Economic Fears Drive Survivalism Boom

[SKR8PN]

One co-worker of mine says that if the worst happened she wouldn't want to live. She'd rather die than try to live off the land.

If that is truly her attitude, then she isn't really living now.

 

[hennypenny9]

Yeah, she and I don't really "click" you know? Whenever I bring something homemade, like cookies, she's like "wow, you willingly enter the kitchen? I HATE cooking." She's told me this at least ten times, and she knows that I LOVE cooking.

Anyway, since I don't have a gun, I'd probably be killed in the chaos that would follow a collapse. My only hope would be to hide and scavenge until the immune-compromised population died off.

 

[patandchickens]

Mackey- This is super macabre, but I wonder if it would be possible to hide in the wilderness (we have Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest near here) and hunker down until everyone else either starves, or does the same. Then everyone who's left will be sustaining themselves. 'Course that's dependent on me knowing how to live a few weeks or months in the woods.

Sorry, but, not practical. It is extremely difficult to truly live off the land for a length of time including a winter (pretty hard, many places, even WITHOUT winter months) and good luck doing it in a hidden way and with the hills infested with hundreds of other bright (gun-totin') souls who had the exact same idea and want to eat the exact same deer and blueberries as you do :>

See, this is where I think it is not constructive to be all afraid about these things. You CAN'T PLAN for *that* extreme a scenario, because it all comes down to the details of the exact situation and to the vagaries of luck. TRYING to plan actions is not, IMHO, constructive and just runs your mind further into a corner.

Whereas, focusing on acquiring skills (both practical and social) and mental habits to let you cope with as wide a range of conditions as possible... THAT is indisputably useful in any eventuality.

JMO,

Pat

 

[Mackay]

Yep, super survival skills would be required for a time, till civil order starts to re-establish.

I made a fire by rubbing two sticks together on a cottonwood bark once. Does that count?

Folks should know the wild plants, traps and snares.

This is why I think that a good tent, backpack and sleeping bag is essential. You may never use it but there will always be the grandkids who can enjoy it!

Once upon a time people just knew these things. It was just part of living. but now even farm folks are pretty disconnected, relying on lots of stuff to get by.

If it ever got that bad Im certainly not willing just to lay down and die.

 

[big brown horse]

Anyone read Coal Black Horse?

 

[Hiedi]

I think there may be some cases where fear can be a good motivating factor to get people off their butts and start doing something, as long as that fear is not debilitating. For example, if I know or suspect that there is a category five hurricane headed my way, fear will probably motivate me to get out of its path and make provisions to survive. However, if someone is so fearful that they are not thinking clearly and unable to function, then I believe that type of anxiety is not very productive and even detrimental to ones well-being.

 

[patandchickens]

For example, if I know or suspect that there is a category five hurricane headed my way, fear will probably motivate me to get out of its path and make provisions to survive.

Sure, but that's a very specific occasion that you CAN react intelligently to

Whereas "what if civilization collapsed somehow" (or any other vague scenario like "what if there was some awful disease") is not plan-for-able, because there are way too many versions each of which would, REALISTICALLY, play out a different way and render different responses differently useful. Do you have gas in your car? How many OTHER people have lots of gas in their cars? Can you get to the mountains or are the highways a giant traffic jam, or has your car ceased to work last week because there was no replacement alternator available due to supply shortages. How many *other* people got to the mountains, and how much a) food b) tools/supplies c) ammo did they bring, and what proportion of them want to band together for strength vs shoot each other and take their provisions? Or do you end up getting halfway to the mts and then stuck without transportation in the middle of vast plains of farmland? Are you healthy when civilization collapses, or not, and what about family members? Does it turn out that the people in towns band together for support/supplies/protection and the mountains are infested with gun-happy overreacting wingnuts who feel that su casa should be their casa <bang, thud, splat>? Etc etc etc.

Learning to cook is always a useful skill. Practicing building things, large and small, out of raw materials and out of bits scavenged from other things. Learning to fix things (engine repair, small metalworking, sewing, etc). Growing, processing, storing food. Etc.

Those things will be valuable ALL THE TIME, no matter what does or doesn't happen. Guaranteed.

As opposed to plans and provisions made for something that may or may not occur anyhow, and if it does will almost certainly occur with crucial twists and turns that your plans utterly failed to anticipate and are very likely to render your plans weebly or useless.

JMO,

Pat

 

[Blackbird]

Henny.. at this point I think it could be possible, if it came down to it.

During the Holocaust alot of people hide in all sorts of places, it was quite unimaginable more most people during this age..

I have alot of Holocaust books, so I'm not sure but I think it was in Alicia:My Story, that the author and her mother lived near an isolated cliff or something, I know it mentions her hiding in a hollow log for some time, as well as others hiding in fields of corn and wheat, as well as hay stacks, wooded areas.
Obviously alot of people were found and captured, but that how alot of people made it through.
But now we having tracking devices, even lower flying helicopters, etc etc, so I don't know.

BBH, what is Coal Black Horse about?

 

[hennypenny9]

Amos- It's true you can't really prepare beyond the basics of staying alive. I totally agree with the other people, but I just have this feeling that I'd be okay. It doesn't make sense, and it's a bit weird. But I have this quietness, and there is so much wilderness that I still think I could hide. I know, I know, bands of crazies with guns might get me, and no, I would not be driving, and there's no point in worrying over it. But somehow I believe I'd survive. There are so many stories of what happened during the holocaust. The most tragic is the few people who escaped, and went home to their villages to warn people and NO ONE would believe them. Called them crazy until they fled again. Hard hitting stuff.

 

[big brown horse]

Henny.. at this point I think it could be possible, if it came down to it.

During the Holocaust alot of people hide in all sorts of places, it was quite unimaginable more most people during this age..

I have alot of Holocaust books, so I'm not sure but I think it was in Alicia:My Story, that the author and her mother lived near an isolated cliff or something, I know it mentions her hiding in a hollow log for some time, as well as others hiding in fields of corn and wheat, as well as hay stacks, wooded areas.
Obviously alot of people were found and captured, but that how alot of people made it through.
But now we having tracking devices, even lower flying helicopters, etc etc, so I don't know.

BBH, what is Coal Black Horse about?

Great book, a little bleak though. Very well written and is an "international best seller". It is about a boy who borrows a "coal black horse" to find his father who was fighting in the civil war. His mother had a premonition (no news reporters then) that the war was soon to be over so she sent him to retrieve his father. Along the route to find his father, he rode the horse through the war torn south. (The last bits of the war was still going on around him.) He survives, hides, scavenges and takes note all the "refugees" he sees trying to leave the south and head for the north.