Prepping - Strength in Numbers / Community

[zombieprepper]

Prepping is all well and good but if you plan to bug in or out for a long period it wouldn't take long until you had marauders arriving to steal food and supplies. Surely a plan would be needed to build a larger community of people with different skill sets to bug in together and have a shift rotation for keeping watch. Erecting defenses, barbed wire and barricades. Or to bug out if necessary to a pre-planned location to setup camp and start growing your own crops etc. Hoarding food and supplies is fine to start with but what happens a few months down the line when society collapses . I guess its fine if you have a bunker but at some point you need to come up for food

[pseudonym]

Prepping is all well and good but if you plan to bug in or out for a long period it wouldn't take long until you had marauders arriving to steal food and supplies.

Never had marauders at my door in 2020.

Hoarding food and supplies is fine to start with but what happens a few months down the line when society collapses

"Hoarding"
noun
the practice of accumulating and hiding or storing away goods or resources.

Got any savings? Hoarder. Case of cola? Hoarder. 4 pack of beans? Hoarder.... etc

Hoarding food and supplies is fine to start with but what happens a few months down the line when society collapses

A few months gives you the chance to plant crops, move location get more medication.

[Frnc]

I can see both sides, but what do real life disasters teach us? Mostly I think it's cooperation that gets people through. Of course a hybrid approach could be the best of both worlds. Your preps will get you through days to weeks, but community will get you through months and years.

The UK is unlikely to run out of potatoes and wheat. Our biggest food vulnerability is fresh vegetables. If you can grow some, great. Failing that, nettles are abundant, and super nutritious. So are dandelions and other plants. Chickweed is another.

[GeraldTheBonzai]

I would suggest that everything would depend on the specific situation. In 2020, covid created a crisis but it was not a. SHTF scenario - the power stayed on, still had water, infrastructure stayed up, food was available (except loo rolls). Nobody starved to death. Covid was also protracted - it occurred over a long time period.

The current conflict in Iran is not a SHTF incident (yet) but it is having a different set of impacts. But still not the end of the world.

Take spanish flu. That had an infection rate of around 33% and a mortality rate of those infected of between 2% and 5%. It was also sudden - people got sick within a couple of days of infection. If something like that happened today, impacting the same demographic (younger people) then it would take out the bulk of the workforce. It would also crash the health service.

Now take a natural event - a massive CME that produces a Carrington event. Global power distribution outage, GPS gone, comms gone. Now you might get people banging on the door.

So which one do you prep for?

You prep for the ones you can prep for. And the ones you can't prep for, you try your best. To be honest, in the event of a global total SHTF event - the worst case scenario where those left are reduced to eating rats... I think I would rather go in the first wave.

[jennyjj01]

Prepping is all well and good but if you plan to bug in or out for a long period it wouldn't take long until you had marauders arriving to steal food and supplies. Surely a plan would be needed to build a larger community of people with different skill sets to bug in together and have a shift rotation for keeping watch. ...

We prep for various situations, not just the instantaneous dissolution of civilised society.
Our preps of maybe a few months essentials is there to buy us time to regroup, or time to see out a short crisis, not to feast on forever.

So, while I agree that a years worth of stored reserves might only last until marauders come and then be useless, it could help us survive long enough to outlive our neighbours and to become the marauders, or at least dominant survivors.

*By definition, a crisis is of limited duration.

[Medusa]

Safety in numbers perhaps, however, who do you know to trust? You may have friends/neighbours/a community and people who you think you can count on in a SHTF situation but books, films and the world show us that generally there are traitors or those who are leaders who are corrupt and who could very easily turn against us for their own gain in an emergency situation. I have my family and one friend I would trust, other aquaintances and most of my neighbours I would not. My family knows about my preps, my friend also does, but nobody else and I wouldnt let them know either. There is a very old saying "loose lips sink ships", it would be very easy for a friend of a friend to tell them about my preps should things go awry, people be starving etc and we are all aware about not telling people about your preps, but would you in a SHTF situation with people close to you? For those who read and enjoy fiction, there is a very good series called Blue Plague, set in America so far from UK rules, but interesting and not for the faint of heart, about survival in an apocalyptical event and lots of mentions of traitors.

[ForgeCorvus]

I've been watching a youtube channel that describes themselves as Financial Historians...... Interesting how in all of the documented Economic collapses there are some things that hold true.

One of the main ones is that you need to form communities and relationships before the Event

[GillyBee]

Selco is one of the few bloggers writing from real life experience. (Bosnian war) He says that survival required a community. Some people did not prove trustworthy - and in SHTF they may get dealt with brutally. And some people suffered because they trusted the wrong people - impossible to be completely safe trusting people but working alone was a definite disaster.


One summary article here but there are more around.
https://ia801406.us.archive.org/22/item ... 20Hell.pdf

[jennyjj01]

He says that survival required a community. Some people did not prove trustworthy - and in SHTF they may get dealt with brutally. And some people suffered because they trusted the wrong people

And I bet some got cast out because they did not or could not contribute.

Hone some skills ready for the day you get inducted into the new Society.

[Adjee]

Depends on the situation.

If it is for a very short period of time and there is barely any food, "lone wolf" may be better (unless you need to bug out), but, (usually) a small tight knit group (of trusted and reliable individuals) would for me be preferable.

However...... in a long term "situation", an expanded/larger group (with a mixed skill set) would be required.

Wolves live in packs for a good reason.