If society collapsed tomorrow, would you know how to make bread? Weave? work metals? Make alloys? Plant crops, husband animals? If there were no pharmaceuticals, do you know what plants and herbs can be used to treat pain, stomach problems, high blood pressure, infection?

How do you set a broken leg? How do you make glass? or a bow and arrow? Skin a rabbit? Make a compost heap?

Can you navigate by the stars? Do you know what food stuffs are lying around in the ground that we choose not to eat, but could eat if we wanted to?

If you answered yes to all these questions, then you are either Lugh of the Long Arm or a Big Fat Liar whose mother wears army boots.

'Civilized' Society tends to lose its bootstrap quite quickly, because it is no longer neccessary to know these things. Other people know them. Usually people in what we call 'developing countries' where they will make our sneakers for a dollar a day.

The average westerner has no clue how to do this shit. Even in America's breadbasket, there are three ring binders for just about everything, $250,000 combine harvesters, advanced fertilizers and cheap mexican labor doing all the work.

The bootstrap project is an attempt to collect basic information needed for survival and regrowth of a community.

There probably isn't a lot of point in storing it on a computer, except while preparing it. Ultimately it needs to be made into a hard copy. Preferably lots of hard copies.

The reason I think we need this, is that I believe we are heading for what is techinically know as a OSWHATPG event.

In longhand this stands for 'Oh Shit, Where Have All the People Gone?'

The exact cause of this is still to be determined, but fits three criteria:

1) It is a natural phenomena
2) It is a periodic phenomena
3) It is a bitch to try and live through.

The most likely causes that fit this criteria are:

a) A long period stellar object such as a comet, asteroid or meteor that either impacts, sideswipes or otherwise acts upon the Earth.

b) A shift in the Lithosphere. This may possibly triggered by (a), or may occur without external influence.

The time frame for this is as little as eight years (late 2010), and as many as 26 (2030).

(a) is actually the preferable choice, since we would know about it a year to eighteen months in advance, and it would be over quickly.

(b) sucks big hairy gorilla nuts, because it is traumatic, sudden, and once it starts it goes on for years.

In other words, (a) has a higher survival probability.

So I need to start working on a bootstrap. I should probably start working on my abs and bow making skills also...