Teotwawki A New Beginning.

Pic for attn.

The End Of The World As We Know It, comes across to most of the world (including most Preppers) as the end of everything. The apocalypse!

For preppers though. Would it really be?

Use whatever event comes to mind as the worst possible outcome, where human can still survive. World wide EMP, Pandemic, meteorite strike, whatever.

Life continues, and if life continues, then so do opportunities.

Personally, I look at most scenarios where society collapses as a chance for Preppers and those ready to step forward, to create a new life for ourselves. I look at my home/bug in location as my homestead. From a homestead, communities are built. Routes of trade and commerce are established. Societies have always been built this way, so why would it stop?

If the existing society collapses, then so do many of it's problems, With greatly reduced populations, the end of our current governments and financial institutions, militaries dissolved. Life would start anew. It wouldn't be easy, but why should it.

In such a land people could become what they desire by there own hands. A community that can feed itself and have food and supplies for sale/barter, becomes stronger and determines much for it's area.

I prefer this view of what can be after a TEOTWAWKI event, than the mad max gloom and doom.

What can you envision?

Dale

 

If the cause is electricity down for years ,a pandemic or financial collapse I could see cities becoming erie ghost towns with skeletons aplenty . Like on some of the apocalyptic movies I could see vast wasteland with virtually no people because there would be no water source for most without electricity . There would be pockets of survivors in environment " survival possible areas " . Travel between many of the survival successful areas will be daunting because of the vast distance separating the various groups but looking at history of some earlier explorers will not say travel would be impossible . The most likely survivors would not necessarily be the college educated but the hardy backwoods type simply because a step back in time would be a short and easy step for them .

 

The part of TEOTWAWKI that is important to us is the bit that says " as we know it".
The world as we know it is constantly changing. The key to survival is the ability to adapt in order to keep up with the pace of changes. A good analogy would be one of those old steelyard weighing scales, balancing environment against adaption.

 

Dalewick: I certainly share your hope, and I agree there is no reason why the world couldn't be rebuilt to be a better place. I would like to think we could learn from our mistakes and do a better job. I guess it depends on who survives. What frightens me is what I will call the criminal element. I do not discriminate when I use the term criminal. It could be a Drug Lord; an Organized Crime Don; a Gang Banger; a Government Bureaucrat; a local Industrialist; anybody who tries to assume power and control. There are those that will want to take power. They will want to rule everything. You know they will be out there. They will be organized, and they will be armed. They will take what they want, and try to crush everyone else into subservience. Unfortunately, that to has happened everywhere on the planet.

How do we band together to fight these people off, and keep not only what is ours, but the kind of world we want it to be? It could very well be an invading force. These are the things that scare me.

 

Morgan, I have given a lot of thought to just that question. So much will depend on the ethos of those that survive and the training and experience that they have. If enough young people survive that believe in the freedom as our forefathers did, they will fight for it. Young men trained in small unit tactics and bushcraft skills could build a better world. If it was to happen in my lifetime my only wish is that I live long enough to train such young men all that I know, and hope for the best.

I guess in the end, we prepare all we can and wish for the best.

Dale

 

The World as I KNEW it when I was young ended a LONG time ago. Honor is a dirty word. Criminals have more rights than their victims. People stopped raising their kids. It is "cool" to be rude vulgar and criminal. Women have kids that they can't support from men that have no interest in supporting them or being fathers to their kids. Respect is supposed to be just given to any piece of crud just because they are alive rather than respect being something that you earned. The list goes on and on. My world has already ended. It is dead and all that is left is the decomposition of it.

I see a total collapse as a chance to try again and to remake a world worth living in and with people that are worthy of respect...

 

AMEN!

Dale

 

That would be great. But even on this forum, it is few who truly prepare all they can. For very nearly all those on all the forums and blogs, etc. who think of themselves as doing "ALL THEY CAN".........Ain't.
In fact most are doing little or nothing. People can't get out of their head that, sooner or later someone will save them, and not only save them, but make them whole again.

 

Only a fool waits to be saved.
Never look to others for what you can only find inside yourself.
I also believe people forget where we came from and what overcame to be here.




Dale

 

So true, TexDanm. Very well said. I would add there is no longer any personal responsibility for anything. Nothing is your fault. You have been oppressed or victimized by rich, rascist, sexist, homophobic, white men. It is the system, and White Privilege that are holding you down.

Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is you are stupid and make bad decisions.

 

Teotwawki new beginning , What if you don't want a new beginning ? I suppose you will just have to accept gradually over years society will start to repeat itself , Corrupt politicians or dictators , Corrupt law officials . Have you ever been robbed on the side of the highway by a deputy trying to fill his community's money coffers . They certainly deserve the name highwaymen . Getting up early in the morning to go to work is no fun . I would be happy if society never returned to what we see as normal today . Living like Daniel Boone or Davy Crocket would be fine with me .

 

Ask yourself, who is stopping you from living that life now.

 

That is a fair and good question that got me to thinking about that . Laws are still in place and too many people per acre . In order to do that I would need to hunt year around and utilize fishing practices that are now illegal . So I would probably end up in jail . I liked the question and will give this further thought .

 

Would you move to Alaska or some other state in order to have what you want........???

I have special Hunting and Fishing "Subsistence Rights", because of where I live. It has nothing to do with income or anything accept that I live in this location. Not all of Alaska have these rights, but many locations do have them.

 

Unless you are a straight white male. Then everything is your fault.

 

Society. You can't just walk into the woods and claim a piece of land. You have to buy the right to rent the land from the government. If you don't pay your rent to .gov, they will take your land. Since you must pay that rent you must interact with society including earning fiat currency so you can pay that rent. Then you will need transportation to get from that land to work with all the fees and expenses that come along with that. It just snowballs from there.

 

If it was just me, yes, I would move in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, that is not the case. There are other responsibilities that preclude me from doing that.

 

Part of me would love to live in Alaska. However, I am conditioned to the heat. I honestly don't think I would do well at all in an Alaskan winter.

 

I to would find the Alaska idea tempting , but with me not being used to that environment might find it too foreign to survive , living outside of all or nearly all human contact . an interesting idea though .

 

The little or no human contact I could handle. The cold would be my bane.

 

Ok, I'm about to step off in it. There is an elephant in the room that our political correctness won't let us talk about. My world started to die when our Government decided that the only way that they could MAKE all Americans equal was to drag the white people down to the level of the minorities that had been poorly treated for generations. They did this by doing to the white people what had been done to the minorities in the past. They said that you can't discriminate due to race, creed, color, sex, or national origins. Then they proceeded to REQUIRE companies, Universities, and businesses to discriminate against white males. The best person for a job or promotion is never allowed to be based on qualifications, experience or the impression that you make at the interview. They have to choose based on how much trouble they will be in if they hire a white man and don't hire the minority. This is one reason why American businesses are not competitive anymore.

Reverse discrimination is no more right than just regular discrimination was. The next step of the destruction of my world was when they integrated the schools instead of helping the minorities to rise to the standards and level of the previously mostly white schools they lowered the standards until the pass rate for minorities was the same as the rate for Whites. This lead to kids graduating from Highschool that were basically illiterate and couldn't count their change. They also decided that if a minority wanted to fight and abuse other students and teachers that is was a right that minorities had. My best friends son was hospitalized twice from attacks in school and the response of the black principal was "Boys will be boys. Dey was just hose playing." They were not horse playing they were beating him up while robbing him of his lunch money!!!

We allowed our schools to be turned into places where nobody feels safe and the teachers are mostly just referees. Our businesses can't function because they are forced to hire minorities that are only limitedly qualified and then you dare not fire them because of no matter what it is discrimination. My Dad fires a black boy that was working for him because he used a company truck in a theft. He filed and the EEOC made my Dad pay him back wages and hire him back because he allows other employees to use the company truck for personal business and never fired them so it was only because he was black and it was discrimination. I SWEAR on my Mama's grave that this is true.

I am a strong supporter of equal rights both for minorities and women. The problem is that the Government won't ALLOW people to be treated equal and they have skipped the most important part of equal rights and that is equal responsibilities for all. All Americans should have equal treatment. Discrimination is wrong. The problem is that minority parents don't seem to put much effort into raising their kids. They come out of public schools with no preparation to enter the job market. If you can't even fill out an employment application in a correct and legible manner and don't get hired your race had nothing to do with it...but the government says it does.

A lot of the things that they do for the minorities that look like good things for them are actually HORRIBLE. When a University requires a score of 1300 on an entrance try exam but then lowers that requirement for minorities to 900 so they can meet a government quota they are ruining a young persons chance at a good education. You take a kid with a 900 and put him or her in a local college and they will probably do good and may get a degree. When a University requires a very high grade to get in it is because their curriculum is VERY demanding and if you aren't up to it you will fail. This is why a degree from MIT or Texas A&M Engineering is worth more than the same degree from Podunk College. By forcing the University to let kids in that don't have the grade you are robbing them of a legitimate opportunity for a useful education and degree.

Basically, my world was destroyed by a Government that made right decisions but then implemented them in a totally assinine and destructive manner that in the end left the minorities no better off and racial tensions worse than even while screwing white males.

 

Quoted for truth

 

If there is going to be a catastrophic change in the world (or at least the United States) such as a pandemic or collapse of the infrastructure, then it will be a terrible, terrible time! It will not repeat not be an opportunity for the preppers and survivalist to revel in a "new beginning" or to "level the playing field" between the big business people and Mr John Q. Public. What will happen (because it's what always happens) is that there will be disruption with everyone taking a big hit in their standard of living, life expectancy, and any kind of a long-term healthy, pain-free life. And then...

... what happens is that the cream will rise to the top and you will have a new ruling class taking up where the old ruling class left off, just like always.

The best we can hope for is that our comfort and life expectancy will not be too badly damaged, because we took reasonable and prudent precautions to prepare for this lowered standard of living, worse (if any) dental and medical care, and the expectation of dying in bed at the age of 90. I chose to move to a place with fewer people, good agricultural land, a decent aquifer, and a place which will probably be less subject to the more violent and unpredictable weather driven by the current climate changes. I'm learning to be a small-scale agriculturalist and making friends with my neighbors.

There isn't anything else I can do.

 

I don't think that anyone is going to revel in a disaster of the kind that we are talking about. The fact is though that no matter what the disaster is, it is going to thin out the lazy, stupid and needlessly violent in a hurry. Those that are even somewhat prepared are going to be the first to react while the useless masses are going to first sit and wait for a handout and then riot and burn down their own homes and places. While I will not revel in the horror this will bring to so many I will not mourn the loss of those that are little more than parasites on our current culture. Best of all can you imagine anything less useful in a post-apocalyptic world than an ex-lawyer or an ex-politician?

In the centuries past often cities became so filthy and infested with garbage, sewage, and trash that a fire that burned down most of the city was the only thing that could save the people from endless disease and madness. I fear that we in the first world countries around the world are nearing this sort of problem. I think that if no NATURAL disaster comes along that as you will find in history a war that will burn down the cities will be inevitable. I think that an EMP from a coronal mass ejection will be better than a nuclear exchange between two countries gone mad.

The US is all that stands between the world and another situation much like the period when the Mongols under Genghis Khan swept through Europe and ended the Roman rule. When the Romans were strong this didn't happen. When the US is strong the Russian and Chinese hesitate because while they can cut Europe off they can't cut the US off as long as we are willing to fight. That willingness is fading. So many wars were fought in Europe. In each, the young and aggressive went fought and died. Then when they weren't at war the most adventurous and ambitious left and immigrated to the colonies. This has left Europe tired and not willing or prepared to resist.

The day is coming when once again out of the East, Europe is going to be invaded. the Russians are the best hope because if it isn't them then it will be an Islamic invasion that is going to be more horrific than any prior invasion. It has already started and the invaders are slowly infiltrating all over Europe. They aren't becoming a part of the countries they are coming too, rather they are preparing to turn those countries into the same sort of hell holes that they left.

They will try it in the US but the fact is that the US but the US is vastly larger than any Europian country and the people here are just plain meaner than our more civilized European Forebearers. I can only hope that we will hold off so that when NOT IF a natural disaster strikes that we will be still able to be prepared and not enslaved by a violent militaristic conquerer. I believe that both are inevitable. If the natural disaster happens first we won't fall as far and the survivors will be more of the smart and prepared rather than just the lucky.

Civilizations and cultures are just like people. They are going to age and then die. Our rapid growth in the sciences have I fear speeded up the process. It may also make the fall more devastating than any such in the past. When Rome fell it mostly afected the rich and powerful while the poor that lived off the land continued along in much the same path. Now the poor live in the cities and have no land or knowledge of how to work it. thre are no domestic animals to work the land and when the tractors stop the farms will fail.

It will take several generations to get the food production back to a point where most of a population aren't required in the fields to keep the people fed. Before WW2 over 60% of the population were rural and involved in agriculture. Now the number is under 10% and most of the people like me that lve in rural areas are not involved in food production.

 

I have never considered that TEOTWAWKI was anything else other than a necessary predecessor to a new beginning. The people of the Earth have gone massively astray, so God is simply going to hit the big RESET button. He's done it before, He'll do it again.

Big catastrophes happen all of the time on Earth. This time, the human population has grown huge and the human population has grown soft. Not gonna be pretty.

I wouldn't doubt it at all were I to learn that in some point of human history an Atlantis did actually exist ... and got wiped-out. Maybe this happened where the Mediterranean Sea exists now. Maybe a civilization was there, a mountain range where the Straights of Gibraltar now exist had a catastrophic event, ripped open, and let the Atlantic flow in, wiping out 99% of the people living in the low lying areas. Oopsie!

The Earth's climate is always changing. Adapt or die. Mother Nature cares not one whit.

I see all coastal cities being destroyed. So it goes.

The Pacific Ring of Fire rattles and rolls causing the Pacific Ocean to slosh killing over a billion people. That could happen tomorrow afternoon. Same could happen in the Atlantic. A huge meteorite could break up over the Earth and cause splashes in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. That event could kill over two billion people in one afternoon.

The people of Holland brag about their system of dikes that holds back the Atlantic. What a joke! Maybe one day in the not too distant future Holland will cease to exist. So what?

All fiat currencies are doomed. During the last century, over twenty national currencies hyper-inflated out of existence crashing their economies.

I believe that whatever goes down, even a world-wide plague, even a world-wide nuclear war(s), humans will bounce back. The tough ones will. I believe that only 50% or 75% of the Earth's human population will get washed away / burned off. The human species needs a wake-up call and it sure is gonna get one. With our knowledge base being what it is, we'll recover. There are libraries all over the place. I have one.

The Teachings of God's Prophets are the only source of Light on Earth. Period. All human utopianistic ideals will be utterly annihilated. Socialism has gone belly-up on innumerable occasions -- it will continue to fail.

Even ordinary people who have died and returned to life (due to modern medical technology) have been shown future catastrophes and the rebuilding of civilization into something better than we currently have. The Christian theological text, the Bible, tells of catastrophic events (using metaphors) leading to a world where the Teachings of the Prophets (return of The Christ, an Anointed One will return, "and they shall be known by a new name") are made manifest. Not a utopia per se, however a much better world.

First there must be a cleansing. All human arrogance is going to be crushed into powder.

 

Good morning Duncan,

My views mirror yours.

What IS scary is that the RISING CREAM might not successfully handle foreign confrontations.

 

Good morning Lone Wolf,

I can see the new "normal" as showing initial signs of arriving.

Recently, I wrote to our Tex Dan M that my environment is a SHTF in semi-slow motion. Crime, violent political activity (criminal ?) and minor panics ... think of the hurricane mess found on roads and in grocery stores ... and the medical facilities: all here in small portions already.

I'd help Tex Dan in a split-second on any of these survival matters but would be operating well beyond a SHTF environment. This is an environment not throughout the US, at least, not yet.

When I add the war refugees - (few; political leaders allowed to the US under various arrangements), it is visible enough that people of means are already experiencing what happened in WWII.

My current view is the same attitude and just a modification of doing things. I consider this a best-case scenario.

A closing though; many of the returning wounded from America's current engagements are contractors with prior military service. This means their recent injuries, illnesses and ailments are not service-connected as members of the "official" military and no VA medical care (in most/many cases).

Like many of the novelists wrote, we are only a layer of veneer away from pre-civilization.

 

The exact same thing is true and happening in the US. Our Government is not responsive to the will and needs of the people. The Government is becoming only responsive to the desires of the politicians and political parties. The actions of the FBI and other government officials trying to influence the election was an attempted coup. The fact that they did it, were caught doing it and there were no repercussions for their illegal actions means that at some level they partially won.

 

If what you and Messrs. lonewolf and Pragmatist say (and I think it is quite likely) then the only question is how quickly this slow-motion SHTF will move to fruition. Will it gradually get worse and end up with a total breakdown within a century (cf. Imperial Rome)? Or will there be a tipping point analogous to the belief of many of the climate change people: suddenly (and we don't know when or how) the change and the rate of change will increase dramatically -- maybe within a few years? Your guess is as good as mine.

 

There it is.

There are minor quakes that lead up to the Big One.

The Big One has a cause, a flaw in the underpinning, something HUGE that is going to snap. However it is unseen until it gives way.

People deny this reality and it is with strong emotional energy they deny the dark realities of this world.

"We can deal with these little earthquakes." = denial of the reality that the little earthquakes are itty-bitty teeny-tiny portents of the inevitable collapse. The year 2008, the recession that scared Wall Street, the economic downturn repaired by government/bankers pretending money into existence, this little thingy was a wake-up call to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear begin preparing for the coming utter collapse of world economies. The longer it takes for big events to happen, the worse their magnitude.

I'm dedicating this paragraph to the phenomenon of war. Keeping the above in mind, note that all of the wars going-on around the world are merely symptoms of underlying disease processes. Here's one, too many people and too few resources. Fresh water unavailability has killed millions, not by thirst, but by bombs; witness the Middle East, any shortage of oil?, nope. But, how many people depend on the Jordon River?! The causes of wars are not lessening, they are increasing. And these little flaws will come one day together and hell will be hoisted out of the eternal darkness lying far beneath where God's Will would have us dwell. Wars are coming which will numb the minds of the lion-hearted. And in certain regions, fiery balloons will rise to burn the sky.

Sounds terrible.

It will be.

However there will continue that human race. It has grown smart. It has written things down. All will not be razed. All of the squishy little two legged critters that can pretend to think and go about the grand comedy they call civilization will not be killed off. Many will survive. They'll breed. Maybe they'll even learn from their their mistakes.

What did Bill have to say?

 

Old Geezer, Are you familiar with the work of ethologist John B. Calhoun on behavioral sinks. "Too many rats in the cage" is an example of societal collapse. A new term for it is "Civilization Disease" and I'll let others decide where we are in the matrix.



Dale

 

I think that there are several things that could happen. First off there is the possibility that we will elect a disaster. Another Clinton type that declared war on Americans that legally dealt with or owned guns could easily result in a revolution. Liberals don't understand that a LOT of us will die before we will give up our right to defend ourselves. If it was done wrong it would result in Texas and other possibly adjoining states seceding from the Union. this time the South will have the manufacturing strength and resources. Also how many limp-wristed liberals do you think are in an all-volunteer military? This sort of catastrophe could happen real fast if we elect a nut.

Another possibility is that the Governments of the free world may decide that a war is needed to distract and redirect the focus of its people. You can do this by allowing a despot to grow and become a major issue as was done with Hitler and to a lesser extent Japan or you can push someone into making some sort of retaliatory attack on you or your allies to justify going to war. You can only push a regime so far until they have nothing to lose and strike back. North Korea and Iran both are suffering under the current restrictions on trade and are crazy enough to do something that would get a lot of their people killed.

The immigrant situation is becoming a problem in most of the free world. Immigration is good when the immigrants come to work and become a part of their new home. It is disastrous when it is basically just failing countries are exporting their problems to other countries and the immigrants want to restructure their new homes into the same hell hole they had made their originating country into. Immigration is not a charity.

If you don't have something to offer then you shouldn't be allowed in. Illegal immigrants are INVADERS. They are coming to TAKE from us. We need to make it easier for real immigrants that want to come work and become citizens to enter and on the flip side we need to harshly discourage illegal invaders. I really think that minefields and a shoot on sight no-man-zone would be better than a wall. Illegal immigrants should be given 3 months to leave then hunted down like rabid dogs if they stay.

Another possibility is that the economies of the world that are based on unsupported spending just collapses. Printing money to pay bills is a recipe for disaster. If several of the world-class currencies inflated into uselessness things could collapse in a short time and when people start getting hungry things to get tough. An economic collapse similar to the Depression that the US experienced in the 1930s would not be nearly as good as that one was. Back then most people lived in rural areas with farming as the base of the local economy. My Dad often said that while they had almost no money they at least had enough to eat. You can do that on a farm. The current uber urbanization would lead to riots, fires and make a bad situation even worse.

I used to think that eventually people would wake up but after the last few elections and based on some of the totally insane people that are being elected I have no hope now. We are electing people that are openly advocating the destruction of our nation. They want to throw the borders wide open to all invaders, remove our ability to defend our homes and lives and propose rebuilding America into some bizarre sort of Candy Cane Villiage. ??? AOC is a good example of this. Any people that would elect someone that is that crazy doesn't deserve the right to vote.

 

Rat dystopia comes to mind. "Sardine can rage" also comes to mind. My terms. His work will always be part of my psychology canon. I totally forgot the term "behavioral sink", however. Thank you for attaching the graphic. One of my undergraduate majors was psychology.

Y'know, his studies came under fire, still are. Know why? Socialist professors do not like anything that could be used to challenge their social engineering schemes. "There's a way to fix overcrowding. Urban violence is due to the oppression of minorities by Western Cultural paradigms."

The Stanford Prison Experiment wherein those playing guards became abusive to those playing prisoners has also come under massive attacks. Any sane person knows that when one group of people are given power over another group of people the possibility, the PROBABILITY, of those in power abusing that responsibility and thus abusing those not in power is all too real. Not communist college professors; no, they believe that Big Brother is benevolent and will always remain so. Their trust in government is part of their religion of Secular Humanism.

The U.S. Constitution breaks government up into three separate sections. The people are always allowed armaments so that the states can form militias composed of the people to oppose large centralized government.

Here's the Wiki article on that Stanford experiment. Note that within it, "researchers" (politically correct thinking, disciples of the holy church of secular humanism) are give free rein to eviscerate the original studies. College professors, dweeb little people who weren't popular in high school, have erected a Tower of Babel glorifying the burning of common sense and the elimination of all religions other than that of Secular Humanism. These incomplete people would be high bishops of the religion they have created.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

 

Good morning Old Geezer,

Exactly !

We are (current tense) going through a mirror image of last century's Great War, Parts I and II and the finalizing settlement of accounts called the"Cold War".

A few saw the Great War coming; the industrialization of military forces - as clearly seen in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.

Today, we see the financial instruments as weapons of war, eg the oil pricing, the medical cartels and rationed health care involving preventive immunizations by cost controls.

Speaking of the phenomenon of war, besides the drone attack on Saudi oil targets - and the market reactions - only hours prior Hezbollah fired into Israeli CIVILIAN targets, a major escalation . Israel brought up main battle tanks. Their election is tomorrow.

With US allies being NATO, Japan, South Korea, we're on our own.

Are we prepared ?