Preppers & Survivalists

[Delbow]

I sometimes wonder how preppers feel when they are dying. Do they feel disappointed that the thing they were prepping for didn't happen in their lifetimes, that it was a waste of time? At least if you've spent your life worshipping a god, you can tell yourself you're going to heaven when you die.

[leviathan13]

38 minutes ago, Delbow said:

I sometimes wonder how preppers feel when they are dying. Do they feel disappointed that the thing they were prepping for didn't happen in their lifetimes, that it was a waste of time? At least if you've spent your life worshipping a god, you can tell yourself you're going to heaven when you die.

How do you feel when you pay for insurance but never need to claim? Isn't that a waste of money?

[ads36]

here's the difference : 'Preppers' want, maybe even yearn for the end of the world.

 

I pay house / car / holiday / etc. insurance, but i never ever ever want to need any of it.

 

Preppers, are desperate for the fall of civilisation, so they can stop working 9-5, clicking on spreadsheets, and start shooting raiders/ go raiding/ shooting deer/ etc.

 

(which does all sound like a lot of fun)

[leviathan13]

31 minutes ago, ads36 said:

here's the difference : 'Preppers' want, maybe even yearn for the end of the world.

 

I pay house / car / holiday / etc. insurance, but i never ever ever want to need any of it.

 

Preppers, are desperate for the fall of civilisation, so they can stop working 9-5, clicking on spreadsheets, and start shooting raiders/ go raiding/ shooting deer/ etc.

 

(which does all sound like a lot of fun)

Can't argue that there may be some like that.

 

Much of what i've seen/heard is people simply attempting to prepare for different situations. Like in most walks of life, there are extremes.

[Annie Bynnol]

  Survival studies and historic evidence have consistently shown that individuals rarely survive more than 21 days in any environment as they are unable to defend and maintain stocks and at the same time adapt to totally different technology (no water, energy etc)without mutual assistance. 

  In the real world those who may find themselves in hostile environments are told  stay together, stay put and NOT to ration in such a way that it impairs judgement. 

   Unsurprisingly small groups adept (or learning quickly to adapt) at foraging for resources and food with the ability maintain stocks and adapt to a wide range of new skills can survive for many months but long term prospects are limited. The major danger is from 'giving up' due to despair magnified by solitude.

 

  Literature is littered with adventure tales and the heroic activities of fictional characters which appeals to small boys and fantasists but for some continues into adulthood. As most of us find 'spares' and a maintained store cupboard practical and sensible, some obsessives engross themselves 'survivalist' clap trap  which invariably turns to weapons.

 

   Probably the best source of real long term survival examples  is amongst those who survived  in places like the extensive  hundreds of thousand square of marshes and forests in the former Soviet Union-Pripet Marshes during the 30s, 40s and 50s in face of murder by the Communists then the Nazis and then the Communists again. Despite having ample and healthy diet. food and shelter, life expectancy dropped below 40. 

[Delbow]

2 hours ago, leviathan13 said:

How do you feel when you pay for insurance but never need to claim? Isn't that a waste of money?

Not at all, but for each policy I have, it requires minimal effort once a year to renew or switch policies. Prepping / survivalism is quite a bit more involved than that isn't it?

[leviathan13]

2 hours ago, Delbow said:

Not at all, but for each policy I have, it requires minimal effort once a year to renew or switch policies. Prepping / survivalism is quite a bit more involved than that isn't it?

Depends on the level - adding a few extra tins and dried goods into your shopping is hardly backbreaking effort.

[Delbow]

33 minutes ago, leviathan13 said:

Depends on the level - adding a few extra tins and dried goods into your shopping is hardly backbreaking effort.

True, but does that make a prepper? We stocked up on some 'from abroad' foodstuffs in preparation for Brexit, in case supplies were affected - olive oil, tinned tomatoes, stuff like that. Didn't need that stockpile for Brexit but it came in handy for Covid (should have got more olive oil in, it's almost doubled in price). But I don't see myself as a prepper or survivalist. Or are those very different things?

[Delbow]

3 hours ago, Annie Bynnol said:

  Survival studies and historic evidence have consistently shown that individuals rarely survive more than 21 days in any environment as they are unable to defend and maintain stocks and at the same time adapt to totally different technology (no water, energy etc)without mutual assistance. 

  In the real world those who may find themselves in hostile environments are told  stay together, stay put and NOT to ration in such a way that it impairs judgement. 

   Unsurprisingly small groups adept (or learning quickly to adapt) at foraging for resources and food with the ability maintain stocks and adapt to a wide range of new skills can survive for many months but long term prospects are limited. The major danger is from 'giving up' due to despair magnified by solitude.

 

  Literature is littered with adventure tales and the heroic activities of fictional characters which appeals to small boys and fantasists but for some continues into adulthood. As most of us find 'spares' and a maintained store cupboard practical and sensible, some obsessives engross themselves 'survivalist' clap trap  which invariably turns to weapons.

 

   Probably the best source of real long term survival examples  is amongst those who survived  in places like the extensive  hundreds of thousand square of marshes and forests in the former Soviet Union-Pripet Marshes during the 30s, 40s and 50s in face of murder by the Communists then the Nazis and then the Communists again. Despite having ample and healthy diet. food and shelter, life expectancy dropped below 40. 

I wonder whether part of the attraction is the self-sufficiency rather than the apocalypse. Industrial and post-industrial capitalism turns us into specialists: someone might be really good at fixing cars but not at much else; someone else might understand law very well but nowt else. Our ancestors could build a house from scratch, grow their own food, butcher a cow and deliver a baby. Capitalism has made us rather pathetic by comparison and I can see the attraction of feeling able to cope should the system break down. Whereas a lot of survivalists, especially the right wing weapons enthusiasts, take an individual approach to this, there is also a more communal slant on it - communes that grow a lot of their own food and try to live outside the system as far as the system allows. Gerard Winstanley and the diggers were Christian communist survivalists of a sort. 

[The_DADDY]

4 hours ago, ads36 said:

here's the difference : 'Preppers' want, maybe even yearn for the end of the world.

 

I pay house / car / holiday / etc. insurance, but i never ever ever want to need any of it.

 

Preppers, are desperate for the fall of civilisation, so they can stop working 9-5, clicking on spreadsheets, and start shooting raiders/ go raiding/ shooting deer/ etc.

 

(which does all sound like a lot of fun)

My bold 

🤣