My wife and I loved the Thrive movie. It was a mind opener!

I found the production a bit slick and contrived but the message I took from it was one that we can empower ourselves to shape a better outcome , of course I read that into it , that since it is a core premise I believe in anyways : )

Vortex power ? Hmm. But I have no doubt things like a solar Fresnel lens driven stirling engine exists ; that solar, wind, wave and geothermal all could be far better utilized but are browbeaten topics much as a manipulation to keep us resource dependant on companies in place . Speaking of corporate enterprise at all costs , have you guys seen this :

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob383.html

"The Obama Administration is allowing corporations like Dow AgroSciences, Cargill and DuPont, and industry trade groups like the Pork Producers Council and Tobacco Associates, Inc. – 600 of them in all – to weigh in on negotiations on two of the largest free trade agreements in world history.
Who doesn’t get a seat at the table? Consumers, farmers, even members of Congress. In fact, the President wants to “fast-track” the two agreements. That means Congress will be forced to vote on them, after they’ve already been finalized and signed, without benefit of the normal democratic checks and balances that include debate and the ability to introduce amendments."

Fire me a message on location of your land. I might be heading your way should the time come. Depends on where you are compared to where I am. I'm all for a commune lifestyle.

I believe that the chances of a non-religious communal lifestyle working are nil and the chances of a religious lifestyle working are slim. The reason for that is simple - sin.

You will have power struggles, infighting, backbiting, laziness, sexual misconduct, infidelity, dishonesty, stealing, etc. When it finally comes time to banish someone, or when someone decides to leave, there won't be enough trust to let them go alive - instead they will be perceived as a threat to opsec which someone will take care of with a bullet. Once the first person has been "taken care of", the spiral will continue.

Sin has brought this world to it's multiplicity of crises, and hiding out in a commune with other survivalists will magnify that reality.

That brings me to what I believe is the most central point of prepping and what makes me feel like an outsider here - namely that the underlying problem behind all others is sin and any amount of prepping will fall short without taking that fully into account.

Martha, what you are calling sin, I call evil, same basic idea though..

My mother always raised us to question everyone's intent, no one does anything good, or bad without intent, and to always consider everything that someone says to be false until proven true, and that those with power do what ever they need to do to keep it..

She also taught us to both step sideways and do our own paths while still fitting in enough to be passed by unnoticed when wanted.. or in other words to be able to both lead and follow as the situation requires.

sin or evil, that's true it is always there. but so is love, and love and good will triumph over evil. The north American Indians lived in harmony with the land and animals for 1000's of years. they had ways to deal with everything. So Martha please don't be so short sighted as far as (it will never work)

land finder, interestingly, I have read that there were instances where the native Indians did not live in harmony with the land and animals and depletions caused die offs of tribes or the need for a nomadic existence . They certainly never lived in harmony with one another either, lots of warfare and raiding between tribes and what is the root of that if they lived in harmony and abundance for 1000's of years ?

* for the record below a poster M590a1 quotes me and asks that I provide an alternative plan , and all I can suggest is you read for comprehension because I was not criticizing anyones plan. I was pointing out that scientists are discovering our ancestors, including the native American Indians as mentioned ( with whom I share Cree lineage ) did manipulate their environments and impact other species negatively in their time . I am offering a counter viewpoint to the one offered about the historical record of the native Indian living in harmony and balance. Human nature has maintained some consistency , in my perception, in our manipulation of the environments around us for our own benefit.

Land finder

I just don't agree with you at all. I don't think you're being realistic. Where's the hippie communes from the 60's? If they were so great and all the "luv" was flowing, what happened?

The only communal living situations that I currently know of that have a proven longevity are groups like the hutterites, menonites and some convents of religious sisters, as well as a few Jewish kibbutz's. And even there life is less than rosy.

We've reached an age when we can hardly tolerate living in close proximity with our family members, do you really think we can reach a harmony with strangers, even ones that seem friendly and like minded to begin with? My 56 years of life experiences make me extremely sceptical. Crash the technology, add hunger, cold, stress & sin and you'll have a recipe for anything but a harmonious living arrangement. All the idealistic hopes in the world will crash.

I believe we are in the direst need of supernatural help, we need a Savior and there's none amongst us that can fill that role completely, it will only be when we fully realize that and earnestly amend our lives that we will find any trustworthy security in these dark times.

Now, I've disagreed with you "bigly", but I hope I've done it with courtesy. I invite those who would like to take issue with my point of view to also do it with courtesy, otherwise I'll likely just stop posting as it's tremendously offputting to have sarcasm and cutting remarks volleyed back, I'm not suggesting that anyone has done that in this thread though - so far, so good!

Quote from the film, "Could I be wrong? Possibly; but what if I'm not..." Illuminati, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, etc. Perhaps this post should be in the "fringe" section of the Preppers Network?

Antsy

Martha and others, there are a lot of instances of communal success and some have been mentioned here. The key is to have rules, respect and values that all have to follow. THey can leave at anytime. Indians did, for the most part, live quite well together and respected the others territories. They did not trash the environment and left a small if any footprint. Nevertheless, our most basic communities were "communes" and yes there will be infighting at times, but there will processes to deal with it. It is better than the cities we are living in now and what is to come with chaos to come. Do you have better solutions people? Cutting it alone will be pretty difficult if not impossible. Antsy, perhaps you should do some research. Wake up.

Martha and others, there are a lot of instances of communal success and some have been mentioned here. The key is to have rules, respect and values that all have to follow. THey can leave at anytime. Indians did, for the most part, live quite well together and respected the others territories. They did not trash the environment and left a small if any footprint. Nevertheless, our most basic communities were "communes" and yes there will be infighting at times, but there will processes to deal with it. It is better than the cities we are living in now and what is to come with chaos to come. Do you have better solutions people? Cutting it alone will be pretty difficult if not impossible. Antsy, perhaps you should do some research. Wake up.

Land Finder,

I bow to your superior research skill and intelligence. The illuminati, secret cabals, massive depopulation strategies, a plot to destabilize the USA because of their freedom loving and gun loving ways, 911 as a false flag event, poisonous vaccinations, GMO foods as poison for the masses, and cancer prolongation as just plain meanness are all probably true... because, hey, if it's on the internet it has to be true! I'm sure I have missed so much more. Good luck with your commune; I'm certain you will be very prosperous and happy. Make sure you have an internet feed.

Antsy

LF

In about twenty minutes of "interweb research" I have found that no less than ten of the people interviewed in the Thrive film have disassociated themselves publicly with the film. ( http://theconversation.org/blog/tag/adam-trombly-proctor-and-gamble ). Several others have been publicly debunked. Now who's sleeping?

Antsy

Anyone know of any hippie luv communes that have a proven record of longevity? I don't.

Antsy's link is very good, quite a number of big name participants in Thrive have publicly gone on the record as not agreeing with it - that says a lot.

I clipped one quotation which ties in with my point of view, the person is referring to conspiriacy theories of wealthy families manipulating the economies and peoples of the earth:

"This way of thinking has an allure, for it distracts and absolves us from the troubling truth that the real source of the problem is in all of us, and in the economic systems we have collectively produced. If the ills of the world are the deliberate intentions of malevolent beings, then we don’t have to take responsibility for our problems because they are being done to us. Thinking this way may provide the momentary comfort of feeling exonerated, but it is ultimately disempowering, because it undermines our desire to be accountable for the way our own thoughts and actions help to create the environmental degradation and vast social inequity of the world in which we live. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart.”

Back to the position which I have tried to communicate, the problem is sin... yours, mine, ours. No one is exempt from being a part of the problem. We can't escape the problem in a commune, it will follow us there and likely be magnified in intensity.

Now, having said that, to land finders question of whether anyone has a better solution, I say yes, there is a better solution. But it's one that's overlooked because of it's commonality, plus it's received a lot of well deserved bad publicity in recent times. It is often dismissed and not followed because it places awful lot of uncomfortable demands on us which could crimp our lifestyles. It also humbles us and directs us to unpleasant behaviors like reserving sexual activity for true marriage, forgiving our enemies, a real commitment to help the poor and the marginalized, and a commitment to worshipping our Creator and abiding by his commandments. So it's not a popular solution but it is the real solution.

We need to amend our lives individually and collectively. We need to cry out for super- natural help because natural help is not enough. Relying on our own devices & ignoring the higher plan has brought these multitudinous threats to our horizon. We can't achieve stable security by ourselves. I believe prepping is incomplete if we don't have a grasp of the sin problem. And I don't just mean the outside sin problem, I mean the one that resides in me... and in you too.

Now if you want to discount what I say by referring to wars perpetrated in the name of religion or religious pedophiles or any other abuses of religion, well those are valid points, but let me just say that an abuse of a thing does not prove it's wrong, only that it can be misused. The abuse of discipline can become child abuse, the abuse of a gun can have tragic consequences, the abuse of food - not a pretty sight either. But these are abuses, and do not disprove that these things have legitimate capacities for good as well. Having said that - religion belongs in a category of it's own because it is not just useful for harmonious living, but it's real value lies in whether it's real & objectively true. I don't want to follow a useful fairy tale, I want to abide by the truth.

It's not so much that religion has been tried and found wanting, rather religion has been tried and found difficult, and thus compromised or cast aside. (Either GK Chesterton or CS Lewis said something to that effect.)

Martha has a point regarding peoples use of the atrocities committed by organized religion as a tool to disprove a religions veracity. The responsibility of proof does not lay with those trying to argue against religion since one cannot prove a negative. It is up to the adherents of a supernatural faith to prove the truth of their claims. While it hasn't been done yet, one can still be hopeful. For myself, religion has to withstand the scrutiny of science and of Occam's razor.

Antsy

Possible explanations can become needlessly complex. It is coherent, for instance, to add the involvement of Leprechauns to any explanation, but Occam's razor would prevent such additions, unless they were necessary.