A Texan in Surrey

[Doug1943]

Yes, I'm an immigrant (from the US). I arrived here a couple of years before Margaret Thatcher became PM and am now a citizen (or should that be 'subject') of His Majesty, a dual national.

My first degree (from an American Ivy) was in History and I have kept up that interest, along with a keen interest in world affairs, depressing as it is right now. (I read a lot. A lot.) I think anyone who has followed what's been happening in the world -- not just in the last few years and in the 'hot spots' but over the last few decades and in the West a whole, and who has even a rudimentary knowledge of human history, would be 'prepper'.

We've lived through a Golden Age in the West (by which I include the British ex-colonies in North America and Down Under) and now it's rapidly drawing to a close.

No one knows the future, but if you think you will always be able to pop out to the corner shop and buy more toilet paper or tinned beans, and return to your electric fire, with clean running water, flush toilet, gas stove, and freezer full of food ... well, you're like the pilot who has ignored all the flashing red lights on his instrument panel because his plane is still flying straight and level at the moment: inertia, physical and mental, is real. [See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias ]

About 25 years ago I used to take an elderly man, who had become blind, for a weekly walk. In early 1939 -- before Hitler invaded Poland in September -- he was a young man just starting his career in the City. He told me that after the Munich Agreement, he and all his friends joined the then-version of the Territorials, but, as he said, no one believed they would ever really go to war. Because, as he said, after the horrors of World War I -- just twenty years earlier -- no one could believe that the Germans were going to do it all over again. But they did, in spades.

So, the prudent person will do a bit of preparing. For a few hours of effort and few hundred pounds, you can arrange things so you and your family can at least stay indoors in relative comfort for a few weeks, should, for instance, there be a some .... "nuclear events" ... (as the World Health Organization recently warned us about, in their diplomatic language). Or some "biological events" no doubt caused by those pesky experimental Chinese bats.

My neighbors, of course, think I'm just a mad Yank. (I ignore that, except to tell them that where I come from, Texas, in the American South -- "Yankee", pronounced "DamnYankee", is a deadly insult). They think everything will be fine, and if it isn't, we can rely on the government to protect us.

They may be right. To fortify their optimism, I tell them they need to read a book by a very intelligent man, arguing that the Great Powers have become so economically-intertwined, that their business class will not let them get into a serious war, which would just bankrupt everyone. Add to that the fact that a war now, given the great advance in killing technologies, would add mass death to national bankruptcy. So war has become obsolete. Then I tell them that this book may be hard to find, as it was written in 1908, just five years before the start of WWI. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion ]

Whoa, another term paper. I'll finish this introduction with a bit more introduction: first degree, history, graduating in 1967, followed by an involuntary 11B10 [training as a light-weapons infantryman, ie a certificate in how to kill people] which didn't, thankfully, get put into practical use; followed by an MSc and a PhD in Computer Science, earned over here and a career teaching at a couple of different University of London colleges. I still tutor kids in Maths and Science, although Covid wiped out most of my business (not literally). Oh yes ... for the first twenty years of my adult life I was a member of a hard-core Leninist sect. Well, when you're young, you're dumb. But I did learn a few useful things there. (The Left is so much better than the Right at organizing and campaigning.)

It would be nice to find some likeminded people near Guildford in Surrey.

[itsybitsy]

Hello and welcome, thanks for such a detailed introduction.

[pseudonym]

Hello and welcome to the Forum.

[GillyBee]

Hi & Welcome. What do you find are the biggest differences between UK prepping and Texan prepping - ignoring the obvious one of weapons which are not a premissible topic of conversation here?

[Arzosah]

Welcome to the forum! Do tell what period of history you studied/ what's your favourite?

You've got quite the CV, my word. Once I understood what "central planning" meant to the individual, I never did stick with Communism/Leninism. And you know what, I've never taken on board the whole Great Illusion theory Nowadays, it sounds a little bit like The End Of History, by Fukuyama, though not entirely.

Anyway, I'm not a million miles away from you, and maybe we *can* get something going in SE England, maybe its time.

[Frnc]

Hi from Manchester, Doug. I agree that history is interesting and should provide lessons (sadly the same mistakes do get repeated though). Also agree that things in the west (and the rest of the world) are unlikely to keep going as they are forever. The global economy crashed in 2008 and could again. It's a bit different now, as we have higher inflation and interest rates. Interest rates were very low in the early 2000s; this delayed the crash, but probably made it bigger.

[Doug1943]

The thing is, there are a dozen really well-informed, sober, scholarly, people now sounding the warning: Mearsheimer, Zeihan, half a dozen investment advisors (people who really understand economics) ... and the Daddy of them all, John Gray.

And they're not all talking about one thing: some focus on old-fashioned capitalist boom-and-bust economic cycles, some on international finance, some on the American national debt, some on international relations (and their military implications), some on the decay of the West due to hyper-individualism, some on the repeated cycles of rise-and-fall of great civilizations. But they all come to one conclusion: fasten your seat belts.

If you know of anyone who suffers from the opposite of Depression -- Elation -- I'll send them a reading list/YouTube link list.

I don't want to start a political discussion here, but ... just think about my native land: 350 million people, not all of them drooling idiots. And what is the best each side has been able to propose to lead them (and, of course, lead the rest of the Free World, in a different sense of 'to lead')? Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Can you imagine either of these men playing poker against Putin and Xi?

So ... prepare.

[itsybitsy]

I've allowed the post but please be advised that we do not 'do' politics on this forum.

[Doug1943]

Got it! My disapproval was bi-partisan, but it's a good rule.

[jennyjj01]

Got it! My disapproval was bi-partisan, but it's a good rule.

Hi Doug, and welcome. Great intro posts.
As Itsy said, we don't even do Bipartisan politics as it's been seen to get out of hand.
You bring new perspective here and I look forward to your prepping contributions. Also, don't be shy asking questions as the only silly question is the one not asked.

You'll have noticed that we Brits are less 'survivalist' and more 'good housekeeping' type preppers. As you say, for a few £100, and a bit of fore-thought, we can turn crisis into mild inconvenience. With even a modest reserve, we can put ourselves happily tucked up at home while our less prepared peers scuffle in the food queues. Some dreadful stuff we can only dread and prep for a little and if tshtf, we might just die alongside the rest, but hey ho, we try.

To the topic of normalcy bias: It soon returns in those that suffer it. Look how no-one would now be seen dead in a mask and how even those who really struggled the inconvenience of lockdown, still went back to their old hand to mouth, ways. We here just double down on our preps and keep schtum about our wisdom. Discretion is something many of we preppers share. We will remember those who mock us, when they come begging for help.