A pretty good statement of what's wrong with "preppers"

The author of this piece actually says some nice things about "preppers" by way of introduction. Overall, the picture is dismal.

*What is right about preppers?*

*A prepper loves his family*. No matter what is wrong or what is right about a prepper's actions, his or her motivation is pure: to protect family.

*A prepper is resourceful*. Survival depends on developing clever solutions and alternatives, and preppers are quite ingenious in making the most out of whatever they've got on hand.

*A prepper is prepped*. Despite being unnecessarily prepared for imaginary scenarios that won't happen, a prepper is excessively prepared for /likely/ scenarios like fires, blackouts, or storms.

*What is wrong with preppers?*

*A prepper is ignorant*. Woefully ignorant of science. And economics. And facts. And reality. A prepper's justification for their activities is some kind of catastrophe: meteor impact, crop failure, fuel shortage, nuclear meltdown, biblical apocalypse, financial collapse, WW3, natural disaster, or supernatural phenomenon. To anybody with a grade 7 education, this sits somewhere between "improbable" and "impossible". But due to a prepper's inability or unwillingness to participate in reality, their fears become very real and imminent.

*
  • *A prepper is a murderous sociopath*. A recurring theme among preppers is being prepared to kill anybody who represents a real or perceived threat to their post-apocalyptic paradise. Now don't get me wrong, we have a duty and a right to defend ourselves and our families from harm. To a moral and responsible adult, the act of taking another person's life is a difficult, serious, and unfortunate incident. But a prepper seems to relish the opportunity to terminate any hapless stranger or acquaintance who wanders past their crosshairs. The fact that many preppers hoard more bullets than beans betrays their desire to designate fellow man as targets in their personal shooting gallery.
*
  • *A prepper is compensating for failure*. Having failed to live up to society's expectations or to self-imposed metrics, the prepper lives in an alternate fantasy world with different goals and success criteria than conventional society. Imagine a child who is terrible at baseball suddenly inventing a game called "flumpball" in which he is the best. This is the prepper's delusion too. /Unemployed and poor/ transforms into /full-time prep organizer/, and /Neglecting your children/ becomes /securing your children's future./
*
  • *A prepper is arrogant*. In the aforementioned fantasy flumpball world, the prepper invariably declares himself grand infallible flumpball champion for life. In preparation and realization of their fateful futures, they demand more status and respect than real society would ever have offered them. They are the petulant alpha male whose decree must never be challenged, and the emperor whose invisible clothes must never be questioned.
*
  • *A prepper is paranoid*. In addition to /"I must be prepared to kill everybody before they can kill me"/, a prepper's paranoia causes them to veil their preparation activities in secrecy. They imagine that someone would envy their laughable ambitions enough to mimic or sabotage them.
*
  • *A prepper is delusional and insane*. Perhaps sustained substance abuse or head trauma is responsible for their broken perspective on reality. Or perhaps a mild case of ADHD, OCD, or autism. But most likely, they suffer from an actual mental illness. It's a pity that this is so difficult to identify and treat.
*
  • *A prepper is a terrible parent*. We only get one childhood. We only get one /life/, but childhood is the first, most important, and most precious part of our lives. And a prepper robs their own children of proper, normal lives by neglecting them while carrying out delusional plans or by recruiting them into participating in those plans. A child should visit Disneyland on spring break, not help dig an underground doomsday fortress. A child should play XBox on a rainy day, not learn how to manufacture the ammo he'll need to shoot neighbors and ne'er-do-wells with. Most prepper families should be Child Protective Services cases.
*
  • *A prepper is inferior genetic material*. Another common theme among preppers is the desire to survive a near-extinction event and personally sire humanity's future generations. The prospect of a new society seeded by idiot nutjob preppers makes me pray that this mythical catastrophe is a /total/ extinction event. If these preppers want to do humanity a favor, empty out the jars of pickled eggs and fill them with Nobel Laureate s**en instead.
*
  • *A prepper is due for disappointment*. After waiting an entire lifetime for the catastrophe that would have justified their existence, they pass away on their death beds having wasted the only life that we are granted. If they haven't totally ostracized their friends and family yet, perhaps the prepper takes slight comfort in seeing them safe from imaginary disaster.

I'm prepared to admit that /Doomsday Preppers/ makes me ashamed to share this earth with people who would squander their precious lives. It makes me afraid that normal-seeming neighbors could be sociopathic maniacs. It makes me pity these faulty, broken people who don't want help and who probably won't get help that they desperately need.

formatting link

Reply to
Delvin Benet
Loading thread data ...

I've watched a couple of those prepper shows and everyone of them suffered from one of those diagnoses - Not to mention the $$$$ money they blow on their foolish exercises.

And of course there are entire businesses that promote this behavior .. like gun manufacturers to start with ...

Reply to
Thanks for all the free stuff -TeaBillies !

Many reality shows purposely choose flawed subjects and encourage flawed viewers to feel superior to them. Whether you like to watch people succeed or fail says a lot about you to shrinks, TV advertisers and political strategists.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Like I said. I watched a couple of them. When a man buries two 40 ft trail ers underground in the middle of nowhere and stock piles with his entire li fe savings of food and ammo expecting the world to end on Dec 21, 2012... h ow can you not see the stupidity and laugh about it.

I can ensure you known of the people you mentioned give a shit what I think when they are laughing with me at these mentally ill people who are devote d TeaBillies. hahahaha.

Reply to
Thanks for all the free stuff -TeaBillies !

Guy Fawkes on Thu, 6 Feb 2014 02:09:03

+0000 (UTC) typed in misc.survivalism the following:

"ell this and money too!" best of possible worlds.

To use a phrase "my heart bleeds chunky peanut butter."

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

pyotr filipivich wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Hey, I gotta do something to earn my keep (unlike liberals). Might as well like what I do.

Reply to
Guy Fawkes

Gunner Asch on Sat, 08 Feb 2014 12:44:48 -0800 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

Part of the problem was the speed of the advance. As I Understand it, there were locomotives in England for the express purpose of going on the French rail net and moving supplies forward. But after July, the front was moving forward so rapidly, they could not spare the sea lift to move the locomotives. And the Red Ball Express had pretty much reached it's limit by 45, and was going to need new trucks if it was to have continued past the spring. To use a phrase, it was a near run thing.

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

Guy Fawkes on Sat, 8 Feb 2014 00:51:15

+0000 (UTC) typed in misc.survivalism the following:

"If you wouldn't do it for free, do some thing which pays better." Mike the former Millwright who decided to become a techno-geek.

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

That's a self-correcting problem. The reason was that we pushed back the Germans faster than expected. When they stopped to resist our supply lines stabilized. jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Gunner Asch on Sat, 08 Feb 2014 14:39:37 -0800 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

Isn't it interesting how the Democrats, normally so anti-supernatural, suddenly are great believers in miracles?

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

"Jim Wilkins" on Sun, 9 Feb 2014 08:14:27 -0500 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

It was more along the lines, the allies stopped the pursuit, then the Germans were able to organize their defenses. Kind of difficult to organize a defense on the fly when units are falling back as best they can to avoid getting cut off.

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

Gunner Asch on Sun, 09 Feb 2014 22:25:54 -0800 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

Should that be spelled "The Whitewaters(tm)"?

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

Gunner Asch on Sat, 08 Feb 2014 14:56:11 -0800 typed in misc.survivalism the following:

I'm told a popular one for those who are going to go see the elephant, or will be leading those on their first meeting.

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

Speaking of which, this is an excellent yarn of literally going to see the elephant:

formatting link
by the author of "God is My Copilot", who has faced the whole herd of Japanese fighter planes.

I don't know how much of it to believe, since he imagines the elephant's view of the hunt and some detail in Copilot doesn't entirely match other pilots' accounts, but he really did hike the Great Wall of China so the long foot pursuit isn't unreasonable.

Scott carried a doctor's note certifying him as sane, in case there was any question.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

That sort of adventuresome life is not for me, I was happy to be a repairman "In The Rear, With The Gear", but I applaud and admire those with the skill and boldness to pull it off and judgement / luck to live to write about it. jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

pyotr filipivich wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Maybe it's becuase they keep taking it up the ass and are somewhat unclear on how pregnancy happens.

Reply to
Guy Fawkes

Gunner Asch wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll be here all week.

Reply to
Guy Fawkes

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.