It’s not just about fear. It’s also about escapism. You can dream of the day when all the rules change and having focused on normally negelected skills and assets finally allows you to tower over more conventionally successful people.
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That seems sad. Even pathetic.
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I didn’t mean to imply that it wasn’t.
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What’s sad on dreaming that improvised medicine/foodgrowing/gunsmithing skills could become more valued than the financialized number-pushing or high corporate management? Or even just kowtowing to a stupid middle manager?
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That may just be how you were socialized to think about it. 
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There’s another perspective that I’m afraid may be lost in the wash of our banter. Some people practice bush survival skills for other reasons. They aren’t fearing the apocalypse, collapse of civilization, nor are they escaping anything. Some people practice bush skills because it’s fun and it’s a hobby. It’s fun to learn how to make fire from only stuff that’s already out there in the woods. Or to knap rocks to make crude blades. And countless other fun stuff to do outside. While I looooove spending time on my computer, I also like to play outside, and this is one of the ways.
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Very very true.
It is also a nice hedge. Nothing happens, we had fun. Whatevercalypse happens, we have better survival chance, and we had fun.
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Trust, communicate and organize … faster than bullets.
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Lorenzo? He’s certainly our “brave hunter kitty,” being the main dispatcher of mice, but unless the zombies are particularly small, fluffy, and subject to being batted around, I think we may be in a spot of trouble.
Don’t even suggest that the fleece-lined shirt might be more useful in a zombie apocalypse. I’m not about to disturb a cat just to get my shirt back, zombie apocalypse or not!
Edit: clarity and left off the last half of the last sentence.
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It may be. But no, the people around me usually use the word to refer to a specific kind of pocky lips they read about in their bible, or whatever reminds them of it. They tend to use it as a specific rather than a general thing. I don’t know anybody who would refer to a sudden life realization or a heavy acid trip as an apocalypse, but it seems more accurate.
Similarly, people are often weird about usage of the word “apocrypha”, which comes from the same root of being a hidden buried thing, a secret squirrelled away.
You could keep the good times rolling even after the cold war warms up by attempting to devise a means of signalling your willingness(and ability) to sabotage/deadman’s switch all your goodies.
The various stone-cold game theorists of mutually assured destruction tell you that this will work; the real problem is implementation and plausibility.
How do you rig the goodies to become useless(organophosphates with burster charged to distribute them throughout the food, water, and medical supplies?), without undue risk of a false positive; and how do you convince Lord Humongous, warrior of the wasteland, that the goodies will get drenched in nerve agents if the electrodes in your skull stop phoning in?
Hey, I just wanna be a farmer. (With one or three mad max cars :D)
Wish in one hand, and spit in the other. Which is filled first?
A 15 kilo bag of kitty litter.
I’m good to go!
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Also, remember that post-apocalyptic raider scenarios often include a…distinctly retro…approach to labor relations.
Yeah, it’ll be satisfying when the PR flacks and marketing weasels are allocated to bloodsport and/or cannibalism(perhaps human sacrifice to some sort of cult centered around an unexploded warhead from the before times); but then the people with actually useful skills get enslaved by psychotic raiders glutted with the flesh of financial analysts, and that is a bit of a downer.
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Have you ever thought of moving to Plato’s Cave?
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That’s not what I am saying. What I mean is that most people seem to associate the word “apocalypse” with “global cataclysm” because there is one in the Christian bible which is popularly known. So most people seem to assume that it is a reference to that, rather than a general term for any sort of surprising vision.
That may be your socialization talking.
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I suppose it may - if indeed I can be said to have socialized.
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.#notallsurvivalists
.#sorrynotsorry
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