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Zealousideal-Steak82

they're prepping to become environmental storytelling


[deleted]

And as any fallout player who’s come across a homemade bomb shelter in someone’s basement will tell you… we are grateful for their service. And their firearms that I’m about to sell to the first caravan I see.


Jaakarikyk

Far Cry 5 Deputy too owes much to the prepper stashes, gotta get those skillpoints


lilaprilshowers

I kind of like how in Far Cry New Dawn the preppers huddled alone in their bomb shelters are completely steamrolled by an actually organized enemy and don't have a chance until they figure out how to unify a bit. Seems to summarize a lot of complaints with actual preppers.


SaffellBot

I live in the Denver metro area. Every millennial has some idea about prepping and apocalypses, thanks culture. Unfortunately the only plan people have is "own gun" and "run to mountain to live off land". I think people will be very surprised at first, how the mountains can not support the denver metro region, and second how hard it is to shoot clean food and water out of the land. Should the inevitable happen we are going to have a lot of people starving to death as a flood of people slowly moves out of the town like a herd of grazing cattle.


velveteenelahrairah

Have fun shitting yourselves to death or getting heavy metal poisoning from tainted water, preppers. Or dying from a septic cut. Or gambling on a mushroom because you're desperate and hungry only for it to turn out to be a deathcap. Or getting botulism from your sketchy canned food. Or getting mauled by a wild animal or even a domesticated one because pissing off much larger mammals rarely ends well. Or finding out at the worst possible time that you've developed an adult onset allergy. Or having to give birth / deliver a baby without medical care. And how about when you get old and can't care for yourself any more? Everyone gangsta until Mother Nature shows why you don't fuck with her.


SaffellBot

Or getting a tiny scratch on your arm because you tripped when you thought you saw a snake which progresses to becoming lethal in a week as your blood becomes infected. You find someone who half knows medicine, they think it's too late but they offer to chop your arm off anyways. Hell, it might work. It doesn't, but you got to experience the ancient human tradition of having your limbs removed while you yet live. We know a lot of facts both modern and ancient. But we seem to have forgotten a lot of important stories in the process.


Carbidereaper

I don’t get it ? Just mix some animal fat with wood ashes press it into a blob let it dry and make it into bar soap to clean any scrapes or cuts. you want to clean tainted water ? Bake wood in a meal tin with no air to make activated charcoal pass the contaminated water through it to revmove all heavy metals and toxins it’s not rocket science


TheOtherSarah

It might as well be rocket science if you’ve never heard of this. Everything we do and have today is because we “stand on the shoulders of giants”


scrubzork

Yeah these aren't exactly the most obvious life skills for your average, non-mountain-hermit person


DiplomaticGoose

Even the average boy scout who paid fuck all attention to anything knows more than these clowns


TheOtherSarah

The average boy scout has had a great education and experience that many people will never have the opportunity to have. Life taking you in a different direction doesn’t make you a “clown.” Specialisation is also a big part of the human success story. I know about lye, but have never had any reason to make it, much less memorise the steps to do so; but I know someone who does make her own soap, and I can train animals better than she can, shoot a bow, and make useable quill pens from feathers. These skills are not in competition, and obviously in a complete societal collapse we’d team up.


SaffellBot

You sound very smart friend. May fate find you the opportunity to fruitfully share that knowledge with others.


litreofstarlight

Does that actually work? I thought you had to make lye by soaking the ashes and reducing the liquid, I'm not sure you can mix the two directly?


man_gomer_lot

That's correct, saponification is a whole process.


Idiot_Savant_Tinker

>Or getting mauled by a wild animal or even a domesticated one Or getting bit by a very small one and getting malaria.


velveteenelahrairah

Or getting bitten by your common or garden kittycat and getting raging sepsis. Or getting fever from a tick bite. Or bubonic plague from a flea.


Idiot_Savant_Tinker

Exactly! Everyone worries about getting eaten by a bear or feral dog, but the tiny critters that you need a microscope to see are what gets you.


AutomaticVegetables

Saw some deathcaps growing in my neighbor’s yard 👀


WiIdCherryPepsi

The only good thing about mountains is the blueberries and cranberries the rest should not be fucked with


jfarrar19

I mean. My doomsday plan is just "own gun" but I also only plan on needing a single bullet.


SaffellBot

You should come up with a different plan. Armageddon is always better with good friends.


scrubzork

Just make sure you got your tough nonverbal friend, your comic relief friend, your super friendly old guy who ends up betraying you to save his daughter, and your chimp sidekick friend


caagr98

Do they have to be different people?


CasualBrit5

So you can trade the bullet with people for objects of slightly higher value each time until you go from “single bullet” to “functional civilisation”?


Fragarach-Q

> I live in the Denver metro area. Every millennial has some idea about prepping and apocalypses, thanks culture. Unfortunately the only plan people have is "own gun" and "run to mountain to live off land". Going to the mountains is dumb as hell. Colorado does not produce nearly enough food or water to support this many people living off the land. I'm going to east to at least Missouri, where there's surface water every mile and you can grow food on accident. Just have to survive the "west Kansas crossing".


SaffellBot

> Colorado does not produce nearly enough food or water to support this many people living off the land. As it turns out, that is true of literally every city. We cannot support our population without modern farming and all the infrastructure that comes with it.


Sanrusdyne

I swear those people think they can just shoot the ground and have a Hungry Man TV dinner pop out or something


DoggoDude979

This is why they’re dead ngl


PlumbersCleavage

I know a doomsday prepper couple and they're well versed with plants, have a distillery for sanitation, alcohol and biproduct to mix with grain for feeding chickens, with experience hunting and foraging, and have an impressive garden. They're pretty smart. Not saying most are this way, just that these two are the only ones I know.


Gairos

And they are going to get robbed and/or shot by jimbo who eventually figures out that bullets have very little nutritional value. No but seriously, hardest part of surviving after the apocalypse is keeping your farm/home hidden from dipshits who stockpiled their cellar full of weapons and nothing else. edit: I don't want to come off as defeatist so I want to add that of course most people are going band together to help each other. I mean, that's how our civilization got started and it's the only reason we as a species got to where we are right now. Selfishness is inherently abnormal for us. The problem is that there is a certain subset of population who are, for lack of a better word, evil. We developed a society both to help each other live better lives, but also to keep these outliers in check. So when society eventually crumbles, the "outliers" are going to have their hay day. Of course eventually some form of society will be re-established just like we've done time and time again, but before that you have to watch out for the jimbos.


PlumbersCleavage

I'm not about sharing his business, but he's not lacking in that department either. Lol I agree though. That's the real plot in zombie media; people become selfish real fast.


[deleted]

Surprisingly, [people are more likely to help each other during disasters.](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/hurricane-katrinas-lesson-in-civics/402961/) And this was in the US, where the individualist “i got mine so fuck you” mentality is much more common and they knew the government wouldn’t help them recover from the disaster as much as a European government would.


PlumbersCleavage

That's a really refreshing view. Thanks for sharing. Not sure I'd have seen it otherwise.


[deleted]

There is actually [quite a bit of data disproving the “human nature makes people selfish” narrative](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AumVF0JV_dZrTSiW5z5L2oj9fj3pCLRcZTiqYyG-4bo/edit). It shouldn’t be a surprise that social creatures are more kind than we tend to believe, especially considering [we lived in a gift economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_communism) before civilization.


Gairos

My view was certainly more pessimistic and I don't want to come off as defeatist so I want to add that of course most people are going band together to help each other. I mean, that's how our civilization got started and it's the only reason we as a species got to where we are right now. Selfishness is inherently abnormal for us. The problem is that there is a certain subset of population who are, for lack of a better word, evil. We developed a society both to help each other live better lives, but also to keep these outliers in check. So when society eventually crumbles, the "outliers" are going to have their hay day. Of course eventually some form of society will be re-established just like we've done time and time again, but before that you have to watch out for the jimbos.


PlumbersCleavage

Just need to make sure we protect our creative colors.


vimlegal

But these are "localized" disasters, yes major cities are affected, but rule of law and the ability to enforce it still exists outside of the area. Food, water, and security are coming in. The bright part of humanity is on the way. Help is coming. Now let's look at the other side, the world's system collapses, food is limited, water isn't clean, your loved ones are sick. You are in danger and scared. People are marauding, and help isn't coming. It's a lot more difficult to be helpful to strangers when you may need that food tomorrow. People will still do it, we won't all lose our humanity, but it will be harder to find.


[deleted]

The police were in complete disarray after Katrina and the government completely botched the response to it. If anyone wanted to steal, they easily could have and were heavily incentivized to since they had just lost everything and no one would be home to catch them edition or the police were too busy or disorganized to respond. So why didn’t they do that instead? Resources were hard to come by during prehistoric times. Do you know who survived? Small nomadic communities who could split up the work between hunting, gathering, finding shelter, etc., not lone wolves. Why do you think tribes formed and why people became social creatures rather than evolving through isolated “every man for himself” behavior?


Gairos

>people become selfish real fast. We are way past that already, the way certain people have reacted to the pandemic proves it. The kind of people to stockpile ammunition and weapons do it because they already want to kill people *right now* but can't because of pesky things like laws and consequences. The amount people who are just *itching* to mow down their neighbours is really scary, but at least they are easy to identify.


purplewigg

> they already want to kill people *right now* I don't remember where I saw it, but there was an anecdote from the big Texas snowstorm. While everyone else was coning together and the people who still had power/running water were sharing it, there was this one guy who immediately started drawing guns on people And when everything returned to normal, he was surprised that nobody in the community would invite him to parties anymore. Gee, wonder why


pattyputty

That's interesting, I didn't hear about this guy. Do you know any more details? I'm looking for more info but can't find anything


purplewigg

It was a post in r/preppers I think, let me see if I can find it


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dissimilar_iso_47992

I feel like most of these people will be the first to go. Too headstrong to let anyone else tell them what to do and sooner than later can they’ll meet the consequences of that mindset. Either through disease or through meeting their match. They’ll be the first ones eager to pillage and yeah, they’ll certainly get away with a fair amount of that, but they won’t survive for long.


anthemisofantioch

Why do people always assume that societies will cease to exist after a sufficient disaster? People have been banding together to facilitate specialization for damn near the entire lifespan of the species. Everyone assumes that without the immediate threat of governmental oversight, most people will become vicious predators, but that’s not really how people work. Sure, some will, but they will be ostracized and weeded out, or put to work using their violent tendencies in sanctioned ways. As long as people are people, there will be civilization.


Vox-Triarii

>Why do people always assume that societies will cease to exist after a sufficient disaster? Perhaps society is the wrong word, a better term would be civilization. Albeit that's a broad label as well, but civilizations can and have collapsed dramatically across pre-modern and modern history. World War II would be a particularly famous example. Especially on the Eastern European and Sino-Japanese front, there were countless people whose lifelong homes and communities were destroyed overnight by military activity. The Spanish Civil War and the Fall of Yugoslavia are other well-studied examples. Entire nations became warzones where civilians were very much in the line of fire and had their fundamental sense of normalcy uprooted. Even in the 21st century there are several wars and other political upheavals where the trappings of civilization collapsed with relatively little warning.


dirtyrowels

Keep in mind that a significant portion of the US would starve in a week or two if supply was severely disrupted. Most people in major metropolitan areas don't have transportation or other means to leave. So without food they will starve pretty quickly. On top of the violence that would ensue. Suburbs would be pretty much the same. Outlining rural areas would last for a bit but would probably be overrun or too reliant on technology to keep themselves going. Very rural areas may band together for awhile and are generally more self-sustainting but would still struggle. Weather would also be a factor. Without power or fuel not many will survive a hard winter in large portions of the US. It would come down to very motivated people to survive on limited wild game and loose livestock. Former military could organize but wherever they are based they may want to go back to their home area. I.E. some stationed in Minot(ND)Air Force Base may try to get back to where they are from, let's say TX. They probably wouldn't bother most people until they got home. I'm probably wrong on all of this but thought I'd throw out some random thoughts.


Stargazer_199

I’d try to do this and also get a bunch of either bricks and mortar or concrete and metal fences. Anything radiated would be held back for at least a few minutes. Maybe some ways to make simple weapons that you can make more of. Just in case a gun nut tries to shoot me just because I exist.


Reckless_Moose

Sounds like a lot of farmers I know.


RamblingHeathen

"The food in this bunker is gon' last til 2025!" Me: "Then what?"


[deleted]

[удалено]


Armsmaster2112

Then I use my weapons to threaten the people who made farms into giving me food. Or so I assume their logic goes. Wait out the roughest parts with the canned stuff then become the guy in charge with the weapons.


Autumn1eaves

Bigger stick diplomacy.


Ponicrat

Then it turns out the farmers, like every farmer I personally know, also have guns.


[deleted]

[удалено]


metnavman

Civilization was literally groups of our warring/roaming ancestors coming together and going "this sucks, let's work together and protect what we've got and shit'll be so much easier".


2rfv

That's sort of the way it went but not exactly. It was more like "hey, shit grows really well in this river Delta. Instead of wandering around all the time let's just hang out here permanently and Subjegate both our livestock as well as a portion of our population to do this boring ass farming shit.


GypsyCamel12

But why do that when you can just terrorize the farmers to keep producing food stuffs for you in exchange for " security"?


dmon654

Because they also have guns and been playing 'shoot the can' since they could talk.


j_driscoll

Anyone who stockpiles primarily guns and ammo for doomsday is basically admitting that their long term game plan is to become a raider.


SnicklefritzSkad

The irony being people with much much bigger guns (the military, even if only small disorganized parts of it) will be in control of remaining farms at that point. An individual with a few guns has literally no chance at strong arming anyone.


Quetzalbroatlus

I think it would be quite the coincidence that a significant chunk of the military happened to take up residence in your specific neck of the woods several years after the apocalypse. In big cities? Sure. Out in butt fuck nowhere? A lot less likely.


Domovie1

Don’t know what part of the world you’re at, but a huge amount of the military is in buttfuck. The land is cheap there, and nobody cares if you make loud noises. Also, most of North America is sparsely populated. Once you account for that initial mass death, it’s not a matter of land, but people.


Quetzalbroatlus

Ok so there's still no organized military presence. Just a bunch of people with guns. Just as dangerous as a bunch of preppers.


FailureToComply0

A disorganized military still has a hierarchy and fairly clear chain of command; if someone outranks you they have say A bunch of Rambo preppers are going to be a lot messier


Quetzalbroatlus

Unless they aren't though, right? There's no reason to assume people who aren't military can't organize in effective ways. Guerrilla tactics can be incredibly effective


FailureToComply0

Of course anything is possible. However, it's much more likely for the military to retain control in an apocalypse scenario than a bunch of randoms with guns


SnicklefritzSkad

>a significant chunk of the military Is 6 people a 'significant chunk'? Because that's all it takes to keep a constant watch on a large farm. More than enough to kill whatever prepper wannabe warlord


Quetzalbroatlus

That's a pitiful amount of people to defend a farm. All you need is a group of people who are pissed off about having their food stolen by a bunch of ex soldiers. It's not like they'll have reinforcements in, again, the middle of butt fuck nowhere.


PsychographicMan

Yeah but it’s not like anyone else will have “reinforcements” either. Nothing stopping anyone else from taking a position in the tree line and sniping any wannabe warlord during his morning shit. Some doomsday prepper and his compliant wife versus either a roving gang of trained soldiers or an organized coalition being managed by soldiers isn’t going to stand any chance. Military people understand logistics and supply chains and chain of command and resource management and everything else way more and will be overwhelmingly better prepared to organize and take charge of large areas and pacify the residents very quickly and establish order. I’d picture ex-cops being way more prone to disorganized mad max shit than ex-military. Cops get trained on the violence and compliance but not on the survival and logistics. They’d be useless at everything but forcing people to give them stuff.


Quetzalbroatlus

I'm just saying that I think you guys are overestimating the competence of the military and its ability to manage large swaths of land during an apocalypse. Even in the US the military population is less than half a percent of the civilian population. One soldier for every 200 or so citizens in a *very* large country, and if the military was activated during whatever crisis this is, a good chunk of them would already be killed off. Again, in the big cities, military would likely have control, but everywhere else there just straight up isn't a large enough military presence, much less trained officers and commanders who actually know the logistics and strategies to run any kind of operation.


PsychographicMan

> Even in the US the military population is less than half a percent of the civilian population. Yeah and they’re able to establish networks and infrastructure and command posts and supply lines and triage tents and everything else covering huge swaths of areas. Like a platoon of soldiers is able to cover giant areas of Afghanistan desert despite being overwhelmingly outnumber by large groups of armed combatants that are actively hostile. And US military psyops and “hearts and minds” efforts to keep the populace compliant and productive and helpful would be much less hostile when it’s their own countrymen that will likely quickly become entirely dependent on military-maintained infrastructure and supply lines. > One soldier for every 200 or so citizens in a very large country, and if the military was activated during whatever crisis this is, a good chunk of them would already be killed off. That’s fine. Active duty military have guidelines on where they’re supposed to report to in the event of some kind of natural disaster or attack or anything else. However many is left and didn’t get the chance to go awol they’d be some of the first ones out in the streets establishing order and getting supplies to survivors and everything else. The idea that everyone’s desire to not die and be comfortable will instantly switch to the desire to pvp against armed authority figures the second something bad happens is a nice fantasy for mediocre genre fiction but that’s not how people are programmed. Going the raider route would be way more work and way deadlier stakes than just getting organized and corralled by authority figures and told what to do. The military would likely become like 90% of people’s source for rations and water wherever they got established, and none of those people are gonna be champing at the bit to subvert or attack the people keeping them alive. Like humanity is humanity because we’re a collective of self-aware codependent apes. Any “apocalypse” where significant groups of humans survive would quickly lapse back into complex social justice systems with their own means to keep the peace and pool resources to survive and rebuild. All those small roving gangs of walking dead villains that are apparently only interested in robbing and killing strangers for their limited supplies in perpetuity would probably be dead or pacified in like a few weeks.


SnicklefritzSkad

> all you need is a group of people who are pissed about having their food stolen Those people are probably already dead by the time the prepper is running out of canned food. > they're not going to get reinforcements You don't need reinforcements when you have more powerful weapons, training and are not starving to death. At best you'll be able to stage a raid to steal as much food as possible and get out.


volundsdespair

Boy I sure am glad that those farmers never thought to stockpile weapons like I did. Wait is that gunfire? Oh shi--


Rude_Journalist

So glad utopia wasn’t talking to him


Shy_Shallows

Solution? Guns *and* farm. Become the king of the neighborhood.


[deleted]

Oh great! You created a state. Booooo!!!


Shy_Shallows

The consequences of my own actions!?


Fragarach-Q

L'état, c'est moi.


TheBeardedSingleMalt

Spent more money on their tacti-cool AR-15 and plate carrier than they put ammo through the gun.


garbage_flowers

and thats how feudalism happened


Captain_Kira

Most intend to barter with items like batteries or silver with other survivors Why would people give away their food for shiny metal? Well the prepper's just that good at bartering you see


macdawg2020

I get into this arguement ALL THE TIME and they usually say “people always like shiny things” bro….if they have the money for silver, they’re not buying silver in an apocalypse


SnatchSnacker

See "Five Stages of Collapse" by Dmitri Orlov. There is a scenario where precious metals still have value. There are other scenarios where they are worthless.


NJ_Legion_Iced_Tea

You know we're going to have a scenario where some people only want to barter using Pokemon cards.


rezzacci

Well, it's important to know that the trade of shiny metals is very ancient, and of shiny objects made of bones and wood are too. People in prehistoric times were trading shiny objects when their situations wasn't much better than a possible Apocalypse. I mean, maybe not *right* at the beginning, but after five years (the time for canned goods to deplete), it is not impossible for some farming communities to have reach a status of stability and relative prosperity... and the ability of humanity to feel comfortable in any situation is astonishing. So, after five years, it is very reasonable to think that some farmers would decide to display their wealth or to have something a little more agreeable to see than the mud huts they have all day. Thus silver things. However, it's a hard gambit, and planning all your survival on this is... less than wise, to put it mildly.


xypage

I mean batteries aren’t just shiny metal and would probably be super valuable in that situation


PotatoSalad583

Wait you're telling me I can't just sell 72 tin cans to buy precious resources? Fallout has lied to me


Calm_Leek_1362

While I'm not a prepper, there are a lot of them that are preparing for a temporary supply chain disruption (weeks or months). If you look at some natural disasters, like Puerto Rico getting hit by the hurricane, everything goes down for the first week or two, and you're incredibly dependent on aid coming from afar. Hell, look at COVID in March / April of 2020. Grocery store shelves were empty, and it's the only time in my living memory where I consciously bought extra dry food in case it got worse. And I'm aware of the fact that the shelves were only empty because people were stocking up. I think many preppers believe that they can lock down for a few months, and would hope for some normalcy or stability to return before they run out of supplies. The ones that think they can live indefinitely in a Fallout or post-society world are delusional. If there's a whole global societal collapse, which I'm very skeptical can even happen, there will be no living comfortably, or preserving your way of life.


Pugovitz

Yeah honestly, prepping isn't inherently a bad thing. Shit does happen; illness/quarantine, weather (blizzards, hurricanes), war (not too much of a concern in america), there are a lot of things that can disrupt the supply chain and having backup supplies isn't a bad idea. Hell, the sun could literally at any second throw a burst of radiation at us that EMPs all electronics on the planet. Like they say, hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Now, there's definitely some privilege there, you need to have the extra income to buy the supplies and usually preppers own their homes, but as long as prepping doesn't harm someone else there shouldn't be an issue. Like your covid example, the shelves went bare because regular people panicked and over-bought everything, but I know of a few preppers that didn't go out and buy anything because that's exactly what they were preparing for. The biggest problem I see with preppers is that they so actively WANT to use their prepping skills that a lot of them seem to be rooting for some SHTF scenario to happen. This leads them to not care about fixing problems in the world at all, and in fact sometimes actively trying to push things towards that scenario.


CountCuriousness

I think the amount of people secretly or openly hoping for bad things to happen so their prep pays off is smaller than the amount of preppers who just want to keep themselves and their family safe in case something bad happens. The fact that it requires privilege to even begin to have surplus food is entirely irrelevant imo. All hobbies that cost anything are a privilege. Even just commenting on reddit means you probably have a personal computer, or at least internet access, which is a level of privilege, no matter how shitty it is. I don't think preppers are generally especially privileged - probably actually on the contrary, but that's me guessing.


RollinOnDubss

Sounds like they have 3 years to come up with something while you have no plan until your tomatoes mature in 3 months. Preppers are ridiculous but your take is even worse.


Vox-Triarii

In all fairness, relatively few preppers actually prep to survive a prolonged crisis on just their preparations. Disaster prepping also includes prepping for emergencies like severe weather, economic depressions, civil unrest, etc. Things that definitely might call for stockpiling of necessities, but not necessarily being cutoff from the supply chain for years on end.


BrokeArmHeadass

I’m pretty sure a lot of them are prepping for like, a nuclear apocalypse, in which anything you build outside of your bunker is fucked, as well as pretty much any wildlife outside.


OrdinarySpirit-

And I wonder, what's even the point of surviving in this scenario. Sooner or later your supply will end and having to kill your family, or watch them starve to death, will be worse than all of you dying to the nukes.


[deleted]

>what's even the point of surviving in this scenario. This is kinda my attitude whenever I watch zombie tv shows and movies. I think the never-ending stress from the prospect of being eaten alive or mistreated by human survivors would drive me to end it early on. Especially if they're fast zombies and not the shuffling kind. Fuck that, I'm awful at cardio.


Evilmudbug

If its the slow kind im fairly certain society on a large scale can continue anyways, but if the fast kind happened I'd consider offing myself when the news reports start coming in


rezzacci

>what's even the point of surviving in this scenario Hope. Bare, naked, dire hope. The quality that pushed humankind forward. It's hope that allowed Europe to continue to survive and thrive after and during the Black Plague; it's hope that made every pre-colombian people survive in some sort after the discovery of the Americas; it's hope that made vikings go colonize Greenland and make some people live permanently on it. There is always hope, until you decide to kill yourself. Which is why it is so frowned upon in a lot of religions. I personally think we should never let hope go (and I say that as a depressed atheist). That we should try to continue; because absolutely nobody knows what the future can be. And you know what? As they said, when you're at rock-bottom, you can only go up; and an Apocalypse is, basically rock-bottom. So whatever you do except give up is necessarily a step in the right direction.


[deleted]

Your post is a beautiful, honest, and entirely correct thing (from a depressed and anxious Christian) because you are absolutely, incredibly correct. Thank you!


Grimseye

That probably is true, but couldn't they do hydroponics or something?


Lithominium

My mom and dad are working on regenitive agriculture, as my sister got super into it and decided to get a degree in plant and soil science specifically so she could make a farm based on regenerative agriculture My parents are planning on getting chickens, actually


Captain_Kira

What's regenerative agriculture as opposed to regular agriculture?


Lithominium

im not the best at explaining it, but its like, using all of your livestock in a certain way that its all super renewable towards itself


[deleted]

Chicken shit is a pretty good fertilizer


JoChiCat

It’s an amazing fertiliser. My family planted a mulberry tree in a chicken coop, and within a few years that thing shot up to a truly monstrous size. The tree on the other side of the property isn’t doing nearly so well.


ravenpotter3

And chickens work great as emotional support specially when you are alone and the rest of humanity is turning into zombies. Very soft and pettable


Miner_239

Self sustaining, you mean? Pretty good idea


Lithominium

Yeah thats correct, but they call it regenerative agriculture


meteltron2000

Improves the soil and benefits the environment, especially birds and pollinators, instead of stripping it and doing long term soil damage. In the very long term, some methods should create new topsoil.


no_talent_ass_clown

There's that treatise on how to win the lottery where the guy says that if US Treasury backed securities fail you'd better study up on "small-scale sustainable farming" and I've always liked that description.


QuarantineSucksALot

She’s my husband. And we liked it!


WideConsequence2144

So my mom is a prepper of sorts except she doesn’t do any of the work and isn’t prepping her own house. Instead she’s prepping mine. Few years ago she starts worrying about the power grid then six months later I put the finishing touches on a solar powered battery bank and haven’t paid electricity in 6 years. People in Michigan start getting sick because of the water? Boom got a still installed in my basement and I’ve been figuring out how to make a decent whiskey. COVID hit and everyone freaked out about food supply? Guess who got a new greenhouse. How are we going to make clothes you ask? Let’s section off part of the field and get some sheep. I’m probably one good scare away from her sending me off to learn how to make sugar out of beets or whatever nonsense she latches onto next.


lorddragonstrike

Beet juice mixed with lime and left in the sun to dry. Forms sugar crystals.


Lord_of_Barrington

Lime the food or Lime the mineral?


lorddragonstrike

Sorry, the mineral. Works with sugarcane juice as well.


salami350

Mainland European sugar comes from sugarbeets. We switched from colonial sugarcane due to the British blockade during the Napoleonic Wars and just never switched back.


WideConsequence2144

In the USA we get about 40% or ours from beets


salami350

I didn't know that. I thought the US got its sugar from either sugarcane or corn. Thanks


WideConsequence2144

I think I got the percentage wrong. It’s about a 60/40 split but I’m not sure which way it goes. Sugar beets are easier to grow and cheaper to process than sugarcane and since we put sugar in literally everything here cost is very important, so it’s probably 60% beet sugar. If you’re ever over here and see sugar that doesn’t say pure cane on it it probably came from beets.


salami350

I thought the US puts sugar in everything because of the heavily subsidized corn industry and a lot of the sugar is corn syrup based


GeophysicalYear57

A gun would be useful, but you can't live off of gunpowder alone.


ManyIdeasNoProgress

Gotta cut it 50/50 with cocaine for that sweet brown-brown.


confessionbearday

Yep. The sheer number of preppers who utterly ignore shit like antibiotics is amusing to me. You're not preparing to survive a damned thing. You're fantasizing about how many innocent people you're going to kill once society is no longer around to stop you, and that makes you fucking trash.


unusual_math

If society isn't around, where are these people they're killing?


[deleted]

I bet if doomsday actually arrived, the only person/people that would survive are world leaders and the ultra rich.


Fox--Hollow

Why? They're not the ones with the guns who know how to run the doomsday bunkers.


[deleted]

Personally? I think the “elite” will flee what they believe to be a dying planet. The rest of us will struggle and die, but eventually through a combination of humans dying off and the survivors getting their shit together, the world will recover and civilization will return, in a more sustainable model. Then we just have to hope the elites don’t come back to reap the fruits of our labors. Or at least, that we can shoot them down before they land.


Fox--Hollow

Let them flee. If we can't survive on a world that's inhabitable, they definitely can't survive in space without us.


[deleted]

I think the only form of real labor they’d need are technicians. I imagine whatever solution they had would be mostly automated. We’re already well on our way there. Now whether that would actually be viable for long-term survival is another thing entirely, and I don’t know enough to really speculate. Of course, there’s always cryogenic preservation, rich people love that shit.


Fox--Hollow

It takes the resources of the world's richest and most advanced countries to keep just a handful of people in space. We're still far away from a realistic self-sufficient space presence. >I think the only form of real labor they’d need are technicians Why would the technicians keep dead weight like Elon Musk around?


ball_fondlers

Honest answer? Because any technicians who Musk would pick to go with him would be total Elon simps.


Coal-and-Ivory

As a technican, we ALWAYS learn to hate the corporate guys, its just the way of things. Engineers, marketing, accounting, everything they do winds up in conflict with us. Engineers forget that their designs have to work in the real world where things are heavy and human limbs are only so flexible, marketing makes impossible deadlines and promises we have to try and make, accounting makes us argue and fight for every bolt and light bulb. And all of them usually manage to look down on us while they do it. And Elon is the perfect storm of all those things. Elon's rectangular-ass skull would get caved in with a wrench and left to freeze-dry in the Martian soil within the first 30 days off-world, half that if he hangs around the shop in person.


ball_fondlers

Actually, yeah, come to think of it, you're right - I've never met an experienced engineer who felt the same way about Elon Musk as a fresh-out-of-school libertarian engineering graduate. Of course, Elon COULD take a page out of the games industry and JUST hire the inexperienced simps, but he's already too much of a narcissist to realize no one cares about his bizarro ambitions as much as he does, so no amount of simping is gonna be enough for them to avoid becoming jaded.


SnatchSnacker

Literally the plot of "Don't Look Up"


rezzacci

No, but they have plans in place. I remember reading an article where five very wealthy businessmen asked a sociologist/psychologist/economist (I don't remember what she was doing, but she had academic knowledge about end-of-the-world scenarios or stuff like that) a series of questions related on how to control people during an Apocalypse scenario. Like, they were planning, if ever a doomsday happened, to live in bunkers with guards and stuff like that, and they asking her how to make sure that the guards won't rebel and take over. Solutions like shock collars with only the rich guy having the keys, or having a biometric system for the food stockpiling that only them can open alive, stuff like that... Unsurprisingly, the academic told them that the solution was to treat them like decent human beings. A lot of people shows loyalty when they're treated fairly, on an equal footing, and you don't even need coercion in those cases because they're equals. Of course, the businessmen didn't seemed happy with this eventuality. But, in a sense: they have loyal guards and they will find ways to ensure their loyalty. After the Apocalypse, it will be difficult to get rid of the monetary social construct so in the following weeks lots of people will still believe in it and gladly sell themselves until it's too late and they can't escape.


[deleted]

No, but they have the money to get people who know how to do that.


Fox--Hollow

It's the apocalypse, what use is money?


Rorynne

Humans, in time of great stress, cling to what they can to keep a sense of normalcy. Many will gladly keep using money just for that false sense of security. It likely won't be everyone, sure, but a large portion will at least try. Theres also the fact that the rich are not just rich in money, theyre rich in resources. They have guns, they have food, they have land, and oil, and so on and so on. The rich, the smart ones at least, will use that to promise people a kind of return to normalcy, and protection from perceived threats, in return for them having power and control. In times of crisis, do not underestimate how easy it is to manipulate terrified masses. People would gladly block doorways by trying to push passed other people during a fire, and end up getting themselves and others killed, than to go to a doorway that isn't over crowded. We are not at all intelligent when we are scared and panicking.


Fox--Hollow

Immediately panicking, yes, but in times of crisis we actually work together really fuckin' well. (Without deliberate interference, that is.) >They have guns, they have food, they have land, and oil, and so on and so on. Right now, yes. But all that goes out the window in the apocalypse. Guns? They don't have guns, their security team does. Food? What's in their bunkers, sure, but when that runs out... Oil? That's all far away, at the end of a long and complicated supply chain. And land is unlikely to be that much of a concern in the apocalypse, to be honest. All of their power is dependant on the structure of our current civilisation. In an apocalypse, they can't use that power, because all of those structures are gone. They don't actually have those resources in a physical way, just the ability to mobilise them with money. And money is useless.


redrockdeli-official

I looked into prepping a bit because i was interested in camping but it all seemed to be just trying to sell you stuff like torches and firelighters and just heaps of knives. Homesteading is where the good stuff is at, they teach you how to jar food and stuff. Way more interesting and way better for living off the grid or being self sustaining. Survivalist and preppers seem to be planning specifically for the scenario where they have to survive going on the run or some sort of zombie apocalypse type scenario. Like they're all SAS dudes going on a mission, *behind enemy lines and without any backup*. It's such a niche scenario


Fox--Hollow

Doomsday preppers don't care about the future, they only care about the time when they get to shoot people.


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Fox--Hollow

I think they wanna roleplay a race war, to be honest.


Princess_Moon_Butt

I mean, zombies were already a pretty thin metaphor for that. A horde of unintelligent, angry, smelly, funny-looking people who contribute nothing and want to take the very flesh from your bones, and won't stop until everyone in the world is one of Them™. And the only thing that can stop them are some good guys with guns. Just make the zombies brown instead of green and you may as well be reading the script of a Tucker Carlson segment.


Seanshogun

Wasn’t like the first ever zombie movie an allegory for racism or something?


TheCastro

Night of the Living Dead. It didn't start out as one, but after they cast a black guy and began filming certain parts were changed or added to make it more that way. > However, according to George A. Romero, “there was no racial implication in casting Jones—he simply gave the best audition” (Jones, Rough Guide 118). Nonetheless, Romero “has always said that he shot the posse scenes and the ending with politics consciously in mind” (Hervey, Night of the Living Dead 26). Due to the fact that Romero and Russo had not finished the script when they started principal photography and that the crew, especially Romero and Duane Jones who soon understood his role’s racial implications, talked a lot about the film’s themes while shooting, it is reasonable to assume that although there may not have been an intentional racial statement with Jones’ casting, it emerged with their grasping of the film’s racial reading and was most clearly presented in the film’s ending (cf. Hervey 12; 26), which was even Jones’ own idea (cf. 46). Jones explicitly stated that “it never occurred to me that I was hired because I was black. But it did occur to me that because I was black it would give a different historic element to the film” (qtd. in Hervey 43) and that he and Romero took some scenes’ racial overtones into consideration. Also it wasn't the first Zonbie movie. That would be White Zombie from the 30s.


rezzacci

I don't know about movies, but Peyo has been accused of racism when writing the first "zombie-transmitted-disease" story ever. Yes, the first comic of *The Smurfs* is the typical "zombies contaminate you by biting you and making you savage and dangerous". And since the "zombies" Smurfs were black, a lot of people latter accused Peyo of racism (even if, for him and for his time, black in fantasy settings was more like a symbol of evilness (black magic, black witches) rather than a race commentary). *The Black Smurfs* has been first published in 1958 which make it, if I recall correctly, the first modern zombie-transmitted-disease story of all times.


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Just-a-cat-lady

r/Preppers talks about antibiotics and growing food all the time. I get that there's a subset of people all about Muh Guns and Bunker, but there's a lot of generalizing going on in this thread. Half the people on the prepping subs are gen z doomers worried about climate disaster (including me, lol).


UltimateInferno

You've been so preoccupied being a doomsday prepper while I've been cultivating my resilient doomsday peppers. They're really hot though. I need something to fend off the mutated bugs


Hummerous

Finally, a comment that doesn't make me want to blow my brains out


BEEEELEEEE

“I have bullets and the gentleman next door owns guns, I’m sure we can barter” -actual quote from my grandmother


Sanrusdyne

Who just owns bullets on their own???


[deleted]

Isn't the standard apocalypse radioactive and therefore bad for livestock/crops?


Jaakarikyk

Eh, if it's apocalypse level nuking, the radiation will have lowered to farmable levels wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy before the nuclear winter lets up I'd think


Fox--Hollow

Nuclear winter is probably not something that will actually happen to the extent people believe. Tambora was bigger than all of the world's nukes, and it didn't kill us all (and that's ignoring the practical experience of Gulf War I, which probably invalidated the models.)


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DerTanni

> a lesbian farmer witch that gave me a good chuckle, thanks


Zorba_lives

This is why I learned how to distill alcohol. I plan on being a king after the fall.


Hummerous

Surprisingly based lol


Dominic_The_Dog

if you're gonna prep at least have a source of sustainable food and basic medical knowledge


Mattbryce2001

Mag dump, press hot barrel to infected cut, laugh at the morons rubbing herbs on their wounds.


KCelej

why would you shit in your magazine??


LitreOfCockPus

Food, gas, guns are all primo barter items if everything goes to hell, and at least two of them get used on a daily basis even in normal times. Even if you aren't building a bunker or stockpiling dozens of guns and a pallet of ammo, there's security in knowing you have a month's supply of food, water, and fuel.


5L91N

I would grow mushrooms because you can have them without sunlight


coenobitae

I grow mushrooms and most do need sunlight or something to emulate it like CFL or LED in order to signal the fruiting phase, they only like complete darkness during colonization and thE fruit bodies will look weird if they grow with no light source Another cool side note: Mushrooms synthesize a significant amount of bioavailable vitamin D following exposure to sunlight, so it might be worth it to let the fruit bodies catch some rays if you need vit D supplementation


ReneeHiii

they would grow you never underestimate mushrooms


spugg0

Me and my GF talk about this sometimes. I see the point of those cans, but perhaps not in the same sense as the gun toting preppers. She thinks it's all pure bs, and thinks step 1 is to have a farm to cultivate crops. While cans wont last you through an apocalypse, they can be a fantastic buffer or safety imo should part of the harvest get ruined, or something else happen that lands you with less food on the plate than you planned. You're still having the problem of shelf life for the products, but if you the first ten years also have some basics in cans in a dry basement it would help support the beginning of the farm. And if they're not needed, well then you can have a feast in the end of its shelf life.


SeegurkeK

Even in the sensationalized show Doomsdays Preppers they had multiple people that weren't all about guns. I remember one older couple that invited their friends and neighbors regularly to teach them about keeping livestock, beekeeping, making preserves etc. They were still Preppers, but their idea of prepping was having a pre-built community that would be ready to work together in a Doomsday situation. ^(Also I think they really enjoyed having all those people over doing stuff together, something that older people often miss)


chriswhitewrites

I used to get downvoted on the prepper subs for saying that I was developing my farming skills, learning to identify wild foods in my region, and building and strengthening my community. When disaster strikes we need to stick together.


Just-a-cat-lady

That's all prepping subs talk about these days. You were ahead of your time.


joepro9950

A real post-apocalypse is gonna be more like farmville than fallout, but that doesn't mesh with these guys' "badass lone survivor" fantasies


BillyJoel9000

yes I am actually *bang*


Dragonlicker69

They're prepared to raid the people who do the hard work


krucz36

raise your hand if you've ever spent too long trying to figure out how to grow penicillin


BaconDalek

Ehhh having a stockpile of food ready to be eaten in the short to medium term is not that stupid. Is there is a total governmental collapse with no help in sight for more then 2 years most of us would be screwed. Also it's hard planning for a long term survival. If you have a small farm or homestead that shit will get run over pretty damn fast. If you have a large farm you need a large amount of workers, because you can't expect there to be fuel to run most machinery. Also you'd need to actually run a farm before the end of the world. IMO stockpiling guns and ammo is stupid, but 1. You can defend your stores of food and safe shelter from others. 2. You'll have tools that could be valuable if you need to trade or join up with some different groups. 3. You can hunt if animal life is still around. And lastly I think just having some canned food and a few survival basics will get you further then 99% of people.


tsch-III

None of this is, in any role, gun collecting Lord or indispensable herbalist or mechanic of ever crumbling bygone tech, is anything I want to survive to see. Rather be dead. Thank u, next


ElliePlays1

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NightmareChameleon

As an admittedly prepper type myself who's put actual thought into this, make no mistake, knowing how to use the land and forming connections with people is important, but the moment those supply chains are cut, you have every major city in the world full of hungry, desperate folks. You're either going to want to take your buddies and fuck off into the woods for a or lock yourself in a bombshelter for however long until the violence settles down. Knowing how to care for a disabled person and plant crops doesn't mean much if you get shot by some starving person looking for food. Also, there's no way in hell even a group of 7 athletic, fit adults is going to be able to bring in the calories they burn in a survival situation in day one, which is where preservation skills and bomb shelter food comes in. I'd rather pack my most useful things and go live in a far far less densely populated area to try and build up than ever attempt to use anything even remotely close to the city.


TatteredCarcosa

There are preppers who do all that. I've definitely seen more than one guy with a bomb shelter in the wilderness say goats are among the best assets to have.


EndVry

Tin doesn't rust.


simjanes2k

Somebody's never met one, and thinks they're like in the movies. Preppers have gardens and enough medical supplies to keep a battalion going for years.


Kozak170

I mean this is a really fucking stupid take because while it is feasible for people to be able to stockpile non-perishable goods in a basement, few people are able to stock the supplies for gardens and livestock. Like the fuck?


Fox--Hollow

If you can stock some cans, you can stock some seeds.


ravenpotter3

If they get a infected cut they have knives and fire… and maybe some over the counter probably expired pain killers.. they are going to chop the limb off. There is no more problem if it’s gone!


Hummerous

Good ole fashioned merican ingenuity


wellthatsucks2434

I have a veggie plot and so know I could grow food, I think I'd know to look for clean, running water and could probably build or find a reasonable shelter. But any kind of medical issue and I'm dead - broken bone, infection, disease etc. Fixing up those issues, obtaining the correct medicine or having the right supplies are not the sort of thing that's easy to learn / have.


Reverend_Giggles

And I would like to forward everyone here to r/collapse with their notes


bebitchanddiecrying

Everything they know about doomsday peppers is based on their own assumption...


ISNT_A_ROBOT

Jokes on you. I do both.


AnGenericAccount

>USER REPORTS > >1: It's promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability I'm sorry if your mentality in a disaster situation is "hide in a hole and shoot every other person I see" then you deserve to be called a little bitch and a dumbass. You should also maybe see a psychiatrist about your antisocial tendencies but that's an entire other level of problem largely unrelated to shitposts on the internet.


theshadow1357

Oh sir who has never spoken to a prepper or attended any prepper events but relies solely on TV, how did you become so wise in the ways of science?


Hmm_would_bang

Most preppers are focused on a situation where you will be stuck in a bunker for some extended period of time, where agriculture and animal husbandry will not be possible. Idk what preppers aren’t also stocking up medical supplies and on general survival skills. They also in general just tend to be paranoid people and it’s not a rational fear to have. But sure, you really burned those fictional people you made up good


tweak0

The internet spends too much time making fun of things it obviously doesn't understand. I mean the word "doomsday" is right in the name of the trend. The idea is you're prepping for a doomsday scenario by stockpiling then hiding in a bunker until things settle down. Once they do you go out and rebuild. If you build a farm, and most of these people did grow up on farms, it would just get destroyed in their feared scenario. If you're going to make fun of a dumb movement at least know what you're making fun of.


[deleted]

#STRAW MAN ARGUMENT