I’m watching Doomsday Preppers. These people have an unbelievably bleak view of humanity, like, I’m just saying my family survived the complete disintegration of Lebanese civil society without shanking their neighbours for water or stockpiling hand grenades.
If your reaction to a foreseen future economic collapse is to set traps and stockpile guns to kill your neighbours who want some of your huge food stock, you are broken and I have no idea how to fix you.
^^^ The ability to cooperate with others is an evolutionary advantage
My husband and I used to think we were “preppers,” until we discovered that for most people, “prepping” means hoarding guns and ammo and bear traps and nonsense like that, and planning to turn on other survivors in the event of some society-destroying cataclysm. And here we were geeking out about woodworking and first aid and sustainable edibles foraging and water purification and subsistence farming and how best to set up an agrarian community to maximize square footage.
Turns out we’re just prepared solarpunks. I think I’m fine with that. Miss me with the toxic, gun-crazy, neighbor-hating Prepper culture and join me in my garden of native wild edibles.
Just reblogging to add that I kept reading this as “Preppy” and now I want a tv show about a sorority surviving the apocalypse.
I was really into the stuff the person above talks about when I was a kid, the idea of relearning the old skills to live off the land as a part of it.
Such a disillusioning experience to find out most of the people interested in that are not actually interested in it, but really are just looking for a pretext to worship guns and view society as a zero sum game.
I think also this mentality is one of the conclusions of that whole hyper-individualist/libertarian mentality– that we spend our lives accumulating resources for ourselves, not mutually in cooperation with other people. To this mentality, it’s easier to consider collecting water, farming food, making clothes, if you’re not beholden to provide those services for other people. You don’t have to prove your water is potable, or if you can transport it reliably. You don’t have to consider having a surplus of food or how to divide food amongst several people. And you don’t have to worry about if you will have to spend time and energy clothing someone else who doesn’t directly contribute to your own prosperity, if they are entitled to your products because they are in a mutual relationship with you.
But like… looking at not just early societies but extant societies in the world living right now, all of those things are more easily achievable with the help of a community. One person farming or hunting enough for themself to survive is hard, but more people means more person-hours in the day to achieve subsistence. Everyone digging their own personal private well is labor-intensive, but a larger solution can serve many people and there’s nothing stopping anyone from making backups with the surplus labor in case the main one fails. Creating goods like clothes or houses or tools is much, much easier with friends to work together on the project.
Basically what I am saying is that in seeking this power fantasy where one doesn’t have to carry those other losers in society, preppers are making way more work for themselves. People might dream that if the world ended they might no longer have to be a project manager or go to meetings or collaborate with people ‘at work’ but honestly without the useless cruft that’s why we have civilization.
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ugh 