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by Linda Kaidan
I’ve just watched Season 1 of Mr Robot – free on Amazon Prime. The plot revolves around a tiny group of hackers who bring world banking to a halt by rendering their corporate data inaccessible, encrypting it with a virtually unbreakable key. As a result, all the economies in the world go bust simultaneously and everyone is free of debt, but without currency alternative. Will chaos follow when there is life without cash?
Surviving Economic Crisis
This plot seems likely to occur in real life – possibly at any moment. New quantum computers are millions of times faster than those widely used today and probably very effective at breaking the most sophisticated computer security measures. Destabilization of major economies can also be driven by climate change disasters like coastal flooding, famine and disease.
Business Insider offers a solution that replaces our current monetary system with one based on water or energy. Since these are basic resources used by virtually everyone, this makes lots of sense. Global banking disaster can be prevented right now and we should not wait for the inevitable hacker or cataclysmic event to make it so.
Taking Charge of Economic Stability at Community Level
We don’t have to be passive onlookers in the economic stabilization process. We can be proactive on the community level by producing local energy in our villages, towns and cities, securing a reliable water supply through rainwater harvesting, recycling water and plain old living in the right place.
Smart early first century people like the Nabateans lived in the desert, but managed to support a thriving agricultural community by effectively harvesting rainwater and storing it in cisterns below ground. Today, desert residents in New Mexico generate sufficient water for their homes with only 8 inches of rain per year. They manage this miracle by harvesting and reusing just about all the rainwater they get, transforming their homes into tiny oasis capable of offering year round comfortable temperature, sufficient water even for flush toilets and producing lovely interior and exterior gardens.
In Herkimer, NY we have endless fresh water and a history of generating clean hydro, solar and wind energy. We are in an ideal location to become a stable, sustainable community should disaster strike. But we are not there yet. Let’s make our community independent and sustainable now so that we’ll have basic needs like food, water and energy covered even when chaos reigns.
