age is concerned." He paused, then strode back to the tripod.

Mouse lifted his spiral pad, flipped a page, and continued with “Everyone thinks of doom in different ways. We all have a favorite scenario or three in our heads. Lately however, it’s starting to look like multiple events might combine and cascade into something worse than the individual dooms.” He moved from the tripod to one side of the stage and said “My objective here is not to convince you that doom is coming in one form or another, it’s to show you a viable alternative to just hunkering down and waiting for the hit.”

He paused, then said, “The first drafts of this talk kept drifting into specific doom scenarios, but that’s not really useful. All of us, at one time or another, have tried to discuss our favorite doom topics with others, usually to no avail. It never really works, does it?” Most in the audience nodded their heads.

He crossed to the other side of the stage, raised his hand, and said “Here’s why it doesn’t work: How many here know about Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief?” About half of the audience raised their hands. “A good start,” he said. “Here’s the TLDR: It was developed from her work with terminally ill patients – which is why it applies to dealing with doom.”

“Four of the five stages cover how we instinctively resist extremely bad news, like – we’re gonna die – news. Those stages are Denial – It didn’t actually happen, isn’t happening, won’t happen. Anger – once it’s undeniable we get mad about it, look to assign fault to someone. Bargaining – trying to find any reason for this not to impact us – this is where we get political activism, techno-utopians, and billionaire bunkers. Depression – we get sad and withdraw. Many people get stuck here. Finally, the last stage is Acceptance. Basically, you can’t look past the doom until you accept the doom. Only then can you start focusing on actions you can take during doom.”

”Most of the population is either misinformed, misled in one direction or another, or stuck in one of the first four stages. I call them Muggles – thank you Miz Rowling.” He paused as the audience chuckled, then said “There are ways of dealing with muggles, but unless they’re a close family member and thus along for the ride whether they accept doom or not, my advice is to simply not discuss doom with them.”

He consulted his spiral pad, looked up, and said “A quote from Robert Heinlein: ‘Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.’ So stop annoying the muggles. There are much better things to do with your time, and better people to spend it with.”

Mouse returned to the podium, scanned the audience, and said “Back to acceptance. Acceptance triggers a whole new question: What do you do?" He paused, then said," This talk is focused on providing a solution – actions those of you who are at or near the acceptance stage can take.”

Mouse stopped, moved to the side of the stage, and consulted his spiral pad. Then he looked up and said, “But first, I’m going to address the first questions people ask: Why me? Why now? Where are all my followers?”

“After decades of prepping and doomscrolling I grew weary of the pattern: All the doom blogs, literature, and forums were focused on the ‘doom is coming’ theme, with the most common advice being: Buy a bunch of stuff. In other words, be a prepper, and more specifically, prepare for the doom that is the focus of this particular blog, or book, or whatever. It’s an infinite loop: Doom is coming so buy stuff to get ready. Oh look: A different kind of doom is coming, so buy more stuff to get ready. And on and on.”

He moved back to the podium as he said, “One day several years ago – again; after decades of prepping – I had an epiphany, and my epiphany was this: prepping is not viable in the long term. Emphasis on long term; more than a few years. Because when real doom comes it’ll be around for generations.”

He held up one finger and said, “Now don’t get me wrong. Storing food and supplies to handle an emergency or local disaster is definitely the way to go. Building a plan and a checklist for those events is even better, because reaction time definitely counts.”

Mouse lowered his hand and said, “A different solution is needed, however, for long term collapse. The conventional prepper model fails when consumables and replacement parts run out. Once I realized that, I also realized I had no idea what the solution might be.”

“Yes, there was advice – generally in the comments sections of blogs and in forums – to form a community, but that was another unsatisfactory rabbit hole. There are not a lot of intentional communities out there, and most community proposals are a variation on the theme of ‘move near our place and buy some property.’ Not much help when you don’t have that kind of income stream.”

He paused, then, “I’m a problem solver by nature, so it kept nagging at me. It took a long time to come up with the approach I’ll describe here today, and years to get the details in place and ready to publish.”

“But there’s an issue, a poser, what could be considered a problem: Those with the best chance of passing through major doom successfully are young, smart, fit or able to get fit, not on permanent medications yet or able to get off them fairly quickly by focusing on improving their health and fitness.

That's not to say there's no room for boomers, Xers, or older millennials. They have a role in taking the administrative load off the younger people, filling teaching roles, and providing some level of voluntary gifting while they're in their peak earning years."

However, most of the heavy lifting will be accomplished by late millennials, zoomers, and those that follow. Doom will take decades to fully play out, so longevity equals continuity. Hence this presentation.”

Another pause while Mouse pointedly looked up, around to both sides and to the rear of the stage.

“Presentation? What presentation? I don’t see any screen. Do you?” He asked as he spread his arms wide, then said “You have enough images in your head that I can pull out what’s needed from your own memory and imagination. Just a few minutes ago, when I was describing the different dooms, you had a montage running through your head of your own making, didn’t you? When I talked about muggles, certain people came to mind.” A chuckle ran through the audience. “So it’ll be like that. No screen necessary,” he stopped and looked around at the lush treeline surrounding the ampitheater, then said, “Or even viable considering where we are.”

He consulted his spiral pad once again, then looked across the audience and said “Before we continue, please take out your phone and turn it off. Show it to the person next to you, as you do it, for confirmation.” The audience murmured and shifted a bit. “I know this is hard; most of us grew up with them. They’re almost a natural extension of our minds. This is not for my privacy or security. It’s for a different reason, which I will cover – you guessed it – later.”

Mouse paced a bit while the audience dealt with phones, then flipped to the next page on his spiral pad, scanned it, and said “A little more about me; I’ve been a survivalist and a prepper since childhood, thanks to my parents. For those that don’t know the difference, a survivalist is generally focused on wilderness survival, either solo or as part of a small group.”

“Wilderness survival by definition is short term unless you’re a wizard at bushcraft and foraging and no one else is foraging in your area.” He continued with “Now, a survivalist can easily get into more gear, better gear, stored food, and so forth. Pretty soon the survivalist has crossed a threshold and is now a prepper, but will still call themselves a survivalist.”

Someone in the audience raised their hand. Mouse looked over and said “Hold your questions. This presentation has three segments separated by meal breaks. The third segment of this presentation is reserved just for Q&A, so please hold your questions until then. By the time we get there, you’ll find you have different questions.”

Another pause. “Where was I? Oh yeah: So a survivalist can become a prepper, and still remain a survivalist, but a prepper without wilderness survival skills is just a prepper. Most preppers just prep for a local emergency or evacuation, which is smart. It's called 'prepping for Tuesday.' Extreme preppers are people that stock up food, supplies, tools, books and equipment to make it through whatever complete collapse scenario is their favorite so they can prosper in the bright little utopia that they believe will emerge after a lot of people die.”

He paused, then said, “That die-off is called the ‘bottleneck,’ or the ‘great filter,’ by the way. Some preppers actually buy and stock a retreat property. Most just dream about owning a retreat, because extreme prepping, and I speak from experience here, will suck up pretty much all of your money. There’s always another scenario to prep for. I’m not discussing billionaire bunkers because those are fatally flawed statistical outliers.”

“Some want doom to happen fast and everywhere, so they can abandon the negatives in their life – job, gang, town, debts. Some prepare for what they believe will be a manageable doom; a period of hardship that either bounces back to normal or eventually transitions to some utopian picture. The vision most have is that of the lone wolf, or the prepared family and their retreat.” He stopped, smiled at the audience, and said “More pictures in your head, right?”

Mouse walked to the side of the stage, and said, “The point is that almost every prepper’s response to oncoming doom is to first, pick a favorite doom scenario and focus on that, and second, buy as much as you can to get through it. And don’t forget the guns!” he grinned, then said, “They get stuck in that prepper mode, because it’s by far the prevalent answer to doom circulating on the internet.”

“Where is the box located? Right here.” He gestured around the horizon. “Where you live.” He crossed to the side of the stage, and said “Some areas are blessed with natural geographic assets. Inland waterways are the easiest, lowest cost, and most efficient way to transport goods known to man. Freight rail comes next. Floating is the only thing more efficient than a steel wheel on a steel rail.” he said.

”Road networks are pretty much everywhere, and will be there even when cars and trucks are too expensive to run. All of this combines to make it easy to create a product in one place and sell it in a completely different place." He held his arms out wide. "This box is really big.”

“All of this will degrade at various rates as maintenance becomes too expensive. Roads will go the fastest. We’ve all seen the impact of weather and how potholes and cracks grow over time. Some areas have already ripped up paved rural roads and replaced them with packed gravel. Much less expensive to maintain because no asphalt or paving machines, but maintenance is still required.”

“Railroad tracks will last much longer. Rail beds are built to be very stable and shed water. That plus they have nice easy grades. Waterways are kind of self maintaining, as long as you let them choose where to go. Floods are change events for many watercourses, but people will adapt to the new path chosen by the river.”

“Now the box is getting smaller, because transportation is expensive. With inflation eating away at everything, expenses go up and it’s better to localize. It costs less to ship something locally or regionally than across the continent or around the planet.”

Mouse strode to one side of the stage, paused, consulted his spiral pad, looked up, and said, “Add to this transportation network a wide variety of villages, towns, suburbs, cities, and what I’ll call metroplexes, where you can’t tell where one city leaves off and the other begins, other than a sign on the side of the road.”

He paused, and then said, “Each geographic region has its own distinct history, culture, foods, behavioral norms, major industries and even accent. All of this combines, through familiarity, to encourage residents to stay in the area. Smaller box.”

He strode to the other side of the stage and said, “Familiarity has many levels when you’re talking about your hometown. There’s the familiarity you have with the geography, and where things are in relation to each other. You know where the nearest grocery store is, and where the best grocery store is. Then there are the people you know. Even someone that doesn’t have friends or relatives nearby are familiar with the clerk at the grocery store, the people at work, or the store; wherever you go regularly becomes familiar territory with familiar people.”

He paused, then continued, “In the case of where you live, familiarity equals comfort. Psychologists call this Normalcy Bias. Even if you say you can’t stand the place, if you’ve been there awhile, it’s better than the thought of going to some other place, because any other place is strange by definition, and we primates are hard-wired to avoid strange.”

Mouse crossed to the other side of the stage, consulted his spiral pad, turned to the audience, and said, “Same goes for where you work, where you play, any hobbies, clubs, and so forth. Then there’s the money thing – what you earn, how you earn it. All of that is put at risk if you leave the area.”

He paused, then said “Is everyone familiar with the Chernobyl disaster? Reactor blew up, the area had to be abandoned, including the company town that supported the reactor. Sober fact: Of the number of people that died during the event and in the aftermath, there were way more suicides than deaths by radiation or even cancer. When people are uprooted suddenly, a lot of them don’t know how to cope with the loss of their familiar place.”

“So, this box we’re trying to think outside of is really a golden cage.” Mouse paused, then said “Lots of advantages to being in the cage. Really good snacks, for one thing.” Chuckles from the audience.

He scanned the audience, then said “The first part of the answer is this: Acceptance leads to one conclusion: Our current society cannot prevent or mitigate all, or even a significant number of the various dooms that are incoming. Put simply, there’s an increasing chance that our local, comfy, box will go bye-bye due to some combination of events.”

Mouse crossed to the podium, stopped, and said, “That’s the first third of the answer. The short-short version: Box go Bye-Bye.”

He paused to let that sink in and then said, “The terms ‘doom’ and ‘Box go Bye-bye’ are sarcastic substitutes for really serious topics. Humans use sarcasm as a light, easy shorthand and a coping mechanism. When the term is light, our monkey brains don’t dwell on the heaver aspects of the subject. We can focus on actions to take instead of getting frozen into inaction. You’ll see this kind of language throughout the day.”

He crossed to the other side of the stage while saying, “Predicting exactly when doom will happen, and how, is a fool's errand. There are simply too many variables. And that’s the prepper’s trap. The prepper movement says you need to prepare, and in our culture that means buying stuff. Which stuff? A warehouse full of food? An off-grid power system? A batmobile? It’s all dependent on which doom you feel is coming.”

“What if you choose wrong? What if it’s a combination of different dooms? What if it’s slow motion doom? Or different medium dooms one after the other like the last decade or so?” Mouse paused while he crossed to the other side of the stage, then said, ”What we need to do is take full advantage of our nice, but increasingly less comfy box while it still exists, and when doom happens, be ready to stick the landing in the new environment.”

He paused, then asked, “But isn’t this just being a prepper again?” Another pause, then, “No, it’s most definitely not, because shit is getting real now and prepping results in a pile of stuff that requires constant rotation, maintenance, and security. All by your little lonesome.”

He crossed the stage, glanced at his spiral pad, and said “It’s not that prepping is expensive these days, it’s that prepping is not viable in most cases. Sure, there will be a retreat or two that somehow avoids the wildfires, or the superstorms, or the raiders, or the government troops confiscating everything they have. Those remaining retreats that manage to keep all their stuff will be what the statisticians call outliers; data points so far out of the pack that they’re not worth considering.”

“When doom happens, it alters our current reality, and either damages or destroys our nice comfy box. For example, when Covid happened, we suddenly had shortages of bread, toilet paper, or other convenience foods in the store. Bread and food shortages we could understand, but toilet paper? The TP factories weren’t offline, so what happened?

Turns out we poop at least half the time at work, and the workplace usually uses those big rolls of single ply in commercial bathroom dispensers. The TP supply chain was optimized to produce only part of the supply in little rolls for home use, and the rest for office use. When we suddenly decided we needed more home TP just in case, the factories didn’t have the tooling to shift production to answer the demand. Totally different production lines.”

“Same thing happened with bread and food because the supply chain was built to support lots of restaurant activity, and when we switched from restaurants to home cooking, there were the same tooling and inventory problems with those supply chains. There were other reasons for shortages. Sometimes it was lack of packaging materials like the soda can shortage, sometimes it was lack of labor like the meat packers all getting sick.”

“So now you have a glimpse into the reality behind the shortages during the Covid lockdown. It wasn’t hoarding; it was supply chain problems.” Mouse paused, crossed to the podium, and said, “Pay attention, because I’m coming to the second part of the answer now.”

“In the future as in the past, we as individuals probably won’t even be aware of the complexity that is driving a specific reality. We’re going to get little or no notice, and the effects of that new reality can be overwhelming.”

He paused, then said, “The most successful solution to a particular slice of doom is personal – to identify the situation as best we can, determine what we are still able to control, and adapt to the new reality.” Mouse stepped to the side of the stage, scanned the audience, and said, “Adapt to reality – that’s the second part of the answer.”

“So we now have – what’s the first part?” He looked across the audience. Someone said “Box go bye-bye?” Mouse pointed at her and exclaimed “Exactly!! We now have: Box go Bye-Bye, and Adapt to Reality. The first two thirds of the answer.”

He paused as he walked to one side of the stage and said, “So box go bye-bye and adapt to reality, but it’s tough to truly understand reality, much less turn it to your advantage. My dad used to tell me ‘Your desire and reality are now in conflict. You may choose to alter one.’ Man did that piss me off.” he grinned. “So the implied part of ‘adapt to reality’ is to not attempt to alter reality, or feel that somehow reality is your fault. That is a road to mental ruin.”

“Just be aware that there is a lot of complexity associated with any reality, and understand there are things going on that you are not aware of and have no influence over. So concentrate on what’s workable now, and stay flexible. Don’t waste time hoping for some outside force to re-stabilize everything.”

“The feeling you’re looking to internalize is a calm acceptance of reality.”

“I repeat: Calm acceptance of reality. It is what it is. So massively important.”

“A calm mind is able to think logically. A calm mind can better see through all the noise and bullshit and not be so stressed by all that. Stress disables our ability to use our intuition and subconscious to find workable solutions. It puts our mind in a bad place from which it’s hard to escape.”

Mouse stopped, walked to the podium, and said, “Let’s look at reality in a doom situation. We’re going to back up here, and use really generic terms, because I want montages of pictures flickering through your minds instead of focusing on a single type of event.”

He walked to the side of the stage, consulted his spiral pad, and said, “You no longer have access to your home. Maybe the bank foreclosed, or the landlord evicted you, or the place is underwater, burned to a crisp by a wildfire, or scraped clean away by a hurricane or tornado. It’s obvious there is no going back. So, what’s going through your mind?”

Mouse walked to the other side of the stage, then said, “Or maybe it’s only a mid-range disaster, with a lot of damage. Downed trees, cars and trucks still work, but roads are blocked or flooded. There’s no power, but you can at least stay home.”

He paused, then said, “Or it might be tiny doom. Something breaks at your place; plumbing, electrical, furniture. In any case, you need someone with tools and skills that you don’t have. So you look online for a local pro with a good reputation.”

“How far out are appointments for that kind of thing these days? How expensive is it going to be? Even for a little problem that could be fixed with a quick trip to the hardware store, if only you had the tools and skills on hand.”

“Which brings me to the next point.”

Mouse strode to the podium, grasped it with one hand, and said. “It doesn’t matter if you live in a converted hotel, an RV, an urban apartment block, a suburban home, or a freaking mansion, whether the doom is big or small, you’re going to need help. Commercial help is overloaded and too expensive already these days, isn’t it? That’s part of the ‘box go bye-bye’ thing. It’s already happening. What you need to be able to do is call your friends.”

He stepped back from the podium, spread his hands wide, and said, “And that is the last part of the answer: Call your friends.”

He paused, then turned and strode to the side of the stage, flipped a page on his spiral pad, turned to the audience, and said, “Of course, that’s the hardest part of the answer, because now you have at least three issues; who ya gonna call, who’s actually available and able to help, and how ya gonna call ‘em if communications are down?”

Mouse strode to the other side of the stage, looked at his spiral pad again, and said, “So box go bye-bye, adapt to reality, and call your friends.” He paused, “Now, this answer sounds very simplistic and most likely unworkable for most of us.”

He raised his hand and said, “Who here has a pile of friends that are able, and also willing, to help you out when your shower head clogs up, or when you run out of gas miles out of town, or when your window is broken by a flying branch, or a tornado munches down on your neighborhood and you need a place to go that isn’t a FEMA shelter? Go ahead; raise your hand.”

He looked around at the dearth of raised hands, stepped to the podium, and said, “I didn’t think so.” He looked down at the stage floor for a few seconds, then looked up and said, “Few of us do these days.” He paused, then, “To live with and through all the various dooms, you’re going to need friends. Purposeful friends, local friends, IRL friends.”

“Friends that are close by, that you can count on and that count on you. Friends that know who’s good at what and who’s better at the other thing. Hot tip: It’s not a church.” He paused, then said, “And now I’m going to leave you hanging because it’s time for a break.” He grinned. Groans all around.

Mouse stepped away from the podium and said, “Please refrain from guessing at what magical system I’ll propose, and what I’ll be charging for the details. This approach is different.”

He stepped down from the stage and said, “I’m going to let the females decide, based on the distance, the estimated capacity of the restrooms, and the number of females in the audience, how long this break should be. Five minutes?” Snorts and chuckles all around. He grinned. “Ten minutes? Fifteen?” Seeing mostly nods now. “Fifteen it is, but first one question: How many of you are going to have to turn your phones on to figure out when fifteen minutes are up? Think about that as you go,” he held an imaginary cigar to his mouth, and pantomimed tapping it while wagging his eyebrows in his best Groucho imitation, “in more ways than one!”

Mouse grabbed his vest off the podium tripod and made it to the restroom ahead of most of the male cohort. There were no questions in the restroom itself, because that’s kind of a guy thing: No talking, focus on just your task. Get in, wash, get out. He could hear a lot of chattering from the female side, though. He reflected on how naturally different men and women were, yet in this day and age it was forbidden to cross that line. That’s part of the reason for the neutrality principle, he thought to himself.

Mouse glanced at the angle of the tree shadows approximately fifteen minutes later, and even though there were stragglers coming back, stepped up to the podium, hung his vest, and began speaking again; “That very specific duration was a function of being stuck in BAU, or Business As Usual."

"We really didn’t need that 15 minute deadline. Most of us were back well before. I could have just said ‘let’s all go to the bathroom and get some water, then meet back here.’ It would have worked out pretty much the same. The first approach has higher stress and requires BAU timekeeping tech. The second approach has less stress and works in doom. Think about that.”

Mouse paused while he walked across the stage, then turned and said, “Soooo, call your nonexistent friends. The reason is this: No one can deal with doom alone. Period. Full stop. Not even a little bit of doom sometimes. So we need friends in order to call on them. As is normal in any complex situation, the answer has its own built-in question: Where do all these friends come from?”

“Most of us don’t have an asset like this. A few, a very fortunate few, have a network of friends and relatives capable of helping out in a doom situation. The Amish are one example, but good luck getting accepted into an Amish community. Another example is a large extended family spanning multiple generations going back to a frontier genesis story, but again, those are very rare.”

Mouse stopped, strode to the side of the stage, looked across the audience, and said, “So we have a situation, a quandary, a pickle in the form of a Catch-22. We need to call on friends we don’t have, because most of our current ‘friends’ are online, not in real space, and not local. This doesn’t help with doom because every part of doom is local and physical.”

He looked at his spiral pad, flipped a page, and said, “The typical solution to this is to join some sort of organization. A lot of organizational structures have been tried, from share-based co-ops to communes to ‘resilient communities’ to militias and the softer version; mutual aid groups.”

He strode to the other side of the stage while flipping another page. Then he looked up and said “Most organizations like this fail to stay together very long, for the same reasons that the hippie communes of the 1960’s failed: The siren song of civilization. People moving away for new job opportunities, family matters, interpersonal conflict, poor leadership, or just ran out of money.”

“Today’s ecovillages and ‘resilience’ communities generally require the purchase of property and a commitment to build a home on the land in order to join. This purchase requirement is typically an effort to minimize the ‘walking away’ issue. The problem is, this narrows the membership to mostly old boomers with excess money and time. Not exactly a vibrant community.”

He paused, then said “One of the common threads running through these failures is that the organizational structure is generally hierarchical, with most major decisions being made by a permanent leadership group – usually the founders.

If you’re not a member of that decision-making group, you may not be getting quality information about the group's status, objectives, or plans. Any opinions you voice will be based on incomplete information. It always takes time to be accepted into a group, and the lack of positive feedback makes it easier for all those outside attractions to pull you away. It’s a built-in Catch-22.“

Mouse moved to the other side of the stage while flipping a page on his spiral pad, and then said, “Another part of the acceptance problem is mutual: They don’t know you, and you don’t know them, so there’s no real trust established, especially early on when you’ve just joined. No one knows how you’ll behave toward them. No one knows what you’re good at, or not good at, and vice versa. You may have a specialty or two, but no one in the group has seen you in action, working with other folks. And of course, lack of familiarity means ‘Warning! Warning!’ to our monkey brains.”

He moved to the podium, looked across the audience, and said, “To avoid all these issues, we need an organization that does not have a permanent leadership set or a controlling clique of close friends, does not require a major monetary investment to join and has a set of customs and practices that enable members from all walks of life to work together on various efforts.”

Mouse paused, stepped away from the podium to the side of the stage, and said “Let’s address each of these points, starting with the first; avoiding a permanent, or semi-permanent, set of leaders.” He paused, then said, “Think Congress, or a corporate executive suite, the town council, or a gang. We can all think of examples where the leadership has, for lack of a better phrase, ‘aged out’ of relevance.”

“Whether this results in infighting, authoritarianism, rampant corruption, or inability to even recognize that reality has changed, the leadership starts making bad decisions, and the organization itself is now at risk. Changing the leadership is no small effort in nearly every case. And even worse, if the entire leadership of the organization is wiped out by, say, bad sushi, then the organization flails around until a new leadership is established. Most of the time it flails until it fails unless there’s an overarching set of principles in place, like the US Constitution, and even then there will be a bunch of arguing and a big lag.”

He crossed to the other side of the stage, flipped a page on his spiral pad, looked up at the audience, and said, “What we need is an organization that is well-practiced in recognizing shifts in reality, regularly swapping out leadership without skipping a beat and is thus able to adapt to those shifts as part of normal operations.”

“I emphasize the term ‘well-practiced’ because that’s a key concept here. Keep it in mind.”

“Fortunately, there’s a proven organizational structure that closely matches these requirements. We have a bunch of wildfires in California to thank for this, so here’s the background: In 1970 – yes, that far back – a disastrous fire season in southern California created the largest emergency response calls in the history of the state. There were police and fire responders from all over, plus a bunch of state and local emergency agencies and of course various feds.”

He paused, then said, “To put it mildly, it was a cluster-fuck. You may have heard a cop or firefighter saying ‘Code 4,’ or ‘10-4’ or whatever on the radio. These codes, it turned out, were not universal. They were different from one department to another. Still are, by the way. ‘10-15’ for example means either ‘civil disturbance,’ ‘message delivered,’ or ‘prisoner in custody’ depending on where you live. With everyone using 10 codes with different meanings, along with a bunch of other conflicts in slang and terminology, much hilarity ensued.”

Mouse crossed to the other side of the stage and said,”First there was the ‘I’m the boss’ syndrome, followed immediately by a slew of dick-measuring contests. The result was a lot of units acting independently. There was little or no central coordination, so there were a lot of gaps and duplications of effort going on, like fire crews traveling to a fire and passing similarly equipped crews going in the other direction to a different fire. It was ugly.”

“So ugly, in fact, that some smart, knowledgeable people did a post-mortem and put together a system that, after several iterations and an additional trial by fire in the form of 9-11, became the Incident Command System, or ICS. ICS has since become the standard for managing everything from a house fire to a full-on regional disaster in the US. It is that scalable.”

He stepped back a couple of paces, and said, “ICS is based on a thing called an ‘operational period’ which is a sort of time-box where specific operations are executed, while plans are made for the next operational period, or OP, based on what is happening during the current OP. An ICS OP lasts from 8 to 12 hours, depending on the type of incident.”

“What happens when the operational period starts? Everyone swaps out for fresh people. There’s a hand-off period where everyone in leadership, right down to the truck company commanders, meets with their incoming counterparts and passes their knowledge on. A formal knowledge transfer process is one of the keys to success.”

“So the positions haven’t changed in the new OP, but there are different people in those positions. Management of the incident continues apace, only with new people working to a plan based on real, recent, on-the-ground information. Meanwhile, the original people can rest, recharge, re-fit, re-supply, and get ready for the next time. That’s the other key to success. Since everyone is trained and qualified on all this, things go smoothly from OP to OP until the incident is closed.”

Mouse paused, then said, “Our organization is based on this time-boxed, everyone transitions approach, except our most significant missions follow a seasonal theme. More on that later. There are other, shorter-term projects that are not related to seasonal work. They have their own mission and the same leadership structure but different people in place. Thus, we avoid the problem of a permanent leadership clique.”

He moved to the podium, flipped a page on his spiral pad, looked across the audience, and said, “The next issue is money.” He stopped, looked across the audience, and smiled. “Money inevitably leads to a host of things, almost all of which are impediments when responding to doom.”

“Money imposes its own overhead, since you now need a bank to conduct transactions, and that means the organization has to be a ‘legal entity,’ defined by a lawyer, blessed by the government and, of course, taxed directly and indirectly through various fees. To be a legal entity, it needs to have a fixed address and a known human representative. Anyone who has started a small business knows about the swarm of blood-sucking leeches that descend on you from day one and it goes on forever.”

Mouse stepped from the podium to the side of the stage and said, “All of this is useless for an organization that intends to operate during a doom scenario. In doom, if it’s not the banks failing because people are defaulting on debts, or just closing because everyone is trying to withdraw cash, it’s because the cash machines and credit card readers are non-functional due to loss of power or internet. Dependency on money complicates any responses to doom. In fact it complicates everything. Even having a stash of money outside of the bank makes you a potential robbery target if word gets out. So we don’t do money.”

He crossed to the other side of the stage and said, “When money is not involved, things get simpler. I could have paid for this space for the day, and as an individual the fee is not that much out of pocket.” He gestured around the meeting area.

“Or, I might know the Parks and Recreation manager for this place, and asked for the space as a favor. For her, it’s as simple as creating a reservation on the computer and setting the rental fee to zero – commonly done for non-profits.” He stepped toward the center, looked out at the audience, and said, “Or, she could already be a member of the local instance of this organization and set it up this way because she’s part of the planning team for this event.”

He paused, looked at his spiral pad, and said, “By the way, in the days before computers, this practice was called ‘pencil whipping.’ Just fill out the necessary forms that few people are ever going to review, scrawl something that looks like the right signature in the right slot, and it’s done. The problem has been pencil-whipped into submission.” He smiled as a few chuckles ran through the audience. “The practice is more common than anyone will admit, even with today’s information systems.”

Mouse paused, then said, “In the late fall through early spring, it’s tough to meet outside, so an indoor venue is needed, and it needs to be of significant size to enable social distancing and ventilation in the cold, flu, and other nasties season. So you need a big space, like a space in an empty warehouse or strip mall. The folks who set up roving raves have this down to a science, don’t they? So the same thing happens – unless another member just happens to be in a property management firm, then keys and occupancy are just another pencil-whipping exercise.”

”There are no dues to join this organization. There can’t be. The entire organization is set up to bypass the use of money and avoid all the issues surrounding who controls access to the money.”

He moved to the podium, looked at his spiral pad, flipped a page, then looked up and said “So the first two elements are no permanent leadership set – as an aside, in this organization, leaders for an OP are chosen from a ranked list from those that are qualified, with those who have served that position recently ranked lower. Keeps things fresh, and means, once you’re qualified – and qualification is easy – you will wind up in a leadership role. Where was I? Oh yeah, no permanent leadership, and no paid dues or other investments to join. Next up…”

He paused, flipped a page on his spiral pad, looked up, and said “The next is to be present in multiple regions across the nation. As with everything else, there’s a reason for this. This is a doom response organization. Doom will be different for each region. Adaptation will be different for each region. Some will be too hot, some will be too cold, some will be juuust right.” He grinned at the chuckling. “Some locations may become non-viable over time, and no one can predict which location will succeed and which will fail.”

“When an organization fails, the membership tends to scatter to the four winds unless the need to move is seen in advance, a destination scouted, and a plan made for the move. This organization is set up for all of this, starting with how someone finds out if a local instance exists, and how to make contact.”

Mouse stepped to the side of the stage and said, “So yeah, having an organization you’re familiar with to step into, that knows your qualifications at a glance and is prepared to accept you, would be kind of nice.”

“Setting up a local instance of this organization in a new place doesn’t require approval from some national organization, but duplicate instances in the same area are forbidden; it leads directly to conflict. In the next segment, you will learn the steps to take to find a local instance, or if there isn't one yet, to get started.”

He stepped to the podium, glanced at his spiral pad, and said, “So that’s three; no permanent leadership, no money, and multiple locations. All that’s left is customs and practices that allow you to work together with people from different walks of life.”

He paused, flipped a page on his spiral pad, looked up, and said, “We all behave differently in different situations. How many in-person board gamers here? He asked. Several hands went up. “Is your behavior on game night different from when you’re visiting your parents?”

Nods all around. “What about work? Different behavior? Heck yes. Different clothes, often different tones of voice or inflection. We speak, behave, and usually dress differently in different situations, and that’s normal. All of these are learned behaviors, and are how we fit in with different groups.”

“It’s easy to fit in with people that act like you, speak and dress like you, even smell like you. Yes, that’s actually a thing.” He smiled. “But people that understand the need to band together in advance of doom come from all walks of life. They tend to be smarter, more persistent, more curious, critical thinkers, and better readers than average, but that’s about it where similarity is concerned. Just take a look around at each other.” He walked to the side of the stage while gesturing across the audience, and waited while people looked around.

“Not exactly a homogenous bunch, are you?” He grinned. “Imagine the chaos that would happen if I gave you all a common problem to solve in the next hour. We’d have people trying to lead, people trying to analyze, some will want to start right away, others will try to avoid being noticed. A whole spectrum of behaviors.”

Mouse strode to the other side of the stage, looked across the audience, and said, “People need to learn how to get along before they can actually get along, and some institutions provide more guidance than others. For really loose conditions, think of a college campus. For extreme rigor, look at the military.”

“College encourages exploration and debate – personal growth is the real purpose. The military eliminates debate – especially for new guys. Their focus is on operational success. Most organizations need to be somewhere in the middle before they can be successful, and our organization is no different.

“Remember back when I was describing how the ICS came about? All those different ten-codes, different slang, different names for the same types of teams or equipment? Well, one of their keys to success was cohesion in communications: No slang. No abbreviations. Plain and clear speaking.”

“Sort of like you’d behave if you met a space alien stepping out of a flying saucer. Your objective would be to not fuck up. Hopefully that would also be the space alien’s objective as well.” Mouse grinned.

He crossed to the other side of the stage while flipping a page in his spiral pad, looked out across the audience, and said, “This organization has standards that are in part focused on keeping certain people from, say, over-participating, and others from under-participating. These behaviors are part of the core training provided to new candidates. We have formal methods to solve problems together.”

He strode to the podium, flipped a page on his notebook, and said, “So that’s the last bit. Customs and practices for members of this organization are described in a set of principles for the organization as well as its members. Operating under these principles establishes a consistent, familiar behavior pattern for everyone. That’s what makes it possible to call your friends, because the conditions in place allow you to become friends.”

Mouse stopped, stepped back, and said, “Box go Bye-Bye, Adapt to Reality, and Call Your Friends. The answer to the question.”

“This presentation is broken into three segments. This is the end of the first segment. The next segment covers the details of this organization, what it’s called, and of course its principles and practices. Finally, there’s a significant piece of time set aside for Q&A, because there are always questions. But now it’s time for the next break which I’ll use as an excuse for lunch. For those of you that didn’t bring your own; we’ll see you back after you grab a quick bite.”

With that, he picked up his vest, put it on, tucked away his spiral pad, and walked about 60 yards to where his task buddy and bicycle were located. He grabbed some food from one of his panniers and sat down as his buddy handed him his water bottle.