Apocalypse: My Take:

For the Amazon Hoplite, it meant word arriving that barbarians were raiding a nearby town. For the followers of Jesus Christ, it meant their secret meeting place being betrayed to the Jewish High Council. For the female murmillo gladiator, it meant every time she battled in the arena.

For the citizens of St. Louis, Missouri, it meant the May 27th, 1896 giant tornado that descended upon that same city at what we would today call the rush hour. For the Royal Naval Reservist, it was the announcement on August 3rd, 1914 that Britain had gone to war with Germany. For the liquor store in 1920, it was the enactment of Prohibition.

For the small town sheriff in 1927 Arkansas, it meant that tommy gun-armed gangsters were robbing the local bank. For the family in 1932 Oklahoma it meant moving from the farm to an oil town to find work. For America, it was Hitler's declaration of war on the U.S. following Pearl Harbor, 1941.

For the German, May 8th, 1945. For the Ohio weather man, it was April 3rd 1974 super outbreak. For the world, 9/11/01 terrorist attacks. For me it is dealing with Dad going into a nursing home.

For somebody, somewhere, there is an apocalypse ongoing. It will end only when Jesus Christ hands back all authority to God the Heavenly Father.

 

The above post is interesting in the perspective of what Mauser'sdada considers an apocalypse . My definition of his examples is just having a bad day or week . No doubt Mauser's definition is shared by many and explains what I call half a--ed prepping . What ever the cause , I personally wouldn't consider it an apocalypse unless at least half of the human population succumbed to the bad situation . Non-believers just don't prep to the level of those preparing to walk a barren landscape . I was wondering as to what our members consider an apocalypse and their preparation level is .

 

Good morning Poltiregist,

In reply; My definition of an apocalypse is probably a mirror image to yours.

If the liquor stores are to going to be closed down due to the prohibition amendment - forgot number, I will start the process of learning how to ferment grapes so as to create a fine, smooth wine laced with raisins. Aforesaid drink for sacremental requirements and pancake syrup.

Someone arriving here with a Tom SMG, drum or mag, is about that person's need for psychological intervention by a mental health professional. This place is Tom SMG resistant even prior to reaching the outermost perimenter.

WTC 9-11 was minor in my view. There was a prior 1993 attack on WTC. Some of the shipping companies reloacated from WTC NYC to down here. This was one of the easiest warnings in American history.

I believe the actual historical King Jesus was leader of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high council. So the story goes, when the new state of Israel was declared in 1948 to keep Stalin out of the eastern Med and nearby oil fields, the first Religious Affairs minister (can't read name on fading photocopy someone sent me) suggested to Ben Gurion, the new Chief of State, to reconvene the Sanhedrin, 70 wise and incorruptable Rabbis to rule on administering Halacha/Jewish religious law for all aspects of the new state, Ben Gurion asked his minister "where can you find 70 incorruptables?".

With money, the wise Religious Affairs sage replied with a wink, you can buy anything.

Didn't the German reserve Admiral in THE SOUND OF MUSIC get activated for WWII service ? A few brews at Bremerhaven and getting away from the house can actually improve one's health somewhat.

 

I'm sure everyone has their own scale, but here is mine.
To me there are various levels of SHTF. Non of which I would call THE apocalypse.
You can have a very personal SHTF experience, house fire, tornado etc
It can be a community SHTF like poisoned water or wild fire.
It can be country wide like 9/11. Which was an SHTF moment for many many people. It was sad, horrific and many more descriptions. But it wasn't the apocalypse.
You can even have world wide ones like this pandemic where many have died, lost homes and income and been put under draconian laws. But its still not the apocalypse.
To me the word apocalypse means we are loosing well over half, even three quarters of the global population or more. It means no one is coming to help, because there is no one left to do so. Apocalyptic events are on a different scale to every mentioned incident and disaster in the original post. Apocalyptic events are things like nuclear war, super volcanoes, mass starvation due to things like The Year without a Summer, but many years without a summer. Pandemic, but one a lot more deadly than our current problem.
I prep for the apocalypse. My premise is that if I can handle the apocalypse, all the smaller disasters and SHTF events should fall well under that umbrella.

 

[QUOTE="poltiregist, I was wondering as to what our members consider an apocalypse and their preparation level is .[/QUOTE]

Apocalypse = Human extinction level event. Nothing left of a biological nature on the planet after an event such as a massive solar flare that would reach the planet, meteroite big enough to fragment the planet, etc. etc.

TEOTWAWKI, SHTF, etc. do not qualify.

Dale

Edit - I don't prep for my definition of the apocalypse. I prep for EVERYTHING else. If it can be survived, I won't quit fighting for life until something kills me permanently.

 

Apocalypse = Human extinction level event. Nothing left of a biological nature on the planet after an event such as a massive solar flare that would reach the planet, meteroite big enough to fragment the planet, etc. etc.

TEOTWAWKI, SHTF, etc. do not qualify.

Dale[/QUOTE]

Yeah that's a tiny bit more serious than my take on it. No preparation for the end of all biological matter on earth

 

Perhaps with the exception of some virus or disease ravaging and killing off the planet's human population , I would expect living conditions to be " better for a prepper " after the population reaches 10% left surviving , rather than 50 % left . I am simply figuring there will be fewer people competing for resources and less desperate ,starving people to have to contend with . It is the early stages of the apocalypse that would be a harder go .

 

I think that the apocolypse is happening right now. Each generation is less able and more dependent on an artificial environment. Had the world gone to crap in my Dad's time it would have just meant that he would have gone back to the world that he was raised in. He saw to it that I was familiar with the needs that you MUST provide for yourself if anything major happens.

Kids these days (anyone under about 40) have no clue about living in a real world. They don't hardly know how to even cook real food and live on microwave and oven baked frozen dinners. If you handed one of them a live chicken I'm not sure that most of them would be able to kill, process and eat it. There is something very primordial about killing your dinner and cleaning it for an immediate meal. It is just a natural part of life but NOT the life that people live now.

In the end not being prepared will be the killer in even a mild disaster. Our apocalypse of ignorance is just a disaster in waiting.

 

My view is that what can be prepared for is an apocalypse delivered by mosquitoes, whether in natural state or modified genes via human intervention.

My prep program would continue as now. Birds continue to be fed in chilly weather and water available. Water sites inspected frequently for mosquito larva.

Even carnavore birds welcome here.

Quoth the raven "Nevermore" .

 

Thank you for your generous assessment of my generation. Would you believe I even know how to use a rotary dial phone and bake bread from scratch

But, yes you do have a point. I am aware that the great majority of people my age and younger have no useful life skills in the event of something going wrong.

 

I don't mean to speak for Tex, but the overall phenomenon we are witnessing is that as each generation is born into, raised inside of, a civilization wherein clean water is pumped to homes, electricity provided to homes at semi-affordable cost, sewerage piped away from homes, food grown and trucked from farms hundreds of miles away from population centers, the core abilities of people to get by on their own is lost. Each generation becomes weaker and weaker -- more and more dependent on "somebody else" providing the necessities of life. I witness the university students of today and see not only next to zero self-reliance, I see flagrant arrogance and a sense of entitlement that is as enormous and intransigent as the Rock of Gibraltar.

When the "mommy and daddy" people decide they won't, or will not be able to, work for the cities anymore -- "parents" being those who live and work in the Heartlands, those who grow the food and pipe the fuel -- the urban and suburban young people will totally decompensate materially and also mentally. They are without the knowledge base, the work skills and the psychological skills necessary to fight-back against major losses in societal support structures.

They know NOTHING about gardens, building cook fires, or scavenging for food (if they had a place to scavenge for food). The only area of expertise that grows among youth is the skill of looting.
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I meant no disrespect for your generation. The thing is that in my parents generation many things were still a part of daily life that we now considder survival skills. My generation was exposed to this, my Daughters generation has only heard of these things and sort of looks at them like a lot of other fairy tales. My Dad rode a horse to school. I rode a bicycle to school and my daughter sat in the car or bus and was driven to school. This sort of thing is true on so many levels. The difference between the world my Father grew up in and now is vastly different in scope than the difference between his child hood and mine versus his and my Daughters world.

For me the power going off for a year or two would be like a 5 foot drop but for someone born in 1980 it would be a fall from a second story. I was raised without airconditionng. We canned a lot of what we ate and I worked on the family farm butchering and canning food. I have gone out killed and butchered my supper more times than I can count. I have personal knowledge about how to grow, harvest, and preserve my foods. These are just not skills that my Daughters generation were taught. I tried, but to her it was just silly/stupid to do all of that when you can just buy it at the store. With the family farm gone there just was not the ability to teach it as I learned it.

 

I have been contemplating how to describe my point, as I do not have the eloquence of some. So please do excuse me if I come across badly or rudely as that is not my intention.

Basically what you are saying in a generalized way is that those under 40 know nothing of living any way but the stereotypical suburban shallow life. As I said above, in regards to the majority of people, Tex and Old Geezer, you are probably both completely right. And yes, many just don't want to learn. But, here's that but!! What you are saying is the equivalent of me saying, "all these old guys over 70 have no chance of survival, they are all weak and useless with age and we should dismiss them from consideration" This of course is a gross generalization, and incorrect. As such you are also make a huge generalization.

There is a very large number of younger people striving for a simple self sufficient life. In some ways we have it harder, because we are trying to learn things our parents never bothered or felt necessary to teach us. Many, like me, lost our grandparents long ago. They are not there to ask how to make soap from wood ash, or how to skin a deer. The dreaded YouTube and other social platforms are filled with thousands of videos and posts by younger people sharing what they have learned to try and help other younger people learn. Often times I don't even know what I don't know - if that makes any sense - until I run into a situation. This would probably be knowledge you have had since you were 5! Why do I bother to keep coming back to this site? Because most of you are much older and have a much better knowledge of how to live without modern conveniences and so I try to add your tips to my store of knowledge.
At the same time, when I stomp back into my remote little cabin after placing maple taps. My cabin with no grid power, tv, running water, air conditioning, central heating, refrigerator or any other luxury, I don't want to be dismissed from consideration of survival because I am 35 and not 45. And there are many people like me. I don't count city people, regardless of their age, chances of survival are diminished just by location.

 

Rebecca, you didn't have to further explain yourself. We're on the same page here.

It's not just some generational thing, it is also a "where people live" thingy, the latter being more of an issue. Urbanites in 1907 would have been in a disaster situation had their infrastructure gone to ruin. Billy the Kid was a kid from New Jersey. He couldn't make it out west, so he got himself a job working as just another hired gun for large ranching families -- some of these ranchers had small armies (you don't own that which you cannot protect). We read little about the Western "settlers" who weren't cut out for it and had to high-tail it back East.

In the past century, there have been mass migrations into the cities. Given the resources available, densely populated areas have a population load limit. The megalopolises of Earth are now well beyond their carrying capacity. The breaking points are broken + lack of survivability of the populations = Disaster writ Large.

What is it now? Something like over 80% of Western populations are living in urban / suburban settings. Happening in the Far East also. One could say that civilization is on the teetering point.

We preppers recognize this and say, "Oh sh##!", then try to do something about it.

Post SHTF, some areas will be out-and-out destroyed. Certainly in a nuclear holocaust, many cities and most military areas will be toast, literally so. During WWII, civilians who hid under buildings in Dresden were turned into statues of humans that crumbled into dust when touched.

Post SHTF, there will be agricultural regions that will be devastated, yet still in a condition from which recovery can and will occur. The USA has been pumping fuel back into the earth (into certain types of rock formations). Neither the USA nor the Soviets created enough cobalt bombs to tox the planet. We preppers have our iodine tablets for our kids and grandkids for the other sorts of bombs. The development of EMP bombs is a recognition that one's opponents are dependent on technology.

https://futurism.com/oil-companies-pumping-worthless-oil-back-underground

"Scrape off the top layer, grow the right kind of crops"

https://worldbuilding.stackexchange...to-grow-and-eat-food-on-post-nuclear-war-land

On some continents, there are vast agricultural regions that will have significant areas left -- post contamination -- that will be brought into operation to provide food for surviving human populations. Then there is the matter of the Southern Hemisphere. Maybe we should move to Argentina. China will take Australia. The better part of Canada will not be destroyed. Looking at fallout maps, even the USA has areas that will be free of too high of levels of fallout, areas totally capable of growing food-- especially given that the better part of the population will be gone and thus not requiring any diet (they will be the diet of the worms, happy post SHTF worms, "Where did all this food come from," said Wormy the Worm).

Though human plagues cause mass die-offs, people who prep and thus have the ability to isolate for weeks/months at a time, have a chance of surviving. Many isolated rural communities will be spared -- especially if they drive-off those infected who are fleeing the cities. In the USA, rural people have numerous firearms, the ammo, and the shooting skills to drive away infected evacuees. They also have the backhoes to bury them. Covid has made people aware of protection measures even if the Chinacovid itself wasn't an Ebola. If an Ebola raises its head, the phrase "Zero tolerance" will attain a new and profoundly severe meaning, "Come anywhere near us and we will open fire." This is when the thousand yard shots will come into play.

There are numerous SHTF events that will devastate the Earth, ones that will cause horrific die-offs of human beings. All ranch lands uncontaminated with too high of levels of radiation, we'll grow crops on it instead of critters. But you also have to consider that all manner of people will all manner of skills will be left alive. The SHTF events that result in The End, we cannot prepare for. However, we can prepare for a whole lot of hell and get our offspring to the other side of it.
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I can't say that the kids are the problem. My girls are 33 and 25 and they didn't like it when Dad took them out and made them learn things like using a map and compass, making fire, fishing, marksmanship. I did this when they were young (teenage and before) and now that they are adults, they appreciate what I taught them. Now they have skill sets that there friends don't and frequently are surprised that there friends don't know how to do simple things like dress a wound/injury, cook, shoot.

It is the parents responsibility to teach there children. If a generation has lost skills it is the fault of the parents, not the children.

Just my opinion.

Dale

 

Good morning Lonewolf,

You clarified this issue with term "mindset".

Here, Hades type preparedness still has people - even the older one - depending on electricity ...... as if they don't know about hurricane events.

Speaking of cotrolling your heating from your phone, there's a company that advertises here their product being a transponder on a necklass chain. The ad is "Live alone without being alone". If the person living alone has an emergency the transponder connects to the emergency rescue departments.

As if these rescue units, the roads, the public safety is all AOK.

Our system is in final decay.

The transponder medallions are not free.

 

I have been told that by people too. It is a mindset that I just can't understand. They are what? happy just to lay down and die?

The apocalypse may kill me. It may kill any of us. But at least we will fight to the bitter end to survive.

 

This post is going to read a bit schizo. My chair swivels from desk w/ personal computer to table with work computer. Multi-tasking = insanity.

Saw an article on urban crime, now my mind (what is left of it) is trying to meld the urban story with the farming/gardening story.

My great grandfather had to carry a big revolver while plowing his land ("hawg leg" revolver, i.e. percussion-cap). He and his brother-in-law were having a feud and thus he could come under attack at any time. I guess he had to go armed to the outhouse.

I've often considered the reality that when times go hard, I could be robbed while tilling my garden. Indeed, tillers and the fuel running them will be quite valuable.

I find it darkly amusing when I read stories of news reporters getting robbed while covering a story. The news talking heads do not see the milestone history marker of this. We live in an age where the communists want to get rid of police who do not share their dogma-set, yet the crime has gone out of control. Here's a video of the aftermath of a news crew running into reality:



I'd laugh out loud, but the day will come when I myself will be wearing a handgun while doing chores -- shotgun in the shed. We use our night vision goggles at night already. If I take the trash to the road at night, I have a chopped 9 on me. There is no shortage of evolutionary throwbacks around here.

The old man's mind returns to the tangential "age of people who can garden / have some farming skills": When in gardening supply stores and when at greenhouse sales (there are numerous stores like this around here; I use three hardware stores and two greenhouses, one is huge and very busy in planting season), I make a mental note of the age of the people there purchasing products. It makes me feel good when I see people around age thirty. When they bring their kids, I feel better yet. Of course, I recognize my own crew, i.e. retirement age -- there certainly is no shortage of the arthritis people. And people forties to fifties, they are well represented -- probably the highest numbers of souls there.

I see a trend, even here in an agricultural region, of fewer young people farming and gardening. This saddens me. Some SHTF event or events are in the offing -- I can't see the world / my own country going another five years without something going very, VERY, wrong. I would include a situation of lost power grids, economic collapse, ... events that will make growing one's own food a priority behavior. In the region wherein I live now, people increasing their land's veggie output will not be any herculean task. Plus, there is plenty of land to bust to bring about greater veggie output. (Speaking of which, I need to buy some seeds. Got some leftover seed from last year's squash and peppers, but still ... . Potting soil, need seedling potting soil. There we go, they're on my to-do list.)

Those who cannot do what this region can do are going to be in trouble. Those suburbanites who don't already have ground busted in their yard (let's pretend that they have a yard) and the tools for gardening are in just about as bad a shape as those living in urban areas. Suburbanites actually could grow dandelions -- weeds are edible. Growing dandelions sure is no effort. Sad situation.

I don't think suburbanites will be able to defend what little bit they may have to defend. They are too close to the cities. Post SHTF, those mean crews with energy gained by stealing food will continue to steal food, moving into the burbs to predate the 'burbs until the 'burbs are burnt out. All the while, people will have begun to decompensate physically and mentally. Hellish situation.

Relief convoys heading into Western "advanced" areas will be attacked just as witnessed in "third-world" nations. If you haven't watched the video I linked above, please do so, it is enlightening. Here in "good times" people are getting robbed on camera ... to include having their TV camera stolen from them. Fun, fun, right?!

re: video -- The thieves in the fancy cars, I fantasized about opening fire on them. I'd love to cut that car to pieces; roll it off that hill. Just goes to show you that there will be some unique recreational activities post-SHTF. What with police losing their funding, the burglars and robbers are coming out to play. Murders in U.S. cities are returning to the numbers seen in the 1990s' drug turf wars. What with Mexican and Central American gang members flooding in, there will be new waves of turf wars to determine which gangs come out ahead. I guess that has already started; the number of murders speak to it. Black families are being driven out of their neighborhoods because the Bloods and Crips are losing to the Avenues and the MS-13 crews. Historically Black neighborhoods are becoming Hispanic enclaves. The police won't / can't do anything about it. What a joke to imagine that they could.

Ah, what wonderful good times!
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Good afternoon Old Geezer,

When changing a tire on some side of the road, besides the tools like a jack and the spare tire, would not a perimeter security apparatus of some kind around the vehicle be required ?

Whether planting backyard sunflowers or relocating the fallen tree or changing a flat, the old days of public safety organization presence left the scene. The Prepper acronym YOYO explains: It stands for: You're On Your Own.

Currently both of us dwell in relatively safe areas. Places like West Garfield Park, Chicago are probably more dangerous than Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas or the Gaza Strip.