bothering with details

BOTHERING WITH DETAILS


A comment the other day said, in effect, don’t keep panicking about every disaster de jour because you don’t need to preach to the choir and we are already prepping. And of course, a plea to stop covering such things and focus on prepping. Well, on the face of it that is good enough advice. But as usual the devil is in the details. I get yelled at if I just cover prepping ( all you ever talk about is wheat and bolts and junk land ). I get yelled at if I panic ( see above ). I get yelled at if I write too much ( just get to the point ). In short, no one seems happy. But that isn’t because of what I’m writing being irrelevant. It probably is just because that particular person doesn’t like that particular subject. If I was covering their pet project every day they wouldn’t complain ( if I wrote iluvARs blogspot I would be everyone’s friggin hero ). And, yes, a lot of covering different aspects of our collapse is nothing more than that days filler article since I had nothing else better going on. But the thing I get worked up over is that while perhaps once sound, perhaps back in the mid-90’s, is now bad advice. You can’t ignore current events and just plug along with prepping. You no longer have the luxury of time because any fool can see that events are becoming more chaotic, less structured, more unpredictable and disasters are being spaced closer together.

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Back in the 1970’s, it was all coming apart and no one knew if the ass had fallen out of civilization ( actually, given all the facts it looked like a good bet ). Panic was good and it looked justified. Then nothing happened and things went back to normal. Suddenly, Yuppie Survivalists preaches you have thirty years to prep and Druid Dude thinks all civilizations take centuries to dissolve. It’s all good, dawg. Look at the 70’s and Y2K, nothing bad can happen to us. We’ve got history on our side! Well, yes, you have the elementary school version of history on your side. Now try applying a bit of thought as to why those civilizations took so long to contract. And when you’ve done that, ask yourself if it can be duplicated. Then, apply a 20% plus or minus to your math. History is written by the victors, and so all history is both subjective and arbitrary. Now, I take history and try to apply lessons myself. I think that is just human nature. We value our own thoughts so much we can’t help but wallow in their glow. But really, in the end, we are probably just full of crap. Not because we draw faulty conclusions but because the facts we started with are probably wrong. Survivalist writers and doctors should have one overriding principle of “first, do no harm”. Now, I know a lot of doctors think they follow that adage. If their training is correct and in fact radiation or chemotherapy is as benign as advertised. Personally I would rather skip them. But anyway, as I’ve blathered about before, advice that isn’t conservative is harmful. If you aren’t taking the worse case scenario as gospel, you are placing your readers in harms way. Not because you are wrong with your end conclusions, but because your initial “facts” could be erroneous.
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If you take threats as life threatening, and nothing happens, you are safe rather than sorry. If you relax and don’t panic and just plod along with slow preps, that one black swan coming along will kick your ass. Always assume the threat of the day is real. That is not to say you must act on every threat. You can’t be in three places at once ( hell, you can’t be in two places at once, although modern management wants to believe you can- and look at the mess they’ve made of things ). It is impossible to prepare for everything. But as each threat comes along, ask yourself if you are somewhat hedged on your bet prepping for that, or if you are totally vulnerable. The point is not to go crazy, the point is to refine your preps. It is just like going from a six month supply of food in your apartment to a three year supply in your cabin in your woods. You are covering more contingencies. In effect, yes, that is just plodding along and ignoring the details. All I’m saying to do different is to hasten the process just in case you don’t have all the time in the world. Don’t wait for another year to get a thousand watts in solar panels. Just buy 50 watts now and make do with that. If something bad happens, you’ve got yourself covered with Better Than Nothing. If nothing happens, sometime later add another 950 watts.

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Worrying every day about a new threat isn’t meant to discourage anyone. It is meant to light a fire under your ass to have all your bare bones preps, and have them yesterday. Adding depth and breadth is what you can plod along with. Jesus on crack, the number of times I read about “budget survival” by a Yuppie! They have no concept of budget or survival. Budget doesn’t mean spending a thousand bucks for a years food supply instead of two grand ( just use coupons! ). It means spending a hundred bucks on grains and beans. They take luxury and do that cheaply when they should have been thinking bare bones. Kind of like today’s definition of poverty is owning a junker car and living in a centrally heated apartment rather than having a new car and living in a huge house. Sixty years ago poverty used to mean malnourishment and exposure to the elements. Now it is just a decrease in the amount of luxuries. I guess when you cry, “reality check”, most folks look around for a real bank check.

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