noted on Wed, 15 Oct 2003
noted on Fri, 19 Sep 2003
noted on Thu, 18 Sep 2003
noted on Wed, 17 Sep 2003
In this Site…
Archives:
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Total: 24 About: 4 equipment: 3 food: 9 animals: 1 farming: 1 farming: 2 nature: 1 preserving: 2 water: 2 reference: 3 shelter: 3 construction: 3 society: 1 transportation: 1 bicycle: 1 |
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noted on Fri, 19 Sep 2003
Why’d You Start This Handbook?
The Handbook for Primitive Living is not even a month old, so nobody’s asked the question yet, but I’m sure they will. What question is that? “Why’d you start this handbook?”
It’s not like either of us are exactly outdoorsy survivalist types, so what possessed us to get the HPL going?
Well, my answer is, “Take your pick:”
- Environment. Western infrastructure uses up an awful lot of energy and resources for the sake of convenience. If we do our part to not use some or all of the infrastructure available to us, we save boatloads of energy. (For example, by installing composting toilets in your home and using a greywater system, you can both eliminate your sewer hook-up and enrich the soil on your property.)
- State-of-the-world. Terrorism, rouge nations, missing or secret nukes and other weapons of mass destruction, increasingly militant governments no matter how you add it up, it’s a good idea to be prepared. The world isn’t exactly a big tea party right now. (Unless you add
“Boston”
to that.) - Disaster. The Big One hasn’t hit in L.A. yet, but it’s due. Although only near misses thus far, an asteroid strike may yet happen in our lifetime. As I write, Hurricane Isabel is lashing North Carolina and will be barging through to Ontario. A blackout affected 50 million people, and nobody knows why yet. Speaking of which, how many nuclear generators are less than a few hours from your home?
- Belief. Whether you believe in God and that Jesus’ return is around the corner, that the end of the world is yet to come for some other reason, or that
“Titor”
is for real, some scary things may be happening. They may not be, but we’d rather be prepared, right? - Knowledge. I like to learn, and the more I learn the more I know and the more I can do. I enjoy it, so I do it.
In other words, the Handbook is a mental first-aid kit. You may never need it, but if you do you’ll be glad you have it.
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noted on Thu, 18 Sep 2003
Orientation
This site is a thesis. What we want to explore is how to make adjustments to your life so that you’re not dependant upon so much of the infrastructure we take for granted these days.
How would you need to live life if your country didn’t have
- running water?
- electricity?
- a distribution system for any sort of fuel?
From those three things, look at what falls out: Any factory or business that needs electricity in order to be in business won’t produce any goods or services. Phones (of any kind) won’t work. Water purification will become an issue. Taking showers, or flushing a toilet becomes impossible fairly quickly. Medical care is compromised. Batteries will become scarce, then nonexistent.
It sounds like the end of the world as we know it… but not for all of us. Many peoples across the globe already live under those conditions. Perhaps they have a thing or two to teach us. This web site aims to collect that knowledge.
But we also want to aim for more than outlining primitive living skills, because we still have more than they did. We get to play with 21st century inventions or refinements to older inventions. For example, we have the bicycle. We also have (although not as ubiquitous) solar cells. Can we do useful stuff with this?
The content in this site have been brought to you by Andrew Netherton and Robert Hahn. At the time of this post, neither of us have any experience with primitive living. We’ll be doing research, some thinking out loud, and maybe take a course or two. This site is as much for our benefit as we hope it will be for yours.
If you know more about a topic than we do, please contact us. We’ll be happy to accept submissions and consider them for placement here.
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noted on Wed, 17 Sep 2003
Disclaimer & Legal Stuff.
Should you see any reference to any company, product, or service on these pages, please understand that these names may officially have trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks after their name. If the particulars are important to you, please Google for this information. It is freely available, after all.
If you should happen to catch any factual errors, or feel it necessary to point out that I should refer to a product with a slightly different sequence of words[1], then a polite letter would endear me to honour your request a lot better than a barked command. Please remember that I’m maintaining this site for the love of it, not for profit, and I think we’ll get along just fine.
[1] for example, I once worked for a company who had Microsoft Canada as a client, and learned that if I had to refer to a product, I wouldn’t say “Windows”
, but “the Microsoft® Windows® Operating System”
for a first reference, followed by “the Windows Operating System”
in later references on the same page. Many companies have a trademark policy document that describe the appropriate and inappropriate references to their products, so that any corporate communications is standardized. This is simply good business sense. And to the point that prompted this long footnote, this is the kind of change I’d be willing to make on request if it mattered.
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