Doomsday Preppers are RIGHT, just... Not how you'd expect?
Posted by TheQuietPartOfficial@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 52 comments
Posted by TheQuietPartOfficial@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 52 comments
DogFennel2025@reddit
Speaking as a person who prepares every year for hurricane season, I’d say that it’s really only possible to prep with stuff for short-term disasters.
I think having skills is ultimately more useful.
Spending your time stocking up the bunker means you don’t have time to be engaged . . . I’d rather go out and yell at a politician.
earthkincollective@reddit
I disagree, profoundly. The worst case scenario would mean getting by completely without modern infrastructure, and hiding out in the woods away from riots and emerging warlords.
It's not a super likely possibility (at least not for a while) but it absolutely IS one that's possible to prepare for. Learning wilderness skills and how to forage, hunt, and trap. How to process food for longer-term storage. Trauma first aid for when there are no more hospitals (useful in any scenario IMHO). Stealth skills, how to move quietly, hide your tracks, etc.
And then there's the preparation of actual stuff. It's entirely possible to create a go bag for the worst case scenario, containing all the tools you'd need to survive in the wilderness with nothing on your back. And once that go bag is prepared it's done, and you can move onto other things. Other than the initial cost of the stuff, there's no downside to being prepared for ALL scenarios.
DogFennel2025@reddit
Hey, thanks for the thoughtful answer, and I respect your point of view. I definitely agree on the first aid and probably on the idea of foraging. Unless there’s a fire, or somebody with a gun already killed all the animals that might be edible.
I’d say being able to identify and/or sanitize water is important.
However . . . Yeah, but . . . How can you possibly carry everything if you're just one person on foot? I think about this, living in a hurricane-prone area. We’re supposed to pack our cars so we can flee. Works okay if there’s one storm. But what if there’s a system-wide failure? There’s really no place to go in a collapse ecology/economy/society.
And there’s going to be LOTS of competition for the easy calories.
earthkincollective@reddit
There's always insects & grubs and mice to eat, even after fires or all the big game is gone. That's one reason why trapping skills are far more useful than hunting skills. If the question is survival, expanding our idea of what constitutes food is necessary - and hopefully we'll choose to eat bugs before we decide to eat people.
It's possible, if not easy, if you change your idea of what stuff is actually needed. For example, a tent and sleeping bag are luxuries. If it gets bad enough that you're bugging out on foot, comfort becomes irrelevant. What matters is staying warm enough not to get hypothermia, etc.
Regarding shelter one bivy sack will help you dry as you sleep and takes up far less space and weight than a tent and sleeping bag and sleeping pad (even backpacking ones). You can stuff it with leaves for added warmth, and just wear a bunch of layers of clothing. You can pile leaves underneath yourself for a bit of comfort, and you'll quickly get used to sleeping on a hard surface regardless (what we find comfortable is very much dictated by what we are used to).
This is why a bug out plan for this worst-case scenario is necessary - and why it's important to get out sooner (when it's still possible to drive) rather than later. There may not be a safe place in your region, or even in your country. But there will be safe areas on the planet, in wilderness areas that might not be too far from you.
And different scenarios will determine different places to be safe or dangerous. Where would be safe if the national power grid goes out and all the nuclear power plants melt down (as they need at least 30 days to power down and only stockpile 3 days of fuel for generators on-site). Where would be safe if the supply chain collapses and people start rioting and attacking each other? Etc.
DogFennel2025@reddit
Hi back,
I thought of something else that world make a person really prepared - being up-to-date on dental work, not to mention doing whatever needs to be done to fend off ‘lifestyle’ diseases.
I’m actually right now procrastinating to avoid mowing the lawn but I will come back and read your post carefully.
Cheers!
earthkincollective@reddit
I learned from the uber prepper of them all, Tom Brown Jr, and he always said that if you leave sooner you'll be able to fly (or drive), and if you wait too late you'll be bugging out on foot.
In other words, pay attention to the signs, be prepared for anything, and don't let yourself be caught off guard. With enough awareness you'll see the writing on the wall before it actually gets written, so to speak.
About your first point, that's been my thinking for years now, as well. It's one reason why I got LASIK (no need for glasses or contacts, which require replacements), gold crowns (can last a lifetime, while ceramic crowns only last 10 or so years), and am now considering elective cataract surgery once I turn 50 as that gives you permanently perfect vision for the rest of your life, while LASIK and the others don't prevent future degeneration.
DogFennel2025@reddit
I’ve been thinking about your idea of cataract surgery . . . I don’t think they can do it until the cataracts actually form, or at least that’s what they told me (spoiler: I am old.). But if you do decide to do that, I recommend giving yourself at least a year or two in case of scar tissue forming - I had to go back twice and have it cleared.
Also: you might not get cataracts.
Also: would you take trade goods with you? I’d think salt could become valuable.
earthkincollective@reddit
I saw an opthalmologist recently who told me about elective cataract surgery (what makes it elective is that you don't need to have a medical "reason" for it). That was his recommendation because he said that's what he would do at my age, 47, rather than Lasik.
DogFennel2025@reddit
Huh. That’s interesting. I hasn’t heard of that before.
I have an idea: what if you visit your bug out location and casually scatter seeds of edible plants? Maybe you could stack the deck in your favor.
earthkincollective@reddit
That's a great idea. This was a common practice among the natives here when they lived traditionally (and nomadically). They would essentially establish gardens all along their migration routes. That's something we could do too if we had a route planned out ahead of time - essentially knowing your evacuation routes, which is an important part of any preparedness planning. Establishing caches of 5 gallon buckets of food and supplies buried in the ground is another great option.
DogFennel2025@reddit
I think that just a five-gallon bucket with a lid would be seriously useful. A five-gallon bucket with a little shovel in it would be excellent.
But if you bury something, how will you find it again? I think the internet is a) compromised, and b) temporary in the sense that it won’t be around reliably. So you can’t (in my imagination) depend on GPS. Do you have a sextant in your pack?
Pirates buried treasure and lost it sometimes, right? And a flood can really change the terrain.
earthkincollective@reddit
It's vital anyway to get to know your bug out route without GPS, and to practice how to navigate across a landscape without any tools like that. For caches you could pack a paper nap in your bag, and even printed photos of the actual spot and/or notes to jog your memory.
TheQuietPartOfficial@reddit (OP)
Skills are massively slept on. It's like the ONE completely busted ability we humans have. We can just Iearn shit so ridiculously fast and then remember it almost immediately when we need it again. Especially in the modern age where we can just look things up all the time and get really good at stuff. Personally I think speccing into the electronic repair and aquaponics skill tree is a very worthwhile build.
DogFennel2025@reddit
I’d say knowing how to distill booze would make you pretty popular, too.
hurricanesherri@reddit
This is also why it's critical to build a community/network: more people = better coverage of the skillsets needed for survival.
TheQuietPartOfficial@reddit (OP)
Ape strong together..
Ok_Main3273@reddit
Your top priorities
By order of importance:
Far-Law6437@reddit
This guys annoying af
itsatoe@reddit
There is a synthesis that combines the best parts of prepping with real, positive action to prevent/minimize the polycrisis. It's called permaculture.
Joining an ecovillage and fundamentally changing the way one interacts with nature is the best way for us to solve the problems we face (which at their root are caused by our current lifestyle). And it also puts you in a place that is thriving and has a secure food system. That's way better than a windowless bunker with packaged rations.
The issue with just fixing the current system through technological innovation is that it doesn't take into account the vast destruction necessary to deliver things like consumer products to our doors.
The issue with joining an ecovillage is that they usually are only open to people with substantial funds. This startup project presents an actionable roadmap for opening up that access.
TheQuietPartOfficial@reddit (OP)
Yessss that's what I'm talking about. It's a synthesis of multiple approaches. We can steal ideas from optimists, from pessimists, from accelerationists, from anybody and anything, as long as it actually makes things better. I'm big on permaculture.
headin4thefreeway@reddit
how you gonna grow anything with unstable climate?
DogFennel2025@reddit
You build soil obsessively. You try to make the garden more like a forest and less like a wheat field by planting stuff that has different requirements so that if one crop fails, another doesn’t. You plant open-pollinated plants, not hybrids. You install rain barrels for the dry times. You expand your definition of edible to include ‘weeds’ and iguanas. You nurture pollinators but learn how to pollinate by hand if needed.
And then a hurricane comes through and mashes everything flat, ha ha ha
scaredthrownaway11@reddit
ayup. I have empathy for folks wanting to survive. I really do. However, I see little awareness that the climate has fundamentally changed and the iguanas and heat damaged dandelions are gonna run out real fast when you have an entire metro area munching them raw after 3 days of no food stores.
Really, I think the best survival strategy is to hoard sriracha sauce.
DogFennel2025@reddit
Rock on!! Sriracha rules.
I agree. The best case scenario that I have imagined is a fast-moving lethal virus that knocks population down before we all have time to get desperate for food.
I wonder what the effective range size is for a band of wild humans.
scaredthrownaway11@reddit
M O O N spells moon. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
itsatoe@reddit
Permaculture is about building highly-resilient, self-sustaining systems. If any food-growing operations can survive unstable conditions, it's a permaculture farm.
That's no guarantee. But it's better than nothing. Some regions might just be screwed; who knows?
But as more people switch from the hyper-extractive grocery-store food system to food that grows on healthy land that they live on... we at least are tipping the scales the right way.
headin4thefreeway@reddit
I agree you can try. However I think we're headed for a hot house climate with much of the landscape on fire so I wish you luck. Unless it's somehow in a greenhouse that is fireproof and climate controlled I don't see how you can count on any output at all.
Also water supplies are about to get real interrupted all over the world.
I kind of think about these growing food comments like recycling. Essentially, they provide a sort of thought based denial structure, as opposed to realizing how dire things actually are.
No personal insult intended, I'm just tired of people not understanding the true extent of the ongoing exponential disaster we are in.
It reminds me of the stories of the Titanic. Once they struck the iceberg, they had about two hours and 40 minutes to live. Many people just thought there was a minor problem - oh the propeller needs repair, oh there was a problem in the kitchen…
And a very small subset who were directly experientially connected to the water coming in knew how dire it was right off the bat but they couldn't convince people until folks actually saw the bow going into the water. It's lonely here in third class.
itsatoe@reddit
It is intended as the opposite of denialism. There are no real, effective things a single individual can do to reverse the global polycrisis. However, enough people going back to the land would be our best strategy.
And if not enough people do it, well at least some of us will be on the land, trying to grow things. The other option is to sit back and burn, right?
It's worth a try. Many places might become deserts, but some may not. Why not try?
And yes, the farm I'm working on building will have greenhouses and sophisticated resiliency systems. Might still burn up, but it seems better than sitting in an apartment, staring at my computer.
headin4thefreeway@reddit
Enough people going back to the land is not going to do shit. There isn't enough good land. There isn't enough fresh water. We are in overheat conditions contrary to ever having good growing conditions again.
Even the desert plants in the southwest burnt because it got too hot there and these were desert adapted plants. Joshua tree national Park burned.
Sure, anything is better than sitting in an apartment staring at your computer.
But the guy in this video going on and on about how we're gonna make a better world is delusional. I protested the first gulf war, didn't do much good. Protest is over. They're using troops. What does it take to see reality – pre-figurative politics? That's a great phrase but it's meaningless.
The biosphere is past the tipping point, we're near a blue ocean event, the forests are all gonna burn ..all of them. So how are you gonna grow in the middle of that? And even if you do grow something how are you going to handle bad actors who just come and take your food? And look around, there are plenty of them and they're better armed. Look at how many people signed up to disappear others.
Video is a waste. This is the collapse website, at some point you have to accept reality. It's 90° in the Pacific Northwest right now, I can't breathe the air outside and this used to be a temperate rainforest when I first got here in the 80s. I'm old enough to remember the seasons. It's irrevocably degraded and it's only going to get worse.
But by all means recycle. Permaculture. It's denial of the fundamental reality but go ahead and try.
itsatoe@reddit
So you are advocating...?
headin4thefreeway@reddit
Learning to look at and eventually acceptdeath. It sucks. I don't like it.
And then do whatever you feel like doing honestly because maybe you'll get lucky.
But I can't look at these "solutions," like they're going to save anybody. The ship has got a real big hole in it.
I hope you get through. I hope you find some community which has been all but bred out of us. Personally I feel pretty fucked and very frightened.
itsatoe@reddit
Although... propaganda against such approaches is really strong. Example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAqIJZeeXEc
LouDneiv@reddit
I don't know where you live, but where I live (France), it's pretty easy to find farms of various sizes that practice permaculture or other types of agroecological practices through Wwoofing. It's a great way to learn by getting your hands dirty!
itsatoe@reddit
Agreed! Great way to start. The linked plan is about enabling those people to stay permanently, not just to be guest workers.
OldSchoolRNNP@reddit
Yes
EpicMichaelFreeman@reddit
It is better to be overprepared and wrong, than it is to be underprepared and wrong. I don't think a person needs to stock up on a crazy amount of resources if they have a place in a region that will be pretty self-sufficient in case shit hits the fan. Being near an agricultural community and making the right friends might be all a person needs.
No_Move_6802@reddit
A gun is like a condom:
You’d rather have and not need it than need one and not have it
hurricanesherri@reddit
Yep. "Hope for the best; plan for the worst." 💪
Average64@reddit
I think most important thing to prep for would be a supply chain collapse. We all remember how during covid we couldn't find all sorts of spare parts. We need to buy repair parts in advice for our machines, electronics. This will become impossible to get.
imminentjogger5@reddit
Shinjikun?!
TheQuietPartOfficial@reddit (OP)
hahaha * triggers the third impact *
Deguilded@reddit
I know, I know I've let you down....
TheQuietPartOfficial@reddit (OP)
I've been a fool to myself...
Deguilded@reddit
I thought that I could live for no-one else...
ChromaticStrike@reddit
No amount of prepping will fight against climate change. It will give you some additional time and that's it.
This is not accessible for everyone, you need time, money and land to kickstart that. It's for privileged and unrealistic to showcase that as the solution.
Collapse2043@reddit
Preppers put their money where their mouth is. I have a 3 month bug in prep myself, but I think the same way—that if there’s a smaller emergency and I know I won’t need it all, I can the help people around me.
TheQuietPartOfficial@reddit (OP)
Submission Statement: I don't know exactly how common it is, but I'm one of the types that rapidly oscillates between full on collapsism, and radical optimism. I try to have my hands in both kinds of places as much as possible to stay on a level, and make sure I'm not getting lost in either side's sauce. I love the aesthetics and principles underlying doomsday and disaster preparedness. This video opens with a discussion of the global polycrisis, and how it has rightfully driven a number of people in to prepping for collapse. It begs the question of "If Optimists took the possibility of a better future as seriously as Doomsday Preppers know the coming reality of a worse one? How would things change?". Because, in my opinion there is one place where pessimists ALWAYS have optimists beat: Actually fucking doing something.
Gniggins@reddit
Doomsday preppers make the mistake of assuming it just takes enough calories and water squirrelled away in a hole to survive, the expectation is that when they run out, and finally poke their head out, society will be back up and running.
Nice of them to stockpile goods for other people though, when shit gets bad enough you would actually use your prep, you gonna lose it to a group of people using force to take it, since preppers never worry about manpower or a watch bill...
yinsotheakuma@reddit
Bold assertion.
PercentageQuirky2939@reddit
By the time they figure out what is going on it will be too late.
Solo_Camping_Girl@reddit
I tend to visit the solarpunk sub after spending time in this sub as a form of mental cleansing, and I can see some users also posting and commenting on both sides. Duality of the collapsenik mindset, I guess. "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst" is the quote I grew up with after watching the Science of Survival show in Discovery Channel nearly 20 years ago. Have fun, but be prepared to act when things take a turn for the worst.
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/TheQuietPartOfficial:
Submission Statement: I don't know exactly how common it is, but I'm one of the types that rapidly oscillates between full on collapsism, and radical optimism. I try to have my hands in both kinds of places as much as possible to stay on a level, and make sure I'm not getting lost in either side's sauce. I love the aesthetics and principles underlying doomsday and disaster preparedness. This video opens with a discussion of the global polycrisis, and how it has rightfully driven a number of people in to prepping for collapse. It begs the question of "If Optimists took the possibility of a better future as seriously as Doomsday Preppers know the coming reality of a worse one? How would things change?". Because, in my opinion there is one place where pessimists ALWAYS have optimists beat: Actually fucking doing something.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1mz5a30/doomsday_preppers_are_right_just_not_how_youd/nagrlc7/