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Preparedness Gets Popular
A somewhat thorough but outside looking in look at the survivalist and preparedness movements today. The writer takes note of some of the past origins, and brings it up to date with peak oil fears, the economy in general, etc.
"There is greater interest in preparedness these days because the fragility of our economy, lengthening chains of supply and the complexity of the technological infrastructure have become apparent to a broader cross section of the populace,".. ed.z.: What I find funny all the time when non survivalists write about it is they continually fail to make the historical connection that for the longest period of time that humans have been on the planet, umpteen thousands of years, survivalism or practical preparedness was the norm, not the exception. It really only has been roughly since the latter half of the 20th century that it fell out of favor and started to be condescendingly hooted at. Well, we sort of quietly hoot right back, thinking of those folks as professional and willing victims of circumstances that they go way out of their way to make *not* in their control.
Anyway, a good enough article with that said, and I checked the wiki link in the article, it is good enough for a basic perusal, I don't see many flaws to it, seems fair. The James Wesley Rawles book mentioned is a novel, but the information in it can be considered text book, I've read it and couldn't find a single erroneous entry. As a novel, it has some fairly racy scenes, perhaps not suitable for younger readers, but for a writer's first novel, it just rocked. Put it this way, we heard from a number of insider sources that it scared the crap out of certain high levels of command and control.
Disclaimer 2 as well for the wiki link: in the listing for gary north, he is identified as a dominionist, this is true,(I am not and think it is nutso, but he has at least a middling fair record as an economist) but his quite extensive series of survival forums, that had a huge following, tens of thousands of readers, on this topic or that pre and slightly after y2k did not push that at all, he gave his editors and moderators, of which I was one of two "roaming moderators", completely free rein and we had just tons of good discussions for a long time, along with a lot of practical hands on, the nuts and bolts of doing it.
If I had to pick one single thing out of the thousands of posts I did there, it would be this, the simplest possible, survivalists are not running away from anything, they are running towards just a better and more independent life. I also was moderator on another forum for software semi guru ed yourdon, some of you have heard of him no douubt, similar meme and theme to his boards at the time.
To get it down to the most simple basic level,after all, the opposite of survivalist is ..non survivalist. And everyone gets to pick, whether they think they are..or not.
And it is like this transportation and energy question, there is no one size fits all method there to prepare, all circumstances are different, but a lot of the questions start out the same. If such and such..then what? Backups, and backups for backups. Boy sprout motto, "be prepared", the opposite is "be un-prepared". When you look at it that way, it makes a lot more sense and doesn't seem to be a bit extremist then, just rational and practical.
You have piece of paper contract insurance, promising some money or service for a "if such and such happens" scenario, then you have immediate in hand tangible insurance, which is the solution you have determined in advance is the best for you in any of what if scenarios, so you just go ahead and get it if it falls under "stuff", or acquire the skills, if it falls under "dang handy thing to know how to do". Why the piece of paper is considered normal, when the practical in hand is considered extreme or something to make fun of is ..well, it is crazy to me. Professional victim thinking or something. "Why, I don't need to backup my data, I have a new computer and this is a journaling file system" uh huh "why, I am the bestus driver in the whole world, everyone else drives like an idiot, and besides, I have car insurance, so I don't need to use a seatbelt". uh huh "This is a brand new house, I am just gonna hunker on down here with this cat 5 coming, and besides, I have insurance and joe government will be there with relief, within hours, if anything happens" uh huh professional victim thinking, and usually the ones quick to guffaw and put down preparedness. Choices and priorities, we all get to make them.