I recently downloaded a bit torrent of that name. It had engineering, survival, medical, gardening, physics, and chemistry books all in pdf form. I looked through them and for a start; I think the count was far short of 7,000. It was more like 1,000 or so, to be generous. After looking at the titles and reading a bit of a few of them, I dumped all but three or four. The rest of those books were useless to me.
Why they were useless came down to a whole lot of reasons. The first reason was duplication. Of the books in the survival category, I had seen all but one small pamphlet previously. The sad fact is that much of the same information (and often disinformation) churns around endlessly on the internet. Once you’ve done a bit of research, you’ll find the same old stuff popping up over and over.
Many of them were useless because they were military manuals. While the military does produce much good information, knowing how to set up anti-aircraft artillery in the mountains is going to be of very limited use to me here on the prairies. Additionally, many of the manuals refer to equipment and weapons I’ll likely never possess. So the care and feeding of the M1 Abrams tank is not really a relevant subject.
Many others were useless due to their age. While I might someday have time to master early 1800’s level chemistry, I doubt that it will be either quick or easy. Trying to reproduce the equipment mentioned, learning the names of things and ingredients, and master the techniques of an archaic manual will be time consuming, frustrating and likely dangerous. Not to mention that some of the knowledge is just plain wrong or hazardous. We no longer see arsenic as a medical ingredient, for example.
That is not to say that all of the books I looked at were archaic. In the medical section there were dozens of up to date texts, full of excellent information. What good that book on radiology is to me without the X-ray, CAT, or MRI scanners, I don’t know. Perhaps I can develop X-ray vision if I squint hard enough. Even many basic procedures refer to equipment I’ll likely not have.
That was the issue with many of the books in the medical, engineering, chemistry and physics sections. They were useless without modern plants and the equipment they contain. There is no use having the pdf. for a Machinist’s Handbook without the lathe to go along with it.
Finally there was the issue of size. Yes, size does matter, especially when it comes to information. Many of these texts were well over 500 pages long. Some books were even longer. The ability of a person to absorb and retain useful knowledge from even one lengthy book is limited, never mind several hundred. While I believe preppers are smart people, I think most of us have our hands full with the basics, plus trying to develop a bit of expertise in one or two other areas.
Finally, I have issues with electronically stored information. You might be a genius able to build a generator out of an eggbeater and a bit of copper wire if only you could read up on it, but it does you no good if you can’t access the information because EMP has fried your computer or the power grid is down. Sadly, printing out and storing hundreds of books that are each hundreds of pages long isn’t a reasonable option for most of us.
My advice is to not worry about having ALL of the information. Make sure you have good BASIC texts (on paper!) for gardening, cooking and canning, medical, and whatever other areas you feel are really essential. Don’t bother trying to amass a bunch of useless knowledge that is dependent on our present highly complex and interdependent society. DON”T try to become Heinlein’s superman, you just don’t have time enough to learn everything about everything. DO try to develop one or two skills that you can barter for other skills, but don’t go crazy.
Most of all, remember that beyond a certain point, reading and thinking about preparedness is NOT getting you prepared for anything. Get away from the computer and do what you’ve read about. Learn how to use a compass, practice some carpentry, get practical experience in gardening, take a course and store some supplies. You have enough information to do that right now!
Originally posted august 31, 2010 @ MPN
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