Kreugerands are a decent investment if you can find them… I’m partial to useful metals though, like Platinum. If the end of the world happens, I know that if I meet up with anyone even slightly like @shaddack my Platinum has me set for life. Best catalyst ever.
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People thought gold was worth something even during the bronze age. I have no idea why, but lots of economies ran on it even before gold was useful in high-tech applications.
Powerful rich people seem to really like shiny rare stuff. You can use shiny rare stuff to get in good with said oligarchs, even if they only like it for the luster and owning all of it.
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Iodine and charcoal filters are easier to carry. I’d rather invest in those than water outright. You can’t carry 100 liters of water, but a quart of iodine crystals will make hundreds of liters of even the most brackish water safe to drink as long as there’s no arsenic or lead in it.
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I approve. Gold is useful for electrical contacts but platinum is way better. However I think there will be a good source of the catalyst form from car catalysts. The postapocalypse will be littered with corpses of vehicles.
I should get some and try if that sponge can be used as hydrogen recombiner.
I also should take a look at what flux mixture could be used to get certain alloying elements out of the car battery plate lead alloy to convert it to a form more useful for bullet casting.
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Dude, I live about 50 miles from a galena mine. Smelting galena into lead can’t possibly be more difficult or dangerous than trying to reclaim it from (caustic, leaky, possibly explosive) car batteries. Lead ore is all over the place. Why risk the possible danger of reclamation when virgin ore is right under your feet?
Really, the most valuable thing we can hoard is knowledge. Better go back to college, and work on building up a library.
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It’s appalling because nobody in the US needs to be in that situation. But the system you have created is somehow accepted by a majority. That is the really amazing thing; that people vote contrary to their own interests and can be persuaded to points of view that enrich other people.
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I’m telling you it’s this quote widely attributed to Steinbeck (but likely from someone else):
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
People plan ahead for the future they want, not the future they think they’re likely to get based on evidence and trends.
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That still assumes some sort of water is available, and as you say, without the dangerous heavy metals.
I guess my point is: land with hunting, fishing, and/or farming options is great, but not without a water source.
Fortunately, I’ve got a lot of family in rural areas, and some do have fresh water sources (underground, usually). At that point, the thing is to stay away/under the radar from the militia types.
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There’s always the option of getting in good with them. But yeah, living in the Seattle area I’m fortunate to have practically limitless fresh water everywhere. I forget that hellscapes like Scottsdale and Phoenix exist.
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I have daughters. It is not the scenario I would look for. 
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Good. Beers are on you this time, Moneybags!
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Ooof, just cuz things get bad doesn’t mean we have to immediately go to biblical levels of bad.
I have a crick running through the back forty. I’d let pretty much anyone who didn’t look like they’re gonna kill me head on back and have a drink, or even setup shop and help out their family. We don’t need to repeat (yes, I know, but let’s just say the story) Sodom and Gomorrah just because there’s no more tapwater.
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Also just melt anything into bullets. Don’t even need to melt. With a hand operated hydraulic press (a bottle jack in a frame) one could simply PRESS bullets out of any softer metals. The thing about reloading, though is that it’s precision. It cannot be hillbilly measurements. Modern weapons will jam and break if you feed them wild assortments of low quality rounds. Now if you’re talking single shot muzzle loaders for raw survival, then anything goes. Stuff a fishing weight in there on top of a paper wadded charge. Who cares what you shoot out of it if all you care about is dinner. But you can’t do that with any of the commercially available standard weaponry. For those, your rounds have to be precise.
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I’m a fan of making the REAL story of Sodom & Gomorrah better known. As you say, it’s about hospitality to strangers and those in need. Have a cookie, made with pure, artisanal spring water 
:
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excellent topic and many good words above. Again it’s difficult to see beyond your culture. This economic problem began with exo-euro colonists who mandated cultural institutions to solidify a way of life. many descendants and practitioners refuse to compromise. thus long standing families of affluence. here at the bottom indigenous people continue the internal quarrel of wills. topics such as prayer are immediately taken out of context and defined by the rulers much less intelligence. like chris rock said, the homeless white guy with one leg would not trade places with a rich black man. move close to work and play. automobiles and rich people are killing this place.
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So you’re saying what we already know, that Michonne and Daryl have the right idea: we all need to get back to more primitive weaponry. 
edited to add: primitive does not necessarily mean less well-made!
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Circa 1860 gatling guns didn’t require precision loaded cartridges. The thing is, if you manufacture a rifle to exacting standards, it’ll jam up if you use shitty bullets. But if you manufacture, say, an AK-47 out of reclaimed sheetmetal from a car and plywood and build it sloppily, it’s actually more likely to fire whatever the hell bullets you put in it than the US’s high quality, high standard, factory manufactured M16A4 Battle rifles designed to use factory standard, high-precision 5.56x45mm NATO rounds made in Stockholm by expert gunsmiths who have half a century of experience.
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True. Any true survivalist should know how to make snares and deadfalls. They should know that most survival situations would depend mostly on eating smaller species like rodents, lagomorphs, fish, birds and insects, as well as foraging for known non-poisonous plants and fungi. And as you astutely suggested, making damn sure that you have clean water. Guns, bows and arrows, spears and the like are actually pretty unnecessary if all you’re trying to do is get by. One could survive well with a collection of snares, deadfalls and a few really clever traps like the bottle trap and some fish traps in a stream.
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Fish, turtles, frogs…a water source has a lot of useful applications!
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