Preppers: What should we be worried about?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

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

Updated for increased accuracy.

 

[aggle-rithm]

The only major things I can think of that are impacted by oil is transportation of foods and medicines. If Oil suddenly vanished over night, our society would transition to an agrarian based economy fairly quickly. Food, for the most part, can be produced locally and stockpiled for a few years. But medicine is very tricky. I'd be pretty SOL, as I'm asthmatic and would need to get an inhalable steroid somehow. Antibiotics would be in -very- high demand.

Other than that, I can't think of anything important that requires oil.

A lot of industries depend on oil...for instance, the company I work for produces packaging. Which requires polyethelyne, which is made from petroleum.

Without oil, there is no plastics industry. In fact, without CHEAP oil, there is no plastics industry.

Sure, substitutes can be used (some would argue SHOULD be used), but it would take time. The economic impact of having to transition large parts of our economy to alternate materials/processes would be hellacious, at least for a few years.

Fortunately, oil is unlikely to disappear overnight. Just as we made the slow transition to materials and processes that new technologies made possible, we can also make the slow transition to alternate materials and processes.

 

[aggle-rithm]

Updated for increased accuaracy.

You can easily make a bunker by burying your trailer. Just remember to include air holes.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

You can easily make a bunker by burying your trailer. Just remember to include air holes.

You're expecting way to much out of this crowd.

 

[crescent]

All good questions. I don't think the preppers have thought this through.

One fellow seems to have thought it through -

1. build a bunker,
2. stock it with food and water.
3. Test it out a few times, staying there for days at a time
4. kill a bus driver and kidnap a kid
5. hole up in bunker with the poor kid
6. ????

I'm sure this will work out perfectly for everyone involved.

All levity aside, this fellow does seem to have done a good bit of Prepper type preparation. I wonder if any of the current prepper fad motivated that.

 

[aggle-rithm]

This has always been one of my favorites. Leave to go where, exactly? If society collapses, and there are food shortages, you pack up what you can carry and go live in the woods(?) or someplace. All the food you can carry lasts you what, a week? Two weeks? A month? Then what? Or if the Chinese invade and decide to kill all the Americans so their people have more space to live, you go and hide out in the woods and after a week/month/whatever, you're out of food. Now what? You can go back to the city, get captured and executed, or die a long, slow death in the woods from starvation. What have you accomplished? Either way your dead, but I guess in one scenario you got to live for an extra two weeks, wet, freezing at night and covered in bugs.

"Awfulizing" is the worst. I remember after 9/11, my wife was worried about terrorist attacks. One of the concerns she had was: If the terrorists destroyed all the roads, how would we evacuate the area?

I explained to her that not even the entire world nuclear arsenal is sufficient to destroy all the roads in the US. The system is just way too extensive. On 9/11 the most that terrorists could do, with all their resources, was destroy a relatively small area of a single American city.

 

[Xulld]

Preppers: What should we be worried about?

I would say every single historical account of a large catastrophe is good reason to prepare to one degree or another.

These things do happen, and plenty of modern examples exist . . . . personally, I have been pretty slack with my preps of late.

I need to start canning again!

 

[IDB87]

I need to start canning again!

I love me some canning.

 

[marksman]

The Obama-martial law scenario is nuts, but I was very glad for my wife's prepper tendencies when Hurricane Sandy knocked out our power for two weeks. We had plenty of fresh water stored, food packets aplenty, and even milk for our baby. We had propane-powered heat spacers.

My wife, thankfully, is not a doomsday prepper. She doesn't believe in Rapture, Obama BlackOps, or zombies. But she does believe in superstorms. We live less then 20 miles from a nuclear power plant. And the NY metro area is prime target for some sort of terror attack.

There's a fine line between prepper and prepared. Be prepared, not prepper.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

One fellow seems to have thought it through -

1. build a bunker,
2. stock it with food and water.
3. Test it out a few times, staying there for days at a time
4. kill a bus driver and kidnap a kid
5. hole up in bunker with the poor kid
6. ????

I'm sure this will work out perfectly for everyone involved.

All levity aside, this fellow does seem to have done a good bit of Prepper type preparation. I wonder if any of the current prepper fad motivated that.

7. Profit!!!!!

 

[Xulld]

The Obama-martial law scenario is nuts, but I was very glad for my wife's prepper tendencies when Hurricane Sandy knocked out our power for two weeks. We had plenty of fresh water stored, food packets aplenty, and even milk for our baby. We had propane-powered heat spacers.

My wife, thankfully, is not a doomsday prepper. She doesn't believe in Rapture, Obama BlackOps, or zombies. But she does believe in superstorms. We live less then 20 miles from a nuclear power plant. And the NY metro area is prime target for some sort of terror attack.

There's a fine line between prepper and prepared. Be prepared, not prepper.

Sounds like my kind of prepper. We seriously need to stay focused on realistic disasters with historical relevance.

 

[sophia8]

In another tread I suggested a gardening book (John Seymour) to a dedicated survivalist. Just so he would have some food while survivaling. He did not appreciate it, and opted instead to use his guns for hunting.

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?

 

[IDB87]

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?

He'd have a very nice club?

 

[Xulld]

You're expecting way to much out of this crowd.

The crowd you speak of is hardly representative. The media and cable TV know how to sell air time and only the loonies get the best ratings.

The idea behind survival, prepping etc has been a round a LONG time, and Id wager most of the community is so white bread boring you couldn't create a show even for a 1950's audience that wouldn't fall asleep in their chairs watching it.

IMHO the fact you think the community is represented by what you see on TV tells me you have nothing but a Jerry Springer style interest anyways . . . maybe you would fit in pretty well with the people you disdain.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

The crowd you speak of is hardly representative. The media and cable TV know how to sell air time and only the loonies get the best ratings.

The idea behind survival, prepping etc has been a round a LONG time, and Id wager most of the community is so white bread boring you couldn't create a show even for a 1950's audience that wouldn't fall asleep in their chairs watching it.

IMHO the fact you think the community is represented by what you see on TV tells me you have nothing but a Jerry Springer style interest anyways . . . maybe you would fit in pretty well with the people you disdain.

Sounds like I hit a little too close to home.

 

[Xulld]

Sounds like I hit a little too close to home.

Ohh yea I am wounded! How could you?

 

[commandlinegamer]

Or if the Chinese invade

If the Chinese needed Lebensraum though, they already border the Russian Far East which is one of the most sparsely populated areas on the planet. Just a short walk away.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

If the Chinese needed Lebensraum though, they already border the Russian Far East which is one of the most sparsely populated areas on the planet. Just a short walk away.

Yes, but the preppers don't know this. They think the Chinese (who replaced the Russians) or the blacks (led by Obama) are going to overrun their trailer park. That's also why they need so many assault weapons.

 

[The Don]

There's a fine line between prepper and prepared. Be prepared, not prepper.

...and strangely enough, that nutjob over there is a prepper whereas I am merely prepared

 

[R.Mackey]

The Obama-martial law scenario is nuts, but I was very glad for my wife's prepper tendencies when Hurricane Sandy knocked out our power for two weeks. We had plenty of fresh water stored, food packets aplenty, and even milk for our baby. We had propane-powered heat spacers.

Yeah, it comes in handy.

After the Loma Prieta Earthquake (1989), we were glad of our "preps," including 5,000 gallons of water in distributed tanks, generators, chainsaws and rescue equipment, and extensive comm gear. We had five youngsters at our place. Fortunately we were able to get them back to their families by the next morning, though we had to force the roads through a couple of downed trees.

Electricity was out for a month. So was most telephone service. For the next week we relayed telephone service from the few areas we could still talk to, to points elsewhere in the state, bridging via Ham radio.

After the Northridge Earthquake (1994), I didn't have those kind of resources (having moved into the area not long before), but within ten minutes I was fully loaded and ready to camp it out. Of course, daylight soon made it clear that it was an unusual local M_R 6.7, not a Landers- or Fort Tejon-style M_R 8, so there was no need. I did assist with seismic surveys but the impact was slight this time.

There's a fine line between prepper and prepared. Be prepared, not prepper.

Sure is.

I get a fair amount of "prepper" types in my firearms classes. But there's one prep they all seem to miss, which I tell 'em: Get to know your neighbors. Stop viewing them as potential zombies and become more involved in your community. Except in the rarest of scenarios, they're the ones who will save your ass -- but only if you find out about each other first.

I think the threat of "preppers" is overblown. There's been paranoiacs forever. Most people aren't, they're just following a trend.