Of course you can lose. What’s the likelihood that a cow or a goat will save you from starvation in the face of civil unrest? Very very slim. What’s the likelihood that keeping a cow or a goat around will be more of a pain than a benefit to your daily life? Not nearly as implausible.
Keeping livestock could be a huge liability under an oppressive government. Especially a communist one, where there is no private ownership. All the cadre would have to do is consult the tax records and know you’ve got assets to “distribute”. Even if your stock aren’t registered, all it takes is one snitching neighbor to blow things for you. Funny how the cadre–with their guns and tanks–always seem to bring out the snitches.
The best way to deal with a violent government take-over is to get your ass out of Dodge.
Those are fine barter goods, and I’ve never heard of anyone who kept bullion against eventualities who didn’t also stock at least two of the categories you mention.
But again, barter goods are mostly useful for trading with people who need those goods, and have what you need. Third-party and more-distant exchanges quickly become cumbersome. Why should I take your ammo when I not only have plenty of my own already, but would need to travel many miles to find someone who needs some–who in turn can only give me something else I don’t personally need, and would have to travel still farther to unload? If only there were a widely-understood medium of exchange–something easier to store and carry than all the goods it can be translated to?
Actual nonindustrial societies solved this problem thousands of years ago. I don’t know why some people are so attached to deriding the idea of the same solutions being called upon again to fill the same needs.
As I said, there are extreme, apocalyptic scenarios in which the very concept of money does not apply–but you have to be crazy or something to think that there are no futures in between happy technological industrialism and the scavenger-wasteland.
I just GAVE an example, in real life- where people managed to NOT starve to death because they had livestock! and you claim it would not work! I just gave a real, factual example!! People starved- to death! this guy had a cow, and lived. He said that had he not HAD that cow, he would not be in that place talking to the camera. People still manage to hold on to their dignity even in extreme situations- just because you are very hungry does not mean you will murder your neighbor for his milk. Why does everyone think that society in desperate situations will be tearing their hair out and massacring everyone in their path?
My wife’s family got an all-expenses paid seven year trip to Siberia, courtesy of the Commies. When they were finally allowed to return to Ukraine, they came back to widespread poverty and wartime devastation that took decades to repair. Having a goat or a cow or a few chickens was a BIG DEAL in both Siberia and Ukraine for many years. Pigs were valued too, but less so than animals that could provide a continuing supply of food rather than simply be slaughtered and eaten. One of her grandfathers kept bees and the honey he harvested was valuable as food and as a barter item.
I agree that we have too many people who see the only possibilities as happy high tech or blasted wasteland.
Where am I going to keep a cow? I live in the suburbs, keeping livestock is prohibited by law. Oh, I should buy a little farm out in the country? Uproot my life in order to live somewhere I can maintain cows? Take the time to feed cows that I’ll, in all likelihood, never, ever need? Now we’re back to unreasonable preparations. I might as well just make some foreign contacts at that point.
Listen, I get that it’s cool to think about returning to pioneer days and living off the land and making cool shelters and stuff. Little kids have played out that scenario for generations. And it’s cheap and easy to do so. However…
It’s a patently ridiculous scenario. Just think back to your own family. I’ve never experienced a disaster that’s lasted more than a few days. My folks the same. Their folks experienced World War II, but no amount of ‘prepping’ would have helped them.
The sort of societal collapse that they are prepping for just doesn’t happen. Ever. Substitute ‘lottery’ for ‘prepping’ and you have the same ludicrous logic.
“You better be putting money in the lottery. When the win comes, you’re gonna wish that you had been getting ready for winning. Just look at how many folks win the lottery all the time. And then you see all these dummies just sitting there not playing the lottery. Well, when the big day comes, they’ll all wish they had played the lottery with me, but it’ll be too late for them.”
It’s relevant because while that particular action was concealed, the US involvement in the region was no secret, and should have and could have been prevented. Some people knew and some people cared, pretty early on, but the earliest (and rather tame) protests against the war were often violently broken up, by students!
And while perhaps they could not have known about the bombing, they could have learned their lessons from similar events in the past, or learned them going forward, so that it would not happen again. But it did, and it has, again and again, with consequences like those mentioned in this thread.
Of course it wasn’t overnight. What of it? The end of the draft took the wind out of the sails of much of the anti-war movement, even though American involvement in the war continued, with calamitous consequences for those in the bomb-sights.
“Patently ridiculous?” You and your family have led a blessed life. Others, not so much. If anything is patently ridiculous, it is your assumption that your experience is universal.
It strikes me that Preppers are prepping for a world of “all against all”, where their personal stash of food, guns, etc. will make all the difference between being dead and being one of the ancestors of the new world to come.
The point being that such scenarios haven’t actually happened in human history, and are unlikely to happen in any conceivable future.
Say a terrible catastrophy happens - the comet hits, someone pushes The Button, or the environment collapses, or the federal government folds, or whatever. Is society likely to become a bunch of individualist bunker-dwellers?
No, not really - what is far more likely, is that some sort of government or society would emerge, albeit on a more local scale - very rapidly.
It may be a nasty and unpleasant government, perhaps led by those with the most military power, but it will exist as long as there are people around. Why would it not? A government is, by far, more powerful than any individual, however well-armed and well-supplied they are … human cooperation is a force multiplier.
Two things governments tend to do in the face of an emergency, is impose a monopoly of force and some sort of re-distribution.
Nobody tried harder on those two things than did the Soviets. People still stashed food and money for themselves, there was still a thriving black market, there was still hyperviolent organized crime, and there were still nationalists and separatists.
You can do as you wish. I will do as my in laws did and make sure I have a few things put by to use and to barter.
Preppers are a North American ‘hobby’. I am excluding all of the rest of the world. While there may be an actual need to be prepared for societal breakdowns in, say, Somalia, there is no real ‘prepping culture’ over there that I am aware of.
I am explicitly excluding natural disasters as they do not represent a breakdown in society. They are temporary disasters when society is ready to immediately help out those in need. People who are poorly prepared are taken care of.
There has not been a breakdown in North American society since the Civil War.
Using the assumptions above, the number of people who have lived ‘blessed lives’ in North America in the last 200 years numbers in the hundreds of millions and is not especially remarkable. The average person (heck, the vast majority of people) is blessed (which is arguably true and kinda amazing).
Say you were living in Ukraine pre-1917 and knew that the Holodomor was a serious possibilty in the future. What would the rational response be?
(1) Attempt to immigrate to North America; or
(2) Stockpile a basement full of guns and food. Then, when the commies come, you can see them off with your guns; and if they attempt to starve Ukraine, you can stay fit with your food.
My in-laws are also Ukrainian and lived through those times; they survived, but mostly fortuitously - I do not think any amount of preparation-in-advance would have helped: if you were in an area hard-hit by forced collectivization and food removal, you died.
In contrast, my relatives immigrated to Canada prior to WW1 from the same area; that was, quite clearly, the optimal strategy.
100% agree with this. The breakdown of society isn’t going to be one vs. one, it will be one (the preppers) against the horde. It’s just not feasible to hold out.
Also, these breakdowns take place over months and years. Unprepared people will have time and opportunity to escape while preppers (those with hardened domiciles) will be locked down an eventually defeated.
It’s weird how the worst imaginings about the future here are coming from the “anti-prep” posters. Tyranny, genocide, “the horde”?
Because it’s not a hobby, not a separate culture. If you live in a really marginal society already, you take it as given that having resources of your own, physical (supplies) and direct-social (neighbor friends), not reliant on distant governments or abstract assurances, is sensible and desirable. You ‘prep’ continuously, to whatever extent you are able, because it’s plain that there are no guarantees.
Katrina.
True, that was a surprising degree of breakdown for the US at the time, and lessons were learned in some quarters. But you need an irrational degree of faith to believe that nothing of the sort could happen again.
That’s a curious moment to point to, given that in many respects society behind the lines on both sides did not break down (disputed territories had it harder). Moreover, the local resources of small agrarian communities in the South had much to do with their ability to endure as well as they did, after a few years of blockade.
Of course there have been a number of local, temporary breakdowns since then, Katrina only the most recently notorious, which were nevertheless matters of life and death to people in them.
To everyone who keeps bringing up Katrina, which would have made more sense: hole up in your bunker and shoot anyone who comes onto your homestead, or get in your car and evacuate out of the affected area?
See, it obviously counts as disaster preparedness if you make sure your vehicle is well-maintained and has plenty of gas, you’ve got some sleeping bags and some food and a can opener and a flashlight and so on. But the people who got into real trouble during Katrina were the people who refused to leave until it was impossible to leave, and then needed to be rescued. Having a basement full of canned goods wouldn’t have done you any good in Katrina, because your basement would be underwater. Of course most houses in New Orleans didn’t have basements because even when there isn’t flooding a basement would be below the water table. But the point is, hardening your home against the disaster was a waste of time since the correct decision would be to evacuate your home. Unless you take a broader view of hardening your which would include “don’t buy a house that’s below sea level”.
It really is helpful to look at Katrina and ask yourself what steps you could take to mitigate your risks from a similar natural or man-made disaster, with the various types of disasters your particular locality is prone to. If roads are closed what can you do? What if you’re at work? What if you’re at home? How much warning would you get? Are there particular types of environments in my area that are much more dangerous than others? Like if you’re in earthquake country and live on a steep slope, will the cliff your house is built on crumble off, is your house below sea level, are you on the coast vulnerable to storm surge, and so on. Then are there ways of building your house to mitigate the risks. In a fire prone area is your house adobe and ceramic tile or cedar shakes (might as well coat your house in gasoline)? Is your house up to code for earthquakes? Is your driveway liable to be blocked during a disaster? Are there trees near your house that could catch fire or topple over? Do you have alternate heat if you’re without power for days?
Again, there’s a difference between disaster prepping and doomsday prepping.
