To quote OBG, "huh?"

I think most of us know ourselves pretty well. More than a few of us have had to choose between lousy choices, or had them forced on us. Others know too many people who were in those situations. I don't think any of us want to do anything stupid enough to qualify as heroic. Even those of us in fire, EMS and law enforcement have no real wish to be heros, that usually involves knocks on the door at bad times of the night.

Everyone who has been part of ETS for any length of time has a pretty solid perspective on the risks given to their location, and how to manage them. When they aren't sure how to manage a risk, have an after incident analysis, or want to share a new idea or item, they do so. Those here who choose to bug out as their primary course of action do so becuase they've analyzed their local dangers and determined that the most likely ones are sufficiently risky to make relocation desirable. Most of us have a set of conditions as to when to bug even if our current location is still somewhat viable, with a preplanned route and destination. But by and large, we are planning on hunkering down. Name a significant disaster within CONUS in the past 20 years, someone here was probably in the middle of it- we've taken the incidents apart, studied them, studied the actions of our members and other parties, seen what failed and what worked, and incorporated the results into our communal knowledge. And yes, many of us do try to use that information to help not only ourselves and our families, but our communities as a whole, as even the most cynical of us think that humanity is generally worth saving despite a certain number who aren't really contributing.

What you've done is post two threads, both rambling, one of poorly defined and possibly questionable objective, the other smelling somewhat of a manifesto. We've provided feedback on the former, and have asked for clarification on the later. You seem to be very aggressive with your posts, and then very defensive to our replies. We have several centuries of cumulative survival knowledge here and have tried to apply it to your posts, but you've made posts with a condescending tone. While I'd be lying if I said this was a huggy-feely fairyland (honestly, there are some here to make me crazy, we have a few former members I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I think about them and wood chippers, and some of my blowouts are near legendary), but even when we think someone is wrong, we usually look at it objectively and honestly.

None of us are planning on being the mythical "army of one", or going into banditry. None of us are eager for the end of civilization. None of us ever want our plans to be anything more than game of "what if", with our supplies a slightly nervous version of collecting stamps or souvenir spoons, and our practice runs for various techniques to be anything more than camping or the equivalent of sparing with a friend. So I'm going to ask you to take another deep breath, please. And let's try again- could you please explain what you are trying to say in this thread, but with less ramble? It isn't very clear, I think something is getting lost in your tone. I think I understand where you are going, but it might be getting lost.

Or was this just a venting, after bad experiences with other forums? That was one of the possible interpretations of this.



EDIT: Ye gods and minor deities. I'm turning into a diplomat! I think someone gets to collect on a pool somewhere. :P