Need Apocalyptic Survival Advice. No Really. C5

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the apocalypse...

Before I get there, I wanted to give a big thank you to the readers and management here for getting behind my last article on The Windapult. https://permies.com/t/93563/Builds-Category-Hurricane-Proof-Wind
Mad props gals and guys. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mad%20props

A lot of new readers visited my blog and tore through old articles.... but that is not what I am here for.



Farmgal gave me a phone call today from a few Canadian Provinces over. The very one from this article. https://permies.com/t/86859/Presents-Farmgal-Farmgal-Farmgal

The conversation started with her sharing that she had shared my Windapult article with her readers... and 7 readers promptly unsubscribed to her. She laughed because she gets me. She then shared about recent death threats she has received. She asked "Have you been noticing that as all these disasters are happening, Denialism is increasing with it" (and I dont just mean global warming deniers). I replied, "Peoples identities are wrapped up in their excuses. As reality slaps them in the face, they will not change their minds and confront their excuses. Instead, they will DOUBLE DOWN. All truth goes through three phases. First, it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Then it is accepted as self evident. The next phase is the "Violently Opposed" part.

For the very few of you like Nicole Alderman that have been reading me for a while, they will know I take pot shots at preppers and survivalists all the time. Some will have heard my rule...

C5 Rule Of Survival- Take all the old Survival Advice and pretty much do the complete opposite... and your chances of survival will increase substantially.
or
C5 Rule Of Survival- There is no such thing as a Survival or Prepper Expert. Anyone claiming to be is just trying to sell you something, whether that is a product, service, religious or political position

I tell my readers that I dont consider myself a Prepper anymore. I am already Prepped. What I am now is an Adapter. I am not prepping my life for some theoretical future disaster. I am ADAPTING my life NOW to the Apocalypse That Has Already Arrived.  Prepping is dead. Long live prepping. It failed. Good riddance. What the world really needs is an ADAPTERS MOVEMENT.


Back to Farmgals phone call.

She said, "The reason I called is because I was talking with a colleague and we discussed the adapters movement. Next thing I knew, she wanted to hire me to come in and teach a course on the adapters movement. Dont worry. I am going to give you credit as the person that came up with it. The problem I am facing is that Im not sure what to talk about".

I said we would work it out, together.

Just to make sure you all understand.... The Adapters Movement does not exist. I have simply said that it needs to come into existence. Something new that is distinctly separated, or, as opposed to the prepper of survivalist movements.

It had been an article I wanted to flesh out over the winter..... But now, this has put a fire under my hot bottom.
It had already been rolling around in my head. What is an Adapter? An Adapter accepts the apocalyptic future at hand and is Adapting there life now to flow through it and live in it. There is no, last minute, running away wile continuing to live BAU. It's a full time gig

As David Holmgrem, Bill Mollison  did for permaculture, I guess its now up to me to flesh out some design principals for this theoretical Adapters movement.

Being the playfull guy that I am, I was going to start with....

First Rule of Adaptation Club is No preppers or survivalists allowed.
Second Rule of Adaptation Club is No preppers or survivalists allowed.

Of course I am using Fight Club image here, and since many of my colleagues and readers self identify as preppers, I'll carefully explain myself. They are not really kicked out of the club. But they may have to sit their ass down, shut their fucking mouth and learn a new paradigm shift.

I could have treaked the Fight Club image more to- First Rule of Adapters club is You Do Not Talk About Adapters Club...to preppers or survivalists.

And that is why I am here to talk to you fine folks. It seems to me that if I am looking for a paradigm shift... I should probably not ask the advice of preppers of survivalists. Duh.

Soooo.... since I said Movement... and said movement doesn't actually exist... and it aint going to be all about me, ( I wouldnt make a very good cult leader and, as they say, I wouldnt join any movement that would accept me as a member) I thought I would reach out to you folks for some of your ideas on what these "Principals" or "Design Principals" might be. Are you with me.

First thing, or advice to give is, lets try to forget that the last 60 years of survivalism even existed. We are not slapping a new sticker on an old radioactive product. If you were wanting to invent survivalism all over again without all its baggage, what would you (Realistically) want to see.

Now, to stop some of you from wasting both our time, I can see some people jumping strait to some worn out cliches.

I dont want to hear "Lets go back to nomadic hunter gather....". Just stop. Back to prepper pre school for you. 7.7 BILLION people and growing on the planet. That ship has sailed.
With that in mind, I also dont need to hear, "I just want to go back to a simpler.....". Just stop. There is no going back and I can assure you, there is nothing "Simple" about this lifestyle.

Also, What I would like you to avoid is just trying to permaculture up the preppers movement. We have already explored that alot here at permies'

I want you do dig deep and really reach for it. Wrestle with it. Right down to its philosophical underpinning principals.

I dont just want your survival advice . We NEED it. I need it.

On my end, I got as far as writing the title of what this future article will be.... before coming over here for a chat with you folks.

It will be called- C5 Defines The Adapters Movement- Acceptance and Triage.



Thanks for playing the Adaptation Game. Play it like your life depends on it... Because it does

It is more and more an apocalyptic place we live in. I agree. Maybe almost post-apoc.

Communication is key. That's why we all have to use so many corporate platforms like smart phones, laptops, wifi. We have no communication outside what we are given. With communication comes information to save lives. Most people take it all for granted that we can talk to anyone anywhere, but what do they speak of?

Eat shit and live =Consume wastestreams and prosper.

Every day is the prisoners dilima.

Plan in dying with your boots on= universal retirement was a pipe dream,work like the means is the ends.

Enough is a good as a feast=Most Americans live better than kings=separate want and need

Of the top of my head bullshit

What or who is "C5"?

I don't know if I have much that's helpful, but your quest resonates with me.  Your observation that the apocalypse has already arrived and that we are living in it resonates with me.  Of course, as with anything else in this oddly-globalized world, it's far from evenly distributed.  Yet.  But every time I turn on the news the horsemen are getting closer to my house.

Nor will it ever be evenly distributed.  If you've read the recent work of William Gibson, he imagines at least one future (not so very future) in which a small crew avoids the worst of what's coming for centuries at least.  That he calls them "The Klept" may tell you his opinion of them; that I enjoyed his book may tell you mine.  But that's probably enough said if we want to keep this thread out of Cider Press.  Suffice to say that global population crashed while the Klept partied on.

Advice?  That crazy druid John Michel Greer used to advise us all to "Crash now and and beat the rush."  I think that's what a lot of folks here are Permies are doing, deliberately or otherwise.  I'm not self-identified as  a prepper but I have a keen interest in working on zero-input, zero-effort perennial food systems that I don't currently *need*, don't plan to produce a salable crop from, and don't particularly enjoy eating the produce that's yielded. It's all stuff I could happily eat if my belly was empty, though, or feed to a chicken or a rabbit or a hog or a turkey.  (And I can *catch* three out of four of those, live and wild in my own woods, to start my own domestic production, in a pinch.)  I also spend a lot of time thinking about the relative merits of possessions.  The canner with the rubber ring that needs replacing every so often, or the 1930s relic with the metal-on-metal seal and the cumbersome wingnuts that you can use over a campfire grate, with no rubber parts?  Crash while you can, and the dude at the garage sale thinks you're crazy for handing over that ten dollar bill.  

I've also seen my income drop a lot in the last ten years and I've put a lot of effort into learning to grow high-value, high-dollar, high-pleasure crops to stretch my grocery-store dollar.  I've also taught myself to enjoy the pleasure of fresh garden stuffs that I wouldn't have touched a decade ago.  Crash in place, be happy, beat the rush.  

I think that defining principle of the 'movement' is that it is not based on fear and isolation.  It is based on the reality of dealing with day to day in a way that makes sense for a future on this planet both personally and culturally.  It is based on creating a LIFE, not a moment of panic followed by an "I need to protect my shit." rest of your life.  It is about community, be it the life in your soil, the rodents and birds and plants in your forest/yard, or your neighbors over the hill and down the road.  Get to know them, and know what they are like as community members.  Rely on each other as much as you can without being a drain.  Reliance should not be a burden, or a crutch.    It is not about us verse them, ever, unless you are attacked.  It is about, we are all in this together. It is about learning how to learn so that when something comes up that is not in your paradigm or knowledge base, it takes a lot less time to recover from the bitch slap of it and get on to adapting and making good again.  It is about resilience and brainstorming, and about creating lists of priorities, and it is also about being able to make decisions on the spot, because, as you said, your life might depend on it in that moment. The first Rule of Adapters Club is that if you need rules, you have to go back out the door and start to come in again.  Adaption is knowing the rules are always in the making, transient, and malleable, and very Taoist:  The only constant is change.   That is the third Rule of Adapter's Club.  The second Rule being that you need to go back out the door and come in a second time, because you still don't get it.  The Forth Rule of Adapter's club is Reliance.  Rely on yourself, your soil, your neighbors, your wilderness, your skills, and especially your ability to not panic.  Just shooting this off the cuff.  Probably not all good, but it's probably close to how I would say it if I had given myself more time.        

Have you thought about what you are going to wear?

Growing clothing is as easy as growing food.

An ‘Adapters Movement’? That’s just another label for Permaculture.

According to Mollison and Holmgren: Permaculture is an ‘… integrated, evolving system of perennial or self-perpetuating plant and animal species useful to man.'

Integration and evolution = adaptation.

Maybe I’ve got it wrong and you’re aiming to perhaps start some type of Survivalist/Prepper Detox Ashram, using subliminal stimuli and distraction techniques to transfer all their accumulated aggression and misdirected energy into ‘Adapting’ (Permaculture by another name)?

Then, before they realise the subterfuge, WAM BAM: they’re planting comfrey instead of claymores, mapping contours not escape paths, contemplating espalier instead of escape, hugelkultur not hunkering down, concentrating on zones not zombies, identifying beneficial bugs not the contents of a Bug Out Bag, and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, hallelujah!

Permaculture needs people with drive, single-minded determination, and a balanced serving of crazy, reckon it could be a winning recipe!

The whole survivalist / prepper thing started falling apart as soon as I sat down and really started thinking about it.
I realized a perished o-ring in the wrong spot of a nuclear bunker system is enough to end it all.
I realized after talking with a few special ops types that it's really easy to wipe out a fortified camp without ever firing a shot.
I also realized that the vast majority of vocal preppers / survivalists are really just gun nuts who are looking for a credible excuse to run around in the woods with their stockpile of weapons.

Maybe this is an inaccurate picture, but it's my opinion based on quite a bit of study.

So I got to really thinking about this because it's only a matter of time before we all face a serious survival scenario. I came to the conclusion that the key to survival is community. It always has been actually. And communities survive and thrive when they are set up to facilitate trade with other "outsiders". The trick is establishing such a community in a way that makes it an unattractive proposition to slash and burn it.

In these conditions, any warlord who lasts more than a few months has to be smart. Forget the madmax scenario. Those idiots wouldn't last 5 minutes. The trick is to structure a community in such a way that it attracts the smartest warlord because it is regarded as a valuable asset worth protecting. It's a feudal system, and feudal systems are nothing like what the movies portray. A feudal system is a partnership between a citizenry and a military organization. It is not a tyranny.

Since most of us are not military, it makes sense to engineer the most optimal feudal partnership.

Thanks everyone. Lets keep this brainstorming going.

I am onto my preparing for winter chores so will only pop in.

One of the "Principals" that came to mind as I tinker, is "Transparency and Accountability".

Its counter intuitive. Many preppers are paranoid as shit and that is because its all about secrecy and trust no one, or "I'll do anything to survive" or They are coming for you. This creates a self fulfilling prophesy. Those people must be watched because they are a danger to those around them.

But mainly, It keeps forward thinkers from being able to become leaders in their community and models for others to follow and mirror.

Back to work I go.

It really doesn't matter what you call it. Any community or society is going to be based on the idea of exchange. Paying people as professional protectors for the freedom to live and conduct one's business so that every day doesn't necessitate firearms training, boundaries to personal freedoms so there exists room for the personal freedoms of others are just examples.

I think that to turn survivalist sentiment into something Adaptive, all you really need is a willingness to know your community at large. I think, as mentioned earlier, communication is critical, and there is more to be gained if the bonds of society are knit tighter, such that if things topple to the side, we can each benefit from the strengths of the other.

If a group of survivalists, just after shit hits the fan, sees a group of strangers approaching their position, and is primed to perceive every external influence as a threat, they might just eliminate it.

If that same group has networked out of their box, they might use binoculars, and notice, "Hey, that's not a roving ex-urban horde looking to kill me and take my stuff, that's Bob, Doug, and Billy, all with their families and some of their really useful stuff, and skills that we lack. Shoot! We coulda blown them all up! Good thing we know people outside of our immediate redoubt!"

Looking to the practical, people are resources. Every mouth comes with a pair of hands, as they say, and most with skills, or the ability to learn.

I think adaptability requires people to regain their generalist streaks, for the most part. You're not going to do away with specialists, nor would you want to; I certainly don't want a jack-of-all-trades doing surgery on me. But I definitely think adaptability hinges on there being more people with more generalised ability, in addition to a single main skill honed past the level of generalist, and fewer people specialising in objectively useless endeavours.

I think what is being discussed really is just permaculture in a ghillie suit that preppers and survivalists won't see until it's too late.

-CK

I agree in principal with some of what you're saying but to be honest, your presentation reads like a Youtube motivational or real estate commercial.  Your aggressive dismissal of everyone else out there who is not using your vocabulary is a turnoff.    I got tired about half way through so I'm out.

I'm happy with labeling myself as striving for Self-Reliance without concern for what threats are out there.   I'm a pacifist so I'm not going to fortify my property with cameras and barbed wire and stand in my driveway with a shotgun to fight off intruders.   I believe in sharing what I have and if spirit doesn't give me enough to survive then, so be it.

Nick Kitchener wrote:
I also realized that the vast majority of vocal preppers / survivalists are really just gun nuts who are looking for a credible excuse to run around in the woods with their stockpile of weapons.

I think it depends where you hang out. Yes most all preppers like firearms but typically female preppers focus way more attention on food storage. Men fantasize about playing Rambo and women focus on being able to feed and care for their loved ones in a crisis. They often don't congregate in the same places.

Though I will say I am surprised how few people prep especially in my area. Most are outdoorsy and the men all hunt/fish, many have vegetable gardens and they seem far more self-sufficient than the average city dweller but when casually speaking to them virtually NONE prep at all! The thought doesn't even cross their minds because the grocery store has everything they need at any given time.

The concept of preparing for really bad times seems to be dying off with generation that survived the Great Depression.

As far as calling preppers ignorant and the like, a huge part of prepping is designed simply to survive the initial few weeks or months of chaos (the most dangerous time). In many ways trying to plan anything beyond that (other than having a reasonably self-sufficient homestead) is sketchy at best. Once the initial chaos subsides it is very difficult to predict much less plan for the aftermath. The Rambos have their fantasy and the ones that want to start up a permaculture based cult/commune have another.

Got to say - that kind of gendered response - female vs. male preppers is part of the issue. Prepping has a lot of (in my opinion) negative connotations. I already prepare for at least a year of food, just because, and have done so for a long time, mostly because of an undependable spouse. I never knew when he was going to come home and whether or not it was going to be with money.

I'm a survivor, and have always done what is necessary. That being said, I'm older now, and am perfectly happy choosing to die.

Advice?  That crazy druid John Michel Greer used to advise us all to "Crash now and and beat the rush."  I think that's what a lot of folks here are Permies are doing, deliberately or otherwise.  I'm not self-identified as  a prepper but I have a keen interest in working on zero-input, zero-effort perennial food systems that I don't currently *need*, don't plan to produce a salable crop from, and don't particularly enjoy eating the produce that's yielded. It's all stuff I could happily eat if my belly was empty, though, or feed to a chicken or a rabbit or a hog or a turkey.  (And I can *catch* three out of four of those, live and wild in my own woods, to start my own domestic production, in a pinch.)  I also spend a lot of time thinking about the relative merits of possessions.  The canner with the rubber ring that needs replacing every so often, or the 1930s relic with the metal-on-metal seal and the cumbersome wingnuts that you can use over a campfire grate, with no rubber parts?  Crash while you can, and the dude at the garage sale thinks you're crazy for handing over that ten dollar bill.  

I've also seen my income drop a lot in the last ten years and I've put a lot of effort into learning to grow high-value, high-dollar, high-pleasure crops to stretch my grocery-store dollar.  I've also taught myself to enjoy the pleasure of fresh garden stuffs that I wouldn't have touched a decade ago.  Crash in place, be happy, beat the rush.  


I have enjoyed reading everyone's comments but this one really works for me I relate to this because it fits what I am already doing in many ways. Crash in Place, be happy, Beat the rush  

C5 fight club rules.. lol..  I will walk out the door and back in a few times but I am still going to fit the prepper model to a point, as well as homesteader, as well as permacutlure..  I will own it, I think there are good points to all the movements when looked at with moderation, there is something to learn from them.  Do I keep a two year pantry because I am a farmer, homesteader, prepper or someone who understands when the garden produces two years supply, you put it up because it might not produce that next year

Having said that, I do find gaps as well and I think what is being talked about here will help give us a way to explain what is happening and what is coming.  lots to think about for sure.

I think the general premise that I don't like is the "...and there will be chaos..." assumption. Sure, it's great to be prepared, but why doesn't that go a step further, to engage the community around where you've chosen to settle, to strengthen the bonds of community so that the chaos doesn't happen?

This isn't an optimistic approach, but a proactive one. In my opinion, it's the logical conclusion to the line of thought that suggests that demonizing the other and preparing for the necessity to kill starving strangers is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Whatever else we're doing, we have to start telling the story of sameness, of pulling together, rather than telling the story of division and fear. So in our communities, and to those we see in our every day lives, that has to be the outward message.

So we group together those that want to help eachother and everyone else, and try to help change the minds of the rambos, and maybe figuratively disarm those who sometimes seem like dangerous psychopaths with a community safety-oriented refocusing of effort or repurposing of mission.

I think Adaptation would utilise this idea so that violence can be avoided and infrastructure, not only roads and power, but people's homes and businesses, could be spared. I think perhaps Adaptation means not destroying society in order to change it.

-CK

Stacy Witscher wrote:Got to say - that kind of gendered response - female vs. male preppers is part of the issue. Prepping has a lot of (in my opinion) negative connotations. I already prepare for at least a year of food, just because, and have done so for a long time, mostly because of an undependable spouse. I never knew when he was going to come home and whether or not it was going to be with money.

I'm a survivor, and have always done what is necessary. That being said, I'm older now, and am perfectly happy choosing to die.

I agree. I do not have the ability or the desire to survive a long term catastrophe most especially because I am a loner. I prep for bad times and also to maintain some sense of control during a serious SHTF event. In my case it isn't just me, I have my dogs to think about so the option of just checking out when things get bad is far more complicated, having time to evaluate the situation and come to terms with the best course of action would be important.

Plus due to a morbid curiosity, if something really cataclysmic happened it would probably be the most interesting event in my lifetime and I would want to stick around at least for a little while to see what happens.

We have some prepper neighbors with explosives. Baffles my mind. What do they think they're going to need explosives for? Whenever we talk about surviving the apocalypse I tell them I'm going to have a community and a food forest. All they have is guns. I think I'm going to survive. I figure most people will be hunkered down starving to death before they ever get to me. :)

I can get behind an adapters movement. Adapt or die!

Chris Kott wrote:I think the general premise that I don't like is the "...and there will be chaos..." assumption. Sure, it's great to be prepared, but why doesn't that go a step further, to engage the community around where you've chosen to settle, to strengthen the bonds of community so that the chaos doesn't happen?

This isn't an optimistic approach, but a proactive one. In my opinion, it's the logical conclusion to the line of thought that suggests that demonizing the other and preparing for the necessity to kill starving strangers is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Whatever else we're doing, we have to start telling the story of sameness, of pulling together, rather than telling the story of division and fear. So in our communities, and to those we see in our every day lives, that has to be the outward message.
-CK

Building a "community" that can function during a breakdown of society requires food storage first and foremost. Most people are resistant to the idea of storing food and trying to talk them into it is usually pointless.A while back I was reading a cold war era government doc on rebuilding after a war etc... One of the things it stressed was that communities MUST have a food stockpile in order to mobilize the community after a cataclysmic event. If there were no food supplies people would stay home and ration what they had in their pantries, but if the gov had food to distribute in exchange for labor the community could rebuild much much faster.

Fact is homo sapiens are a very violent species. Sure we are often nice and civilized when our needs are met (most of us) but when survival becomes an issue things change really really quick. The current structure of our society makes things even worse. In the past humans have pulled together and survived very hard times but in most all cases the populations were at least HALF rural/agricultural so they were better suited to being able to survive off their own labor to some extent. These days the vast majority of the population is completely dependent on corporations for their food supplies -- if that were to suddenly get cut off things WOULD become chaotic pretty darn quick.

It isn't about "the other" at least not for me. I like the people in my community, I feel safe around them and trust that we all have each others backs. But I also know that virtually none of them store food. If something happened and the supply lines were cut off things would become dicey within a couple of weeks. Even "good people" will find they can justify just about anything when they can't feed their children. In my area virtually everyone is well armed too, so they may not have food but they do have weapons. It would start with the woods being overrun by hunters/poachers, and then when the game ran out in 2-3 weeks they would consider other options.

I have a noisy flock of chickens that would be like a sirens song to any hungry hunters in the surrounding woods. At some point some would say to themselves "My kids are starving. That woman has a flock of chickens, she apparently cares more about animals than starving children. That just ain't right...." BOOM they have all the justification they need to target me.

While I like the people around me, I also like the Timber rattler that sometimes hangs out in my vegetable garden. I don't want to see harm come to either of them yet I also never forget what they are capable of.

Yes, and in a vacuum, I might agree. My suggestion isn't optimism. I am saying that there will only be chaos if we don't take steps to forestall or avoid it.

And mindsets that suggest that we can do nothing but prepare to murder our hungry neighbours only perpetuate the conditions that will cause it.

-CK

Adaption is for me:

Using what resources I have available NOW (gas, electricity, TIME) to set up systems that are more easily sustainable/ For example:

   
• Building garden beds NOW. Those things take time to become productive, and they're a big pain to make in a rush. If you sheet mulch and start the bed now, it doesn't take nearly as much time, and you get a better product

   
• Scrounging for fencing and investing in galvanized fencing now. Durable, predator-proof fencing is hard to make in a hurry! This book ( The High Art and Subtle Science of Scrounging) is a FANTASTIC resource on figuring out how/where/why/what to scrounge

   
• Getting all those plants that multiply now, so that in 5 years my place is taken over by sorrel and strawberries and chives and other edible things.

   
• Insulating the house/adding more mass to the house, etc.

   
• Taking the time NOW to meet my neighbors and become friends and form bonds. Time is at a premium when life gets hard. Use it now while you have it!

Changing my perspective. Thinking about what I NEED and getting in the habit of not wanting so much. Big, forced changes are HARD. For example, my husband has Crohn's and is on the Special Carbohydrate Diet. That means NO sugars or starches or "vegetable oils." This wasn't as hard of a conversion to make for us because we'd already slowly worked ourselves up to being paleo, so it wasn't too much "sacrifice" and change at once. Examples for adaption:

   
• Start eating what you can grow, and figure out what foods you like to eat and how to grow them. If you plant tons of daikon radishes, and they grow great and are pest resistant, but you can't stand to eat them, then you really shouldn't plan on surviving on them.

   
• Get used to driving less. Get used to waiting longer before you can buy something

   
• Learn to work hard now. Get used to spending all day working your tail off and not having time to watch netflicks.

   
• Start living without your wants. You may want to sleep in but don't need to. You may want to buy your kids lots of toys, but you don't need to. You might want to eat out or go for drives, but you don't need to. At some point, you might not be able to do those things--if you're used to going without them by choice, it'll be easier when you DON'T have the choice.

Everything takes MORE time when life gets hard. The end of the world isn't playing boardgames inside to pass the time because there's no electricity. It's more like all your worst days put together: you get sick, you have less money, more bills, the weather is worse and more crops fail, your kids are screaming, you can and you have NO time to juggle all the balls you NEED to juggle, let alone time to learn those skills you hoarded books for. Get good at things now, because you're not going to have time to do so when life goes nuts.

   
• See my thread (The reality of homesteading has dissolved my "prepper"/homesteading fantasies, where I learned that if I can't do something now, like eat a ton of radishes, or maintain my tools , or form a community, or chop fodder for my ducks), I sure wouldn't be able to do so when life gets nuts!

   
• Learn skills and get good at them now, so they are second nature and you get most of the kinks out before your life really depends on it. Figure out gardening, figure out raising lifestock, figure out mending and building, etc. Get past the worst of those learning curves--those can be steep!

Use less. Reuse more. Our world is so wasteful. It's ingrained in us to use more reseouces than our world can sustain. Make your life more "closed system" where you don't need as many outputs and can reuse more of what you do have

Help as many people move up the "Eco-scale" and be less wasteful, grow more food, and gain more skills. Why do you think I write the dailyish ;)

One way I like to think about it is: "Live like it's the end of the world, because in many ways it kind of is almost there!" For me, this is a really helpful mentality. I always liked dystopian novels. Now I can just think of myself as a character in one of those novels, and it's suddenly more epic to be maintaining my tools or eating squash I grew, LOL!

People turn toward an Adapter/Prepper/Homestead/Permaculture lifestyle because they see current or near future problems in the current established system.

What are some of these problems.
Environmental insecurity (flood, earthquake, etc).
Food insecurity
Water insecurity
Heating insecurity
Electrical insecurity
Sewer insecurity
Transportation insecurity
Communication insecurity
Physical Safety insecurity
Healthcare insecurity
Housing insecurity
Air insecurity
Other consumable insecurity.

Food
To tackle the food insecurity some people buy pre-manufactured freeze-dry vacuum sealed food/canned food. They figure that they need 2000 calories and a host of minerals+vitamins and they then buy enough for a family of 4 to survive for 3months to 3years, with the hope that after it runs out they can then gun down other and take there food or the system will recover by then or they will have figured something else out.  Another set of people say, I will do the whole pantry stuff but I will also start growing, preparing and eating my own self-renewing, self sustaining food system right now and I will do it in a way that isn't easily recognizable to the masses aka a food forest with weed-vegetables, 'weird" fruits and nuts. I think most people will see which system has more redundancy, diversity and fail-over inplace and thus better.  

Water
If our water system gets polluted or shuts down, what will we do. Some people have buckets of water in a rooms, others have a well+roof catchment+sediment filter tank+sand filter and ceramic filter/reverse osmosis (ocean cruising water maker) in addition a big bucket/tank of water. I prefer to be in the last group even better I prefer to be doing it now and actively learning how to maintain such a system vs later. Not only that I am also able to personally teach my off-springs and expose them to that.

I could give similar example for all the other issues listed with onsite production, conservation, jit usage, redundancy, self-sustaining pathways, etc, etc. Not too sure what I would do for radioactive air and such, I also don't think that it has to be a one or a zero or that it all has to happen instantaneously. I am okay with a continuum and thinks happening over time.  

Is prepping a mostly american thing? Perhaps it has to do with our current resource surplus and/or our lack of defining culture that weaves generations together. I say this because a good friend of mine lives in an apartment complex down the road from me that is rented almost exclusively by refugees (vietnam, ghana, syria, etc). I love going there and seeing all the decisions they make without worrying about asking. Almost every patch of dirt is growing food by their hands. They even scratched out a multi leveled terrace by hand that once was bramble and scrub. About twice a week, an unmarked moving type truck shows up and dispenses fruits and veggies by the box full at super cheap prices to all who want.
You can see the caution in their faces when I show up and want to "tour" the area. I bet they would think "Shit, here comes whitey to ask questions and cause problems for us all." (and I understand their concern) The best I can do is communicate without words. I drop my knees in the dirt, pick up a bit of soil, hold it to my heart, and nod my head. So far, I have felt very welcome.
One point I'm trying to make is these folks are adapters through and through. They don't need to know permaculture or watch youtube videos about food storage etc. (not saying those aren't valuable resources though) If you get tossed out of your generational home, all you can do is adapt or perish.
The second point goes back to communication. Being able to read body language is wildly useful. IMO, anything we can do to discard "someone else's tech" and replace it with our own innate abilities will help us all greatly.

Chris Kott wrote:Yes, and in a vacuum, I might agree. My suggestion isn't optimism. I am saying that there will only be chaos if we don't take steps to forestall or avoid it.

And mindsets that suggest that we can do nothing but prepare to murder our hungry neighbours only perpetuate the conditions that will cause it.

-CK

I don't look forward to killing intruders.  I am a realist and know I wouldn't last long before someone took me out (lots of deer hunters with scopes around here). I also don't think I will see a breakdown of that magnitude in my lifetime, but one never knows.

As far as steps to avoid it -- the only practical way to avoid it would be to organize a community food storage program. The feds used to have over 100,000 local fall-out shelters with weeks of food/water for the citizenry but that all stopped in '64.  I suppose you could petition the state or federal government in an attempt to reinstate the program (good luck with that). Otherwise the only solution is to start your own small group or organize your own community and even then you will have other unprepared communities to deal with which puts you right back to square one.  Good luck approaching the city council and telling them a food storage plan needs to be implemented, they would likely think you are "one of those prepper nuts".

Everyone is quick to point out what's wrong with preppers without coming up with a viable alternative plan.

Studies have shown that City Dwellers would not run to the countryside in a SHTF situation, instead they run to what they know, staying within the city and fighting each other for the necessities.
Look at what happened right after Katrina in New Orleans, or what happened in the areas hit by Sandy.
Neither of these created a situation where those who didn't evacuate jumped up and headed to the countryside to wreak havoc.
They stayed in the areas they were familiar with and wreaked havoc there.

Right now I see lots of people figuring out we are in a recession as their money continually shrinks in what it can buy because of prices going up on a regular basis.
Those that can, are starting gardens to make sure they have some food stuffs available all the time.  
Some are growing enough that they can sell/ trade or giveaway to others as well as provide for themselves.
Many of those growing their own foods are canning, freezing and creating a working pantry, just as was done up to the expansion of the grocery store chains.
What used to be common place is coming back into vogue, similarly to how the new "skinny jeans" used to be called "pegged jeans", the suits of current fashion sure look like the suits the Beetles wore back in 1964.

Redhawk

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Studies have shown that City Dwellers would not run to the countryside in a SHTF situation, instead they run to what they know, staying within the city and fighting each other for the necessities.

Yes most stay on their home turf and often those that eventually try to leave can't easily travel.

However in severe crisis situations when the food supplies are completely gone and there really isn't anymore trickling in then mass migrations often occur. When acute starvation starts effecting the brain many will start to wander aimlessly if they are able to. You see that when really severe famines have hit parts of Africa, long lines of starving people walking aimlessly until they finally drop with small children that can't keep up being left along the way. Something similar would likely occur outside of major metropolitan areas given enough time.

While I agree there is definitely a renewed interest in canning and the like, heck many stores in town have huge sections of canning supplies, I think our perception can be skewed by our interests. If you hang out on a homesteading forum (or prepping or gardening forums) it is easy to believe that lots and lots of people are doing what you do, and that most see the necessity in it. But if you actually do a random survey in your local community (i.e. convos in line at the grocery store for instance) I find that very few are actually concerned about food storage.

Funny thing about any scenario of SHTF types, is that when the supply lines aren't moving, what happens when those grocery stores run out of food? What happens when the electricity is not flowing in the wires and all frozen food thaws at one time?
It is very true that most people aren't concerned about such things happening.
But then My personal observations of the human animal tells me most are prone to idiocy.

Think about this little scenario; a terrorist group gets their hands on a nuclear missile and fires it to detonate at 80,000 feet (15 miles above the surface).
This blast will produce an electromagnetic wave that would knock out all electronic devices, like your cell phone, the electric grid, all TV stations and so on.
We measure how this wave travels by a 90 degree angle from blast point to horizon at the surface of earth.
So for approximately 1/4 of the planet communications are kaput. (that is just one nuke, it would take four to take out the entire planet.

With the grid down foods that need to be cold start to rot, cars that have computers to make them run right no longer start or run, planes are grounded because they can't fly.
In most cities there is around a 30 day food supply for all the residents and those that commute in for work. At the end of that 30 days you already have people that have gone for 15 days without any food, because the frozen foods are the first to go, either eaten or spoiled.
That is a true SHTF scenario that is possible.

Most of these that have been run by DOD end up with most of the city dwellers expiring for all the usual reasons. At that point, only those who were attempting to be self sufficient have a chance for making it through.
The Mormon's require their congregations to have a pantry stocked with 5 years worth of food supplies, there could be a good reason for that.

Thanks, everyone, for throwing in. As I mentioned once before, each time this subject comes up, people want to talk about it. It is on peoples minds. Now that I have a bit of quiet and time, Ill read your replies and chew through it.

In the mean time, here is a little light reading from Prof. Benedell for anyone who missed it.  https://www.lowimpact.org/12-reasons-people-refuse-idea-societal-collapse/

That is, by far, the most realistic cause that I can think of, kola Redhawk.

There is a treatment in fiction of a similar scenario of unknown origin that takes it a bit further, where not just electronics, but all high-energy physics, are rendered inert. An EMP wouldn't take us back to swords, armour, and arrows, but the population dynamics are based on DOD, FEMA, and Centre for Disease Control studies.

The novels in question are the first three books in the Emberverse series by S.M. Stirling. I think the next three books are well written, but the further it goes, the more mystical nonsense is included.

But for the first bit, the books cover the event, wherein pumps fail, so when planes crash out of the sky, there's no water for firefighters to use. There is no electricity, which we would experience, and no internal combustion engines, which we would lose when we lose fuel.

The fantastic element would be the loss of things like gunpowder, which in the books caused a societal reversion to the late medieval, or at least the parts not involving early use of gunpowder. We would eventually get there, but only when supplies of percussion caps or the supplies to make them run out.

So to my point: it's been a while since my last read-through, but the studies suggested that people would stay in place, first waiting on the people in charge to help or direct them, and then scavenging what they could when that didn't happen.

The scavenging would overlap with theft and worse as time progressed, but by the time people try to walk out, they would be weakened, and they would probably lack the resources to get further than about 200 kilometers.

They predict devastation within a radius of 200 kilometers of any city, and where those zones overlap would exist dead zones, with everything edible consumed.

It's quite interesting, actually. The author covers many different scenarios where cores of survival become tribes of people gathered by a charismatic leader, and then more. Also addressed are less healthy cores of survival, starting with cannibal bands killing and eating eachother til they all die of disease, and more stable examples ranging from a dark medieval feudalism where pesants are no more than slaves, to evil theocracies complete with brainwashing and manchurian candidate-style programming.

I actually suggest that anyone who reads fiction try this one out. There are just so many observations made in the books applicable to this conversation that it might save people a lot of time theorising, or at least put them in the right mental space to think about collapse from a variety of standpoints.

Also worthy of note is the Island In the Sea of Time trilogy by the same author, a forerunner to the Emberverse books, wherein the island of Nantucket and a Coastguard sailing ship are picked up by the same "Event" and dropped unceremoniously in the Bronze Age. It is the story of the survivors trying to remake civilisation from the end bit of the current one, without infrastructure to build anything electronic past the stage of vacuum tubes.

There is probably much more good advice and thoughts on Adaptation in those series than I can assemble from memory for the purposes of this post. I think it might be time for a read-through.

-CK

Digging out my old hippie clothes because Dr. Redhawk said it was cool again. We are about the same age. We share some similar life experiences & perspectives. He's also a bona fide doctor on OUR side. I listen very carefully to his advice & opinions. Another cool thing about hippies is something John Lennon is famous for saying "GIVE PEACE A CHANCE". One big coronal mass ejection or other EMP event & we're instantly back to the stone age. Bronze age at best.

All very interesting comments. I strongly agree with most. The permies crowd is on the right track. It's the rest of the population & their over dependence on the easy button that concerns me. World wide change needs to happen FAST. Fake is bad. Pollution is awful & completely ignorant. Greed is pure evil. We need to nurture rather than destroy nature. Not much to add without writing a book. Keep it real.

Famous hippie picture from the '60's ... I could show the other half of that ugly coin but, well, it's very ugly. Hippies had some things right.

This is all going very well. Better than I was picturing. Im glad I stuck to my, "First Rule of Adapters Club...". This is the result.

By the way, I passed this to another board... for them to argue about it. Its not in their nature to live by the codes of conduct here and we will leave it at that.

Comments you may enjoy from them were
"permie threads are so nice... I like the Adapter movement title."
and
"It's a really nice site. I'm surprised I haven't spent time there."

But there was also a comment worth cutting and pasting.
"The truth according to K-Dog is that collapse is not going to be a single identifiable event that puts us in the middle of a dystopian novel.  Collapse ultimately becomes the fate of individuals and we all have different fates.  Eventually people will starve to death in America, and for many life will become nasty brutish and short.  But this will not happen to everybody and not all at the same time to those it does.  That it be a minority of people or a majority is irrelevant.  That is only a number.  The point I wish to make is that those who suffer merely 'disappear' but civilization limps on.  National Guardsmen shooting looters will be civilization limping on.  Latifundiumi run by prison labor will also be civilization limping on.  Some have already starved and you did not notice.

Collapse has been going on for years.  After the crash in 2008 I did not get hit by it right away.  I had a contract so my job was secure until the end of my contract and then I did not work for a few years until circumstances changed.  I 'recovered' but I realize not everybody did because I came close to fading away for all time myself.  Collapse is a game of musical chairs and if you are the one left standing up you collapse.

Victims of collapse don't get to play the game anymore.  That fact means the survivors will continue to play, and play, and play.  Survivors don't rewrite the rules of the game.  Only victims could do that so the music will play for a very long time and stop many times.  One man's collapse will not happen at the same time as another's.

Katrina,  the crash of 2008, name your disaster.  Collapse has been with us for a long time and if it continues as it has we will have Archdruids ridiculous 'catabolic collapse' concept where John Greer postulates a slow contraction which will defy all rules of mathematics and human nature.

Collapse in a 'doom' sense would mean serious interruption in the oil supply.  I see oil trains sending oil to export every day.  Oil if need be will be pumped at gunpoint while society adjusts and gets rid of excess flesh.  That flesh may well be ours but after we die the great game will go on without us.

Total collapse would mean we all die.  That is not going to happen.  For more likely will be that some find a way to profit from the demise of others.  Then they write history.

At some time something serious has to happen to cause a big die-off.  That is as sure as two plus two is four.  But knowing when will be impossible to predict.  Too many variables."

---------

In my earlier works, I talked about, "Bridging the gap between, Preppers, Transition Town and Permaculture". It left many going, "What the fuck?" but it was a good call on my part. One of the things I said was, "These three Movements have much wisdom and plenty to teach, but left to themselves carry too baggage and would fail".

That may get a few snarles... but let it roll for a bit.

There were two aspects or principals of the title , "C5 Defines The Adapters Movement- Acceptance and Triage".

You folks seem to get the "Acceptence" part more than most and get the "Collapse Now, Avoid the Rush" principal. Before I stumbled onto JMG, one of my principals was "Mutate Now, Avoid the Post Apocalyptic Rush". I stole that from a comic book... that had stole it from a piece of graffiti spray painted on a wall in England. This tracks back to the The Dust Bowl and someone writing, "Get Poor Now and Avoid the rush"... but enough history lesson.



What I would like to steer this conversation to is the Uglier Principal.   Triage
Permies may have more problem with this... but we still need a better understanding of "The Life Boat Principal". That is, we save as many as we can, but once the boat is filled, if you take on even one more person, everyone dies.
Another way to look at it is, that scene in The Day After Tomorrow,  Where he draws a line across the continent,  and says, everyone below that line gets evacuated.

A little humor to lighten the blow.

That photo was taken the day of the Kent State "incident" when the National Guard fired into the unarmed, fairly peaceful, student population of protestors of the Vietnam War (specifically the Cambodia Bombings), killing 4, wounding 9 and paralyzing 1.

A bit more on the Triage aspect.

Here on the doomstead, I call Fall "The triage season" not the harvest season. Its the period when we are at a run and doing Triage, deciding what can and cant be saved. Much will be left to rot. Certain jobs I had planned to get done and didnt, needed to be abandoned....

speaking of wich.... outside of the window, it just started to snow.... so I need to quit this and run outside for a bit more harvest before it drops below freezing this evening. Things are going to die and there is not much I can do about it...

I hadn't comment on this earlier as I was driving a truck of my brother's stuff from WA to AZ unloading it then flying back to WA. So I was a little busy.

I am involved in prepping, but am I a prepper? I don't know. For ease of conversation I cop to that label often but it doesn't define who I am. I am also a permie and bushcrafter, but all 3 labels don't define me. I am a lot more than the sum of the labels one might give me.

Which brings me to this idea of a new label. That is in essence what prepper was. It was folks tired of the survivalist label who wanted a label with less baggage. Now prepper has a new set of baggage, mostly due to the horrible "reality" TV show. But how long before this new label Adapter becomes corrupted by elements that don't represent the intention but take over due to being the loudest voices?

You can see this happen with all sorts of labels through out history. Libertarian used to be synonymous with Anarchist. It was actually coined by anarchists who didn't like the label anarchist anymore. But I dare you to try to tell a Libertarian their label was started by anarchists and means anarchist, they flip out.

My point, while well intentioned the idea of coming up with a new label will likely fizzle out or if it does catch on turn on you and take a life of it's own.

Something else worth pointing out is what I have noticed about prepper progression

People start out in prepping usually out of fear. They have no idea how to prep or even exactly what to prep for, but learn the world is unpredictable both from man made events and natural disasters.

This starts phase 1.

Phase 1 is gear acquisition.  At this point it is just throw money at the problem. Buy a ton of stuff you don't know anything about in hopes it is useful. Often this is a lot of prepackaged kits built and put together by someone else who says this is what you need to survive.

Some people get stuck in this, and it is easy to do. There is always a cool new toy to buy. There is a whole economy built upon it. But some folks start to break out of this as they learn that they have no idea how to use the items they have.

This starts phase 2.

Phase 2 is knowledge/skills acquisition. Now with all the gear the would be prepper is learning skills and knowledge are important. Studying things like bushcraft and primitive skills. Learning more in depth knowledge about potential dangers. In this phase many start getting more community oriented, as it tends to be hard to know everything you need. So division of skills and knowledge start to make sense. However Phase 2 can loop back to phase 1, as you learn more you realize a lot of your gear is sub par. So go through a new gear buying phase, but for higher quality good gear. Many get stuck in this as it can now be a pride thing and feed the ego knowing you have a $500 knife that is the ultimate survival knife. ETC... However the knowledge and skill phase can also lead to homesteading.

This starts phase 3.

Phase 3 is homesteading. Homesteaders are built in preppers. You have to be. Homesteading is a difficult and unpredictable place to be. You can get cut off in the winter, have crops fail, machinery go down, etc... The Homesteader has to plan for these small scale disasters. To be prepared. Also urban and suburban prepping is really an exercise in spending a lot of money to keep an unsustainable life. This is why a lot of people in prepping move toward homesteading. Realizing it is better to pre bug out. To set up the homestead and get it running. Rather than wait for disaster then try and make a go at gardening and livestock. To move to a more stable safe place with neighbors who will help rather than compete with you. Again like phase 2, phase 3 does have the loop back to phase 1. There is a lot of cool gear to get for homesteading. Some really expensive gear too. But there is also a way up to the next phase, permaculture.

This starts phase 4

Phase 4 is permaculture. For those who get to homesteading they find it a lot of hard work. But they are also often smart educated people. They often find permaculture in the process of learning homesteading, and find that it helps cut the work load and make homesteading easier. Not easy mind you, but easier than non permie homesteading. As well as a permaculture farm can be more stealthy than a standard one. Doomsday Preppers even had a guy who explained his permaculture food forest was not recognizable as a food source from distance and even up close it was hard to tell unless you really know plants. This makes permaculture very attractive to preppers. Lower labor and more camouflaged the permaculture homestead is the ideal prepping technique.

I have yet to see a phase 5, but I would not be surprised if there was one. Maybe trying to relabel prepping is phase 5.

For me, I moved out to 40 acres and am building a homestead with permaculture principals. Less and less do I identify as a prepper, and more as a homesteader and permaculturist. But am  still a prepper? Yes, I guess I am since as I said homesteaders are built in preppers and really permaculture is constantly talking about preparing for long term issues. Thinking of 100 yr floods and getting the land ready for them rather than waiting to be surprised by it. Observing nature and working with it rather than doing what seem right short term and then having to deal with the consequences. Permaculture's prepping is more proactive, not bandaids but true heading off problems and making sure they don't become a problem.

So maybe rather than your new label, maybe think about just including yourself back into old labels. Homesteading and permaculture are fine labels that still include being prepared and adaptable.

Just a thought here.  The people that have a lot of guns or stored food will likely be early targets for any roving bands that want to secure an area for themselves.  The people that know how to grow and forage for food/herbs/mushroom and make herbal/mushroom based medicines will be spared because of these useful skills. Many others may be made into slaves or killed outright.

Dennis Bangham wrote:Many others may be made into slaves or killed outright.

Or get very sick or lose their jobs.  Two far more likely disasters than roving bands, in my opinion and experience.

Devin Lavign wrote:I but all 3 labels don't define me. I am a lot more than the sum of the labels one might give me.

Which brings me to this idea of a new label. That is in essence what prepper was. It was folks tired of the survivalist label who wanted a label with less baggage. Now prepper has a new set of baggage, mostly due to the horrible "reality" TV show. But how long before this new label Adapter becomes corrupted by elements that don't represent the intention but take over due to being the loudest voices?

.

There you go. That is why I am doing this (Though I feel a bit overwhelmed with the task). I too was there when the Survivalist poked their heads back up after the Oklahoma city bombing , seeing the acceptance and success of the preppers movement, said, quite literally, "I guess we are called preppers now." and "by the way, we are better than preppers"...and we are taking over. It changed from a free exchange of skills and turned into one big shouting match, with alot of dangerous extremists and militants dug in like ticks.

Most people dont know that the first use of the term "Prepper" was in the Foxfire book series. The early prepper movement was much more focused on the subject of home schooling.

These principals and a clear definition is the stop gap, so if some one goes, I guess we are Adapters now, we can say "Prove it. Are you using the principals or just the title.".

This is the same way as saying, Permaculture may be Organic, But organic no longer means what it was originally intended and you certainly dont call Industreal Organic Agriculture, Permaculture. If someone does, you can call them on it

Wow, so many good thoughts on here! Thank you Ross Raven for starting this!

I have a different perspective than most people. My health crashed HARD in1996, I lost my health, my career, my friends, my money, everything. I am living the back side of SHTF. Been there, have the scars. Thankfully, it was a very personal disaster, so I had the chance to use the things society provides, to a point, the point at which they start charging money for it. Anyone who has read my dumpster diving threads will know how I coped with a lot of that. I learned to adapt. I’m GOOD at adapt. I had to be.

I keep up on the world, and know how humans react and all that, and tripped over the word prepper at some point, and I fit that, to a point. I have good woods skills,  but I also have enough sense to realize that’s not a viable option. I stock food when I can, so I have it when I can’t. I was dreaming of homesteading when I hit the word permaculture. It was like there was a socket in my brain just waiting for that to be plugged into it! So here I am. How do I reconcile where I have been, and where I am, and where I am going?

I KNOW I will have to adapt again at some point, I’m hoping later, rather than sooner. What I’m doing with my life right now is putting into place what I wish I had the first time the world crashed around me, using the currently available resources to set up a life that doesn’t rely on needing that. I own a tractor, and vehicles, that  I am using to build my world: make terraces, dig ponds, get our house built, etc. Not my first preference in life, but hopefully not needed at some point. I feel with good design, I may not need these tools, and can use lower tech to run my life.

My systems right now are in layers: I stock what I can get now. I am getting systems into place to produce my own short term, and working on getting the long term systems so they can be done when I need them. Example: clothes. I am a hard to fit size, with definite preferences in cut, fabric, and color. I currently watch thrift stores etc for things that fit my parameters, and one size down (as my weight is going down, and I have one size up stocked from when they fit.) That’s my first layer. Second layer is I sew; so I stock fabric, sewing supplies, patterns that I take off of clothes that fit me well, etc. Third layer is I have yarn making/working tools, I have on paper (not computer) how to build looms, how to raise sheep, how to shear. And as I come across things I will want in that stage, I pick them up too. So layer one is take what’s easy to find now. Layer two is be ready to not need that input. Layer three is be ready to produce my own from scratch.

All of my systems work that way. I want to have what I need when I have to adapt hard again. Because next time might not have as many options that are easy to get. Personal disasters are, in a way easier, in a way harder. I agree with the poster here who said something about it won’t be a full you wake up one morning and the world has gone to hell type disaster. More a lot of people having their own crash, and it cascading until it hits the tipping point, and more of society than not is having a hard time. It’s easier to have it alone because others are not competing for the same resources. It’s harder because people don’t understand what you are going through, and mental support for it is hard to find. When people’s response to something you say is “Well why don’t you just buy a new one?” it distances you from any kind of communication.

My comments on other people’s posts:

Ross Raven wrote: An Adapter accepts the apocalyptic future at hand and is Adapting there life now to flow through it and live in it...It's a full time gig  

Then I’d say I’m an adapter :) There is nothing for me to go back to, it was gone in the late 90s. This is it.

Dan Boone wrote: That crazy druid John Michel Greer used to advise us all to "Crash now and beat the rush." ...  Crash while you can, and the dude at the garage sale thinks you're crazy for handing over that ten dollar bill.  

 I beat the rush! But hey, I have experience points now! I know more of what doesn’t work and more of what doesn’t work for ME.

F Agricola wrote: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, hallelujah!

I laughed myself silly, I love it! :)

Chris Kott wrote: permaculture in a ghillie suit  

I’m tempted to try to draw that... Lovely visual!

Lucrecia Anderson wrote: Plus due to a morbid curiosity, if something really cataclysmic happened it would probably be the most interesting event in my lifetime and I would want to stick around at least for a little while to see what happens.

We have front row seats to the show of the century!

Nicole Alderman wrote:  ...

That WHOLE post. Pretend I pasted it all. Every last word. Exactly, Ms Nicole, exactly!!

Justin Shropshire wrote: One point I'm trying to make is these folks are adapters through and through. ... If you get tossed out of your generational home, all you can do is adapt or perish.

 Exactly. They are living the back side of SHTF. They have to adapt. That’s what more people need to do. You asked “is prepping an American thing?” It is, I think, due to the lack of it being a lifestyle that is just called “normal life” that it has to be an edgy weird thing, when it needs to just be normal life. You adapt, you prepare for winter, you prepare for a bad harvest, you don’t let your whole life be based on one crop, or one paycheck. You spread the risks, and adapt for whatever comes, knowing you have no other choice. Americans have mostly lost this, and so prepping is edgy and weird.

Chris Kott wrote:  the first three books in the Emberverse series by S.M. Stirling.

Thank you! Added to my reading list!

Devin Lavign wrote:  ...

That whole post! I love your breakdown of the phases, it shows why people do the things they do, and also why others get ideas about surviving is, due to which level they are looking at, and which they inhabit. I look forward to seeing what we build as phase 5, I know it will not look like anything we have seen before on this planet. I hope it combines the best of all cultures and styles, and little to none of the worst. Awesome post, sir, my compliments!

Tyler Ludens wrote: Or get very sick or lose their jobs.  Two far more likely disasters than roving bands, in my opinion and experience.

Exactly!! I tell people I prepare for reality, the most obvious things first. Roving bands are hard to make plans for, not having grocery money is easy to plan for.

I look forward to seeing where this thread goes :)