On the flip side I always wonder about the folks that DON"t have a week or two worth of food hanging around. Now, maybe once the disaster strikes you run out of fresh milk on day two and stuff in the fridge and freezer needs to be eaten asap. After that its the random can of corn or soup or ramen noodles. But NO food? Do some of these people only eat out and or go grocery shopping every day?
I’d think the only difference between someone normal but otherwise unprepared and someone reasonably propared is the prepared one has some water, required meds, and batteries to get them through a two week period without any outside help.
And those folks that need help right after a disaster but really shouldn’t (because they aren’t dirt poor or their particular house is now gone) IMO need a swift kick in the ass because they suck up the resources that should have been going to the people that have a legimate reason to be in need of help.
Going back to the OP:
“Survivalism” seems to me to be more long term and even self-sustaining than does “Prepping”.
The former assumes a general breakdown of civilization; the latter assumes a relatively brief period of lack of commodities and resources.
In my not so humble opinion, prepping is a good idea. As was mentioned upthread, it is much the same as putting your money in a savings account. Having enough fuel, food and water on hand to handle a power outage of up to two weeks is not a foolish notion. And having a firearm or two to repel attackers during the last week isn’t a bad idea either. We only have a few historic events to judge human’s propensity to loot, rape and kill during the aftermath of a disaster, but what we have indicates that a significant amount will, in fact, do anything to secure their own survival over those of others. This is not a hypothetical threat, but one that will occur given historical data.
I’m certainly not being kept awake at night over such fears. However, I do not have a crystal ball with which to divine the future. I don’t know what it will be like in the 22nd century. Maybe someone releases a series of genetically modified fungi and bacteria that kills a majority of our crops and livestock in 2045.
I believe every civilization comes to its end. I’m just not worried that it will happen here any time soon. Which I think is what differentiates me from the survivalists.
Agreed. While that means I certainly could spend my time and money on other things, learning survival skills has had other benefits to me outside of personal satisfaction. We like to go camping, and being confident in our ability to handle basic needs without issue allows us to go to places that lots, if not most people never go into because they are too remote. We travel without fear of being stranded for a night or two. We can take the scenic route without worry, and shortcuts with confidence that if it all goes pear-shaped, we wont be miserable.
I don’t think that being prepared with more than a month’s supplies of food/water is overdoing it at all.
The infrastructure is only prepared for a brief hiccup. If something even kind of big happens, don’t expect quick relief.
I’m reminded of when power went out in my neighborhood due to an ice storm. I think it took about a week to have it restored. And, I don’t live in the boonies. Of course, the city was being restored a bit at a time, but, in the meantime, etc…, etc…
Whole point being, things may not be back to normal at any time soon, once an emergency situation presents.
Depends what you mean by “end”. A geopolitical restructing is different from an economic collapse is different from a tsunami or volcano destroying your city. It’s difficult to imagine a scenario outside a major invasion or regional disaster that would force millions of people to eke out a living scavanging the wasteland.
Which events and what was the actual propensity? Even most of the reports of post-Katrina rapes, murders and other crimes proved to be false.
After Hurricane Sandy, we kept hearing rumors of fake ConEd or PSE&G workers knocking on people’s doors and robbing them. I believe those also proved false.
We have also have enough indication that a significant number of people will freak themselves out based on rumors, hearsay and shadows moving in the dark. Which is easy to do in a darkened city after a disaster. There are no lights and limited communication. There isn’t anything to do but sit around. It’s extremely creepy.
Thing is, if there is major civil unrest after a massive disaster–what people really mean when they talk about “civilization collapsing”–the way you’re going to survive is to band together with your neighbors. If you’re up on your roof with a sniper rifle shooting at your neighbors, then you’re fucked and might as well turn the gun around and put a bullet in your brain, because when you’re shooting at your neighbors they aren’t going to forget that. And you have to sleep sometime.
There is no way to survive major civil unrest by living like a lone wolf. Lone wolves have short miserable lives, they are wolves that have been kicked out of their packs for one reason or another. The way to survive a disaster is to help your community to survive. Throw a neighborhood potluck and invite everybody, and that will help you more when the shit goes down than any number of assault rifles. Because if your neighbors know you and are friendly to you, they aren’t going to feel like creeping into your house at night and bashing you on the head and taking your carefully hoarded supplies.
Survivalists invariably have horrible people skills. I guess that’s why they figure their only hope is to go it alone, because in a group everyone would be sick of their shit within five minutes. The ability to get along with others, to lead, to follow, to build consensus, is going to be much more valuable than knowing how to build a fire by rubbing two sticks together.
The reason the survivalists are so worried about roaming gangs of bandits is simple projection. They figure the second the lights go out everyone immediately starts robbing their neighbors because that’s what they would do.
This should be embroidered on a pillow and thrown (hard) at every survivalist in the country. Just so they know that all us regular folks are on to their shit.
Another idea along these lines is to put together a Community Emergency Response Team. Many counties offer CERT classes for free, get a few of your neighbors together and attend a training course and you’ll all have the ability to lend assistance and take charge of a scene until the proper authorities arrive.
I guess I also don’t understand how someone couldn’t have enough food at their house to last a week. They don’t have a couple cans of soup? Cranberry sauce left over from Thanksgiving? Beer? Crackers? Peanut butter? Cheerios? Are there really people who literally have nothing in the refrigerator except a couple of ketchup packets from McDonalds and a moldy carton of leftover chinese food?
If you literally eat at restaurants for every meal–breakfast, lunch and dinner–then you could save thousands of dollars by eating a peanut butter sandwich every now and then. Or is it that they get a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter, and then eat peanut butter sandwiches until that’s gone, and then and only then do they go to the store and buy something new?
I think that I usually have four to six weeks’ worth of food in the house at any time. I don’t have nearly that much water. The thing is, I’ll buy stuff when it’s on sale, or I’ll buy frequently used items in bulk. And I rotate the items. This saves money. Some stuff is frozen, while other stuff is canned or dried. This habit of mine has come in handy many times, because sometimes we get power outages, and even if we can’t nuke stuff, we can cook stuff on the grill or in the fireplace, depending on the weather. It’s also handy when everyone in the family has come down with the creeping crud, and nobody wants to go grocery shopping. We might run out of milk and bread, but we could eat fairly balanced meals for a while, and then fairly unbalanced meals for a while longer.
What I noticed after Hurricane Sandy was that people did tend to band together with, if not close friends and family, people they at least recognized or had a passing familiarity with. And people were generally helpful - sharing food, generators, and portable stoves.
That bond will come in handy during the next disaster when we raid Weehawken for their fuel and women.
The end-of-the-world predictions that people fear are completely outrageous. My favorite is the polar shift. Yes, it HAS happened in the past, but it’s a geological event…and it took a million years to complete. I think we’ll have enough time to adapt!
People are stockpiling various things, including gold and silver. Gold is only good if you have someone wanting to trade for it. Frankly, the only metal I can see stockpiling is lead and brass…in the form of bullets!
For bartering purposes, my goods of choice would be coffee, chocolate, and booze. Sugar and TP would be next on the list.
A family acquaintance from a Gulf Coast state was on that show once; her actual reason for prepping was to survive a Katrina-like hurricane and the resulting collapse of law and order. The “Doomsday Preppers” staff told her to change it to something more “exciting” if she wanted to get on the program. Sure enough, they ended up making her look like a lunatic.
Salt, sugar, and spices - really potent ones like cocoa and pepper and saffron and vanilla pods and cinnamon sticks.
Chocolate isn’t good in my area, and I hate coffee so I don’t have any way of knowing whether I’m trading good stuff or not. Tea would likely also be a good choice. Most people will be really jonesing for a bit of caffeine a few days after they run out!
For those of you asking: I don’t have much food in the house. I live in a tiny flat, buy fresh food at the market twice a week and meat usually on the day so I can get a discount.
If I stored more food, where would I put my knickers? If I didn’t shop almost everyday, how would I get stuff home without a car?
We’d last a while, I mean, I could bake a fair amount with what I have. There are various grains, dried beans, lentils and the like. Some tuna, not much. Our freezer is minuscule, there is a bit of meat, and bit of fish and some veg, but hardly any. We could eat the herbs from the balcony, all of it together would be one solid portion of veg!
I don’t store water, I wouldn’t know where. Every inch is taken. Besides, here in the Netherlands people try to keep water out of their houses I don’t know anybody who keeps bottled water in the house.
Food-wise, we’d last a few days.
Then we’d run to my SO’s gran and her larder. Yum. Good back up plan. See, we’re prepped!
While the “end of the world as we know it” scenario is a bit far fetched, I see nothing at all crazy about being prepared for disasters. The Black Death and fall of the Roman empire are but a few historical examples of major disasters that greatly upset society. Economic collapses are quite common, most dramatically illustrated by the state of affairs during the Argentine economic woes. There are also wide portions of central Africa that resemble a tropical Road Warrior. Had you told the inhabitants of such areas a few generations ago that their homelands would experience such strife and turmoil in just a few years, they would’ve likely scoffed at you. My preparations are more for a 1st World country dropping to 2nd or 3rd World status, and for the risk of living through another Katrina, with regional law and infrastructure gone for weeks to months on end; than the dead rising or space aliens invading.
There must have been survivalist types in New Orleans after Katrina hit. How did they fare? How did it help them to be survivalists?
Any link between the US interest in zombie movies and survivalism? If I had a fantasy of killing a lot of people but wanted to deny such a desire, watching/playing zombie movies/games would be the best choice.
I don’t know anybody who keeps bottled water in the house.