MOUNTAIN MAN MYTH 2
Today’s Rawlesian
Survivalists, who are really just Christian Militia Yuppie Scum, have got the
part about rural retreats right.
Everything else, from being in debt to buy that retreat, working in the
city to pay that debt, bugging out to get there, being in debt to get the
vehicle to bug out, being overly armed with various and sundry semi-automatic
weapons, being in debt to buy said arsenal, flagellating themselves with
anguished cries of “we’re not worthy” as they bang their foreheads on the
ground and proceed to block the exits in a sweaty mass of humanity in their
haste to rack up their credit cards buying any and all gear than emulates their
gods in the Imperial Security Forces, their groveling before their
materialistic Barbie Bitches Trophy Wives begging for permission to prep, plus
many other transgressions ( all of which, yes, I myself was guilty of even if
on a much reduced financial scale ), everything else they do is wrong. To include being guilty of not being very
selective and including their Suburban In Place Preppers as bona fide members
as long as every other sentence of their communication praised Baby Jesus, God
or any patron Saint in the Papist Lexicon,
which casts doubt on their whole one point they got right about retreats
in the country.
*
Almost nobody takes
population seriously. If they did, they
would have to admit to overpopulation.
If they did that, they would have to admit overpopulation plus resource
depletion equals 99% Die-Off Collapse.
And we can’t admit that, now can we?
That alleviates all hope ( and prayer ) of a slow collapse or a
mini-collapse or a collapse recovery.
Almost every error in judgment folks are making in survivalism can be
traced to, not lack of education, but lack of admitting reality. Because reality is scary and pretty much
blows monkey member. I mean, not to
disregard the necessity of belief and a higher purpose, but if we are honest
with ourselves, isn’t religion, at core, reality avoidance? It is the same as alcoholism, but with no
hangovers and a better daily life enjoyment.
High rolling survival gurus trash talk television watching ( entertainment
by embracing reality avoidance ), then instruct you to get jiggy with Our
Lord. Again, I’m not saying my agnostic
belief is better or superior to your belief in a higher being, just that it is
one way to deny the horrible reality of death.
The belief might be beneficial but it is still a way to avoid some
realities ( and, I acknowledge that your “disillusionment” might be far more
mentally healthy than mine-so please don’t fly off the handle here ).
*
If you can admit to a
coming Super Duper Die-Off Collapse, then how can you think being near people
is a good idea? Hell, I know I’m dead
shortly thereafter, more likely than not, just living too close to a small
town. I can’t imagine your much larger
city is going to treat you better. So,
you plan on bugging out ( bugging out is NOT a bad idea. Most peoples idea of an expensive high
profile bug-out of too long of a distance is what is a bad idea ). But, realistically, being poor, you can’t
save everyone else just from a calorie standpoint. Nor can you ever have a hope in hell of
fighting off all the screaming hungry legions of asshattery. This is where our overpopulation issue rears
its ugly head. If you bring too many
people with you, even if you have a means of feeding them for a short time,
everywhere else they could turn to if your group runs out of resources is in
much worse shape and too crowded and dieing off. Your group, if too large, will turn against
itself in desperation. Which is why I’m
telling you to ignore the pleas of “you need to be part of a community”. A community is a bigger danger to you, during
the die-off, than being alone or attacking marauding gangs or almost anything
else. Because your community, if not
properly provisioned, is already in your parameter. There is no wire holding back the enemies
that are your neighbors. They already
hold the keys to the castle. Human
beings are capable of justifying ANYTHING.
Hitler thought he was a patriot.
Child molesters and rapists and murderers all have perfectly good reasons
for what they do. The cops BBQing kids
at Waco were part of the beleaguered Thin Blue Line. Etc.
Your best friends you saved from starvation will, without a whole lot of
anguish or thought, cave your head in if they benefit from doing so. Once upon a time, your tribe stuck by your
side through battle and shared their rations with you in times of hunger. But we aren’t a tribe anymore. Our pseudo-tribes are for convenience only,
not survival. Just like our marriages
anymore. You need to retreat on your own
with immediate family, well provisioned, wait out the die-off, then join a new
tribe or form your own. Re-entering
civilization and trade agreements. Don’t
take a fake tribe into the collapse with you, for safeties sake. And distance yourself from all others until
the orgy of destruction subsides.
END
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* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there
By late summer 2017 80,000,000 of "us" will no longer be breathing air. I'm doing all I can to make sure I'm not one of them.
ReplyDelete"only" 80 million? Optimistic?
Delete80 million in 1 year? over what sized region (regional, national, continental, global?) if global, that is more than a shrug but not an end game, or even a really big dip really, if an area less than a nation that means almost total death for that area. I can see north America suffering that many deaths between the isthmus of panama and the artic circle and NOT having civilization totally collapse - though it could be a close thing.
DeleteAnd how sudden (although a year and a half is pretty sudden) would you expect this to be happening? all at once or over the next 18 months?
And WHY - violence, plague, famine, old age,???
The people in the former Soviet Union, Rome, and Mayan civilizations all had large die offs during the demise of their empires, but less due to sudden violence than just a miscellaneous grab bag of things that wouldn't have happened as quickly if the empire had stayed together - and it was more a reduced life span average than a single sudden killing fields type event.
This has been my plan from the beginning. The more I think on it I am beginning to think my family will remain isolated for survival and then trade once it is safe. Scavenging will only go so far and most groups will be Leary of others. An individual stands a better chance of brokering trades between groups as his fee is out weighs the risk to members. There is a long history of traders being off limits to attack as they are needed by both good and bad communities.
ReplyDeleteTrading had to be lucrative, given the distances and dangers. Hell, the easier than land route, the Indian ocean, could take six months to wait for the currents to switch back to the direction of home.
DeleteThank you!!!! For saying what needed to be said.
ReplyDeleteUnless you really know someone -AND- have been through fire with them, you have no idea how they will act when faced with the collapse of civilization. Even then it's a toss up.
I'm sure our military folks have seen this. You can never know how someone is going to react until you've seen them in battle. The strong bully might be a coward and the nerdy guy becomes a hero.
Selco (the guy who lived through Sarajevo) has lots of good articles on this.
Getting though the initial die off phase will be a personal Rubicon that you will have to face. If you make it through that, then you can start sorting through the survivors and see who will be a good partner.
If you do decide that you must have a group, keep it very, very, very small with only your immediate family that you feel a true sense of obligation for and your very long term, closest friends who you have a seen in all sorts of circumstances.
Be brutal and exacting in your thought process when deciding who makes the cut. You cannot afford to be weighed down with excess baggage if you want to have even a chance to make it out the other side. It's better to keep your options open and create your group later with those who are tried and true.
When you really sit down and start thinking about this, you may decide that surviving under these circumstances may not be worth it.
Congratulations! You have just saved yourself a lot of money and time because stocking up for a full blown collapse, wouldn't be realistic for you. You can just prepare for a small disaster or set back and call it good.
Idaho Homesteader
What is a bottle of whiskey and a .38 bullet? $17.50? Anyone can prep for the end of the world! :)
Delete"Almost every error in judgment folks are making in survivalism (...anything and everything really..)can be traced to, not lack of education, but lack of admitting reality. Because reality is scary "
ReplyDeleteGot it in one.
I am probably going to die.
And probably not because of old age and being bedded by world class supermodels.
All the people I love and care for are probably going to die too.
This is a frightening thought. No one wants to embrace it and the few who do tend to accelerate their demise, often VERY quickly.
However (there is always a however) you can pad the numbers in your favor a little. You could be among the rich elite like the Bush family and have a couple of excellently prepared off grid fortresses, ties to the bankers to insulate you from economic hardship and keep you from debt serfdom. But since 99.9% of us cant do that we can at least do the poor man survival strategy, and plan for our descendants (ones by blood or by choice both count).
following the poor mans survival strategy including avoiding high population centers, storing away non-perishable provisions, learning useful skills of independence, etc. is really the only way to go for most of us. If you need GOD to hold your hand or guide you that's fine. It is a scary reality after all, and it would be nice to have a nice GOD waiting for you on the other side of the death that comes to us all (and is probably coming in a variety of nasty forms for most of us). But always remember that ALL religions have some version of "help yourself, before expecting help from GOD (or helping yourself IS help from GOD)"
And if you "do" god, make sure is not an impotent minor deity. Just saying.
DeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteI can understand and accept your primary premise that the 99% "die off" is the most likely outcome when the final plug is pulled as a result of "resource depletion". I can see that isolation with nothing more than your own very small immediate family unit plus enough calories, tools, and defensive weapons permits years of survival, but what I can't figure out is how do we determine after a period of time, that the "die off" is complete and it is now time to "hook up" with those other lucky isolated individuals and small units? I haven't read or seen much in the way of advice or plausible scenarios of just how the survivors once equilibrium is finally reached, go about meeting and trusting one another in order to exchange complementary resources (initiate simple trade) and obtain future breeding partners outside of one's own survival unit. Any personal viewpoints or references for outside reading? It seems that this stage of survival will be fraught with many mis-steps and risks.
Another issue to possible examine is the fact that the die-off just might not be evenly spread throughout a major climate region. There could be after year(s) of collapse, large regions whereby many small nuclear independent survival family units might be living in isolation and for a time unknown to each other, while somewhere still functioning within a several hundred mile radius, one or more "Bunker units" that contain 100s of non-related individuals that somehow survived in a very small patch living off some "hypothetical" underground government cache. The whole point is, how do you think one can venture forth and assume the risks of establishing trust again or are we for several generations forced to fight and raid each other for breeding partners and slaves......?
The early pioneer history of Virginia went through a similar stage in the early 1700s after progressively the Tidewater, then the Piedmont, and finally the Shenandoah Valley was settled by farmers. But here, everybody trusted each other and strangers were welcomed as guests for social interaction and exchange of news. It was gradual and outreaching and thus manageable. In Virginia's history, the closest environment to the isolation due to die-off (as you describe it) occurred when settlers finally pushed West over the Shenandoah Mountain (a very big and long system) and entered the "Valley and Ridge System" of the Appalachians which is between 50 and a hundred miles wide running in SSE direction from PA down through to NC. In particular, the counties of Pendleton in WV along with Highland and Bath in Virginia are at the highest elevation from which the source of both the Potomac and James Rivers which empty into the Chesapeake in the east. They are also the highest average elevation and hence have the coldest winters and as a result no Indian tribes had any permanent settlements in that region. It was land ripe for eventual settlement by very hardy pioneers. The initial Scots-Irish Celtic settlers were individual family units that were very isolated without any social outside support. The indigenous Indian tribes from Kentucky and the Ohio valley used this area as a summer hunting ground for the free ranging buffalo herds that often created and maintained a grassland pasture in the valleys due to grazing. The settlers had to contend with Indian raids until the colonial government finally established several military outposts to stabilize the area. Back then, any strange visitor that suddenly showed up in this early Appalachian settlement that was white (i.e., European) was always trusted and welcomed by a settler family. This situation is to be contrasted to that of the forecast "die-off" whereby ANY outsider would be feared for theft at the point of a gun (or worst) any still remaining supplies.
Any thoughts on how civilization works its way out of this corundum?
Bullpasture in Virginia
I would think that by doing regular recon, you'd notice when a regular trade location starts. That is your cue. Make sure long distant customers don't disappear inside, that it isn't a trap, and send in a decoy, not your main strength. Then, you can feel out the community, get gossip, etc. A town/location that is a genuine trade center will be motivated to protect its arriving customers. If trade isn't being established, all groups are hostile and predatory only.
DeleteI have a an idea here too. I would like to address the time table so to speak. Trying to gauge this is difficult by those of use who are trying to use educated guessing, so with that caveat I will try.
DeleteIf you stopped eating right this minute, but not drinking water, 21 days from now you probably would be alive, but at a very diminished capacity. It all depends on your fitness level to start with. For those of us who have let some extra weight creep onto our bodies, we could go longer, but still would be weak. Fat has 3600 calories a pound. Do the math for yourself. Of course you will probably eat something in that 21 days, because you are a prepper and have stored food for this very reason. The rest of the folks wouldn't.
Most stores don't have three days worth in them at normal buying levels. SHTF, they would be cleaned out in the first day. Everyone would probably be eating what they have stored at home and what they were able to loot. At most a weeks worth. Of course they would be weird combos. Cereal with water or dry. Spaghetti noodles with no sauce etc. Maybe at first it would be regular, but after a few days, then odds and ends. So tack one a week, just to be sure. After that week, probably sooner, then fighting over food will certainly be taking place on a large scale. (Why go risk your neck while you are satiated? Worry about that later.) Some will be holding out hope that the government will come to the rescue and that the situation is temporary. So give it a week. So now everyone has run out of food and are hungry. Two to Three weeks and they will be useless and four weeks dead. BUT, some will find something to eat and prolong it. Some WILL eat each other. Of these that survive and are NOT preppers, they are the most viscous and dangerous, just by the shear fact that they are still alive. They have taken others food or eaten someone to stay alive.
So if you can hold out for 45 to 50 days, then most should be dead. Scary thought though.
As for trading, once again the non preppers are going to be the most ruthless of the bunch and may not be worth trading to. I have other ideas on how to facilitate trade, but in my mind it is theoretical and might be real bad advice, so I'm going to leave it at that. Of course my time table might be a jacked up too, but I welcome criticism of my ideas.
Ironic isn't it that greed is what has destroyed this world and greed of trading will signify the return of Civilization ?
Delete"what I can't figure out is how do we determine after a period of time, that the "die off" is complete."
DeleteLooking at recent histories the collapse of the roman empire had a die off that lasted centuries, the collapse of the Mayan empire lasted at least a generation or two, the collapse of the Soviet empire had a 'gentle' die off that is just now -possibly- ending (counting from the fall of the berlin wall to now).
So it is a good chance that the die off stage will out live us even if we all live beyond our century mark. Our kids or grand kids or great grandkids will be the ones to see the establishment of a growth positive environment (at best) Trade will be established before then but will be a rickety tentative thing with no guarantees or assurances of anything.
RH-I mostly agree with your timeline. Call it a minimum of two months with three optimal. If you wait years, outside forces might have already moved in and established to much of a foothold. Any sooner and too many potential survivors.
DeleteGary-I usually find irony quite delicious, don't you?
JJ-just keep in mind that guessing about a previous collapse is just that. Best guesses based on VERY incomplete data. A slow die-off could be false hope caused by a wrong guess. Science is full of stupid people religiously guarding their "truth", unable to take the history of science as proof they might be wrong. Proceed with caution.
Robert HolmesMarch - it all depends on location. my area has enough grain on hand in the silos to feed the community we are in for probably a couple of years. And cattle too. So burgers for ever around here - and we are _many_ hours drive away from anyplace with a real population over a couple of thousand. So starvation wouldn't be the killer. The cold however very well could be that killer. There is little easy native fuel, and the homes around here are not exactly setup to deal well with supply interruptions. The people with woodstoves generally get their wood by taking a 3 day trip or having it shipped in. Everyone else uses the fossil fuels directly.
DeleteIt is currently March 18, and well below freezing. We probably won't see a frost free week for another month or two. And the frost will return about September. So food is the least concern here- water and cold the primary ones.
James, you are right about the speed of the die off being highly variable - and the primary variable is just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There will be (Katrina NOLA) places where people die like flies for a variety of reasons. And many other places where (Siberia during the early 90s) where the lack of resources just further shortens life expectancies. And probably a lot of places in between the two extremes. I just don't think anyone should count on being able to 'scavenge/loot' ANYTHING as even with a 50% a year die off over a decade, there will be plenty of heirs and .gov officials coming around to take everything worthwhile.
It is happening now with the demise of the oil boom, there are some good deals to be had but much less 'free for the taking' stuff than you would think and more competition for those free things that are worth while than you would hope.
The scavenging would be truly bottom barrel stuff. Such as, perhaps, old stop sign posts you could scrape down on cement to get arrowheads or something similar.
Delete“Our pseudo-tribes are for convenience only”
ReplyDeleteYes, the convenience of the elites to pit the groups against one another primarily. Though most groups (minority and women's groups) will stick by their own through thick and thin, and will openly support those politicos that best claim to represent their own interests.
As a side note, I find it ironic that the democratic party and planned parenthood have inadvertently done more for the white supremacists than the KKK ever has.
Of course I slip, and keep having to remind myself that the two major parties are the de facto same party anymore, and are distinguished only by a different label.
Pitting tribes against one another of course benefits the elites, but reverting to tribes in the future will be a survival skill once again, mirroring our hunter/gatherer ancestors. I have my doubts we will leave an Earth capable of supporting agricultural empires once again. Local petty kingdoms, sure. But not empires.
Delete“I have my doubts we will leave an Earth capable of supporting agricultural empires once again. Local petty kingdoms, sure. But not empires.”
DeleteI tend to agree James, but eh, you never know? Over time the land might heal itself, and I hear tell that dead oxygen wasters make for some prime organic fertilizer ;)
I suppose that I shouldn't make light of it, since I'll probably be one of them, but what are you gonna do?
Why not laugh? Better tree fertilizer than a cannibal turd.
Delete“and, I acknowledge that your “disillusionment” might be far more mentally healthy than mine-so please don’t fly off the handle here”
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't worry too much about it James. It's like you're the Donald Trump of survivalism in that you can say anything and only grow in popularity, but this only works within your loyal circle of minions ;)
My minions love me and cry into the wind for others to join, but my legions of enemies find a willing sea of converts to suppress my word.
Delete(It's like you're the Donald Trump of survivalism)
ReplyDeleteNo need to call people names....
Chuck Findlay