One of the funnier "Preppers" episodes I've seen was a rational prepper who was interviewed by the show.
It was along the lines of "We're Honey Farmers. Every few centuries, an earthquake shakes the East Coast and may destroy the highways. We have a plan to survive for 30 days isolated from the rest of the country".
They had a large stockpile of honey, water, etc. etc. They explained how their system would work without power. Their scenario was based on Hurricane Katrina (and how long it took for aid to arrive: over a month). Overall, a rational set of people.
They got low-scores from the show's hosts because they didn't have enough guns to survive, apparently. Now, some form of self-defense seems needed after a disaster, but we've never seen roaming gangs of bandits running across the countryside stealing food from those who have it (which is apparently the main thing those "Preppers" want to prepare for)
How absurd. "Let's go raid the honey farm" said no one ever.
I'll never understand the fantasies about armed bands roaming the suburbs. Must come from tv shows and video games, because there's never been an actual natural disaster in the US where that sort of behavior was wide spread. And we've had a lot of natural disasters
> I'll never understand the fantasies about armed bands roaming the suburbs.
I wonder how much of it is rooted in racism and irrational fear of "urban gangs". Where I am in europe it seems like the extreme right likes to entertain societal collapse fantasies using the suburban immigrant delinquents as threir main focus point. No idea how that translates in the US though
The point is that the idea that disasters are immediately followed by violent banditry is entirely a fabrication of hollywood.
In real life, when disaster strikes people band together. Humans are fundamentally social animals, we have been for our entire 150,000 year history. Our lizard-brain instinct is to seek help and help others.
We are also quite tribal, and there are numerous instances throughout that history of an "us vs. them" mentality causing people to do terrible things.
I don't expect roving gangs. I do expect people to be coerced into handing over resources by other people who think they're helping others and/or serving a greater good.
In the last 2 months we've seen roaming gangs of bandits looting stores and burning down buildings. (Causing over $2B in damages - the most expensive riot insurance payout ever, more than the King riots)
It was along the lines of "We're Honey Farmers. Every few centuries, an earthquake shakes the East Coast and may destroy the highways. We have a plan to survive for 30 days isolated from the rest of the country".
They had a large stockpile of honey, water, etc. etc. They explained how their system would work without power. Their scenario was based on Hurricane Katrina (and how long it took for aid to arrive: over a month). Overall, a rational set of people.
They got low-scores from the show's hosts because they didn't have enough guns to survive, apparently. Now, some form of self-defense seems needed after a disaster, but we've never seen roaming gangs of bandits running across the countryside stealing food from those who have it (which is apparently the main thing those "Preppers" want to prepare for)