Doomsday Preppers

[Gosso]

One of the best TSHTF strategies is to simply get to know your neighbors and the members of your community.

It's something you hear about a lot, but it's very true.

We tend to help people that we know, and we tend to ask people we know for help when we need it.

Plus this enriches your life today.

I don't mean to derail the thread, but does anyone here watch The Walking Dead?  They tackle the very tricky subject of suicide in an "end of the world" type scenario.  I'm not sure if most Doomsday Preppers ask themselves this -- if the world is really going to be as bad as they think it is (gangs roaming the streets, break-ins, cannot leave your home, no power or running water), would you really want to continue living?  Are they not just delaying the inevitable?

If I believed a level 10 SHTF scenario was coming (which I don't), i would try to extract every ounce of joy out of life before it all went down.  Then once it did I would join a group of people since there would be strength in numbers.  But that's just me.

Edited to make more PG-13

[MediumTex]

One of the best TSHTF strategies is to simply get to know your neighbors and the members of your community.

It's something you hear about a lot, but it's very true.

We tend to help people that we know, and we tend to ask people we know for help when we need it.

Plus this enriches your life today.

I don't mean to derail the thread, but does anyone here watch The Walking Dead?  They tackle the very tricky subject of suicide in an "end of the world" type scenario.  I'm not sure if most Doomsday Preppers ask themselves this -- if the world is really going to be as bad as they think it is (gangs roaming the streets, break-ins, cannot leave your home, no power or running water), would you really want to continue living?  Are they not just delaying the inevitable?

If I believed a level 10 SHTF scenario was coming (which I don't), i would try to extract every ounce of joy out of life before it all went down.  Then once it did I would join a group of people since there would be strength in numbers.  But that's just me.

Edited to make more PG-13

I liked the way Cormac McCarthy treated this issue in "The Road."

The man's wife simply chose not to continue struggling in a world that obviously seemed to hold no possibility for anything she could identify as life.

[Storm]

I think the preppers shows would get better ratings if they had more people like this on the show:



Actually, that girl is a friend of mine in real life...

[Gosso]

Actually, that girl is a friend of mine in real life...

I change my mind on that suicide talk...I want to live!  I'm joining Storms gang when the world ends!

[Storm]

I've been watching some of the clips - this guy totally reminds me of Dwight Schrute from the Office:

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/vid ... -the-land/

[Gosso]

Here is what some scientist said about the assumed "barbaric" qualities that humans will exhibit once the rules of society are lifted:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... a3627df.11

VANCOUVER, Canada — Biological research increasingly debunks the view of humanity as competitive, aggressive and brutish, a leading specialist in primate behavior told a major science conference.
"Humans have a lot of pro-social tendencies,"
...
Until just 12 years ago, the common view among scientists was that humans were "nasty" at the core but had developed a veneer of morality -- albeit a thin one, de Waal told scientists and journalists from some 50 countries.
But human children -- and most higher animals -- are "moral" in a scientific sense, because they need to cooperate with each other to reproduce and pass on their genes, he said.
...
Asked if wide public acceptance of empathy as natural would change the intense competition on which capitalist economic and political systems are based, de Waal quipped, "I'm just a monkey watcher."
But he told reporters that research also shows animals bestow their empathy on animals they are familiar with in their "in-group" -- and that natural tendency is a challenge in a globalized human world.
"Morality" developed in humans in small communities, he said, adding: "It's a challenge... it's experimental for the human species to apply a system intended for (in-groups) to the whole world."

The in-group comments concern me a little, but that just reinforces the need to meet your neighbours and join the community, as MT said earlier in this thread.

[lazyboy]

This discussion reminds me of a book I like: Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom.
The author, psychologist Rick Hanson, talks about the "negativity bias" that been deeply programmed into our hardwiring as a survival mechanism for the species: it's better from a species survival viewpoint to view that stick on the ground as a potential snake. The problem, of course, is that seeing everything as a potential threat makes for a very unhappy existence which then becomes counter to survival. This is part of the dilema of life which the Buddha calls dukkha or suffering. Rick, who leads a meditation group in San Rafael that I occasionally attend, presents ways in the book to rewire your brain for happiness and wisdom.  

[MachineGhost]

So after a couple of episodes, it's becoming rather obvious to me these people have no clue the biggest threat to their life and existence is the rapidly advancing police state.  Typical.

MG

[shoestring]

My two cents worth:

Say The End comes.  The greenback is now completely worthless and the internet vanishes overnight in a puff of smoke.  Civil authority vanishes.

Yeah, I'd say those of us living in a population center of any size are well and truly fornicated with involuntarily by circumstance.  I'd guess we're looking at a couple of weeks of looting, shooting, etc.  Maybe even a few months.

There is that (minority) portion of the population who is only well behaved when they perceive that the punishment for acting out is forthcoming if they should indulge.  There is that (minority) portion of the population who feels like no rules means no responsibility.  And there is that (minority) portion of the population who would see this as some chance to affect Robin Hood style social justice.

Eventually though, people would figure it out like we have for so long now.  They would either (for the most part) submit to these groups, or repel them.  Society would just step back to an era of smaller tribes, and the tribes would conflict over resources, and we'd just go through the cycle again.

How long would it take?  I've no idea but I think we'd rebuild sooner than later.  If you look at most government collapses, etc. something is usually in place pretty soon, even if that doesn't last too long.

[stone]

In the Japanese Tsunami last year there wasn't any looting was there?

[Coffee]

So after a couple of episodes, it's becoming rather obvious to me these people have no clue the biggest threat to their life and existence is the rapidly advancing police state.  Typical.

MG

Do you really think, "Police State" is a bigger threat to their life and existence than heart disease, cancer, or suffering an injury from a fall?

[shoestring]

In the Japanese Tsunami last year there wasn't any looting was there?

Japan is a freak though.  Through centuries of cultural conditioning it has been homogenized and the population effectively neutered.  This is the country which has effective gun control because they simply killed a few hundred thousand people who happened to be family members of people who owned these threats to the samurai back when they were first available.

The point being do not look to Japan for cultural parity.:-)

[moda0306]

shoestring,

You mean "The Last Samurai" wasn't entirely accurate?

[stone]

Are Japanese people really all that homogenous? They seem to have very very quirky, off the wall, fads and "specialist interests". Almost any human activity will have just about its most passionate and excessive proponents being Japanese as far as I can see.

On the wider point, as with the ice storm case in Canada mentioned before, from what I can see adversity brings people together. I used to commute by train. I knew lots of fellow commuters by sight but there was a firm code of silence until once the train broke down. Then everyone got chatting.

Old people in the UK talk about "the spirit of the Blitz". WWII is talked about as though it was a time of wonderful good spirited cooperation

[shoestring]

shoestring,

You mean "The Last Samurai" wasn't entirely accurate?

I have never seen it.  But I wouldn't be surprised.

Interesting article on the history of firearms in Japan, which also discusses the underlying issues of how accepting the Japanese are of authority and paternalism as a culture.

http://www.guncite.com/journals/dkjgc.html

Also for more reading, look up Sword Hunt/Sword Hunts, also referenced in the link I gave (unironically the most famous widespread firearms confiscation happened immediately after the new regime came to power by using them).  They killed quite a few people over the centuries enforcing these things.

As for how homogenous is Japan? Well compared to North America, very. 

While there are some ethnic lines drawn by scholars, the Japanese census doesn't draw lines between these groups, and 98.5% of all respondents are Japanese.  Realize the point of this is not to blast the technical accuracy, but rather to point out the cultural perception.  Shintaoism and Buddhism are so prevalent there's hardly any other religion, over 90% of the country is in the same socioeconomic group, 95% of the country lives in urban areas.

There's also a lot of cultural things going on.  Obedience to authority, loyalty to Japan and its social instituitions, xenophobia, a general negative perception of non Japanese ethniticities, the general power of the state to do anything it wishes with the concept of American or European style civil rights being, well, foreign to them, all contribute to a society which is on the whole remarkably cohesive compared to others.

I do not endorse or lament this personally, it's just how it is.  It has good effects, like the Japanese work ethic, the fact they didn't riot, and they're incredible citizens.  What private US employer would keep paying its workers their full salary while they temprorarily abandoned their normal duties and went to clean up after a simialr disaster?  And by temporary I mean for a few months or however long it takes, not some 1 to 3 day publicity stunt.

It also has detrimental effects.  The aging population is extremely adverse to young foreigners coming to supply much needed medical care for them.  Women have some serious issues and are cultured to be submissive and docile (although that has gotten better, they're still not as far along as others).  The suicide rate is incredibly high.

Are they perfectly homogenous with no subcultures or countercultures?  Of course not.  But the whole frame of reference is very different, as a nation they react to the same situations differently.

[stone]

Shoestring

  The aging population is extremely adverse to young foreigners coming to supply much needed medical care for them.

I'm in agreement with elderly Japanese people. If there is a shortage of medical staff, shouldn't more young people should be trained to do the work? In the UK we have the inane situation of restricted places for medical training, mass unemployment and massive recruitment of medical and elder-care staff from parts of the world that are often more short of those staff than we are.

In principle I think it is important to see an economy as scalable for the people who live in a place. An economy is basically just a way that people can organise their time and resources. It shouldn't ever require net emigration or imigration IMO.

[AgAuMoney]

Shoestring

 The aging population is extremely adverse to young foreigners coming to supply much needed medical care for them.

I'm in agreement with elderly Japanese people. If there is a shortage of medical staff, shouldn't more young people should be trained to do the work?

Demographics are such that there is a shortage of young japanese people.  Not just medical staff.  Now maybe if medical were the only problem you could solve it by forcing (or financially incenting) enough japanese into medicine and backfilling the rest of the country with foreigners.  Unfortunately the japanese culturally and legally do not much care for immigrants, yet if they need people to fill positions, they will need immigrants.

Similar demographic challenges are occurring in switzerland but immigration is much easier there.  If you look at preschool and early grades the current ethnicity variance between 4 year olds and 19 year olds is amazing.  The 4 year old classes might have 2 western european kids in each class but that proportion grows with age until nearly 100% of the oldest classes are western european (most likely native swiss).  I'm most familar with Zurich and Bern.  I'm sure schools in smaller citys/towns will be different.  I'm not sure about the U.K. but I've read that France is in a similar demographic situation.

Even the U.S. is facing the same demographics.  If not for immigration we would be in a declining population for some years now.  As it is, the majority of U.S. births by race are hispanic, and the majority by religion are catholic and evangelical christian.

An economy is basically just a way that people can organise their time and resources. It shouldn't ever require net emigration or imigration IMO.

And what do you propose to do about significant declines in birth rate combined with increasing longevity?

[stone]

An economy is basically just a way that people can organise their time and resources. It shouldn't ever require net emigration or imigration IMO.

And what do you propose to do about significant declines in birth rate combined with increasing longevity?

I could understand if there was zero unemployment and everyone was doing vital work. Neither of those things are true though. In Japan there are ample underemployed young people to look after all of the old people. There are also legions of Japanese people doing pointless paper pushing make work jobs who could be looking after old people if the need arose.

To my mind net immigration in the UK wasn't beneficial. It was just a way to shirk the need to educate people well enough, to depress wages and to perpetuate waste such as the housing bubble and bloating bureaucracy. I think it is great if people want to live and work in a foreign place but that is quite different from having a systematic net migration.

[AgAuMoney]

I could understand if there was zero unemployment and everyone was doing vital work. Neither of those things are true though. In Japan there are ample underemployed young people to look after all of the old people. There are also legions of Japanese people doing pointless paper pushing make work jobs who could be looking after old people if the need arose.

Wow.

You and I have diametrically opposed views of freedom and a 100% different understanding of the demographic crisis facing Japan.

[stone]

I could understand if there was zero unemployment and everyone was doing vital work. Neither of those things are true though. In Japan there are ample underemployed young people to look after all of the old people. There are also legions of Japanese people doing pointless paper pushing make work jobs who could be looking after old people if the need arose.

Wow.

You and I have diametrically opposed views of freedom and a 100% different understanding of the demographic crisis facing Japan.

AgAuMoney, when you are saying that I have an off beat view of freedom, I'm not sure that you're not misunderstanding me. I'm not saying that anyone should be forced into looking after old people by some state dictat or anything. I'm simply saying that in a situation with wealthy elderly people and under-employed young people, market forces will create the services required for the old people to get the care they need. How does that impinge on anyone's freedom

[AgAuMoney]

I could understand if there was zero unemployment and everyone was doing vital work. Neither of those things are true though. In Japan there are ample underemployed young people to look after all of the old people. There are also legions of Japanese people doing pointless paper pushing make work jobs who could be looking after old people if the need arose.

Wow.

You and I have diametrically opposed views of freedom and a 100% different understanding of the demographic crisis facing Japan.

AgAuMoney, when you are saying that I have an off beat view of freedom, I'm not sure that you're not misunderstanding me. I'm not saying that anyone should be forced into looking after old people by some state dictat or anything. I'm simply saying that in a situation with wealthy elderly people and under-employed young people, market forces will create the services required for the old people to get the care they need. How does that impinge on anyone's freedom

I didn't say "off beat", I said different from me.  For all I know, and indeed by looking at my neighbors, I strongly suspect I am the one "off beat."

Sorry if I misunderstood your position.  Starting with your statements along the lines of "economy designed to require immigration" it has sounded like you wanted to impose a top-down change to the economy, culminating into forcing young people into employment where they would not be what you consider "underemployed" or "doing useless paper pushing".  I would never classify someone as "underemployed" or "doing useless {anything}" if they chose to take the job and the employer chose to offer it at free market wages.  (Unemployment is an entirely different issue.)

As for "requiring" immigration, I don't see it.  Market forces and demographics are acting upon natives and immigrants alike all over the world.  In Japan, more than most western european or north american nations, suffering has started and their situation is expected to get worse because of their low birthrate compounded when they so severely restrict immigration.  The closest thing I've seen to "requiring immigration" is when employers lobby for more H1-B visas and I have to compete with the immigrants for work.  Frankly I'd rather compete with them here than have all the jobs exported to where they are natives.

[stone]

AgAuMoney, what I actual was thinking of when I wrote, "doing useless paper pushing" were tales about the level of beauracracy in Japan. Someone I know who moved there to work in a (state funded) research instute was complaining about how her life was taken up with filling in pointless forms. Her impression was that those forms were simply a make work scheme so that the institute could employ a legion of clerks devising and processing such forms. She said that in Japan there is a big big effort to avoid unemployment by implementing such state  make work schemes. In such a situation, it seems unfathonable to me that there could be any shortage of people able and willing to do genuinely important work caring for a large population of elderly people. I think the Japanese people see things that way too. That is why they don't see any need to have lots of immigration into Japan.