AMIDST A SEA OF ASSHATTERY 3
In fiction, any douche bag with a tomato plant and a chicken is somehow
able to feed themselves and everyone else is a city slicker with rape and
murder on their mind. In reality, only
an extremely small fraction in the whole country can feed themselves without
modern Industrial Age Oil Age inputs.
Even the Amish, bless their pea-picking hearts, have only minimized
rather than eliminated their infrastructure dependence ( they still work metal,
without their own coal and ore mines, yes? ).
We are ALL the proverbial biker gang after the collapse. Some will fall from grace later rather than
sooner, but all will fall. Even in an
area littered with preppers, stocked up the wazoo, they will eventually go on
the offensive to remain defensive, and there is only glory in that if you
ignore collateral damage. So, as we know
that both country cousin and city slickers will both prey on you, the question
remains how much more dangerous is the city than the country. Both populations will turn feral. The city is butt hole to elbow packed with
potential enemies. What are your odds in
the city? I think the question is, how
safe is the invading army in the city?
*
Think of it this way. In the
country, you are into food production.
You also have a road. I would bet
my left nipple that not more than two in a thousand of my readers have no more
than a bike path leading to their country retreat. They have a car road. And unless you are away from the power lines
and away from a water source and probably away from a valley floor, your odds
of discovery are good if you are within twenty miles of any departure
point. An unconditioned child can walk
twenty miles in six to eight hours. And
any enemy can easily take you out. A
casual recon, a crossbow bolt or arrow to any canine sentries, and a way to
ambush you and it is all over. In the
city, on the other hand, you can be mobile because you have no food
production. If you have cached your food
elsewhere at the first sign of trouble ( NOT in your home and NOT in a storage
unit. Or, at least in a storage unit or
home under a good disguise- a few buckets buried in the dirt under your crawl
space, with an outside access, for instance ), at least in the city you have a
better chance of not being defeated militarily.
Door to door, three dimensional combat is highly fatiguing and resource
demanding. If the enemy can’t field
first world army weapons, or evacuate an entire city with force, you can live
in the city. It is staying in place, in
your precious suburban McMansion trying to defend sheetrock and a previous
investment in status that will get you killed quickly. Ideal?
Hardly. Doable? You decide.
END
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Your moving into town (albiet temporarily) is just what this blog needed.
ReplyDeleteIts givin u a new perspective on the chances of surviving in the city.
Which translates into many new ideas to blog about.
BRAVO!
I moved here and let me tell you, my anxiety went through the roof. It has been a long slow process noodling this out, at the same time trying not to delude myself.
DeleteI totally agree with you on the food production.
ReplyDeleteI have built up and have lived on my solar powered homestead for over twenty years.
I am always running test and trials on various things. One year, I decided to see how food self sufficient I could be.
I still bought grain, sugar, beans, spices, hot chocolate, etc -- basically all the stuff the pioneers would buy because it is not efficient to grow it yourself or you can't grow it yourself.
I was able to produce about 75 - 80% of my family's calories. But, it took almost ALL of my time during the spring, summer, and fall. And that is even with some modern cheats like freezing the meat I butchered instead of canning.
Now granted my time invested was feeding five people (2 adults and 3 children). My husband's labors went into cutting firewood, working part time for $$ and other homestead chores. The kids help where they can depending on their age.
What I am trying to say -- working on a homestead is a lot of work. Folks who think they can supply 100% of their calories don't realize how much work it is. Everyone should stockpile wheat, rice, pasta, cooking oil or lard, sugar, spices, beans, etc. Quantity has its own quality. It's all a numbers game and the more calories you store, the better.
Idaho Homesteader
Quantity has its own quality. Was that Lenin?
DeleteStalin
DeleteI.H.
Why a million dollars worth of Mosin-Nagants is better than a million dollars worth of M-16's. Ten times more weapons, maybe more. Two chickens for an AK, $800 each for AR-15.
DeleteBulk calories matter. Got pre-Fukishima US-grown rice? Pressure cookers save fuel.
Stocking a huge amount of fuel for your various sources of home heat is also a really good idea. Dig a hole a have 5 tons of good coal dumped in. Most people won't even recognize coal as fuel. Insulation and shrinking the heated volume saves fuel, as well as setting up very efficient wood burners like rocket mass stoves.
Will your city be targeted for destruction? Is it downwind of military targets getting nuked? Is it a port town? Yeses are bad. If no, it may be possible to hide in the city and live off of stores and pretend to be as bad off as everyone else.
pdxr13
One of those Russians said the quantity vs quality thing.
DeleteAnd I agree that the basic staples ESPECIALLY, grains, should be stockpiled, it is going to just be very inefficient to grow those in bulk without modern machinery.
I've heard both Stalin and Lenin.
DeleteIs the cost per BTU the same with coal as gas/diesel/propane? Cheaper? Certainly seems better at storage.
Grain grown inefficiently w/o machines isn't the problem. Inefficiency is the hallmark of agricultural societies ( although, redundancy was built in to a degree, unlike now ). Rebuilding the infrastructure back to small villages surrounded by farmland is more the issue.
Glad to hear you and Betty Neff are enjoying the city life. At least you will not have to suffer a slow death being so close to the hungry, angry hoards come when SHTF happens.
ReplyDeleteWas that sarcasm? Hard to tell-still on my first cup of coffee.
Deletewe have lived in the country.
ReplyDeletewe were out driving and i thought one house was nice. isolated , up high with a good view all around.
then we went a little higher. i looked down and there was the house which i had thought to be admirably sited. you could see everything.
you are right. with night vision equipment and the quiet crossbow, someone could pick off everyone and never be seen himself.
there would be no help.
it is scary.
probably what every hamlet needs is the old fashioned minute man militia which every able bodied citizen trains for.
our ancestors lived in communities for safety, from bandits, from wolves, and they found a better chance of survival among a group.
there is no 'self sufficiency'.
we all need blacksmiths, doctors, wainwrights, you name it.
Absolutely, we need to cluster together for protection. After the die-off. The problem with retreats today is, mostly, car access to almost all of them.
DeleteNo worries mate...I've got the bows and I'm good with them, as is my wife. Got a monocular NV too hee hee, just the old school commie kind but hey...it works !
DeleteNeed ta be a bit closer though to help you out
What you said stuck in my head, about Kindle Unlimited. Much better selection this time around. Try "Extinction Event" by Nicole Stuart? From a woman's POV and so a bit "true love as world ends, so its all okay", plus a bit of "if you have tens of millions of dollars, you too can survive", but 10% into it and I'm enjoying very much. I had it in my Kindle Wish List but was worried it wasn't worth $6, so the first month of Unlimited is almost paid for the first book. Thanks for the idea spore.
DeleteCurrently into "Extinction Event" and read about 60% now. Very good example of the response government gives such things. The book is also a good example of the utopian way ....
DeleteStill waiting for the board aspect to develops, as so far not much has been stated about arms and defense.
This author drones endlessly about details don't she ?
Just waiting for the angered poor to start demanding their fair share....
Only took over half of this first book to get to the big event...hmmm does this mean the story line has promise ?
Keep thinking I'd fit right into a group like this and wondering if there are not already such groups forming now ?
I fell in love, then got antsy. Then, once the volcano FINALLY blew, I got pissed that hardly anything new happened. Finally, the last third I had to keep skipping ahead. How many times are they going to watch the sunset and have a nice cup of coffee as a group, loving each other, BFF's? And when is the coffee going to run out? A few good developments but Just Too Much Female Crap! Insert a damn tampax and let's get on with the damn thing already. BTW, there is a sequel, if you can believe it.
DeleteI hear ya ! I'm now at 90% wading through the minutiae wondering where the plot is.....on and on endless trivia
DeleteRawles would love this place, except it would be building churches instead of schools being the primary concern.
The sequel I'm sure will be on par with a Rawles sequel eh
Actually, I was being sarcastic about fitting in with these Marth Stewert type survivalists.
DeleteHowever they do give meaning to the term THRIVALISTS heh
Keep waiting for reality bites to step up....
I do hand kudo's to the author for putting the book in Unlimited access so we could try before buy. Her female fans will buy her other twenty or so books ( they are listed in back-quite a few of them ). By the way, for the rest of you if you want a re-read, my Frugal Survival book is on Kindle Unlimited. Please tell all your friends.
DeleteIn modern collapsed states, people tend to move to the city. The reason is that as bad as things are, the cities still have some resources. It is not that the cities are good, its that the countryside is worse. Although not stated, protection in the countryside can be very difficult unless you can go to extreme measures to hide.
ReplyDeleteI have mentioned this before, but one thing I find funny in prepper doom novels. Typically they are written by an urban-suburban writer. But there are a few written from a more rural point of view.
So we know that the city folks are all supposed to run out into the countryside, but what do people who write books from have their small town folks do? Why they all run to the city to see if there is help!
Folks who live in the countryside, and thoughtful, are pretty much aware that they are as dependent on the daily supply trucks dropping off things at their grocery store as much as anyone else. In the long term they may be in better shape, but few of the general rural populace are set up for anything other than short term disasters.
That might be a good theme to explore further. I wasn't thinking along the lines of protection in collapsed states. Out in the country, no protection from bandits even if you can farm. In the city, a bribed gang protects you. Food issues become secondary? I guess better to skip a few meals a week/under eat than be hacked up with a machete and then raped.
DeleteMost collapsed states had a global infrastructure helping feed the cities and a vastly limited access to firearms for self protection. Even so those that can stay in the countryside often found themselves better fed and suffering less minor crimes than those in the cities.
DeleteMilitia / Neighborhood Watch type groups almost always form during massive crime / banditry surges. Being prepared to take constructive part in such groups is essential, even if you just take hot tea to the watchmen patrolling.
BTW do note the MINOR crime caveat of my above post. Major crimes will probably be at least as prevalent in the country side.
DeleteHeck, decades ago I knew of a family in a rural community that got held at gunpoint and abused for DAYS by a trio of escaped violent prisoners. Fortunately all survived, but within months they had moved away back to the big city IIRC.
Jim, I've been reading you forever (including buying every word you had for sale) and I have to tell you that today's post reads like a justification for moving to the city. Also, I've seen your photo and I wouldn't worry about rape. :)
ReplyDeleteNot trying to justify moving to the city, I'm trying to serve up a big helping of caution to rural dwellers/those dreaming of the country. Also, you can't see my ass in the picture. It's a nice one.
DeleteThe hair is the problem. After TSHTF, Jim will have to wear a hat 24/7 to keep himself from being the target of legions of father rapers and blue haired hussies.
DeleteIdaho Homesteader
Had an article on hats. Probably way back on Bison Survival Blog. Very important for heating and cooling. Not mentioned was the above, another plus.
Delete