On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 02:43:51 GMT, Alan Connor wrote:

(snip)
Who said anything about a "skin of your teeth existence". It is possible to
live very comfortably with no animal products and in a camoflauged settlement.

Yeah, in a fantasy, ANYTHING is possible.


As for staying with your friends and neighbors, well, if you live on a road,
then refugees and bandits will find you, easily, and you'll have to deal with
them.

Yeah, everybody knows that refugees and bandits can ONLY travel on roads. :/

(less so with a small, remote town, of course)


It is also very hard to be self-sufficient in a town and impossible if the
majority of people aren't prepared.

The resources generally aren't the land and trees and minerals and water.
(most municipal water systems will not survive and are very easy to sabotage,
giving
bandits a way to bring you to your knees)

Yeah, land, trees, minerals and water don't exist in towns. :/


Furthermore...What Collapse?

The one that pillaging the planet with a lifestyle that requires a large
under-class inevitably leads to.

Like the Great Depression.

The Great Depression was just an almost-collapse of an economic system.


That's all the Collapse is, a Great Depression in a world with too many
unhappy people that lacks the resources and social cohesivenss to recover.

It is the Final Depression.

It ain't final until the Fat Lady sings. So far all I hear is a stupid man
crowing.