What predictable disaster would (those of you who did not prep ) prep for? The way I see it is, your philosophy doesn't allow man to be able to predict a societal disaster beforehand. Look, we had numerous professional and gov organizations warning that things could have possibly gotten bad. Yet you discounted it. What is the criteria an organization must meet in order to be taken seriously? If you believe that man can't predict a coming disaster, isn't it necessary that you be prepped, always to be ready, (if we can't predict a disaster then that means disasters will always catch us by surprise) always on guard? If so, then why are you beating up on people that prepped? Or perhaps, you believe man will never face a world wide crisis. Well that is magical thinking. Really , tell me, what are the criteria needed for a pending disaster to be taken seriously. People that prepped were behaving rationally either way you look at it. Predictable disasters or surprise disasters. TELL ME. WHAT CRITERIA IS NEEDED? Lenny

-- lenny (Chmielecki@worldnet.att.net), January 02, 2000

Answers

Anyone who discounted the potential problems for rollover is a person who needs to pull his/her head out of their ass and look around...

-- BiGG (superste@antigopro.net), January 02, 2000.

Once again I think the insurance metaphor fits in quite nicely. But, sadly, no matter what your opinion is, and no matter how reasonable you are in your expression of it, there is always going to be SOMEONE (usually of an unstable nature) who will want to take you to task for it. The world is FULL of all kinds of um...interesting individuals. On both sides of the issue there are a small minority who remind me of nothing so much as the various loons that populate the CTA system in Chicago during off hours. You know, the ones who feel Jesus is communicating to them from their left shoe.

So even if you went on to a forum like this and said something as benign as "I like pasta", you'd probably encounter some unhinged person hiding behind the anomynity of their computer screens typing out something like "Pasta sucks! You are a sick freak! You must die!", or words to that effect.

So don't let the more rabid pollies (or doomers for that matter) get under your skin. The faceless world of the internet provides ample opportunities for the more juvenile among us to vent spleen without regard to anything resembling reason.

Gotta go now, Jesus is paging me through my left shoe again...work work work!

John Ludi

-- Ludi (ludi@rollin.com), January 02, 2000.

Ludi,

you had me up to the last sentence, ROTFLMAO!!!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 02, 2000.

Historically, the only thing that will make people in this little town start prepping seriously is if the Chattanooga weatherman says that little four letter word "Snow".

-- Sad but True (prepped@ready.com), January 02, 2000.

I think the criteria would be:

(1) An identifiable and tangible threat (y2k is neither)

(2) Something that is worth preparing for, i.e. something that is survivable (y2k, in it's worst possible manifestation is not)

Concerning (1), y2k was a worthwhile cause for concern and still is, but no-one really knew/knows how it was/is going manifest itself. There has been a huge amount of mis-information, such as the notion that embedded generic chips that do not use their date function (they all have them) would cease to function. My fridge still works, my washing machine still works (and there is still electricity and water to supply them), and my toaster, kettle, etc etc etc.

What I have said may be innacurate, but I simply don't know - therein lies the problem. There was nothing irrational about buying up a few days essential supplies, or maybe even a month's worth, but those who were gearing up towards a life of isolated self-sufficiency really were over-reacting. Prepping and Survivalism are quite quite different; I don't think anyone has suggested that they are the same.

Concerning (2), y2k did/still presents a threat to everyday life, but rather than just accept that everyday life would cease to be, a lot of people got off their butts and decided to tackle the problem. We have yet to see if they have been entirely successful. But suppose The End Of World As We Knew It did descend upon us 36 hours ago? I'm not sure I'd want to survive in the same way that I wouldn't want to survive a nuclear war - there just wouldn't be anything worth living for. You can prepare for a hurricane, or an F5 tornado, or flooding etc., but these things are always localised and there is always an unaffected non-local source of help. The worst y2k prophets predicted/predict a global collapse of absolutely everything - not far short of what would happen if a comet struck the earth. There is no way that that could be prepared for, unless you want to abandon all faith in the possibility that it won't.

There's the rub - I could bunker myself in with a lifetimes supply of erm.. supplies because of the risk of a "worldwide crisis", but I'd have to give up any ambition of ever having a normal life in order to do so.

Question for you Lenny : do you think it is actually possible to prep for a worldwide crisis?

"The future belongs to those who have faith in it"

We live with the possibility of TEOTWAWKI every day, but the Cold War remained cold, and the prophets of doom are frequently proved wrong. Then there is always the possibility of the TEOTWAIKI, or getting run over by a bus, struck by lightning, hit by a meteorite, falling down the stairs, and all of the other little risks that we accept every day.

I don't criticise anyone for making contingency plans for possible disruptions, but anyone in the know would have realised that anything more than that was overkill. This century we face over-population, gridlock, environmental catastrophe, water shortages (forget about oil), and goodness knows what else, but y2k will only make any underlying situations worse, and, perhaps naively, I believe that y2k is a fixable problem (I wish some of the others were).

If you prepared, then good for you. If you didn't, then perhaps you ought to think about how you would have coped if things went nuts for a few days. I felt foolish on News Years Day because I had driven into the back of a friend's car; I certainly wouldn't feel foolish for having a week's supply of bottled water in the fridge.

-- Matthew (mdpope@hotmail.com), January 02, 2000.