In almost every resilience scenario I can imagine, there seems to be an intense need for people that can fix, repurpose, replicate, or build from scratch machines, systems, and tools. Essentially, hackers. They are needed in roles from maintenance of existing social activity to externally focused trade to local defense/offense. The implication is that if you don't have people in your community, group, gang, or tribe that can do this, you only have two options: either a bare bones existence (hardscrabble) or a predatory one. The reverse is also true. The better and more innovative your hackers are, the wealthier and safer your community will be.
Here's a hierarchy of resilience hacking:
- Fixers. People that can repair existing equipment to maintain its previous function. (these people are the staple of almost all disaster fiction).
- Makers. People that repurpose existing technology through the implementation of alterations to change its function. A corollary to Makers are people that improve existing products/systems (make them more powerful/better/faster).
- Creators. People that create new tools or unique systems from scratch using raw materials (think fab lab hacks).
I'm sure that others can come up with better terms or more refined descriptions. Suggestions are always welcome.
The brilliant writer, Bruce Sterling adds a category: wranglers. These are people that train "intelligent" machines to do new or unique things (under the assumption that computer intelligence, or connections via sensors/wireless to remote computer intelligence, will increasingly be added to everything that is built).
NOTE: the higher you go in the hierarchy, the greater the need for global communications and collaboration via open source networks. Also, in the communities that develop to support this activity, any and all existing copyrights, patents, DRM, etc. would be void out of necessity. It would therefore, by default, operate in direct opposition to an increasingly stagnant global status quo.
NOTE2: In global guerrilla warfare, all of the roles above constitute a small group's defense industry.