I’ve been watching the series Doomsday Preppers; which shows Americans preparing to ‘bug out’, or abandon civilisation after some imagined catastrophe brings down society as we know it. People on it must have spent millions on their preparations. The conceit of the show is that their preparations are rated for effectiveness in a doomsday scenario.
If I ever met anyone like that over here I’d think they’d been watching a few too many Bear Grylls videos yet there’s no shortage of applicants and the activities are treated as perfectly normal, even admirable.
How many Americans have this apocalyptic outlook and survivalist mentality? What do people think of those who spent their time, money and effort preparing for the rather unlikely total collapse of the United States? How common is it?
It’s a matter of Mormon theology to be prepared like that, in addition to the doomsdayers.
Not so much to ‘bug out’ but more hunkering down, I guess. Same difference.
Cumulatively, I mean; particularly on weapons and ‘bug out’ locations; shelters with supplies (solar panels and water purification especially I imagine don’t come too cheap).
Solar panels? Meh. If I have that kind of infrastructure, I’ll take a diesel generator.
Total number of really crazy end-of-world people: quite small.
Reasonably prepared for a period of hard times, like if the power plant is hit by a meteor? Still quite small.
The idea that the world/nation/whatever is about to collapse and it’ll be total chaos is common enough that I’ve met/talked to/had friends-of-friends who are like that, but it’s still a pretty fucking low percentage, and it’s treated as a joke by the rest of us. Even among those people it’s not like they’re actually doing anything about it. None of them are looking into buying land in the woods or signing up for survival classes as far as I know. They’re more conspiracy nuts in general than survivalists or whatever. I’ve never met or known anyone else who’s met anyone who’s actually prepping for the collapse beyond maybe buying guns which they ultimately just end up using to shoot at shit in the desert.
Even in California, land of earthquakes, most people don’t have so much as a bugout bag. I have a backpack in my car with a change of clothes, some soap, first-aid kit, things like that, but that’s mostly for if I get something on me and need to change when I’m out in the wild, or I get a cut. It’s not because I expect civilization to fall.
It’s considerably more prevalent than the above posters seem to think, in some states (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Dakotas, etc) survivalists make up a rather large amount of the population. In others, not so much. You’ll mainly see them in states with a large conservative (particularly libertarian) lean, active militia movements, etc. Some of the key tenants of survivalism are to be far away from a population center, and not advertise that you’re doing it, so they’re not people you’ll often come across and even when you do, you probably wouldn’t know it. There’s quite a lot of variation in ideology, the ones that build shelters are a subset of a much larger overall survivalist mentality.
That said, I think life in America is too comfortable for most, people go about their lives without a care in the world and barely know what to do with themselves if the power goes out for 15 minutes, let alone an actual disaster occur. After all, the government will rescue them. Right? Right?
While I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to be prepared for local types of natural disasters or to be able to tough out 3-7 days without power or whatever, most Americans aren’t even that prepared, much less ready to be actual “preppers”.
Me, I have food and water on hand in the event of tornado or blizzard, I even have provisions for an emergency toilet (Groundhog Day blizzard when the septic line froze prompted that little item) but for actual collapse of civilization? Pfffft!
How common? It’s pretty much the province of loons, cranks and assorted nuts. Nobody in their right mind is actually seriously preparing for the end of civilization.
However, emergency preparedness is not uncommon at all; I think you’d be hard pressed to find reasonably non-idiotic people who live in blizzard or hurricane prone areas who don’t have a moderate store of non-perishable food, as well as plans for how to handle said calamities.
I know one guy, and he’s crazy.
The kind of guy who collects guns, believes in juicing, random vitamins, home remedies, aliens, filtering everything, and water ionizing systems. The police are here to keep you down. Everyone is corrupt. They’ve got a cure for cancer and aids hidden away. If the scientists tell you it doesn’t do anything, then he’s sure it does something.
He hasn’t spent millions, but he had spent over 100,000 getting a condo “perfect” before losing it to his ex-girlfriend. So his spending range in getting ready for some sort of collapse is around that much.
I imagine most of the others fall into the far more reasonable camp of simply being prepared to live off the grid for a small while, but there’s a small subset like the guy above.
People who would like to be hard core Mad Max survivalists? Many. People who actually do anything about it besides watching tv? None I know of. Some people own rabbits and grow their own tomatoes. Does that count?
I have about a week’s worth of food, and a reasonable amount of water…and other supplies. But that’s my hurricane kit, and only exists during the hurricane season. At the end of the season, I eat some of the food, and donate the rest of it to local food banks.
When you live on the coast in Florida you’re an idiot if you don’t have a hurricane kit. Candles, matches, flashlights and batteries, portable camp stove (I’ve got this great little one that simply screws onto the top of the small propane bottles) obviously I also have extra propane for both the grill and the camp stove. Food and water for 3 or 4 days, and a neat little gadget – a power inverter so that we can use the cars for electricity to run a fan, coffee maker, charge the cell phones, etc. all of this takes up one large shelf in he linen closet.
Now, if we actually have to leave in a hurry, we’re prepared to grab the Time Capsule (hard drive), the Rubbermaid tub with the family photos, the dog, dog food and our meds.
As for the survivalists, hey, it’s their money, they can do anything they want with it. And I do think millions and millions are spent. I remember as a kid our next door neighbors built a bomb shelter. I bet it cost the guy a year’s pay.
I can see the San Andreas fault from my kitchen window. We have bugout bags in every vehicle, 1st, 2nd and 3rd stage kits wherever we are likely to be, and supplies for at least three weeks without support.
Quite true. But the total population of Wyoming is smaller than many US cities, so as an overall number it’s still small.
And there’s a longstanding tradition of self-sufficiency in the West that overlaps with this a bit.