postcollapse.info: Overview

Postcollapse.org is an effort to mitigate the effects of an anticipated infrastructure collapse. A companion web site postcollapse.org discusses why we think this is likely and what we are trying to do. This web site posts the results of this effort.

People in a post collapse environment will need different skills. One way to prepare for a collapse is to collect and have available the knowledge needed to learn such skills. The primary objective of Postcollapse.org is to collect and post such information, or pointers to it, on this web site.

The knowledge base here is organized into projects. Each project addresses a particular skill. Some projects deal with simple skills others with more complex skills.

Projects are organized into the hierarchy project areas, Project clusters, projects. Some project clusters have sub-clusters. For example, in the project area manufacturing (making things), the project cluster fibers has sub-clusters: extracting, spinning, weaving, knitting, paper, rope and other.

The project areas are: food, shelter, energy, medical, manufacturing (mfg.), designs, community, services (community infrastructure) and other. Food, shelter, energy, medical, mfg and services address the skills needed to provide these things or services. Designs posts specific designs for things. Community posts considerations and guidance on forming and maintaining a post collapse community. Other us a catch-all for material that doesn't seem to fit in another category.

Most of the projects are, or will be, finding out and posting information about:

• How does one make a something? ,or

• How does one do something?

in a post collapse environment. The something or do something will vary from project to project.

Projects are organized into hierarchy with the following elements:

Project Area

Project Cluster

Project Sub-Cluster ( in some Clusters)

Project Section

project1

project2

The tables below gives an overview of this website. Each table addressed one project area. Project clusters are listed in the first column. Indenting corresponds both to the above structure and web site organization. Most project sections are only placeholders at this time.

The status column shows status. I indicates the project area has been identified. P indicates some preliminary work or links have been posted. L indicates the existence of a volunteer to lead or coordinate our efforts in this project area. We could use lead individuals in most areas. You can see we are just starting and most areas need work.

The next three columns are an effort to prioritize our efforts. Each has a numeric range of 1 to 10. Critical estimates how important the skills would be for a post collapse community. Rare is an estimate of how few people today have the skills or knowledge. Difficulty estimates how difficult it would be to develop the knowledge without good guidance. Total is simply the sum of the three; it gives an rough comparative priority. The numbers were chosen by reasonable estimate or guess. We tried to make the rarity scale roughly logarithmic with 10 being one person in a million and 1 being one person in ten.

Most projects will only require searching and organizing material from available sources. Some will require design and or experimentation. Most of the somethings will be practical like making basic tools or growing herbal plants. A few of the initial projects will be identifying a list of the important somethings. For example: What is needed to operate a farm? How could one do each essential task in a post collapse world? Where the initial work can not find a good answers posting a list of difficult problems can get some creative people thinking about them, and maybe finding answers.

About PostCollapse.org

PostCollapse.org is an organization of volunteers that do projects today that will contribute to a better recovery from an anticipated future infrastructure collapse. We believe it is better to consider some unpleasant things today than meet an unpleasant reality unprepared. See postcollapse.org for more information about the organization and its objectives.

One objective for each project is to post useful information on this web site. If you would like to consider doing a project or leading a project area please e-mail us at projects@postcollapse.org or see help wanted on the Postcollapse.org web site.

Overview of Project Areas

A criterion for each project is that it minimizes, and preferably eliminates, any required materials or parts not available in a typical small rural community. Instructions and documentation should assume minimal specialized knowledge. These criteria have been set to maximize the potential benefits to the widest variety of post collapse communities.

• The food project area deals with supplying food and drinkable water. In most cases this will be the highest survival priority.

• The shelter project area deal with protection from the elements. In most environments people need shelter. However survival shelter should not be an issue in most cases.

• The energy project area deals with sources of useful energy. Energy for cooking, heating and running critical machinery will have a high priority. Most farming today is very dependent on a variety of energy consuming machines.

• The medial project area deals with maintaining health. Medicine will be very different without medicine and other things coming from afar.

• The mfg. project area deals with making useful things. Lots of things will need to made locally.

• The chemical project area deals with changing and extracting materials.

• The design project area posts designs for useful tools and other objects.

• .The community project area deals with forming and maintaining post collapse communities. Our primary focus will be for a rural community with a large number of urban/suburban refugees. This focus will also carry over to the other project areas.

• The services project area deals with building, replacing and maintaining elements of the local infrastructure.

• A misc. project area is a catch all for things that don't fit elsewhere.

Status

The task of building this web site has just begun and I expect it to remain a work in progress. Please excuse our marginal competence in putting together this web site; we are also still learning how to build a web site as well as just beginning to post information.

Filling in these web pages with useful information will require a lot of help. Your help is solicited. Working on some of these projects could be interesting and fun as well as useful. If you would like to help please take a look at the various areas and decide where your interests, expertise or information might be most useful. You should find opportunities to contribute in each project area and possibly in projects not yet on the list. The Help Wanted lists tasks that were the most obvious. I'm sure there are equally important needs not listed. If you might be interested in helping please contact us at help@postcollapse.org. You too could do something that might just might help improve the future.

If you can think of additional project areas that might be needed please email us suggestions to projects@postcollapse.org.

Recommendations for relevant links should be sent to links@postcollapse.org. Please direct other comments or suggestions to note@postcollapse.org.

8 Jan 2009