To think that once things start to break down everybody will be on their own is quite pessimistic. Most people outside the big cities are not savages. I get the feeling a number of people on this forum are hoping for a big breakdown...the better to shoot people.
“I get the feeling a number of people on this forum are hoping for a big breakdown...the better to shoot people.”
Funny I get the feeling that there are a number of people who are completely oblivious to what is going on around them.
Why don’t they realize it? It’s caused by a condition called ‘Normalcy Bias’ a mental state people enter when facing a disaster.
It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.
A good article on ‘Normalcy Bias’ is on our own ChocChipCookies Blog The Survival Mom:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/12/29/normalcy-bias/
As for me I prepare because I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for providing what is needed for me and mine. I certainly don’t want to have to kiss some ‘gubberment’ third class bureaucratic to try and coax some help from them, I don’t want some ‘jack booted’ thug herding me in line and telling me where to stand, sit, eat or sleep. And last but not least I don’t want to be shut up in with a bunch of ‘zombies’ and have to worry about not only trying to get basic necessities but having to fight to keep what I manage to get.
But when ever there are one of this threads there are usually some even here on FR who seemed to be bound and determined to be the ones standing on a bridge waiting for FEMA to bring them a MRE, a bottle of water, a warm blanket and a kiss for their boo-boo’s. You know the the ones who proved the back ground money shot for the network news. How do you think that will work out for them?
I get the feeling a number of people on this forum are hoping we can avoid a big breakdown...but want to be prepared if it does happen. How likely is it? Ask Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, Somalia, and many other countries. How likely in the West? Less likely, but it hard to be sure how much less likely.
Your opinion is noted. Mine is based on the experience of *Hurricane Elvis* in Memphis in the Summer of 2003, during which city power was not restored for 45 days. That's 45 nights with the lights out, as well.
If it hadn't still been raining quite a bit, there'd have been more fires. Neither did it help that one tree in three, some over a century old, came out by the roots and blocked streets.
I don't necessarily like to shoot people, but I do like to see the arms and legs fly off.