[Buttercup]

I’m guessing that you feel the same way when she comes home with 3 pairs of shoes? .....just kidding.....

Anyway, I get the rule of 3’s, and I get the whole ammo and food storage thing. I’m practicing some or most of those things myself already, and I agree that they are necessary.

I’m new on this forum, and I certainly don’t want to step on anybody’s toes, but what always surprises me in these kinds of discussions is how few people seem to place any kind of emphasis on the value of community as a prepping tactic. Two people are more than twice as strong as one person. Three people are more than three times as strong as one person; etc., etc., etc. I don’t have much faith in the long-term survival prospects of the theoretical “lone wolf” survivalist. Human beings haven’t existed that way - at least not successfully - in at least a million years. We are social creatures; and by that I do not mean social butterflies. I mean that humans have evolved to have social structures to ensure our species’ survival. We don’t run that fast and we can’t fly. We can barely swim. We don’t have sharp fangs and claws like big cats, or the sense of smell of canines, or the eyes of birds of prey. We are physically weak for our size. Not even an Olympian athlete is the physical match of a man-sized ape for strength, speed, and agility. Our offspring are absolutely dependent on adults for survival for far longer than any other mammalian species. We have merely survived as a species because we are intelligent creatures; but we have prospered as a species because we have evolved to cooperate with one another, and learned the skill of agreeing to live by mutually acceptable sets of rules that make it possible for us to coexist with one another in relative peace. We fail to live in peace only to the extent that we fail to cooperate, and fail to live by mutually acceptable sets of rules. Every single serious clash of culture you see in the world today, happens because two (or more) subsets of our species fail to abide by mutually acceptable rules and live cooperatively. This is at the heart, the cause of all war, crime, and oppression.

In the years since I first began my most basic preps and adopted the beginnings of a preppers mindset, my single greatest accumulated asset is the relationships I’ve built with like-minded people. All of them are solid, sober-minded, and willing to wisely spend money where it needs to be spent to move their game downfield toward readiness. All of us have the goal of acquiring land as the final prep.

If nothing ever happens, then we will have altered the arc of our families’ legacies for the better by giving them a landed future they might not have otherwise had. If things go to hell in a handbasket, then we will have altered the arc of our families’ legacies by giving them a landed and supplied future they might not have otherwise had.

But our efforts go beyond that. Yeah, I’ve spent money on ammo, food, medical supplies, communications capability (most people ignore this one too), and other odds and ends. But I’ve also spent money on the things it will take to rebuild a society.....because that is the end goal.....not just basic survival. So I’ve bought books too - titles like the first 12 books (so far) of the Foxfire series, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Hillaire Beloc’s The Servile State, Arthur Conan Doyle’s complete Sherlock Holmes anthology, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Eric Hoffer’s True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Sidney Algernon’s Discourses Concerning Government, Howard Ruff’s How to Prosper in the Coming Bad Years in the 21st Century, Joseph and Amy Alton’s The Survival Medicine Handbook: A Guide for When Help is Not on the Way, Lester W. Grau’s The Bear Went Over the Mountain, and it’s companion book The Other Side of the Mountain, The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works, The Federalist Papers, Gibbons’s The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America the 2 volume set, etc., etc., etc., and those are just a sampling.

I’ve purchased books on history, science, engineering reference works, theology, political theory, and on and on and on - and I’m not done yet. I’m counting on long-term survival - and that means families and children. And those children have to be educated so that their generation and those that follow can live better than a barren existence, and so that next generations will not screw the pooch......at least not for a while longer. At 65 years old, I’m a lot closer to the end of my life than I am to its beginning. There’s a lot of those books that I haven’t even read yet, and I may never get to read them all; but they are there for the future generations. I have raised my son that way, and he is raising his children that way.

So from my perspective, I’m not just talking about having just a short-term, or a 3-year survival strategy. I am thinking in terms of preserving and/or rebuilding mankind’s greatest survival asset - the ability to live cooperatively with one another and to prosper.

All that other stuff - the guns, the ammo, the shelter, the food stores, and so on - they are all valuable things necessary to short term survival, and I would never counsel someone not to spend their money on them. But it’s not enough to focus only on the ground immediately in front of your feet. Somebody has to also have their sight on the horizon. I would argue that, as preppers, we already have the mindset of thinking for the future. I’m not crazy enough to wish for a social collapse, although I think that some people do. But I do see that if such a calamity were to happen, it could possibly be an opportunity to rebuild things right - not just so we can survive, but so we can prosper.

Mr Man, this is a very interesting read from a totally different perspective, Cudos to you

 

[Laufer]

When my SHTF in 2017😮 , the guns (SKS etc) in my car enroute to go plink were of no assistance. None.

The fact that I was just by chance in my car, several miles from a major hospital on the interstate - and my wife responded to my confused cellphone question about suddenly having a "Bad Flu", telling me to maybe drive to the ER saved my life. Thanks again Dr. Weinstein and Team!

The true, actual SHTF for tens of thousands of people (hundreds of thousands every year?) has Nothing to do with an EMP, elec. sabotage, earthquake. But it's supposed to be about exciting, very cool weapons!

Keeping quiet about gradually getting short of breath (Widowmaker etc artery getting gradually blocked over 3-4 months) - even just during exercise- can kill you very easily if you are in bed, or >> nobody answers the phone, or he/she does not Suggest driving to a hospital<<, or you never call 911......💀
Guns? BOB? Ceramic knife and water bottles? Those are Fun to discuss.

>>> Totally useless for a somewhat subtle medical issue- especially if we keep quiet about what we don't understand. SHTF is anything can easily kill you, although only the exciting options are readily discussed.

I'm not kidding one bit - and my heart has always been very healthy, jogging 4 days/week, lowish blood pressure (most related issues...would... keep you Out of a career flying in the cockpit).

"All the ammo in the world isn't going to feed your family". Exactly. The Big Picture perspective. And our cars are Never backed into the garage!

How do my three imported AKMs and VZ help me find refrigerated insulin (for my Type 1 wife) in a ransacked/trashed Walgreens, or the pharmaceuticals to keep my Chest Artery Stent clear?
Gonna go shoot my Czechpoint VZ-58 tomorrow. I enjoyed having read six books written by Navy SEALs. Those books and my daydreaming at the range about how SEALs shoot guns are much more enjoyable than pondering the truly Vital, but Boring "items"...... which actually keep both of us alive........