A different view of ''survival''

Shotgun said:
I don't believe in doomsday scenarios but I do prepare for things like storms and quakes. To me that's not being a survivalist it's being prudent. Now, if you have a couple safes of guns and spend your time buying stuff rather then learning stuff you may be a survivalist.
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:thumbup: 100%

Doc
 
Shotgun said:
Screw that they have Edwood7. :eek:

I used to feel the way you do but I've noticed the more skills I obtain the less anxious I am about things. I don't believe in doomsday scenarios but I do prepare for things like storms and quakes. To me that's not being a survivalist it's being prudent. Now, if you have a couple safes of guns and spend your time buying stuff rather then learning stuff you may be a survivalist.
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Getting past the condescension, I keep one eye on the world scene and it is currently bad, and getting worse. So what are the differentiated prerequisite skills needed between a global financial collapse and a long term natural catastrophe ? I believe that they are close to tangential. Actively practicing primitive skills as I do is one thing. Gathering resources in preparation is another. So, accumulating a lesser amount of resources for a lesser event is prudent, and a larger volume for a larger event is fringe ? Both events are hypothetical and congruent to the assessed risk.
 
A survival situation can be anything that could keep you from being safe and healthy. I.e. Losing your job. Natural disaster. Extended power outage. Ice storm. Quarantine. Economic collapse. Invasion. And the scenarios go on and on. The point is to be able to provide food, shelter and safety for your family and neighbors to the best of your ability. Hopefully we never have to rely on these things. Better safe than sorry. But, if we don't need them, our children or grandchildren might. Who are they going to learn it from if not us? History repeats itself and all empires rise and fall. Just a matter of time.
 
I don't see things gettin any worse than they have ever been, but I do see EVERYTHING when it happens due to the vastly improved
communications in the world today. No point in worring about it, just get your ducks in a row. When Yellowstone pops it's cork, or the earth
takes a direct hit from space,(a big hit) time will be pretty limitited anyway. Easy for me to say however , not being on a major fault line, or flood plain, or
hurricane country......:)
 
mewolf1 said:
I don't see things gettin any worse than they have ever been, but I do see EVERYTHING when it happens due to the vastly improved communications in the world today. No point in worring about it, just get your ducks in a row. When Yellowstone pops it's cork, or the earth takes a direct hit from space,(a big hit) time will be pretty limitited anyway. Easy for me to say however , not being on a major fault line, or flood plain, orhurricane country......:)
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Same as that. There's enough information out there to turn the worried well into a frenzy of disproportionate responses if they aren't cautious. Browser add-ons can be fun; you can see global pandemics, global weather disasters, crime rates, and all that jazz near as damn it in real time. And whilst it can be interesting and informative I'm not sure they do everyone the power of good. What exactly constitutes a measured and proportionate response is hard to pin down, but we can surely all detect some responses that are not....................................................................................................................In addition we live in culture that positively promotes anxiety by industries keen to capitalize on it. I don't think that is inherently a bad thing, sometimes it's a good thing, but it can be an ugly thing. To my mind caveat emptor applies just as much to ideas and memes as it does to things with physical properties, and the devil will take the hindmost hindmost...........................................................................................................................I've never lived a tornado area but if I did I'd be glad of vendors providing the necessary kit for me to build a strong room. I don't see that much different to folks over here in the way back securing sheets of corrugated to build Anderson shelters when being bombed was rather likely. If a guy told me he was building one now because aliens were escaping Sangatte and coming up the tunnel I'd most certainly think he needed to get out more. Same thing applies to stockpiles of provisions. It's not just the quantity it's also the motivation behind it that betrays whether it is reasonable or not............................................................................................................What constitutes reasonable will always be woolly, vague, and ill defined. To that extent it is rather like factor G or general intelligence. But then we can usually identify common sense quite easily when it is absent. With emotionally laden anxiety riddled topics it is often absent, and people which know that can capitalize on it. To me there is no difference between an advert with the underlying message of “they can all smell your tampon unless you use our product” as there is with the marketing of some knives. Otherwise quite sensible folk can be caught off guard and turned giddy when anxieties are tapped into. The imagination runs amok. I suspect most of us if caught in a car crash on the way home from a supermarket would like the fittest fastest person available to be the one giving aid and calling the ambulance. Shift the scenario a paltry 10 miles off the beaten track and for many that have been got at by TV that goes out the window – they are mentally morphed to the Amazon Basin and the common sense of the quickest route to the hospital gets flushed and they want Mears to make them a birch bark splint. TV, anxiety, the most direct route to cloud cuckoo land, and a complete loss of any realistic sense of proportion. Whilst undoubtedly the survival mindset is an excellent resource the neurotic triggering of it in daily living seems to generate to very bizarre results. I do wonder whether it is somehow akin to those poor sods that have become victim to tinterwebz pr0n. They've thrashed it round and round so much any grounding in reality has long since left the building.................................................................................................................................................I don't hold this view as peculiar to stockpiling provisions or what to take on an woodland excursion either. Those ECD pocket dump threads can be enlightening. Unfortunately we often only get to see what the items are but not the reasoning behind them. Perhaps what might strike me at first glance as an over the top amount of clutter makes a lot of sense once I get to see the reasoning. Other times I'm sure it wouldn't and I would find the reasoning quite disproportionate to the likely scenarios. I know that some people view my carrying two phones, two, knives, and often three lighters to be excessive. There's no right answer but to me it makes sense. It makes less sense to me when a smoker has to come up to me to bum a light. Who knows. For sure though one way or the other we can usually spot someone that is away with the faeries ..............................................................................2cents
 
What have worked for me is to outline the potential scenarios, assign probabilities (thin ones base on history and personal experience) and prepare accordingly.
The major changes that I have done in the past three years are to increase my savings and extend my HMO coverage. My bigger risks are unemployment and medical issues.
This does not mean that I do not strengthen my home security systems and also my personal security and that I do not keep food, water and supplies at home to last 2 to 3 weeks in case of a natural or manmade disaster.
Let’s be prepared but also let’s be realistic on what we prepare for.
Best Regards
 
I don't some end of civilization thing is gonna happen suddenly, but I do feel that life is very easy now for many. I see life becomeing "harder" due to worlwide finance, fuel prices increasing, food price increases, etc.
We 'Prep" for the long power-outage, water main break, windstorm, style issues. We'll let the civil authourities not have to worry about us for a few weeks and concentrate on the truly needy and unprepared.
Long term prepping is more of how we live now anyways. We save a little, live quite simply, grow some of our own food, get along with the neighborhood well, hunt, fish, have chickens, have a 100% gravity powered septic system, have water nearby, etc.
 
upnorth said:
Getting past the condescension, I keep one eye on the world scene and it is currently bad, and getting worse. So what are the differentiated prerequisite skills needed between a global financial collapse and a long term natural catastrophe ? I believe that they are close to tangential. Actively practicing primitive skills as I do is one thing. Gathering resources in preparation is another. So, accumulating a lesser amount of resources for a lesser event is prudent, and a larger volume for a larger event is fringe ? Both events are hypothetical and congruent to the assessed risk.
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I wasn't trying to be condescending. Mewolf1 stated how I feel pretty well below. There's always risk but I think with the information age people see a lot more of the world's problems and stress about it more. It's good to hedge your bets so to speak but don't fall down the rabbit hole.
mewolf1 said:
I don't see things gettin any worse than they have ever been, but I do see EVERYTHING when it happens due to the vastly improved
communications in the world today. No point in worring about it, just get your ducks in a row. When Yellowstone pops it's cork, or the earth
takes a direct hit from space,(a big hit) time will be pretty limitited anyway. Easy for me to say however , not being on a major fault line, or flood plain, or
hurricane country......:)
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Joe Real said:
Let’s be prepared but also let’s be realistic on what we prepare for.
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I like that. Everything in life should be prioritized. Most of my potential scenarios require no real preparation, or minimal preparation for things like power outages, though lately that's been extended to potential(well, actual) loss of public water, and inability to travel due to roads blocked by trees, etc.

Same for in the woods. I worry about injury, and treating it, a lot more than some extended wilderness living scenario that a lot of people call "survival", because it's not just unlikely, but basically impossible for me to get into one doing the things I do(really ironic, because it's probably a lot more likely for me than most of the people who seem to worry over it). I can break an ankle or leg any time, though...

Something that's been brought home locally in the last year, notably last spring, but as recently as this week, is that my part of the state has somehow ended up at the small end of a funnel for tornado activity. The problem for the people directly in line with the tornadoes, particularly the F4s and F5 of last year, is that if it wasn't in your vehicle, your preparations were gone, along with your house and everything else in it. Some of the places I went through to help out, and encountered while driving to hike, didn't look like they'd been hit by a storm. They looked like they'd been stepped on by a giant foot.

I guess the same could be said for living on the coast when I was a kid. We lived on a peninsula surrounded by swamp with the ocean as a southern border. Didn't matter what you had in your house when cars were floating out of driveways, people were driving down your street in bass boats, and you had to evac to another town a hundred miles away to escape a hurricane. If it didn't fit in your vehicle, or on your back, in a worst case scenario, you just didn't have it.

People often talk of "survival" and "emergency preparedness" generically, when they are actually unique to the situation, based on where you are, and what you're doing.
 
Shotgun said:
I wasn't trying to be condescending. Mewolf1 stated how I feel pretty well below. There's always risk but I think with the information age people see a lot more of the world's problems and stress about it more. It's good to hedge your bets so to speak but don't fall down the rabbit hole.
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:foot: Sorry man, I hear ya. :thumbup:
 
The reason we have "survivalists" and "preppers" is that we have transitioned from a rural society to an urban society.And some people have that deep gut feeling that society as we know it is not secure. Our quest for comfort has made us unreliable as humans.Most cant fathom how to procure Food, water,shelter ETC for any period over 30 days.We cant all run to the hills and expect to make it, or much less arrive alone and find necessities waiting.Just check with your local and state government on what the plan is if there is mass rioting and looting. it`s called containment for a reason....you dont get to leave.We rely on someone else for everything...power, water, food, shelter. Our most basic needs are at the hands of others.And the very fragile supply line that keeps the lights on, and stores stocked...is a target. If "Occupy whatever" can wreak havoc and close a shipping port in California for a day...what can a dedicated group of terrorists do.Three days of no trucks leaving a major shipping port and walmart is starting to get cleaned out.And we then have Katrina like panic and violence.A few years back in Phoenix,the fuel supply line from Tucson busted, and there was a shortage of fuel with many gas stations closed outright in a few days; that caused lines and there were fights ETC. almost immediately.Imagine what would happen if food stopped arriving via truck for 4 days near you.The desire to be prepared in some way is your gut instinct telling you something is wrong!!! with the way things are going worldwide, as well as here at home.

I am disheartened to read about intentions of forcibly taking from your neighbor...joking or otherwise,and i am also well prepared for that eventual situation, as someone will doubtlessly be silly(and i mean friggin silly) and desperate enough to try.Anyone who has been around and seen the look of persons planning to do some harm will also be prepared for this. so be careful who you pick to take from, they may have thought about the day you show up.
Our grandparents ETC made it thru some bad times and most kept their dignity, and self respect while doing it,And helped their neighbors and community get thru it.I hope most will do the same again.
Sadly, most kids have been handed down skills like how to program a DVR or how to unlock a cell phone. Most cant build a fire, fish from a creek,skin an animal, plant food crops ETC. That is why we all have that gut feeling that something is gonna happen and the desire to prepare for it as we see fit. Regardless of something happening or not we know we are all ill prepared and have given away our true means of security to the control of others.We just rely too much on others. Research Maslows heirarchy of needs and you will get some insight as to why people prep. Research ballistic gelatin tests if you plan to forcibly take from me.
 
mewolf1 said:
So yer sayin I won't know the difference if it comes to that?:)
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Pretty much.
It's like when I was reading about economic collapse; "What would you do if you woke up and your account balance was zero and your stocks had failed?"
Well, I WISH my account balance was up to zero...that would be an improvement.:D
 
Oh, and be a survivor, not a survivalist.

One is prudent, the other is creepy (and doesn't get dates;)).
 
Not having the need to take things from your neighbors is a good thing. That means you have made plans. Perhaps you will be in a situation to share some of that fortune, perhaps not.

The majority of urban people could find themselves in a "steal or die" situation and that is a scary thought.

"Most cant build a fire, fish from a creek,skin an animal, plant food crops ETC."

True statement, and although sickening on one hand, this can also be a positive thing. A mass die off of the weak could be a real comfort in chaotic times.

Interesting thoughts on water storage. Having a well provides some level of comfort.

I guess it comes down to getting to a point where you do not have to worry about yourself/family and only have to worry about other people....
 
heres a tip, brown rice pretty much sucks. Get something to go along with it to season it or get other grains because you will be sorry. Oatmeal tastes better but can taste really good with some simple cinnamon and apples or brown sugar. How much fresh water is on your property that is actually drinkable? Invest in some good filters and maybe a manual way to get at your well water if you have a well. Water will be a real issue if you have no way to get at it in the winter and will always be your biggest worry unless you get some clever ways to deal with these issues.

Guns wont protect your family from illness or disease. Go to medical school if you want to live a full life otherwise someone might have to live with a incorrectly healed broken bone or die of something stupid that can be cured with a few shots.

Thinking you will need to "bug out" long term or survive is a marketing scam that is perpetuated by gun makers and other product manufactures. the truth is life will sucks and people will die in great numbers were talking billions

upnorth said:
For most of my life I have thought of the term ''survival'' as being able to make a fire and possibly gather food in a remote place, because I was stuck somewhere in the bush. I always thought of the people that squirrel away supples etc. ''in case it all collapses'' as the lunatic fringe. Well I guess that I am now joining the fringe. I now consciously keep my canned goods stocked up and bought a separate 50 lb. bag of rice.....just in case. And I may start building on that bulk bag. I never thought that I would start thinking like this but the political climate\economy in the U.S., Canada's major trading partner, scares me. Nothing seems to be changing and the train wreck is coming. Then on top of that the general world (economic) climate is turning to crap. I wonder if it will get to the point were we are snaring rabbits and poaching deer on the sly, as a serious food supplement ? Maybe I should take these survival skills more seriously because we may be heading into a multi year depression, like the dirty thirties............................. ?
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You also have to think how to be prepared realistically given your situation.
How I have to prepare living in a 300 square foot apartment in a city is different from what someone with property and money will do to prepare.
Hell, If I had a year's supply of food and water, I'd have nowhere to sleep.:D
 
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