Saturday, December 29, 2012

The Preppers Doom

Prepping has been a prevalent subject in the media these days and Prepper blogs are filled with people expressing their concerns and sharing their progress in storing of goods and materials. It is a big party and everyone is happy to have four hundred rolls of toilet paper and hundreds of triple A batteries, pounds upon pounds of rice and beans, etc. This is great, it's smart, and it should be encouraged, but it is also a blatant admittance of defeat.

Yes, we should all be prepared to survive for a week or better when the power goes out, or when a large scale attack disables infrastructure for some time. But in reality, these are short term events and the stores of resources that most Preppers have are for short term survival.

You're not going to live off canned beans and bags of rice for ten years. I follow these blogs, I watch people, it is somewhat of a hobby as I too consider myself a Prepper. But I am also a realist, and I realize that I am not going to live forever on what I have stored up in my pantry. I realize that the future that confronts us will demand a different set of expectations and methodologies for survival.

It is my opinion, based on reason, that if your goal is for long term survival in a resource constrained environment, then you need to be able to produce resources, not just pull them out of a limited store in your basement. If that is all most Preppers have done is stashed away dried food, water and weapons, they are in for a big surprise. They are still suffering from the 'on demand' delusion that has gotten us into this situation.

Unless you have a system in place to grow food, preserve it, collect seeds and replant in the next season, unless you have fruit and nut trees, you are going to be in big trouble. All of these Preppers who have only stored items and have not put in place a system to produce items will be among the starving beggars before long. It is another collective psychosis of our culture to think we can survive from a closet full of stored goods for the rest of our lives.

I write this because I have an affinity for the Prepper mindset, it is one of survival and determination, but it is not without the same shortsightedness that plagues our current culture. I hope if you are a Prepper, you will read this, get out of your closet and into your yard. The future is green, and no, it's not solar or wind power green, it's human power green.

2 comments:

  1. "It is another collective psychosis of our culture to think we can survive from a closet full of stored goods for the rest of our lives."

    Not necessarily... it all depends on how long you expect "the rest of your life" to be,,, if the answer is in months, then depending on stored goods is quite reasonable ;-)

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