Please start stocking up on food

originally posted by: tanstaafl

Piece of cake if the 20 aren't armed to the teeth with lots of ammo and someone leading them with some military experience.

Or out in the open.

The rule with regard to contentious ground is that those in possession have the advantage over the other side. If a position of this kind is secured first by the enemy, beware of attacking him. The Art of War (chapter 11)

originally posted by: Archivalist
If it gets so bad that I have to shoot my neighbor for food, then I'll be handing my neighbor food before they shoot me, and I'll die, as is the duty of any person that claims to be a true humanist.

We are a group, a collective, not an individual. Self ego is nothing to preservation of society, so there's no need to doom prep, or worry about the end of the world. If the world screws itself up, then fall on the sword, as is the duty of any human that wants the continuation of the whole, and doesn't mind being the price to pay for it.

I never claimed to be a humanist.

The collective doesn't give a rip about me; it doesn't even know I exist. If a "doom porn" scenario has come to pass, then the social contract has already expired, by definition. Culture / society is a group effort; societies constantly evolve and even go extinct. But the individuals are left, as survivors, even after a given culture dies.

When Rome fell, the 3 million inhabitants of "the eternal city" didn't all just keel over and expire the very next day. They had to find a way to continue on in the face of an alien culture. They had to adopt a new set of rules, and had an impact on the invading Frankish culture, even as it impacted their own world-view.

I don't owe the culture anything. My definition of right and wrong is not beholden to the social norms of the current collective. I answer to a higher power, that transcends human culture, thank you very much.

originally posted by: Archivalist
If it gets so bad that I have to shoot my neighbor for food, then I'll be handing my neighbor food before they shoot me, and I'll die, as is the duty of any person that claims to be a true humanist.

We are a group, a collective, not an individual. Self ego is nothing to preservation of society, so there's no need to doom prep, or worry about the end of the world. If the world screws itself up, then fall on the sword, as is the duty of any human that wants the continuation of the whole, and doesn't mind being the price to pay for it.

I never claimed to be a humanist.

The collective doesn't give a rip about me; it doesn't even know I exist. If a "doom porn" scenario has come to pass, then the social contract has already expired, by definition. Culture / society is a group effort; societies constantly evolve and even go extinct. But the individuals are left, as survivors, even after a given culture dies.

When Rome fell, the 3 million inhabitants of "the eternal city" didn't all just keel over and expire the very next day. They had to find a way to continue on in the face of an alien culture. They had to adopt a new set of rules, and had an impact on the invading Frankish culture, even as it impacted their own world-view.

I don't owe the culture anything. My definition of right and wrong is not beholden to the social norms of the current collective. I answer to a higher power, that transcends human culture, thank you very much.