reactive and analytic

REACTIVE AND ANALYTIC

Before, when we talked about my short lived law enforcement career, I mentioned that after a time I came to realize I was a danger to myself and others due to the fact that I was in no way reactive to situations.  My brain was wired to analyze, not react swiftly.  I’m sure many folks are.  The question is, does the military realize this?  They sure made no effort to distinguish in my case, merely matching warm bodies to paper quotas.  One imagines there is a slightly better vetting mechanism for infantry, but only because of the nature of the volunteer military and the fact that more purely physical types are attracted to this type of endeavor ( I’m certainly not claiming any kind of metal superiority here.  Today’s infantry are no Neanderthals carrying clubs looking for heads to bash in but by the nature of their equipment must have a good head on their own shoulders to use it.  I’m merely talking about brain wiring ).  One imagines, given the history of over two centuries of performance of the Army, the typical thinking is that the peasant cannon fodder is fed into the grinder and the correct type able to thrive in combat will emerge.  Superior social classes making up the military officer corps certainly can’t be bothered with such mundane matters as fitting the lower ranks into slots they would perform better in.

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As a survivalist, it does behoove you to realize what type you are.  In stressful situations, you don’t act as you’d wish to but rather as your brain chemistry instructs you ( please don’t open the can of worms AGAIN about how by virtue of your manliness and studliness you will be able to shrug off brain chemistry as a mere irritating girly-man inconvenience.   Just refer back to the article on it and reread it and don’t bother me in the comments about how you are special and immune ).  The only way to overcome this is through training and muscle memory and for those of you who can’t afford $50 a week in ammunition for training yourself to be super ninja plastic carbine commandoes, it is better to realize your limitations and plan accordingly.  Don’t buy into your own hype as to how great you are and hence are able to live in the middle of a ten million population metro-mega-urban area because at the end you shall jump into your armored RV and plow through all the masses and shoot them all up to escape to your condo on the mountain.  Realize how frightening it is to be surrounded by future cannibals, and friggin move prior to collapse.  But, sorry, off track slightly.  If you are a analytic and hence not a natural at fighting, you need to take some shortcuts to tilt the odds back in your favor.  The first was reducing the danger to yourself to increase the odds by having far fewer hostiles directed at you.  The second is to reduce as many future questions involved in conflict as you can.

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By being analytical by nature, you usually can’t turn off your brain.  You over think EVERYTHING, from procuring the coffee you drink in the morning to the many and varied ramifications involved in a potential attack from a criminal during your commute home, from the response of the law enforcement team responding to the sexual satisfaction of the prosecuting attorney if you are taken to trial for defending yourself ( was he laid last night?  Or will he be a prick and hang me out to dry because he has blue balls? ).  What you must do is short circuit that tendency in instances of future conflict.  By moving to a less crime ridden area, you can usually remove a great deal of stress as far as analyzing how you will handle an attack, and by reducing post-collapse conflict to black and white, yes/no situations you can help to reduce your tendency at hesitation for a few critical seconds.  Think about conflicts and decide, NOW, how they will be handled.  This is why I try to reduce future problems to brute simple answers.  Not because I can’t think out all the ramifications of different responses.  I can, and I do.  By taking a problem and making the solution easy, I am turning off the analysis machine.  Because being analytical is a great problem solving mechanism, but not in the heat of battle.  When should you flee the city?  Before things get worse.  When should I kill others?  Every time, regardless of gender or age, IF they don’t belong to your tribe.  How bad will things get?  You don’t know, so you always assume the worse and NEVER get your hopes up, such as those with small food reserves have done.  Simplistic answers don’t leave room for creeping doubts.  Creeping doubts are what freeze up an analytical mind.  If you don’t stop analyzing data, you never respond.  Simplistic answers aren’t necessarily the product of a simple mind.  They are a prod to action for the over thinker.

( a third trick might be post-apocalypse fiction.  By encountering new situations you hadn’t thought of already, you are not caught unawares when truth mirrors fiction in the future and can think on solutions now while you have the luxury of time ).

END

 

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remington 700

REMINGTON 700

We have a volunteer at the Food Bank who was a Texas farm boy, a sniper in Vietnam, a gun dealer and certified gun safety instructor ( not that I place much importance in the last one, only a moron has trouble getting the basics, but it is another credential ).  He is my go to guy on guns right now until dementia seizes him, his colon explodes in cancer or some other form of death delivers him from me.  And by the way, he has an AR as he loves to go after coyotes.  I do NOT take this as an endorsement of the weapon, even if a former sniper is using it, but merely as underlining my opinion that it makes a darn fine medium range tack driver.  Anyway, I read up on another prepper blog how the Remington 700 was a wonderful bolt gun, having made a gabazillion of them in most calibers and etc.  I asked ol’ Ted what he thought of them.  In a nutshell, it is a five thousand round gun.  It starts out at 2/1,000^th inch headspace and at about two thousand rounds that has doubled to 4/1,000^th as the two lugs start to wear down.  At four thousand rounds it is at 6/1,000^th.  As 7/1,000^th is the No-Go number, you can imagine that anything above five thousand rounds is just Baby Jesus smiling down at you ( all Yuppie’s reading this will of course have God’s sole undying love so this gun will obviously fire forever for you ).

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This is not to say you can’t get upwards of six or even eight thousand rounds through a Remington.  The above is a general guideline.  No two rifles will wear down exactly alike.  Yes, I know the Remington 700 is a hunting rifle and its users put five or ten rounds through it a year and hence your great grandson can still use it just fine.  But for post-apocalypse use, not just hunting but also self-defense, you now start to see limitations in this being a multi-generational weapon.  If the rifle you buy is the last one you are going to own, your next one being a black powder and lead pipe lashed to a tree branch, you might want to do a bit of research into another brand.  I have no idea how the 700’s stack up against semi’s or single shot’s ( minions?  Anyone, anyone? I can't get all the answers from Ted as he tends to talk faster than I can't take notes, over complicates and goes overly technical ) in terms of longevity, so I can’t say if it is just Remington being tight ass bastards and screwing us or if this is typical.  I can’t even say if it matters all that much, if you can still keep throwing lead down range without it being a huge issue.  Mechanics are NOT my strong suite.  Hell, if you can get three times the rounds from an AR compared to a bolt, that $700 starter AR would actually be a better deal financially ( and since you are using it merely as a sniper, you wouldn’t need but a few 20 round mags, so that additional cost would be negligible ).  I await your expertise in this matter.

END

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whistles

WHISTLES

A lot of times, six months down the road after I’ve bought a non-fiction book for an egregious amount like $15, our local library then has it in stock and I rue the gods when it turns out I had wasted my money and could have been warned.  But other times I’ve been warned off from a book and then the library is carrying it and I get it and it turns out not half bad and I save money- so the whole thing is probably a wash.  “California” by Edan Lepucki is the latter.  Now, true, it isn’t a true post-apocalypse novel although it shares some aspects.  And it isn’t a total Dystopia genre either.  Perhaps it could be termed a Survival Lite Cozy.  It is very well written, something you certainly aren’t going to see a lot of in more traditional survivalist pulp fiction.  The one part that stuck with me in the book was the compounds residents use of whistles for nighttime communication.  While I’m sure this has been used before in PA fiction, an example doesn’t come to my mind immediately.  Most pseudo-survivalists are so busy gaying up their plastic carbines with laser dots and flashlight rails and having every digital device available to man to continue their wiz bang modern lifestyle long after they should be embracing a Thoreau simplistic one ( using the excuse of Force Multiplier in the same context I’d use “Boobs” to justify my poor life decisions ) that it never occurs to them to communicate with anything conceived of before their birth.

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And since EMP is a favored plot device, even used by myself, embarrassingly, they not only get to buy every electronic device known to man for communication, they also get to buy at least one other copy of each one to have as a back-up in a Faraday cage.  Yes, some things are hard to duplicate non-electronically.  You end up with the inverse of the 80/20 rule.  Lighting with the worse LED bulb is far better than the best candle.  Solar powered illumination is one of the few real advances available for the survivalist compared to his cave lurking ancestor of four decades ago.  But minimizing your dependence on higher tech should be your first consideration in all preps so as to minimize lifestyle disruption X amount of years after the collapse.  You want X to last as long as possible with as little upheaval at the end.  And foregoing digital communication and embracing sight and noise signals, if at all possible, is one way to do this.  I’m not suggesting throwing yourself on the grenade of low tech for its own sake, getting yourself killed by upholding Luddite principles regardless of tactical considerations, but simply saying you should ask yourself if high tech is always necessary.  I’ve Amazon Advertised a dozen whistles for this week at the top of the page.  I wouldn’t suggest plastic except as an expedient to procuring better longer lasting metal ones later, of course.

END

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population control

POPULATION CONTROL

In general, humans are weak, lazy and stupid.  Social custom both ensures the ignorant have a fighting chance at survival and is always correct due to its discovery.  Customs are brought about in typical Darwin fashion, a long set of trials where the idiots die and the slightly less idiots survive and pass on the winning strategy.  Today, most Americans have no use for custom, making their own up as they go along because Sweet Baby Jesus forbid they actually step outside their fantasy bubble environment of the Oil Age ( if you doubt my first sentence above, just think about how the 70’s oil supply shocks didn’t clue anyone into conservation or alternates but brought about an economy based on doubling down on Business As Usual ).  Anthropology is the bastard step child of Universities, only allowed as long as obscure dark skinned tribes with stretched out lips and bosoms, skipping around camp fires chanting some weird ass noise, are the only peoples studied and no conclusions are made as to how us honkies behave.  We wouldn’t want to upset anyone who thinks it’s possible to act in as moronic a matter as possible without any negative consequences.  I love anthropology myself, finding it fascination how humans will act regardless of time or place, but there isn’t much of a need to put too much time into it.  Just remember the adage “it’s all about the food, stupid”.  Today, infanticide and war as population control.

*

Humans were made to hump more than bunnies on Viagra.  It is a given.  If you are married, you might not accept this truism, but that is only the result of the last hundred years of a one off event of energy surplus ( any system that doesn’t need male upper body strength to farm will see an equality of the sexes, and farm mechanization was closely aligned with women’s suffrage in this country ) which too shall soon pass.  And sure enough, you hump enough and pretty soon you get a bun in the oven.  Now, I know it is shocking to you that not every kid bursting into this world is greeted with confetti and joy, but in an energy down world, infant death and infanticide are accepted.  In fact, in poverty stricken areas, it is quite normal to NOT want some children.  Those children which help economically are welcomed and those that will impose a hindrance and possibly endanger other members of the family are not welcomed at all.  Infanticide is accepted and normal in these cases.  It can be as simple as triaging food and medicine, for when childhood death is an everyday occurrence a malnourished infant dying isn’t questioned.  Everyone knows there isn’t enough to go around, nor does anyone expect you to do something drastic and overt like throwing the poor kid off a cliff.

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Warfare is never going to go away.  In some societies it is the only way to settle disputes.  In a lot of instances, warfare is for needed resources in a perpetual land of want.  Sometimes it is for breeding stock or just plain greed.  But war alone isn’t always enough to both feed the tribe winning or getting rid of enough population ( one only needs to look at the areas plagued by decades of war and see little decrease in people ).  However, in pre-gunpowder societies, perpetual warfare itself, not the actual fighting, was enough to decrease population.  In a war, you need men ( PRE-gunpowder, FemiNazi dykes! ).  Over time, male babies are going to be the lottery winner in the infanticide survivor game.  This doesn’t decrease the number of kids, because if there are no mates at home the warriors will get one on the next invasion, but it decreases the kids that will grow up to be breeders.  Instead, they grow up to die on the battlefield.  In time, a slow decrease in absolute numbers, or preferably a leveling off of numbers just below the resource threshold.  People are still humping, babies are still being born, young males are still getting wives.  But the population doesn’t explode.  The current Chinese preference for males isn’t abnormal, it is the latest in a long custom.  Parents decide about children for their own interests ( which is why nothing short of forced sterilization will bring populations down if it pays to have children ).  Custom can turn that from a disaster to a more manageable outcome.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.
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god loves yuppies

GOD LOVES YUPPIES

As I’ve said on many occasions, too many occasions, every imaginable occasion plus a few that have no connection whatsoever and I established a fabled link just from sheer willpower and cussedness, Rawles first novel was a great book and is included at the coveted Bison Top Twenty Bestest Post-Apocalypse Books Of All Time ( which does NOT include Earth Abides as it is a putrid “live off canned goods for decades drivel” type of book which I loathe and despise and have turned my beady little sites on since I can’t get up too much ire against the ex-wife anymore so I have to hate something ).  All his subsequent novels are readable and little else.  They have each had parts you hated and parts you felt made the whole thing worth reading.  The latest one ( Liberators ) is struggling to make the grade at all.  I’m half way through and I’m still going to finish it but I’m not going to be surprised if this turd is retired to the list of free K-book novels where you nearly tear out your hair for the hours of your life you’ll never get back.  Okay, the last novel Expatriates had long nauseating passages about Christian dating rituals ( I have no problem agitating for a return to less liberated female sexual practices, and withholding sex before marriage was a custom not without its strong suites.  But the long grilling interviews between the parties confirming the others correct religious obscure doctrinal views might be mothers milk to the targeted book audience ( a minion calls this Christian Militia Porn )  but to me brought to mind a corporate interview for a job position.  I’m not the world’s most romantic guy, but even I’m wondering what the hell these couples are doing besides ensuring their admittance into heaven and being more concerned that their breeding stock spawn is properly indoctrinated than with the health or economic standing of a potential partner.  Not only is love conditional on the accepted version of the Bible, its only fire seems to stem from brimstone.

*

But I put up with this queer courtship description and the book quickly got to more interesting subjects such as a Lee-Enfield sniper/guerrilla.  This newest book has the same Old Testaments courtship crap, squared in volume it seems, and then goes directly into unsound prepper procedure.  I’ve never encountered such a ill thought out bug out plan in fiction, and I’ve read some real crap.  You are an idiot to start with living in the DC metro area.  Then, you are only about one or two days ahead of the crash bugging out, despite your supposed brilliance in prepping.  Then, you are well armed but barely provisioned with food, AND fail to take into account bugging out with kids and what your back-up plan is if you lose your motor vehicle.  Then, within 120 miles of your destination, having gotten rid of the car, your plan is to winter over in place in a Kentucky area government park.  For lack of two weeks travelling, you face starvation over the winter.  You assume no one else will eat your game animals and no one will find you.  All bad enough, right?  Oh, it gets worse.  The book has the character commenting that due to Gods providence, they survived the ordeal ( a good Samaritan comes along and wills them his stockpile ).  So, what I’m hearing, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that it is okay to have an ill thought out, high failure probability plan AS LONG AS GOD LOVES YOU.  Because he will rescue your dumb ass.  This is what passes for survival planning from the long reigning King Kahuna of survivalism?  I could be way off base here, and I apologize if I’m wrong, but to me this did not come off as a cautionary tale, at all.  More like a loving chronicling of one of Baby Jesus’ chosen ones.  Jeez.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.
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 My Other Free Books,

 Homesteading For $3k Book,

 Top 20 Survivalist Fiction,

 Land In Elko,

 Blog Book,

 Lord Bison,

 my bio & biblio
*
If my Blogger page ever goes down, I will start to post at my regular web site:
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*
My books on PDF available at
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