Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Scenarios, Part Two

So we have the scenario set up in the last post. I wanted to expand on it a little more. When you have a lot of unemployed persons, especially young men, they tend to drift one of three ways when you strip any reasonable hope of employment from them:

1. Momma's basement with the Xbox.
2. Politics
3. Crime

So, between the idealogues and the sudden upsurge of crime and gangs in your hood, you have quite an array of people you have to step careful around. Not only do yo have to be wary of the gangs running protection, but the ones robbing folk and selling drugs. They'll know you, and you'll probably know them at least in passing. They'll likely know you have a job, which means you have stuff, which makes you a solid target for outright theft or 'protection fees'. You have to be careful of any sympathies to political groups, as should to have a job, whatever side you're not on may decide to take a shot at you just for being employed when they ain't. Then you gotta step careful around the cops, because when the danger skyrockets and the pay plummets, they tend to get a little more vicious.

The world I see is a lot like the one in Children of Men, like I said- except with more gangs, more violence, more pollution. Anyways, thinking about it, after a certain point, the authorities won't be able to respond, or willing to in the face of a shooting war between two or more of the elements listed. And you'll probably know the parties as a fact of daily life. You'll know them either on a personal level, maybe as people to avoid. Point is, at some point when things get ugly, they'll come for you. And sure, you might be able to fight them off.

I'm just wondering if I'm wildly offbase. I'm also wondering why preppers aren't grouping up in a more practical way. It's one thing to fight off eight or ten bangers by yourself, but a couple of families of preppers on in the same complex at least gives you a decent chance of response. I mean, even if you fight them off somehow, you have to GTFO or get ready for a second wave. I don't think anyone will continuously throw bodies at you. Eventually, courage will wither.

Of course, this relies on you actually being successful on A) throwing back the gangs, and B) not dying or being crippled in the process.

So, after all that rambling, the big question I'm coming up with is...why are preppers so scattered? Why aren't we all glomming together in small knots and such?

Deschain

3 comments:

  1. >why are preppers so scattered? Why aren't we all glomming together in small knots and such?

    Paranoia, fierce independence, and a over load of movies showing the Lone Ranger and John Wayne.

    Seriously.

    It is like training for a gun fight. People get an idea in their head about what "their gun fight" will be, and base all their training about that. They remember this movie, where they bad guy was 10 yards away, standing still, gave tons of verbal warnings, maidens clutching their ample bosoms while watching, etc. They then structure their training to deal with that - drawing from a belt holster (not concealed), getting rooted in postition, slowly squeezing off a single shot to the head of the attacker, etc.

    FBI crime data is very clear - these start at point blank, the first time you know you have a problem is when you see the other guys weapon, 5 shots fired for each hit, multiple attackers is common, etc. That's the hard data, from thousands of case studies. But, people still train for "their gunfight".

    Face it - a lot of preppers are loaners. And, the glom together on the net, as that gives them a (false) sense of anonymity, and they spout their tough boy lone ranger shit.

    And the rest of the preppers? They don't post anything on survival forums as the noise to signal ratios are too high. If you want to find them, go to training forums. They're the ones out getting trained for real fighting, including hand to hand, plus medical, canning and food prep, and similar. And yes, they are in groups.

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  2. I think the hard part is recognising other preparedness-types. Its a difficult issue to raise without having your friends or neightbours thinking that your a weirdo.

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  3. Believe me when I say that getting a group of freedom minded preppers to even walk in the same direction is a daily challenge. We have level 5 shit fits over whether the AR is better than the AK, so actually making a group run together smoothly requires a lot of effort and time and finesse.

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