Starting a superstructure is only the beginning. The real task is envisioning what it can do, how it will work, and who you need to work with. If you're not a member, consider joining now. If you are a member, be bold, jump in, and use the superstructure to start organizing for survival. Edit it, add to the vision, and make it real, online and off. And don't forget to rave.

More about Superstructures

  • Homestead-In-A-Box

    For when you really, Really want to live by yourself
  • Founder: Josh

    quarantine, ravenous, self-sufficiency, Power Struggle, self-reliant, homestead,

  • Who We Need

    We need to cull information from several of the Superthreats - primarily Quarantine, Ravenous, and Power Struggle.  The emphasis must be on bootstrapping and self-sufficiency; some of these communities will want little to no trade or interaction with the outside world.  As time goes on they will adapt to the particulars of their situation, but the more generic the know-how can be, the better they can survive the first few years until they can customize.

    We need to consider distribution as well.  Holograms, augmented reality, and wikis are all fine and good, but many HIAB sites may not have or want network access.  Dead tree format will be a requirement, meaning we need to consider how the document is updated (and updates distributed) as our knowledgebase grows.

  • How to join
  • Mission

    With all the disruption and upheaval in 2019, for some there is no greater priority than to live an ideologically autonomous life.  To live according to the mores, strictures, and rules they have chosen - be they religious or secular beliefs.   This is not a new concept; the ability to break from society to pursue a different, incompatible way of life from the parent group.  This ancient "social safety valve" needs to be updated for today's concerns.

    Homestead-In-A-Box is an attempt to compile and aggregate all the ideologically-neutral information available on how to best bootstrap a self-sufficient homestead/community.  Food production, power generation, medical care, shelter construction, and more things we need to brainstorm.  Make no mistake - the material quality of life in a HIAB will be quite low, and survival far from certain.  But the need for autonomy can be powerful, and the world needs to accomodate those who are willing to pay whatever the cost so long as they can live alone in the manner they see fit.

  • What we can accomplish

    • This doesn\\\\\\\'t have to just be a dead tree edition filled with knowledge. I might suggest that we make an actual KIT for starting out. It might start with a hexayrt for shelter, seeds and tools for gardening, a water filtrations system capable of handling enough for the people and livestock and gardening needs for a small family, a composting toilet, etc.

       Such a toolkit would be really useful in dealing with refugee situations, as you could issue them as disaster relief. - PlatonicJensen

      There\'s probably virtue in both the Book (knowledge repository) and the Box (survival kit).  The difference I see between HIABox and the refugee kit is that one is about transient, short-term, mobile survival; whereas the other is about laying the groundwork for continuous habitation of your place.  At most, including the kit would be about weathering short-term crises, and probably not more than one or two.  It\'s important that the Box and Book send a message that you\'re in it for the long haul, and autonomy means being able to handle everything yourself.

  • How this superstruct works

    • I'd like to identify Superstructures that can serve as components of the HIABook or HIABox.  We've got a couple already, more would be great.  Please let the originating SS know that we'd like to incorporate them into this project.

      As we start to accumulate a body of knowledge and materials, let's start talking about how the Book and Box would be created and distributed.  Where will the resources come from, particularly when we're talking about the Box?

  • Other information
  • Discuss this superstructure

    • The interesting potential of this super-structure is that if worst come to worst and the human civilization was to collapse (as in no more governement, power grid, etc), the chances of the species surviving are enhanced by having a multitude of small group being able to self-sustained themselves. Many variables will influence whether or not each individual group survive, but as a whole some of them would fair good, some of them not as much.

       I like to reflect that homo sapiens sapiens, as a specie, as existed for about 100,000 years, mostly in small tribes/cultures probably looking like what Explorers would have met when they travel through the pre-european North America, and apparently those community were, overall, able to survive quite well for what would now be approximately 100,000-minus-about-500 years.

       History and traditional knowledge has a lot to show us in these time of uncertain future

       

      Instead of a dead-tree book, how about a "plastic" book (i.e. cradle to cradle) whose pages can be wiped and re-written when new information emerges.

       

      I think one of the biggest issues in homesteading (and I personally have known quite a few cold skinny homesteaders over the past 20 years or so) is willingness to ask for help and readiness to share knowledge resources.  Consider joining and moderating a local EDUCYCLE.  Those of us with homesteading knowledge are willing to share it, sometimes we just need to know there is a need.  You cannot learn it in a book.  The biggest drawback to the internet - from my perspective - is that people get used to the isolation and figure it can replace P2P interaction.  You learn to milk a goat by milking a willing well behaved goat.  You find that goat through other homesteaders and then you end up with a shoddy goat of your own and you learn the hard way as you develop a relationship.  But no book will help you milk that shoddy real life goat.  Same with gardening, same with erecting a yurt and getting through a wind storm in a yurt. 

       

      The most important parts of homesteading successfully is the ability to get fromn the outside the parts that inevitably fail.  We need to figure out a good way to keep the people who use homestead in a  box and homestead in a book connected to each other.  Perhaps the best way to encourage both knowledge sharing and actual equipment sharing would be to maintaina web presence that listed the recipients of all the boxes/books so they can contact each other.  It might even be good to provide more help to everyone who lists what they can share then people who do not list themselves.  - the bedells

       

      One challenge for this superstruct is that homesteading styles are highly depndent upon environmental conditions. Homesteading in Arizona and homesteading in New England are very different physical challenges. We can certainly think about different kits for different bio-spheres. We can also think of core principles that are broadly applicable--a Sun Tzu's Art of War for homesteading. 

       

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  • Other superstructures we are collaborating with
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