Apocalypse Chic
May 30, 2017 7:19 AM Subscribe
The Prepper Obession With
...stuff you can buy that looks 'tactical' and comes in an XXL. And guns.
...never stuff that actually contributes to physical health or fitness. You'd think cardio health and strength training would be kinda important when the end times comes, but those fuckers can't climb a set of stairs without getting winded.
That said, bushcraft isn't the same as prepping. It's camping with less stuff combined with building fun stuff in the woods.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:28 AM on May 30, 2017 [29 favorites]
...stuff you can buy that looks 'tactical' and comes in an XXL. And guns.
...never stuff that actually contributes to physical health or fitness. You'd think cardio health and strength training would be kinda important when the end times comes, but those fuckers can't climb a set of stairs without getting winded.
That said, bushcraft isn't the same as prepping. It's camping with less stuff combined with building fun stuff in the woods.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:28 AM on May 30, 2017 [29 favorites]
Doomsday Preppies
posted by theodolite at 7:30 AM on May 30, 2017 [35 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 7:30 AM on May 30, 2017 [35 favorites]
"Mitchell believes their movement is speculative fiction. . . . "It’s imaginative role-playing. "
hahahaha I'm going to piss off every survivalist I know from now on by calling them cosplayers hahahahaha
posted by barchan at 7:33 AM on May 30, 2017 [80 favorites]
hahahaha I'm going to piss off every survivalist I know from now on by calling them cosplayers hahahahaha
posted by barchan at 7:33 AM on May 30, 2017 [80 favorites]
Clothes designed for soldiers are durable, but they also alert your neighbor that you might be interested in overthrowing the government. The irony isn’t lost on Mitchell. “Much of survivalism is predicated on the notion that government and institutional knowledge and collective organization are all failures,” he says. “Oh, but let’s wear their clothes.”
Based on the amount of nylon these guys seem fond of, I'm assuming they're stockpiling the supplies they need for homebrew polymerization.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:35 AM on May 30, 2017 [9 favorites]
Based on the amount of nylon these guys seem fond of, I'm assuming they're stockpiling the supplies they need for homebrew polymerization.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:35 AM on May 30, 2017 [9 favorites]
Personally, I'm of the mindset that if civilization should collapse, the place to be is the big cities, not middle of West Bumblefuck Nowhere. We've got supplies, we've got infrastructure, and we've got people who are used to living alongside each other and helping out in the face of disaster. The preppers can spend all the money and time you like on fancy survival clothes and artisanally crafted machete holders to look good alone when shit hits the fan. I know where my best shot at surviving is, and nobody's gonna give a shit how I dress.
posted by SansPoint at 7:38 AM on May 30, 2017 [20 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 7:38 AM on May 30, 2017 [20 favorites]
Gear porn and its discussion is a common thread among military, skiers, mountaineers, campers, alpinists and preppers. Everyone wants 'optimal' but it is a highly subjective subject.
posted by furtive at 7:40 AM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by furtive at 7:40 AM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
“It’s not so much about how you look in the mirror; it’s about how your friends respond to you. Sociologists call it impression management and anticipatory socialization —you dress like you imagine you’ll want to be in the future.”Dress for the apocalypse you want.
I thought this was a particularly fine sentence, too: "Survivalism is a fringe movement that fuses America’s frontier lust with its apocalyptic anxiety."
—And you, Frederick Jackson Turner, what were you doing down by the Jac-Shirts?
posted by octobersurprise at 7:42 AM on May 30, 2017 [26 favorites]
it’s easier to be both stylish and ready for an alien invasion.
The marketing people at Land's End are getting quite political.
posted by Fizz at 7:45 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
The marketing people at Land's End are getting quite political.
posted by Fizz at 7:45 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
Fuckin' shoot-me-first pants.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:46 AM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:46 AM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
You gotta think of the basics. I seem to remember one post-apocalyptic novel that described the one item that was valued above all others for looters: An unopened pack of elastic band underwear.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:47 AM on May 30, 2017 [22 favorites]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:47 AM on May 30, 2017 [22 favorites]
It's cosplay, of course they are obsessed with the clothes.
posted by Artw at 7:54 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:54 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
This is timely for me, personally, and also cracks me up, because middle age has turned me into a birder and a rambler, and my wardrobe is shifting in the direction of being largely outdoors wear. I put my husband, who absolutely lives to research stuff like this, on the case of tracking down the best clothing and gear for me, and he came back with some good suggestions, but mentioned that the net is swarming with preppers and assorted weirdos completely obsessed with the topic.
posted by skybluepink at 7:56 AM on May 30, 2017 [12 favorites]
posted by skybluepink at 7:56 AM on May 30, 2017 [12 favorites]
The Prepper Obession With
...stuff you can buy that looks 'tactical' and comes in an XXL.
Hey, can we not, please?
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:59 AM on May 30, 2017 [53 favorites]
...stuff you can buy that looks 'tactical' and comes in an XXL.
Hey, can we not, please?
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:59 AM on May 30, 2017 [53 favorites]
So distrustful of the banks, Preppers agree with Carrie Bradshaw on the best place to keep their money: in their closets, right where they can see it.
Shit, now I want to watch Prepping And The City. "As I watched my wingman's pants bust in the crotch when the SHTF, I couldn't help but wonder ... was I next?"
posted by octobersurprise at 8:05 AM on May 30, 2017 [12 favorites]
Shit, now I want to watch Prepping And The City. "As I watched my wingman's pants bust in the crotch when the SHTF, I couldn't help but wonder ... was I next?"
posted by octobersurprise at 8:05 AM on May 30, 2017 [12 favorites]
skybluepink, it's like that for any hobby that has applicability to "self-sufficiency". Small scale animal husbandry and hobby farming is also awash with preppers. Canning and preserving. Household engineering. So many "here's my chicken coop" videos.
And didn't we have an FPP about manly "rebranding" of domestic tasks so they sound more appealing to preppers? Like, sewing machines being called "thread injectors"? Did I hallucinate that?
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:06 AM on May 30, 2017 [28 favorites]
And didn't we have an FPP about manly "rebranding" of domestic tasks so they sound more appealing to preppers? Like, sewing machines being called "thread injectors"? Did I hallucinate that?
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:06 AM on May 30, 2017 [28 favorites]
Nope, I remember the thread injectors thing, it was easily the most beautiful example of fragile masculinity I had ever seen.
You know, knitting has a lot of applicability to self-sufficiency... have any preppers butched up the knitting jargon yet?
posted by palomar at 8:10 AM on May 30, 2017 [29 favorites]
You know, knitting has a lot of applicability to self-sufficiency... have any preppers butched up the knitting jargon yet?
posted by palomar at 8:10 AM on May 30, 2017 [29 favorites]
Goddamned tacti-pants! Before I can wash my husband's favorite pants, I have to go through: Left pocket. Left thigh pocket Left thigh pocket knife holder. The pocket behind the left thigh pocket. Left hip pocket. Right hip pocket. Right pocket. Right safety-zipped pocket. Right thigh pocket. Right thigh pocket knife holder. The pocket behind the right thigh pocket. And I probably missed one!
I don't carry my phone because I am always butt-dialing. And why? BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE GODDAMNED TACTI-POCKETS ALL OVER MY TACTI-PANTS. Why was there a tiny multi-tool in my bra yesterday? Guess. Go ahead.
APOCALYPSE POCKETS in women's every day clothing! Is it so much to ask?
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:12 AM on May 30, 2017 [82 favorites]
I don't carry my phone because I am always butt-dialing. And why? BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE GODDAMNED TACTI-POCKETS ALL OVER MY TACTI-PANTS. Why was there a tiny multi-tool in my bra yesterday? Guess. Go ahead.
APOCALYPSE POCKETS in women's every day clothing! Is it so much to ask?
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:12 AM on May 30, 2017 [82 favorites]
have any preppers butched up the knitting jargon yet?
You can already get titanum needles I note. All you'd need to do is powdercoat them a matt green or black and put a knurled knob on the end (note that function is of less a concern than looks). I surprised someone hasn't accessed this niche yet, frankly, but my Google-fu may be weak.
posted by bonehead at 8:15 AM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
You can already get titanum needles I note. All you'd need to do is powdercoat them a matt green or black and put a knurled knob on the end (note that function is of less a concern than looks). I surprised someone hasn't accessed this niche yet, frankly, but my Google-fu may be weak.
posted by bonehead at 8:15 AM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
And didn't we have an FPP about manly "rebranding" of domestic tasks so they sound more appealing to preppers?
We did! (starts with peeedro's comment rather than the FPP link itself)
posted by theodolite at 8:15 AM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
We did! (starts with peeedro's comment rather than the FPP link itself)
posted by theodolite at 8:15 AM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
> This is timely for me, personally, and also cracks me up, because middle age has turned me into a birder and a rambler, and my wardrobe is shifting in the direction of being largely outdoors wear
More than once, I've been up on Hawk Hill for a hawkwatch day and realized that everything I have on except my underwear and my binos is from REI.
posted by rtha at 8:16 AM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
More than once, I've been up on Hawk Hill for a hawkwatch day and realized that everything I have on except my underwear and my binos is from REI.
posted by rtha at 8:16 AM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Um, no. I don't make cute macrame friendship bracelets. These are tactical survival bracelets. It's not my fault that paracord comes in so many nice colors.
(I actually don't have any problem at all with the vast majority of prepper culture. I run across it all the time looking things up on the internet because a lot of their hobbies are really fun if you leave out the crippling anxiety.)
posted by ernielundquist at 8:16 AM on May 30, 2017 [21 favorites]
(I actually don't have any problem at all with the vast majority of prepper culture. I run across it all the time looking things up on the internet because a lot of their hobbies are really fun if you leave out the crippling anxiety.)
posted by ernielundquist at 8:16 AM on May 30, 2017 [21 favorites]
APOCALYPSE POCKETS in women's every day clothing!
Just In Case Bra - Camo: Designed to hold your knife or pepper spray right where you need it most!
posted by bonehead at 8:18 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Just In Case Bra - Camo: Designed to hold your knife or pepper spray right where you need it most!
posted by bonehead at 8:18 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Personally, I'm of the mindset that if civilization should collapse, the place to be is the big cities, not middle of West Bumblefuck Nowhere. We've got supplies, we've got infrastructure, and we've got people who are used to living alongside each other and helping out in the face of disaster.
Cities represent the elite/government and part of the fantasy is that the Apocalypse will burn away with weak liberal statists who have been controlling society with their chemtrails and fluoridated water,Jews bankers, and lying media to leave only the Tough Real Men standing.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:21 AM on May 30, 2017 [19 favorites]
Cities represent the elite/government and part of the fantasy is that the Apocalypse will burn away with weak liberal statists who have been controlling society with their chemtrails and fluoridated water,
posted by Sangermaine at 8:21 AM on May 30, 2017 [19 favorites]
hahahaha I'm going to piss off every survivalist I know from now on by calling them cosplayers hahahahaha
You actually know a survivalist?
posted by notreally at 8:22 AM on May 30, 2017
You actually know a survivalist?
posted by notreally at 8:22 AM on May 30, 2017
MetaFilter: really fun if you leave out the crippling anxiety
posted by chavenet at 8:24 AM on May 30, 2017 [63 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 8:24 AM on May 30, 2017 [63 favorites]
HI belong to a post-apocalyptic book club (I swear I have a point). One of the books we read once was a last-man-on-earth novel from the early 1900s, about a guy who is (as far as he knows) the only survivor of a poison gas cloud. He was an arctic explorer and escaped the cloud that way.
For most of his initial journey home, he's pretty sane, meticulously examining what's going on, testing things, getting trains and boats up and running again to get himself home. But hen when he gets to his home estate outside London...his mind snaps because he realizes "wait, I'm the only man on earth, I'mma do what I want." And that felt more honest to me, seeing an account of Last Man realizing that all the rules and conventions of society had died and there were no rules any more.
And it was his clothes that tipped him over into madness - he gets back to his estate and sees a portrait of himself in his hall - the typical Victorian gentleman dress, with waistcoat and tie and all that, and he sees that and thinks he looks like an idiot - and realizes he doesn't have to follow those conventions. But what he goes for instead is this whole sort of half-assed Middle Eastern getup he fashions out of stealing some clothes off a corpse and doing something with some curtains, because being Last Man Alive means he is now Emperor Of The World.
My point being - a lot of the clothes people are picking are following messaging that is coming from an established society, but once there IS no society and there are no rules, I think some people are gonna go a little funny and may end up wearing, like, a Superman costume instead.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:24 AM on May 30, 2017 [65 favorites]
For most of his initial journey home, he's pretty sane, meticulously examining what's going on, testing things, getting trains and boats up and running again to get himself home. But hen when he gets to his home estate outside London...his mind snaps because he realizes "wait, I'm the only man on earth, I'mma do what I want." And that felt more honest to me, seeing an account of Last Man realizing that all the rules and conventions of society had died and there were no rules any more.
And it was his clothes that tipped him over into madness - he gets back to his estate and sees a portrait of himself in his hall - the typical Victorian gentleman dress, with waistcoat and tie and all that, and he sees that and thinks he looks like an idiot - and realizes he doesn't have to follow those conventions. But what he goes for instead is this whole sort of half-assed Middle Eastern getup he fashions out of stealing some clothes off a corpse and doing something with some curtains, because being Last Man Alive means he is now Emperor Of The World.
My point being - a lot of the clothes people are picking are following messaging that is coming from an established society, but once there IS no society and there are no rules, I think some people are gonna go a little funny and may end up wearing, like, a Superman costume instead.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:24 AM on May 30, 2017 [65 favorites]
Nope, I remember the thread injectors thing, it was easily the most beautiful example of fragile masculinity I had ever seen.
And like many things surrounding fragile masculinity, the replacement they chose ends up sounding MUCH MUCH GAYER if you think about it for like three seconds.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:26 AM on May 30, 2017 [39 favorites]
And like many things surrounding fragile masculinity, the replacement they chose ends up sounding MUCH MUCH GAYER if you think about it for like three seconds.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:26 AM on May 30, 2017 [39 favorites]
Don't even get me started on the Crackerjack stickers
Crackerjacks. You know, "every box has a prize inside."
Looks like this: mολon λαβέ
----
I get it, I have Bundeswehr surplus pants and the riggers belt and woodland goretex and nylon windshirt and and and. But its so damn obvious...
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:26 AM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
the what?Crackerjacks. You know, "every box has a prize inside."
Looks like this: mολon λαβέ
----
I get it, I have Bundeswehr surplus pants and the riggers belt and woodland goretex and nylon windshirt and and and. But its so damn obvious...
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:26 AM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
Sangermaine: Yeah, they say that now, but once their wells get contaminated with feces, and their crops fail, and they get scurvy, and run out of ammo, they're gonna come to the cities and we're gonna be like "Told you so. How's that hyper-individualism working for you now, huh?"
posted by SansPoint at 8:28 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 8:28 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
I run across it all the time looking things up on the internet because a lot of their hobbies are really fun if you leave out the crippling anxiety.
Word. I enjoy seeing how much I can do for myself, just because that's a fun thing and it makes me feel capable and competent. But I'm also an urban liberal feminist atheist, so. My only anxiety is that these people get impatient and decide to hasten the apocalypse so all their gear doesn't go to waste.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:32 AM on May 30, 2017 [10 favorites]
Word. I enjoy seeing how much I can do for myself, just because that's a fun thing and it makes me feel capable and competent. But I'm also an urban liberal feminist atheist, so. My only anxiety is that these people get impatient and decide to hasten the apocalypse so all their gear doesn't go to waste.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:32 AM on May 30, 2017 [10 favorites]
And like many things surrounding fragile masculinity, the replacement they chose ends up sounding MUCH MUCH GAYER if you think about it for like three seconds.
I mean, this right here...
“To determine if they are durable enough for SHTF, I just wear them. A lot,” he says. “One thing that I look for right away is how much give the pants have in the crotch area. If I can't squat down or lift my knees in them, they will bust in the crotch area, I can guarantee it. And I won't own a pair that I think might blow out the crotch.”
The only thing worse than potential crotch-busters? Cotton.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:33 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
I mean, this right here...
“To determine if they are durable enough for SHTF, I just wear them. A lot,” he says. “One thing that I look for right away is how much give the pants have in the crotch area. If I can't squat down or lift my knees in them, they will bust in the crotch area, I can guarantee it. And I won't own a pair that I think might blow out the crotch.”
The only thing worse than potential crotch-busters? Cotton.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:33 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
And it was his clothes that tipped him over into madness - he gets back to his estate and sees a portrait of himself in his hall - the typical Victorian gentleman dress, with waistcoat and tie and all that, and he sees that and thinks he looks like an idiot - and realizes he doesn't have to follow those conventions. But what he goes for instead is this whole sort of half-assed Middle Eastern getup he fashions out of stealing some clothes off a corpse and doing something with some curtains, because being Last Man Alive means he is now Emperor Of The World.
I wonder if the writers of The Quiet Earth read that book, because that's close to the arc the protagonist follows (though instead of curtains, he schleps around New Zealand in a woman's slip, and proclaims himself Emperor to an audience of cardboard cut-outs).
posted by Gelatin at 8:37 AM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
I wonder if the writers of The Quiet Earth read that book, because that's close to the arc the protagonist follows (though instead of curtains, he schleps around New Zealand in a woman's slip, and proclaims himself Emperor to an audience of cardboard cut-outs).
posted by Gelatin at 8:37 AM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
Real talk here: Reliable people don't spend that much time and effort getting ready to run away.
posted by mhoye at 8:38 AM on May 30, 2017 [14 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 8:38 AM on May 30, 2017 [14 favorites]
Re: fragile masculinity. Men can and do crochet, but some men actually brochet.
posted by weeyin at 8:40 AM on May 30, 2017 [13 favorites]
posted by weeyin at 8:40 AM on May 30, 2017 [13 favorites]
You actually know a survivalist?
Aw geez, sadly yes. I'm from middle of nowhere N Wyo, where there is not only a thriving prepper type culture but the local real estate agents make a bundle selling land to such types from out of state. Hell, half my relatives are this way. There'd always been a few - I swear they based the couple in Tremors off some neighbors down the road - but it seemed to really go mainstream in our neck of the woods about the mid-90s (along with militia type culture) and hasn't gone away. Even though the taxonomy bounces around a little (as does the doomsday scenarios), it's still the same kind of person.
posted by barchan at 8:46 AM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Aw geez, sadly yes. I'm from middle of nowhere N Wyo, where there is not only a thriving prepper type culture but the local real estate agents make a bundle selling land to such types from out of state. Hell, half my relatives are this way. There'd always been a few - I swear they based the couple in Tremors off some neighbors down the road - but it seemed to really go mainstream in our neck of the woods about the mid-90s (along with militia type culture) and hasn't gone away. Even though the taxonomy bounces around a little (as does the doomsday scenarios), it's still the same kind of person.
posted by barchan at 8:46 AM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Fragile masculinity bonus: the northern pike is "brochet" in French. It is a mighty freshwater predator species.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:46 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:46 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Right thigh pocket knife holder.
The weird zippered pocket in the seam of these Duluth Trading pants suddenly makes sense now.
More than once, I've been up on Hawk Hill for a hawkwatch day and realized that everything I have on except my underwear and my binos is from REI.
Same for me and the aforementioned Duluth. But, in my case, it's mainly because I like to wear street clothes on my bike, and the gussets and triple-stitched seams in the Duluth stuff make for street clothes that stand up really well to daily commuter bicycling.
As a bonus, they'll probably last a while after SHTF, too! But apparently I need more wool.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:49 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
The weird zippered pocket in the seam of these Duluth Trading pants suddenly makes sense now.
More than once, I've been up on Hawk Hill for a hawkwatch day and realized that everything I have on except my underwear and my binos is from REI.
Same for me and the aforementioned Duluth. But, in my case, it's mainly because I like to wear street clothes on my bike, and the gussets and triple-stitched seams in the Duluth stuff make for street clothes that stand up really well to daily commuter bicycling.
As a bonus, they'll probably last a while after SHTF, too! But apparently I need more wool.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:49 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
I wonder if there are any warehouses filled wirth unsold Chuck Norris karate jeans? I bet they could be repurposed as apocalypse pants.
posted by thelonius at 8:50 AM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 8:50 AM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
When SHTF, I look forward to snickering wand waving at all the poor saps humping through the woods as I roll by them on my bicycle.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:51 AM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by tobascodagama at 8:51 AM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
New line of tactical clothing: mολon λαβέλ
The clothes make the (grey) man...
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:53 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
The clothes make the (grey) man...
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:53 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
Gear porn and its discussion is a common thread among military, skiers, mountaineers, campers, alpinists and preppers. Everyone wants 'optimal' but it is a highly subjective subject.
Yeah, preppers are wacky, but an obsession with tactical clothing and Optimal Gear and modifying gear and clothing to further optimize it is common among any communities centered around an outdoor activity. I am not even an experienced backpacker but boy do I salivate over those nylon pants and the quick-dry underwear and, as someone mentioned, outfits entirely purchased from REI. Do I want more pockets than a Rob Liefield comic? Yes. Yes I do.
(also I agree with those who state preppers are a valuable resource--you can save a lot of time by just checking their reviews and blogs)
posted by Anonymous at 8:55 AM on May 30, 2017
Yeah, preppers are wacky, but an obsession with tactical clothing and Optimal Gear and modifying gear and clothing to further optimize it is common among any communities centered around an outdoor activity. I am not even an experienced backpacker but boy do I salivate over those nylon pants and the quick-dry underwear and, as someone mentioned, outfits entirely purchased from REI. Do I want more pockets than a Rob Liefield comic? Yes. Yes I do.
(also I agree with those who state preppers are a valuable resource--you can save a lot of time by just checking their reviews and blogs)
posted by Anonymous at 8:55 AM on May 30, 2017
I learned how to forage as a byproduct of my mom's education in geology. Then hiking I could make really good omelets with wild onion, and pepper grass, and so forth. We learned what was edible in the neighborhood, because we were constantly figuring out if what our kids ate was poisonous. There was a lot of good food in the typical Salt Lake neighborhood, before the advent of weed 'n feed, and roundup. But I have done this prepper clothes stuff, since the early seventies, by virtue of dropping everything to go hiking for a couple of weeks at a time. I decided a long time ago, life wasn't worth living without keeping close company with the natural world. So now, I am in southern California, with a closet full of survival coats, Keene boots, hiking sandals, cargo pants whose lower legs zip off, bug gear, camping hammock, tools, knives, fishing gear etc. I can like crazy, I have already spotted my elderberries for the fall, and on and on. A few years ago one of my daughters, who was studying fashion, stopped and looked me up and down, and said, "You dress mostly in camo colors." I said, "Yeah, I like camo colors, they are the colors of nature, they are ubiquitous, unremarkable, but comforting to my eye." After that I bought a few bright things for walking around my house, and my neighborhood. My attitude has more to do with inclusion in the natural world, rather than exclusion and survival. It has more to do with minimal impact and the ability to be in wilderness, yet not at the expense of wilderness.
Over time I have loved my days alone in the deserts more than any other gift I have received, or given myself. It took a lot of effort to become comfortable alone, and far away from others, and therefore close with everything else. I have enjoyed the laughter and giggling of some streams, the closeness of small overhangs, the play of tiny fish in unexplored pools, the coolness of sandstone on my skin, the company of ravens, and the buzz of hummingbirds.
Hey! Cotton is great stuff for desert camping. Don't knock cotton. I keep cotton, wool, rayon, and little nylon in my stuff. I definitely live in cotton and rayon these days. Me, me, me, all about me. The cosplay idea is a good one, Utah, ptah, is full of preppers, every canyon, every little place is now prepper heaven with the guys all armed, and the women all in the kitchens. Everyone is hoping to fulfill the doom prophecies, that will prove them right.
But look, put a sign on the laundry hamper, "Check your bazillion pockets. How it goes into the hamper, is how it goes into the washer." The idea that guys are prepping for disaster, yet still expecting their mommies to check their pockets, this is just killing me.
posted by Oyéah at 9:03 AM on May 30, 2017 [66 favorites]
Over time I have loved my days alone in the deserts more than any other gift I have received, or given myself. It took a lot of effort to become comfortable alone, and far away from others, and therefore close with everything else. I have enjoyed the laughter and giggling of some streams, the closeness of small overhangs, the play of tiny fish in unexplored pools, the coolness of sandstone on my skin, the company of ravens, and the buzz of hummingbirds.
Hey! Cotton is great stuff for desert camping. Don't knock cotton. I keep cotton, wool, rayon, and little nylon in my stuff. I definitely live in cotton and rayon these days. Me, me, me, all about me. The cosplay idea is a good one, Utah, ptah, is full of preppers, every canyon, every little place is now prepper heaven with the guys all armed, and the women all in the kitchens. Everyone is hoping to fulfill the doom prophecies, that will prove them right.
But look, put a sign on the laundry hamper, "Check your bazillion pockets. How it goes into the hamper, is how it goes into the washer." The idea that guys are prepping for disaster, yet still expecting their mommies to check their pockets, this is just killing me.
posted by Oyéah at 9:03 AM on May 30, 2017 [66 favorites]
You can already get titanum needles I note. All you'd need to do is powdercoat them a matt green or black and put a knurled knob on the end (note that function is of less a concern than looks).
You mean like these sexy as hell KnitPro Karbonz that are carbon fiber with electroplated brass tips?
Seriously, I have a couple of those in circulars, and when the apocalypse comes, you better believe this'll be my quest.
posted by Katemonkey at 9:04 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
You mean like these sexy as hell KnitPro Karbonz that are carbon fiber with electroplated brass tips?
Seriously, I have a couple of those in circulars, and when the apocalypse comes, you better believe this'll be my quest.
posted by Katemonkey at 9:04 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
I was hoping to see a few more tactical wool sweaters casually tied over the shoulders. Maybe also some bold loafer/gaiter combos.
posted by Kabanos at 9:12 AM on May 30, 2017 [14 favorites]
posted by Kabanos at 9:12 AM on May 30, 2017 [14 favorites]
I am always really torn when these kind of posts come up - because I am both kind of a survivalist, and so see the stuff that's actually useful, and also because as such, I am intimately, intimately familiar with the kind of "tacti-cool" mall-cop-y obsessions with military-style gear that a lot of self styled survivalists tend to bizarrely favor.
Some of the "clothing obsessions" are completely sound. Cotton will in fact kill you if you get wet in the wrong environment. Wool also helps keep you warm even when wet, unlike other clothing. You are more likely to die from freezing to death in the wilderness than bullets.
I guess kind of the compromise that I think makes sense is essentially to have a lot of really good hiking and backpacking gear, and test it regularly - which I'll admit too many "survivalists" don't do. Much as I hate to admit it, my REI hiking boots are way better than my combat boots, which is a thing I learned by backpacking in both.
But I also would like to say that the jokes that come up about "lol fat survivalists" are both hurtful and inaccurate. I'm a fat lady survivalist, but I backpacked 30 miles with all my gear recently. Being fat does not mean you're not interested in physical fitness.
posted by corb at 9:21 AM on May 30, 2017 [49 favorites]
Some of the "clothing obsessions" are completely sound. Cotton will in fact kill you if you get wet in the wrong environment. Wool also helps keep you warm even when wet, unlike other clothing. You are more likely to die from freezing to death in the wilderness than bullets.
I guess kind of the compromise that I think makes sense is essentially to have a lot of really good hiking and backpacking gear, and test it regularly - which I'll admit too many "survivalists" don't do. Much as I hate to admit it, my REI hiking boots are way better than my combat boots, which is a thing I learned by backpacking in both.
But I also would like to say that the jokes that come up about "lol fat survivalists" are both hurtful and inaccurate. I'm a fat lady survivalist, but I backpacked 30 miles with all my gear recently. Being fat does not mean you're not interested in physical fitness.
posted by corb at 9:21 AM on May 30, 2017 [49 favorites]
I guess kind of the compromise that I think makes sense is essentially to have a lot of really good hiking and backpacking gear
But does it make sense? As noted above, why is all the survivalist focus on wilderness survival when most people in developed countries, where the survivalists we're talking about are, live in cities? What kind of situation are you preparing for/learning to survive that would destroy or empty out the cities?
Why worry about wool clothes and backpacks and hiking gear at all? It seems like it would be a lot more helpful prepping for and learning to survive in an urban environment suffering shortages (e.g., a major city after being struck by a massive hurricane and at least temporarily cut off from supplies and power).
posted by Sangermaine at 9:34 AM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
But does it make sense? As noted above, why is all the survivalist focus on wilderness survival when most people in developed countries, where the survivalists we're talking about are, live in cities? What kind of situation are you preparing for/learning to survive that would destroy or empty out the cities?
Why worry about wool clothes and backpacks and hiking gear at all? It seems like it would be a lot more helpful prepping for and learning to survive in an urban environment suffering shortages (e.g., a major city after being struck by a massive hurricane and at least temporarily cut off from supplies and power).
posted by Sangermaine at 9:34 AM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
please god tell me Lisa Birnbach's under contract to write The Official Prepper Handbook right now
it would be like 90 percent the same as the old book anyway
posted by queenofbithynia at 9:34 AM on May 30, 2017 [13 favorites]
it would be like 90 percent the same as the old book anyway
posted by queenofbithynia at 9:34 AM on May 30, 2017 [13 favorites]
I have to say, as a Canadian, the obsessive weaponization of naturalism that has infected bushcrafting and the like seems bizarre, bordering on creepy. And I'm not anti-gun in the wilderness. Hunting is something that I can respect as an activity (done right), and there are times, on balance, when it's sensible to have a shotgun about for bears.
But it's all in balance. Hunting only happens in certain places at certain times of year, and having guns about for animal control matters more in fixed field camp situations with full-time, skilled guides as weapon operators. The average hiker shouldn't be packing a 0.44 magnum pistol*, but a can of bear spray. I certainly don't want to hike near or with someone with a loaded and chambered pistol stuck in their waistband.
The emphasis on carrying has become such a prominent part of prepping that even seeing them out and about makes me nervous in country. You don't know their skill level or what's in their packs. You don't know how stable they are (or how drunk they are).
*I have no idea if this is a real thing or not, btw, but for the sake of argument.
posted by bonehead at 9:35 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
But it's all in balance. Hunting only happens in certain places at certain times of year, and having guns about for animal control matters more in fixed field camp situations with full-time, skilled guides as weapon operators. The average hiker shouldn't be packing a 0.44 magnum pistol*, but a can of bear spray. I certainly don't want to hike near or with someone with a loaded and chambered pistol stuck in their waistband.
The emphasis on carrying has become such a prominent part of prepping that even seeing them out and about makes me nervous in country. You don't know their skill level or what's in their packs. You don't know how stable they are (or how drunk they are).
*I have no idea if this is a real thing or not, btw, but for the sake of argument.
posted by bonehead at 9:35 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
"...a gray man who asked that we only use his Reddit name, docb30tn, so he wouldn’t attract government attention"
Okay, I'm with you so far.
"Docb30tn is a health care professional and former combat medic who lives in Mount Juliet, Tennessee."
Yeah, that's not how you stay anonymous. Or gray. Or whatever they're calling it.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:37 AM on May 30, 2017 [14 favorites]
Okay, I'm with you so far.
"Docb30tn is a health care professional and former combat medic who lives in Mount Juliet, Tennessee."
Yeah, that's not how you stay anonymous. Or gray. Or whatever they're calling it.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:37 AM on May 30, 2017 [14 favorites]
QFT: But look, put a sign on the laundry hamper, "Check your bazillion pockets. How it goes into the hamper, is how it goes into the washer." The idea that guys are prepping for disaster, yet still expecting their mommies to check their pockets, this is just killing me.
posted by Oyéah at 11:03 AM on May 30 [+] [!]
I'm still giggling. That was awesome.
posted by ZakDaddy at 9:41 AM on May 30, 2017 [29 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 11:03 AM on May 30 [+] [!]
I'm still giggling. That was awesome.
posted by ZakDaddy at 9:41 AM on May 30, 2017 [29 favorites]
Despite my own outdoorsy style running more to Will Graham than combat-ready, I don't begrudge any of these dudes (or dudettes) their interest in clothes. It might be cosplay, but cosplay is fun! Also I love The Postman.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:41 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by octobersurprise at 9:41 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Kabanos: "I was hoping to see a few more tactical wool sweaters casually tied over the shoulders. Maybe also some bold loafer/gaiter combos."
My son chooses to call them tactlenecks. Perhaps the next improvement he makes will be the bulletproof tactleneck.
posted by Malory Archer at 9:44 AM on May 30, 2017 [15 favorites]
My son chooses to call them tactlenecks. Perhaps the next improvement he makes will be the bulletproof tactleneck.
posted by Malory Archer at 9:44 AM on May 30, 2017 [15 favorites]
I was hoping to see a few more tactical wool sweaters casually tied over the shoulders.
If you want to destroy my sweater
Pull this thread as I walk away
Watch it unravel into a lightweight nylon kernmantle rope originally used in the suspension lines of parachutes
It is useful in almost any situation where light cordage is needed
posted by j.edwards at 9:48 AM on May 30, 2017 [75 favorites]
If you want to destroy my sweater
Pull this thread as I walk away
Watch it unravel into a lightweight nylon kernmantle rope originally used in the suspension lines of parachutes
It is useful in almost any situation where light cordage is needed
posted by j.edwards at 9:48 AM on May 30, 2017 [75 favorites]
why is all the survivalist focus on wilderness survival when most people in developed countries, where the survivalists we're talking about are, live in cities? What kind of situation are you preparing for/learning to survive that would destroy or empty out the cities?
So everybody's different, and I can only speak for self, but one of the main reasons I personally think wilderness survival is important is because the wilderness is one of the few methods of travel where you are vanishingly unlikely to run into, say, border patrol agents or militias. Because the thing I am most afraid of is being trapped with unstable or repressive government, I find it extremely comforting to know that if I have to escape, or help someone else to escape, I have the capacity to do so. It's not so much going into the wilderness to live, so much as using the wilderness as a way to pass from an untenable situation into a more tenable one.
While the last thing I want to do is make this into a politics thread, I will say that as someone currently residing in the US, I am very grateful currently for having prepared a bit over the last few years.
You're right that prepping for an urban environment suffering shortages is important, but it's not an either/or scenario. I was present forever r Hurricane Sandy, and having prepper stuff - solar charger, food, water, various other tools - helped our family not have to worry about ourselves/our kid, so we could focus on volunteering and helping others. I was glad then we had all that stuff in the house as well.
posted by corb at 9:52 AM on May 30, 2017 [11 favorites]
So everybody's different, and I can only speak for self, but one of the main reasons I personally think wilderness survival is important is because the wilderness is one of the few methods of travel where you are vanishingly unlikely to run into, say, border patrol agents or militias. Because the thing I am most afraid of is being trapped with unstable or repressive government, I find it extremely comforting to know that if I have to escape, or help someone else to escape, I have the capacity to do so. It's not so much going into the wilderness to live, so much as using the wilderness as a way to pass from an untenable situation into a more tenable one.
While the last thing I want to do is make this into a politics thread, I will say that as someone currently residing in the US, I am very grateful currently for having prepared a bit over the last few years.
You're right that prepping for an urban environment suffering shortages is important, but it's not an either/or scenario. I was present forever r Hurricane Sandy, and having prepper stuff - solar charger, food, water, various other tools - helped our family not have to worry about ourselves/our kid, so we could focus on volunteering and helping others. I was glad then we had all that stuff in the house as well.
posted by corb at 9:52 AM on May 30, 2017 [11 favorites]
Racked, I'm a big fan, but only you could write an article about prepper fashion and not mention concealed-carry.
posted by box at 9:56 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by box at 9:56 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
I have to say, as a Canadian, the obsessive weaponization of naturalism that has infected bushcrafting and the like seems bizarre, bordering on creepy.
Apocalypse LARPing makes a lot more sense when you understand that the fantasy here isn't so much about hunting your own game as it is about hunting The Most Dangerous Game, if you know what I mean.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:58 AM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
Apocalypse LARPing makes a lot more sense when you understand that the fantasy here isn't so much about hunting your own game as it is about hunting The Most Dangerous Game, if you know what I mean.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:58 AM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
Personally, I'm of the mindset that if civilization should collapse, the place to be is the big cities, not middle of West Bumblefuck Nowhere. We've got supplies, we've got infrastructure, and we've got people who are used to living alongside each other and helping out in the face of disaster.
If civilization really collapsed the cities would be a pretty bad place to be. Supermarkets have 2 days of food max. Then what?
posted by Automocar at 10:01 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
If civilization really collapsed the cities would be a pretty bad place to be. Supermarkets have 2 days of food max. Then what?
posted by Automocar at 10:01 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
If civilization really collapsed the cities would be a pretty bad place to be. Supermarkets have 2 days of food max. Then what?
Then you're glad that there are more functioning community gardens nearby than you'd find in most rural areas that aren't central California. Unless you want to survive on nothing but corn and soybeans, I guess.
posted by asperity at 10:08 AM on May 30, 2017 [10 favorites]
Then you're glad that there are more functioning community gardens nearby than you'd find in most rural areas that aren't central California. Unless you want to survive on nothing but corn and soybeans, I guess.
posted by asperity at 10:08 AM on May 30, 2017 [10 favorites]
If civilization really collapsed the cities would be a pretty bad place to be
We know this answer, because local collapses happen all the time. The big ice storm of 1998. Katrina. Ivan. San Francisco 1906, etc..
Cities are actually not terrible places to be as resources are fairly centralized, generally get top priority for repairs and are also easy to get into (for relief and supplies) and out of for (for temporary refugees). IME both as a responder and as a civilian in a disaster, being in a city during a local collapse gets easier and faster access to help faster than being rural.
Plus, during the blackouts of 2003 we got free ice-cream from the parlor down the street. That's won't happen in the bush.
posted by bonehead at 10:15 AM on May 30, 2017 [18 favorites]
We know this answer, because local collapses happen all the time. The big ice storm of 1998. Katrina. Ivan. San Francisco 1906, etc..
Cities are actually not terrible places to be as resources are fairly centralized, generally get top priority for repairs and are also easy to get into (for relief and supplies) and out of for (for temporary refugees). IME both as a responder and as a civilian in a disaster, being in a city during a local collapse gets easier and faster access to help faster than being rural.
Plus, during the blackouts of 2003 we got free ice-cream from the parlor down the street. That's won't happen in the bush.
posted by bonehead at 10:15 AM on May 30, 2017 [18 favorites]
(IOW, historically, the best actual disaster prep strategy is to be in a large group, pool resources and cooperate, and hold on until the help can come. Which takes anywhere up to about 3 days to fully mobilize, mostly based on how big the event is).
posted by bonehead at 10:20 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 10:20 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
But I also would like to say that the jokes that come up about "lol fat survivalists" are both hurtful and inaccurate. I'm a fat lady survivalist, but I backpacked 30 miles with all my gear recently. Being fat does not mean you're not interested in physical fitness.
Yes, less fat shaming please. Also, preppers and survivalists come in all shapes, sizes, ages, etc.
posted by theorique at 10:21 AM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
Yes, less fat shaming please. Also, preppers and survivalists come in all shapes, sizes, ages, etc.
posted by theorique at 10:21 AM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
The Most Dangerous Game, if you know what I mean
Diplomacy?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:24 AM on May 30, 2017 [22 favorites]
Diplomacy?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:24 AM on May 30, 2017 [22 favorites]
Well, where I live in the city, I can walk about 2 miles in either direction and find stores filled with tools, seeds, textiles and lumber. Food in a grocery store is obviously only a short-term solution. Long term you have to grow that shit yourself, and have the manpower to actually maintain and harvest it.
I mean, it kind of depends on the nature of the disaster. It doesn't really matter where you are, flooding is going to fuck up your shit. Humans are non-aquatic animals.
But, collapse of government without any major natural disaster completely ruining the immediate environment around my own home, I like my chances a lot better in a place where I can team up with the other 20 families on my block than where I have to go it alone with just my husband and kid.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:25 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
I mean, it kind of depends on the nature of the disaster. It doesn't really matter where you are, flooding is going to fuck up your shit. Humans are non-aquatic animals.
But, collapse of government without any major natural disaster completely ruining the immediate environment around my own home, I like my chances a lot better in a place where I can team up with the other 20 families on my block than where I have to go it alone with just my husband and kid.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:25 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
What happens to all the carefully selected and purchased prepper-wear when you lose weight in a post-apocalyptic world? What you start with is almost never gonna still fit you 6 months to a year later, right? There are too many variables.
So it seems like the best bet is to relocate near a Cabela's or something, so you can forage at will once you're survival-lean.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 10:26 AM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
So it seems like the best bet is to relocate near a Cabela's or something, so you can forage at will once you're survival-lean.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 10:26 AM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
"Trail runners"? How many pairs of shoes do you buy to prep for SHTF?
I have to replace my sneakers every couple months! Shouldn't you be going for some old-style boot made of tough materials?
posted by grobstein at 10:36 AM on May 30, 2017
I have to replace my sneakers every couple months! Shouldn't you be going for some old-style boot made of tough materials?
posted by grobstein at 10:36 AM on May 30, 2017
My apocalyptic fashion icon is Key in this classic Key and Peele skit. (CW: gun violence)
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:55 AM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:55 AM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
I'm going to be tracking down these pants recommendations though. My pants are constantly getting annihilated by wear.
posted by grobstein at 11:13 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by grobstein at 11:13 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
if you leave out the crippling anxiety
Well, here's the thing - I know some of these guys, and I don't think they're suffering from crippling anxiety, any more than most evangelical Christians really think a lot about how everyone and everything around them is going to be burned up with fervent heat.
I think it's a type of psychological split-screening - a narrative that justifies the buying of tools and toys, but not one that would justify spending a lot of time at the gym, or training on tactics and techniques. If you know anyone with REAL survival training, like goes on in some areas of the military, most of them do not talk about it a lot, nor are they obvious from the tacticool gear (because they're not wearing it). Because if you have ever actually been apprised of your odds if you wind up in a jungle after being shot down, it's not a fun topic for you.
posted by randomkeystrike at 11:14 AM on May 30, 2017 [21 favorites]
Well, here's the thing - I know some of these guys, and I don't think they're suffering from crippling anxiety, any more than most evangelical Christians really think a lot about how everyone and everything around them is going to be burned up with fervent heat.
I think it's a type of psychological split-screening - a narrative that justifies the buying of tools and toys, but not one that would justify spending a lot of time at the gym, or training on tactics and techniques. If you know anyone with REAL survival training, like goes on in some areas of the military, most of them do not talk about it a lot, nor are they obvious from the tacticool gear (because they're not wearing it). Because if you have ever actually been apprised of your odds if you wind up in a jungle after being shot down, it's not a fun topic for you.
posted by randomkeystrike at 11:14 AM on May 30, 2017 [21 favorites]
I have a dream of charging people big money for a "survivalist bootcamp" where I just leave them with no money and no ID to live in a homeless encampment in a major US city for a week. Like an urban Outward Bound. I guarantee they would learn more useful survival skills and be better people after that than they ever could by watching prepper youtube videos and playing weekend woodland warrior.
posted by peeedro at 11:19 AM on May 30, 2017 [17 favorites]
posted by peeedro at 11:19 AM on May 30, 2017 [17 favorites]
APOCALYPSE POCKETS in women's every day clothing! Is it so much to ask?
I now have these in 4 colors. I love them. I don't give a shit what they say about me, they have ALL OF THE POCKETS!!!
They come in XX-small to 5X. They come in 20 colors. They are incredibly durable. I have no idea why they're called juniors as I am a moderately sized 47 years old and not a junior in any way. Ignore that part and buy these pants.
posted by Sophie1 at 11:23 AM on May 30, 2017 [16 favorites]
I now have these in 4 colors. I love them. I don't give a shit what they say about me, they have ALL OF THE POCKETS!!!
They come in XX-small to 5X. They come in 20 colors. They are incredibly durable. I have no idea why they're called juniors as I am a moderately sized 47 years old and not a junior in any way. Ignore that part and buy these pants.
posted by Sophie1 at 11:23 AM on May 30, 2017 [16 favorites]
Dee Xtrovert's comment from back in 2009
posted by Comrade_robot at 11:24 AM on May 30, 2017 [38 favorites]
posted by Comrade_robot at 11:24 AM on May 30, 2017 [38 favorites]
psychological split-screening
Ah, like me and Climate Change/ongoing fascist coup.
posted by Artw at 11:24 AM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Ah, like me and Climate Change/ongoing fascist coup.
posted by Artw at 11:24 AM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
I'm of the mindset that if civilization should collapse, the place to be is the big cities, not middle of West Bumblefuck Nowhere. We've got supplies, we've got infrastructure, and we've got people who are used to living alongside each other and helping out in the face of disaster.
In a normal natural disaster this makes a ton of sense, but if by civilization collapsing you mean actual "FEMA ain't coming, the national guard ain't coming, and cops are no longer getting paychecks and are just angry guys with guns now" collapse of civilization, this is crazy talk. In that situation the most likely cause of death is starvation and community gardens wouldn't really put a dent in that demand whereas access to a herd of cattle definitely would.
I kinda hate how seriously I took that question and obviously in such a collapse everyone is long term super fucked, urban or rural. But I'm pretty convinced that rural areas at least would have a few extra weeks of food.
posted by bracems at 11:50 AM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
In a normal natural disaster this makes a ton of sense, but if by civilization collapsing you mean actual "FEMA ain't coming, the national guard ain't coming, and cops are no longer getting paychecks and are just angry guys with guns now" collapse of civilization, this is crazy talk. In that situation the most likely cause of death is starvation and community gardens wouldn't really put a dent in that demand whereas access to a herd of cattle definitely would.
I kinda hate how seriously I took that question and obviously in such a collapse everyone is long term super fucked, urban or rural. But I'm pretty convinced that rural areas at least would have a few extra weeks of food.
posted by bracems at 11:50 AM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
TBH all my money would be on roving rural gangs over fixed location rural forts. Those guys are gonna get raided or starve.
posted by Artw at 11:54 AM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 11:54 AM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
I don't know what kind of "rural areas" other folks are from; obviously there are many different kinds of rurality. If your rural communities (or your own farm) means that people have kept the tradition of kitchen gardens, small orchards, hens and the occasional cow (and in my part of rural America, almost all those who had are in their 80s now), then you may have a few extra weeks of food.
If, however, you are surrounded by endless monocultures of soy and animal-feed-grade corn, and your livestock husbandry is reliant on the ELECTRICAL GRID (you can't milk all those cows by hand on a modern operation; you can't kill and process and chill all those hogs without modern machinery), and your transportation is reliant on GASOLINE to get things down miles and miles of highways, you are just as fucked as anyone else.
posted by Hypatia at 11:58 AM on May 30, 2017 [39 favorites]
If, however, you are surrounded by endless monocultures of soy and animal-feed-grade corn, and your livestock husbandry is reliant on the ELECTRICAL GRID (you can't milk all those cows by hand on a modern operation; you can't kill and process and chill all those hogs without modern machinery), and your transportation is reliant on GASOLINE to get things down miles and miles of highways, you are just as fucked as anyone else.
posted by Hypatia at 11:58 AM on May 30, 2017 [39 favorites]
I'm pretty convinced that rural areas at least would have a few extra weeks of food
I'm not. "Giant soybean farms" is not the same as "food you can actually eat on demand." Your crazy survivalist neighbor isn't suddenly going to let you kill his cattle. Fish are probably your best bet, short term, and most major cities are located on waterways.
The other thing is that you can go a long time merely malnourished. Infection will take you down fast. I'd rather have access to somewhere that has a good supply of antibiotics, for at least as long as that lasts.
posted by praemunire at 12:03 PM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
I'm not. "Giant soybean farms" is not the same as "food you can actually eat on demand." Your crazy survivalist neighbor isn't suddenly going to let you kill his cattle. Fish are probably your best bet, short term, and most major cities are located on waterways.
The other thing is that you can go a long time merely malnourished. Infection will take you down fast. I'd rather have access to somewhere that has a good supply of antibiotics, for at least as long as that lasts.
posted by praemunire at 12:03 PM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
As I've mentioned in previous threads, I'm all for prepping for what I know is going to happen. I'm not interested in surviving the nuclear holocaust. I live in Los Angeles. We are going to have another earthquake in my lifetime. It very might well be THE BIG ONE (tm). If DJT is the president, I'm not sure that FEMA will ever come. If it happens to come post-DJT, it's much more likely that they'll get here eventually, but we have ~13 million people that are going to be waiting in line for supplies and I'd much rather have my own and help others than go wait in line like I hadn't been listening to Lucy Jones and Kate Hutton all these years. I have supplies. I am fairly well prepared for that disaster and if something else happens, I'm just going to have to fake it, but I'll have done a lot better than most.
Also, seriously, the pants I mentioned above. I wear them to work, garden, muck, sleep, hike, hang out. They are really, really great.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:06 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Also, seriously, the pants I mentioned above. I wear them to work, garden, muck, sleep, hike, hang out. They are really, really great.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:06 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
I just took a look at those pants.
Want. Want very much.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:08 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Want. Want very much.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:08 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Regarding future apocafashion: I think some people are gonna go a little funny and may end up wearing, like, a Superman costume instead.
I'm of the opinion why wait.
posted by BlueHorse at 12:10 PM on May 30, 2017 [15 favorites]
I'm of the opinion why wait.
posted by BlueHorse at 12:10 PM on May 30, 2017 [15 favorites]
Also, I've got my eye on an island in the Allegheny River just down the street from my house. That's where I'm making a bee-line to in the event of zombie outbreak, that is for sure. Easily defensible, easy fishing, and I'm hoping zombies can't swim.
Either that or I'm stealing a house boat. I need a moat is what I'm saying here.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:10 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
Either that or I'm stealing a house boat. I need a moat is what I'm saying here.
posted by soren_lorensen at 12:10 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
If your rural communities (or your own farm) means that people have kept the tradition of kitchen gardens, small orchards, hens and the occasional cow (and in my part of rural America, almost all those who had are in their 80s now), then you may have a few extra weeks of food.
I think you can judge how serious someone actually is taking this by how much they embrace the technologies and approaches that people in the past used to be more reliant on things they can produce than on outside commerce. Are you planning to farm with an emphasis on grain and vegetable production? If you're planning to hunt and gather how are you dividing your energy between the two? Where are you living? Are you living in places where people in a pre-industrial age tended to live, near rivers and the coast? Where ever you're living have you looked at how native populations in those places lived? I'm sure there are survivalists who are taking that approach, but a lot of times it feels like they're prepping to spend a few days in a movie about the apocalypse, rather than actually building lives that work after the shit hits the fan.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:12 PM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
I think you can judge how serious someone actually is taking this by how much they embrace the technologies and approaches that people in the past used to be more reliant on things they can produce than on outside commerce. Are you planning to farm with an emphasis on grain and vegetable production? If you're planning to hunt and gather how are you dividing your energy between the two? Where are you living? Are you living in places where people in a pre-industrial age tended to live, near rivers and the coast? Where ever you're living have you looked at how native populations in those places lived? I'm sure there are survivalists who are taking that approach, but a lot of times it feels like they're prepping to spend a few days in a movie about the apocalypse, rather than actually building lives that work after the shit hits the fan.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:12 PM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
I need a moat is what I'm saying here.
Good planning, running water stops vampires.
posted by peeedro at 12:13 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
Good planning, running water stops vampires.
posted by peeedro at 12:13 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
Gear porn and its discussion is a common thread among military, skiers, mountaineers, campers, alpinists and preppers. Everyone wants 'optimal' but it is a highly subjective subject.
QFT. I got into bouldering a couple years ago, partly because of the simplicity/minimalism of it: it's you, your fingers, your toes, and your shoes, pretty much. And of course: climbers talk about shoes so damn much that the proper term of venery for climbers should be "an imelda". As in: "Today at the crag, I ran into an imelda of climbers, sitting around comparing the aggressiveness of their heels."
posted by busted_crayons at 12:13 PM on May 30, 2017 [14 favorites]
QFT. I got into bouldering a couple years ago, partly because of the simplicity/minimalism of it: it's you, your fingers, your toes, and your shoes, pretty much. And of course: climbers talk about shoes so damn much that the proper term of venery for climbers should be "an imelda". As in: "Today at the crag, I ran into an imelda of climbers, sitting around comparing the aggressiveness of their heels."
posted by busted_crayons at 12:13 PM on May 30, 2017 [14 favorites]
Then you're glad that there are more functioning community gardens nearby than you'd find in most rural areas that aren't central California.
There are about 600 community gardens in NYC. They're going to feed 8.5 million people for how long?
I'm not a prepper and I think prepping is kind of dumb but there's a lot of fantasy going on in this thread about rural/urban. If there was a total collapse of society no one in any part of the country is doing well.
posted by Automocar at 12:15 PM on May 30, 2017 [13 favorites]
There are about 600 community gardens in NYC. They're going to feed 8.5 million people for how long?
I'm not a prepper and I think prepping is kind of dumb but there's a lot of fantasy going on in this thread about rural/urban. If there was a total collapse of society no one in any part of the country is doing well.
posted by Automocar at 12:15 PM on May 30, 2017 [13 favorites]
I feel like someone who becomes a survivalist after reading The Postman is doing something wrong.
posted by ckape at 12:16 PM on May 30, 2017 [14 favorites]
posted by ckape at 12:16 PM on May 30, 2017 [14 favorites]
If you drew a Venn diagram of campers, hikers, hunters, travelers, and preppers, the circles would mostly overlap. I know from experience how easy it is to be researching a bit of gear online (maybe a compact stove or a backpack or quick drying pants) and suddenly find yourself linked to a pro/con list for keeping your savings in hidden caches of gold instead of banks. It was alarming the first few times, but now its mostly funny.
posted by Cranialtorque at 12:17 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Cranialtorque at 12:17 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
My understanding is that people basically invented cities because of raiders coming for food supplies. Most early cities were fortified, and there were literal city walls well into the early modern period. That's why we award "the keys to the city."
My plan for the apocalypse is to a) die on my own terms before my various medications run out, or failing that b) be in a defensible community where people genuinely care about other people, not about weapons or racism or the Bible. I'm more likely to find one of those on the East Coast, where people are already living, than in some collection of untreated daddy issues up in the mountains.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:21 PM on May 30, 2017 [19 favorites]
My plan for the apocalypse is to a) die on my own terms before my various medications run out, or failing that b) be in a defensible community where people genuinely care about other people, not about weapons or racism or the Bible. I'm more likely to find one of those on the East Coast, where people are already living, than in some collection of untreated daddy issues up in the mountains.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:21 PM on May 30, 2017 [19 favorites]
It's not that I don't think I'm capable of growing my own food and sewing my own clothes and all that stuff, but my dad was into this kind of thing and it's very much cemented in me the idea that it's not that I can't survive the apocalypse; it's that I don't want to. I'm okay with opting out of living in that world, where there's no second season of American Gods, where I never get to finish Dead Cells, where I will never again rewatching Samurai Flamenco with my girlfriend, where good food becomes something I get once or twice a year at best and there are no new episodes of MBMBaM and I can't get refills for my Sodastream and I am probably never again going to own a pair of shoes that fit properly. I don't want to exist in a world that doesn't have air conditioning or ginger peach iced tea.
Civilization, as far as I'm concerned, has a lot of flaws but is honestly pretty great.
posted by Sequence at 12:29 PM on May 30, 2017 [21 favorites]
Civilization, as far as I'm concerned, has a lot of flaws but is honestly pretty great.
posted by Sequence at 12:29 PM on May 30, 2017 [21 favorites]
The sort of survivalist that chooses a cabin in Montana or Wyoming is not being very practical. They're dry and frozen 5 months a year. You want something more like the Willamette Valley or Santa Rosa. The problem is, you can't buy your dream refuge for $40,000 in those places.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:29 PM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:29 PM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
Can't wait for my new pants to get here. Thanks, preppers!
posted by grobstein at 12:29 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by grobstein at 12:29 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
That's where I'm making a bee-line to in the event of zombie outbreak, that is for sure. Easily defensible, easy fishing, and I'm hoping zombies can't swim.
I favor the Shaun of the Dead emergency plan, in which I live within easy walking distance from a reasonably defensible bar.
There are about 600 community gardens in NYC. They're going to feed 8.5 million people for how long?
Not very. But then it takes quite a while to get any garden producing, and if you don't have access to such a thing now, urban or rural, you're not going to when SHTF.
If there was a total collapse of society no one in any part of the country is doing well.
Yep. Though, hey, at least my bicycle will keep working when the SUVs run out of gasoline.
posted by asperity at 12:30 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
I favor the Shaun of the Dead emergency plan, in which I live within easy walking distance from a reasonably defensible bar.
There are about 600 community gardens in NYC. They're going to feed 8.5 million people for how long?
Not very. But then it takes quite a while to get any garden producing, and if you don't have access to such a thing now, urban or rural, you're not going to when SHTF.
If there was a total collapse of society no one in any part of the country is doing well.
Yep. Though, hey, at least my bicycle will keep working when the SUVs run out of gasoline.
posted by asperity at 12:30 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
I know quite a few preppers, because: Rural South. What amuses me is how much they rely on things instead of skills to survive. One of them even has a mid 70's Ford F-150, without electronic fuel injection or electronic ignition in reserve "for the end times..." However he still doesn't know how to set the points or clean the carbs, which I do for him every year, to get it running again. Others have massive stashes of gold, but no idea how to garden or create actual things to eat. I suppose they think that poor fools like me with my weird skill set of canning, gardening, fishing, handyman and brewing skills are going to be all too happy to take shiny stuff in trade, when in all likelihood, barter is going to be the best way to exist in a post-monetary world. There are a few who see things my way, but they are almost all over 70, so I guess I need to work on my one-man Lawrance Welk show impression if I want to be king of my county after the world goes pear shaped...
posted by 1f2frfbf at 12:34 PM on May 30, 2017 [20 favorites]
posted by 1f2frfbf at 12:34 PM on May 30, 2017 [20 favorites]
To add to the discussion of growing food, I think it was Ursula Vernon who wrote about how hard it is to keep a garden going, let alone a farm. You have to condition the soil, determine which plants like living where, rotate crops, figure out how to deal with pests, etc. There's a reason why famine was such a big killer in the days before industrial agriculture. You go into a rural area from the suburbs and try to start you little farm and it's going to fail for several years in a row before it's actually working. (Or you use a bunch of industrially produced fertilizer for a while and then have a farm that is dependent on something you can't get your hands on- do you know how to create fertilizer from crude oil or create a machine that does the Haber Process for deriving nitrogen.) As Bulgaroktonos points out, how much time you've spent researching your garden/farm/gathering methods is really what's going to determine long term survival (that plus having actually enough people to form a real community with enough skills and people to watch out for survivalists who run out of canned food and realize that eating bullets is something you only do once).
posted by Hactar at 12:34 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Hactar at 12:34 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
Oh, another reason I love the trend towards fashionable quick-dry stuff is because I come from a family with extremely overproductive sweat glands and I dream of a day when the temperature is over 40F and I can walk the twenty minutes to work without having to change my shirt.
Also given that no one is talking about creating waterproof covers for their copy of How to Serve Man demonstrates that clearly nobody's taking their survival that seriously.
posted by Anonymous at 12:41 PM on May 30, 2017
Also given that no one is talking about creating waterproof covers for their copy of How to Serve Man demonstrates that clearly nobody's taking their survival that seriously.
posted by Anonymous at 12:41 PM on May 30, 2017
it's not that I can't survive the apocalypse; it's that I don't want to.
This is where I'm confused about the whole prepper thing, moving to the Northwest in the middle of nowhere style. Living your whole life based around "something bad might happen" and then, what if it does? You're living in the middle of nowhere in a hostile climate.
Many of these people are at least middle aged, so they're devoting their last decades to making sure in case something happens they'll be able to spend their last couple of years holed up in a fort. For what? If you want to avoid people and live in the boonies just say so, you don't need to make up a story.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic, but I think Corb's position is more realistic. I'm not good at it, but I've tried to do more like earthquake preparedness. Have some water, good shoes, multi tools, gas in the car, etc.
posted by bongo_x at 12:44 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
This is where I'm confused about the whole prepper thing, moving to the Northwest in the middle of nowhere style. Living your whole life based around "something bad might happen" and then, what if it does? You're living in the middle of nowhere in a hostile climate.
Many of these people are at least middle aged, so they're devoting their last decades to making sure in case something happens they'll be able to spend their last couple of years holed up in a fort. For what? If you want to avoid people and live in the boonies just say so, you don't need to make up a story.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic, but I think Corb's position is more realistic. I'm not good at it, but I've tried to do more like earthquake preparedness. Have some water, good shoes, multi tools, gas in the car, etc.
posted by bongo_x at 12:44 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
Weird 'the country sucks'/'no the city sucks' vibes in this thread when, almost certainly, both environments will be equally horribly lethal in the kind of massive collapse scenario we're imagining here. Not sure why all the posturing. I have my 'apocalypse plan' like everyone else but I'm also pretty sure that one way or another I will not be called upon to put that plan into action.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:57 PM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:57 PM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
What amuses me is how much they rely on things instead of skills to survive.
Also, if you have things, people will kill you for them. If you have skills, people will keep you alive for them.
I know a survivalist - who, to be fair, is bot a nice guy and far more focussed on skills than things, even if those skills involve explosives, ropes, knives, crossbows and stuff. He knows a lot. He practices a lot. He's also the clumsiest, most accident-prone person I know, so a primary survival trait after the big one will be to stay at least 100 yards away from hm.
posted by Devonian at 1:01 PM on May 30, 2017 [16 favorites]
Also, if you have things, people will kill you for them. If you have skills, people will keep you alive for them.
I know a survivalist - who, to be fair, is bot a nice guy and far more focussed on skills than things, even if those skills involve explosives, ropes, knives, crossbows and stuff. He knows a lot. He practices a lot. He's also the clumsiest, most accident-prone person I know, so a primary survival trait after the big one will be to stay at least 100 yards away from hm.
posted by Devonian at 1:01 PM on May 30, 2017 [16 favorites]
He practices a lot. He's also the clumsiest, most accident-prone person I know, so a primary survival trait after the big one will be to stay at least 100 yards away from hm.
You've met my husband, I see!
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:03 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
You've met my husband, I see!
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:03 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Vernon also had a thread about how it takes like five people working in agriculture full time to support one non food producer , it was about the economics of high fantasy but applies to thus too
posted by The Whelk at 1:04 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 1:04 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
If, however, you are surrounded by endless monocultures of soy and animal-feed-grade corn, and your livestock husbandry is reliant on the ELECTRICAL GRID (you can't milk all those cows by hand on a modern operation; you can't kill and process and chill all those hogs without modern machinery), and your transportation is reliant on GASOLINE to get things down miles and miles of highways, you are just as fucked as anyone else.
Yeah, I'm skeptical that places in the rural US—for a definition of "rural" which is "way out in the middle of nowhere," not "suburban"—would have too much of an advantage over the cities in the event of a truly nation-breaking catastrophe. I rest that skepticism on the experience of visiting family who live in some pretty rural parts of the American southeast and who mostly have to drive everywhere to access the goods and services that they need to survive.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:05 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I'm skeptical that places in the rural US—for a definition of "rural" which is "way out in the middle of nowhere," not "suburban"—would have too much of an advantage over the cities in the event of a truly nation-breaking catastrophe. I rest that skepticism on the experience of visiting family who live in some pretty rural parts of the American southeast and who mostly have to drive everywhere to access the goods and services that they need to survive.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:05 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm not. "Giant soybean farms" is not the same as "food you can actually eat on demand."
I guess that's where our disconnect is, because the main agricultural products in my area is cows (which are delicious and fairly readily edible) alongside a fair amount of fruit and produce.
posted by bracems at 1:12 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
I guess that's where our disconnect is, because the main agricultural products in my area is cows (which are delicious and fairly readily edible) alongside a fair amount of fruit and produce.
posted by bracems at 1:12 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
would have too much of an advantage over the cities in the event of a truly nation-breaking catastrophe. I rest that skepticism on the experience of visiting family who live in some pretty rural parts of the American southeast and who mostly have to drive everywhere to access the goods and services that they need to survive.
And in the event of a non-nation breaking calamity that last a few weeks(which is way more likely), I'd rather be within walking distance of a bunch of grocery stores than where I grew up where I could walk miles to a field to get some soybeans and tobacco.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:20 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
And in the event of a non-nation breaking calamity that last a few weeks(which is way more likely), I'd rather be within walking distance of a bunch of grocery stores than where I grew up where I could walk miles to a field to get some soybeans and tobacco.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:20 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
bracems: Yeah, there's plenty of farms that grow ready-to-eat food crops outside of NYC. Most of the ones I know are in New Jersey, but if things really get bad, I suppose going to New Jersey is the least of my concerns.
posted by SansPoint at 1:20 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 1:20 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
It's sort of hinted at in the thread and touched on in the article, but I think it's also an interesting point to make: This is one of the only ways men can care about their appearance and clothes and fashion (because "what's this season's hot camo" is "what's this season's hot fabric") without it being "gay" or triggering homosexual panic. Obsessing over gear and how to blend in is just the inverse of trying to make a statement with your fashion choices, but it's safe and nobody is going to think you're girly if you're a "manly" expert on fabrics because you want to have the right holster for your gun instead of your cellphone.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:23 PM on May 30, 2017 [12 favorites]
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:23 PM on May 30, 2017 [12 favorites]
If civilization really collapsed the cities would be a pretty bad place to be. Supermarkets have 2 days of food max. Then what?
Hmm, it depends. Two days is normal shopping usage. If a market is mobbed and you're late, then its zero days of food unless you can eat cloves and birthday candles. But "max" would depend on how many folks stumble on it and when. A similar question was posed in Ask.me about one person alone in a supermarket and it led to a lot of interesting answers.
posted by FJT at 1:26 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Hmm, it depends. Two days is normal shopping usage. If a market is mobbed and you're late, then its zero days of food unless you can eat cloves and birthday candles. But "max" would depend on how many folks stumble on it and when. A similar question was posed in Ask.me about one person alone in a supermarket and it led to a lot of interesting answers.
posted by FJT at 1:26 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Many of these people are at least middle aged, so they're devoting their last decades to making sure in case something happens they'll be able to spend their last couple of years holed up in a fort. For what? If you want to avoid people and live in the boonies just say so, you don't need to make up a story.
Seriously, if you are anticipating The End, wouldn't it be better to spend your time remaining working to keep it from happening or creating structures that will help as many people as possible in case of a serious emergency, rather than buying special pants and hoarding goods to make sure that you and your family end up as the kings of the hill for a few weeks until someone kills you or you get eaten by a bear?
posted by heurtebise at 1:37 PM on May 30, 2017 [10 favorites]
I think this thing "is the city better, is the rural area better" is kind of making one big incorrect assumption - that things will be equally better or worse no matter what comes. And that's really, really, not the case.
For a natural disaster, it's far better to be in a city - people come together, and they know that the rule of law, even if temporarily sort of suspended, will be returning. For the most part, you don't have a lot of lawlessness, there are far more supplies, and help most likely will be coming. There's a lot of emergency departments prepared to cope with injuries, volunteers, etc. etc.
In a complete breakdown of law and order and all government, it is far better to be in a rural area - not because it's inherently better or the people are inherently better, but because they already don't have much law and order and organized services in the first place. It's more dangerous most of the time, but it won't be much /more/ dangerous if there's no big police force to rely on, for example.
If you're trying to decide where to live, based off survivalism alone, I'd say you're essentially betting on which disaster you think is more likely or more likely to be catastrophic to you. But I agree with those above who say that most people don't move solely because of possible catastrophe. I'd bet it has a lot more to do with density preference for average life for most.
posted by corb at 1:38 PM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
For a natural disaster, it's far better to be in a city - people come together, and they know that the rule of law, even if temporarily sort of suspended, will be returning. For the most part, you don't have a lot of lawlessness, there are far more supplies, and help most likely will be coming. There's a lot of emergency departments prepared to cope with injuries, volunteers, etc. etc.
In a complete breakdown of law and order and all government, it is far better to be in a rural area - not because it's inherently better or the people are inherently better, but because they already don't have much law and order and organized services in the first place. It's more dangerous most of the time, but it won't be much /more/ dangerous if there's no big police force to rely on, for example.
If you're trying to decide where to live, based off survivalism alone, I'd say you're essentially betting on which disaster you think is more likely or more likely to be catastrophic to you. But I agree with those above who say that most people don't move solely because of possible catastrophe. I'd bet it has a lot more to do with density preference for average life for most.
posted by corb at 1:38 PM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
Preppers, man. I live in a rural area and they abound here. Most of them are in terrible shape. Absent their ATV, they'd never get into the woods. Without that ATV, they'll never cover enough ground to hunt enough. They'll never get the meat back before scavengers find it. Their idea of camping is hauling a 97foot fifth wheel into the woods with a satellite dish and a 5000 KVa generator. They call themselves survivalists, but they couldn't ruck the beer back from the supermarket.
I was talking with an acquaintance a while back about why he's a prepper, and he said the US is headed for a collapse just like Rome, in which (he stated) decades of political turmoil led to 1000 years of dark ages and misery and plague and death. I asked him which century this happened in, and he said 1st century.
This... incoherent grasp of history is often what I feel is behind a lot of the prepper mindset. Similar to the grasp of most "constitutionalists" on the founding father's actual views, they've taken a small nugget of truth, and built an entire mythological framework atop it. From this, then, they launch off into all sorts of weird directions.
It's a weird subculture. I mean, I've got a few weeks of MREs and water stashed away, and loads of camping/hunting/backpacking gear - water filters, various stoves, and so on that I do enjoy geeking out on. So, I get it on some level - and a little bit of preparedness goes a loooooong way if something bad happens.
But, jeez, who is going to defend you and your gold when you sleep - when the world goes Mad Max, it's numbers, not firepower that wins. One twisted ankle or kidney stone, and you're hosed without friends, man.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:43 PM on May 30, 2017 [15 favorites]
I was talking with an acquaintance a while back about why he's a prepper, and he said the US is headed for a collapse just like Rome, in which (he stated) decades of political turmoil led to 1000 years of dark ages and misery and plague and death. I asked him which century this happened in, and he said 1st century.
This... incoherent grasp of history is often what I feel is behind a lot of the prepper mindset. Similar to the grasp of most "constitutionalists" on the founding father's actual views, they've taken a small nugget of truth, and built an entire mythological framework atop it. From this, then, they launch off into all sorts of weird directions.
It's a weird subculture. I mean, I've got a few weeks of MREs and water stashed away, and loads of camping/hunting/backpacking gear - water filters, various stoves, and so on that I do enjoy geeking out on. So, I get it on some level - and a little bit of preparedness goes a loooooong way if something bad happens.
But, jeez, who is going to defend you and your gold when you sleep - when the world goes Mad Max, it's numbers, not firepower that wins. One twisted ankle or kidney stone, and you're hosed without friends, man.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:43 PM on May 30, 2017 [15 favorites]
Ok, now I feel justified in holding on to large stashes of yarn and fabric. JIC the apocalypse comes...
Also, preppers and survivalists come in all shapes, sizes, ages, etc.
Correct me if I'm wrong but they seem to be mostly white, no? (Genuine, snark free question, I don't know any preppers)
posted by The Toad at 1:45 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Also, preppers and survivalists come in all shapes, sizes, ages, etc.
Correct me if I'm wrong but they seem to be mostly white, no? (Genuine, snark free question, I don't know any preppers)
posted by The Toad at 1:45 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
One twisted ankle or kidney stone, and you're hosed without friends, man.
How are we going to keep Big Thunder Mountain operating when the world goes Mad Max? Probably we should be looking into this.
posted by asperity at 1:50 PM on May 30, 2017
How are we going to keep Big Thunder Mountain operating when the world goes Mad Max? Probably we should be looking into this.
posted by asperity at 1:50 PM on May 30, 2017
Correct me if I'm wrong but they seem to be mostly white, no? (Genuine, snark free question, I don't know any preppers)
I think honestly that really depends on how you define the question? I don't think most people as I define preppers are white, but I think the Stereotype of Preppers is definitely white.
Like, I learned to have extra sacks of rice and beans in my cupboard from my family, who never even heard of the word "preppers" but knew that sometimes tough times happened and you wanted to be sure you could feed your family when they came.
Pogo_Fuzzybutt, above, kind of exemplifies how this stuff gets complicated and what I'm talking about - he says casually "I've got a few weeks of MRES and water stashed away" but doesn't seem to self-define as a "prepper", even though in my eyes he would definitely count.
So it's kind of a hard question to answer.
posted by corb at 1:51 PM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
I think honestly that really depends on how you define the question? I don't think most people as I define preppers are white, but I think the Stereotype of Preppers is definitely white.
Like, I learned to have extra sacks of rice and beans in my cupboard from my family, who never even heard of the word "preppers" but knew that sometimes tough times happened and you wanted to be sure you could feed your family when they came.
Pogo_Fuzzybutt, above, kind of exemplifies how this stuff gets complicated and what I'm talking about - he says casually "I've got a few weeks of MRES and water stashed away" but doesn't seem to self-define as a "prepper", even though in my eyes he would definitely count.
So it's kind of a hard question to answer.
posted by corb at 1:51 PM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
but I think the Stereotype of Preppers is definitely white.
Relevant: Not my apocalypse: a black woman reads a white-guy prepper magazine
posted by peeedro at 1:53 PM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Relevant: Not my apocalypse: a black woman reads a white-guy prepper magazine
posted by peeedro at 1:53 PM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Obsessing over gear and how to blend in is just the inverse of trying to make a statement with your fashion choices, but it's safe and nobody is going to think you're girly if you're a "manly" expert on fabrics because you want to have the right holster for your gun instead of your cellphone.
Yes, that's so barely subtext it's practically text. But the desire to be a "gray man" also recalls (to me, at least) Cayce Pollard's "Cayce Pollard Units."
posted by octobersurprise at 1:53 PM on May 30, 2017
Yes, that's so barely subtext it's practically text. But the desire to be a "gray man" also recalls (to me, at least) Cayce Pollard's "Cayce Pollard Units."
CPUs are either black, white, or gray, and ideally seem to have come into this world without human intervention.Of course that can only ever be a desire. And paradoxically, the pursuit of such a desire is bound to carry the pursuer farther and farther into the world of humanly invented things.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:53 PM on May 30, 2017
Ugh, fine!
But the desire to be a "gray man" also recalls (to me, at least) Cayce Pollard's "Cayce Pollard Units."
William Gibson Interview: His Buzz Rickson Line, Tech Wear, and the Limits of Authenticity -"There’s an idea called “gray man”, in the security business, that I find interesting. They teach people to dress unobtrusively. Chinos instead of combat pants, and if you really need the extra pockets, a better design conceals them. "
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:01 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
But the desire to be a "gray man" also recalls (to me, at least) Cayce Pollard's "Cayce Pollard Units."
William Gibson Interview: His Buzz Rickson Line, Tech Wear, and the Limits of Authenticity -"There’s an idea called “gray man”, in the security business, that I find interesting. They teach people to dress unobtrusively. Chinos instead of combat pants, and if you really need the extra pockets, a better design conceals them. "
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:01 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
octobersurprise, that's an interesting comparison. I think of grey man-wear as unremarkable (and relatively unmarked, no sports logos or silly slogans or anything else that sticks out) but allowing for concealed carry. CPUs are attention-getting because they so violently reject branding, and so not grey in this sense. But her dad? Bet he was as grey as they come.
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:05 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:05 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
bracems: " because the main agricultural products in my area is cows (which are delicious and fairly readily edible) "
This is an interesting exercise to me.
"Fairly readily edible" means ~25 pounds of hay per day per cow and ~3-16 gallons of water per cow (higher end is for dairy cows. Perhaps you'll keep milking them?). Modern ag methods (machine tended, automatic watering+ fertilizing and pest control) give you around 11,000 pounds of hay per acre, or 440 steer-days per acre. Let's say you get 1/6 of that after SHTF, because you've run out of diesel; the pumps don't work; you've run out of fertilizer and glyphosate; you've got rusted hay; and you're used to spending time on metafilter rather than harvesting and drying hay by hand. 73 steer-days.
Each market-ready steer weights around 1,200 pounds, but that's 12-16 months of feeding and finishing. Generously, we'll say you've got a few at this age and you're feeding to maintain weight. You'll wind up getting about 40-50% of that in edible products (higher end assumes you'll eat blood porridge, offal, etc). We'll split the percentages at 45% (viva tripas!) and call that 540 pounds. This will provide you about 100 days of beef! That's not bad. You might be able to feed your cattle half-portions and change up your feed:beef ratio while still breeding a few animals.
A lot of this is still best case scenario stuff -- your animals might get sick, attacked by wildlife, etc.
posted by boo_radley at 2:20 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
This is an interesting exercise to me.
"Fairly readily edible" means ~25 pounds of hay per day per cow and ~3-16 gallons of water per cow (higher end is for dairy cows. Perhaps you'll keep milking them?). Modern ag methods (machine tended, automatic watering+ fertilizing and pest control) give you around 11,000 pounds of hay per acre, or 440 steer-days per acre. Let's say you get 1/6 of that after SHTF, because you've run out of diesel; the pumps don't work; you've run out of fertilizer and glyphosate; you've got rusted hay; and you're used to spending time on metafilter rather than harvesting and drying hay by hand. 73 steer-days.
Each market-ready steer weights around 1,200 pounds, but that's 12-16 months of feeding and finishing. Generously, we'll say you've got a few at this age and you're feeding to maintain weight. You'll wind up getting about 40-50% of that in edible products (higher end assumes you'll eat blood porridge, offal, etc). We'll split the percentages at 45% (viva tripas!) and call that 540 pounds. This will provide you about 100 days of beef! That's not bad. You might be able to feed your cattle half-portions and change up your feed:beef ratio while still breeding a few animals.
A lot of this is still best case scenario stuff -- your animals might get sick, attacked by wildlife, etc.
posted by boo_radley at 2:20 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
another data point for the cows (well, hopefully steers) is if you still have the technology and know-how to preserve the meet in a safe and palatable fashion. you ain't eating 540 pounds of fresh beef before it spoils without refrigeration, UNLESS you're making biltong and sausage.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 2:41 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 2:41 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
Soundtrack: Corb Lund, "Gettin' Down on the Mountain"
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:44 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:44 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
I don't think the goal is *actually* to survive very long. The primary goal of (consumerist) preppers is to score as many points as possible in the "coming race war" before the rapture, and it seems like the philosophy seems to be that there will be a period of pre-tribulation upheaval as the antichrist government shows its hand (so...any day now?) and there might be some hang time before they can really start hunting humans for sport, and in that time they don't want to give up their creature comforts like dehydrated bananas. And the menfolk are the only ones who need to survive in the field; the bananas are mostly for the women and children.
But they'll get raptured before things get really bad.
Which is why it's hard for me to lol at this stuff, because, like adding "in bed" to the end of a fortune cookie fortune, you can add "so I can shoot [epithet]" to the end of pretty much everything they say and do.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:46 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
But they'll get raptured before things get really bad.
Which is why it's hard for me to lol at this stuff, because, like adding "in bed" to the end of a fortune cookie fortune, you can add "so I can shoot [epithet]" to the end of pretty much everything they say and do.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:46 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
In a complete breakdown of law and order and all government, it is far better to be in a rural area
How could this come to pass? How would anyone survive something powerful enough to completely destroy all human collectives down to the municipal level? Nuclear war? Environmental collapse through sustained superstorms? Meteor strike? Supervolcanos? Alien invasion?
Even these, I'd submit that any survivors would have much, much bigger problems than worrying about what their neighbours might be doing, like avoiding dying from the direct consequences of the events. Or dying within months from secondary causes, most prominently ecosystem collapses.
It's easy to imagine events that could be humanity-ending extinctions. It's also easy to see events that can and do cause local breakdowns in order. It's hard to see what an event could be like that would be calibrated exactly to destroy the ability of people to act in concert, on national scales, while leaving functional ecosystems and relatively unscathed rural populations. Even terrible diseases don't work this selectively.
I think this is so unlikely as to be fantasy.
posted by bonehead at 2:50 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
How could this come to pass? How would anyone survive something powerful enough to completely destroy all human collectives down to the municipal level? Nuclear war? Environmental collapse through sustained superstorms? Meteor strike? Supervolcanos? Alien invasion?
Even these, I'd submit that any survivors would have much, much bigger problems than worrying about what their neighbours might be doing, like avoiding dying from the direct consequences of the events. Or dying within months from secondary causes, most prominently ecosystem collapses.
It's easy to imagine events that could be humanity-ending extinctions. It's also easy to see events that can and do cause local breakdowns in order. It's hard to see what an event could be like that would be calibrated exactly to destroy the ability of people to act in concert, on national scales, while leaving functional ecosystems and relatively unscathed rural populations. Even terrible diseases don't work this selectively.
I think this is so unlikely as to be fantasy.
posted by bonehead at 2:50 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
Re: the cow discussion, nobody's running a modern diary farm or cattle ranch without a big society, but in some sort of subsistence/rebuilding society scenario I can see having a few cows being an excellent thing, and beef, cheese, and live cows are way better than gold as a barter item. Even at worst, they provide a lot of food and leather in the short term, and it is easier to transition from some cows to no cows than the other way around.
Plus, they can walk themselves if you need to relocate or deliver them far away.
posted by The Gaffer at 2:51 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Plus, they can walk themselves if you need to relocate or deliver them far away.
posted by The Gaffer at 2:51 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Not my apocalypse: a black woman reads a white-guy prepper magazine
Looking at that magazine cover with visible brands in the photo -
I've long thought that much of the appeal of prepperism, beyond America's bizarre cultural history, is that people are completely exhausted by modern life and its two options - work / consume, or nothing, and wish for a magic escape. There is no escape though, and certainly not cognitively - the whole experience is still coded through consumerism.
posted by MillMan at 2:54 PM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Looking at that magazine cover with visible brands in the photo -
I've long thought that much of the appeal of prepperism, beyond America's bizarre cultural history, is that people are completely exhausted by modern life and its two options - work / consume, or nothing, and wish for a magic escape. There is no escape though, and certainly not cognitively - the whole experience is still coded through consumerism.
posted by MillMan at 2:54 PM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Does anyone know of any prepper publication that seriously discusses the practicalities of cannibalism?
Because most of the guns and knifes I see in EDC pictures are pretty crappy for any other type of hunting.
posted by Dr. Curare at 3:06 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Because most of the guns and knifes I see in EDC pictures are pretty crappy for any other type of hunting.
posted by Dr. Curare at 3:06 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
If anybody wants a good hard look at what life looks like for a small family unit without a larger society backing them after their societally acquired tools crumble, even assuming a resource supportive location, I recommend this Smithsonian article: For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II. They did manage to survive until human society reconnected with them, but it was a very close thing and not everybody made it:
Since the above article is all about clothing, our family ended up having to make clothing out of hemp after their clothing fell apart:
Yet the Lykovs lived permanently on the edge of famine. It was not until the late 1950s, when Dmitry reached manhood, that they first trapped animals for their meat and skins. Lacking guns and even bows, they could hunt only by digging traps or pursuing prey across the mountains until the animals collapsed from exhaustion. Dmitry built up astonishing endurance, and could hunt barefoot in winter, sometimes returning to the hut after several days, having slept in the open in 40 degrees of frost, a young elk across his shoulders. More often than not, though, there was no meat, and their diet gradually became more monotonous. Wild animals destroyed their crop of carrots, and Agafia recalled the late 1950s as “the hungry years.” “We ate the rowanberry leaf,” she said,For some reason it's the efforts around guard a single rye sprout that really drives home the precarity to me. To have a pound of rye, you need 8,000 grains. To be so on the edge that one grain of rye is worth so much precious care must be terrifying.roots, grass, mushrooms, potato tops, and bark. We were hungry all the time. Every year we held a council to decide whether to eat everything up or leave some for seed.Famine was an ever-present danger in these circumstances, and in 1961 it snowed in June. The hard frost killed everything growing in their garden, and by spring the family had been reduced to eating shoes and bark. Akulina chose to see her children fed, and that year she died of starvation. The rest of the family were saved by what they regarded as a miracle: a single grain of rye sprouted in their pea patch. The Lykovs put up a fence around the shoot and guarded it zealously night and day to keep off mice and squirrels. At harvest time, the solitary spike yielded 18 grains, and from this they painstakingly rebuilt their rye crop
Since the above article is all about clothing, our family ended up having to make clothing out of hemp after their clothing fell apart:
Dependent solely on their own resources, the Lykovs struggled to replace the few things they had brought into the taiga with them. They fashioned birch-bark galoshes in place of shoes. Clothes were patched and repatched until they fell apart, then replaced with hemp cloth grown from seed.posted by foxfirefey at 3:10 PM on May 30, 2017 [31 favorites]
The Lykovs had carried a crude spinning wheel and, incredibly, the components of a loom into the taiga with them
In the spirit of Dee Xtrovert's excellent comment which was linked to above:
I'm married to a Japanese woman who has (had) friends in Tohoku and went up there to volunteer a good number of times after the earthquake and tsunami hit. One thing that strikes me about this topic whenever I'm discussing it with her is that she can't even comprehend the U.S.-ian survivalist perspective: her immediate reaction when I bring up these kinds of end-of-the-world situations (and I share some of the pathologies of those being discussed, I've come to realize through my discussions with her) is to say, "well, but we'll all be dealing with it together so what are you worried about?"
That is, being someone who has already lived through a disaster, grew up with others (Kobe), and maybe most importantly is a member of a society where dealing with the aftereffects of World War II and large-scale devastation loom large, it is literally incomprehensible to her that the reaction to this sort of devastation would be the kind of selfish better-get-mine-fuck-you reaction that it seems the survivalist crowd is obsessed with. Why wouldn't you band together and try to help each other? That's what we do as humans. That's what we've done in the past.
I'm always humbled by her reaction to these topics when they come up. It seems so deeply sane and humane to react the way she does, and is yet another thing that disappoints me about my own culture and myself.
BTW she freaking loves The Walking Dead--which I can watch because I find it so deeply depressing--and watches it obsessively. This never fails to amuse me.
posted by dubitable at 3:28 PM on May 30, 2017 [30 favorites]
I'm married to a Japanese woman who has (had) friends in Tohoku and went up there to volunteer a good number of times after the earthquake and tsunami hit. One thing that strikes me about this topic whenever I'm discussing it with her is that she can't even comprehend the U.S.-ian survivalist perspective: her immediate reaction when I bring up these kinds of end-of-the-world situations (and I share some of the pathologies of those being discussed, I've come to realize through my discussions with her) is to say, "well, but we'll all be dealing with it together so what are you worried about?"
That is, being someone who has already lived through a disaster, grew up with others (Kobe), and maybe most importantly is a member of a society where dealing with the aftereffects of World War II and large-scale devastation loom large, it is literally incomprehensible to her that the reaction to this sort of devastation would be the kind of selfish better-get-mine-fuck-you reaction that it seems the survivalist crowd is obsessed with. Why wouldn't you band together and try to help each other? That's what we do as humans. That's what we've done in the past.
I'm always humbled by her reaction to these topics when they come up. It seems so deeply sane and humane to react the way she does, and is yet another thing that disappoints me about my own culture and myself.
BTW she freaking loves The Walking Dead--which I can watch because I find it so deeply depressing--and watches it obsessively. This never fails to amuse me.
posted by dubitable at 3:28 PM on May 30, 2017 [30 favorites]
BTW she freaking loves The Walking Dead--which I can watch because I find it so deeply depressing
Ugh, typo: can't watch. CANNOT watch it, as in it gives me a panic attack
posted by dubitable at 3:42 PM on May 30, 2017
Ugh, typo: can't watch. CANNOT watch it, as in it gives me a panic attack
posted by dubitable at 3:42 PM on May 30, 2017
I don't know if I qualify as a prepper, because there are weeks that go by without thinking too much about disaster preparedness at all. But I do have occasional flare-ups of prepperitis that last a day or two at a time. One of the most intense was shortly after DJFT was elected. The result of which over the years has been to amass an inventory of stuff and a catalog of skills and knowledge that would at least be useful, even if they aren't ultimately used.
This is overlaid on a personal history of camping, gardening, bushcraft, hunting and home construction. So I'm a hobbyist, but I acknowledge that it wouldn't take much for me to pass for one of the obsessed.
It's an interesting psychological thing. I don't talk about it to anyone in depth. Once a couple of people even know about it at all (my brother and my best friend). I'm not on Internet prepper blogs talking about the latest tactical gear, or whatever. It's a very personal thing. I guess, inadvertently, this makes me the ideal grey man.
I call it my "apocalypse LARPing" quite unironically. I know it's a little ridiculous. But it's a strange combination of (a) psychological conditioning from times of hardship in my life, (b) a mild sense of anxiety at the fragility of the systems that sustain modern civilization, and (c) an intellectual interest in the fascinating details of civil engineering and primitive/sustenance technology. They combine to make preparedness a compelling pastime.
After a calamity, were I the only person around, or were surrounded by friendly folk, I have no doubt that I could grow enough to eat, build shelter, craft numerous things to make life survivable and entertain myself. The problem, of course, is other people. The ones who find a storm or a blackout an opportunity to loot from their neighbors and kill if people get in their way. Or those who decide that raiding is the best way to survive a "grid-down" scenario. All it is going to take is for one desperate, hungry man, looking for food for his family, to see you in your little garden plot and make the tactical decision to shoot you first, from afar, rather than risk the possibility that you might decline to share food.
The problem is other people, but they are also the solution. Groups can set watch, run patrols, work in shifts, specialize in crafts, provide vital friendship, etc. Groups can change the calculus for the risk-reward of shooting first.
I live in metropolitan Phoenix. I know that the mass of humanity here will completely deplete food in - and within a hundred miles of - the city, within a few days. Clean water - especially in arid Phoenix - would become similarly scarce, though the city has a surprising per capita number of swimming pools, such that water might well outlast the food. But without help on the way, the careful balance of law and order isn't going to last much longer than the food and water. If there are no air drops or fleets trucking in supplies, or some semblance of a government, history shows us that living in a city means disease and starvation on an enormous scale. I could well be one of those that dues for lack of food, water or medicine. If I've not already been shot while robbed. If I've not already died in the original disaster that led to the apocalypse in the first place.
Preparing for a short-term (up to a few months) disaster seems quite sensible. And prepping for the apocalypse strikes me as fundamentally ridiculous. And yet, I still hear that siren call every time I pass by the rice and beans in the supermarket and spy one of those 20-pound bags, or past the large cans of cooking oil, and my brain calculates almost automatically the number of calories in those large bags and cans, and divides it by 2000. And I still research and try new ways to collect and purify water, to synthesize and compound medicine, to can, to grow, harvest and store food from my little garden, to weave wool and work metal, to source fuels, etc., etc.
Nothing ambitious, though. A few weeks ago, I found a neat little oil lamp at the antique store. Last week, another cast iron skillet at the thrift store. This coming weekend, it'll probably be time to collect and store the seeds from my spring spinach plants. Next week, I may build another shelf or two in the supply closet. In July, I'm taking a jewelry-making course. As hobbies go, apocalypse LARPing can be relatively harmless fun, and quite educational, just as long as you don't get crazy about the end of the world.
posted by darkstar at 3:44 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
This is overlaid on a personal history of camping, gardening, bushcraft, hunting and home construction. So I'm a hobbyist, but I acknowledge that it wouldn't take much for me to pass for one of the obsessed.
It's an interesting psychological thing. I don't talk about it to anyone in depth. Once a couple of people even know about it at all (my brother and my best friend). I'm not on Internet prepper blogs talking about the latest tactical gear, or whatever. It's a very personal thing. I guess, inadvertently, this makes me the ideal grey man.
I call it my "apocalypse LARPing" quite unironically. I know it's a little ridiculous. But it's a strange combination of (a) psychological conditioning from times of hardship in my life, (b) a mild sense of anxiety at the fragility of the systems that sustain modern civilization, and (c) an intellectual interest in the fascinating details of civil engineering and primitive/sustenance technology. They combine to make preparedness a compelling pastime.
After a calamity, were I the only person around, or were surrounded by friendly folk, I have no doubt that I could grow enough to eat, build shelter, craft numerous things to make life survivable and entertain myself. The problem, of course, is other people. The ones who find a storm or a blackout an opportunity to loot from their neighbors and kill if people get in their way. Or those who decide that raiding is the best way to survive a "grid-down" scenario. All it is going to take is for one desperate, hungry man, looking for food for his family, to see you in your little garden plot and make the tactical decision to shoot you first, from afar, rather than risk the possibility that you might decline to share food.
The problem is other people, but they are also the solution. Groups can set watch, run patrols, work in shifts, specialize in crafts, provide vital friendship, etc. Groups can change the calculus for the risk-reward of shooting first.
I live in metropolitan Phoenix. I know that the mass of humanity here will completely deplete food in - and within a hundred miles of - the city, within a few days. Clean water - especially in arid Phoenix - would become similarly scarce, though the city has a surprising per capita number of swimming pools, such that water might well outlast the food. But without help on the way, the careful balance of law and order isn't going to last much longer than the food and water. If there are no air drops or fleets trucking in supplies, or some semblance of a government, history shows us that living in a city means disease and starvation on an enormous scale. I could well be one of those that dues for lack of food, water or medicine. If I've not already been shot while robbed. If I've not already died in the original disaster that led to the apocalypse in the first place.
Preparing for a short-term (up to a few months) disaster seems quite sensible. And prepping for the apocalypse strikes me as fundamentally ridiculous. And yet, I still hear that siren call every time I pass by the rice and beans in the supermarket and spy one of those 20-pound bags, or past the large cans of cooking oil, and my brain calculates almost automatically the number of calories in those large bags and cans, and divides it by 2000. And I still research and try new ways to collect and purify water, to synthesize and compound medicine, to can, to grow, harvest and store food from my little garden, to weave wool and work metal, to source fuels, etc., etc.
Nothing ambitious, though. A few weeks ago, I found a neat little oil lamp at the antique store. Last week, another cast iron skillet at the thrift store. This coming weekend, it'll probably be time to collect and store the seeds from my spring spinach plants. Next week, I may build another shelf or two in the supply closet. In July, I'm taking a jewelry-making course. As hobbies go, apocalypse LARPing can be relatively harmless fun, and quite educational, just as long as you don't get crazy about the end of the world.
posted by darkstar at 3:44 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah, at the end of the day, this is 100% about community. And most people engage with their communities when any form of disaster strikes.
I think most people know this in advance. Yesterday, my neighbor came over. He was wearing his standard workwear (I didn't notice the brand), I was wearing my gardening and cleaning wear (stuff that is so worn that I don't take it to town but it still protects me against ticks)
This time we didn't but often enough we do talk about WITSHTF. And then we agree we can manage it together within our neighborhood. We have everything we need in small but livable amounts.
None of us would be able to manage alone, but no one even thinks that would be relevant. It takes a village.
posted by mumimor at 3:46 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think most people know this in advance. Yesterday, my neighbor came over. He was wearing his standard workwear (I didn't notice the brand), I was wearing my gardening and cleaning wear (stuff that is so worn that I don't take it to town but it still protects me against ticks)
This time we didn't but often enough we do talk about WITSHTF. And then we agree we can manage it together within our neighborhood. We have everything we need in small but livable amounts.
None of us would be able to manage alone, but no one even thinks that would be relevant. It takes a village.
posted by mumimor at 3:46 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
So mostly those intense prepper types are very silly but
How could this come to pass? How would anyone survive something powerful enough to completely destroy all human collectives down to the municipal level? Nuclear war? Environmental collapse through sustained superstorms? Meteor strike? Supervolcanos? Alien invasion?
Infectious disease.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:49 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
How could this come to pass? How would anyone survive something powerful enough to completely destroy all human collectives down to the municipal level? Nuclear war? Environmental collapse through sustained superstorms? Meteor strike? Supervolcanos? Alien invasion?
Infectious disease.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:49 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
"Zombies" often means... something else.
posted by Artw at 3:52 PM on May 30, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by Artw at 3:52 PM on May 30, 2017 [10 favorites]
Also, preppers and survivalists come in all shapes, sizes, ages, etc.There are several black preppers out there, The Canadian Prepper is probably the most well known:
Correct me if I'm wrong but they seem to be mostly white, no? (Genuine, snark free question, I don't know any preppers)
posted by The Toad at 1:45 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]
https://www.youtube.com/user/CanadianPrepper33
The Canadian Prepper - he did a good piece on the practicality of subscription box shopping vs. actually stockpiling food for a catastrophe. The take home here is that the average "prepper" is relatively rich and unprepared.
Prepper Princess
https://www.youtube.com/user/amberstorck
She is a lesbian with some surprising attitudes towards public health:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60r4K8GQUyA
I have found a bunch more, but for me the main idea I got from them was that this is a form of entertainment. Kind of like the central idea of the article at the top. Shopping and costume drama for rich people.
posted by metasluggo at 3:56 PM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
Infectious disease.
Disease doesn't work that way. They're either so deadly as to be self-limiting or survivable enough to be fixable without social collapse. The evolutionary pressure on diseases is to become less deadly with time.
posted by bonehead at 3:56 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Disease doesn't work that way. They're either so deadly as to be self-limiting or survivable enough to be fixable without social collapse. The evolutionary pressure on diseases is to become less deadly with time.
posted by bonehead at 3:56 PM on May 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
I'll stick to my t-shirts and jeans until I can afford to dress preppy again. And why, why, hasn't Saltwater New England updated the Overview of Trad Companies since 2014?
posted by Ber at 4:05 PM on May 30, 2017
posted by Ber at 4:05 PM on May 30, 2017
I think that really bad actors, would not necessarily target cities with WMD, but possibly things like natural formations that have serious potential energy. I am not spelling that out, but that would mean some terrible consequences for everything east of say, Idaho, or east of Portland; in both Canada and the US, if you see what I mean. In this world, playing nice, doing all we can, we still teeter, we have to do more for peaceful conduct of life world wide.
My friend who works in medical, says she doesn't want to survive the first wave. I would only do so for my grandson.
posted by Oyéah at 4:18 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
My friend who works in medical, says she doesn't want to survive the first wave. I would only do so for my grandson.
posted by Oyéah at 4:18 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Is it a matter of too few pockets, or too many stuff? I mean Adam and Eve didn't have any pockets at all and they managed to fuck up everything for everyone forever, so don't pretend like your Wallet Wizard is going to keep the hordes at bay.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:23 PM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:23 PM on May 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
Surprised there hasn't been any mention of the huge popularity of survival/king of the hill video games. The design style of the most famous ones seems to be directly informed by prepper style. The currently most popular one, Player Unknown's Battlegorunds seems to have dropped the zombie conceit and the Hunger Games conceit altogether. Not to mention recent Tom Clancy games, although those are more like dystopian military fantasy and are therefore more traditional in their near-future military trappings. But Battlegrounds may as well be set in the midwest.
Not to mention Far Cry 5's announcement that it will be set in Montana and the immediate backlash.
posted by kittensofthenight at 4:29 PM on May 30, 2017
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Not to mention Far Cry 5's announcement that it will be set in Montana and the immediate backlash.
posted by kittensofthenight at 4:29 PM on May 30, 2017
Some hilarious piss-babyisms from gamers on that one - they've been fully absorbed into the far right it seems.
posted by Artw at 4:43 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 4:43 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
I can't relate to most of this, having to liquidate belongings every time I move, which is often, and you can't store a lot of emergency supplies with 2 adults in a studio apartment. We have 4 5-gallon bags of water in the freezer and a stocked kitchen cabinet, enough to stay hydrated and eat for a couple days assuming there is electricity. But then I'm much more worried about being priced out of my home than Mt Rainier erupting or a tsunami destroying Seattle. Ironically I've been into waxed cotton the last couple years and do repair/upkeep on my wax cotton/tin cloth clothing and back pack, but that's just because I think it's cool.
Now I wonder what value a bunch of drums and synthesizers will have after the apocalypse. The Postman is a great example, even the film stresses the triumph of community and caring over a fascist brotherhood. Its about the promise and nobility of the fucking USPS. Tom Petty's not playing that guitar for himself...
posted by kittensofthenight at 4:52 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Now I wonder what value a bunch of drums and synthesizers will have after the apocalypse. The Postman is a great example, even the film stresses the triumph of community and caring over a fascist brotherhood. Its about the promise and nobility of the fucking USPS. Tom Petty's not playing that guitar for himself...
posted by kittensofthenight at 4:52 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Is it a matter of too few pockets, or too many stuff?
The pockets are for real life every day. I seriously wear these all the time now. I know I've gone on and on, but for $25-32 pants depending on where and when you buy them, it's worth every damn comfy penny.
posted by Sophie1 at 5:02 PM on May 30, 2017
The pockets are for real life every day. I seriously wear these all the time now. I know I've gone on and on, but for $25-32 pants depending on where and when you buy them, it's worth every damn comfy penny.
posted by Sophie1 at 5:02 PM on May 30, 2017
Another odd observation of the self-identifying preppers I know: a very small, non-zero amount of them actually work in any sort of production position. Most are middle-class and white collar. Some of them may have grown up on farms, or going hunting of fishing, but few still engage in those activities...
The actual farmers and blacksmiths and mechanics I know just aren't interested in it. I dunno if maybe the hard-core cadre of vocal preppers are just expressing a deep seated loss of real world skills, or maybe a loss of control in an increasingly complex world. Honestly, I have no ill-will towards them, I'm all about being prepared, but the low-level paranoia (and sometimes much higher level paranoia) stikes me as getting in the way of critical thinking and logic.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 5:05 PM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
The actual farmers and blacksmiths and mechanics I know just aren't interested in it. I dunno if maybe the hard-core cadre of vocal preppers are just expressing a deep seated loss of real world skills, or maybe a loss of control in an increasingly complex world. Honestly, I have no ill-will towards them, I'm all about being prepared, but the low-level paranoia (and sometimes much higher level paranoia) stikes me as getting in the way of critical thinking and logic.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 5:05 PM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
The currently most popular one, Player Unknown's Battlegorunds seems to have dropped the zombie conceit and the Hunger Games conceit altogether.
This is a super nitpick, but I'd disagree with this characterisation. PUBG seem to be very deliberately a Hunger Games-style scenario, what with the shrinking dome of instant death that shrinks down as the round goes on, to force the final survivors into direct conflict.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:13 PM on May 30, 2017
This is a super nitpick, but I'd disagree with this characterisation. PUBG seem to be very deliberately a Hunger Games-style scenario, what with the shrinking dome of instant death that shrinks down as the round goes on, to force the final survivors into direct conflict.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:13 PM on May 30, 2017
I mean to me there's a difference between prepping and prudent. I live in hurricane country and in an area that got clobbered pretty hard by Katrina, so folks know they're going to need to stock up on supplies and such, sometimes for weeks or months if they're going to try and stay or ride it out. Me personally I always try to have canned goods and water and emergency supplies around as to me that's just prudence in the face of disaster, natural or otherwise.
But surviving that wasn't about having the most tactical pants or blending in so the government wouldn't get you. Hell, sometimes you wanted them to find you so they could helicopter you to safety or drop you supplies.
If you actually want to be prudent, you wouldn't be obsessing over brands of socks, you'd take an EMT or Paramedic course and stock up on antibiotics. Which is one of the things that has always amuses me about zombie apocalypse and prepped fantasies. If you have millions of rotting corpses around and a breakdown in social order to the point that basic sewage and water services are impossible to come by, you're probably going to die of cholera before you even get to the Hunting The Most Dangerous Game part.
But I feel like a lot of it is a fantasy that "everything will be like it is now only I can shoot people I don't like" rather than being the "weep I drank from some tainted water now I die in agony" apocalypse
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:07 PM on May 30, 2017 [17 favorites]
But surviving that wasn't about having the most tactical pants or blending in so the government wouldn't get you. Hell, sometimes you wanted them to find you so they could helicopter you to safety or drop you supplies.
If you actually want to be prudent, you wouldn't be obsessing over brands of socks, you'd take an EMT or Paramedic course and stock up on antibiotics. Which is one of the things that has always amuses me about zombie apocalypse and prepped fantasies. If you have millions of rotting corpses around and a breakdown in social order to the point that basic sewage and water services are impossible to come by, you're probably going to die of cholera before you even get to the Hunting The Most Dangerous Game part.
But I feel like a lot of it is a fantasy that "everything will be like it is now only I can shoot people I don't like" rather than being the "weep I drank from some tainted water now I die in agony" apocalypse
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:07 PM on May 30, 2017 [17 favorites]
The actual farmers and blacksmiths and mechanics I know just aren't interested in it.
Because those folks now how agonizingly difficult-to-impossible those tasks are without electricity, running water, and a functioning supply chain.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:17 PM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Because those folks now how agonizingly difficult-to-impossible those tasks are without electricity, running water, and a functioning supply chain.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:17 PM on May 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
The evolutionary pressure on diseases is to become less deadly with time.
Not always. The house finch conjunctivitis studies show that environmental conditions can cause a disease to become more virulent over time. For diseases with a non-human reservoir, like bird or swine flu, or bubonic plague, human mortality won't have a selective pressure on disease virulence. For emergent diseases, smallpox might have become less deadly to aboriginal populations in the Americas and Australia but not until after they killed off 80-95% of the populations. A mild case of dengue fever can turn deadly through antibody-dependent enhancement. Then there's crazy, off the wall stuff like transmissible parasitic cancers like Tasmanian Devil facial tumour disease to keep you up at night.
I think this is so unlikely as to be fantasy.
But yeah, I agree with you, it is mainly fantasy. What those fantasies say about us is what's interesting. It's like the mythos of self-sufficient American frontier living meets secular eschatology.
posted by peeedro at 7:28 PM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
Not always. The house finch conjunctivitis studies show that environmental conditions can cause a disease to become more virulent over time. For diseases with a non-human reservoir, like bird or swine flu, or bubonic plague, human mortality won't have a selective pressure on disease virulence. For emergent diseases, smallpox might have become less deadly to aboriginal populations in the Americas and Australia but not until after they killed off 80-95% of the populations. A mild case of dengue fever can turn deadly through antibody-dependent enhancement. Then there's crazy, off the wall stuff like transmissible parasitic cancers like Tasmanian Devil facial tumour disease to keep you up at night.
I think this is so unlikely as to be fantasy.
But yeah, I agree with you, it is mainly fantasy. What those fantasies say about us is what's interesting. It's like the mythos of self-sufficient American frontier living meets secular eschatology.
posted by peeedro at 7:28 PM on May 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
Reading through this, how does one go about stocking up on medications? Lets say one, hypothetically, had a condition that would cause severe reduction in ones ability to function without medication. Insurance companies typically allow for up to 3 months of medication at a time, via mail order. How would a person stock up on insulin, mood stabilizers, anti-depressants or even antibiotics? For certain non-neurotypicals, surviving the apocalypse means hoping that a car-battery powered ECT machine will help when the useful pills run out.
Hell, enough people are addicted to caffeine as is, it would be interesting to watch as large portions of the population slowly go through caffeine withdrawal. Not to mention the smokers.
posted by Hactar at 7:28 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Hell, enough people are addicted to caffeine as is, it would be interesting to watch as large portions of the population slowly go through caffeine withdrawal. Not to mention the smokers.
posted by Hactar at 7:28 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
I've long thought that much of the appeal of prepperism, beyond America's bizarre cultural history, is that people are completely exhausted by modern life and its two options - work / consume, or nothing, and wish for a magic escape. There is no escape though, and certainly not cognitively - the whole experience is still coded through consumerism.
Fight Club.
then its zero days of food unless you can eat cloves and birthday candles.
I was going to invite you over for dinner, bet never mind.
Hell, enough people are addicted to caffeine as is, it would be interesting to watch as large portions of the population slowly go through caffeine withdrawal.
Yeah...Pretty sure I'm not making it.
posted by bongo_x at 8:09 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Fight Club.
then its zero days of food unless you can eat cloves and birthday candles.
I was going to invite you over for dinner, bet never mind.
Hell, enough people are addicted to caffeine as is, it would be interesting to watch as large portions of the population slowly go through caffeine withdrawal.
Yeah...Pretty sure I'm not making it.
posted by bongo_x at 8:09 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Why are we not talking about the raccoon attached to that mans' ass??!!? I assumed this whole thread would be about that photo.
Is it a pet?
Why are it's paws tied to his backpack?
Is it dead?
Is it dead and a hat?
Is it dinner?
Stuffed toy?
So. Many. Questions.
posted by fshgrl at 12:13 AM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
Is it a pet?
Why are it's paws tied to his backpack?
Is it dead?
Is it dead and a hat?
Is it dinner?
Stuffed toy?
So. Many. Questions.
posted by fshgrl at 12:13 AM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
I'm not. "Giant soybean farms" is not the same as "food you can actually eat on demand." Your crazy survivalist neighbor isn't suddenly going to let you kill his cattle. Fish are probably your best bet, short term, and most major cities are located on waterways.
The other thing is that you can go a long time merely malnourished. Infection will take you down fast. I'd rather have access to somewhere that has a good supply of antibiotics, for at least as long as that lasts.
I think the only thing I'd be worried about in the short term in the US would be other people freaking out with guns. So I'd much prefer to be somewhere out of the way like a farm. There is plenty to eat in the country and very easy to grow more for the first several years anyway, as long as the equipment lasts. Plus farmers buy things like injectable antibiotics by the pint. Any modern farm has a very well stocked medicine cabinet.
posted by fshgrl at 12:32 AM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
The other thing is that you can go a long time merely malnourished. Infection will take you down fast. I'd rather have access to somewhere that has a good supply of antibiotics, for at least as long as that lasts.
I think the only thing I'd be worried about in the short term in the US would be other people freaking out with guns. So I'd much prefer to be somewhere out of the way like a farm. There is plenty to eat in the country and very easy to grow more for the first several years anyway, as long as the equipment lasts. Plus farmers buy things like injectable antibiotics by the pint. Any modern farm has a very well stocked medicine cabinet.
posted by fshgrl at 12:32 AM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'm totally buying a bunch of that crap. I'll be a total gray man when the preppers are the only ones left, and they'll probably share their fig newtons with me.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:04 AM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:04 AM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
Shocking news: fashion magazine publishes article about 'preppers' that emphasizes clothing styles, saying fashion is what is very very important.
I am guessing that a magazine about chopsticks might focus on the role of wooden cutlery. And Irish ethnic pride boosters might publish and read a book named "How the Irish Saved Civilization After the SHTF." Oh yeah, we already have that one.
Also, I thought "preppers" means "survivialism after television takes it over and makes everyone stupider." Am I wrong here?
posted by cattypist at 2:52 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I am guessing that a magazine about chopsticks might focus on the role of wooden cutlery. And Irish ethnic pride boosters might publish and read a book named "How the Irish Saved Civilization After the SHTF." Oh yeah, we already have that one.
Also, I thought "preppers" means "survivialism after television takes it over and makes everyone stupider." Am I wrong here?
posted by cattypist at 2:52 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm not a prepper and I think prepping is kind of dumb but there's a lot of fantasy going on in this thread about rural/urban. If there was a total collapse of society no one in any part of the country is doing well.
If there's anything I can learn from this kind of discussion, it's that across the nation, some people are preparing for disaster not by practicing helpful skills or stockpiling useful items, but instead by stockpiling negative stereotypes about people unlike themselves.
People who know how to hunt are all into incest! Rural farmers don't know how to garden! People in big cities are all deliberately plotting the destruction of society because they are eager for cannibalistic orgies! Etc.
But instead of focusing on our differences, we should remember: people in every part of the country and world have one thing in common. Everywhere people are enjoying wild unrealistic fantasies about how they will be better prepared than those other people when civilization collapses. And people are already stocking up on explanations that it will all be someone else's fault.
[EDITED: made slightly gentler within 2 minutes of initial post]
posted by cattypist at 3:08 AM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
If there's anything I can learn from this kind of discussion, it's that across the nation, some people are preparing for disaster not by practicing helpful skills or stockpiling useful items, but instead by stockpiling negative stereotypes about people unlike themselves.
People who know how to hunt are all into incest! Rural farmers don't know how to garden! People in big cities are all deliberately plotting the destruction of society because they are eager for cannibalistic orgies! Etc.
But instead of focusing on our differences, we should remember: people in every part of the country and world have one thing in common. Everywhere people are enjoying wild unrealistic fantasies about how they will be better prepared than those other people when civilization collapses. And people are already stocking up on explanations that it will all be someone else's fault.
[EDITED: made slightly gentler within 2 minutes of initial post]
posted by cattypist at 3:08 AM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
Our family likes the S.M. Stirling series that begins with Dies the Fire. In this book, the apocalypse is brought about by an unexplained change that makes burning more difficult—so cars don't work, guns don't work because the gunpowder won't ignite, and so on. In this world, the people who are the most useful turn out to be Society for Creative Anachronism types who've studied sword fighting, wiccans who know about plants and herbs, and so on. Not the military-prepper types but people who managed to pick up some kind of skill that is useful in a world where you can't make things happen via fire.
We used to have a friend who we joked would be the perfect post-apocalypse companion. She's a physician assistant, so helpful in the medical line. She knows carpentry; she's raised birds for meat and eggs; she has built boats by hand; and she knows how to use a gun. You'd totally want her in your little enclave.
posted by Orlop at 3:33 AM on May 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
We used to have a friend who we joked would be the perfect post-apocalypse companion. She's a physician assistant, so helpful in the medical line. She knows carpentry; she's raised birds for meat and eggs; she has built boats by hand; and she knows how to use a gun. You'd totally want her in your little enclave.
posted by Orlop at 3:33 AM on May 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
“Lately, riots that have been occurring mostly in California are SHTF scenarios,” docb30tn says. “The government does not tell us everything they know. If they did, then people would freak out. Thankfully we have our police, fire, EMS, and military to squelch such actions on a large scale. California, however, is a special breed of stupid lately.”
Do I want to know what this is about? I'm an Aussie, but I'm sure I would have read about Californian riots on Mefi if they were actually happening.
posted by harriet vane at 4:24 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
Do I want to know what this is about? I'm an Aussie, but I'm sure I would have read about Californian riots on Mefi if they were actually happening.
posted by harriet vane at 4:24 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
"California" = PoC
"riots" = "the coming race war"
"The government" = "admiralty courts"
posted by indubitable at 5:37 AM on May 31, 2017 [9 favorites]
"riots" = "the coming race war"
"The government" = "admiralty courts"
posted by indubitable at 5:37 AM on May 31, 2017 [9 favorites]
Do I want to know what this is about? I'm an Aussie, but I'm sure I would have read about Californian riots on Mefi if they were actually happening.
This is America. It's really about racism.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:40 AM on May 31, 2017 [8 favorites]
This is America. It's really about racism.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:40 AM on May 31, 2017 [8 favorites]
Pretty much. One of the things that happens to a lot of angry American white guys[1] with guns when there is a temporary breakdown of civil society (like Katrina) is that they take it as license to get all KKK level violence against black folks and other poc.
I sometimes like running 'worst case scenarios' or 'bad case scenarios' for fun. To that extent, "zombie apocalypse" is a convenient umbrella scenario. But I would like a way to separate "generic zombies who are a placeholder for everything from disease to big snowstorm" as a disaster planning scenario from "those urban ZOMBIES listening to their rap music IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN" or "those ZOMBIES who've taken over the banking system... YOU KNOW" types of propaganda.
I live in a very densely populated city in a very densely populated area. We didn't get a lot of infrastructure damage due to Sandy, but it did make me think that it would be spiffy to be able to set up a portable battery reserve "recharge your phone here" station in my car so I could drive around to various major squares if there was a prolonged power outage.
[1] while not always, these folks are usually white, usually male - #include <not-all-disclaimer.h>
posted by rmd1023 at 6:08 AM on May 31, 2017 [10 favorites]
I sometimes like running 'worst case scenarios' or 'bad case scenarios' for fun. To that extent, "zombie apocalypse" is a convenient umbrella scenario. But I would like a way to separate "generic zombies who are a placeholder for everything from disease to big snowstorm" as a disaster planning scenario from "those urban ZOMBIES listening to their rap music IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN" or "those ZOMBIES who've taken over the banking system... YOU KNOW" types of propaganda.
I live in a very densely populated city in a very densely populated area. We didn't get a lot of infrastructure damage due to Sandy, but it did make me think that it would be spiffy to be able to set up a portable battery reserve "recharge your phone here" station in my car so I could drive around to various major squares if there was a prolonged power outage.
[1] while not always, these folks are usually white, usually male - #include <not-all-disclaimer.h>
posted by rmd1023 at 6:08 AM on May 31, 2017 [10 favorites]
I'm going to be tracking down these pants recommendations though.
I'm not a prepper nor do I concealed carry anything more lethal than a biro, but 5.11's range of Tactical Pants are awesome. And they'd be even better if they'd replace that fucking pop-stud you use to fasten them with a proper button.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:58 AM on May 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
I'm not a prepper nor do I concealed carry anything more lethal than a biro, but 5.11's range of Tactical Pants are awesome. And they'd be even better if they'd replace that fucking pop-stud you use to fasten them with a proper button.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:58 AM on May 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos: the only survivor of a poison gas cloud
M.P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud? It has been awhile since I read that one. If I'm not mistaken he grows his version of a Turkish mustachio to go along with his... uh... regalia.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:30 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
M.P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud? It has been awhile since I read that one. If I'm not mistaken he grows his version of a Turkish mustachio to go along with his... uh... regalia.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:30 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
Why are we not talking about the raccoon attached to that mans' ass??!!?
I have determined that they are friends.
hth
posted by grobstein at 7:57 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I have determined that they are friends.
hth
posted by grobstein at 7:57 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
Society for Creative Anachronism types
TBH on whatever nerd hierarchy we are arranging this I'd put SCA types higher than the peppers because they don't have any dumb pretentions about what they are doing being "real".
posted by Artw at 8:00 AM on May 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
TBH on whatever nerd hierarchy we are arranging this I'd put SCA types higher than the peppers because they don't have any dumb pretentions about what they are doing being "real".
posted by Artw at 8:00 AM on May 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
My favorite post-apocalypse scenario is the one in which remembered lines from Simpsons episodes are valuable currency. (I had the great fortune to see this - it was directed by a friend from college - and it's one of the most amazing pieces of theater ever.)
posted by rtha at 8:42 AM on May 31, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by rtha at 8:42 AM on May 31, 2017 [10 favorites]
Is it dinner? Yes, these well dressed outdoorsmetrosexuals think they are going to cook a freakin' reccoon, which is not that easy. I recently read what it takes to cook raccoon, and it is considerable, and lots of fuel, because you have to boil those sumbi****s for hours to soften them up. Finally they make a greasy stew, as I read. They are not going to cook that, I can tell you that much. Here
posted by Oyéah at 9:48 AM on May 31, 2017
posted by Oyéah at 9:48 AM on May 31, 2017
Well, if you have a preppercooker it takes only a half hour for the initial boil, but more baking and special preparation seasonings. So don't forget your raccoon preparation spices and your prepper apron and wipe cloths, for raccoon butchery. There are a lot of raccoons out there. You have to first buy a huge cage, big enough to hold your companions who become rabid, after raccoon bites, in the post apocalypse.
posted by Oyéah at 9:53 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 9:53 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
If I read all this correctly, it's for middle-aged dudes who still want to play army, then get into some circle-jerk about their tools (the latter being similar to rabbit holes GTDers fall into optimizing their system rather than actually doing stuff).
posted by MrGuilt at 10:17 AM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by MrGuilt at 10:17 AM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
M.P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud? It has been awhile since I read that one. If I'm not mistaken he grows his version of a Turkish mustachio to go along with his... uh... regalia.
Yup. And embarks on a global arson spree and then spends a couple decades building a huge-ass temple because "I am Ultimate Ruler like unto a very GOD hahahahahahahaha...."
Seriously, it was like he suddenly turned into Beavis and Butthead.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:25 AM on May 31, 2017
Yup. And embarks on a global arson spree and then spends a couple decades building a huge-ass temple because "I am Ultimate Ruler like unto a very GOD hahahahahahahaha...."
Seriously, it was like he suddenly turned into Beavis and Butthead.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:25 AM on May 31, 2017
I mean to me there's a difference between prepping and prudent
I keep feeling like the difference is like the difference between people who have a hog farm and people who have a hog farm but keep talking about how they can use it to hide bodies: ie, not much difference in terms of actual possessions, but a huge difference in assholery.
posted by corb at 1:24 PM on May 31, 2017 [9 favorites]
I keep feeling like the difference is like the difference between people who have a hog farm and people who have a hog farm but keep talking about how they can use it to hide bodies: ie, not much difference in terms of actual possessions, but a huge difference in assholery.
posted by corb at 1:24 PM on May 31, 2017 [9 favorites]
Preppers are living out their preconceptions and fears of other people. This often leads them to make decisions based on their internal logic, rather than being responsive to actual needs. Prepping is often performative and less substantive in my experience (admittedly limited) with it.
Being prepared means an evidence-based/historically-based approach to possible threats. This can be as detailed as a probabilistic assessment of threats and consequences to generate a risk matrix, or it can be as simple as following the advice of groups like DHS in the US or the Red Cross. In practice it's about building resilience in the right places, some of which is gear, but most of which is in people and their attitudes. Who knows how to organize, who to call, where to go. What to do (which is where gear comes in), is down the list, not in the top three things you need to do, typically. Preparedness in my volunteer and professional experience is mostly about people.
posted by bonehead at 2:47 PM on May 31, 2017 [10 favorites]
Being prepared means an evidence-based/historically-based approach to possible threats. This can be as detailed as a probabilistic assessment of threats and consequences to generate a risk matrix, or it can be as simple as following the advice of groups like DHS in the US or the Red Cross. In practice it's about building resilience in the right places, some of which is gear, but most of which is in people and their attitudes. Who knows how to organize, who to call, where to go. What to do (which is where gear comes in), is down the list, not in the top three things you need to do, typically. Preparedness in my volunteer and professional experience is mostly about people.
posted by bonehead at 2:47 PM on May 31, 2017 [10 favorites]
We should set up mefi meeting points for when the shit hits the fan, since we seem to agree that community building and skill sharing are the solution.
I plan to wander around the mission asking people if they have ever posted on the blue.
I hope to run into mefi's own asavage.
posted by Dr. Curare at 12:17 PM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]
I plan to wander around the mission asking people if they have ever posted on the blue.
I hope to run into mefi's own asavage.
posted by Dr. Curare at 12:17 PM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]
A friend of mine wrote and Kickstarted a zombie post-apocalyptic tabletop RPG called Red Markets: society survived the zombie plague but now it's divided into the haves and have-nots even more so. Player characters live in the "Loss" the zombie filled part of the country and have to scavenge supplies and work jobs for clients in the "Recession" where the zombies have been cleared out. Any survivalists have either joined a small community to survive or turned into murderous raiders. All the tacti-cool gear has fallen apart or been repaired so many times, it's no different than a regular piece of equipment.
Red Markets is economic horror, because even in the apocalypse, the rent is still due.
posted by clockworkjoe at 12:34 AM on June 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
Red Markets is economic horror, because even in the apocalypse, the rent is still due.
posted by clockworkjoe at 12:34 AM on June 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
even in the apocalypse, the rent is still due
Jesus, and I thought The Walking Dead was bleak.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:19 AM on June 2, 2017 [7 favorites]
Jesus, and I thought The Walking Dead was bleak.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:19 AM on June 2, 2017 [7 favorites]
My favorite post-apocalypse scenario is the one in which remembered lines from Simpsons episodes are valuable currency. (I had the great fortune to see this - it was directed by a friend from college - and it's one of the most amazing pieces of theater ever.)
This is literally the first time I've felt prepared for the apocalypse. (Oh, it's the four elephants of the apolocypse.)
I saw Mr. Burns, which is beyond brilliant, when it was done in Chicago. However, in the present, where it seems like world may end thanks to a reality show president, it would probably chill me to the bone now.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:44 AM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
This is literally the first time I've felt prepared for the apocalypse. (Oh, it's the four elephants of the apolocypse.)
I saw Mr. Burns, which is beyond brilliant, when it was done in Chicago. However, in the present, where it seems like world may end thanks to a reality show president, it would probably chill me to the bone now.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:44 AM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
We should set up mefi meeting points for when the shit hits the fan, since we seem to agree that community building and skill sharing are the solution.
I have room for a half-dozen at my place when the zombie virus breakout occurs! The location of which, I can't tell you, though. OPSEC and all that, you know. Wait, I think I may have discovered a flaw in my plan...
On a more serious note, in case of a truly catastrophic, long-term societal meltdown, I'd probably do my best to make it back east to Georgia, where there's lots of arable land with a long growing season, plenty of timber & water, and dozens of extended family members that are well armed and still wise in the rural farming and hunting ways of our forebears.
As my Dad often says about his youth in a farming family: "We never went hungry."
posted by darkstar at 12:22 PM on June 2, 2017
I have room for a half-dozen at my place when the zombie virus breakout occurs! The location of which, I can't tell you, though. OPSEC and all that, you know. Wait, I think I may have discovered a flaw in my plan...
On a more serious note, in case of a truly catastrophic, long-term societal meltdown, I'd probably do my best to make it back east to Georgia, where there's lots of arable land with a long growing season, plenty of timber & water, and dozens of extended family members that are well armed and still wise in the rural farming and hunting ways of our forebears.
As my Dad often says about his youth in a farming family: "We never went hungry."
posted by darkstar at 12:22 PM on June 2, 2017
A close family member grew up in rural Nova Scotia on a hard-scrabble farm on the side of a mountain. They were the oldest of 12 kids. They frequently talk of having gone hungry as a child. I've seen the farm now myself. Supported even as they were by church and with some government assistance, I cannot imagine that anyone would chose that life. Life as a subsistence farmer, even as late as the 1950s in rural Canada was extremely tough.
posted by bonehead at 12:28 PM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 12:28 PM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah - Dad was always careful to point out how hard the work on the farm was, and how it never ended. The warmer climes and rich bottomland soil they worked were key factors in his experience of a full belly, I'm sure.
I'd hate to imagine what life would be like on a small farm over a thousand miles north, and on the side of a mountain. I know there is a lot of successful agriculture up thataway, but still, it's farming on (Super) Difficult Mode compared to doing it in central Georgia.
posted by darkstar at 12:39 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'd hate to imagine what life would be like on a small farm over a thousand miles north, and on the side of a mountain. I know there is a lot of successful agriculture up thataway, but still, it's farming on (Super) Difficult Mode compared to doing it in central Georgia.
posted by darkstar at 12:39 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm a living history reenactor, and I've long been of the opinion that when the SHTF, a group of reenactors is what you want. We can blacksmith, we can knit, spin, weave and sew, we're great with fire, we can campfire cook, we're great at repairing and macguyvering stuff, we always have first aiders, and we're generally a really nice bunch of people. Plus we know a lot of good songs and can usually play some kind of instrument. Great for morale.
posted by BlueNorther at 1:39 PM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by BlueNorther at 1:39 PM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]
I know there is a lot of successful agriculture up thataway, but still, it's farming on (Super) Difficult Mode compared to doing it in central Georgia.
Welcome to the jungle, indeed. There are some lots near my house that were totally scraped clean, for commercial development that got stalled, just a few years ago. They are dense woods now with huge trees.
posted by bongo_x at 4:10 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
Welcome to the jungle, indeed. There are some lots near my house that were totally scraped clean, for commercial development that got stalled, just a few years ago. They are dense woods now with huge trees.
posted by bongo_x at 4:10 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
The pants arrived
posted by grobstein at 12:19 AM on June 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by grobstein at 12:19 AM on June 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
I just thought that was spy messaging.
posted by bongo_x at 10:12 PM on June 4, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by bongo_x at 10:12 PM on June 4, 2017 [4 favorites]
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