There’s a Simpson’s episode about preppers where they assume the big bad thing happens and fuck off to their bunkers, stuff happens, and they eventually come back to town. When they come back everyone is happy and doing fine and Marge says something like “things were okay after the first few hours. We all worked together and made it work. It was like all the mean, angry, and resentful parts of the town had just disappeared!”
preppers don’t want to be dependent on society because they don’t like society, but they’re not bright enough to realize they will always be dependent on society
What’s funny is that antimaskers still blat on about how they won’t wear a face diaper for anything or anyone, two years after such requirements ended. These people just need negative attention like tantruming toddlers.
And then some of the same people will wear actual diapers in public while holding signs proclaiming that “real men wear diapers”. Can’t make that shit up.
Pretty much, just a power fantasy disguised as being prepared
Saw an episode of doomsday preppers years ago. These dudes had a whole property out in Oregon or Washington state designed to endure a potential onslaught of zombies.
They had to quickly evacute their property and leave all their fancy stuff, because of a very real forest fire that came to visit, for which they were entirely unprepared.
I’ve been finding the crazy building in arid environments odd, because even aside from forest fires, if your water supply dries up, you’re going to have to uproot and move to a state or location with a reliable water source. And you’ll be part of a big mass of climate migrants at that point.
“Zombies”. If you let them talk, it’ll be pretty obvious that they’re looking for a legal loophole to kill somebody. “Zombies” just means city people, which just means black people. They’ll kill a white guy if that’s what their lifelong dream comes to, but they’d feel bad about it later.
I’d rather not talk to them, unless it’s for camping supply recommendations.
Even then I wouldn’t do it because they’ll recommend the most over the top version of every product. When really all you want is a cheap camping stove which you’re probably going to use for 2 weeks out of the year.
There are “Preppers” and there are people who actually prepare for when things go wrong. Preppers seem to me like someone who watched a few too many survivor man and YouTube clips and decided to make a personality out of it.
Right. “Prepper” vs. “being prepared.” The former is almost like a subculture.
Peppers take a good idea, having extra supplies and tools for an emergency, and take it to 11.
I’m not a prepper, but I did read my local government’s disaster preparedness list and have everything on it that applies to my family. I keep 3 days or so of extra, shelf stable food in the house; bought a home water cooler and keep an extra jug of water that I rotate when we use the one in the machine so that we have a few days of clean water at all times, which is way more practical and safe than a camping water jug that will sit and stagnate in the basement; I have a battery “generator” that I keep topped up with a solar panel because we have a sewage ejector pump and a sump pump to stop the basement from flooding in bad weather; and I have good first aid kits for the house and cars.
The only thing not on my local government list are the emergency car kits, which is really just a basic vehicle toolkit, jumpstart kit, flares, sweater and space blanket, all in a cheap bag that lives on top of the spare tire.
I don’t live in the most disaster prone area, but we do get tornados and nasty thunderstorms that knock out power for a day or 3. We don’t exactly have the lights on when that happens, but we do have food, water, a non flooded basement, and even some heat in the winter, and both cars have something to keep you warm while you either fix the car or wait for the tow truck.
I kind of understand peppers, because planning all of this out after we lost power a few years ago for 4 days in fall was interesting, and there was just so much shit the internet was saying I needed: weeks or months of dried beans and rice, a generator for the whole house, enough guns and ammo to ward off a small army, etc. my local government list was hard to find compared to all of the forums and YouTube videos, but I’m glad I found it, it’s sensible and if spread out over months, very affordable. I highly, highly recommend you poke around your local government website for their natural disaster page, they’ll have resources of who to contact if you need help, and what you should have on hand. If it’s not on your city’s page, try your county or state government. One of them should have a page about disasters and how to prepare for them.
The issue is that you can’t prepare for everything. Having extra food and water, sure. Maybe buying a generator so you can use electrical equipment, that’s generally useful. But, aside from that, your preparations for a flood will be very different from your preparations for a military invasion, which would be different from preparing for a pandemic.
Also, the more extreme your preparations are, the more it matters when you pull the trigger and activate your emergency plans. If your preparation is simply having a cupboard with extra toilet paper and some extra canned food, it’s no big deal to pull that stuff out if the store runs out. But, if you have some kind of bunker in the mountains, it’s a bigger decision when to “bug out” of the city and go live in the mountains. You’re basically quitting your job, so if the emergency is something like the COVID pandemic, when do you decide things are so bad that you can take that extreme step?
I was trying to get myself prepared for realistic disaster scenarios. For us, that is earthquakes and cold snaps. And in my mind, realistic means how do I both ready myself and work with my community?
So I got a book on prepping. The titled seemed innocuous enough. Unfortunately, it was one of the crazy bug out into the woods and go eat squirrel stew sort of prepper books. Totally worthless for anything practical. The best thing I can say for it was that it was an e-book, so it didn’t cost much.
Hair cuts of all things made people lose their god damn minds. That was wild
Whereas I hate getting my hair cut and I will just shave it all off when it gets too long.
Actually, I can’t think of anything during COVID I actually found to be a huge imposition other than wearing a mask at work got hot after a while.
I felt bad for enjoying it. Worked from home, hardly expected to go out, much less traffic. Most service related jobs I prefer to do myself (like haircuts like you mentioned) or am perfectly fine with minimal contact. In general I feel bad for service workers so even if they aren’t friendly with me (not that I ever really experienced that much) I wouldn’t mind, and also don’t mind self checkout and automation.
I may sound like I’m accusing others, and maybe that’s part of it, but the way service workers are expected to act certain ways with us feels like trying to perpetuate class based servitude. As long as they’re relatively professional and not outright insulting, I think it’s fine.
I always try my hardest to look a service worker in the eye at least once during our transaction. Just an unconscious way to let them know I see them as an equal, not as a servant. I realize that’s not making a major change in the world, but I figure they don’t get that much.
That definitely helps from anecdotal information I was told, and I do the same. One of my younger sisters worked at a sorta prominent restaurant in Atlanta, and she complained that some of the high end clientele refused to look her in the eye. Sometimes she found it so insulting she’d act like she didn’t realize they were talking to her until they made eye contact.
Imagine living such a privileged life that the closest you’ve ever come to feeling oppressed was when you had to wear a mask to pick up dino nuggets at Walmart. Preppers have always been clowns, but COVID definitely ruined what little facade there ever actually was about the “movement” being anything other than a masturbatory LARP.
Nothing wrong in a good LARP, or masturbation for that matter. The problem with preppers is everything else about them.
And apparently they forgot to stock toilet paper or invest in a bidet…
As a guy who built shit for preppers (because some of them are stupid as fuck and have gobs of money from some shady bs) this is spot on.
Preppers are fucking losers. The cunts who want WW3 deserve no love.
But have you considered that going to therapy and dealing with their intense insecurity is scary?
Bros will have nuclear armegeddon before seeing a social worker and it shows.
Therapy would pierce the veil of lies and ignorance that they’ve made their Identity.
People will burn down their house before admitting they were wrong their whole lives.
Too bad therapy seems to cost an arm and leg in this country.
For what these doomsday prepers spend to compensate for their small manhood, they could easily pay for multiple sessions of therapy, even in the US.
Like the other person said, the people that do and say all this crazy shit spend thousands on rifles, rods, and trucks when a Crosstrek would probably be perfect. And that’s fine I guess it’s just they have the money(or the willingness to spend it anyway) and could probably squeeze a bi-weekly session in there.
Love how their idea of surviving the collapse of society is driving a huge ass truck, 'cause gasoline apparently falls from the sky
To their defense, if there’s a sudden collapse, there will likely a surplus of oil laying around that will be available for a while.
I felt silly for buying a 63 gallon, foldable/portable water tank for my small farm because the vast majority of the ones I looked at were marketed towards preppers.
I just want my animals to have water in case the power goes out for a few days.
But the way things like that are marketed makes it sound like your the smartest, bestest, most prepared person to ever walk this earth. I don’t need you to stroke my ego, just sell a foldable water tank with no leaks please.
What did you make for them? I may capitalize on this lucrative market lol
Take every dime you can from those dingdongs.
So if a zombie outbreak occurred these people would fuck us even worse
As Weird Al sang in Tacky, “if I get bit by a zombie, I’m probably not telling you.”
All the solar panels, ARs, and “Patriot” food kits won’t prep them for when the pollinators die off.
Put more money into tacticool guns than they did ammo. Spent more time making them look Gucci than they did at the range.
Did you know that honeybees were not in America until they were brought here from Europe? Many other flies and bees did the pollination previously.
Luckily, thanks to the magic of modern chemistry, we managed to mostly get rid of those damn bugs.
That specific species of honeybee wasn’t in the Americas. There were native species that are being outcompeted and dying out.
“Killer” bees are an example of a native honeybee species.
I’m in the “be prepared” group where we usually have a couple weeks of food and water around. We also have two forms of heat for when the power goes out.
Will we survive WW3 on this? No, but it has been very helpful after big winter storms that took out the city power.
Having some supplies to use in the short term is good for everyone. Being ready to go out to help neighbors and get the community back on its feet is how we get through to the next good times.
You should always have enough supplies for a short term emergency. That’s not doomsday prepping, it’s just common sense.
I’m not a prepper IMO, but I have rooftop solar with battery backup, a few smaller portable batteries and UPSes on my critical stuff, and some oil filled radiators since my heat pump isn’t connected to the solar setup.
At any given time we generally have a month or more worth of food in the house in frozen and dry/canned goods. Also, several gallons of bottled water.
I also keep some stuff under the back bed of my car’s hatch, first aid kit and emergency blanket, and battery jumper kit as well as a battery powered tire inflator.
I live in a semi-rural area, and in an emergency, getting out and/or getting food and necessities may not be possible. And if there’s a wildfire I may need to evacuate fast, so important to have what’s needed. This sort of thing is like… If you have the means, why wouldn’t you?
I wouldn’t call that being a prepper. That’s just sensible preparation for something like a natural disaster. Preppers think they’ll survive whatever their conception of “the big one” is.
I’m neither American nor a native English speaker so take it with a grain of salt.
That’s where I’d put the line between a regular prepper and a doomsday prepper.
Not to forget the very elusive Sergent Prepper.
I guess in my mind, ‘prepper’ is just short for ‘doomsday prepper’ and it’s not the same thing as doing, like I said above, sensible preparation for natural disasters.
Anyone that has been through even a bad blizzard knows it’s important to have some basic supplies. Depending on where in the US you live, it would actually be considered unusual and irresponsible to not have some basic preparation for weather and related stuff. Not having a cold-weather car kit and home preparations for losing power in a blizzard in the upper Midwest, for instance, would be considered stupid.
No one thinks tornado shelters are that weird if you live in tornado alley. I’m sure hurricane prone areas probably have their own set of ready prep stuff that would seem weird in other parts of the country.
You’re not talking about doomsday preppers.
Yeah that’s what I’m saying. The stuff I mentioned is just reasonable preparation for, like… life. Sometimes stuff gets disrupted for unexpected reasons. Like toilet paper during a pandemic lol.
Preppers: I’m ready for anything; economic collapse, zombies, apocalypse, sinkholes, foreign invasion, aliens…anything!
[covid-19 hits]
Preppers: fuck this i’m not wearing a mask! it’s all a hoax!
Also preppers: I need to go to the store and buy 27 cases of toilet paper!
Was there actually news indicating that preppers, as a group, were more likely to be against masking than for it?
I wouldn’t be too surprised, but I haven’t actually seen any evidence to this effect.
my dads a mild prepper and had his ‘told you so’ moment when he brought up 2 boxes of n95 masks. he donated a box to hospital and the other box got the family through the worst months
Cute, but it’s just a single hit on a lifetime of misses for most. He got lucky once and could easily use it to reaffirm a bunch of nonsense instead of crilically asking himself what all the other wasted shit is for.
But hey, I have hobbies too, and I’m glad he’s smart enough to listen to science. So he’s about a million miles ahead of most
What a lot of right wing preppers and a lot of ‘militia’ guys (the tacticool heavy infantry kind) seem to completely lack is the willingness to be inconvenienced at all.
They buy or craft whatever stuff seems cool to them (some of which sure can actually be quite useful), train some skills they find fun to do (usually shooting/hunting) but most seem to ignore anything they don’t like, find difficult or uninteresting to do (such as keeping reasonably fit). It also usually includes being willing to take orders or cooperate.
The lack of some skills/equipment/preparation could be overcome but not with the mentality that lead to it on the first place.
The being cooperative thing is the key.
Id be willing to bet my left testicle those that survive an apocalypse are those who work together to grow food, build shelter, etc. and not the goobers who lock themselves in a crate with some beans.
Classic scene at the end of the movie "Leave the World Behind.
Spoiler
The survivors finally find respite, a fully stocked, super-luxury survival shelter, left wide open, because the people that built it died in the initial collapse.
There’s no point having some survival shelter unless you’re already in it when you need to be.
There’s no point having some survival shelter unless you’re already in it when you need to be.
I’ve often wondered about the millionaires who invest in these things. Then spend most of their time on a yacht in the Caribbean, thousands of miles away from the bunker. What exactly are they expecting to happen, do they think they’re going to get a week’s notice?
The one doomsday prepper I knew had to weigh at least 400 pounds. I often wondered if he knew how to make insulin for when the apocalypse happens.
He was actually a nice enough guy, but not the brightest bulb in the box.
A lot of these militia guys also don’t learn the survival tasks they consider feminine. How many know any sort of gathering skills, cooking anything not meat based, laundry, mending clothes? Those are probably more day to day useful during the apocalypse than rifle shooting or how to wear camo paint.
