If I've missed a post or two that covered these points, I apologize, but from what I've read, I think there are two key points that haven't been brought up.

One: The name of the site is "EQUIPPED to Survive", and that's obviously deliberate. The focus of the site is what the founder of the site wants it to be, and that's as it should be. The original focus, as I understand it, was equipment to help downed pilots survive until rescued. It still concentrates on short-term survival subjects where the object is to get back to civilization in one piece, not to walk away from it forever. That may be pretty narrow from a broad "survival" viewpoint, and it isn't exactly the focus that it would have if it were my site, but, precisely because of that focus, this site is unique, and uniquely valuable. Every other aspect of the broad term "survival" seems to be well covered elsewhere. How would any of us benefit from yet another site that's got exactly the same information as 20 other sites and 30 magazines?

Two: Look, I have tremendous respect for the primitive/aboriginal/historic skill sets, more than I've let show here. I've been a reenactor, I subscribe to Backwoods Home and The Backwoodsman, I shoot flintlocks and I start my wood stove fires in the winter with flint-and-steel just to keep in practice. I think these skills should be preserved for their own intrinsic value, for the knowledge it brings of just how many layers of engineering separate us from our roots, and for the knowledge of the past, that gives a sense of direction to the present.

BUT... it's only reasonable to expect people to be interested in the survival scenarios that they think are likely.

If you're seriously proposing that survival might depend on being able to walk into the wilderness naked and make anything you need, then you have to define the scenario wherein that would happen, and show that it's likely.

With all due respect, we're edging up to 6.5 billion people on this planet. Without a pretty high level of technology, the planet is not going to support half that, and probably not more than 20 percent or so. The lower the level of technology, the lower the population that the planet will support. Any survival scenario that really RELIES on primitive living skills depends on no less than FOUR things happening:

1. Removing at least two-thirds of the current population, maybe four-fifths or more.

2. Removing virtually all of the artifacts of civilization as it exists now (to make it worthwhile reinventing everything from scratch).

3. Somehow leaving all the wilderness resources intact to be exploited.

4. Leaving YOU alive to do it.

I've read a LOT of apocalyptic science-fiction since my teens, but I've never seen a single believable scenario that does all that.

If you remove the technology that supports the population first, then the population will shortly remove what little is left of the wilderness in it's effort to survive. I know, just from talking to people about their Y2k ideas, that there would be at least 20 would-be deerhunters out there for every deer alive, and if you cut off the power for any length of time, you can forget about firewood. Think six BILLION hungry, cold people.

If you remove the population first, there's an excellent chance you won't be here to worry about the afterwards. If you are, the artifacts of technology, if dented and corroded, will still be around for many, many lifetimes. You won't be needing a stone axe in the "rust belt" of North America, there's a reason it's called that. You won't need to find flints to knap in a landscape littered with broken glass. Do you really expect to ever see a world where even every rusty, empty Bic lighter has disappeared?

So, your individual feelings might be different, but for a lot of people, the obvious answer to the question of how they'll get by without even a minimal survival kit seems to be "I won't have to". By having one with them when there's a possible need for it, they feel pretty sure of that fact. If you don't think so, that's fine, but I think it's more up to you to make that case than it is for them to defend theirs.

Just my thoughts, no offense of any kind intended toward anyone.