I’d need to leave the Chinese room to do that!
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#ipreferaleadingbackslash
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Emissions standards are so low these days.
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A Buck 119E knife. I think I’ll be all right (c:
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Wow how did I not know about Testament?
Threads and The Day After, I knew, but somehow this one I missed. Suitably totally depressing.
I’m really glad the Cold War is over.
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Pam: Grain alcohol is a key component of a good bug-out bag.
Malory: A what?
Pam: Bug out bag? Oh my God! For TEO-TWAKI?
Malory: The bear from Star Wars?
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The problem is that people keep trying to apply a hammer to the problem. I look at it this way.
There are personal disasters, I could lose my job and my home. I could be burgled, robbed or have a house fire. These events could be catastrophes but external support systems will still exist. the Red Cross and family could help me. I can call the police or fire department. I just have to survive the immediate issue and continue on.
There are local disasters. Mostly environmental, usually temporary. Earthquakes, tornadoes, riots and hurricanes are all examples. Help may not be available for several days or even weeks. It may be impossible to buy supplies, food medicine or the like. But there will be help of some kind eventually. I may want to “bug out” in these cases, it’s called evacuating. I may want to hunker down in my home with my stored supplies and ride out the disaster until help comes.
There are long term disasters. Varying from the Great Depression to local war like Syria or Bosnia. Help is unlikely to come anytime soon. Society will change. You may be on your own for years. You may face heavily armed opponents. Your survival will be much more about your skills and ability to make good decisions rather then what you can hoard.
Then there is the fabled apocalypse. Short of Global Thermonuclear War, it’s pretty unlikely, and odds are I won’t survive it so I don’t plan for it. It can be fun to “game” and fantasize about, but it’s not worth spending money on.
“Bugging out” and living by yourself in the woods is not a useful plan for most people. But being able to move off the main roads away from a disaster could be. You have to plan for your environment and likely circumstances.
For personal disasters I have a bank account and offsite storage of important digital files. For local disasters I have water and sleeping bags. I don’t have much planned for regional or total disasters as surviving regional is more about your skills and decision making rather then storage and planning. and total disasters will probably kill me anyways.
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Red maple bokken ftw!
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Well. To my left is a phone headset and some cigarettes I just made. But I have a SOG X-Ray Vision in my right pocket
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You may not be able to use it as an effective quarterstaff or bludgeoning weapon, but as long as there’s asphalt, masonry or concrete, you can grind it into a pike or a spear, which, due to the pointiness and sharp edges is wonderful at piercing barriers for the purposes of randomizing the matter in another biological organism.
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Why sacrifice a bullet or two when STANAG stripper clips exist? Just leave the bullets in the clip, then quickload them into the magazine. Probably would only add 2 seconds to the process and you get an extra two or three bullets.
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Jab at neck center mass. Swing to keep people out of knife range.
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There’s two sides to that escapism, though- The fantasy of destroying the existing society, and the fantasy of building a better one.
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Here are another two kinds of escapism!
The fantasy that existing society works. By design, it doesn’t work for everyone.
The fantasy that people cannot build a society. If you think you are a member of a society now, it was more likely than not devised by people.
People with subtly totalitarian mindsets can often only frame doing anything different as running away, or regressing into cozy delusion. Because they work from the assumption that there is somehow only one legitimate way for everyone to live. Some people might simply consider it more responsible to offer choice, or implement healthier systems.
Living within a prescribed monoculture may cultivate the fantasy that one actually has a meaningful life of their own, all while suggesting that nothing they do can make any real difference!
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But…we…did…build…one…
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Who are “we”? And what did you personally do?
More importantly, why do you assume that societies made by other people are the same one you are a member of? If you require a totalitarian definition of one-size-fits-all society for everyone, everywhere in order to feel secure in your own life, you might have an uphill battle imposing this on those who live outside your pet system. Forcing others to live as you do could come off as being rather hostile.
(Don’t you remember?)
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Why do you assume that they aren’t?
Why do you think that thousands of years of culture and history being built on is without value and should be tossed aside?
I think you have the uphill battle reversed since you’re the one trying to convince everyone else that their society and culture is without value as it is and needs to be tossed aside. I think most folks don’t feel they’re fighting an uphill battle. They’re just going about their day to day lives.
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