Who will you SAVE?

My immediate family first, and then anyone else to the extent I have resources for it.

 

There's some irony ... I'm not a Conservative

But yes, the Welfare State has trained the lazy to turn away from family/community, and towards Big Brother. Family/community come with obligations and expectations, but Govt doesn't. It was a genius move ... and the fruits of those decades of enabling are starting to play out now that things are getting poopy for the hubristic. It will be SO easy to move in and replace People Power.

 

Yep, I reckon that's the best plan. Numbers will be needed, for sure.

 

Geebus! Seriously, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IMMANENT APOCALYPTIC EVENT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! You didn't even give me something to google. I'm not being snarky, I sincerely do not see any reference to any specific event in the OP.

Is that not clear?

You know what? Forget it. If that "tone" is what you're taking with me, then I don't give a damn about your imaginary disaster. I would suggest you get your meds adjusted, though.

 

I try to save everyone from BS..

 

LOL! BS seems to be all they have here.

 

Dude ... no one over the age of ten doesn't know what's going on.

If you GENUINELY don't know (unlikely, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt), then I suggest you get cracking on updating yourself. There are a **** ton of things happening at the moment, which in combination will make living the easy life difficult or impossible going forward.

"Imaginary disaster" ... oh dear. Well sure, if the biggest banks in the world are prepping harder than anyone here, and Govts worldwide are stockpiling food etc. Must be pure fiction!

 

My friend, if you've chosen to call reality BS for reasons of personal comfort, you should probably not spend too much time here. You'll have to act out bigly to keep it at arms length, and that could get tiring.

 

You won't need any of this information then.

You can return to your regularly scheduled program ... where it's always 2019 and nothing bad ever happens.

 

@crank,

There’s a lot to address in this thread. I’ll start with the OP where you obviously allude to offering people sanctuary from Covid. It’s fascinating that some participants in this thread don’t grasp the gravity of how preparedness made living with Covid so much easier and safer. Personally, being prepared for something like a pandemic was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I didn’t have to worry about how to get food without being exposed to Covid. I didn’t have to worry about shortages of food, TP, hand sanitizer, quality masks, or any other product. I had what I needed and wanted at home. I was able to learn about Covid and avoid exposure until I knew how to be safely exposed. I didn’t have to deal with changing mask and social distancing policies in public. I didn’t have to worry about the circus Covid turned out to be with the dishonesty and incompetence of public health officials and politicians.

Not only did being prepared make my life simple and enjoyable during Covid, it helped my wife’s immediate family as well. Because my wife and I could self quarantine, her family (most of whom are immunocompromised) could come visit, breaking the monotony of their own self quarantine. They live about 3 hours drive away, but because I store gasoline they could fill up here and not even have to stop at a public station for gas.

The pandemic proved to me that preparedness is prudent. At this point, anyone who doesn’t see the value in preparedness after a two year pandemic never will. I see participants in this thread that were stressed about how to get groceries safely back in 2020 but can’t connect the dots of preparedness and avoiding that predicament outright.

Basically there are is a small minority willing to actually be prepared for less than ideal situations. And that brings us to your question of who that small minority chooses to help. For me it’s immediate family and those willing to actively participate in cooperative efforts. That includes either physical and mental participation, not just physical.

 

Ooh ... more snark ... I'm not surprized.

You give the impression that this "who will you save" question is about a specific catastrophe, but never mention which part of "what's going on" you're talking about. And when I asked, you treated me to ridicule, which you are still doing.

What a waste of time, trying to converse with someone who obviously can't see past the brim of his tin foil hat.

 

Very similar thinking to ours.

We realised how valuable our lifestyle was when the Pandemic hit .. and we too, were able to help others during that time. We tried to help more, but those individuals had some heavy dependence on denial. Doing anything to save themselves would have meant admitting they were in trouble .. which in turn meant not being able to continue living irresponsibly (their real reason for all the denial, obviously). It didn't go well for them, and that's an understatement.

And yes, agree. Not seeing the value of planning ahead after two years of repeated demonstrations of its importance, tells you there's something more going on that just failure to connect the dots. They can see the dots well enough, they just don't want to connect them. It's either too much work, or the idea of First World vulnerability offends them deeply - which is ironic coming people who usually focus on how 'terrible' things are. They'll tell you that racism is a yuge problem, yet sneer if you mention the potential for hunger for 40% of the First World. Referring to such concerns as 'conspiracy theories', reveals their motives. Real threats are ignored, because those require personal sacrifice. Best to disparage, and stay focused on 'problems' which don't involve personal sacrifice.

I'm seeing larger numbers of people wising up, daily. People aren't stupid .. and most are motivated enough to stay alive (or want to help others stay alive). They can only fool relatively sensible people for so long, and relatively sensible people are only going to fool themselves for so long. Who remains after that will starve first, I guess. It was ever thus .. according to the laws of nature.

 

Why are you still pretending you're unaware? I don't believe you don't know, so now I'm genuinely curious as to your purpose.

As previously stated though .. I'm prepared to give the benefit of the doubt. If - by some miracle - you've evaded/avoided all pertinent news for the past two or three months, or have managed to regard all as discrete events not linked in any way by the very globalism underpinning it all, then be honest and say that. I'm happy to provide a synopsis. I'm not an economist, nor a banker, nor a diplomat, nor a military tactition, nor an agricultural scientist, nor a logistics expert, nor a climate expert .. but the combined expertise of these groups do produce a reasonably accessible overview of where things are heading, and even some likelihoods as to how far they might go.

 

Just wanted to speak to this further.

You nailed it when you said "we didn't have to worry".

That's the reason we all do it, and the thing 'sneerers' miss completely. They read it as worry, because for them it WOULD be.

They actually refer to it as 'fear mongering', which to me is hilarious perverse. Encouraging people to hide from reality is about the worst kind of fear mongering there is.

 

↑
"Not to mention there's a worldwide famine taking place ...

Ethanol increase the price of corn by 30%, and the price of other crops by 20%. It increased nationwide fertilizer, which is a market that Russia now has 30-40% control."

Sharing this excerpt from a recent post from another thread. Can't recall the poster, but thread is on inflation.

Sharing more for those still pretending they don't know what's happening .. or who simply don't care.

 

Interesting idea that vulnerability in the first world is offensive. I think that must be part of it. One part false sense of security, one part arrogance and serious contemplation of vulnerability IS offensive.

I wonder what effect past experience with depravation of some kind has on ability to accept vulnerability? I would theorize someone who’s idea of depravation is an hour delay to lunch break can’t really understand vulnerability. On the other hand, someone who went to bed one night as a kid not knowing where tomorrow’s meals would come from might be able to accept possibility of vulnerability in the future.

Are you really seeing large numbers wising up? I’m not seeing that really in my world. Of course most people I know well have a freezer of beef and 300-1000 gallons of gasoline on hand just as a normal way of living. But I just don’t see anyone making preparations to deal with a pandemic 2.0 or repercussions of global conflict. I hope I’m wrong but I don’t see the wising up from the pandemic experience I expected.

 

The war in Ukraine has the potential to create global food shortages the likes of which living folks have never seen. Fertilizer stocks were short before the war because China was underproducing (China supplies a lot of global fertilizer). Now there is limited exports from two major fertilizer exporters, Russia and China. High fossil fuel prices makes fertilizer production in the West very expensive even if we attempt to spin up production.

I just paid 3 times what I paid for nitrogen fertilizer this time last year. Just after I finished purchasing, supplies were completely depleted and it became unavailable at any price. The elevator just filled a sell order I had in for old crop (2021 production) corn at $8.00/bushel. That sounds great (for me not the consumer) but that won’t be profitable on the 2022 corn crop with the high input costs. Food inflation in the US is just getting started. People have no idea what’s coming. It’s also very dry in much of the US. If it stays dry for the growing season commodity prices will skyrocket with Ukrainian and much of Russian production out of the global supply. Things could get crazy but what concerns me most is the poor schmuck in the third world who works all day sustenance farming who won’t be able to afford any fertilizer and will watch his wife and kids starve to death.

It’s that reality of how many third and second worlder’s this could KILL that really makes the ho-hum reaction of first world folks very off putting to me.

 

When I say large numbers .. I mean new people daily. That's something quite different, given it was zero a few years ago.

Interesting thoughts on motivations. I'm seeing a wide range .. people from very deprived backgrounds refusing to save themselves, and people from very privileged backgrounds doing all they can to save themselves. Like so many things, I believe it really just boils down to laziness and a sense of entitlement .. exacerbated by that indignation over suggestions of First World vulnerability. And I really think that last is deeply offensive to them, hence the sneering. If they think survival behaviours are for the dirty stupid peasants, and not for the likes of themselves, any suggestion that they might need to start thinking like a dirty stupid peasant, is going to offend.

 

All the above.

And ++ to the bolded. Off-putting is an understatement .... it's grotesque at this point.

Full-bellied arrogance, sneering at the prospect of hunger. "Hey, I got mine .. who cares what's happening beyond that". Even denying it IS happening.

The worst thing is it's coming from the very people who constantly remind us how compassionate and down with the people they are. Incredible.

 

And your single experience is just one view of the looming trouble. A very good view it is, but it shows just how much trouble we're soon going to be in. And when I say 'we', I mean humanity. My own family will be fine, but far more won't be. Hence this thread!

 

Yes, we really do need to know what the threatening situation is! Different threats call for different responses -- and depending on what those threat(s) are, we may have a need to form alliances, large or small. If we form alliances, then we have a responsibility to defend or protect, and possibly provide for not only those dear to us but those with whom we have a common alliance.

I'm not trying to be a snot at all, but, really, we need to understand what the overall situation is, please.

 

Are you paying attention to world events at all?

 

Yes, and a good friend of mine is on the Baltic Coast right now, 625 kilometers away from the Kaliningrad Oblast inside Russia. We stay in touch. I try to stay informed. But, is the situation we're supposed to respond to one involving the world, or the United States? Is it related to weather, to civil insurrection, to all-out war, to hordes of illegal aliens pouring in over the southern border? A rapidly buckling economy built on little but speculative bullshit since 2008? Honestly, we need a little bit more information on the 'scenario', I think.... Please, what is the threat...?

 

Do you not see how all of those things could combine to cause problems for the majority of the planet?

 

This isn't about a singular localised event. This is about how people will cope over the longer term, when enough things happen at once to create insecurity for the lower half of the socio-economic spectrum. And that's just the First World.