Zatera Ul

Coffee Tea Books and Me has a good series up about taking steps off the financial grid, by learning how to do things yourself. Since they kind of relate to a series of predictions that I was planning to post, I thought I might as well get started.

First, a warning about predictions in general: They can be wrong. Sometimes very wrong. No one can take everything into account; present knowledge is terribly imperfect, and who knows what might spring into existence tomorrow. But most of what I am predicting is already starting to happen: “TSIAH!” means “This Stuff Is Already Happening!”; it is the cry of my skittish little internal danger-meter, whose job it is to start panicking early, and give warning while there is still time to take action.

Prediction One: Many more do-it-yourself activities will become illegal or impractical. Safety nazis pushing for new regulations, plus governments desperate to perk up their tax receipts and extend their regulatory reach, plus corporations who would like you to purchase their ready-made answers to your every need, plus trade associations lobbying for their members’ financial interests, plus financial outfits who are eager for opportunities to charge interest and fees at every turn, plus an educational system that now teaches hardly any useful skills at all, plus snobby losers who look down on the more self-sufficient as being low-class, plus media horror stories about how some do-it-yourself-er managed to achieve an EPIC FAIL!, equals considerable pressure to stick to the day job, and hire out everything else while you spend your evenings sitting slack-jawed in front of a screen. TSIAH! Look around!

I am particularly watching for initiatives against home canning and Linux.