Preppers: What should we be worried about?

[Nessie]

I think you would first have to determine if the motivation was really fear first. People often do things for a variety of different reasons.

I can and store goods for the same reason I do the dishes. So when I need it, it will be easy to get and use.

Now I prep 5 times what I need just in case, but again not fear based at all, unless doing the dishes is because your afraid of a dirty kitchen!

There is making sure you have enough if there is an problem, our main one is loss of the water supply. The worst was for about 12 hours and we have a supply of drinking water. Then there is the fear of apocalypse.

I think that The Walking Dead is the most popular TV series in the USA at the moment because Americans have the fear like no other country.

 

[Mark6]

I think you would first have to determine if the motivation was really fear first. People often do things for a variety of different reasons.

I have no doubt that many people throughout the world prepare for various disasters, some reasonable, other less so. Just a week ago I read an article about Indian government in Kashmir encouraging population to build nuclear shelters. (Ground being frozen, population was not particularly eager to do so.) But specific fear of democratically elected government suddenly turning monstrous, is I think peculiarly American. In parts of the world where governments often turn monstrous, people have other ways to deal with it. Usually either "get out while I can", or "make friends with whoever will be next top dog". They know that when government turns monstrous, hiding in a bunker will not do you any good.

So yes, it is a peculiarly American delusion, but I also think it motivates only a minority of preppers.

 

[DC]

more sceptics and scientists should be preppers. if something happens, the most paranoid nutters have the best survival chance....

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

more sceptics and scientists should be preppers. if something happens, the most paranoid nutters have the best survival chance....

Not really. Given how comically inept their plans tend to be, I'd say we all have an equal chance at survival.

 

[Toke]

That's another illustration of preppers' limited thinking. What's this guy going to do for food when he runs out of bullets and all the local gun stores have been looted empty?

Or when the deer run out.

Not sure what the preppers are like in Denmark, but in the USA, the ones I have talked to were not against gardening at all. Leaving home was strictly a last resort. In fact most of the farmers I have met were ideally prepared for surviving within a small community after a natural or man made disaster.

Ranb

I don't know of any survivalists in Denmark. (society is supposed to keep working?)
The US one on that tread were not in favour of gardening, perhaps it ran counter to his gun obsession?

 

[dudalb]

I think the big mistake the dooms day preppers make is not saving enough bottlecaps to use for currency in the Aftermath of the End of Civilization............

Yeah, big fan of the Fallout games here. And from the number of people at this site that use Pipboy as their avatar, I ain't alone.

 

[Stankeye]

Does any other country in the world have the fear like Americans do? Serious question.

Yes, but we may be the only ones who make a buisness out of it. I saw a special on the history channel about 2012 end of the world. They have a group that sells luxury shleters, with a webpage and everything. http://www.terravivos.com/ They said they have clients from other countries.

These are for the rich people, not trailer park goons as Scrut has been implying.

Just do a search on google for luxury bomb shelters and you will be shocked/saddend.

 

[ServiceSoon]

I think the big mistake the dooms day preppers make is not saving enough bottlecaps to use for currency in the Aftermath of the End of Civilization............

Yeah, big fan of the Fallout games here. And from the number of people at this site that use Pipboy as their avatar, I ain't alone.

Game? I thought it was a training exercise...

 

[fuelair]

I wonder this about preppers/survivalists.

If they already fear someone in authority usurping (more) power, will they be able to organise themselves (under a leader) to resist, should it become necessary? Or, will paranoia simply lead to loads of small people living on their own trusting nobody?

Becoming hobbits or dwarves and living underhill or such, perhaps.

 

[fuelair]

Yes, but we may be the only ones who make a buisness out of it. I saw a special on the history channel about 2012 end of the world. They have a group that sells luxury shleters, with a webpage and everything. http://www.terravivos.com/ They said they have clients from other countries.

These are for the rich people, not trailer park goons as Scrut has been implying.

Just do a search on google for luxury bomb shelters and you will be shocked/saddend.

And look how to get into them by blocking their exhaust and intake systems.

 

[fuelair]

All good questions. I don't think the preppers have a rationalthought .

ftfy.

 

[Bob001]

Yes, but we may be the only ones who make a buisness out of it. I saw a special on the history channel about 2012 end of the world. They have a group that sells luxury shleters, with a webpage and everything. http://www.terravivos.com/ .....

Note that the first sentence on their web site reads:

Millions of people believe that we are living in the “end times”.

That makes me wonder how much of the survivalist fantasy is tied to the fundamentalist "god will pull the plug any day" fantasy.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Note that the first sentence on their web site reads:


That makes me wonder how much of the survivalist fantasy is tied to the fundamentalist "god will pull the plug any day" fantasy.

I would suggest that the intersection of the preppers and the gun nuts and the fundies is about 95%.

 

[fuelair]

I would suggest that the intersection of the preppers and the gun nuts and the fundies is about 95%.

Hmmmm...That somehow puts me in 5% of something.....

 

[fishbob]

They seem to be made up of rugged individualists. The expectation is that there will be small groups defending their bunkers from their starving neighbors.

Rugged individualist Fox News watchers?
Thought so.

 

[GlennB]

That's another illustration of preppers' limited thinking. What's this guy going to do for food when he runs out of bullets and all the local gun stores have been looted empty?

There's quite an interesting novel called "Earth abides" about a post-apocalyptic world (a virus escaped from a laboratory. They usually do ). Some survivors aim to get by with canned food and guns. Others realise this has limited long-term prospects so reinvent the 'old ways'. By the end they're doing OK with agriculture and bow+arrow technology for hunting.

Anyhoo, living through the Greek economic crisis we did some mini-prepping to cover the feared Grexit from the € and the period of chaos that would follow. A stock of basic medicines (including plenty of the dog's daily pill), firewood stack, camping stoves+gas, plenty of basic foods etc. But then you wonder how you'll manage when you've just broken your ankle and there's no fuel to get to the nearest functioning hospital 100 miles away, or you decide to bug-out back to the UK and you can't get to an airport.

But long-term survival with no 'society' would be a virtual impossibility for all but a few. I recall it takes about an acre of intensively cultivated land per person to be self-sufficient in food, then there's fuel and water to consider. Nah.

 

[Puppycow]

Did you see the recent Simpsons episode on Preppers?

http://www.fox.com/thesimpsons/full-episodes/13761091780/homer-goes-to-prep-school

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Does any other country in the world have the fear like Americans do? Serious question.

I guess it depends on the country you live in.
In the Netherlands the whole concept is pretty unheard of.
But given our population density the 'retreat from other humans and survive on your own' concept just doesn't make sense.
Nor does storing huge amounts of food in a bunker in your yard. Given that even a four by four meter garden is considered quite rare.
Virtually noone would know how to hunt, which is a good thing as there is nothing TO hunt to begin with.
The winter of 1944/45 showed that even then it was impossible to substenace farm for the population, so that's pretty much out too.
Plus, the moment our society collapses and we'd stop governmental level services a significant part of the country would flood as the water management IS part of our government.

On a more basic level I think that the fear of the government taking our rights away/ society collapsing just isnt a big part of national counsiousness here. There may be individuals believing it, but they'd never be considered normal.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

In the Netherlands the whole concept is pretty unheard of.
But given our population density the 'retreat from other humans and survive on your own' concept just doesn't make sense.

That's probably part of why it appeals to some Americans - their country still has large tracts of wilderness.

Of course it seems to be a very particular sort of survival: the appealing part seems to be the Hunger Games style short term defence of their shelter and supplies against marauding bands of their fellow citizens. In the longer term, living in the woods like Rambo depends on their still being a functioning industrial society to raid for supplies.

If society really collapsed then the two long term options would be to try to find a remote, quiet spot and start up a pre-industrial farm or to stop hiding uselessly in a hole and actually help try to get industrial society started up again.

I like the notion of the last vestiges of a ragged band of survivalists staggering out of the forest to find themselves in a functioning town. "Collapse? Oh, yeah, we fixed that. You guys look terrible. Shall we call an ambulance for your friend?"

 

[Horatius]

I like the notion of the last vestiges of a ragged band of survivalists staggering out of the forest to find themselves in a functioning town. "Collapse? Oh, yeah, we fixed that. You guys look terrible. Shall we call an ambulance for your friend?"

That was part of the back story for a book I real once. They made the distinction between "survivalists" and "survivors". The survivors were the ones who lived through the collapse and rebuilding on the outside, dealing with all the problems that entails. Whenever a group of survivalists would emerge from their protected bunkers, where they had spent months or years lazing about in comparative luxury, the far tougher and more disciplined survivors basically ate them alive, as it were.