What's the point? Do we need to rethink our whole approach to "survival"?

reply to post by RedParrotHead
Your best chance is "selective" organization. It goes totally against everything our PC society dictates to us and is more in line with selection of military front line operators. Special operators are stress tested, given massive psyc batteries and washed out of programs at around 80-85%. What the military ends up with is a few very stable, free thinking soldiers that can make combat decisions and moral decisions with equal confidence. Unfortunatly, we are taught not to do this type of "profiling" and to except everyone as our friends (I.E> success of facebook). However, when supplies are limited and society doesn't have what people need these friends will no longer feel the need to be buddy buddy with you. We also dont have the ability to put our "friends" through the rigors of stress and testing the military does. So where does that leave us? I have a huge family including 7 kids of my own and of all the relatives (on both sides); of all the friends (on both sides) there are four nuclear families who have some insight to our game plan and only one (my son-in-law) who has the total plan. Of these only one is a friend outside the family, a boat operator for the SOF teams and a very good friend. Why? Because of security. If and when something goes down (and if you think the US is immune to whats going on in Syria you need to ask yourself why you think that way) this core group will establish the base of growth for a larger community. We have spent a longtime looking into this, as most of us were imbedded deep into the government and are now retired and we dont think it can stand for much longer, and our baseline for expansion is Children, Isolated women with kids, Isolated families in need and then individuals with skills. We can do this because we have the training and backgound to support a core infrastructure. Grow slow and grow smart. Set your self up for success and get training. It can be done and you can make a micro society but it cannot be unarmed and unorganized. Start out with the basics of good modern survival training, then a good weapons course then buy the foxfire books and start learning skills, like butchering big game and canning. Inthe end this is what is going to make life easier. Once all the components are in place just relax.....enjoy life

Originally posted by Starchild23
I am of the personal opinion that people think too much like animals...they have to dominate a space, establish resources, and reproduce in order to create more "hands around the farm".

Why do you think we exhibit that kind of behavior? Because we are animals, and that behavior is never going to change. It's natural.

When the SD(oes)HTF, the scenerio that the OP presented will never happen (everyone banding together and sharing resources). As the OP stated, they would going against their own 'primal instincts'.

We are what we are, people. It's going to be every band/person for themselves.

I think the idea of this thread was missed by a lot of people. Yes, humans are animals in the physical sense. Yes, humans have animal instincts ... some serve us well and others do not. But I am not merely an animal, and neither are you. If we were then we would still be living in caves or trees.

Collectively we can and have accomplish the seemingly impossible. Is it so far fetched an idea that we come up with a new way living once the slate has been essentially cleared? Are we so mentally weak that we will say "Well, that didn't work so let's do the same thing all over again and pass it on to our children"

Probably this mindset could only exist when nobody is afraid of dying from lack of resources...

reply to post by RedParrotHead


I am not worried about what will happen after the SHTF, if its a global event and Millions or Billions die off.
Human nature is a social creature, and once the people come together and start small communities to rebuild society..well things will start to improve again.
I am not caring what happens to cause it..nor am I worried about how life will be once its done. The transition to the other side is going to be the tough part..In my opinion.

I think the transittion will be a living hell with horrible things being done with lawlessness and violance.
This will test the limits of many people and destroy many more.

Once we get through it, to the other side...I think that we will find the new normal and adjust or adapt our lives to meet the new way of live. I believe that you'll have to work and earn your keep or you won't survive...so anyone to lazy to work now...might not be there on the other side...I don't think there will be free hand outs to people, I also think that groups will start to wonder and explore the surrounding areas..meet other groups and thus socalize...because after all we are social creatures...this is just my thoughts on it.

reply to post by RedParrotHead


I think the people will learn from it, I would like to think that we wouldn't let it happen again. The biggest problem is the nanny state in which we all live. If your getting your living for free...why work for it?

On the other side I think that charity will be earned or worked for..but not freely given. IMO, these people that are druggies, welfare rats or lazy bumbs will be removed from society through the transittion to the other side.
I honestly think that we as a people would be far better off without them...its like rewinding the clock to the 1800's. You have to work for a living to survive, you depend on family, friends and the community to all work together to help your fellow man out. We have gotten so far away from that now..that I think it will take something or a global event to get us back on track.

Originally posted by RedParrotHead
I think the idea of this thread was missed by a lot of people.

The point of the thread wasn't missed by me. I just disagree.

Yes, humans are animals in the physical sense. Yes, humans have animal instincts ... some serve us well and others do not.

All of our behavior is based on those instincts. Breeding to survival to gaining social value..etc. Everything.

But I am not merely an animal, and neither are you.

How are we so special? Our touted moral/intelligence attributes? Our intelligence seems to be leading to our downfall and may not have the survivability we thought. There is no moral absolutism, empathy isn't unique to our species, and frankly because morality is so subjective, I believe it's root lies in our very nature as social creatures and is just another phenomena of our natural instincts. I believe thousands of years of recorded history have shown our 'ethical sense' has never stood the 'actions speak louder than words' test, but we still do go on about it, don't we?

If we were then we would still be living in caves or trees.

Is it better to live in a cave or wipe out entire coastlines (without much forethought) to lay down our ant-like large population centers? I don't see any other animal on earth that is destroying the environment and even capable of destroying the planet like we are? Is this what you mean when you say we aren't merely animal? If so, then I agree with you. Are we really so much 'higher' or in reality did our mutated brains created an out-of-control evolutionary monster? Are we the most dangerous 'invasive' species on the planet by our own definition of what an invasive species is? I think we might be! Isn't it interesting that we put so much value on ourselves. So inclusive we are as a species.. just like ants building their anthills, just trying to survive, without much of a care of what they do or how they do it. Perhaps it's natural for an intelligent predator, an apex predator, to feel like it's 'higher' than everything else.

Collectively we can and have accomplish the seemingly impossible.

When did we ever collectively come together and do anything? ALL of us? Never. As groups, we do accomplish things, you are correct, but why? Once again, driven by some natural instinct. Common enemy? Band together...etc..

Is it so far fetched an idea that we come up with a new way living once the slate has been essentially cleared?

The slate has been cleared many times, in a sense, by many humans that went off on their own or were all that were left, but there's never been a utopian society. Why? We've done it many, many times before, back thousands of years ago, and we are still very much ruled by our natural instincts of breeding/survival/social value... just like every other social animal. It goes against our very nature. Even the peaceful societies always had their leadership clashes, their revolutions...etc, Again, you have to ask yourself why, and the answer is pretty obvious when we taken off our higher-than-animals blindfold. Sadly, as a collective, I'm not sure it's possible for us to do this...yet.

Are we so mentally weak that we will say "Well, that didn't work so let's do the same thing all over again and pass it on to our children"

It has nothing to do with being mentally weak. You're asking people to fight against their very natures, especially in a SHTF scenario where many people are not going to have utopian thoughts (unless they are desperate for help).. most people are going to be in fight-or-flight mode. It's instinctual.

Probably this mindset could only exist when nobody is afraid of dying from lack of resources...

That would never happen, in my opinion... gaining/seeking social value is an integral part of life of human life, thus we create things of value (we literally just make them up in many cases.. like credit) and people will seek what other humans tell them is valuable. Even if, we would still be fighting over who gets to lead or who gets to own what.

I understand your frustration. I felt much the first way when I first came to my conclusions. But I believe we are what we are, a highly social mammal, a predator; those survival instincts that rule us are always going to trump those utopian ideals, and this isn't going to change unless we eventually evolve into a gentler breed or we somehow figure out a way to genetically alter ourselves. I know many people disagree with me about the 'higher animal' thing, it's an extremely unpopular opinion, and we love to put ourselves on a pedestal, and especially champion those moral/intelligent attributes again and again, but I think a brief study of history shows that our actions have never spoken as loud as our words. After that, take a long, thoughtful, objective, honest look at our species and tell me how we benefit the world around us?

Originally posted by RedParrotHead
I have been interested in survival/prepping for going on twenty years and the more I learn about how "we" are preparing for a survivable wide spread event the more worried I'm becoming for humanity as a whole. After re-watching "Doomsday Preppers" for some reason thought that those people are thinking "small picture."

Take the two families on the show that are ready to move to a small farm in the hills. They can live out their lives there pretty comfortably. Let's say somehow they manage to fend off all raiders or whatever for many years because they are smart and armed to the teeth. When the first generation dies their grown children will pair off and and have babies, continuing the only lifestyle they know. What then? Will they interbreed? Should the founders of their joined families even worry about it?

I honestly think that this show has been aired mostly to get "normal" people to look upon people who prep as crazy. To help condition people to think of preppers as abnormal and scared of irrational things or events that just aren't going to happen because they haven't so far. Thats the vibe I got anyways from watching the show.

That being said I think survival in a SHTF scenario is more about adapting than anything. All the beans bullets and band-aids in the world are not good enough if you are in the wrong mind-set. For example, I don't have a BOB handy, if anything I'm bugging in. I figure if I don't have 30-60 mins to grab what I need from the house and get gone then I'm probably not gonna survive whatevers happened anyways. Watching hurricane season 2005 was a real eye-opener for me. when Katrina/Rita came through it was eerie to walk in our small town walmart/dollargeneral/nichols and see the shelves totally empty in a matter of 2 days. I also realized that what I thought was my small lake community out in the woods was flooded with people leaving new orleans and baton rouge and the big south LA cities. I have about 6 months of food for 4 people onhand and I always assumed I could supplement with my garden and whatever game I can find around the house because I'm a pretty good hunter. But so are most of the people around here and if the areas flooded with people then the animal/fish populations can go down quick. So now I'm thinking more food storage is a good idea. But I think you know what I mean, thinking of what could happen and being rational and not paranoid about scenarios.

Humans are tribal creatures. Its only technology thats allowed us to live the way we do now, where many people live without a strong tribal bond.

If society falls natural leaders will come to the fore (these probably won't be nice people). In times of fear and pain most people just want to find somebody to tell them what to do, takes the responsibility away from them. These 'strongmen' will gather followers to use as cannon fodder and become stronger forcing people to join or perish. The joiners will be pressed into service either as soldiers or as support staff depending on their skills.

Eventually you'll be left with competing fiefdoms ruled by barons, warlords or whatever terminology you wish to use.

If I was an american interested in surviving an apocalypse i'd join the national guard. With centre gone these units will likely be the breeding ground for the first generation of barons. A pre-packaged hierarchy and access to more firepower than the richest civilian 'prepper'.

reply to post by RedParrotHead
If Gengis Khan, ALexander, Napoleon, WWI, WWII, Hiroshima, The Cuban Missle Crisis, 3 Mile Island, First Oil Crisis, Gulf War 1 and the War on Terror hasn't made us think about just living together in a Utopian state what do you think will? A extinction level event? Maybe then the last 15 survivors will band together, roll a doobie and sing "troubled waters" together. But who will lead them? And when the leader is chosen, he/she will have to have the bigger house and the most food and ......oops here we go again......
Hate to be sarcastic, but really? Change a humans mindset of greed? Really? It would be nice, then I could save money from prepping and re-side my house.