At seventy-seven, living on a tugboat in Sausalito, [Stewart] Brand is less impressed by signs of fragility than by examples of resilience. In the past decade, the world survived, without violence, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression; Ebola, without cataclysm; and, in Japan, a tsunami and nuclear meltdown, after which the country persevered. He sees risks in escapism. As Americans withdraw into smaller circles of experience, we jeopardize 'the larger circle of empathy,' he said, the search for solutions to shared problems. 'The easy question is, How do I protect me and mine? The more interesting question is, What if civilization actually manages continuity as well as it has managed it for the last few centuries? What do we do if it just keeps on chugging?'
From Evan Osnos' excellent (and infuriating) New Yorker story on how the super-rich are preparing for the fall of civilization.
Related:
Evan Osnos discussing Silicon Valley preppers on Fresh Air.
Access to Tools: Publications from the Whole Earth Catalog, 1968-1972.
