Oh yes I have seen how people pull together and thats the reason why my friends and family made it just fine without FEMA, Red Cross, or anybody else for that matter.

Many may call me crazy but those people watching me fill my truck up on the side of the road from a tank in the back sure looked envious. I guess I could do as you suggested and gave everyone a cup full, for the community you know. They did’t ask for any though. Probably my wife watching my back with the AR-15 gave them pause.

For Sue Lyons way up at the top. And I quote “If my only choice was to survive in my little cabin way back in the woods while everyone else starves and freezes to death, I think I would rather go suck on a gas pipe, while there is still some gas left!”
Please do the world a favor and do it now. That statement made me ill.

‘Ammo’ indeed. Go ahead and shoot each other and do us all a favour.

happy hunting!!

Increased self sufficiency is a good thing but I think that a realistic view of the world must take into account the fact that people really can and will work toward avoiding the collapse of society by developing alternative means of power & production.

As for all the comparisons with Katrina… Peak Oil is not going to be a sudden event so comparisons with a natural disaster are invalid. A more reasonable (and negative) comparison would be Easter Island which suffered a slower population collapse after killing all their trees and being unable to build boats.

It is interesting to note that in reading these comments, the most aggressive and rude ones seem to come from the isolationist/survivalist side of the spectrum. And despite pointing out the flaws in the article, many seem to miss the point and misrepresent the argument as much or worse than the article does for their side.

The cave-man pictures were a jab and not needed but funny. The kumbaya hand-holding-hippies references are the same.

I believe that the underlying point is that by labeling everyone as “sheeple” and “idiots” and being satisfied to watch them all rot, it increases the chances of that being the case and worsens the situation for everyone. It DOES fan the flames. However by at least trying to envision a new way of life that has room for many and not just the few there is greater possibility for a transition rather than a crash.

If everyone moved to the countryside then it would become just like the cities. If everyone stockpiled food and guns for themselves those things would be scarce quickly and ignite problems faster. If everyone starts by saying “I have a gun back the f**k off” then it doesn’t leave much room for proactive resolutions.

You can’t own enough guns to stop everyone and the better solution is to not have to kill others to save yourself. The burning building and sinking ship analogies have truth even if they have flaws. The point was that if those boats were filled to capacity MORE people would have lived, and if the fires were fought and folks educated then more suffering could be avoided.

The fact is that just as we cannot sustain the population we have in the manner that we are now, we also cannot support a world of tiny fortresses living in siege mode.

It is ironic that there are those who have the resources to buy land and stock food and guns and remove themselves from society and yet they use the inventions and ideas that that society brought (i.e. computers, cars, internet, etc). It is unfair and lopsided. At least the Amish are consistent in that they don’t use the things of this society and shun it at the same time.

To frame this article as condoning a lack of preparation is silly since it clearly says to prepare and help others to do the same. To say that it is simply idealistic dreaming and “suicidal” is to promote an every man for himself world. Which creates crash senarios and condones by-any-means attitudes.

Those who are saying that building strong communities is “suicide” makes it hard to distinguish the survivalists from the marauders. Both groups condone violence and a me-first mentality. Using weapons to procure and protect what the few need at the expense of the many. I don’t believe the 2 are the same, so survivalists need to work to differentiate themselves as more than just doom-saying and calling others “sheeple”, “idiotic”, “naive”, and “suicidal” for desiring to PREVENT as much suffering as possible.

The societies that existed before oil were just that SOCIETIES. The communities (Amish, Morman, etc) who advocate self-reliance are just that COMMUNITIES. So we can drop the inaccurate kumbaya accusations and try to understand the point.

If everyone are really just “sheeple”, then why not be shepherds?

This is the meaning of the article and it is a noble one.

It is both disgusting and frightening to see the amount of comments that seem content to say “we have predicted this all along and will watch as you and all the rest of you idiots die first”. In reaction to an article that advocates saving many rather than few.

One can recall the examples of atomic bomb-shelter paranoia as well as Y2K survival fanatics. If we cry “doom” too often we again make it more likely and act against real observation and warning. Of course those doom-sayers will eventually be right but when will they own up to how many times they have been wrong?

Yes people will die, the question is how many and in what manner?

As an example, lets say that there are 10 people. For the sake of this argument we will say that 2 are informed and prepared and 2 are the criminal type who will only look out for themselves – the rest we will call “sheeple” – able to go in either direction depending. The isolationist/survivalist mentality says the 2 prepared ones should head for the hill with supplies in hand and perhaps an additional 1 or 2 “sheeple” that they convinced of the impending doom. They will wait and defend themselves against the 6 marauders who come to take whats theirs (best case = 4 live).

The mentality presented in this article says that the 2 prepared ones work to educate the 6 “sheeple” and then can be better prepared to save the group and deal with the minority that are criminal (best case = 8 live).

Of course this is an oversimplification but the point is that we may be able to mitigate and margnialize the “crash” BY preparing the many and not just the few.

Several years worth of food, water and guns wont help anyone if tragedy strikes that household. However, those same supplies would continue to aid a community if they were pooled with others and maybe that community would have been able to save that family in the first place. Win-win.

Don’t write off thinking about your fellow man as unrealistic, naive, and idealistic – it is part of practical preparedness and self-preservation. Otherwise we give the marauders more of a motive as well as a target.

There were many factors that contributed to what happened in Katrina. It is an important lesson to remember however it should be noted that part of the problem was when and how those that could leave did. Leaving their neighbors to die in the process. There are just as many stories of crisis in which communites banned together to save as many as possible and make the system work. Lets avoid being too selective in our recollections.

Pro-active = being prepared and preparing others. Reactive = being prepared and waiting to kill those who didn’t do the same. The first option has much greater chances for success.

You’re right about society being nothing but these things, but the material possession is just there as a tool to provide the human brain with stimulation. That IMHO is fundamentally what all humanity craves, more and more stimulation so the mind can grow. Whether from eating non-essentially, watching television, blowing things up, accumulating wealth etc. that is all what drives us in life.

Some humans will survive because some humans see a primitive lifestyle as stimulating. But I think a post-oil society would be on par with an 1800s-early 1900s society with post modern elements e.g small farming towns built around a wind farm or solar panels. The average person would continue on just so they can have a technological and stable society back so they can continue getting stimulation from the world.

So Planet B you make a lot of good points, but I still think a community would be held together better if they had hope; of being warm, safe and comfortable in their beds for a night.

The wealthy depend on security services for day-to-day safety. Little do they realize that in a full-blown breakdown of civil society, they’d be among the first victims, probably at the hands of their security and domestic staffs.

Middle-class survivalists can’t afford the aforementioned amenities of the rich. They might own a second home, but its location won’t be remote enough to escape any carnage. Many have settled for motor homes. There’ll be thousands of them choking the highways in case of serious trouble. The problem with motor homes is that they’re dependent on traversable roads and fuel. If you can get there in your RV, I can get there in my ’84 Malibu.

The urban poor are just plain out of luck. New Orleans taught us that.

On the other hand, my poor hillbilly relatives in the Ozarks and Appalachians will do just fine. They’ve been self-reliant for centuries. They already know how to do most of the stuff for which survivalists need instruction books.

They have gardens and animals for food. They have grandmothers and mothers who know medicinal herbs. Their folk remedies don’t always work, but then neither does modern medicine. They have sons and daughters who can take an old Volkswagen and turn it into a still, making everything from medicinal alcohol to moonshine, or into a horse- or mule-drawn wagon. They have strong kinship and social ties to their communities.

And woe unto the rich survivalist with his half-million dollar survival shelter plunked in their midst. He’ll be as popular as a turd on a dinner plate.

The problem I see with most survivalists is that they’re self-centered and think only in terms of isolating themselves. A single family in a remote cabin won’t deter twenty bikers with Viking mentalities or gang-bangers who shoot people for entertainment. Wherever the bad guys might start out from, when the pickings get slim, they’ll move on to your door, sooner or later.

If survival at any cost is your mind-set, might I recommend Utah and Mormonism? The Mormon Church is a strong advocate of self-sufficiency and preparedness. Mormon communities will probably do better than most if civil society breaks down because they are prepared for it. Church members are family through blood and belief. If need be, the Mormon Church could call to arms a hundred thousand men and women. Name another state that could field a volunteer civilian militia that size virtually overnight.

I’m too old and set in my ways to worry about survival. A strong earthquake would probably kill me from a heart attack before the roof could fall in. Still, it’s interesting to read about the follies of men and fun to comment on them.