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Thanks for the great insight! If you have time, I'd love to hear as much as you're willing to share about any other challenges your group has faced. What about political differences? religious differences? lifestyle differences?Originally Posted by Goodburbon
Good insights indeed. Wondering how you've "encountered" these? Do you mean you've discussed them so you're ready for them? Not playing with semantics, just don't see how you could have encountered these situations unless in a real STHF situation.
Ok you got me. They are problems we've had while making decisions as a group.
Excellent points all.
Trust and trusting members to do the agreed upon thing
Equality and by this I mean every member must make a significant contribution, no slackers, freeloaders, or cheapskates.
The ability to say NO to people, even family who just expect you to help them. This might mean emphasizing your NO with force.
Skillset crosstraining - some people will be naturally better at some things but everyone can learn a little of everything.
I'm sure I missed a few things.
Thank you for the insight Goodburbon.
Religious differences. Most of the group is Christian, and my wife and I tolerate and respect that. They know we aren't.
Politically, either they are just humoring me or we hold to pretty much the same principles.
Disasters anticipated. There are some differences, I'm a "just prep, stop worrying about everything that might happen", while the other major party head is a "Look what's going on in Europe, what about the solar storms, what about....." This is easy to overcome. Just accept it, discuss it with him and let him come to the conclusion that we're prepared/ can easily prepare/ or that there is no preparation that will work for any such event.
The family issue was a big one. My wife's brother is a "I'm coming to your house" character. So my reaction is to provide basic preps for him. .22, .22ammo, rice, beans, flour. and let him supplement the rest with what he can kill or grow. One of the other hot headed members decided that he'd rather just send him away under threat of death rather than take on a freeloader, ironically that same member doesn't yet have 6 months of food for his family yet and has decided to take up bench rest shooting as a hobby. He may not be a member much longer.
Speaking of killing, everyone seemed to be operating under the zombie principle. That we would just keep a 600m perimeter and shoot anyone that comes closer...I had to point out that you could not identify a friend/foe/indifferent at that range and that just shooting people that cross the 600m mark is not only bad policy, it's murder. We've adapted a more comprehensive defense plan.
my group pretty much dissolved because of the above issues. good points.
This is something that I have put a lot of thought into and there is an end result. Basically there are two situations that you have to consider:
1) The economy / government has eroded and lost control. Crime is soaring but there is still commerce in one form or another. Essentially a wild west type of environment.
2) Complete social breakdown. No law, no morals, worst case scenario.
The first is honestly the most likely due to the current hoards of completely dependent people. In this scenario there is a chance for groups to form, but they are only going to be successful if they fall into one of two categories:
1) They are all like minded prepared members that respect and trust one another absolutely.
2) They have no other option for survival so they band together for strength in numbers.
The first is like an old west town, the second is a common street gang. Chances are these will be the two groups in competition for resources. There are combinations and other options, but this as far as I can tell is a fairly comprehensive breakdown. With that said, the only way that a group will survive is if their environment falls into the first category of both conditions. Other than that it will be impossible to keep people together for any length of time.
The only real reason to have a group is self defense. Trade / bartering can be conducted with anyone, provided you have the means of defending yourself and your property. The real threat is being overrun by a larger gang type group. Sure it would be nice to have someone that you trust to trade with, but on a long enough timeline you will have to venture out of your compound and trade with others, and for hunter gathering type activities.
But for me it all boils down to one absolute, and that is that you can only trust family. My family has had this mentality for some time now and everyone is diversifying into very specific skill sets. I am electrical / mechanical engineering, one brother is a physician, my dad is former special forces and great at killing stuff and my sister is a cultural anthropologist... (there is always one in every family that just doesn't get it.) We all hunt and shoot and we all prep as best as we can.
I still have a group of friends that I plan on banding together with in order to make an initial stand if need be, and to travel to my families planned meeting place (we all grew up together and our families live close). But I do not plan on having them be a formal part of my group. We will all protect our own families and work together as needed, but to attempt to form anything beyond a loose community is frivolous because everyone has their own priorities that will always come before your priorities. This is not to say that I would not help my friends and their families if they were in need, but to pre-establish a community will be a lot of wasted time when it falls apart.
After a certain point it becomes clear that planning can only go so far because the possible choices that you will encounter are too numerous and lead down too many diverging paths. The one thing that I would throw out there as the most important aspect of this whole topic is to have a planned meeting place for everyone in your family that you care about. Then they are individually responsible for ensuring that they have the means to get there. If you put enough preparation into this location everything else will fall into place as best as it can depending on the choices you make.
If we are lucky enough for only a short term loss of government / economic collapse then communities will form and there will be opportunity to redevelop society as we know it hopefully purging liberal ideals for a few generations. If that continues to fall into complete social breakdown you end up with a 5 seconds after situation where you can expect 80 - 90% of the people around you to die and that is something no group can handle and remain organized. No amount of preparation can change the path of a community subjected to that level of disaster. It will be all by the seat of your pants decisions that people will make because they have no other choice. The strong will live, the weak will die.
Good conversations guys, this is exactly what I was hoping would develop. After thinking this through, you'd have to have family or buddies you've known for decades who have the same mindset and live close by. I think for most people, this isn't too feasible, and thus it would be an immediate family type of thing. I myself am not really a prepper, but probably should be. Finances often get in the way.
Last edited by keylay31; 07-01-2012 at 19:43. Reason: Changing my to not for clarity.
Same thoughts myself guys.
I have always been a planner, creating scenarios and thinking about how to or what plans would I do to cover whatever might get encountered. I am not paranoid I have always had a wild imagination and am a methodical planner. I am always thinking and day dreaming about what if this would happen, what would I do? This same thought has applied to my 4 wheeling hobby, I always carry spare parts and/ or tools needed in case of an emergency or just in case something broke. It has actually saved me from spending the night somewhere I did not want to.
Some of my current friends, if I ever mentioned random shit talk about this stuff they always make fun of me saying I am acting like one of those paranoid dooms-dayers. What could happen they say?!
Yeah what could happen, human history is riddled with end of era society and re-birth. Not to mention countless natural disaster we should all expect will eventually happen because we are overdue as scientists would say.
It would be nice to meet individuals of like thinking and come up with plans in case SHTF and be able to hold some form of organized civilized mini society. Currently my thoughts have been I have some basic preparations, run to the hills to remote area not many travel and look for others who had that much forethought as well and team up.
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles. --Jeff Cooper"
My feedback
Do ALL of your friends act like this? And is it when you bring it up in a group setting, or individually? There's a "group think" thing that often happens with people together, where one scoffing can be enough to make them all do it. I'd suggest you bring it up individually, then you're more apt to get a real read on who's with you and who isn't. Those that aren't can be ignored when it comes to prepping, and in fact, I'd never bring it up with them again - as those'll be the guys who'll remember your comments, and want to come mooch off you if SHTF.
For those that you identify that are of a like mind, cultivate them gradually. It may only be one or two at first, but eventually you may develop a network of like-minded individuals, which is more than you have today.
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