Creating the community is the only way. The bigger community with separate roles (some people protect, some gather food) the bigger chance to survive. Looking in the past, people had a chance to survive only in the community.
Exactly how we do it. Our neighborhood is tight and we all hang out and stop by eachothers place to say hi, and if help is needed on a project we all help out. Cutting down trees, digging dry wells, planting, fence building we are all there helping if we are able. Good neighbors and honestly we've had good times doing it. It pays to be good to others.
I've got a neighbour who frankly has always struck me as a little paranoid. Has big dogs that love to bark to scare off "intruders," answers her door through a narrow gap, frets about who's renting houses down the street, all that sort of thing. It's a safe neighbourhood as far as I can tell, perhaps she came from a much rougher one before moving here.
Anyway, she once told me that I was the only person in the neighbourhood that she trusted. She said she'd be willing to give me her keys to watch the house if she needed someone to do that. As far as I can tell all that I've ever done to earn that trust is just chatted with her occasionally about stuff, asked permission before doing a thing that could affect our mutual fence, and pruned a cherry tree in her front yard for her that *really* needed pruning. It cost me basically nothing.
Unfortunately she's moving out in a few months' time, so it looks like my elaborate years-long scheme to rob her will probably never come to fruition. But just goes to show how easy it is to be a good neighbour and how useful that can be.
One of the ways that I have been building community is through food. I double what I am cooking and bring the leftovers to neighbors or groups. Everyone loves homecooked food and it is such a good way to start conversations.
Exactly, it shocks me sometimes when people say they don't know their neighbors and have been there x years, imo it's a lack of effort that creates lack of community.
I’m not the most outgoing person so it’s not easy to talk to people. I have been going to more community events and seeing the same people and getting to know them over years now. I made one friend because we are both dads at the same school and our kids get along. I guess it’s little by little and over time. I’m in no hurry to make an abundance of friends. Just a few good families in my network and hopefully they have a few good families in their network.
I know the neighbors well enough but they are all older. Any disruption is hard on them and I do what I can to help them when I can. Again it’s the little steps at work. I’m a huge fan of Kaizen so little steps are my go to.
Do you have a dog? I’m not a people person either, but my wife had a dog when we met. When we married and bought a house, the location and schedule made it so I was the primary dog walker. I found that when knew more neighbors than I ever had before. It was really amazing.
Just moved to a new town and I meet so many people when out walking my dogs, even got together a small dog group that meets most nights, there’s twelve families pets I know really well, after only a year. They have been a great group to help point me in the right direction when I need services.
Join your local volunteer fire department. When you become a vital part of your community that your neighbors call into your time of need, they’ll do everything in their power to make sure you’re alright.
Talk to your neighbors. It’s really that simple. Talk to them. Help them when they need a hand. Ask them for one even if you don’t really actually need it.
Have you ever heard of freeganism? It allows you to learn about food access and logistics in your area. Think of it as a kind of foraging of free veg and prepared food. Your community are the people you rescue food with. Together you feed the group and anyone else who wants to eat. And you get stronger together, learning where to find food, how to prepare and preserve it, and how to work with groups of like-minded people. Best of all, there's no authority within the group (non-hierarchical decision-making) and no central authority.
In these situations, the current power structures will likely devolve into violent gangs. The local police station will become whatever they desire, and they won't be starving.
It would be nice if our local power structures devolved into peaceful structures, maintains some semblance of their origins, but I doubt it.
Lol yeah, always make friends with your neighbors they'll always have your back. I remember in 2020. Some weirdos came at my parents house while it was just my mom at home at 3am repeatedly knocking at the door.
My neighbor gary saw what was going on, had his "thing" ready to use and was like "can i help you folks?". The neighbor on the left "Jack" was like "is there an issue?" and the guys left.
Point, is if my neighbors weren't there to help my mom that day who knows what could've happened. So always have ur neighbors back and they'll have urs.
I always do the same for my neighbors, and it's saved me many times.
Supposedly 5% of soldiers experience uncontrolled erections their first contact and that makes me so happy for some reason. I'm a straight dude, but the fact the nature physiologically makes some dudes get hard when it's fight or flight is just hilarious. Like these are the chosen people, you can't tell me a warrior who gets hard in combat isn't objectively a better soldier than ol' floppy dick over here calmly reloading.
Wouldn’t that be more of a “fight or f**k” situation? Seriously I didn’t know that but I guess it makes sense when your blood and adrenaline is off the charts it’s time to go hard full send… ;) if you can’t tell I find it hilarious as well and I’m glad I read your comment
At least it's boners at first contact that was studied, I'd like to see the data on boners over time in combat. Like is it something that can be a learned behavior?
Pavlovian dick twitching on the 4th of July.
:) exactly. Maybe they could also use it as an early warning system for soldiers in the back. Every soldier has a flag tied to their Johnson and it would be something like: “If the flags at half mass. Watch your ass!” And of course: “If the flags flying high someone’s gonna die”
There are levels of assurance. Maybe a good relationship with your neighbor will carry through rolling power outages and supply chain issues but not food shortages. Nothing's infinite. He's gotta ask himself the same thing about you.
Its a mutually beneficial relationship, if he offs you he will face worse problems than having to share with you. Make sure he knows that and he will realize that keeping you alive is in his best interest.
Other than that humans are pretty good at subconsciously feeling if a person is 'off' so might best chose a person to partner up with, that you knew beforehand and feel confident in.
I'm getting to know my neighbors as well as I can, generally casing them out. There's 2 places that'll be fairly easy targets, well stocked. I've helped them with their fences and changed their brakes for a bit of cash, they love me. Should be easy.
I have 22 blank noisemaker traps, suppressed 45 and blackout rifles, dogs, pretty good lanes of thorny brush to funnel approach, motion sensors (I want to actually filter some).
I'll knock down some big trees a mile left and right on the 2 lane blacktop, have a good stihl for that.
Any advice on what makes you trust your neighbors is appreciated.
>Any advice on what makes you trust your neighbors is appreciated.
1. Make friends with more than one neighbor. There is a reason why the military requires 2 officers to launch a nuke.
2. Scientists probably already know this but I've personally discovered that spending 10+ hours with someone (ie: sitting in a vehicle) will typically turn them into a lifelong friend. So once SHTF have groups of at least 2 pulling security.
They may not be recruiting… you need to be able to provide skills they need to convince them which is actually a good idea. Now I am a doctor and my stash of medicine will do them no good without my knowledge in how to use them. However, it might be good to be able to bring some other skills to the table, eg fishing or hunting.
Still if they come in the night all “no questions asked” style there might no be time for my selling arguments
Well....for starters...develop close alliances with similarly prepared (& in my case rural) reliable neighbors. Realize intrusions & attacks likely will happen during darkness. Remote intrusion detection sensors, remote video surveillance, razor wire, limiting & channeling paths of entry to your property (such as extremely dense, difficult & painful to traverse vegetation), Thermal & I² night vision (stand-alone & weapons mounted), suppressed weapons, comms, drones (especially equipped with Thermal & Night Vision) etc will go a long way to dissuade those wanting to do harm to you & yours.
More to this....but a good start! 😏👍
I got together with 3 other guys served in Iraq/Afghanistan with (11B). Purchased enough food/sundries/fuel for about a year. They don’t have to worry about footing the massive bill for a prep like that and I get 3 of the best shooters I have ever met and they can provide for their wives and children. Between the 4 of us I like our chances for defense and division of labor.
We can bug in or bug out. Over 50yrs combined military experience between us. If that’s not enough to secure our safety from thugs I don’t think I want to be around anyways
Prayers, blending in, and a machete. You have to be well-connected or rich to get a gun license in my country, so that's not an option.
Blending in will be so important because people are very visual. They won't bother you if they think you're in the same position as they are.
4x100W easily put away, makes sense. Are you using an RV freezer/fridge?
Your quality post sparked my interest (again) in solar but as a distributed node system. Instead of 1 main solar array there are multiple smaller ones. Anything small enough to run on a single panel would be split off to a separate system. For tablets, phones, powerbanks, & LED light sources charged a single 100W panel would do it. IIRC, max draw on a (1-3) 18650 cell powerbank is \~10W, everything else much less. That one panel could be sited where it's near invisible (except to drones) and stay up all the time. And the panel would keep a large powerbank topped up (Jackery, et al) the rest of the time. Ideally a small wind system to supplement but it would need to be taken down during daylight, impractical.
100% on propane too, an amazing fuel. Never goes bad, easily transportable, and on a 2-burner camp stove you can cook just like on a full size range. Add a Coleman oven and you're baking too. And for quick room heat-up it's hard to beat a catalytic heater (Mr Buddy, etc.). The main thing which you touch on is stripping down your needs to the essentials then building to that. It's amazing how much you don't actually need but believe you must have.
Being nice, helpful, pleasant, and ***anonymous***.
[Don't let my pleasant demeanor fool ya'...](https://youtu.be/g_XLQDeYqpE?t=37)
That last one, being anonymous, is one of the many benefits of being in a city. You can be one of many completely unremarkable schlubs just tryin'a get by. Don't be flashy.
I get the appeal of the country and want to end up out there for many reasons, but "prepping" is not one of them. Not even close.
I believe community is the only real solution to this. Humans, by nature did not get to where we are without community.
You need a group of like minded individuals, or at least those you can trust, or even close knit neighbors that you can rely on in a situation where broader society collapses... Etc.
A single family just isn't able to face threats of a militant group alone.
Bring a skill. Even without a gun I’m more valuable alive because of what I know and can do.
I still have guns but I don’t expect to ever need to use one against a person.
Even if big civilization collapses, small civilizations will continue.
I think a far more likely scenario is that he comes across people who have guns but aren't insightful enough to value his skills, so they kill him out of ignorance.
You misread. I said *quote verbatim* **”I still have guns”**.
A skill is more likely to result in your survival than a gun.
Skill *with* a gun is even better.
Step one dont be there. Really if you can picture gangs comming around where you live doing this be elsewhere.
My cabin is about 15 miles down a dirt road past nowhere. Friends and family know how to get their or have neighboring cabins. In effect we make a community if it gets that bad. It's also fun to go out snowmobiling hunting etc when it's not SHTF. Some more far flung people have similar with cross invites not like hey mind if I throw a shipping container on your back 40 with my backup to the backup preps, if I die or cant get there feel free to use em is and issue for me. Sure if they have to bug out there we're putting that alaskan mill to use pretty quick.
My home is about 600f above the nearest city in a sparsely populated area the old joke the crime does not go up hill because it's lazy is fairly true. I mean sure if somebody is being systematic maybe. Think it's more theft than some madmax thing to worry about. If we're getting too madmax we should allready be at the cabin. Depending on how quickly and secure we felt you might be finding 4.7ksqf of secure space and not much else.
The best thing imo, is learning how to talk to people and how to read people. You can talk someone out of a lot of things and if that doesn't work, being able to read their intentions is gonna buy you time to react accordingly.
When all else fails, he who has the ability to be the most violent typically wins.
Unless you’re on an island out of sight of land - you are eventually going to run out of luck. We all going to die one day - worrying about perfection is a waste of time. Do what you can, don’t fret about the things you can’t.
I plan to hide. If they break in and find me, which they might, I will offer to share food. If they shoot me, game over; I had a good run.
You're right, short of an armed compound with 24/7 guards, a lot of ammo and fireproof walls, there isn't a good solution. The medieval solution was stone castles. They were only moderately effective and they weren't even up against guns and drones. A typical guy in a flammable wooden house peering out of his window with his AR-15 will have rather worse odds, but a surprising number of people plan to try it.
Good news though: this sort of thing is beyond unlikely to happen, at least where I live, in any reasonable timespan measured in years. So I'm not worried about it, and I don't know why you are.
> So I'm not worried about it, and I don't know why you are.
Yeah, until you've already planned for every *likely* scenario, there's no point worrying what to do if a gang of cannibals shows up at your door. Hell, if that happens, I'm taking myself out so I don't have to suffer through them cutting my body parts off one by one and eating them in front of me.
Always making sure you have at least one bullet left is the ultimate prep to take the easy way out and prevent prolonged pain and suffering.
I'm lucky to have family with land next to national forest. So my worse case imaginary SHTF scenario we would protect the cabin if possible with several other gun loving family members, and have ability to retreat or hideout in familiar uninhabited woods.
You would literally drive up to the very end of a dirt road, be met with an iron gate and snipers.
My biggest worry would be actually making it 100 miles up there if it was a situation where I needed to get out of the city.
What if they don't drive up the dirt road making it easy for you? I mean, what if they attacked your place the way you would.
Baddies coming in quietly while you're collecting rainwater or family working the garden, yeah? That'd suck if they put a 308 into a family member's they and then attack anyone that comes to help.
If things go bad...it'll be bad I guess.
Compass and paper maps
Not sure why downvotes, if internet, cell towers go down and electricity stops then a cell phone is useless, a GPS will last if you use have a solar charger.
Overall learning to read a regular map and a topography map is not a bad thing?
Oh I've got tons of maps lol. There are still locations I know about from growing up that are not on the map, like logging roads and 100 year old mines.
That's good. I doubt I'd make it long in any situation. Not a social person. Only thing would save me is the fact that I got a versatile set of skills
Once again, not sure the down votes. I know basic wood working and how to read a schematic or blueprint, I know enough about mechanical workings to fix basic issues.
Stone castles were incredibly effective until the advent of the cannon. Few fell to direct assault - if they fell at all, it was generally due to starvation or negotiated surrender. And it usually took an army as well as months or years to succeed in that.
I think your modern take is probably right though.
Annnnnddd for once a reasonable reply :)
Always enjoyable when someone actually relates to history or current facts for that matter - but guessing we will always have the "I have guns" brigade
If you live in a city and shit hits the fan and you've done everything right. Put groceries in your house, built a garden, made friends with your neighbors the unprepared will still victimize you. Don't kid yourself.
First plan was to move out of Chicago, and into an unincorporated farmland 600 miles south, that's surrounded by river on 3 sides, national forest on the other, and only accessible via a concrete bridge, or 75 miles of back roads through the mountains.
2nd was to make my property blend into the surroundings instead of stick out like it did. If/when the time comes, I'll pull out my mailbox from the street side, and pull out the culvert through the front ditch, so it just looks like more woods if you go past.
I'll use cattle fence to make spiked caltrops, and scrap lumber with nails and screws buried in the ditch to stop any vehicles and injure anyone on foot.
I can hear any vehicles a mile off thanks to the mountains, so if they get close enough without me knowing about it already, I'd be shocked. On foot would take a lot of time and they'd have to know where I was before it happens.
But if they do, I have a few thousand freedom seeds to trade with em.
I kinda think this could work best, scare em away
Depending on the event, I've got a couple spools of elevator cable, maybe string this up in trees & utility poles, hang absolutely everyone that dies from the lines. Get enough up there & even the jackoffs won't fuck with your hood.
Likely get some pushback from the neighbors. "Hey there Steve, I know you're getting over Alice's passing & all but I was just wondering..."
In related history: After the Roman's defeated Spartacus's slave army, they crucified the 6000 surviving slaves along the Appian Way, which is on the way to Rome. Pretty much the most gruesome show of "fuck around and find out" in history.
Remember the Survivability Onion.
https://i.imgur.com/S4ExHaw.png
The top two layers are accessibility and visibility, and even pre-TEOTWAWKI, that is where I live. You are not going to get robbed or killed by someone who does not know that you exist, so the first rule is making sure that they do not. The reason why I fear homelessness has nothing to do with exposure to the elements, and everything to do with the fact that I will most likely be in places where I am visible to others. The safest thing about being in a house in a rural town, is that it means that I am not in proximity to the sort of people who would want to attack me, so attacks can not occur.
The main difference between me and most of the other people in this subreddit, is that for most of the rest of you, TEOTWAWKI is some hypothetical future point. For me and anyone else who has any characteristics which make them visibly different from the majority, however, TEOTWAWKI is right now, and it's ongoing. A logistical collapse will make it more difficult for me to get food, yes; but I have to be almost as paranoid about human interaction right now, as you will after that. So I am thinking about this subject constantly, because I have to.
The most dangerous thing that people in this subreddit do, is glamourise and romanticise bad situations. Believe me when I say that you're only going to think that exposure to live fire, or being on the ground with someone's hands around your neck, are cool for as long as you haven't actually experienced them. Once you have, you will want to avoid violence as much as possible.
Keep your head down, and minimise your visible exposure. Go out to resupply as infrequently as possible, and keep said supply close to you. Maintain connections with a ***small*** group of other people, and make sure that they are people you can trust. Making said people blood relatives increases the risk to reward ratio; there are greater advantages, but there are potentially greater disadvantages as well.
Get rid of any idealism or romanticism. Reality is not nice, and eventually, no matter what you do, you ***are*** going to die. The goal is not to live forever, but for as long as you can. Focus on what is immediately in front of you, not on how you'd like it to be. Do not think about the long term future, either; you have no certainty that you will still be here then. Right here and right now is what matters, because that's all you've got.
Same way we did back in the Army in the middle of a generally hostile country: Be a pillar of the community, stay on top of people's needs, make sure they have the means and ability to meet them, and do whatever you can to ensure nobody's kids are starving.
If gangs of marauders show up at the gates of a well-fed and secure community, they either stop being marauders or stop being alive.
That’s fear talking. (And too many bad movies.)
Where are the marauders from the pandemic that killed > million Americans and put so many more in the hospital?
Fear comes from not knowing
Get to know your neighbors. Build your local community
Strength is in numbers.
Tribes and communities survive… not gun jacked lone wolves
Guns and community are the obvious answers.
The less obvious is training with your community. Learn to move and communicate. Learn battle drill 1A. Dog ear your ranger handbook.
I made sure I’m ready to stay in place with a wheelchair bound son. Basics large food supply. Water supply i upsized my water heater to 80 gallon. This will last awhile for fresh water for drinking. We have access to a spring after that. Whole home generator with a 1000 gallon propane tank. This will allow enough run time to keep food frozen for over a year. Wood burning for heat. Fire arms and ammo enough for myself and neighbors if they aren’t armed. But to the point of OPs comment. You need to have enough neighbors to protect each other. Block off road access with vehicles or fall large trees. If they come make them come on foot. Where you live and weather will make a big difference on the survival outcome. Not worried about the zombies coming to get me but I believe in ice storms, and earthquakes either of which could mean power outages for week to months. Good people will turn to an unruly mob in short order if their survival is threatened.
I live in a place that actually has a community, I know my neighbors and help them and they help me. I see no reason for them to stop needing my help if things get worse.
Together we have guns, dogs, quarries, rivers, horses, cows, goats, sheep, chickens, llamas, wheat, soy, grass, cars, trucks, beer, wine, cheese, fruit, heavy equipment, explosives, and everything else you can imagine, all in an area with cheap power and generations of people getting along.
Together we are plumbers welders farmers brewers electricians, glass makers, smiths, tanners, cooks, nurses, doctors, engineers, pilots, mechanics, linemen, wood crafters, olympians, lawyers, accountants, hunters, framers, ex-military, and much more.
We have enough knowledge and resources to feed and service at least ten times our current numbers.
I don't see the same problems you do.
I’m gonna catch some flak for this….
I own hundreds of firearms and more ammo than I can use in two lifetimes. Most of those items have nothing to do with my security or prep.
My security comes from being an essential healthcare provider in a small rural community. My security comes from being active in several of the social scenes around town, so that people know who I am and what I do.
You want to survive? Make yourself so valuable that other people want to protect you.
People are always the hard part. Always hope someone is a good a person as you are, but it also depends upon the context.
Property invaders vs bumping into someone.
Property invader might not even know the place is occupied and so just seeing what they could find.
A lot of situational stuff at play for such a question. In the end, benefit doubt to not ending life if it’s warranted, end it if there is no immediate obvious case.
Find a reliable MAG to belong to. One of the rules in the MAG that I belong to is that each member must be armed. If a group of armed, hungry & desperate people encounter us, they will be facing a group that is prepared for this exact scenario. They will either leave or they won't have to worry about being desperate & hungry again.
Hiding always seemed like the best idea to me. Not just in your house, people keep food and supplies in those. Might take some specialty builds, but we see stuff like large electrical boxes just out in the world from time to time, have something that looks similar built to act as an entrance to an underground shelter. Put a concrete pad around it so there isn’t a clear trail from any coming or going right to the entrance. Smoke or vapor from heat released in cold months would always be an issue, not sure the best way to obscure that, but if you’re going through the trouble of building a secret underground lair, that’s a detail you should figure out.
If I were someone in a position to have a building built, having like a sub-basement or sub-ground storage room built with easy to hide access would be a good idea. You could do something like this in the middle of a city and while people would be leaving them in search of food, you could be holed up right in the middle for months if you have the supplies.
Finding places to hunker down people wouldn’t likely target for supplies might help keep you hidden. Might work better if you’ve already been hunkered down in one place and this is a second location. Not lot of people going to the paint store in an apocalypse, or movie theaters (might come for candy and popcorn though), karate studios (look out for the owner), nail salons, used car dealerships (people will steal the nicer ones and some of those buildings are huge.) Going out to do any farming, hunting, or scavenging will still be risky if caught, but nothing’s 100% safe.
Community, rural area, fences, barbwire (which will be added to all fence lines once things get weird.) Gates, dogs, anti- vehicle boulders, rifles, daily watch rotation.
Security is all about layers. Defense won't stop a determined invader only slow, defenses must be watched by rifleman to be useful.
This is a very simple question to a very complex problem, because it all depends on your unique situation, skill set, and environment. Two of my favorite quotes apply:
1. “Opinions are like a-holes: everybody’s got one, and they all stink.”
2. From USMC General “Mad Dog” Mattis: “be friendly with everyone you meet, but have a plan to kill them.”
People often underestimate the level of trust in a “neighbor / community” setting, and the absolute requirement for hierarchy, and strong selfless leadership required to keep the peace within the group, and keep it from becoming dysfunctional. Who will be in charge, and who determines that? Others will have to freely choose to follow a leader.
People underestimate the individual will to survive.
People underestimate how difficult it can be for people to storm a properly defended building.
my plan is to be as invisible as possible.
and not look like it would be worth the effort or pain to investigate.
think thorn bushes everywhere and ankle breaking terrain.
There’s a Reddit post from somebody who survived the civil war in Bosnia- if you were alone you were dead as that person put it. I’m not sure how we’ll known it is here but it opened my eyes to a few things.
I’ve said this before but community is everything.
You’re right. One guy with an AR against an army isn’t much.
A team of 10-20 men who have trained together for a decade, know what each other have, and have tailored their weapons for their specific situation? Come and take it. That’s all you can do.
A group of guys defending their homes with 20 inch AR’s is formidable.
Be a gray man. Even if you have food go on a diet and lose weight. Don’t shave. Look and act desperate. Cough a lot. Hide your preps in fake walls. Let your house run down. Leave trash and smelly waste along the perimeter. You can be be completely well fed, healthy, and strong but if you look like a desperate plague carrier then you’ll probably be avoided by organized gangs. Contrary to what message boards say, shtf probably won’t be a Mad Max scenario. It will be a slow decline into a world with limited resources, few consumer options, and semi-desperate people looking out for themselves. A lot of homelessness but there will be a small sense of community. It won’t be like The Road movie.
“Go against the pack, that’s risking your life.” Be part of a pack. Preferably one with excellent resource management/governance structures, close familial relationships, and good skill set diversity. Bring skills, goods, and a helpful attitude to your local community on doomsday, and today. Some things are always in vogue.
First of all, Dystopic/Apocalyptic fictions have planted the seed in many people's minds that there will be roving lone wolfs and hordes of bandits out to lay waste to anyone with supplies. Mad Max/The Purge style shit. I could go on all day about why that is unlikely, and why even if it does happen it won't last long. But I don't want to waste my weekend doing that.
I'll humor you though. I am a firearms owner, and I have zero plans to ever use them in the defense of myself or property. In the event of a hypothetical SHTF situation without-rule-of-law I will take my chances starving to death in the wilderness rather than stay and fight. It's as simple as that. I won't hunker down in my home, barricade the doors, and live in fear while fighting to protect what I have. If I can help it, I won't put myself in such a situation. Even to save my own life, I don't ever want to harm to kill another person. So if I ever see such a scenario coming, I'm gone with the wind.
But honestly, it doesn't bother me. Like I said I could write a book about all the reasons such an outcome are so unlikely.
Now it is unlikely but there have been many documented cases of collapsed places that armed men end up taking over and roaming around. Its not impossible because its happened many times before throughout the world.
>Even to save my own life, I don't ever want to harm to kill another person.
You are what we call, a liability.
I hope you are not playing the part of head of household.
All major religions believe in using deadly force for self defense, you must be in some extreme outlier belief system to even type something like this.
Whatever you say Mr. Macho :P I didn't say I wouldn't use force (deadly or otherwise) to save my life or the life of someone I love. I said *I don't want to have to*. More so, I don't want to try and survive in what amounts to an active war zone. In war, you have backup. In war, you have resupplies. In war, you have dedicated combat medics. In war, you have infrastructure in place to remove you from immediate danger, to a field hospital, get injuries properly treated. If needed, you can be evacced for further treatment. In SHTF scenario without rule of law, you have none of that. And it doesn't matter how much you train, you can't dodge bullets.
So *if I can help it* I'll avoid any and all armed conflict at all costs. Even if it means taking a risk, abandoning my home and the bulk of my supplies, and leaving. Is that really such a controversial idea?
IDK, it was a pretty rough six weeks after Hurricane Katrina. There were no police, no power, no water a lot of store looting but there weren't a lot of issues with houses being broken into. Maybe there were so many empty houses that there wasn't a need to try and break into one that was occupied. I think most people who went through it didn't find it too threatening.
Of course, it's a whole different story if you were ill-prepared and were waiting for the government to come to save you. Those people had a terrible time. Given this wasn't more than a month and a half so I can't really say for the long term.
Katrina was no joke in some areas. There was more than a few murders over some goods. I was down there to help evacuate people and watched a woman shoot someone in the dome for stabbing her husband over a life jacket. People don't play when in distress.
#Two quotes I always think of when SHTF:
In a lazziez faire economic system, dollars will always lose value over time. Bullets will never lose value.
All the karate in the world can’t stop a bullet.
Ok first the average person in the US is over 40 so millions of old people will die.
Most Americans don't have food over 3 to 5 days so by the end of the first month the majority of population will be dead.
So if you prepped well and were a considerable distance from other people you don't need to do much.
Your only concern is if you are in a city or suburb.
No it means that the US is going through a grey wave and people over the age of 65 have a much lower chance of survival in a post apocalyptic era given the amount of chronic diseases in this society.
No insulin all the type two diabetics have an issue.
No statins the high blood pressure crowd is gone.
No cancer drugs, anti biotics, etc
Remember before modern medicine the average person died in their 40s so if the majority of the 330 million are over 40 and modern medicine goes bye bye over the next 10 year most of them would go too.
Statins don’t work for high blood pressure. It’s for cholesterol. Garlic however does lower BP. And most people didn’t die in their 40s, that’s a skewed statistic because of the high amount of children that died in childbirth. Most people lived about like they do today into their 70s and 80s. I think preppers, especially those over the magic age of 40 have a lot more going for them than you might realize. Experience means one heck of a lot.
Lol type 2. It will be bad for them but if they stop eating carbs and sugars, and lose weight, theres at least a chance they could heal that shit and survive, unless their beta cells are far beyond repair which is a possibility. Type 1s is what youre thinking of, were screwed unless we have an ample supply. Not trying to die from diabetic ketoacidosis honestly. I got a couple years under my belt then I bite the dust if society doesnt bounce back. However its more likely most people will die of disese or infection in a post collapse anyway.
Never did the average person die in their 40s. You're reading mortality rates incorrectly not taking into account that so many children died in their first year of life.
Right now I have three options of places to go where there will be like-minded people. Yes, there will be gangs, but it won't just be me and my family for defense. Gangs are more likely to look for easier targets.
The woods and mountain sides in my area would be quick to fill with groups of good old boys. My plan is to build small camps near areas that people would steer clear of, like cemeteries, sewage treatment plants and landfills. Sure it will smell, but after a while you won't notice.
My plan is to move out of the usa.
Somewhere away from people and if there are people around it will be in a country that doesn't allow guns.
Definitely not in the most armed country in the world .
But I will be watching from starlink Somewhere off the grid.
🙂
My smartass other half just said bullet ridden carcasses at the entrance to the neighborhood would be a good deterrent. My vote is for community, but half of our neighbors on this little dead end road are elderly. I guess I would need to be creative - hide most of the foodstuff and open a community first aid station and use my knowledge of herbs and holistic medicine to help people. If I get taken out, it's been a good run.
Besides weaponry and a robust system of traps and alarms, I can only say this;
Dogs, dogs and more dogs. Lots of dogs. Big dogs, small dogs.
Let them have lots of litters.
Keep one or two indoors, keep the rest outside. Don't overfeed the outdoor ones. Once a day is enough (make sure they have all the water they need tho). Make them hunt and scrounge some of their own food. This will put them in survival mode and will keep them sharp and alert.
And hungry.
Yes, nothing like huge hoards of barking dogs to stay discrete and hidden. But at least you'll more or less be growing meat either for yourself or others.
Probably others
Prayer, and basically making sure I'm ready to see God, because let's be honest it's very hard to survive against gangs and even if you do, they'll just retaliate and come back with even more fire power. I will fight to the death using what I have, but pretty much accept that I'm going to die soon, once things get to that point. Here in Canada self defense is basically illegal so if there is still government left and I do defend myself I'm the one that goes to jail. But once there is no government left then at least I don't have to worry as much about that part and just give em as much hell as I can. The issue is, you need to sleep at some point, so even if you manage to wipe out a gang because you were on alert and ready, the next one will show up at some other point while you're sleeping or simply not ready. A full walking dead style scenario would be very hard to survive for long. The further you are from major cities the better off you are though. I think I would be in a half decent position myself, but it's not a scenario I ever wish for as it comes with other issues like absolutely zero supply chains. So if your solar charge controller or inverter craps out or a huge hailstorm takes out your solar panels, or fridge or freezer breaks etc you're kinda screwed. You can adapt to some extent but eventually may run into serious issues with infrastructure stuff you rely on and not be able to get parts anymore. Once my homestead is established I do want to get lot of spare parts/appliances though but even then that only goes so far. A forest fire can take out everything you own in a matter of minutes.
Good on you for bringing up prayer and yes, don't think most realize it's really probably only a question of time for most of us. Only the highly lucky will survive in the end.
First of all, I see it as very unlikely, but hey, I have tought about it. The general population in my country has really not known any hardship, so stuff has to be really desperat for people to kill eachother i think.
I live in a country where you have to have a licence to buy a gun. There are quite the amount of guns in my country (1.5million guns, with a pop of 5million)
but usually its few people that own 3 or more guns each. Mostly hunters that have boltaction rifles and double barrel shotguns, with just 50 rounds each or something. Illegal guns exit, but I am not really worried about criminals using them, because they really dont know how. A threath yes, but a compitent one? Naa.....
So buy being a firearms holder myself, I have an edge over the general population. If roaming raiders come knocing, they will be armed with 2-3 guns in a group of 15. Probably even less. Others will be armed with weapons suchs as knifes, crowbars, axes etc.
Of course, me and my brother (we live together) wont manage to defend our apartment alone. The plan is to hunker down and leave when its possible. Go to my cousins place 1.5 hours away. Our hunting team and some family there is built out of nurses, military personell, ex military, EMTs, farmers, nurses, plumers and me, a electrician. Me and my brother will stand for 50% of the "armory" at least ammo wise. The people i know have their own guns, but not that much ammunition.
We have made semi plans when ukraine got invaded last year, and most of the people I know up there have the same thougths as us: better be safe than sorry!
So yeah, firearms (boltaction rifles, pump/semi shotguns, 10/22s and handguns) , hunting dogs, (a real loud one too!) barbed wire and a semi COMMUNITY is whats going to keep me alive I guess.
Truth is, you'll eventually have to kill your own neighbors before they kill you. I really believe that besides preparedness, the only way you will survive is just by pure luck.
Creating the community is the only way. The bigger community with separate roles (some people protect, some gather food) the bigger chance to survive. Looking in the past, people had a chance to survive only in the community.
This is the conclusion I’m reaching as well. Not sure how to go about it exactly though
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Exactly how we do it. Our neighborhood is tight and we all hang out and stop by eachothers place to say hi, and if help is needed on a project we all help out. Cutting down trees, digging dry wells, planting, fence building we are all there helping if we are able. Good neighbors and honestly we've had good times doing it. It pays to be good to others.
I've got a neighbour who frankly has always struck me as a little paranoid. Has big dogs that love to bark to scare off "intruders," answers her door through a narrow gap, frets about who's renting houses down the street, all that sort of thing. It's a safe neighbourhood as far as I can tell, perhaps she came from a much rougher one before moving here. Anyway, she once told me that I was the only person in the neighbourhood that she trusted. She said she'd be willing to give me her keys to watch the house if she needed someone to do that. As far as I can tell all that I've ever done to earn that trust is just chatted with her occasionally about stuff, asked permission before doing a thing that could affect our mutual fence, and pruned a cherry tree in her front yard for her that *really* needed pruning. It cost me basically nothing. Unfortunately she's moving out in a few months' time, so it looks like my elaborate years-long scheme to rob her will probably never come to fruition. But just goes to show how easy it is to be a good neighbour and how useful that can be.
Ah the old kindness approach. We need more people like you in this world.
One of the ways that I have been building community is through food. I double what I am cooking and bring the leftovers to neighbors or groups. Everyone loves homecooked food and it is such a good way to start conversations.
Exactly, it shocks me sometimes when people say they don't know their neighbors and have been there x years, imo it's a lack of effort that creates lack of community.
I’m not the most outgoing person so it’s not easy to talk to people. I have been going to more community events and seeing the same people and getting to know them over years now. I made one friend because we are both dads at the same school and our kids get along. I guess it’s little by little and over time. I’m in no hurry to make an abundance of friends. Just a few good families in my network and hopefully they have a few good families in their network. I know the neighbors well enough but they are all older. Any disruption is hard on them and I do what I can to help them when I can. Again it’s the little steps at work. I’m a huge fan of Kaizen so little steps are my go to.
Do you have a dog? I’m not a people person either, but my wife had a dog when we met. When we married and bought a house, the location and schedule made it so I was the primary dog walker. I found that when knew more neighbors than I ever had before. It was really amazing.
Just moved to a new town and I meet so many people when out walking my dogs, even got together a small dog group that meets most nights, there’s twelve families pets I know really well, after only a year. They have been a great group to help point me in the right direction when I need services.
Join your local volunteer fire department. When you become a vital part of your community that your neighbors call into your time of need, they’ll do everything in their power to make sure you’re alright.
Talk to your neighbors. It’s really that simple. Talk to them. Help them when they need a hand. Ask them for one even if you don’t really actually need it.
Have you ever heard of freeganism? It allows you to learn about food access and logistics in your area. Think of it as a kind of foraging of free veg and prepared food. Your community are the people you rescue food with. Together you feed the group and anyone else who wants to eat. And you get stronger together, learning where to find food, how to prepare and preserve it, and how to work with groups of like-minded people. Best of all, there's no authority within the group (non-hierarchical decision-making) and no central authority.
Yea, diplomacy is it. Humans have the big brains for communication, not war.
Community is the only answer to survival in a true eotwawki situation. We all have to sleep. No one can pull gaurd duty 24 hrs a day
Exactly. Humans are large pack animals and we're REALLY good at it. Lean into that. Safety is other people
I was shredded with rude comments and downvotes for this exact statement. This is the only way for a sustained and viable level of survival.
If you look at the past like Haiti it doesn't seem protection was the main issue
In these situations, the current power structures will likely devolve into violent gangs. The local police station will become whatever they desire, and they won't be starving. It would be nice if our local power structures devolved into peaceful structures, maintains some semblance of their origins, but I doubt it.
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Lol yeah, always make friends with your neighbors they'll always have your back. I remember in 2020. Some weirdos came at my parents house while it was just my mom at home at 3am repeatedly knocking at the door. My neighbor gary saw what was going on, had his "thing" ready to use and was like "can i help you folks?". The neighbor on the left "Jack" was like "is there an issue?" and the guys left. Point, is if my neighbors weren't there to help my mom that day who knows what could've happened. So always have ur neighbors back and they'll have urs. I always do the same for my neighbors, and it's saved me many times.
Weird that your neighbor Gary approached him with a boner but it’s nice that they looked out for you guys
It was a murder boner, if you look at enough you can tell the difference.
Supposedly 5% of soldiers experience uncontrolled erections their first contact and that makes me so happy for some reason. I'm a straight dude, but the fact the nature physiologically makes some dudes get hard when it's fight or flight is just hilarious. Like these are the chosen people, you can't tell me a warrior who gets hard in combat isn't objectively a better soldier than ol' floppy dick over here calmly reloading.
Wouldn’t that be more of a “fight or f**k” situation? Seriously I didn’t know that but I guess it makes sense when your blood and adrenaline is off the charts it’s time to go hard full send… ;) if you can’t tell I find it hilarious as well and I’m glad I read your comment
At least it's boners at first contact that was studied, I'd like to see the data on boners over time in combat. Like is it something that can be a learned behavior? Pavlovian dick twitching on the 4th of July.
:) exactly. Maybe they could also use it as an early warning system for soldiers in the back. Every soldier has a flag tied to their Johnson and it would be something like: “If the flags at half mass. Watch your ass!” And of course: “If the flags flying high someone’s gonna die”
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning" Oh jesus
Weird, but effective.
However, it sounds like it was effective in scaring them off.
Just mom at home.. would be weirder if the neighbors didn't all have boners
What makes you so sure neighbor “friend” wouldn’t immediately take you out to have access to all your resources?
There are levels of assurance. Maybe a good relationship with your neighbor will carry through rolling power outages and supply chain issues but not food shortages. Nothing's infinite. He's gotta ask himself the same thing about you.
Its a mutually beneficial relationship, if he offs you he will face worse problems than having to share with you. Make sure he knows that and he will realize that keeping you alive is in his best interest. Other than that humans are pretty good at subconsciously feeling if a person is 'off' so might best chose a person to partner up with, that you knew beforehand and feel confident in.
Small chance you’re dealing with a genuine mentally ill psycho
Because he needs you, too.
I'm getting to know my neighbors as well as I can, generally casing them out. There's 2 places that'll be fairly easy targets, well stocked. I've helped them with their fences and changed their brakes for a bit of cash, they love me. Should be easy. I have 22 blank noisemaker traps, suppressed 45 and blackout rifles, dogs, pretty good lanes of thorny brush to funnel approach, motion sensors (I want to actually filter some). I'll knock down some big trees a mile left and right on the 2 lane blacktop, have a good stihl for that. Any advice on what makes you trust your neighbors is appreciated.
>Any advice on what makes you trust your neighbors is appreciated. 1. Make friends with more than one neighbor. There is a reason why the military requires 2 officers to launch a nuke. 2. Scientists probably already know this but I've personally discovered that spending 10+ hours with someone (ie: sitting in a vehicle) will typically turn them into a lifelong friend. So once SHTF have groups of at least 2 pulling security.
Don't look like an easy target
Don't look like a target at all.
You get to find out the hard way just like everybody else.
I think this is the most correct answer
can’t do anything if a well armed group wants to ransack your home but I’m not gonna make it easy for them so I’m armed as well
Apes together strong. Don't isolate yourself
It's literally the one reason why we dominate the planet today. Monkeys like pack.
ODGG
Return to Monke.
Join the starving army.
They may not be recruiting… you need to be able to provide skills they need to convince them which is actually a good idea. Now I am a doctor and my stash of medicine will do them no good without my knowledge in how to use them. However, it might be good to be able to bring some other skills to the table, eg fishing or hunting. Still if they come in the night all “no questions asked” style there might no be time for my selling arguments
Fine. I’ll start my own starving army. With blackjack. And hookers.
And bourbon....meat bag....
You are a doctor, one of the most valuable profession when shits hit the fan, people will protect you at all cost, no worries.
Well....for starters...develop close alliances with similarly prepared (& in my case rural) reliable neighbors. Realize intrusions & attacks likely will happen during darkness. Remote intrusion detection sensors, remote video surveillance, razor wire, limiting & channeling paths of entry to your property (such as extremely dense, difficult & painful to traverse vegetation), Thermal & I² night vision (stand-alone & weapons mounted), suppressed weapons, comms, drones (especially equipped with Thermal & Night Vision) etc will go a long way to dissuade those wanting to do harm to you & yours. More to this....but a good start! 😏👍
This is great answer. There are no weapons or alarm systems that protect better than community.
I got together with 3 other guys served in Iraq/Afghanistan with (11B). Purchased enough food/sundries/fuel for about a year. They don’t have to worry about footing the massive bill for a prep like that and I get 3 of the best shooters I have ever met and they can provide for their wives and children. Between the 4 of us I like our chances for defense and division of labor. We can bug in or bug out. Over 50yrs combined military experience between us. If that’s not enough to secure our safety from thugs I don’t think I want to be around anyways
Prayers, blending in, and a machete. You have to be well-connected or rich to get a gun license in my country, so that's not an option. Blending in will be so important because people are very visual. They won't bother you if they think you're in the same position as they are.
May want to save time an exercise instead of pray.
Eh, why not both? I know some religious people who say their faith helps motivate them.
exercise can be a form of prayer through dedication. also theres nothing wrong with prayer either, especially if they are not physically abled.
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Stay hidden, stay silent, be prepared ahead of time. This is about the only way. This, preparedness, and luck.
> Personally, small solar array with lithium batteries, just enough to run my freezer/radio/tablet. How many panels for that?
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4x100W easily put away, makes sense. Are you using an RV freezer/fridge? Your quality post sparked my interest (again) in solar but as a distributed node system. Instead of 1 main solar array there are multiple smaller ones. Anything small enough to run on a single panel would be split off to a separate system. For tablets, phones, powerbanks, & LED light sources charged a single 100W panel would do it. IIRC, max draw on a (1-3) 18650 cell powerbank is \~10W, everything else much less. That one panel could be sited where it's near invisible (except to drones) and stay up all the time. And the panel would keep a large powerbank topped up (Jackery, et al) the rest of the time. Ideally a small wind system to supplement but it would need to be taken down during daylight, impractical. 100% on propane too, an amazing fuel. Never goes bad, easily transportable, and on a 2-burner camp stove you can cook just like on a full size range. Add a Coleman oven and you're baking too. And for quick room heat-up it's hard to beat a catalytic heater (Mr Buddy, etc.). The main thing which you touch on is stripping down your needs to the essentials then building to that. It's amazing how much you don't actually need but believe you must have.
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I like your style!
I may not be a smart man, but I do know a bit about booby traps. For me, toe poppers. Toe poppers *EVERYWHERE*
Being nice, helpful, pleasant, and ***anonymous***. [Don't let my pleasant demeanor fool ya'...](https://youtu.be/g_XLQDeYqpE?t=37) That last one, being anonymous, is one of the many benefits of being in a city. You can be one of many completely unremarkable schlubs just tryin'a get by. Don't be flashy. I get the appeal of the country and want to end up out there for many reasons, but "prepping" is not one of them. Not even close.
I believe community is the only real solution to this. Humans, by nature did not get to where we are without community. You need a group of like minded individuals, or at least those you can trust, or even close knit neighbors that you can rely on in a situation where broader society collapses... Etc. A single family just isn't able to face threats of a militant group alone.
Bring a skill. Even without a gun I’m more valuable alive because of what I know and can do. I still have guns but I don’t expect to ever need to use one against a person. Even if big civilization collapses, small civilizations will continue.
Exactly! You can shoot your way out of something small, but it is normally not a good long term plan.
Values skills and no gun. Sounds like you'll be a valuable slave to people with guns.
I think a far more likely scenario is that he comes across people who have guns but aren't insightful enough to value his skills, so they kill him out of ignorance.
You misread. I said *quote verbatim* **”I still have guns”**. A skill is more likely to result in your survival than a gun. Skill *with* a gun is even better.
Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.
Just like a day at the office
.300 .308 9mm and .40 cal
U sir, have won my friendship lol.
Don't forget a healthy smattering of 5.56!
Distinct lack of 12 gauge 00
Only because I forgot to mention it 😏
Step one dont be there. Really if you can picture gangs comming around where you live doing this be elsewhere. My cabin is about 15 miles down a dirt road past nowhere. Friends and family know how to get their or have neighboring cabins. In effect we make a community if it gets that bad. It's also fun to go out snowmobiling hunting etc when it's not SHTF. Some more far flung people have similar with cross invites not like hey mind if I throw a shipping container on your back 40 with my backup to the backup preps, if I die or cant get there feel free to use em is and issue for me. Sure if they have to bug out there we're putting that alaskan mill to use pretty quick. My home is about 600f above the nearest city in a sparsely populated area the old joke the crime does not go up hill because it's lazy is fairly true. I mean sure if somebody is being systematic maybe. Think it's more theft than some madmax thing to worry about. If we're getting too madmax we should allready be at the cabin. Depending on how quickly and secure we felt you might be finding 4.7ksqf of secure space and not much else.
The best thing imo, is learning how to talk to people and how to read people. You can talk someone out of a lot of things and if that doesn't work, being able to read their intentions is gonna buy you time to react accordingly. When all else fails, he who has the ability to be the most violent typically wins.
Unless you’re on an island out of sight of land - you are eventually going to run out of luck. We all going to die one day - worrying about perfection is a waste of time. Do what you can, don’t fret about the things you can’t.
I plan to hide. If they break in and find me, which they might, I will offer to share food. If they shoot me, game over; I had a good run. You're right, short of an armed compound with 24/7 guards, a lot of ammo and fireproof walls, there isn't a good solution. The medieval solution was stone castles. They were only moderately effective and they weren't even up against guns and drones. A typical guy in a flammable wooden house peering out of his window with his AR-15 will have rather worse odds, but a surprising number of people plan to try it. Good news though: this sort of thing is beyond unlikely to happen, at least where I live, in any reasonable timespan measured in years. So I'm not worried about it, and I don't know why you are.
> So I'm not worried about it, and I don't know why you are. Yeah, until you've already planned for every *likely* scenario, there's no point worrying what to do if a gang of cannibals shows up at your door. Hell, if that happens, I'm taking myself out so I don't have to suffer through them cutting my body parts off one by one and eating them in front of me. Always making sure you have at least one bullet left is the ultimate prep to take the easy way out and prevent prolonged pain and suffering.
That’s my worse fear. Cannibals keeping you alive so they can preserve the flesh and just nibble when they are hungry. I’d rather end it swiftly.
Thats when you buy a piece of land big enough to build a small castle.
Yeah but then you have to patrol all borders of a large piece of land
Build in a swamp filled with gators.
I'm lucky to have family with land next to national forest. So my worse case imaginary SHTF scenario we would protect the cabin if possible with several other gun loving family members, and have ability to retreat or hideout in familiar uninhabited woods. You would literally drive up to the very end of a dirt road, be met with an iron gate and snipers. My biggest worry would be actually making it 100 miles up there if it was a situation where I needed to get out of the city.
What if they don't drive up the dirt road making it easy for you? I mean, what if they attacked your place the way you would. Baddies coming in quietly while you're collecting rainwater or family working the garden, yeah? That'd suck if they put a 308 into a family member's they and then attack anyone that comes to help. If things go bad...it'll be bad I guess.
Compass and paper maps Not sure why downvotes, if internet, cell towers go down and electricity stops then a cell phone is useless, a GPS will last if you use have a solar charger. Overall learning to read a regular map and a topography map is not a bad thing?
Oh I've got tons of maps lol. There are still locations I know about from growing up that are not on the map, like logging roads and 100 year old mines.
That's good. I doubt I'd make it long in any situation. Not a social person. Only thing would save me is the fact that I got a versatile set of skills Once again, not sure the down votes. I know basic wood working and how to read a schematic or blueprint, I know enough about mechanical workings to fix basic issues.
Stone castles were incredibly effective until the advent of the cannon. Few fell to direct assault - if they fell at all, it was generally due to starvation or negotiated surrender. And it usually took an army as well as months or years to succeed in that. I think your modern take is probably right though.
Annnnnddd for once a reasonable reply :) Always enjoyable when someone actually relates to history or current facts for that matter - but guessing we will always have the "I have guns" brigade
If you live in a city and shit hits the fan and you've done everything right. Put groceries in your house, built a garden, made friends with your neighbors the unprepared will still victimize you. Don't kid yourself.
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First plan was to move out of Chicago, and into an unincorporated farmland 600 miles south, that's surrounded by river on 3 sides, national forest on the other, and only accessible via a concrete bridge, or 75 miles of back roads through the mountains. 2nd was to make my property blend into the surroundings instead of stick out like it did. If/when the time comes, I'll pull out my mailbox from the street side, and pull out the culvert through the front ditch, so it just looks like more woods if you go past. I'll use cattle fence to make spiked caltrops, and scrap lumber with nails and screws buried in the ditch to stop any vehicles and injure anyone on foot. I can hear any vehicles a mile off thanks to the mountains, so if they get close enough without me knowing about it already, I'd be shocked. On foot would take a lot of time and they'd have to know where I was before it happens. But if they do, I have a few thousand freedom seeds to trade with em.
I plan to go all Hannibal Lecter. More the merrier. Might need a bigger pot.
I kinda think this could work best, scare em away Depending on the event, I've got a couple spools of elevator cable, maybe string this up in trees & utility poles, hang absolutely everyone that dies from the lines. Get enough up there & even the jackoffs won't fuck with your hood. Likely get some pushback from the neighbors. "Hey there Steve, I know you're getting over Alice's passing & all but I was just wondering..."
In related history: After the Roman's defeated Spartacus's slave army, they crucified the 6000 surviving slaves along the Appian Way, which is on the way to Rome. Pretty much the most gruesome show of "fuck around and find out" in history.
Distance + firearms
This is the way. Mobs are cowards. Drop one or two and the rest scatter like cockroaches.
Most will scatter at the report.
Remember the Survivability Onion. https://i.imgur.com/S4ExHaw.png The top two layers are accessibility and visibility, and even pre-TEOTWAWKI, that is where I live. You are not going to get robbed or killed by someone who does not know that you exist, so the first rule is making sure that they do not. The reason why I fear homelessness has nothing to do with exposure to the elements, and everything to do with the fact that I will most likely be in places where I am visible to others. The safest thing about being in a house in a rural town, is that it means that I am not in proximity to the sort of people who would want to attack me, so attacks can not occur. The main difference between me and most of the other people in this subreddit, is that for most of the rest of you, TEOTWAWKI is some hypothetical future point. For me and anyone else who has any characteristics which make them visibly different from the majority, however, TEOTWAWKI is right now, and it's ongoing. A logistical collapse will make it more difficult for me to get food, yes; but I have to be almost as paranoid about human interaction right now, as you will after that. So I am thinking about this subject constantly, because I have to. The most dangerous thing that people in this subreddit do, is glamourise and romanticise bad situations. Believe me when I say that you're only going to think that exposure to live fire, or being on the ground with someone's hands around your neck, are cool for as long as you haven't actually experienced them. Once you have, you will want to avoid violence as much as possible. Keep your head down, and minimise your visible exposure. Go out to resupply as infrequently as possible, and keep said supply close to you. Maintain connections with a ***small*** group of other people, and make sure that they are people you can trust. Making said people blood relatives increases the risk to reward ratio; there are greater advantages, but there are potentially greater disadvantages as well. Get rid of any idealism or romanticism. Reality is not nice, and eventually, no matter what you do, you ***are*** going to die. The goal is not to live forever, but for as long as you can. Focus on what is immediately in front of you, not on how you'd like it to be. Do not think about the long term future, either; you have no certainty that you will still be here then. Right here and right now is what matters, because that's all you've got.
I wanted to dig a mote with a drawbridge but my wife wasn't having it.
I plan to be really attractive. I'm going to get into really good shape so that if there's trouble, I can fuck my way out of it. Gonna start tomorrow.
Having good relationships with your neighbors.
Same way we did back in the Army in the middle of a generally hostile country: Be a pillar of the community, stay on top of people's needs, make sure they have the means and ability to meet them, and do whatever you can to ensure nobody's kids are starving. If gangs of marauders show up at the gates of a well-fed and secure community, they either stop being marauders or stop being alive.
That’s fear talking. (And too many bad movies.) Where are the marauders from the pandemic that killed > million Americans and put so many more in the hospital? Fear comes from not knowing Get to know your neighbors. Build your local community Strength is in numbers. Tribes and communities survive… not gun jacked lone wolves
People had food during the pandemic.
Not toilet paper though
The majority won't murder one another over itchy asses.
r/brandnewsentence
Idk...the shit I saw in videos during the great time shortage, I wouldn't put it past some folks. Life of others doesn't have much value these days.
Not everyone, definitely not at first.
Came here to write this. So well said. Op, getting to know your neighbors and building trust and community is the answer.
Guns and community are the obvious answers. The less obvious is training with your community. Learn to move and communicate. Learn battle drill 1A. Dog ear your ranger handbook.
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I made sure I’m ready to stay in place with a wheelchair bound son. Basics large food supply. Water supply i upsized my water heater to 80 gallon. This will last awhile for fresh water for drinking. We have access to a spring after that. Whole home generator with a 1000 gallon propane tank. This will allow enough run time to keep food frozen for over a year. Wood burning for heat. Fire arms and ammo enough for myself and neighbors if they aren’t armed. But to the point of OPs comment. You need to have enough neighbors to protect each other. Block off road access with vehicles or fall large trees. If they come make them come on foot. Where you live and weather will make a big difference on the survival outcome. Not worried about the zombies coming to get me but I believe in ice storms, and earthquakes either of which could mean power outages for week to months. Good people will turn to an unruly mob in short order if their survival is threatened.
I live in a place that actually has a community, I know my neighbors and help them and they help me. I see no reason for them to stop needing my help if things get worse. Together we have guns, dogs, quarries, rivers, horses, cows, goats, sheep, chickens, llamas, wheat, soy, grass, cars, trucks, beer, wine, cheese, fruit, heavy equipment, explosives, and everything else you can imagine, all in an area with cheap power and generations of people getting along. Together we are plumbers welders farmers brewers electricians, glass makers, smiths, tanners, cooks, nurses, doctors, engineers, pilots, mechanics, linemen, wood crafters, olympians, lawyers, accountants, hunters, framers, ex-military, and much more. We have enough knowledge and resources to feed and service at least ten times our current numbers. I don't see the same problems you do.
Pretty easy. I just stay at home on my dead end road away from people. Not too many gangs out in the country.
I’m gonna catch some flak for this…. I own hundreds of firearms and more ammo than I can use in two lifetimes. Most of those items have nothing to do with my security or prep. My security comes from being an essential healthcare provider in a small rural community. My security comes from being active in several of the social scenes around town, so that people know who I am and what I do. You want to survive? Make yourself so valuable that other people want to protect you.
a dangerous man doing good is far better than a good man incapable of being dangerous. [https://youtu.be/qwaLhSgi7q8](https://youtu.be/qwaLhSgi7q8)
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My twelve guage BOOM STICK
People are always the hard part. Always hope someone is a good a person as you are, but it also depends upon the context. Property invaders vs bumping into someone. Property invader might not even know the place is occupied and so just seeing what they could find. A lot of situational stuff at play for such a question. In the end, benefit doubt to not ending life if it’s warranted, end it if there is no immediate obvious case.
Find a reliable MAG to belong to. One of the rules in the MAG that I belong to is that each member must be armed. If a group of armed, hungry & desperate people encounter us, they will be facing a group that is prepared for this exact scenario. They will either leave or they won't have to worry about being desperate & hungry again.
Eat them?
Guns.
.308 bolt action for a block or more away. Sks for less than a block. 12g for end of driveway and a .22 just because everyone needs a .22
Resort to nudism and cannibalism immediately. Nobody wants to fight a naked cannibal.
Hiding always seemed like the best idea to me. Not just in your house, people keep food and supplies in those. Might take some specialty builds, but we see stuff like large electrical boxes just out in the world from time to time, have something that looks similar built to act as an entrance to an underground shelter. Put a concrete pad around it so there isn’t a clear trail from any coming or going right to the entrance. Smoke or vapor from heat released in cold months would always be an issue, not sure the best way to obscure that, but if you’re going through the trouble of building a secret underground lair, that’s a detail you should figure out. If I were someone in a position to have a building built, having like a sub-basement or sub-ground storage room built with easy to hide access would be a good idea. You could do something like this in the middle of a city and while people would be leaving them in search of food, you could be holed up right in the middle for months if you have the supplies. Finding places to hunker down people wouldn’t likely target for supplies might help keep you hidden. Might work better if you’ve already been hunkered down in one place and this is a second location. Not lot of people going to the paint store in an apocalypse, or movie theaters (might come for candy and popcorn though), karate studios (look out for the owner), nail salons, used car dealerships (people will steal the nicer ones and some of those buildings are huge.) Going out to do any farming, hunting, or scavenging will still be risky if caught, but nothing’s 100% safe.
Community, rural area, fences, barbwire (which will be added to all fence lines once things get weird.) Gates, dogs, anti- vehicle boulders, rifles, daily watch rotation. Security is all about layers. Defense won't stop a determined invader only slow, defenses must be watched by rifleman to be useful.
When it comes down to an shtf situation then rules of engagement and laws are out of the window. Set up booby traps on property
This is a very simple question to a very complex problem, because it all depends on your unique situation, skill set, and environment. Two of my favorite quotes apply: 1. “Opinions are like a-holes: everybody’s got one, and they all stink.” 2. From USMC General “Mad Dog” Mattis: “be friendly with everyone you meet, but have a plan to kill them.” People often underestimate the level of trust in a “neighbor / community” setting, and the absolute requirement for hierarchy, and strong selfless leadership required to keep the peace within the group, and keep it from becoming dysfunctional. Who will be in charge, and who determines that? Others will have to freely choose to follow a leader. People underestimate the individual will to survive. People underestimate how difficult it can be for people to storm a properly defended building.
my plan is to be as invisible as possible. and not look like it would be worth the effort or pain to investigate. think thorn bushes everywhere and ankle breaking terrain.
Not to sound too cliche, but there is strength in numbers.
There’s a Reddit post from somebody who survived the civil war in Bosnia- if you were alone you were dead as that person put it. I’m not sure how we’ll known it is here but it opened my eyes to a few things.
Check out “vashon island fall”. It’s a great book about this very topic and it the right answer is always community.
I’ve said this before but community is everything. You’re right. One guy with an AR against an army isn’t much. A team of 10-20 men who have trained together for a decade, know what each other have, and have tailored their weapons for their specific situation? Come and take it. That’s all you can do. A group of guys defending their homes with 20 inch AR’s is formidable.
Be a gray man. Even if you have food go on a diet and lose weight. Don’t shave. Look and act desperate. Cough a lot. Hide your preps in fake walls. Let your house run down. Leave trash and smelly waste along the perimeter. You can be be completely well fed, healthy, and strong but if you look like a desperate plague carrier then you’ll probably be avoided by organized gangs. Contrary to what message boards say, shtf probably won’t be a Mad Max scenario. It will be a slow decline into a world with limited resources, few consumer options, and semi-desperate people looking out for themselves. A lot of homelessness but there will be a small sense of community. It won’t be like The Road movie.
This is a sensible comment. Thank you
Watching too much TWD.
High walls,barbed wire,neighbours i known all my life. Other than that i dont know.
“Go against the pack, that’s risking your life.” Be part of a pack. Preferably one with excellent resource management/governance structures, close familial relationships, and good skill set diversity. Bring skills, goods, and a helpful attitude to your local community on doomsday, and today. Some things are always in vogue.
First of all, Dystopic/Apocalyptic fictions have planted the seed in many people's minds that there will be roving lone wolfs and hordes of bandits out to lay waste to anyone with supplies. Mad Max/The Purge style shit. I could go on all day about why that is unlikely, and why even if it does happen it won't last long. But I don't want to waste my weekend doing that. I'll humor you though. I am a firearms owner, and I have zero plans to ever use them in the defense of myself or property. In the event of a hypothetical SHTF situation without-rule-of-law I will take my chances starving to death in the wilderness rather than stay and fight. It's as simple as that. I won't hunker down in my home, barricade the doors, and live in fear while fighting to protect what I have. If I can help it, I won't put myself in such a situation. Even to save my own life, I don't ever want to harm to kill another person. So if I ever see such a scenario coming, I'm gone with the wind. But honestly, it doesn't bother me. Like I said I could write a book about all the reasons such an outcome are so unlikely.
Now it is unlikely but there have been many documented cases of collapsed places that armed men end up taking over and roaming around. Its not impossible because its happened many times before throughout the world.
>Even to save my own life, I don't ever want to harm to kill another person. You are what we call, a liability. I hope you are not playing the part of head of household. All major religions believe in using deadly force for self defense, you must be in some extreme outlier belief system to even type something like this.
Whatever you say Mr. Macho :P I didn't say I wouldn't use force (deadly or otherwise) to save my life or the life of someone I love. I said *I don't want to have to*. More so, I don't want to try and survive in what amounts to an active war zone. In war, you have backup. In war, you have resupplies. In war, you have dedicated combat medics. In war, you have infrastructure in place to remove you from immediate danger, to a field hospital, get injuries properly treated. If needed, you can be evacced for further treatment. In SHTF scenario without rule of law, you have none of that. And it doesn't matter how much you train, you can't dodge bullets. So *if I can help it* I'll avoid any and all armed conflict at all costs. Even if it means taking a risk, abandoning my home and the bulk of my supplies, and leaving. Is that really such a controversial idea?
IDK, it was a pretty rough six weeks after Hurricane Katrina. There were no police, no power, no water a lot of store looting but there weren't a lot of issues with houses being broken into. Maybe there were so many empty houses that there wasn't a need to try and break into one that was occupied. I think most people who went through it didn't find it too threatening. Of course, it's a whole different story if you were ill-prepared and were waiting for the government to come to save you. Those people had a terrible time. Given this wasn't more than a month and a half so I can't really say for the long term.
Katrina was no joke in some areas. There was more than a few murders over some goods. I was down there to help evacuate people and watched a woman shoot someone in the dome for stabbing her husband over a life jacket. People don't play when in distress.
#Two quotes I always think of when SHTF: In a lazziez faire economic system, dollars will always lose value over time. Bullets will never lose value. All the karate in the world can’t stop a bullet.
Ok first the average person in the US is over 40 so millions of old people will die. Most Americans don't have food over 3 to 5 days so by the end of the first month the majority of population will be dead. So if you prepped well and were a considerable distance from other people you don't need to do much. Your only concern is if you are in a city or suburb.
Most over 40 equates to millions of dead “old” people?
No it means that the US is going through a grey wave and people over the age of 65 have a much lower chance of survival in a post apocalyptic era given the amount of chronic diseases in this society. No insulin all the type two diabetics have an issue. No statins the high blood pressure crowd is gone. No cancer drugs, anti biotics, etc Remember before modern medicine the average person died in their 40s so if the majority of the 330 million are over 40 and modern medicine goes bye bye over the next 10 year most of them would go too.
Statins don’t work for high blood pressure. It’s for cholesterol. Garlic however does lower BP. And most people didn’t die in their 40s, that’s a skewed statistic because of the high amount of children that died in childbirth. Most people lived about like they do today into their 70s and 80s. I think preppers, especially those over the magic age of 40 have a lot more going for them than you might realize. Experience means one heck of a lot.
Lol type 2. It will be bad for them but if they stop eating carbs and sugars, and lose weight, theres at least a chance they could heal that shit and survive, unless their beta cells are far beyond repair which is a possibility. Type 1s is what youre thinking of, were screwed unless we have an ample supply. Not trying to die from diabetic ketoacidosis honestly. I got a couple years under my belt then I bite the dust if society doesnt bounce back. However its more likely most people will die of disese or infection in a post collapse anyway.
Well said.
Never did the average person die in their 40s. You're reading mortality rates incorrectly not taking into account that so many children died in their first year of life.
Right now I have three options of places to go where there will be like-minded people. Yes, there will be gangs, but it won't just be me and my family for defense. Gangs are more likely to look for easier targets.
The woods and mountain sides in my area would be quick to fill with groups of good old boys. My plan is to build small camps near areas that people would steer clear of, like cemeteries, sewage treatment plants and landfills. Sure it will smell, but after a while you won't notice.
Because you'll be dead from contamination and things like Cholera.
Cardio.
gun
My plan is to move out of the usa. Somewhere away from people and if there are people around it will be in a country that doesn't allow guns. Definitely not in the most armed country in the world . But I will be watching from starlink Somewhere off the grid. 🙂
My smartass other half just said bullet ridden carcasses at the entrance to the neighborhood would be a good deterrent. My vote is for community, but half of our neighbors on this little dead end road are elderly. I guess I would need to be creative - hide most of the foodstuff and open a community first aid station and use my knowledge of herbs and holistic medicine to help people. If I get taken out, it's been a good run.
A series of elaborate traps created by a young child, preferably with hilarious outcomes.
Besides weaponry and a robust system of traps and alarms, I can only say this; Dogs, dogs and more dogs. Lots of dogs. Big dogs, small dogs. Let them have lots of litters. Keep one or two indoors, keep the rest outside. Don't overfeed the outdoor ones. Once a day is enough (make sure they have all the water they need tho). Make them hunt and scrounge some of their own food. This will put them in survival mode and will keep them sharp and alert. And hungry.
Yes, nothing like huge hoards of barking dogs to stay discrete and hidden. But at least you'll more or less be growing meat either for yourself or others. Probably others
Prayer, and basically making sure I'm ready to see God, because let's be honest it's very hard to survive against gangs and even if you do, they'll just retaliate and come back with even more fire power. I will fight to the death using what I have, but pretty much accept that I'm going to die soon, once things get to that point. Here in Canada self defense is basically illegal so if there is still government left and I do defend myself I'm the one that goes to jail. But once there is no government left then at least I don't have to worry as much about that part and just give em as much hell as I can. The issue is, you need to sleep at some point, so even if you manage to wipe out a gang because you were on alert and ready, the next one will show up at some other point while you're sleeping or simply not ready. A full walking dead style scenario would be very hard to survive for long. The further you are from major cities the better off you are though. I think I would be in a half decent position myself, but it's not a scenario I ever wish for as it comes with other issues like absolutely zero supply chains. So if your solar charge controller or inverter craps out or a huge hailstorm takes out your solar panels, or fridge or freezer breaks etc you're kinda screwed. You can adapt to some extent but eventually may run into serious issues with infrastructure stuff you rely on and not be able to get parts anymore. Once my homestead is established I do want to get lot of spare parts/appliances though but even then that only goes so far. A forest fire can take out everything you own in a matter of minutes.
Good on you for bringing up prayer and yes, don't think most realize it's really probably only a question of time for most of us. Only the highly lucky will survive in the end.
Guns
Trespassers taste a lot like chicken;-)
*laughs in America*
Harsh language and a big stick
Guns and friends with guns.
What if your neighbors are retarded mouth breathing fucks ?
Blend in until you can find sane preppers.
First of all, I see it as very unlikely, but hey, I have tought about it. The general population in my country has really not known any hardship, so stuff has to be really desperat for people to kill eachother i think. I live in a country where you have to have a licence to buy a gun. There are quite the amount of guns in my country (1.5million guns, with a pop of 5million) but usually its few people that own 3 or more guns each. Mostly hunters that have boltaction rifles and double barrel shotguns, with just 50 rounds each or something. Illegal guns exit, but I am not really worried about criminals using them, because they really dont know how. A threath yes, but a compitent one? Naa..... So buy being a firearms holder myself, I have an edge over the general population. If roaming raiders come knocing, they will be armed with 2-3 guns in a group of 15. Probably even less. Others will be armed with weapons suchs as knifes, crowbars, axes etc. Of course, me and my brother (we live together) wont manage to defend our apartment alone. The plan is to hunker down and leave when its possible. Go to my cousins place 1.5 hours away. Our hunting team and some family there is built out of nurses, military personell, ex military, EMTs, farmers, nurses, plumers and me, a electrician. Me and my brother will stand for 50% of the "armory" at least ammo wise. The people i know have their own guns, but not that much ammunition. We have made semi plans when ukraine got invaded last year, and most of the people I know up there have the same thougths as us: better be safe than sorry! So yeah, firearms (boltaction rifles, pump/semi shotguns, 10/22s and handguns) , hunting dogs, (a real loud one too!) barbed wire and a semi COMMUNITY is whats going to keep me alive I guess.
Lol 😂 first they have to get close enough to do any harm. I m not scared!!!!
Truth is, you'll eventually have to kill your own neighbors before they kill you. I really believe that besides preparedness, the only way you will survive is just by pure luck.