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I would. To manage somehow to live through such an event and be left in a vast land that is mostly depopulated would be a gift beyond my wildest dreams. The sheer silence, the space of it would be like an elixir to my soul. No rattling masses of ultra-specialized bots running madly about, no lights fogging out the stars, no motors, jet or otherwise, ruining the sweet serenade of the birds and frogs... I would take the absolute hell that would be the immediate aftermath of the event, just to see the peace that would follow. I do not wish for it, or wish ill on anyone, but if it came, I would certainly enjoy living beyond such a disaster. Nature always regenerates. And I was born into the wrong century, I admit it.
I'd love to live in a world like that. Even the world of 1880 would be delightful living in the country, There were only fifty million people in the US. I know that sounds like a lot, but except for the cities there was plenty of space without lights, noise, or shepherds protecting their sheep until the day of slaughter.
If 90% of the population disappeared through war, disease, or anything else that didn't ruin the entire place I'd be positively thrilled. I'm even happy with little things. If rioting this summer leads to civil war and just a million deaths I'll smile and hope for more next year.
I think you might not really understand what we're talking about here...
I do understand what we are talking about, I have looked at the previous ash patterns, likely effects, all of that. I understand that the US as the nation it is currently would be over. I get that most Americans would die or be displaced. I know that the environment would be trashed(at least in our view of normalcy) for a long time. Weather would be a soup sandwich, FUBAR, you know what I mean. Like I said previously, absolute hell. Large areas of the US would be non-life-sustaining for a while, and difficult to settle for a long time. Look at much of Wyoming even now. The area around Gillette looks like an eruption happened last year!
However, IF one could live past the disaster and wait out the initial upheaval that follows, the time following it, the renewing, repopulating(of wildlife), the liberty, the elbow room would be unmatched in recent history. It would be something to behold. Totally new county to explore, not seeing another human for months or years other than family, unless you seek it out, nobody to tell you what to do, what not to do, or steal the produce of your labors, the ability to live by your code unhindered.
I think you don't understand something. You don't grasp the depth of my disgust with the current way of life. I hate the wage slave paradigm, the gargantuan and overreaching nanny State, the hordes of uber-specialized bots who only know one narrow part of a single job(oh, and the sports scores, of course), the poisonous and nutritionally deficient food system, the wildly overpriced healthcare system which works hand in hand with a predatory and poisonous pharmaceutical industry, the masses of young folks raised(if you can call it that) by the aforementioned uber-specialized bots, who have no respect for themselves or anyone else, who know "everything" and nothing, the vast welfare machine along with its thieves and useless eaters, multiple generations of them, the ineffective and profit-driven judicial and correctional systems that do nothing to protect innocent Americans from the evil that grows more common every day in America, the endless wars that are bankrupting our country and crippling and killing our best young men. These make almost ANYTHING else look good to me.
Just last week, in a town near here, that I work in several times a week, a 24 year old girl was kidnapped by some 45 year old slob who lived with his mom, taken from her place of employment at 9:30 at night at knifepoint, forced into her car, and driven out into the country not five miles from where I used to live, and raped. Fortunately, she escaped from him before he killed her, and he was caught. what if that was your daughter? I have two, I am busy training them not to be victims.
Three years ago, two miles from my home at that time, a local couple in their eighties went home after meeting their family for dinner in town, to find a tattoo-faced freak of nature with a gun robbing their home. Hours later, the freak was arrested after telling his cousin what he had done. He raped the old woman, then beat her and her husband to death, rolled the bodies up the their living room carpet, and tried to burn the house down. He failed, and this week was sentenced to 2! death sentences, and multiple terms of life in prison. Three years he has been drawing breath, living in climate controlled shelter, and eating taxpayer funded food. Now, he will get some more of it before they finally(maybe someday) put and end to his comfy existence. He should have been hung the morning after the verdict, but now his attorney intends to appeal to the Supreme Court. This is what is happening in the Ozarks, a relatively peaceful region. Imagine the cities...
America was never perfect, but it used to be a lot better. It was a functioning society. So many critical parts of this society are broken, I see no way short of a demise of the current society and replacement with a new one for things to be right again. There are too many people, too much government, and not enough decency for this thing to continue. If a disaster like Yellowstone or a solar flare is what it takes to reset things, bring it on. A solar flare would be less traumatic to the environment, and therefore preferable, but I'll take whatever comes with the knowledge that the cleansing was necessary and the other side will be better. I do understand what we are talking about, and I am willing to risk it.
I'd love to live in a world like that. Even the world of 1880 would be delightful living in the country, There were only fifty million people in the US. I know that sounds like a lot, but except for the cities there was plenty of space without lights, noise, or shepherds protecting their sheep until the day of slaughter.
If 90% of the population disappeared through war, disease, or anything else that didn't ruin the entire place I'd be positively thrilled. I'm even happy with little things. If rioting this summer leads to civil war and just a million deaths I'll smile and hope for more next year.
I will never smile about the death of another or actively wish for more, and I do not actively wish ill for anyone. But something has to change, and for the change to occur, there needs to be less of us. It will happen, overpopulation always ends with a crash, that's how nature works. I needn't hope for it or celebrate it. Neither will I be depressed or distressed about it when it does happen. I will simply do my best to live through it and enjoy the aftermath.
America was never perfect, but it used to be a lot better. It was a functioning society. So many critical parts of this society are broken, I see no way short of a demise of the current society and replacement with a new one for things to be right again.
I agree that things are nowhere near what they used to be. . People used to be civil They were polite to their neighbors, even if they didn't like them. They didn't shoot their fellow employees, if they had a beef with the company. Our society had morals. There were no bakeries being picketed because they wouldn't bake a wedding cake that says, "Ron Loves Steve" with 2 grooms at the top. People had more sense.
This society is marginally functional. In order to make it work, government coercion is now needed in areas of our lives where govt has no business intruding. This leads to a loss of liberty. The rate of govt intrusion has increased notably since 9-11. Suddenly, we are all terrorists. Suddenly, we all fear and hate each other.
This state of affairs cannot last. It is unsustainable. People cannot afford the forced medical insurance that the ACA mandates. They will not for long tolerate rioters and looters. It is easy to listen to the news at home, and shake your head. But things are getting so bad, so quickly, that soon each of our lives will be touched -- far different than just watching it happen to others. Very different when it happens to YOU.
There will be a reset, but the results of that won't be pretty. We won't be transported back to pristine 1880. Far more likely, will be a lonnnnggg era (beyond the lifespan of anyone posting here) of misery and hardship. People will indeed die, even people who have prepared for TEOTWAWKI. It may happen slowly or it may happen swiftly, but it will happen. What is unsustainable, cannot last.
Whether or not I live through it, the sooner it happens, the sooner things get better, even if that takes a hundred years. Maybe my kids or grandkids can live a better life. I'm good with that, too. Let's just get with it. As one man so famously said prior to the Revolution, if there is going to be trouble, let it be in my day, that my children may know peace. That was originally said in response to a man who said that he hoped the trouble would wait until he was gone so his kids could deal with it. What a parent...
Old Chineese curse: "May you live in interesting times."
I can't argue with any of Countryboy's or Nor'Eastah's points really, The only place I really disagree with HIW on is that I also don't wish harm to anyone, no matter how much they deserve it or how it would improve my life.
While I'm not a prepper in the modern sense, or a "Doomer", I still see the decay of our society and agree it's not sustainable.
Without a moral foundation and people that believe in the ideals of a country where the individual is responsible for themselves and their actions, we have a situation where you a vocal minority holding the media and using it to bludgon anyone that disagrees with them.
When you have a government that is kow-towing to special intrests instead of upholding the foundational values of the country, that is a form of corruption that weakens the bonds of that society.
I hate to say it, but the current administration has been very successful in creating divisions along income lines, racial lines, sexual lines, and the fissures are just getting deeper and deeper. By supporting terrorists that only want our distruction, and attacking the 85+% of the popluation's religion, they have only increased the anger and the divides in this country.
This country isn't immutable, it has split up before and I served in Bosnia and Herzigovina, I have seen what happens when a country splits apart, and I don't want to see that happen here, but I know that there are people that desire that to happen to further their political ambitions.
I know there is very little I can do as an individual to change the course that the government has set, to subjugate the population, to control every aspect of our individual lives, to weaken this country, to destroy our resolve in conflicts with renegade jihadists that wish to bring about armaggeddon, but what I can do is set it up so that I can provide for my family.
If I can set it up so they have food and a warm safe place to live, if I can protect them from the impact of weather or fire or flood, if I have the resources set by to pay for medical care, If I am able to provide them with good food no matter if the supply lines are disrupted, if I can keep them warm and safe in the winter cold, then I'm doing my job.
I don't care about zombies, I don't do politics, I just do what I have to to provide for and to protect my family.
If more people did that instead of trying to force a political ideology down other peoples throats, we wouldn't be in the shape we're in, and there wouldn't be so many people worried about the collapse of the nation.
Nor', that last paragraph is exactly why a solar flare or Caldera explosion would be the lesser evil. This society will die, is dying now. Do we want to suffer for years with the cancer that is eating it, or should it drop dead of a heart attack and let us get on with life? Just a thought...
IF one could live past the disaster and wait out the initial upheaval that follows, the time following it, the renewing, repopulating(of wildlife),
Yeah.
This is precisely what I was talking about. Disaster, chaos, total devastation of the environment (soils, wildlife, etc). It would probably take a couple of decades, minimal, to spring back.
Assuming you survive the initial blow, that's a long time to live in your underground bunker on buckets of rice and beans
Yeah.
This is precisely what I was talking about. Disaster, chaos, total devastation of the environment (soils, wildlife, etc). It would probably take a couple of decades, minimal, to spring back.
Assuming you survive the initial blow, that's a long time to live in your underground bunker on buckets of rice and beans
Don't need no bunker, can't understand why everybody seems to think that anyone who prepares for their own and their family's future, taking into consideration all reasonable possibilities, has an underground bunker. If I start seeing a need for one, I will build it, but so far. I see no point in it. The bunker comment marks you as ignorant both to the realities of being prepared, and the tactical considerations for same.
Also, my food resources are a lot wider than good old rice and beans. Those are good, I love both, but variety is the spice of life. That said, I would eat(and have eaten) grubs, roots, you name it, to survive, and be happy it was there. Pretty much, if I thought there was a chance to live past such a disaster, and have a chance at a peaceful life away from naysayers and bots, I probably would do whatever it took, other than eating long pig. No life is worth living if it requires the abandonment of one's code.
Every situation, no matter how traumatic, creates new opportunities. The joys of the world fall to he who is quick to recognize these and capitalize on them. I may not be the best at that, but I do pretty well, and the higher the stakes, the better I generally do. I most certainly do not, and will not, sit down and whine to myself or others that I am beaten. Nor will I bother myself with telling someone else they can't do something, unless I think that is what will motivate them to do it. I hope they succeed, my job is to succeed more. Survival of the fittest, and all...
There is no best state. Weather has it's say as does the soil/growing conditions..As for the rural,outback,dirt road can't be found places,,,,those are for people who believe in a Zombie Apocalypse where bunker have to be set up to hold off all the blood suckers...People watch way to many TV shows...
During ww1 and ww2 people had a tough go of it,,in ww2 England was bankrupt by the end and the people had victory gardens everywhere..One needs water and forest with land enough,,Isolation,not so much....
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