What could cause a SHTF scenario?

When so many people are using the phrase "sh!t hits the fan scenario" without specifically outlining a cause, what exactly are they expecting?
There currently exists an increased interest in survival techniques, strategies and essential equipment, what could be the catalyst for a back to basics existence?
Some may believe in a future prophesied event, some i have read stating "its a feeling" or "an awareness" or simply related to astronomical signs.
This question will hopefully have a wide range of answers and i encourage all, no matter how remote it may sound. Could it be;
World War III, Financial Crisis, Obama, Alien Invasion or is it simply 2012 hype?

Try not getting social security checks on the 3rd
Just for starters

Honestly? Depending upon how this debt fiasco in the U.S. plays out, this could be it. It certainly could be for the U.S., anyhow.

reply to post by lestweforget


From what I read most people are assuming it's going to be a government take over of the people fueled by the NWO. Martial Law and all that good stuff with detention camps and mass murder at the hands of the government and their military cronies.

This will be world wide so the only place they expect to be able to survive is out in the wilderness.

Realistically I think the only thing that may cause this scenario would be an outbreak of a deadly virus or disease that hit's humanity extremely hard forcing people to live outside of the norm. Most other scenarios like nuclear war or natural disasters will have safe places for you to retreat too so they wouldn't fit.

reply to post by granpabobby

I havnt heard anything about no SS checks on the 3rd, i wonder what the reaction will be by so many people effected with limited resources will be, will there be some sort of protest, or worse?

Honestley I worry about a shtf scenerio, with a bunch of babies and children, I have to. But my logical mind wants to tell me, man is so far from nature, it is an instinct of sorts. We are out of touch with nature, going down the wrong road. How would I survive!?!? Primal instincts that are being lost maybe? Human consciance trying to hold on? Not sure. I have supplies to keep my family alive a week.. If that. And I think that would just get us to the next week of ??? Food? Water? Idk.

Being my family is babies (8 and under) for the most part, I would hope we could survive. If not... Well hopefulley my weeks supply helps someone.

I find it funny how alot of these people spend so much time worrying about what new gun is gonna be the best when this scenario happens but don't know simple things like how to extract a tooth of theirs that might need to be pulled.

I figure that most of these people who think they are suvivalists because they have some food packed and a fancy gun are going to be hit hard by the reality of what it would really take to survive. It's not like you can run to the fridge during a commercial break while watching bear grylls.

I don't expect a "SHTF" scenario as it is often laid out here, i.e, one minute it's blue skies and chirping birds and kids on tricycles, and the next minute it's beyond thunderdome. Rather, as usually happens, I expect somehthing more nunaced. Basically, I expect the fabric of normalcy to unravel further and further in all sorts of ways, uneavenly. Some areas will be hit worse than others. Expect inturruptions: Garbage collection suddenly stops because of municipal budget lockdowns; the government mobilizes troops here and there, perhaps riots and mass civil unrest here and there; more and more events like Katrina and Fukushima, and so on. It will be a crap toss. Person A might live in an area in which things seem barely different; meanwhile person B loses everything and has to sleep in a car. Think of a long, slow, downwards grind to a grimmer, grittier world, punctuated by tragedies and disasters here and there, but not everywhere at once.

That's what I'm expecting.

In fact, some would argue that this process is already well underway and has been for some years now...

A grand mother I speak too said something once that really took me by surprise. She was dismissing every scenario. Saying that people could suffer through much worse than any of that. It was then that she said the thing that blew my mind.

"Stop the sewage. In two days when all the toilets are backed up people will be in the streets."

Isn't it interesting how many members have used the phrase, and the thousands of times it has been posted here, but no one has noticed what the first letter of the acronym stands for. Truely SHTF.

I only hope that the DHS considers these services "critical."


David Grouchy

reply to post by davidgrouchy


Heh. That's a good anecdote, thanks.

Although in point of fact, only 0.4 per cent of the inhabitants of Lagos, Nigeria have a toilet connected to a sewer system. If this city of 12 million can make do without exploding into open rebellion, than so can the rest of the world, at least in theory...as long as they are eased into the "new conditions" slowly in a frog-pot-boil manner.

As the world globalizes, the difference between the developed world and third world will gradually diminish. But rather than this meaning the third world will advance to the level of the developed world, the advanced economies will instead retrogress and decay to the level of the third world.

reply to post by davidgrouchy


Your grandmother was dismissing everything you said and then she says "stop the sewage", maybe she was relating to what was coming out your mouth kidding of course,

I just finished watching a doomsday scenario program on the history channel, six investigative journalists with differing views on the impending struggles the earth will most likely experience.
The most convincing scenario was an impending pandemic through loss of clean water.

Super Volcano! Let's just hope it's not Yellowstone that goes off, or everyone in the U.S. would be dead.

The most likely scenarios would be global economic collapse or a Nuclear World War. The water crisis has a lot of merit too.

There are lots of things that could cause such a situation.

You could have a bad weather year and all of a sudden you can't feed the existing population.
You could have an epidemic that our medicine can't treat.
You could have an economic breakdown where society stops functioning the way it does now.

Big solar flare
Big earthquake
Big storm

You get the picture.

Here it is as it will unfold.

1. First the debt ceiling will be raised.
2. people holding large stock will begin to sell off and the Dow and other US money markets will dive, slowly at first but then will tumble faster.
3. The newly created power committee will call for tax hikes, and congress and president will comply.
4. The economy will collapse.
5. Cities will burn as the people riot.
6. Marshal law is declared and enforced.
7. Civil militias spring into action against the regime, people join by the hundreds of thousands.
8. Foreign troops come to the aid of the government.
9. Full blown civil war explodes.
10. The United States is broken up into smaller entities and become separate nations as part of a ceasefire treaty.

reply to post by Fromabove


You may be close to the mark, but i have a problem with number 7 onwards, i think it would be practically impossible for hundreds of thousands to unite with no communications.
Internet and networks for cell phones would be shut down immediately once martial law was imposed.

Trade barriers against China.

2nd.

reply to post by Rockdisjoint


Your scared of China? Dont be! The Chinese leaders are down with the global agenda, do you think the globalist elite would just let China become powerfull and a threat, their in on it!