What if the economy just stopped? I’m building a site to find out how we’d cope
Quick heads up before anything else: this is fiction. The collapse in this post is made up. Nothing is actually falling apart, so don’t panic.
Okay. So here’s the idea I can’t stop thinking about.
Imagine you wake up one day and the economy is just… gone. Not a bad recession. Gone. Cash is worthless, the shops are empty, the supply trucks don’t show up, and nobody is coming to fix it. What do you do on day one? What about day thirty?
I tried to answer that honestly and I got stuck pretty fast. I know how to order food on my phone. I know how to pay a bill. I do not know how to grow enough food to live on, build a shelter that lasts, or fix a tool when it breaks without buying a new one. That’s a little embarrassing, and it’s also kind of fascinating.
So I’m building a thing
A whole site built around a made-up world where the economy has collapsed. Two layers:
The story. A timeline of how it all fell apart, plus “field journal” entries from people trying to get through it. Small stories, nothing epic. Just people figuring stuff out.
The guides. This is the part I’m most excited about. Real, practical how-tos on the things you’d actually need:
- Growing food: soil, saving seeds, composting, preserving what you harvest, keeping small animals
- Water: collecting it, cleaning it, storing it
- Building: foundations, earthen walls, timber frames, thatched roofs
- Tools and materials: basic blacksmithing, making rope, working with clay, lime, and charcoal
- Primitive systems: fire, cooking, heating, sanitation, lighting without the grid
- Herbal and traditional medicine: what people have used, what works, what doesn’t
- Trading and community: how you swap skills and goods when money means nothing
The rules I’m setting for myself
The story is fiction. The guides are not, so I want them to be right.
That matters most for the medicine stuff. Herbal and traditional remedies are interesting, but plenty of claims out there are shaky, and some plants have toxic lookalikes that can really hurt you. So if I can’t back something up, I’ll say so instead of guessing. And none of it replaces a real doctor. Fun idea, serious topic.
Same goes for everything else: I’ll point out where I’m unsure, and where the best method depends on where you live. Farming in a tropical place is a totally different game from farming somewhere cold.
Why bother?
Honestly, curiosity. Even if the world never collapses (hopefully it doesn’t), knowing how things are made and how to fix them feels like a superpower we quietly gave up. I want to get some of that back, and I’d like to learn it in public.
I’ll probably get things wrong along the way. That’s part of it.
Your turn
Where should I start? Food? Water? Shelter? Something weird I haven’t thought of? And if you’ve got real experience with any of this, farming, building, herbal stuff, I’d love to hear from you.
First guide coming soon.