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Preppers: Be Careful What You Wish For
“Let it all burn to the ground! I’ll be up in the hills with my survival group, two years’ worth of food and a ton of supplies. You can stay here and die. In fact, I hope you all die so I can walk back down here when you are dead and take all of your stuff that you were too stupid to protect.”
Have you ever heard someone talk like that about the end of the world as we know it? I have many times. It is usually on survival forum posts or in the comments of prepper blogs that we hear this vitriol spewed from people who seem to eagerly anticipate a horrible SHTF event. I can’t even grasp the stupidity of comments like that and have to believe that anyone who says anything remotely similar is suffering from a serious lack of intelligence, maturity or both.
How could anyone in their right mind want chaos and anarchy? Who would wish destruction on our entire civilization?
There is another side to this topic though and that is a connected, but slightly different yearning I believe on the part of some preppers, who secretly hope in some small way for TEOTWAWKI in their lives also. This desire isn’t to see anyone harmed although they are probably aware this possibility must come with the territory. It is also not to take advantage of anyone like the comment above. Some preppers might be looking forward to “the big reset” caused by some global catastrophe, not because they are anarchists who want destruction but are instead searching for something more personal and intimate to the human experience.
I believe that some people are secretly OK with the prospect of TEOTWAWKI because of how our society has become pathetic on some fronts, due to technological advances and nanny state bureaucracies. With all the advancements of science and industry, we have forgotten some of our native abilities and our lives are devoid of the challenges that strengthened and tested our forefathers. When the biggest fear is losing electricity, what has our life as human beings become? When everyone gets a trophy just for showing up, what is the point of striving in the contest of life? If your social life is plunged into a panic due to a brief outage on Facebook, how meaningful is that life? If even sledding must be banned due to the fear of lawsuits, how screwed up are our priorities? If the only answer to getting what you want is to riot, protest or a court battle, how weak have we become as a species, or perhaps more accurately; how much control have we willingly given away?
The Pioneer Spirit is not lost, it is searching for you
This thought has been bouncing around in my brain for some time, but it took another show on NatGeo to bring the concept to the front of my consciousness. I so rarely watch TV and if I do it is almost always National Geographic and that is why so many of my articles feature thoughts gleaned from that network. I do not own stock in them, but I watched the first episode of a show called The Pioneers. This show isn’t radically different from a lot of other reality based shows out there; camera crews follow people carefully selected, no doubt to get along and argue with each other at all the right times, but the premise is “a social experiment that follows four couples for three months as they trade in their 21st-century comforts for covered wagons, campfires, and the harsh reality of life on the American prairie.”
Cast of the Pioneers on National Geographic.
The main motivation for the couples interviewed generally was to get back to the spirit of the pioneers, our ancestors and see if they could complete a wagon voyage across the prairies of America. This would be without any modern conveniences naturally and the only survival tools they are given in the show, were common to the 1800’s. In watching that first show I realized that so many of us are yearning for the same type of challenge, but most of us could not and would not appear on any reality show to see how we actually fared. I think that pioneer spirit is in our DNA somehow and our modern society doesn’t give us many chances to exercise this deep down yearning, so that, almost unconscious desire, manifests itself in a tacit longing for a return to a more challenging time.
Sure, you could go off the grid, drop out of society and hike up into the woods but most of us wouldn’t do that willingly unless our lives depended on it and even if we did, the rest of society wouldn’t follow along so it wouldn’t really be the way the pioneers lived life would it? A TEOTWAWKI event would be the great impetus, depending on the disaster, for a mandatory return to a simpler, harsher life. If a great calamity happened, you wouldn’t have to quit your job or turn off your cell phone. You wouldn’t have any choice about growing a garden or trying to repair holes in your jeans. Life would be completely different and you would finally see how you are able to stand up to the challenges of a world that doesn’t come with so many shortcuts.
You don’t have to wait for the end of the world
I can relate to the thoughts I mention above because in some small way I would like to see how I could rise to the challenges faced by our pioneer relatives. I fully understand that life was much harder back then so I don’t want to foolishly wish a return to the 1800’s on any of us, but a big reset would seem to be the quickest, maybe not the least painful way to start over on a lot of things.
If you have similar thoughts there are things you can do now though to try to make sure you are prepared if something happens that does cause us all to lose the modern conveniences that we love and rely on so much to make life easier and more entertaining. You can not only be more prepared, there are ways to test yourself in the process, they just require some effort and planning.
- Turn off the power – This is the easiest thing you can do to experience a little pain without really sacrificing too much. Just flip the main breaker on Friday night and go all weekend, maybe even a week to see how you handle living without power. How will you cook when the grid is down? What will you do when the lights are out? How will you stay warm or cool?
- Go hiking for a month – Always wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail? Plan a month-long hiking excursion without the benefit of resupply points along the way. This would be bugging out without the roving bands of looters to worry about.
- Stop buying anything for a month – Could you go without buying anything for a month? We have plenty of food stored, but still make weekly trips to the grocery store. If you had to go without leaving your house for a month could you do that?
- Turn off the water – This is much harder than electricity at some points of the year. When you have to haul your water and filter it every time you need it, you will appreciate what those pioneers had to do. You might take fewer showers.
- Try using the bathroom outside for a week – Nothing says ‘I’m a Pioneer’ like pooping in the woods on a cold dark night. If that isn’t enough for you, lose the toilet paper also.
- Walk or ride a bike everywhere – The new car you have, is not very ‘Pioneer’ is it? Try walking the kids to soccer practice for a week. I bet that traveling league wouldn’t work out so well.
I understand the allure of wanting to be tested – to go back to a world without so much noise, where you have to be self-reliant or else you die, but the downside is we easily forget just how difficult that life was. Sure, an EMP for example could send us back to the 1800’s without killing a lot of people immediately, but there would be a large loss of life as the lack of electricity affected people in so many ways. Many people, maybe your own children or spouse could die from simple infections if they were unable to receive antibiotics. Women would die in greater numbers during childbirth. There wouldn’t be a 911 to call if your house caught fire. Retirement? The only way you would get to retire is when you died.
Living like the Pioneers for us wouldn’t be anything like Little House on the Prairie. Your hometown would probably look more like a third world slum for generations. Don’t believe me? Have you seen the garbage that piles up after only 10 days? Do you know anyone with horses? Woodworking tools that don’t require power? Wagons for the horses to pull? Steam locomotives or the knowledge to build any of these things?
We may all get to see what it is like living like the Pioneers one day but if I am being honest, I don’t want to go through that turmoil if I have a choice. I don’t want it for myself or my family or anyone in the world. It is one thing to think about it from my sofa watching a reality TV show drinking a cold adult beverage, but if the 1800’s came knocking on my door I know that eventually, probably faster than I like, I would regret the loss in a very real way. As a prepper I do try to plan for scenarios like this but I always try to remind myself that my preparations are for worst-case scenarios and that I would really be much happier if these plans I make never saw the light of day. As a society, I might think we need a big reset, but I for one don’t want to go through the death and destruction to get there. If it happens, I’ll deal with it, but I am not wishing that on anyone.
Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
Contributed by Pat Henry of The Prepper Journal.
Source: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/preppers-be-careful-what-you-wish-for_012015
preppers, be prepping for me and mine to visit them, and use their stash, to help old and weak, child and maiden, and like, anyhoo, how do you prep for vikings? id love to know,, mwhahahaha,, preppers, see you in the Ragnarok, just pile all your stuff at the door, set yourself on fire with yer house and save us the effort.,
Pillaging raiders don’t plan, they steal, they burn, they take. This has its place in history, and will have its place in the future, too. BUT, without genius leadership, raiders have no extended future, either.
Let’s consider the ‘futuristic raiders’ to historical ones, let’s look at Ghengis Khan, the world’s greatest ‘raider’ ever known.
He had a plan, global ownership and rule. He brought together a hundred raider camps (that were being simple thugs) and used them as battalions of infantry for his goal. He raided farms, took maidens, and overran ‘organized civilization’. What you don’t see is what empowered him to do this, that is NOT there for you modern thugs. You don’t have military genius, you have low-level field sergeants. You don’t have thousands of local farmer-peasants to raid and take from as you move along, you have GLOBAL MEGA FARM CORPORATION that stops planting the day it all falls, and stops all foods in a year from being produced. Now you are down to house-to-house raiding. The population is diseased and is glad to share their AIDS, MRSA, etc. with you as you ‘take those maidens’ along the way (further killing your numbers off).
In the end, you get 6-months of thuggery before you resort to the last resort, self-cannibalism. See, you aren’t Khan, you aren’t Napoleon, you are nothing but wasteland thugs with visions of self-grandeur. As Clint Eastwood once said, ‘a man has GOT to know his limitations’, your obviously stops at that 3rd firing brain cell that makes you think you are going to be Tyranno-thug Rex, instead of just continuing to be bacteria number 1,234,321,111.
Well, other than being what appears to be a paid Info-mercial for Nat Geo’s new series, the facts stated are exceedingly wrong – and here’s why:
Just like Guntherian, on the ‘let’s go Mad Max on everyone and take what we need’, and his extremist Anarchy mindset, you are on the other end of the spectrum with ‘can’t we all just get along and Socialistically vote on where we are going next?’ liberal extreme. FYI, votes are rigged, politicians and whole governments bought, and the super-rich and very hidden are calling the shots, and they aren’t going to give this control up for all the Progressive Socialists in the world. Like Ghengis Khan, they are merely using the Socialist-lovers as a means to ‘form a vast infantry’ to serve their needs, FOR NOW (Hitler did this with the peoples of a whole nation, why would now be any different?)
In reality, there is a STRONG PLACE for survivalism and prepping. True survivalism is bushcraft, it is wisdom of ‘non-technical ways’ to survive, it is farming, and ranching, and engineering, and hunting, and fishing, and a thousand other skills – and some gear and equipment. This show you speak of is just as blind as most others speaking too loudly now. It wants you to ‘put on your beaver felt hat, pick up your pitchfork and axe, and walk back in time to a ‘stereotyped version’ of what 21st century people think that 19th century people did. What a lie.
In reality, that 19th century person was far more flexible, and educated, than anyone on this show is. They were more prepared in many aspects, far less limited, and tremendously threatened by NOT having a modern society and EMT paramedics ‘just-off-set’ to help them if they get cut, hurt or injured. In their world, a cold could kill just as quickly as an arrow or a bullet, and there were plenty of all to be had then.
Modern prepping, real prepping (the moment you go into deep debates about black assault rifles and tactical gear, you’ve already turned into Guntherian, you are NOT a survivalist or bushcrafter, you are an anarchistic thug planning ‘what you’re going to do when it all falls’), is a function of knowing how to make it today, next week, next month, a year, three years down the road – and how to survive if the road then never EVER turns back to look like it does now.
Want a REAL survival show? Pick 10 ‘noted survivalists’, take them into B.C., Canada, drop them into an uninhabited area bounded by unpassable mountains and rivers they are not to ford. Now, have them live for 3 years, only with what they can carry in. No film crew, use judges to prevent ANY ASSISTANCE from the outside. No safe words, no survival extraction if they get in trouble. Do you think any would accept your ‘show offer’? How many do you think would be alive in 3 years?
The real math on this can be found in the 1830′s, once the ‘Mountainman’ era was finished (1805-1830). Of those like Jim Bridger, who went in deep, stayed most of it, and didn’t ‘run for civilization’, fewer than 10 percent is the answer. Less than 10-percent of the truest Mountainmen survived a span of 3-years in the wilderness.
Now, add poisons, contamination, GMO seeds (when is the last time you’ve seen enough seeds in a store that you happened to enter, that you could take them and survive with a garden later?), pirates, crazies, thugs, disease, no ammo, lack of bushcraft skills (men have forgotten more about bushcraft in the past 3 generations than he learned in the previous 5,000 years), etc. and what you have is a recipe for 95-percent of all humans to die in a societal collapse.
No, we aren’t looking at the black death, the dark ages – our ancestors were far tougher and resilient than we are. Their survival rates would prove this. Then again, they wouldn’t have to dig out a dictionary or encyclopedia to learn how to make fire without a lighter, too. Before you think I am being hyper-critical ask yourself one question, “When the society ends, what do I use in place of toilet paper?’ (a 100-year old design, very new, in-fact).
See how much you haven’t thought of, that you really should have? (hint, the answer is not to stock 12-redwoods worth of toilet paper…and this goes similarly for women’s menstrual pads and such).
Try Moving to Washington I hear they have to much weed maybe you can help then out there bro.
Prepping is a very American thing, and seems to me to be more of a longing for “the Good Ol’ Pioneer Days” rather than an effective way to combat adverse social conditions. Everywhere else in the world really has experienced huge social disruptions, probably bigger than anything the USA might face, but there doesn’t seem to be any Indian Preppers, European Preppers, Chinese Preppers, African Preppers… Why? Because the American method of prepping doesn’t work.
The best preparation you can make in the face of massive social disruption is a bond of trust with your neighbours: something that Americans in particular seem particularly incompetent in developing. This is especially important for Preppers who are going to flee to the wilderness because the wilderness isn’t that big, and there’s going to be an awful lot of you. The wilderness is in fact how far you are from fresh water, and that isn’t a lot. The first thing Preppers need to to know is how to exterminate the tribe that’s living upstream from you.
The Prepper may feel that living in the woods may be an idyllic experience – ego in arcadia etc – but if it’s so good, then of course someone is going to turn up and try to take it away from you. Thus Preppers are forced, by the pure sociology/anthropology of the situation, to be in a near permanent state of war. Hence, presumably, the emphasis on guns and weapons.
The situation in North America is vastly different today than it was in the 1700′s. Prepper, you won’t be colonising anything; you won’t be expanding any frontiers; all you’ll be doing is fighting your own tribes, your very own fellow Americans. You’ll be in the same as position as the Europeans of 400 AD.
As said, Europe in particular has experienced these situations over 2,000 years. You may be wise to listen to some of the lessons of history. That would be the best preparation of all.
MooOOoo… I am the symbol of new age chemical America and mutated foods… MooOOooO.. llook at me I am flying with my spider duck legs… MoooooOOooO eat more snail chickens…. MooOooOo… OBEY ME….
Since it has not sunk in yet: “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but wickedness in high places.
Fear the one that can destroy both flesh and soul.