Well I watched the last of the episodes I have of Doomsday Preppers today and I must say it's a pretty good series. One thing I do find though as a common element among these types, especially the more extreme preppers, is that when they recieve the critique on their preps from a team of experts on prepping, most of them disagree and argue instead of listening and learning.

Not all of them, but I'd say a good 60% of them.

These are types of people I can't stand to be around during even the best of times, I shudder to imagine having to spend the rest of my life after a holocast cooped up with any of them. Stubborn opinionated know it all's who won't take advice or constructive criticism are often also control freaks, yet another human trait I have little use for.

Openmindedness and a willingness to learn, accept new ideas, and share their own knowlege in a non-condescending way, and intelligently converse about the best ways of doing things etc are the type of traits the people I'd want to spend time with would possess. Too bad those types are so rare these days.

that's interesting, i figured i was doing it wrong by continually updating.

Awesome. I have no doubt you'll find a lot of interesting stuff in that one.

i actually went ahead and saw the missile silo episode, very impressive, ok hes covered LOL

only disadvantage is if the muscle that is supposed to protect them actually honors the doomsday agreement and lets in a few ex-millionaires who have, realistically, nothing now, because if shit is so bad that they must go in to a gargantuan bunker, then I bet the US$ is not worth much and gold is less worth than an egg...

why would they not let in their own relatives and friends and help themselves to the goodies? millionaires are spoiled and needy and not good fighters and farmers...strategically speaking it would be in the muscles best interest to screw them over and be left with more supplies...

but the bunker is kick ass, I would like to be on the inside if shit got out of hand no question about it...


its standard procedure during civil wars...areas are "cleared out" not necessarily for the sake of ethnic cleansing or rape camps or whatever but simply because of military advantage,strategy whatever...houses are usually booby trapped and it is "standard procedure" to throw in a hand grenade...or torch it...if they know you are inside they will not just leave you alone...its not how violence works...

everything will get visited...no question about it...no matter how remote you think you are there is always somebody who took a walk there and saw it...

thugs organize in to groups and have "Excuses" why region x should be cleared from enemy y...its what happens...it would happen in the USA too...think rodney king or katrina...people turn savage real quick...what kept it from happening in the USA was the ability of your army to control...take away the army, and/or arm a certain minority sufficiently and you become nigeria in a few days time...homo sapiens behave the same way all over the world...

you have too much faith in your society...we had 50 years of peace and virtually no crime and it changed in a few weeks time...life long friends ended up fighting against each other and Im not talking about hillbilly rubes I am talking about educated people who had real jobs as doctors and lawyers and what not...

there is no place on the planet to move from this...if a comet hits your country and shit gets ugly you should expect a mad max scenario within a few weeks...

you can either rambo it out or be clever about it and not stick out...keep a low profile and always have a cig or two to trade and solve your drinking water problem by having some sort of filtration system do not bottle shit up you will run out quick you need a long term solution...

Less than 20% of Americans smoke so cigs are not really an important trade item to have.

I wouldn't go comparing Serbia to Canada in that regard friend. Since 1812 there really hasn't been a war fought on Canadian soil barring some isolated skirmishes here or there.

50 years of peace here is a drop in the bucket.

I'm not saying all the stuff you're describing can't happen here per se. I'm saying that it is less likely is all. That and the fact that we north americans are so well-armed as a people, something a lot of foreigners are fond of criticizing us for, means that in such events those who would have the notion to come kicking down doors would know they'd be facing a lot more weaponry and resistance than than the millions who inhabit other more disarmed nations.


And your earlier advice about staying away from groups in a survival situation is to me utterly wrong. Have you not heard the expression there is strength in numbers? In such extreme situations of life or death that becomes tenfoldly true.

cruc certainly has a different view of the world. not judging, just realizing.

Indeed. Which is why I pointed out in one of my earlier replies that his perspective is born out of the wars his country has been involved in throughout the 90's. His prepping perspective is thus mainly focused on that one eventuality.

I think the best prepared people are those who think in broader terms, and play the "what if" game to consider a wide variety of possible scenarios for societal collapse.

But he's right about one thing; Being able to defend against other humans should probably be high on any prepper's list.

the thing i've realized with me and defending against others in a time like this is due to my gun ownership, i have trained myself to think shoot to kill, period. if i pull that trigger then unload the clip and make sure.

i don't think that's the right attitude in this situation, i would think i would be firing the gun so i can get the fuck away. ?? i haven't been able to sort out that *what if*..

Alright, I will chime in on this thread since most of the haters left.

I was raised hunting and fishing. My parents always had a huge garden and mid summer to fall meant canning season in our house. My parents still live like this and If I were to walk into their "root cellar" I would see 400+ quarts of canned tomatoes and other various veggies. These are not old, these are done every year and my parents live off their garden throughout the year. In fact, I was over there the other day and they still had onions in there from last fall that were hanging from mesh bags

Because of being raised this way, I have always felt the need to try and be self sufficient. I also like knowing how my veggies were grown. The only additives in my soil is cow or turkey shit. I also smoke meats, fish, hunt etc and try and keep my chest freezer full with meat, whether it something I shot or something I bought a lot of because it was on sale at the grocery store.

In today's world they call this prepping, 20-30 years ago this was a normal way of life.

In addition to having a full freezer, I also have 6 buckets with sealed mylar bags. 200lbs of rice, 100lb of granola and 50lbs of wheat. I also dehydrate raspberries and strawberries that I can not make into jam because there are just too damn many here. Overall I would say I have 5-6 months of food here for me, my wife and son.

I bought everything to make a wind turbine this last fall but just never got around to building it. I also was going to order solar panels and build a solar array but again, ran out of time. The funny thing is, i bought the turbine for my ice house I keep on the lake in the winter so I didn't have to haul 4 deep cells back and forth every 4-6 weeks. I am positive these deep cells could run my freezer for at least 10-15 days if I piggybacked them. If I really needed more power I have a 3800 watt generator but to me, if a disaster situation ever did arise, this would be like yelling - Come take my shit.

My wife and I are looking to move further out into the country. Ideally I would like to have 50-60 acres with water running through my land (easy here in the land of 10,000 lakes) Hopefully the real estate market remains weak for the next 2-3 years so we have time to find the perfect setup.

Do I really think anything bad is going to happen? Nope.

Yes, that episode was particularly memorable for me as well. Very nice setup he has going there.

The experts both agree and disagree with you on that, as well as on the "gold" thing.

First, you're right about the long term water solution. That's standard advice for anyone thinking of prepping. However, having a cache of stored water, bottled, barrels, tanks, etc, is also highly recommended. For one thing those little 1 litre bottles of water can very readily be bartered, and be in even higher valued demand than cigs to most people.

Again, you have to understand that bunkering down or bugging out to a safe retreat for a military flare-up or all out war (which is usually a temporary thing) is far different than prepping for an end of the world scenario where one is going to have to survive indefinitely.

Experts would also recommend that in addition to having all those mentioned water supplies in place, that one also have a backup plan set up at at least one other location, something you can fall back to if your primary location fails or is overtaken by others.

As for gold, the view on this may very well be different here in N America than it is where you are. Gold and silver and such has always been viewed as having value, always will be I suspect. In the event of a total collapse of society, once people started doing some informal bartering again the experts say that coin money, not paper, will have value, especially coinage minted prior to the mid 1960's when quarters, fifty cent pieces and silver dollars actually had upwards of 90% silver in them. In other words a standard form of accepted currency will be established quickly, and it will most likely be in the form of coins.

Again, I'm citing what the doomsday prepper experts are all saying.

So anyone possessing gold, especially in the form of $50 dollar gold slips, would have bartering power, and at the very least hold onto it until someone comes along that does value it, then start bartering with it.

It's all subjective though. Such things as precious metals and shiny trinkets are as valuable as society says they are, no more and no less. And while it can't hurt to have a stash of cigs and probably booze on hand for bartering, I'd wager that a lot of other things that most people wouldn't even consider valuable would become SUPER valuable in a post apocalyptic event.

Baby wipes and Q-tips might become the new gold standard for all we know. :D

If it make syou feel any better I'll add that I myself have never shot anything in my life. I've never shot a gun with a higher calibre than a certain few rather high-powered pellet/dart guns (high-powered by pellet and dart gun standards anyway). The last pellet gun I owned was a gas gun, a dirty harry 44 mag replica, that could put someone's eye out but that's about it. No stopping power whatsoever.

However, I am very confident that in a critical situation I * could * shoot someone with a shotgun, rifle or hand gun. If it was a case of them or me, or preventing them from getting to someone I care about or the supplies we worked so hard to ensure our own survival, I would drop the fucker in a heartbeat.

I was a very good shot with the weapons I did use.

Would it bother me to take a life? Absolutely. But I'm pretty sure it would bother me more to see someone I care about killed, or myself for that matter.

that's 45 million smokers...granted that in times of peace tobacco is pretty useless...but you have to imagine the total collapse of currency...prices changing 2x/day and shop owners not being able to sell at a profit because the price you put up this morning just got 20% weaker in the evening and you are not allowed to sell for hard (foreign) currency because it further devalues the local currency, war time laws against such things are strict, ect ect...

factor in no gasoline even though you produce it, if currency collapses it will not be profitable to produce, remember that there is no currency (in my example of course)...you can not make people work for free for long, it will be force produced at best, you will wait for gas on the gasoline stations for 3-4 days during the good periods...people sleeping in cars...just to have gasoline in case of emergencies...or to resell as a most valuable commodity...there will be no gasoline for supply trucks or public transport...

now you will begin to see tobacco differently...its a barter item...one of few...its not like there will be a lot to barter...trust me in such situations cigs are better than gold...you can not eat gold...cant eat tobbacco either, but its sooooooooo important to smokers in times of utter crisis you would not understand unless you smoke...it was easier to barter than gasoline or medication just to paint a clearer picture for you...I have seen gold chains go for meals i shit you not...

in any case tobacco is not ideal...you are pretty fucked no matter how you prep...





@CDSmith

it is irrelevant how peaceful your society is...human nature is human nature...the MOMENT there is no police to call you will all turn mad max on each other...

maybe it wont happen in your tight peaceful community for the first few weeks but once people get hungry and desperate you will see what I saw 2x in 2 wars...stuff will deteriorate, normal life as we know it depends on electricity, gasoline, regular supplies, clean water, safety, hope in a better future ect ect take just one away and you have chaos, take more than one away and you have mad max...

cold and hungry is a particularly bad combination...if its cold, don't be there...if you are in a cold region go where its warmer...most houses/appartments are not adapted to heating without electircity/gas/coal...or do not have a readily available supply of wood to burn...or its not practical to carry 100lb of wood to the 15th floor every day on a one egg/day diet...when the cold comes it becomes game of thrones type of stuff :1orglaugh:1orglaugh with those ice walkers :1orglaugh...game of thrones takes me right back LOL

the really bad shit began when the winter came and the desperation really set in...im serious about the winter regardless of my joke about game of thrones...you will either be doing some serious shit to keep warm or you will be in constant fear of being raided ...canada sounds cold...maybe everybody in your community has fireplaces and woods around them and thats fine unless there is a big city near by with millions of freezing people, then this is not fine...

I wasn't arguing that point at all. Believe me I am all too familiar with human nature in a crisis situation, given my professional background and also just being an observer of it when it happens in the world somewhere, and it tends to happen a lot. More than most people even know.

My comments were more towards what you were saying about local authorities comming for you, your country's military, etc, tossing grenades and taking control of people and herding them into camps, etc.

No, I know full well that in a societal collapse of the kind we're discussing there are one hell of a lot of people out there who simply won't be worth trusting as far as you can spit, and unless you find a way to avoid them altogether it would be very likely that you would have to shoot at or outright kill some of them.

Believe me I so get that.

I'm actually thinking about working on a method for follks to convert their regular kitchen stovetop ovens into wood-burning fireplaces. I'm thinking there must be a way using regular metal duct tubing to cut a hole in an outside wall and have the smoke exit through it adequately.

If it's possible, and I think that it is, it would go a long way towards keep those millions of freezing people in their own homes and away from mine.

So's I wouldn't have to rip off their arm and beat them to death with it.

I have a few cans of Tuna but they might be expired. I dunno.

Your gardening and canning experience and setup already in place as a normal way of life would score you huge pionts with the experts Adam. That plus your hunting skills, which in turn indicates some expertise with firearms and cover tactics and the like, all would serve to get you a lot further than 99% of the masses, even further than a lot of self-proclaimed preppers.

As for the water and power comments you mentioned, in the last episode of the series Doomsday Preppers they happened to show a guy who had welded and weaseled together somehow the chain axels and pedals of two bicycles to what looked like a small wind turbine. His plan was to actually dip the turbine into a nearby small running creek, and hook it up to generate enough electicity to charge batters and supplement the running of his lights, fridge, freezer, and a few small appliances as needed. He fired it up and the damn thing worked.

You should catch that episode, I think it's titled "Let her rip".

The mantra my fellow hospital staffers, nurses, doctors etc used to always tell patients was "Hope for the best, plan for the worst" when giving the families of seriously ill patients some modicum of comfort. That same line seems to also be the one that today's preppers all use.

It's about as true a saying as I've ever heard, for both purposes.

:2 cents::2 cents::2 cents:

And they say you're crazy for doing it.

Funny how shit got all twisted. Most of our parents or at least grand parents lived this way, as did everyone before them. Our generation has it all wrong and will be totally screwed in the event something happens. You only need to look at recent national disasters to see how poorly people are prepared.

I actually did see that episode. If I remember correctly it was the same guy that built the catapult that ended up flinging the homemade chinese stars about 25 feet. Oh well, never know until you try i guess.

From a standpoint of if you knew shit really was gonna hit the fan, I had a few favorite episodes of DD preppers I saw this year where dudes would be perfectly setup.

I really liked the guy that had the facial recognition software on entrance to his house. He also had the gate that could stop a dump tuck at 50mph along with embassy tinting all of the windows in his house. I thought the pepper spray mounted on the wall warning someone it was gonna go off was a little hokey. But I did like the 50 caliber beowulf he shot. I liked it so much I just built a lower receiver to put it on and plan to pick one up once the crazy gun prices start to come down.

I also like the guy that lived in the middle of nowhere in Kansas, he cooled his house by running the air intake underground and having the earth cool it. I thought that was genius. He also built the house they lived in and from the looks of it was a very talented carpenter.

I also liked the guy in Alaska that would head up river and drop tree's along the way so people couldn't follow him into the wilderness. People in Alaska are a special bread, I love their fuck the government mentality.

I find it sad when a natural disaster hits an area, less than 24 hours go by and you get people on TV crying for help because they have no food or water. i'm like, wtf, even FEMA says to have 3 days worth of food on hand. it really isnt that tough, go to a sporting goods store and buy 50 bucks worth of mountain house.

In today's society we've all become far to dependant on "the system", on supermarkets, far too complacent in the belief that food will always be in abundance and conveniently available just down the street and around the corner. We'd drifted away from feeling the need for any sort of survival or hunting skills whatsoever, and there are now millions upon millions of tree-hugging 'vegans', vegetarians, animal rights activists etc who sneer down their noses at anyone who hunts or supports hunting or consumes meat.

Tell me, how many of these vegans know about plant life and it's variations from region to region enough that they'd be able to survive in a holocast? I'm guessing very few. Which begs the question; How many of today's self-proclaimed vegans would jump back to eating meat inside of a week after supermarket shelves have been stripped bare and no one is sharing their salad?

I've done a fair amount of fishing in my time but I've never really taken to hunting. But I know one thing. Hunters aren't your enemy, they're your friend. In a long term survival situation doubly so.

Yes, same guy. That catapult was hilarious. Those oversized throwing starts however were pretty great. That guy struck me as someone I'd enjoy being around at any time, not just after a collapse to life as we know it.

That guy was pretty great too, as was his setup. But if I recall it correctly he was very much against any kind of security in the way of firearms or most weaponry, and completely rejected the critique the experts from the show gave him. That part of his character really fell flat for me. The guy had some great ideas for food and living conditions etc, but I hazard a pretty good guess that if and when shit hits the fan and certain people find his place he'll either be out on his ass or become part of his own cooling system.

Another guy who had a lot of great plans and ideas in place. That boat of his was fan-freaking-tastic too, being able to move fast in as little as two inches of water... incredible. That alone blew me away. It's doubtful that, if his bugout plan in an actual situation were to work as well as it did on the show, that anyone would ever catch up to him and his family. But there again, he's another one who flat-out rejected the sound advice given by the experts, or at least much of it.

I think he'll fair better than the guy we discussed before him though. Better security by far.

That's too much to ask from most people. Just look at some of the replies early on in this thread. There are simply always going to be huge %'s of people who just don't care enough to even do something minimal to ensure their survival even short-term. Life has gotten too easy, too convenient, to the point where it's all being taken for granted. Back in the dirty 30's nothing was taken for granted. NOTHING.

I wasn't alive back then of course but I have two parents and a dozen or so aunts and uncles who were, and I've heard stories about how it was during the great depression my whole life, to the point that it's almost as if I was there. A family of 14 back in those days didn't live by heading to the supermarket in their oversized minivan, they grew their food and hunted and fished their meat, canned and preserved their reserves for winter, and they survived...and even thrived.

It's obvious that a lot of people are going to die, even in a short-term catastrophe, simply from being ill-prepared and, well, for want of a better word for it,... they'll die from their own stupidity.

An article in today's NYTimes caught my eye, seemed very appropo for this thread...

The Next Pandemic: Not if, but When
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/op...0130510 &_r=0

TERRIBLE new forms of infectious disease make headlines, but not at the start. Every pandemic begins small. Early indicators can be subtle and ambiguous. When the Next Big One arrives, spreading across oceans and continents like the sweep of nightfall, causing illness and fear, killing thousands or maybe millions of people, it will be signaled first by quiet, puzzling reports from faraway places ? reports to which disease scientists and public health officials, but few of the rest of us, pay close attention. Such reports have been coming in recent months from two countries, China and Saudi Arabia.

You may have seen the news about H7N9, a new strain of avian flu claiming victims in Shanghai and other Chinese locales. Influenzas always draw notice, and always deserve it, because of their great potential to catch hold, spread fast, circle the world and kill lots of people. But even if you?ve been tracking that bird-flu story, you may not have noticed the little items about a ?novel coronavirus? on the Arabian Peninsula.

-----------

One authority at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an expert on nasty viruses, told me that the SARS outbreak was the scariest such episode he?d ever seen. That cautionary experience is one reason this novel coronavirus in the Middle East has attracted such concern.

--------------

What can we do? The first obligation is informed awareness. Early reports arrive from afar, seeming exotic and peripheral, but don?t be fooled. One emergent virus, sooner or later, will be the Next Big One. It may show up first in China, in Congo or Bangladesh, or maybe on the Arabian Peninsula; but it will globalize. Most people on earth nowadays live within 24 hours? travel time of Saudi Arabia. And in October, when millions of people journey to Mecca for the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage, the lines of connections among humans everywhere will be that much shorter.

We can?t detach ourselves from emerging pathogens either by distance or lack of interest. The planet is too small. We?re like the light heavyweight boxer Billy Conn, stepping into the ring with Joe Louis in 1946: we can run, but we can?t hide.

Entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/op...0130510 &_r=0

So I'll have to ask again, HOW PREPARED ARE YOU?

I'm pretty much going to be dead. So, time to enjoy life until then.