Starting out

[MaryN]

It seems an age since I joined this Forum. I was so pleased to find that there were other people out like, like me, who were having real concerns about the way things were going. The wealth of information from the members on this site, in particular, NR and Scythe, and the hilarious (not always intentional, I'm sure) comments from so many of you have been so helpful. I now consider myself to be pretty well informed and much more alert to the possibility of problems. I'm not saying I would necessarily be better at dealing with problems, but I would be right on top of understanding what was going on. Thanks, Folks.

Since then, however, things in the world seem to have got progressively worse with so many more threats around, some of them truly horrible (IS and the Muslim problem in the Middle East), economic downturn in the EU, and so on, and it seems to me that I need to get a whole new handle on things. It all seems a lot more complicated than just simply ticking off to-dos on a list (get water filter; order heritage seeds; fit logburner, etc.), and I wonder if this doesn't warrant some rather more in-depth discussions as to what and how these newer threats are to be fielded.

I think we all had a view that economic collapse was a good possibility, and of course there are all the "natural" events, like quakes, floods, etc. to consider, but now we have cyberattacks; hacking; people being unliked on Facebook, and all sorts of other more "technical" problems to consider. Personally I rather liked BP's idea of reverting to the Amish way of life without the religion, but would that necessarily work in the face of all this modern stuff? I'm probably not explaining myself very well, but it all seems to be getting so technical...... I don't want a smart meter watching what I'm doing; I certainly don't want to control my heating by phone, and the thought of having my fridge lecture me about my eating habits does not amuse. It seems to me that a big problem is the invasion of privacy with a view to potential malice.

Any thoughts?
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