When the @#%^ hits the fan. How will you contribute?

guy incognito said:
Yea but how prepared? There needs to be a balance between being prepared and still living your life. Any resource (time, space, food, energy) you devote to being prepared is a resource you can't use for anything else. I could spend all my time building an underground bunker and stocking it with years of food and fresh water preparing for the apocalypse. If that never comes then I wasted all that time and all that energy for no reason and would have been better off just living my life and having fun. I think you need to balance it based on how likely you think it is you will need it.
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Well of course, there's being prepared and then there's your tin foil hat people.

Don't get me wrong, I still function in normal society, I just don't want to end up like those poor bastards after Katrina.

I'm not preparing for the end of the world, but just for a brief period where services might be temporarily off line.

I mean, if it's the end of the world, I'm toast like the next guy.
 
Lil Czr said:
Read your history, I'm afraid you may be wrong on this point my friend.
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Floods, earthquakes and the like can leave you in a pinch if you're not prepared.
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I kind of agree with Japanfreak here. Speaking of history, can you point out the last time there was a widespread catastrophe that was survived by people holing up on their own with guns and ammo rather than by working together to rebuild the infrastructure that supports everyone ?

Katrina ? Nope - recovery was a team effort.
Thailand tsunami ? Nope - same thing.
Iraq invasion (from the perspective of Iraqi civilians) ? Nope.
London Blitz ? Nope.
etc etc.

You can remove yourself from society if you like, the rest of us will get on with the rebuilding at hand. Instead of running away and hiding in a hole somewhere, I'll be looking for the people who need help the most and rebuilding what is needed the most. When you poke your head out and see that things are up and running again in a few days/weeks, you're welcome to rejoin us, despite the fact that you didn't lend a hand.

That said, I definitely have times where I want to get away from everyone else (I build boats and off-grid homes for a living) so I understand the appeal of kicking this stuff around. But that's all it is: mental masturbation.
 
ExileOnMainStreet said:
I kind of agree with Japanfreak here. Speaking of history, can you point out the last time there was a widespread catastrophe that was survived by people holing up on their own with guns and ammo rather than by working together to rebuild the infrastructure that supports everyone ?

Katrina ? Nope - recovery was a team effort.
Thailand tsunami ? Nope - same thing.
Iraq invasion (from the perspective of Iraqi civilians) ? Nope.
London Blitz ? Nope.
etc etc.

You can remove yourself from society if you like, the rest of us will get on with the rebuilding at hand. Instead of running away and hiding in a hole somewhere, I'll be looking for the people who need help the most and rebuilding what is needed the most. When you poke your head out and see that things are up and running again in a few days/weeks, you're welcome to rejoin us, despite the fact that you didn't lend a hand.

That said, I definitely have times where I want to get away from everyone else (I build boats and off-grid homes for a living) so I understand the appeal of kicking this stuff around. But that's all it is: mental masturbation.
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Suite yourself.
 
What, that's it ?
'Suit yourself ?'
Hehe...you don't get off that easily:
I'd really like to know how your approach would be more successful overall than mine would.

Where have the actions of single people ever made a damn bit of difference in this context ?

Let's say the 'big one' hits: like the comet that took out the dinos.
Your plan will only prolong the inevitable so you won't starve or freeze until your stockpile runs out.
It's by forming communities that humans survived the last ice age. By hunting in a group, primitive civilizations can bring down more calories in a year than by individuals working alone.

Don't get me wrong, I think most of the people I meet day to day are a waste of skin...but I'd still try to keep every last one of 'em alive.

Gotta bail (work) but I'll check back tonight. I'd like to hear how your approach is the best when history has shown pretty conclusively that people working together is a pretty effective way to restore a damaged infrastructure.
 
ExileOnMainStreet said:
I kind of agree with Japanfreak here. Speaking of history, can you point out the last time there was a widespread catastrophe that was survived by people holing up on their own with guns and ammo rather than by working together to rebuild the infrastructure that supports everyone ?

Katrina ? Nope - recovery was a team effort.
Thailand tsunami ? Nope - same thing.
Iraq invasion (from the perspective of Iraqi civilians) ? Nope.
London Blitz ? Nope.
etc etc.

You can remove yourself from society if you like, the rest of us will get on with the rebuilding at hand. Instead of running away and hiding in a hole somewhere, I'll be looking for the people who need help the most and rebuilding what is needed the most. When you poke your head out and see that things are up and running again in a few days/weeks, you're welcome to rejoin us, despite the fact that you didn't lend a hand.

That said, I definitely have times where I want to get away from everyone else (I build boats and off-grid homes for a living) so I understand the appeal of kicking this stuff around. But that's all it is: mental masturbation.
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What kind of disaster do you expect to happen??? For some reason you seem to expect massive destruction requiring massive amounts of physical labor to repair. That is not what is going to happen.

Basically you are looking at several major disasters but primarily what would happen is that you lose power for an extended period of time. The buildings would still exist, there would be no air-conditioning and/or refrigeration. The water pumps would not work so clean water would not be available.

Resources would get used up fast, the food would be depleted from the grocery stores within a week. People would need to live off of the food they had on hand. Lakes and streams would quickly become very polluted due to people using them to bathe and for a bathroom. Disease would become rampant, Dissentary, and other water borne diseases that America hasnt faced in hundreds of years. The hospitals would be overflowing with the sick that they could not care for as they wont have the medicine required.

Now, if everyone decides to work together... What are they going to do? The fighting will be over dwindling resources and the fighters will be people that have nothing to lose as they are starving to death. It would be worse than a zombie invasion as the zombies would still be intelligent starving people that didnt move slow.

Some people watch too many movies. In the event something like this happened there is nothing to do but try to survive and wait for the power to come back on.
 
ExileOnMainStreet said:
What, that's it ?
'Suit yourself ?'
Hehe...you don't get off that easily:
I'd really like to know how your approach would be more successful overall than mine would.

Where have the actions of single people ever made a damn bit of difference in this context ?

Let's say the 'big one' hits: like the comet that took out the dinos.
Your plan will only prolong the inevitable so you won't starve or freeze until your stockpile runs out.
It's by forming communities that humans survived the last ice age. By hunting in a group, primitive civilizations can bring down more calories in a year than by individuals working alone.

Don't get me wrong, I think most of the people I meet day to day are a waste of skin...but I'd still try to keep every last one of 'em alive.

Gotta bail (work) but I'll check back tonight. I'd like to hear how your approach is the best when history has shown pretty conclusively that people working together is a pretty effective way to restore a damaged infrastructure.
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Again, I was never talking about being prepared for the end of civilization, as there is no way to prepare for such an event.

All I ever said was that I was prepared for a short time (6 months or so) incase of some unforeseen event.

Just long enough for things to things to come back on line and services to be available again.

Heck man, I don't claim to have a Noah's Ark over here, if the world ends, I'm throwing in my towel with the rest of you.

But I don't understand why people think it to be foolish to have things laid aside incase of need.

Be it food or money, it's good to have a little extra in case, that's all I'm saying.

I will add this though, when the last big snow storm rolled through, I was one of the few people that wasn't playing bumper cars on the way to the grocery store.
 
ExileOnMainStreet said:
What, that's it ?
'Suit yourself ?'
Hehe...you don't get off that easily:
I'd really like to know how your approach would be more successful overall than mine would.

Where have the actions of single people ever made a damn bit of difference in this context ?

Let's say the 'big one' hits: like the comet that took out the dinos.
Your plan will only prolong the inevitable so you won't starve or freeze until your stockpile runs out.
It's by forming communities that humans survived the last ice age. By hunting in a group, primitive civilizations can bring down more calories in a year than by individuals working alone.

Don't get me wrong, I think most of the people I meet day to day are a waste of skin...but I'd still try to keep every last one of 'em alive.

Gotta bail (work) but I'll check back tonight. I'd like to hear how your approach is the best when history has shown pretty conclusively that people working together is a pretty effective way to restore a damaged infrastructure.
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I am not assuming an *end of the world* start over scenario. I dont know if I would want to live in a world like that. I am assuming the loss of power and/or government control for up to 6 months.
 
Lil Czr said:
Again, I was never talking about being prepared for the end of civilization, as there is no way to prepare for such an event.

All I ever said was that I was prepared for a short time (6 months or so) incase of some unforeseen event.

Just long enough for things to things to come back on line and services to be available again.

Heck man, I don't claim to have a Noah's Ark over here, if the world ends, I'm throwing in my towel with the rest of you.

But I don't understand why people think it to be foolish to have things laid aside incase of need.

Be it food or money, it's good to have a little extra in case, that's all I'm saying.

I will add this though, when the last big snow storm rolled through, I was one of the few people that wasn't playing bumper cars on the way to the grocery store.
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I feel like you are writing my posts... Wanna get neighboring bunkers?
 
I remember the news when the power went out across the East coast a few years ago, imagine a couple weeks or more.

People wouldn't last too long if something were to happen like that in the dead of Winter.

Major cities are useless without power.
 
This is interesting!

NoDrama said:
How will you survive an onslaught of starving people without guns? If you are a survivalist you will have food, In the breakdown of society food is one of the first things that disappears, it also drives normally kind and sympathetic people to commit heinous atrocities against other human beings solely for the purpose of getting fed. In Somalia I saw a 8 year old kid hack a mans throat with a Machete over a handful of rice. When the Zombies come you 'll be glad you have a gun. You and your families lives are too important to let others kill to take what is yours. Do you seriously think someone who hasn't eaten in 15 days is going to listen to reason? Nope, they are gonna carve your guts and then take what they want.

And besides, most survivalists aren't hoping for TEOTWAWKI, but they are preparing for it and even if the end does not come, those preparations can certainly be used for other things. You can always eat the food you stored, I guess as long as you stored stuff you actually eat. Lot of folks store food they wouldn't normally eat, so in the end it never gets used, but most other preps get good use out of them.
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Every time I want to give rep, I seem to need to spread it around more...

NLXSK1 said:
The ability to lay low for the 1st 3 months will be the difference between the few that live and the majority that die.
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good point

420God said:
Funny, I was just thinking that pretty much every major city could be wiped off the face of the earth at the same time and I wouldn't even know till I turned on the news.

It's nice being self sufficient and far away from everyone else.
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My f'ing dream.

:leaf::peace::leaf:
 
guy incognito said:
Yea but how prepared? There needs to be a balance between being prepared and still living your life. Any resource (time, space, food, energy) you devote to being prepared is a resource you can't use for anything else. I could spend all my time building an underground bunker and stocking it with years of food and fresh water preparing for the apocalypse. If that never comes then I wasted all that time and all that energy for no reason and would have been better off just living my life and having fun. I think you need to balance it based on how likely you think it is you will need it.
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You aren't a real survivalist if you aren't rotating your food stores, in otherwords you need to eat the food before it goes bad and then replace it to store again until its rotation comes up. As far as storing fresh water, well it does fall out of the sky sometimes, not consistently enough all year round but what you should have instead is a good water filter so you can turn brackish water into clean water. I use all my preps all the time, when i go camping alot of the stuff comes with and we try to rough it to see how we would get along. I have a big solar panel I bring with and we setup a power base, It powers the laptop and charges a gel cell battery so we can power things at night. I also bring hand cranked radios and flashlights that never need batteries. I also store cases and cases of Whiskey and Vodka and lots of toilet paper. These will be like money if SHTF, and if not, I can get drunk and wipe my ass all the same. Also buying things now does make sense since big Inflation is on the way and things aren't going to get any cheaper, especially food and energy.
 
Even though I'm in the country, I don't think we'd make it because Atlanta is only 50 miles from my location and we'd just be overran by the people fleeing to rural areas. I could probably survive for a bit by going deep into the woods, but i'd probably stay to defend my family.
 
SmokeyMcSmokester said:
im skilled in many firearms, and i have enough firearms and ammo to start a large militia... i'll guess i'll be head of security
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Like this?

1099273d1281829763-why-so-many-growers-against-gunsafe.jpg
 
NoDrama said:
Like this?

1099273d1281829763-why-so-many-growers-against-gunsafe.jpg
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yeah we would definitely not starve!

2 ak's, 3 saiga 12 guage, 1 blaser LRS2 sniper rifle .300 WINMAG, 5 ar-15(2 bushmaster, 1 DPMS, 2 Daniel Defense) 2 .45(1911, XD) i have a vietnam era M-60(need a tri-pod, and i dont actually have in my safe, its in missouri just waiting for my buddy to move back on the westside)1 mosin nagant, 1 marlin 30-30,1 .38, 1 .357, hopefully later this week, i'll have a few more yugo ak's. oh yeah! and 2 taurus judges 1 has 2 1/2 in. cylinder the other is the 3"mag.

and i have about 20,000 rds of ammo in various calibers...

i'll snap some pics when i find my camera...i love showing off my guns about as much as i love showing off my weed.
 
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