> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://brick-society.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Brick Society 41: Building in the Time of Tornadoes - URL: https://brick-society.ghost.io/brick-society-41-building-in-the-time-of-tornadoes/ - Published: 2026-10-23T18:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T18:00:02.000Z - Description: We are all trying to figure out how to build something lasting in this time of tornadoes. - Author: Nick Anderson - Tags: Newsletter I grew up in the suburbs of the Texas Hill Country, and would watch new construction projects materialize in chunks as I rode my bike around on the weekends. First, I would notice that a familiar patch of open field had been pressed flat. The next week it would be filled with a grey sea of concrete, half-heartedly fenced off with tape to keep me and my friends from writing our names in it (a rudimentary form of client-side security, which proved ineffective against our penetration testing). Even from this early stage I could see the plan clearly - the rectangular lots where homes would be built, ripples of curb-cuts that pooled into four-way stops and (if we were lucky) bike lanes. The vision was fixed and was being executed upon as fast as the machinery of bureaucracy would allow. This is how modern suburbs are built - all together, to completion, and sorely in debt. Our city planners would now hope for two very important conditions to be met: 1. That people move in and begin to bring value through property taxes, and 2. That they had anticipated the neighborhood’s needs correctly, so that nothing would need to be changed. Anyone who has built something of significant scale knows the hubris of “The Project Plan”. It’s necessary, and at the same time a bit of a joke. No amount of user research will insulate you from the chaotic force of humanity, nor will the hours spent with a single language or software platform protect you from the new use cases and requirements that you won’t discover for another several months. Similarly, no amount of city planning can protect a brand new subdivision from, say, a tornado. My family was lucky - while the experience of hiding from a tornado underneath a green-blue sky is quite frightening, our house remained untouched aside from a few random branches deposited into our front yard. The Albertsons we’d shopped at just a day before had been bifurcated; shoppers had survived by jumping into the coffin-shaped freezers alongside pints of ice cream and microwave dinners. Can city planners build tornadoes into the plan? [**Kind of**](https://www.iccsafe.org/building-safety-journal/bsj-hits/the-creation-of-the-first-tornado-resistant-building-codes/?ref=brick-society.ghost.io). Could Adobe consider the possibility that [**the AI they were forcing onto users**](https://community.adobe.com/questions-9/stop-enabling-ai-on-updates-1304081?ref=brick-society.ghost.io) would be used to [**reverse engineer their own product and distribute it for free**](https://futurism.com/future-society/adobe-creative-suite-software-open-source-artcraft?ref=brick-society.ghost.io)? It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility. But to build for such a specific possibility when you already have the weight of a gigantic machine of capital beset upon you is a tough argument for a single person to make. While the results of both examples will be catastrophic, I don’t see anyone getting fired for unanticipated tornadoes or sudden advances in decompiling. Before the post-war boom, neighborhoods were built with much less long-term strategy. Someone would find a stream, and build a cabin near it. If the spot was good, others would build their own homes nearby, and when those homes reached a certain density, someone would open a general store, or a bar, adding momentum to the fledgling community. There was no “plan”, other than finding a place to survive, and yet that was an efficient motivator for the neighborhood. It demanded collaboration - agreeing on property lines where there were no pre-built fences, facing your home towards a main street to prevent crime and better keep track of the neighborhood children. These neighborhoods could also be destroyed by tornadoes. I don’t mean to imply that by building slowly and intentionally you can avert the forces of nature - simply that the risk is inherently much lower, and more distributed. When a tornado destroys a one-story cabin, its a lot easier to rebuild than three dozen closely-packed McMansions. Storm shelters can be added, private or communal. When a neighborhood is built with adaptation in mind, plans are allowed to change suddenly, and no one has to be asked first (the US wouldn’t see its first formalized HOA until 1916). The Albertsons in my home town was shaped like every other one in the country, just like I lived in a neighborhood that looks just like yours did, with the same storm drains that you started crossing the street to avoid after seeing IT a little too young. Everything was the same everywhere because it worked. Most of the time. But when times are unprecedented - as they have been for about a decade - it’s adaptation that saves us. Like using grocery story freezers as personal mecha armor. We are all trying to figure out how to build something lasting in this time of tornadoes. For me it often feels like combing my fingers through playground sand searching for some solid shape, something familiar I dropped into a topology that changes daily - more sand, more sand, everything buried and heavy. Small things will get lost the fastest, but won’t be destroyed by the pressure - tiny marbles in the grain, waiting for a passing hand to grasp them. --- # This week: Clubs, old and new. We're talking decentralized web, browser game-making, portfolios in the time of no-one-gives-a-shit, and more. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ef/eb/efebc875-7734-49d8-8018-90381b3bccad/content/images/2026/10/ClubBadges.jpg)](https://bricksociety.mn.co/landing/?ref=brick-society.ghost.io) Find a club, find your people. Full members get to do all the coolest shit. [Join the Club(s) - First Month Free ](https://bricksociety.mn.co/landing/?ref=brick-society.ghost.io) --- # Just So You Know ## [The Atomic Priesthood](https://www.theatomicpriesthoodproject.org/?ref=brick-society.ghost.io) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ef/eb/efebc875-7734-49d8-8018-90381b3bccad/content/images/2026/10/Wilson--Bryan--Image-07.webp) Where's the sign up form Sometimes, longterm planning actually *is* necessary. The nuclear waste we’ve buried around the world will be radioactive for another 10,000 years, leaving us with the onerous task of finding a way to warn whoever’s still around not to disturb the burial sites. In 1981, the US Department of Energy commissioned a “Human Interference Task Force” (HITF) that would examine the possibilities of how to maintain the security of nuclear waste storage sites for 10,000 years, a period during which our civilization would likely perish, but the dangerous nature of nuclear waste would persist. One option that was discussed was the establishment of an “atomic priesthood,” which would use a "folkloric relay system" to create and preserve a common cultural narrative of the hazardous nature of nuclear waste sites. No, I don’t know why they decided to make it spooky - but I LOVE it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ef/eb/efebc875-7734-49d8-8018-90381b3bccad/content/images/2026/10/08a.webp) The mask stays on during symbolically anonymous rituals Aside from this inter-generational coalition of Scooby Doo villains, there are lots of other incredible ideas for how to communicate danger to future generations, like through [**Menacing Earthworks**](https://www.thebeliever.net/menacing-earthworks/?ref=brick-society.ghost.io). The basic idea is to create monuments so scary that humans will not want to explore them. So far, most of what they’ve come up with look like Dark Soul bosses, which would have the opposite effect on me: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ef/eb/efebc875-7734-49d8-8018-90381b3bccad/content/images/2026/10/twodudes.jpg) You know you're getting at least 15k souls from these two If you’re looking for a fun creative prompt, try to come up with your own menacing earthwork concepts. What objects, visuals, or other physical constructs can generate a feeling of danger stronger than our own curiosity? What materials would stand up to erosion long enough to still be legible? And most important, how do we [keep it from inspiring the tech bros](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/386/534/fd2.jpg?ref=brick-society.ghost.io)? --- > "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly" ​​​​​​​​— G.K. Chesterton --- ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Mortality is the price we pay for the privilege of living, \- Nick Anderson [**BrickSociety.org**](https://bricksociety.org/?utm%5Fsource=luma) [**@brick.society**](https://www.instagram.com/brick.society/?utm%5Fsource=luma) [**Join the Collective**](https://bricksociety.mn.co/landing/?utm%5Fsource=luma) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ef/eb/efebc875-7734-49d8-8018-90381b3bccad/content/images/2026/10/357365289_9b69bc4f7a_o-1-2.jpg) ## You're Missing the Party. Free weekly newsletters with Creative Tech content from outside the industry bubble. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.