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Valentine, it isn't selfish to protect what you've sacrificed in order to build.
You've read the ant and the grasshopper, right? There are consequences to spending all of your money on toys, and none on the things you would need if the conveniences were taken away. And considering just how many societies have experienced breakdowns, it isn't looney to understand that it is possible here, as well.
And the 'zombie apocolypse' is an adolescent exercise in fatasy and the love of violence. It is frowned upon in serious preparedness discussion.
ooohhh im pucking scared. ya so thanks for proving my belief that preppers are selfish and loonies. So, the world has come to sh-it with handful of survivors and u kill a looter coz they want to survive?
FYI if ever, I will loot only when I know the place is abandoned but if i know there's a hostile selfish loony living there i will walk, no RUN far far away from you. I dont want to catch your disease. yuck.
because you know when the world has come to sh-it. Compassion, cooperation and unity should prevail otherwise there will be no survivors left if those who survive kill their fellow survivors out of animosity? selfishness? i dont know how your brain works but I would not hesitate to help someone who obviously needs help especially when most people on earth are already dead.
You'll find that many folks here don't like looters much because we see them as "Idiocracy" characters who were too stupid to stock sufficient resources for their continued existence when they were perfectly able to do so. It's not all that unlike someone who goes into the bathroom and takes a crap without ever having thought to buy toilet paper. They then walk about the rest of the day stinking and expecting those around them to be okay with it.
If you want to live as a dependent and at the mercy of others, it is your prerogative to do so. Just remember the old saying that beggars cannot be choosers.
As for "helping others," sure I would help others if I had the ability to do so... were I convinced that they had done what they could to help themselves before things went bump in the night. Because, really, if someone doesn't care about his/her own life, why should I be expected to care about his/her life?
If the world was left in shambles due to some occurence, what is there left, to survive for?
For the same reasons that humans who survived a number of local disasters which due to their ignorance of the wider world appeared to them to be global in scale, to survive, rebuild, and create anew. It is hardwired in our DNA. If the ancient generations before us had accepted your view point the civilization that you would morn would have ever existed. Yes there would be hard ache, and there would be great depression in the aftermath but while the physical world would severely deprecated, our collective knowledge should provide us with a clear path for reconstruction and eventual success. We might actually rediscover that happiness are not the things that can be bought, but rather through our collective efforts and accomplishments.
I can't decide if you guys are being deliberately obtuse or are genuinely not getting this...
Valentine is talking about a situation where it's the 1% who survived. There aren't going to BE people to even care if someone is taking their stuff.
Then she is deliberately using a term with a connotation different than what she claims to be discussing - looting versus scavenging, harvesting, etc. And why so gleeful about it? "I get to go loot!!!"
Top it off with characterizing people who don't believe food is guarantee to forever appear on the grocery store shelves as selfish and crazy - that isn't going to get a super fantastic reaction. That's all.
As to the question in the OP: I want to live. Even if my remaining lifespan is half of what it would be in modern society, if that society crumbles, I still want to live. I'll put in backbreaking labor to rebuild.
Would life after an apocalypse really be so different when it comes to the things the OP mentioned like joy, meaning, purpose? We would try to further our self-interest, seek pleasure, pursue companionship, help our loved ones, then die. The same thing the majority of rational humans have done throughout thousands of years of drastically changing living conditions.
Even if there was some massive collapse of society, we would still probably be better off than, or equal to, the way humans lived 10,000+ years ago when mass violence, disease, ignorance and short life spans were the norm. Was there any point in these early agrarian/hunter-gatherer societies trying to survive?
One thing about self sufficency/survivalists/prepers is that they refuse to go with what everybody else is doing. They strive to learn skills that are rarely used anymore, they sweat to grow or raise and process their own food when it is easily available in the stores. They don't depend on government to provide for them.
There is not a single man, woman, or child in this country who hasn't depended on the government to some extent, though some on the fringe like to imagine they don't. Which is alright, playing make-believe can be fun so long they don't harm others.
There is not a single man, woman, or child in this country who hasn't depended on the government to some extent, though some on the fringe like to imagine they don't. Which is alright, playing make-believe can be fun so long they don't harm others.
In the broadest sense, government is simply an organization of the people, put in place to provide military security, to build bridges and roads, to maintain water/sewer/garbage services, elementary and high school education, yes, then pretty much everyone has at one time utilized assets made possible through the government.
The expanded modern version of the nanny state where you get free food through food stamps, free medical care through Medicaid, free housing through section 8, free college, free programs to teach you how to care for your child while your child is in free day care, where jobs and opportunity and religion or even free speech are shut down because someone is "offended" or "we must protect this rat from evil humans", then no. Not everyone does partake of what Uncle Sugar has to offer and are not wholely or partly dependent on the government for their day to day needs.
The US Government is supposed to be tightly restricted per the Constitution, and have no dealings or oversight over Energy, or Education, or Art, or any of a thousand things the current government has a death grip on to make the population more dependent on government largess and keep the politicians that provide the goodies in office.
Yes, I use the roads, yes I cross bridges and use water and garbage service, but do I draw my housing/food/medical care etc. from the government? NO.
Definitions may vary, but those that can and do provide for themselves and their families through their own industry and skills are far more independent of government than those that don't.
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