I am skeptical to the point of derision about prepping.
Why?
Because while the cold war raged, I was a survivalist!
Was?
You know the old adage about amateurs studying tactics and professionals studying logistics?
I studied logistics. I studied macro and micro economics.
It shattered a lot of illusions about an individual's ability to survive should society collapse around your ears.
You can prep for small disruptions in the supply chain. A couple months at most.
To go longer you have to be self sufficient. To be self sufficient, you have to be off the grid before the disaster that eliminates the supply chain happens.
That's a depressing thing to calculate. The math is cold equations stuff. Sustenance farming is bleak and basic. Your homestead will be overrun by those who made zero preparations.
Why?
Because you will have no idea if this is the Final Collapse™ or a temporary disruption of supply until it's far too late. For Final Collapse™ shooting anyone and everyone who comes into sight is the correct choice. It's legally indefensible if society comes back after a few months. Decide which, you have about a minute to read the tea leaves. Be destroyed by the locusts, or be destroyed by the reestablished law.
The sheer numbers competing for suddenly obviously scarce resources is astounding. The insanely large population density concentrated in Montana is only possible through an intricate system of overlapping supply and transportation systems. Montana. Not New York Fucking (spit) City. Montana. Let that sink in for a sec.
If it collapses everywhere and for good... You're fucked. We all are. It's particularly telling that someone who was pretty hard-core survivalist in the '80's, Jerry Pournelle, quit by the '90's.
Going low profile to survive a localized disaster is possible, and my hurricane box is proof that I do take prepping seriously to an extent. But it's a plan for a temporary disruption with an expected return of civilization. There is not a single colander in the kit.
If you're serious about this, convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Not only are they preparing for a total disruption that lasts forever, they are prepared to step in and substitute a new community where the old one fell.
Communities survive where individuals starve. Divide and conquer works, and Americans are perforated to be divided like stamps; doing a conqueror's work for them.
Click here to submit $0.00 US for a lifetime subscription
Posts
Comments
Yep you can prep for smaller less dramatic things. Major weather event knocking out power, closing the grocery store, making it not safe to leave your home. Bread winner losing a job, or needing to relocate to another area where one person will have secured a job and the other person needs to keep looking. The list goes on.
ReplyDeleteStill I take no credence in End-of-The-World type preppers. Hurricane Andrew and Katrina were terrible, but they weren't the end of the world, nor were the LA Riots. The 1918 flu pandemic, and the black plague were worse, and closer to such doomsday events.
Still the closer you get to "Doomsday" as they define it, the less you can prep for, and that defines it. If society doesn't recover from an event, chances are it is so bad, lots of hardcore preppers will be among the dead, and while some solid prepping will help, it definitively can't help everybody no matter how they try....if it does society will quickly bounce back.
One problem with being known for this sort of thing is, in the event of something going seriously pear-shaped, the guv'mint showing up and taking your supplies "to share with those in need."
ReplyDelete