Where's Midas Mulligan when you need him?

If that happens I will have to deal with it. It would not be terribly surprising if it did happen, and at that point worrying about your iPod or cable TV is moot.

A collapse on that order starting in either the US or China would bring down the economy of the entire world, or close enough to make no difference anyway.

Look at the far reaching effects in 2008, and that was not a full on collapse. A new dark age, much worse than any previous ones.

A system that would compete with Galt's motor is the thorium nuclear reactor. Read up on it. It would completely eliminate the issue about energy.

I would step back from your excellent points and comment that the same way the technology of the current time does not replicate the tech of AS, so the methods of control that are available to control people are not the same as they were in the 40's and 50's.

The very topic of this thread is a good indicator of that: John Galt never had to deal with whether you could buy stuff on Amazon in the Gulch. Nonetheless, the fact that one can obtain encrypted and secret avatars for communication, Bitcoins for payment, etc means that the government has not tightened the noose completely.

Jan

If we want to maintain our lifestyles, we need to think about resources, meaning minerals and agricultural products. The minerals would enable us to manufacture what we need, and the agricultural products would give us food, clothing, etc. That suggests that we need to build a network of global gulches (you can't economically grow bananas or cotton in Alaska, for example), and that would entail some type of supply chaining system.

I like that saying. I am going to put it on the wall over my desk when government inspectors come visit

It sounds like this discussion is talking about A Gulch. Why not think about many Gulches, scattered all over the world? Ragnar was dealing with people in various countries who apparently were doing the same thing as John Galt and company in the US, and even in his speech, he counseled people to form communities all over.

#2, add drone assassinations, military tribunals, arrest and indefinite detention, torture and prisoner deaths without charges and trials
#3, add asset forteiture without charges or trials
#4, where opposition can be termed hate speech that's criminalized
We're almost there. Just wait till passports get yanked and people won't be allowed to leave the country.

#1 can be pushed back. Support Our America Initiative's campaign to make debates open to qualified third-party candidates as well.

Too late for me (80). Why must you give up anything? If you all are as clever as you think you are, with all the talent and intelligence I've seen exhibited from this group, there should be no reason to start from scratch. Brainstorm new ideas, implement them, get busy and don't "try" -- DO!

I'm pretty sure I could struggle by without Amazon.

AS had to invent the "invisibility shield" for her gulch to work.

This is not about sacrificing self, but about the trappings of technology and society that we prefer to hang onto.

socialists and for that matter communists or any other collectivist would go with control rather than conquer or destroy as a first resort.

After all if you slay the golden goose, no more eggs are laid.

An attack of force would have to be defended the same way as throughout history, reply in kind.

A nuclear bomb? seriously, that type of comment is very trollish

Realistically, somewhere in Alaska would be ideal... substantial solar resources in summer, and plenty of resources for the winter. Closer to the water means moderation of the climate (a little) and enormous food/income opportunities that can be hidden in plain sight, as well as attracting the rugged / survival types that can live off grid.

It would be easy to strike a deal with a telecom for a microwave or satellite link, pool the resources and up the bandwidth to something that would meet the needs of the town.

Plumbing - easy... whether or not the discharge is as pure as the driven snow is one thing, but drain fields have been used in rural areas for a hundred years or more...

Power - solar/wind already works fine for off-grid living, maybe some minor generator inputs, depending on the climate. Designing the town to be energy efficient is a big key - only use LED lighting or candle/flame, no electric appliances - stick to propane or nat-gas or wood heat, etc.

Picking the location and climate is really more important... for example, in a mediterranean location (rare I know for a project like this), heating and A/C become irrelevant, but the long-term savings in infrastructure is pretty substantial.

Equally important would be a town-wide cyber privacy/protection to avoid IRS/governmental prying eyes. This is pretty simple, it just has to be non-standard / non-commercial. "Store-bought" stuff is compromised at the source (by the NSA), customized open source would be a quick & relatively protected method.

I rebuilt my own house over the last few years specifically for efficiency and something close to off-grid (I have a grid-tie, but I could easily be off-grid, but that last 10% gets expensive). New plumbing - PEX with push/fit made the plumbing in the 1970s rancher better than new. Heating - went from 70% efficiency to 97.5%, I don't even need a metal flue, it just uses PVC because the heat output is only at about 80 degrees going out the top. Electrical is down 90% between solar panels, 100% LED, switched from electric to gas wherever I could.

Most of the things it takes to do this are pretty readily available and even easier if the structures are very modest (I was fighting against a 2400 sq foot single story with vaulted/chalet roof and 57 windows). Keep it to a simple cabin and I wouldn't need any external connections.

The only challenge is the propane or natural gas, you need to bring that in somehow, it would be the one thing that is very difficult. You can use wood for a lot of stuff, but creates its own challenges (hard to miss all the trees being cut down and you lose your natural beauty and cover).

You don't have to give up technology, only collective infrastructure. You can have plumbing, just not city water. You can have electricity, just not commercial power generation.
I don't have to buy commercial convenience foods, I can make my own. It's a matter of, are you dependent on that provided technology? I've been slowly turning these things off as much as I can while still having to live/work in society. I can do without TV. I like YouTube because it's such a wealth of information, but I can find books. As long as it's there, I will use it.
We don't even really need high speed internet, or phone lines, we could actually create that ourselves with Amateur radio services - it's still tech, but it isn't dependent upon an establish, commercial, gov't regulated infrastructure. Giving up "tech" is relative. A shovel is high-tech compared to digging with your bare hands.

There should be no sacrifice of self even discussed.

You mean: what would you give up, to become a charter resident of the Gulch, like Midas Mulligan and Judge Narragansett?

I still remember my camping skills. Subsistence farming isn't too different from camping. Midas Mulligan started out that way--bought out the valley (probably the Uncompahgre Valley north of the old Million Dollar Highway, which he would have had cut off), built a simple log house, and, I imagine, dug a well so he could subsist on a combined farming and ranching operation. Judge Narragansett agreed to specialize in dairy and chicken farming. Richard Halley planted an orchard.

Let's not forget, however, that John Galt solved the secret of electrostatic motors. He likely built small motors for the few cabins the valley sported at first. But Dick McNamara would come along and string power lines and lay pipe for water mains and sewers--though I imagine they had to invent some kind of sewage treatment. They *could not* afford to discharge raw sewage into the river. It would have given too important a clue to the outsiders.

The Amish showed the way. They simply froze their technological embrace at the level that existed when they formed their first communities. If they can do it, so can we.

This discussion might be moot if our government ruins the US dollar and we get the hyperinflation and resulting martial law that if probably going to come in the future. No country has EVER gotten away with money printing in the end, and no country has printed as much money as the US has (relative to GDP perhaps Japan is up there too). We should starting preparing for that now by grouping together, like in this website.

Hard to do I think because there are so many "socialists" out there who would band together snd simply take over a successful gulch by force. How do you defend against a nuclear bomb?

what republicans do you support? You have a republican governor. Do you support Scott Walker?
to your second comment-"partly true" You supported the President. The largest, most liberty sucking policy change made in 60 years was under President Obama. what's partly about that? This is propagandizing

Agreed. We can have modern conveniences. Depending on how isolated we need to be, the internet and Amazon might also be viable. True isolation is probably not viable given the ability to see the Gulch on weather satellites and the population of the Earth. Mars? Different story.

Think about the idea of a "virtual gulch" instead of a physical gulch, where one replaces the things provided by the society at large today with things traded between like minded people using technology. Living like we want in plain sight. Could even use "gulchbucks" instead of dollars, which were tied to gold for example. If I bought corn that you grew, I could pay in these gold-back certificates, or even the gold itself. Have to be kept quiet of course, and most easily hidden by forming a religion and hiding under the religious exemptions.

One way to do a Gulch would be to do it guerrilla style- never large enough to be noticed and attacked. Maybe a few families ( I would have to think about just how many is practical) in each mini Gulch, all interconnected by technology. Trading could be done primarily among Gulch members. We would give up economies of scale in exchange for the safety of living free in plain sight. I think interconnecting technology could link together the people in these mini Gulches- quietly. Think about it. Might be the only way these days.

That's what I thought I was talking about. If you are a true producer and are ready to shrug it is possible as I'm doing. My goal is to inspire those on the fence that there is truly a place even if you have to make you own.