Questions about Toilets at The End of The World

It's been quite a few weeks...

Iran remains in a state of collapse, brought about by historic droughts, followed by floods, followed by a currency failure, followed by massive protests, followed by unprecedented violence, and then threats of military strikes from our own unhinged leader. Meanwhile, while criticizing Iran for human rights abuses, this same leader plunges an entire city into a state of terror and chaos, mainly to torment political rivals. What's happening in Minneapolis goes even further than what we saw back in 2020. This time, the Trump regime has purged their ranks and stacked them with loyal followers.

This time last year, our friends and neighbors were laughing off our predictions about martial law and military invasions.

Now, it's just normal.

Trump never needed to say the words "martial law" to make it a reality. He doesn't even truly need the National Guard. By flooding ICE with cash and hiring up thousands of MAGA goons, and arming them with assault weapons, Trump has in fact made his own personal paramilitary force. They're still finding their footing, but they've already crossed the red line of gunning down American citizens in cold blood, something also considered unthinkable just a few months ago, even though we've seen versions of this many times before. This year takes everything to new levels.

On top of all that, Trump's regime is now openly threatening to take Greenland by force if necessary. As we discussed recently, his donors yearn for the natural resources and raw materials they expect to come loose as the country undergoes global warming. This story isn't going away. It's official policy now.

The U.S. will start a war over a territory.

Just like old times...

For what it's worth, this might feel strange and new to many of us. But when we look at U.S. history, it's on brand. Our government is simply dispensing with the tired old excuses and justifications. It's taking off its mask.

It would make sense for a regime and its billionaire donors to drop all the pretense and facade at this point, given the stakes. As we've also discussed here a few times, billionaire tech bros have gone full throttle on the apocalypse. Many of them own bunkers, and they fantasize daily about using them.

They've gamified the collapse.

They already draw on the language and logics of gamer culture to deal with everything else in their lives. They describe ordinary people as "NPCs" (non-player characters) who have no real agency. They seem to be doing the same thing when it comes to the climate crisis, a disaster of their own making, and one they take very seriously now, even as they pretend not to care. They really do want to make new technologies of death and play with them like toys, from the safety of their bunkers.

It's hard to know what exactly will happen next, but it's not hard to see the general shape of things. More wars. More disasters. More invasions. More human rights abuses. More outrages and scandals. It's still entirely possible that this regime is already putting plans in place to rig the upcoming 2026 elections. Whatever happens next, it'll shock us at first. Then we'll remember that we saw it all coming years ago.

On a personal front, we spent the last week taking care of some basic housekeeping and organizing that I'd put off while working on the first part of the guide. It was long overdue. I've started outlining the next section, on cold winter gear and heatwaves, as well as brushing up on some information about composting toilets.

My thoughts on composting toilets:

You can make them as fancy as you want. But honestly, a composting toilet could be as simple as a couple of toilet buckets, biodegradable bags, and composting/covering material. For emergencies, a toilet bucket is the minimum, so you can use the bathroom even when you don't have running water. We have a couple.

Data centers have presented another wrinkle here. If one moves to a town near you, word on the street is that it can impact your water pressure so much that it renders your plumbing inoperable. So, composting toilets not only make sense from an emergency perspective, but from the perspective of governments and corporations just making our lives that much harder in the long run...

Most conventional composting toilet setups call for a small fan that doesn't require much electricity to run, but requires electricity nonetheless. Clearly, we could rig one up to run on solar power just like the small water pump. On the other hand, the guide will ultimately need a zero-electricity option for most of these ideas. I've seen at least a few compost toilet users say you don't truly need an exhaust fan if you use appropriate composting agents and cover material to absorb the smell.

If your bathroom already has an exhaust fan, I'm not sure you'd have to actually cut a hole in your wall for another one. Theoretically, you could just connect PVC pipe from the toilet and secure it to the fan outlet you already have. Of course, using an indoor composting toilet during any kind of longterm power outage could get smelly. But that could just mean you need to use more covering material and/or empty your toilet outside more often, which isn't the end of the world.

Hot composting human waste isn't terribly complicated. But doing it in a backyard in the suburbs could present some challenges, especially if you have an HOA, or neighbors who would start one if you caused too many problems.

It's also not terribly hard to build an outhouse, but again that plan runs into a problem longterm if you live in the suburbs. One outhouse hole fills up after a few years, and you have to dig a new one and then move the outhouse over it. How much of your backyard do you want to dig up and fill with poop, especially when you're also trying to grow food?

So, if you have any thoughts on that front...

Let me know.