Originally Posted By: hikermor
I lurk on some "survivalist" groups, more for grins rather than any useful information. Typically they indulge in "Mad Max" scenarios which envision a total breakdown of society, starving hoards looting and pillaging, and the virtuous, saintly far sighted preppers having to defend their goods against the unprepped. Hence endless discussions of "How much ammo? What caliber? What rate of fire? etc. etc? OPSEC"

I call BS on all that monkey business. My scenario tends otherwise because I have usually been inclined to assist in times of distress, as a volunteer SAR respondee (which sometimes requires really significant effort) and during a career in the National park Service (which often has very positive aspects). When the next episode of trouble arrives at my doorstep, i intend to patch up my situation, tend to family and neighbors, and then reach out to others to minimize distress and rebuild.

Homo sapiens is a social critter, and we have gotten where we are through cooperation and group expertise. Look at history and you will find that Mad Max scenarios are rare and isolated, and not the way of progress or repair,often a strategy which involves a lot of hard, grinding labor (terribly unromantic and not the stuff of fantasy).

I believe it is more realistic to look at historical examples, such as a war or (because of the war, runaway inflation or a disruption in the supply chain) food could not get to a populated area. While none of them resembled the movie, Mad Max, often people needed to shelter in place, at least for a while. You may be in a situation where your neighbors don't have food and you only have enough for yourselves and the few people you have taken in.

Jeanette Isabelle
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I'm not sure whose twisted idea it was to put hundreds of adolescents in underfunded schools run by people whose dreams were crushed years ago, but I admire the sadism. -- Wednesday Adams, Wednesday