The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
I guess we are damned by the construction of the parameters of the question. If I'm drowning I want the RNLI, on fire send for a fireman, and so on. As we are damned to pick between either of those two the best I can come up with is to strip out that halo-effect as best I can rather than just extrapolate from some TV show. I'd approach it the same way if my two potential savours were Ann Widdecombe and Sarah Palin. It would be a ghastly choice for sure but I'd be wanting to know which knew first aid, which could swim better, which was the fittest and so on. All that TV spin-doctor veneer that the common pleb is interested in them for is largely irrelevant to me. All I want to know is which has the CV that is likely to contain the most relevant stuff, all the rest is binned off. I'm not claiming I have the right answer, it's a punt and pity the fool that doesn't recognise the gamble, but here lay the best answer for me. If I had a crisis in a macramé class I'd probably gamble differently.
When we're dealing with a witness that claims he can dowse for water I don't think we're dealing with someone that is fit to judge anyone. That is clearly a low credibility witness with a testimony even rookies should dismiss. Here's a brainteaser for you have you ever seen Mears or any of the other popular TV gurus out with the dowsing wands, or ever seen them in a serious survival kit, or even employed in a third world country where they often suffer deaths from drought? How you could have the unbridled timerity to cast aspersions at Grylls methods of emergency rehydration is frankly stunningly ludicrous.
I respect your preference but not your reasoning. His knowledge is deeper than you know...., and you don't think that applies to Grylls too? You learned something pretty darn basic from a TV show, w00t. That's a technique most of us have known for decades. In a different TV show a guy shows a different technique, and that's all he knows? If you went and trained with the RMC down and Lympstone and they showed you how to procure good water with a bit of old rope would you conclude the DS were inferior to those in some pissant unit 'cos their instructors showed how to make a solar still from an old coke bottle? I'm not completely certain you would. ....................... As for the disgust sensitivity stuff Grylls may also clue you in that on hard routine when you've crapped in a bag you can poke it down your jacket for a bit as a hot water bottle. I'm sure many people would mock that too because it is revolting and tips most people over their disgust sensitivity threshold. It also happens to work.....................................As for the primitive society stuff; do you really believe that people which are likely to be in peril do much of their learning from a celebrity doing Time Team on the TV. Do you think people get trained with much of that paleo-retro stuff as a priority? Nah, of course not. They get taught solid core stuff, probably including your moss thing, first aid, and other essentials as a priority. Nobody gives a hoot that in Alaska they called what we call a herb chopper an ulu, that's for the bonus points only. They're too busy out learning to run with their mate over their shoulder 'cos that is more likely to be useful in a real world survival situation. As I said, in most likely survival scenarios that stuff Mears does on his shows has no relevance at all. One would do better to get some medical training, some basic rope skills, and so forth, and of course increasing their personal fitness than learning how to carve a spoon. And of course Grylls can do all that too..................................I think the best parallel I can close with here would be if my car broke and I had the choice of two mechanics. One of them turns up very quickly, solves the problem, and I'm able to move on. The other mechanic turns up hours later, works slower, but also knows how to translate the manual into Latin and how to shoe a horse. Both can fix my car. I know which one I'm likely to gamble on when I make the call. If I lived in Mongolia my gamble might be different.
Might want to put up another option to give Ray some competition.
