I recently commented on prepper community using the Kibbutz model and said I would get back and comment more. The more I thought about it the more I realised it would need a new post.
My strategies for survival have evolved over the years. None so much as my views on the necessity of group development as the foundation stone on wich all of my preps will either succeed or fail. I wrote a humorous short article once on who survives the Zombie Apocalypse and to my dismay, preppers and survivalists only ranked # 7 on the list, Far below Organised Crime groups, Organised Sports teams, Organised Religious cults and even the SCA. You know, The SCA, that group of nerdy medieval re-enactors that dress up and beat on each other with Rattan sticks in armour. You will notice, Its the Organised part. Where preppers fail miserably, in spite of all the TVP, Twinkies, Bug Out bags and More guns than they can carry, is their addiction to rampant paranoia, cult like devotion to unworkable individualism....and lets be honest, many "Preppers" (Not the magority but a good chunk) are simply bad human beings with low social skills, living on hate, narcissism and their own (political, religious, racial,etc) superiority, secretly wanting the apocalypse so they can prove every one wrong about their failures, shoot people that have the gaul to disagree with them and finally be respected...and showered with women. On the other hand we have a rather silly social club like the SCA (unkiely survivors) that have all the same personal quirks as the worst of preppers but.....They get together regularly and practice that most difficult and valuable Survival Skill Set.....PLAYING WELL WITH OTHERS. In doing so, they have become the third largest free standing army in the world (It takes a real nerd to crunch those numbers) with connected groups in most cities, ranging from Alaska to Australia...With an undercurrent of rallying to there assorted Barons if things get scetchy.
Throughout history, we have only survived by being part of a tribe. I have no Idealism about this. Humans....are THE problematic species ...with a tendency towards self sabotage. Humans sort of SUCK. When 2 or more humans get together... they have a tendency to suck twice as much. It amazes me that people can get along long enough to breed. But in the end, what other option do we have. It is simply impossible to tend a garden and provide security at the same time...or sleep for that matter, let alone become an expert in every trade. Heck, at the moment I may need to have another tooth pulled. As manly man as I am, Im pretty sure I would not be able to pull it out on my own. That means death during a collapse.
I think some peoples kneejerk reaction against the idea is that Its just Utopian idealism. As usual, I both agree and disagree. Ive seen alot of failed communities and a few that have survived and prospered, often with bloddied noses and lost or tempered idealism. Utopian Idealism....like conservative christianity or say... other religions such as free maket capitalism, like communism rarely lead to the kingdom on earth and usually ends in some genocidal action, Rwanda style. Right Wing Death Sqauds, anyone. There was a rather smart friend that once taught me that Any form of government can work just fine....If the people are committed to it. There lies the rub. Its not lost on me in this context that the relationship with that same person is so fractured that I would not eat with him or talk to him on the street. Yup, If you are in any kind of survival community for any extended period of time I can guarantee You will experience all of these things. Someone will sleep with the wrong wife. Divorces and betrayal will happen. Cliques and cult like personalities will develop. Someone will struggle with addiction or mental illness. Fights will happen. Groups will split off. Heck, I have actualy seen two grown men, religious pacifists, break into a fist fight over dishes. Lucky I was there to pick up one of the offenders and carry him out of the room to cool down....which swings us back into the other pendulum side of community. Sure putting people together is steel on steel. But me being in that room may have stopped that fight from potencialy turning into a homicide. Back to the idea of safety in numbers. Living in community blows but like many other survival neccesities like crapping in an outhouse, eating alot less meat or dumpster diving, you simply may not have an option in the matter. The quiker you buck up and deal with it, the less tramatic the shift will be, the more likely you will survive.
Ran Prieur wrote in The Slow Crash, "What about stealing from other people in the city? Again, put yourself in that position. Do you know which houses have food? Which have guns? Would you really go to a random house and knock the door down? If you're even thinking about it, you'll be expecting other people to do the same, and you'll make a defensive alliance with your neighbors. If you're allied and you need each other for survival, you're going to share food. Those with the most food, if they're smart, will give some away to earn respect and loyalty. The situation will be all about social dynamics among neighbors, not physical conflicts against roving gangs."
In the end, building community is an act of will. Nothing more. No mater what model you use.
I have a Tactical Harness and I have a Tool Belt. The Tool Belt is more Useful.
Oh C5 so dramatic lol, just kiddin. There was a line in the first matrix movie (i know leave me alone!) where agent smith is talking to morpheous and hes talking about the human race and how he was trying to classify our species and that he came to the conclusion that we were more like a disease than a species. We multiply, destroy everything, go to new land, multiply some more and so on. Just trying to give the jist been awhile since ive seen it. I agree with alot of what you said and yes you are better off with others than alone, however group dynamics is a big part of it. I think the reason those organized groups do so well is because they have more in common than just the headline. You were saying about the sca and how they are such a large group, i can remember being in school and seeing those guys together in their own cliques, and later on the cliques got bigger. It also helps that they are more inclined to use computers so they can socialize with almost anyone anywhere. Look now you got me ramblin. I think minimum anyone should have a strong handful of people 6 maybe? dunno im no expert but it would be nice to try to figure out a way to bring more preppers together......paranoia is a pain in the rear lol
I agree about the group dynamics. Sadly knowing people on a baseball team or those involved with Medeivil lifestyle won't end up potentially trying to take what you have or worse. With preppers you are sharing the basis of your potential salvation. People are even reluctant to share that with close family. It is a completely different type of "interest".
Its all about numbers. 3 people can enforce their will on one superior individual (for good or ill). I notice this each time I walk into a place and notice 3 or more young testosterone filled Jocks hanging out together. I am a large, compotent martial artist (aging and stiffening as I decline) but I emediatly get my lack of safety at that moment.
I diddnt intend this thread to be about the SCA...But ,yes, I am "Outing" them as a potential survivalist group. Its always been there, under the surface (asbergers do have a tendency to be far sighted and the group does atract alot of x military) but it finaly started to be talked about openly after the book "Dies The Fire" where after a supernatural EMP on steroids wipes out civilisation and the SCA rebuilds society.
My initial intrest in the SCA back in the 80s was not the play acting thing but an intrest in nomadic tent cities. We'll forget all about fat girls being able to be sexy with superior clevage, aqward but brillient nerds being able to get laid...with multiple partners and Super obsesive Knights with asbergers that kick biker ass. My intrest was how they could plop down a tent city of thousands with Zero crime or violence inspite of heavy drinking and every one is armed. No other group or festival has this. I atribute it to a glorification of personal honor, clear codes of conduct and servant royalty where you advance though the ranks by how much you serve the community.
This is a very diverse group from cops to chemists, farmers to mainframers. The last group I visited had several outlaw bikers. Two last points. They are a community of people that make things (Ye old fashioned way) from soap to swords, cloths to carrages, and people that collect swords do have a tendency to collect firearms. As individuals, not so great survivors. As a group....they are an army. Thats only one group. Mayby Ill talk about organised crime later or how a sports group was one of the magor players in bringing down aparthied in south africa
I have a Tactical Harness and I have a Tool Belt. The Tool Belt is more Useful.
I never meant to make it about them either was just using them as an example as you did 🙂
i find it kinda humorous that theres so many veiws on this thread yet only JAB and i have replied! This is going along with what GC started in general discussion http://internationalpreppersnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=2439
It is very hard to trust people, sometimes you have to just take that leap of faith when your ready. Someday you might not have a choice! With everything going on in the world today anything could happen at anytime, scary but true. Survival with a group does give you a better chance at thriving. I think building the trust between one another is the key correct me if im wrong, its just getting there thats the problem
I have been very sick, still sick and find it hard to comment.
The ones I did comment on, tax me believe it or not!
Sorry to hear of your illness. Hope you are on the mend.
I have spent some time reading through these forums, and wanted to comment on this thread topic.
The fact that any of us are on this site is one of the obvious common defining factors. I suspect many of us think alike in regards to many social aspects, else we would not be here seeking out any level of community. That to me is the defining factor. Not just having the common cause of survival, but also the common wish for a community of individuals that through relatively common ethics could manage to live together in the face of a social collapse situation. That may seem an obvious statement, but something I think people on these forums forget at times. Survival favors those who have a common mindset, morale, and goal.
The biggest Con is the social perception that Preppers only deal with the negatives, and in fact obsess over it. The idea that it dominates our lives so much to the point of obsession, turns off the common individual. There are some elements of the planning and the learning of new skills that can be fun and very socially positive, and I see groups like Transition promoting this kind of community in a way that appeals to a wider audience of open minds. That is a big Con I have seen in Doomsday surival groups. They almost want the disaster to happen so they have an excuse to change things to suit what they see as being the better society. That kind of thinking is wrong, because the society we need to change is the current one, and only positive education and pushing the need for community building will do that.
The Pro aspect of a Doomsday community is that people are turning their fear into a productive solution through planning. Most average run of the mill people are just not that practical. Bureaucrats and people in government are rarely that practical either. The mantra of NS officials that anyone planning was alarmist thinking is really a form of fearmongering, that I have to admit ticks me off. The Cons are that most average people are more afraid of Preppers then they are of the disaster due to the negative media portrayal by authorities. Average people are to cowed by general media, which works to convince the average folks to accept only authority and social peer opinion as defining forces. It is frustrating at times to meet Prep-bashers, but the government has to shoulder a lot of the true blame for our lack of municipal level planning that does not address this problem. It should be their job to organize these community preparedness movements, and usually they are not doing this in a detailed or meaningful way. Some individual officials do particpate, but it is not at a sufficient enough level to be effective. It is not enough that they just participate in things like June "Field Day" events. They need to get over themselves and lead the way in attacking the stigma around Preparedness. Organizations like SAR get attention because they are seen for having a day to day purpose. Disaster planning organizations are treated like the evil step child that everyone wants to ignore. That is flat out sad.
The one advantage of the financial crisis in the world right now is that a lot of average folks are actually thinking twice about being so critical of Prep folks. The Pro is that people are learning to distrust the government lies. The Con is that people are learning to distrust the government. The lack of faith in leadership is a big Con, and during a disaster it is not uncommon for people to turn to someone who is a local Leader first. National leadership is what too many people expect, when in fact it is the local person they need to support and empower.
If we had the equivalent of a Block Warden system for disaster management and communications it would go a long way to improve confidence at a street and village level. I know I tried to get something like this off the ground ten years ago and got literally driven out of the province by hateful authorities who saw what I did as "alarmist" and a challenge to their kingdoms. Given the effects of disasters in the past couple of years I have gone back into doing some volunteer work again to see what I can contribute, but I see the same stupid attitudes amongst the career bureaucrats in this province. To me that is a major Con, as it leaves people at the individual level unable to trust or rely on the civilian authorities for much of any reliable support in a serious collapse. The "72 hour" be ready campaign has helped force the issue for some people, but by and large expectations are still that the granny state will fix everything. This does more to force people into being independent then community oriented. The sense of community needed for serious survival has to start with the community leaders, and many of them laugh at the idea. Those leaders should be taken to task in media or political and social gatherings, to force them to state their views on whether they support proactive thinking or not.
One big Pro of the media coverage issues is that general people are in fact actually starting to take individual preparedness seriously. Hurricane Juan was the first big slap in the face this region had in decades, and it did a lot to way up Joe and Jane average. I know I have had several acquaintances that only a few years ago considered me a nut to be Prepardness driven, are now asking me questions about how to heat their home in winter and deal with disaster survival on a small scale. At least that is a start towards a more common social mental state about taking simple preparations.
Having the advantage of growing up in a remote rural community I saw how people there just took for granted they had to plan for shortages and small scale disasters. It bonded that community on a more personal level then simply bringing them together in a universal dislike of government policies on remote settlements. The big Pro of any disaster (or threat of such) is that i brings people into a community mindset. As older members of society that have seen those times I see what I have done volunteer wise as a responsibility to teach the younger people about common sense and planning. Given the economic hardships a lot of young people these days have grown up in, I think many more of them are openminded about a return to close community settings or even communal living. Compare that to the boomer set who by an large are going to be the ones with the hardest emotional impact of facing a disaster. I don't have a lot of sympathy for them honestly. The culture of privilege their generation exploited and embraced has created the current mess. It is not just a few greedy rich people that ruined the economy. It was people not using common sense in saving for a rainy day.
Here in the Maritimes the Pro is that there is already a sense of community in many small towns just by the nature of how we do business and socialize day to day. That is one of the biggest positives of living here. The Con to that is too many people take this as being the "normal" here, and as a result most Disaster Planning at the Municipal and Provincial level is sub-standard at best. So disaster planning is taken less seriously by the authorities, as they see less of a need for it. The assumption that communities will rally and do all the right things in a disaster has been proven over and over to be a false assumption. Dependence on and access to such good will and cooperation is too often assumed by government thinkers. So the need to education the local authorities is not as strong as it should be. The refusal in too many circles to be Reactive over Pro-active is foolish, and a sign of weak leadership.
Case in point are the courses that the Feds offer to fire departments and politician on dealing with disasters. I have been through this training and attended these courses a couple times, and they can be informative. However they are not mandatory, and should be. The instructors in these courses are teaching the same Reactive mentality that the government wants, and not as engaging as they should be on the planning aspect. The courses should also be open to the public. Maybe that would do more to improve what is taught, and how those emergency responders should be taking that information back to their communities to educate others in those communities and not just to hold it close to chest and not share it. The Pro is that there are Federal officials who do their job in this area, but the Provincial authorities are just too slack. They provinces tend to be the weak link.
Having lived through some disasters in the USA and seeing the issues with looting and criminality first hand, I do get why some of the American Preppers are so much more militant in thinking. The gun culture does not build community. It just builds a state of distrust. Security planning is never an unrealistic thing, but thank god it is not the overwhelming thing in communities here. The biggest Con that I see in Doomsday community culture is the utter declaration of free style violence that too many buy guns (almost hopefully) with the intent to use them for the slightest transgression. That outward aggressive talk does nothing to instill trust or comfort in ones neighbours true intents. Guns are tools just like a hammer or saw, and we need to confront those people in Preparedness communities that preach otherwise. It is a definite Con in how what one fool says becomes the opinion of a larger group. The fear of guns in this country comes from miscommunication and knee-jerk opinion of the standard "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality will of course invoke.
The big Pro about Maritime Canada is that people here do not resort to crime to solve their problems the same way they do in larger and more urban dense population areas. Sure there is some, and during Juan there was looting that the general public was not made aware of. I found that annoying that such things were kept from the public. The government conceal such things because they think it will cause panic otherwise. Well Mr Gov man if you cannot trust the average people in your country, what does that say about how well you are doing the job of educationg them? We are not the lost cause that places like Detroit, Los Angelos or Miami are yet. Even with the worse case disaster, having a priority of civility will go a long way. But the government mentality of ignorance is bliss is stupid.
If the act of communicating to others builds community, then how can any rational person see that as a negative anyway? There will be cynics, but I think most people do listen, even to what they are not comfortable hearing. To me the biggest Pro will be the sense that as Atlantic rural Canadians we already have a willingness to talk to even complete strangers on a level not typical in bigger urban driven parts of USA or Canada. If we do get a large scale disaster here, and the government reacts in the traditional "authority-first" mentality of the 60's, then the biggest Con of all will be our elected and appointed leaders. Maybe its time we start appointing open-minded officials for disaster response, and stop using the NGOs and EMOs as a retirement community for former RCMP and military types.
Look at what happened in Halifax on the days of 9/11. The governments authority based response was a disaster in itself. The breakdown in communications, the lack of training of volunteers, the delays in supplying and housing the refugees that landed here -- all of that would have turned into a major mess if the people of the province had not reacted collectively and volunteered on masse to assist and manage shelters, home the people, transport them, comfort them in some cases, even give them clothes and money -- the situation would have turned out differently. I was part of that response effort for the week, and went from simple volunteer to shelter manager in the course of 48 hours. I was proud of what so many people had the forethought to do as a sense of community. Don't even get me started on how the government types p*ssed me off with their stupid decisions. The government types seemed to have learned little from 9/11, and still repeated the same mistakes even with White Juan, Juan, and other weather related disasters since. The Con that worries me if that a disaster like 9/11 is not enough to change thinking on community planning, then it is time to start replacing some of these officials that have their head too deep in the sand to be more creative and open about what needs to be done.
I guess the Pro action that could be taken from the 9/11 style response was what many of us could do, when we feel ticked off and determined to help. It shows we need to learn by volunteering in our communities, to help organize and plan now. Ignore the naysayers and make it know in your own community that you are the one that knows what they are talking about. That will make you a leader in the eyes of Joe and Jane average when trouble does happen. That will change things, when the time comes that it is needed it will save on preventing the collective suffering. Hiding in a basement will not do that. Isolation is only a limited solution. I think most Atlantic Canadians, even the fearful ones, instinctively know that. In other parts of the country it does not always seem like that is the case.
Knowledge is power, but it means nothing without community to back it up. Teaching knowledge builds communities.
Just my 2 cents.......
GreenEnergy,
excellent observation and analysis post with definite points on reform or thinking as well as action. I look forward to hearing more from you in the coming while.
Thanks for taking the time and energy to write this all out.
Cheers ~Wild_E
Welcome To the Board GE. Nice to see another Maritimer.
I just checked in as I am not on recently as we have been going full tilt on our homestead...only to find such a long and thought out response. I had forgot I wrote this post. Ha.
On the issue of community, It was nice to have a friend of mine that I met on this board come over to help, last weekend, to work on the land. We did some very dangerous Tree topping that I did not want to handle alone. It was one of many jobs I wanted accomplished before hurricane season as It was a potential danger to the main house. After the falling crash of tree and heart pounding wore down...It was the first time I really appreciated the value of the small community of prepping friends that I seem to have pulled off. Other people are the most valuable prep.
Im doing a lot this year with hurricanes in mind, reinforcing several structures, building a fence of pallets around the garden (no easy task as our garden is about a third to half of an acre . about 75 pallets in so far and just over half way done) to slow down the wind a bit wile keeping out chickens, pigs and deer. We will have a couple of ponds dug this year for fish and fire suppression. I want to use the excess dirt to build a bit of a berm hill to protect the solar panels from hurricane winds. That's My biggest worry as we have so much invested in it.
Oh yah, We are talking about community. I listened to this yesterday by Chris Martenson. http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/82097/answering-reader-qa-part-2 . He mentions that one of the biggest prepps that he recommends investing in is fostering and strengthening all of your social contacts, from friends to neibours to family to intentional community. Really investing in them ...in time and sweat equity. The benefits are many in building resiliency. I really enjoy what Chris M puts out as I find him the most emotionally stable of all the Pop preppers announcing the Crash. Also a big promoter of Transition,
Speaking of which, Im glad you appreciate the Transition Town Movement. The Prepper Movements more emotionally stable Brother. Ha. About a third of our friends are from Transition influence. I do have to badger them on food storage, security and the like. Its one of there short commings. Where Preppers are Jacks Of All Trades, Transition usually has a lot of Experts , or so I find
Well enough for being awake to let the new, Husky, Rotti, puppy outside to pee wile frustrating, sleep deprived, house training. Im heading back to sleep. Nice to meet you, GE.
I have a Tactical Harness and I have a Tool Belt. The Tool Belt is more Useful.