airforce, neither is the author a Luddite. He is not opposed to technology. His point is that, when we use technology connected to or reliant on the grid, we must ask ourselves that we won't have it in a collapse. If possible, and if it's something we feel we need, are there pre-electricity ways of achieving the same thing? He calls himself an agrarian separatist, and I read just today that he home churches as well as home schools.

Most people who plan for when the PHTF are actually not planning to survive. They're planning to make it over the hump until things return to "normal." A solar system, generators, windmills, batteries, etc. will last only so long. If the P continues to HTF for a long time, this kind of preparedness won't help; it will only delay being affected by a collapse.

The author points out that everything we need to survive is readily available to us, but because of our dependence on electricity, we have forgotten how to make use of them. Our ancestors knew, for example, how to make a house that stayed cool in the summer in the southern states before grid-supplied air conditioning. Before electricity, our ancestors knew how to store vegetables for long periods of time. These are a couple of examples.

He also points out that, if we're thinking that we'll "make the switch" when the PHTF, that won't work. He stresses that one should make the move now to that lifestyle so that, much like the Amish, we wouldn't notice or care if the grid went down or food stopped getting trucked to the grocery stores or gasoline went to $27 per gallon.

One of the more appealing aspects (to me) of making the switch is the cost savings. Done right, one wouldn't need to work a mind-numbing job for 40 hours of every week.