Friday, May 16, 2008

Old Fashioned Skills for Barter

Recently a group of online workers were asked what skills they had that they could barter with in a post-TEOTWAWKI world. Most answers reveal a practical understanding of old fashioned skills that will be valued. Unfortunately, there were a couple answers that caused some concern.

Answer 1: “I am a licensed psychotherapist. I am trained in crisis intervention counseling, Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, grief counseling and PTSD treatment. I believe I would be able to barter my services to help calm people down and reduce distress-related reactions which could otherwise be catastrophic.”

My Response: It is very unlikely that people who are scrambling to survive will have the time to sit down for counseling. Any type of therapy would have to wait until things settled into a semblance of normalcy…and that could take a long, long time.

Answer 2: I am able to get things I want by charming them with my charm. I would be able to get shelter and food by charming the locals, as well as using my intellect to convince them it is better to keep myself around than to not.

My Response: Male or female, this person is in for a rude awakening! Charm is NOT a skill; it is an excuse to avoid learning to be useful to society, which just makes such a person nothing but a leech. In a post-
TEOTWAWKI world, such leeches will either find themselves on the back end of a shovel digging latrines or flat on their back being used in a less-than-charming way.

My advice would be to consider developing old fashioned skills that would be worth something and make you a valuable asset to any group.

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