I don’t understand why you couldn’t quarantine the group… if you can banish them, you can quarantine them by pushing them outside the living areas for a while, if not then you are shooting them in the head anyways. There should be some where they can go, if not, you probably aren’t long for this world anyways because you aren’t getting out.

The flu is hard because you might also be sick and not showing symptoms yet. Therefore, shooting people leads to a precedent of last man standing and you might as well say goodbye to the group. Banishment, you might be banishing your loved ones? The flu doesn’t kill 100% of people that have it, so there is a chance that the majority/minority of the group will recover so your ahead by not shooting people. Odds of recovering is better on the inside.

Would I put it to a vote? Probably not, I would put it to a discussion and if I felt I and loved ones had better odds being out of the group than being in it, I would leave for a while. In reality if people are dropping dead you would think they would not want to be with the group for fear of destroying it. I’d rather keep an open door to coming back or the people being quarantined coming back. If the group doesn’t like it, then I am in the wrong group. Voting is just mob rule. Plus, what if they vote to let them stay and now everyone dies… you’d want to leave then too.

I also think there is a failure in planning because you don’t have a quarantine area.

Out of supplies doesn’t really address what supplies maybe you should have on hand. And quarantine supplies… this is where our family takes this game. To me that is the learning lesson.

We’ve tried to write up some of the thoughts about agendas, hidden agendas, and other media literacy topics over at the wiki. We’d love for everyone to come over and read the article and/or make it better. http://tspwiki.com/index.php?title=Media_bias

Jack,

Did I miss the announcement about the tsp voices meetup?

Just hoping to meet my roll model!

P.S. I’d love to know who you are looking forward to hearing speak

Hey Jack thanks for the shout out!

Excellent answer on the suburban food production question. I completely agree on your suggestions for intensive annual / perennial systems and integrating small scale livestock. I think the fastest R.O.I. for anyone who wants to get into producing their own food is to start with livestock, then use the outputs from the livestock to establish the plant systems.

Are rabbits more work than quail? I think that depends where you are located. In warmer regions I think the quail will have less challenges than the rabbits. Where I am, zone 6, they both do fine and really are equal in there time / effort inputs. I’m not sure how cold you could go with the birds before the rabbits become a better option, but we had a lot of days an nights in the 0 to -15 range this winter and it didn’t bother them one bit.

Another benefit of starting with animals is that you can use the animals to help establish your plant systems. I built 4 rabbit / quail tractors last summer and used them to start my forest garden.

Take Paradise lot add a little bit of Angelo’s Micro Garden, expand it to a full 1/10th of an acre, mix in some integrated grazing areas for livestock and you’ve got what my forest garden will be. 37 out of 125 productive trees planted last year, 3/4 swales dug, 50+ more trees on order for this spring. Just waiting on the damn snow to melt..

Looking forward to sharing the process with anyone interested in the near future.

Take care!

Oh and a link to the quail stuff for anyone interested.

TSP Episode 1017.
http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/quail-for-eggs-and-meat
Thread.
http://thesurvivalpodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=42890.0
Free eBook I wrote on quail
http://greatlakespermacultureportal.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/BD-Ebook-quail-for-meat-and-eggs.pdf

As an anarchist, one thing I would note on the difference between monarchy/anarchy, is that voluntary certifications are anarchistic, not minarchistic as was described. A minarchist (or full statist) might accept the validity of voluntary certification (e.g. AgriTrue for food or UL for electrical equipment), but that doesn’t make them minarchist. If something is voluntary, then it’s anarchist.

A minarchist might want fewer of these mandatory certifications, but it’s still the same exact certification program as a full statist. So a statist might want 90 mandatory certifications and 10 voluntary ones, a minarchist might want 10 mandatory certifications and 90 voluntary ones, but an anarchist wants 0 mandatory certifications and 100 voluntary ones.

@Justin

The flu as a sickness transmitted easily by air and an extremely common sickness is one that makes sense for the question. Carrying it beyond that takes us from good thinking and good prepping down the rabbit hole like with EMP.

Could you be struck by lightning? Yes. Should you prep for it? Could you make this question about an uncommon, super lethal, disease where symptoms can be identified before the disease is contagious where a hypothetical solution of quarantine or killing the infected is the only rational answer…. yes…. but surely by the time you get there you realize that you’re only manipulating the question trying to get your desired answer.

Diseases that transmit easily often do not have visible symptoms or 100% proof positive symptoms prior to a contagious stage. This is one of the reasons they transmit so easily and so quickly. This also isn’t a zombie apocalypse scenario. Shooting the infected in almost every case is not the answer. You can shoot a rabid dog because you know how the infection is spread and you know there is no cure (or if you had it, you wouldn’t use it on the dog never mind that it wouldn’t be effective after the dog reaches the visible symptom stage). You do not shoot a human with rabies because you can (and probably will) continue to care for them and with simple sanitary procedures in place you will not get rabies.

Quarantine was considered to be a solution by people who didn’t know germ theory, didn’t have the benefit of modern medical discoveries or tools and didn’t know what they were dealing with. We, on the other hand, may not know what the disease is but we do (or should) know the basics of germ theory, sanitation (and sanitary medical practices) and the fact that we don’t “cure” a disease either our body dies in fighting the disease or succeeds and we get better. Quarantine, in the sense of keeping outsiders out and insiders in may protect your group or protect outsiders but once the sickness is in your group regardless of what it is there is little you can do.

I feel for those who suggest some people “work towards a cure”. That’s how it works in games and on TV right? Someone figures out that putting soy sauce in your orange juice miraculously cures the disease and why didn’t we think of that before right? Even if your group was a highly trained team of doctors and researchers with impeccable facilities and supplies the odds of them finding a cure after the group was infected in order to save the group or those who are sick is basically nil. It’s not how most diseases work, and it’s a case of too little too late.

Yes, there are some diseases with very high lethality. Yes there are some diseases that you can suspect someone carries before they are contagious or without being at risk of contracting it yourself. Could that possibility change the way your group handles interaction with outsiders in a SHTF scenario? Sure. Should it influence how you deal with an infection within the group? I say, probably not and if it does it should be in very specific, case specific ways. I feel it’s safe to go out on a limb and say most of us are not doctors or training to be, and even such professionals might be hard pressed to identify certain diseases or pathways of infection in such a high stress scenario.

I will add, I want no part of a group of survivors that considers a consensus vote whether or not to execute a member OK. Perhaps some would. Don’t be too quick to make the decision before considering that you might be on the receiving end of that vote… do you think your group would let you cast a vote too?

I was thinking today that the danger of a solar EMP melting down our grid such that all the nuclear plants melt down because they run out of backup power is a much more serious danger than global warming.

The global warming thing is a conspiracy, it’s not like they are stupid. They want to tax carbon and control the population, how can you analyze it any other way ?

Jack,

Thanks for the mention on the show. I listen not only because I enjoy the content, but because you make me think. It was a treat to hear that my message had made you think in turn.

All the best,

Carl

Just a thought on today’s history segment. How can Europe’s corn crops be devastated when corn won’t be introduced from the Americas for another 150+ years?

For the gentleman with the wet property:

Think Chinampas.

Floating islands on which to grow your crops.

Imagine the surface of the ground as the surface of a lake, and build your ‘boats’ high enough to keep your plants roots dry (at least enough so they thrive rather than drown).

Would it be possible to get a copy of the CO2 email you read online? I’d love to share it with my friends in text form.