Enjoyed this comment. Vibes with an essay by Cory Doctorow about needing a “bug in bag” not a “bug out bag”, to run towards community to help versus running to the mountains, as you need collective action to survive.
If you have noticed, they do a really good job of responding to disasters. In fact, one of the funniest aspects, is that the Yakuza (Japanese mobsters) often are the first ones on the scene, and seem to take pleasure at beating the government response.
I suspect that part of the reason is that organized crime tends to have an incredibly robust infrastructure, hardened against unpredictable stressors.
Personally, I have no intentions of living in the type of feudal/fascist society that most preppers seem to yearn for.
(Speaking totally out of turn and without any sort of knowledge of the situation)
The rapid response of the Yakuza may simply be opportunistic and predatory.
Food, clothes, shelter, help to save precious heirlooms, those are all inflexible needs.
Borrowing on "social credit" on inflexible needs can be exploitatively steep later.
In the Yakuza-as-"helpers" model, they're taking advantage of chaos and economics theories.
I think you can see what is really happening if we switch out "Yakuza" with any outlaw criminal organization in the States like as in "During the floods of '22, I got help to save my photos of my great grandparents from the Gambino's...", or "During the hurricane and disasters of '22, I needed antibiotics for my daughter, the Hell's Angel's helped me..."
Obviously this is not some sort of definitive source, but he goes into "What is the real Yakuza vs. that which we see in pop culture" very quickly, which is sort of the heart of this idea.
Note: The guys runs an anime channel, but it's a very serious interview all the same.
I'm not too versed in the subject but I have a feeling that in disaster scenarios it's better to take the Ronald McDonald House charity model than the payday loans model for organized crime.
People don't forget when you take advantage of them when down and they'll be loathe to do business with you in the future when they're not.
I think there's value in borrowing a bit from various cultures. American individualism has a role in creating a strong sense of self and instilling confidence (but take it too far and you get the examples enumerated here about isolationist preppers), while Japan and Europe have strong sense of community (leaning more towards Europe due to Japan's culture causing a bit of oppression around individual identity in deference to the whole) and coalescing around shared struggle and overcoming that struggle.
There is a reason they break you down and build you back up as a team in military bootcamp.
> Yakuza (Japanese mobsters) often are the first ones on the scene, and seem to take pleasure at beating the government response.
That's what mobs do. If you take the protection out of a protection racket, you end with an empty organization and people asking why they should pay you if they'll get beaten either way.
I don't think there is a clean distinction between a fuedal/fascist society, and one where organized crime, historically often tied to ultranationalist far right parties, leads the response in crises. That is what I'd expect in a fascist society, an active para-government organization tied to particular politicians and parties.
(That being said, I don't really think the Yakuza even meets this romanticized vision that is pretty much fascism. There is more fiction presenting them as cruel but competent organization builders, and less presenting them as violent meth addicts.)
In the kind of world that preppers dream of, they are the “rulers,” because they hoarded the goods, and have the weapons.
What would actually happen, if someone spent more than thirty seconds, thinking it through, is that a few badasses (probably organized crime), would take the stash and the weapons, and kill the preppers, if they even hinted at a fight. This is what already happens, in areas where the rule of law deteriorates.
In countries with strong social infrastructure, we are more likely to see people helping each other, as opposed to themselves.
BTW: Japan doesn't have much of a meth problem. You can buy damn good speed, OTC. I think that the Philippines have a pretty bad meth problem.
In and of itself, the "bug out bag" doesn't necessarily imply running off to the wilderness but the fact that you might have to abandon your residence due damage (fire, quake-related structural damage, advancing enemy force).
If you have a bug-in bag you ought to have a bug-out bag for the simple fact that "Shit Happens."
Doctorow also wrote a story titled "Masque of the Red Death" (yes, like the Poe story) which directly depicts the fate of an isolationist bunker in a post-apocalyptic scenario.
Good story. It is collected in Radicalized (ISBN 978-1-78954-494-7) which contains four of his novellas (including this one) about dystopian futures. I can recommend it.
https://boingboing.net/2015/12/21/a-survivalist-on-why-you-s...
https://boingboing.net/2008/07/13/postapocalypse-witho.html