I grew up in a Mormon household, and I still think that the practice of keeping food storage and 72-hour kits is one of the smartest practices in that culture. I still keep a bag of emergency supplies in my apartment and car, and even though I'm just a grad student who doesn't have like a two-year supply of wheat and water, having a small supply is a good idea in case of short-term disaster in your area. Furthermore, I find such practices encourage me to buy certain kinds of food in bulk, which has been better on my wallet. It's hard for me to understand some of my fellow students who let their kitchens go completely empty on a regular basis.
I tend to agree, but I also think there's a balance to be struck.
It is a very good idea to keep a few days' worth of non-perishable food and water on hand, even in the absence of an apocalyptic "SHTF" scenario. Things happen. A few years back my town was hit by a hurricane, and our water was out for three days after an electrical failure fouled the municipal purification systems. I had enough bottled water on hand to ride that out comfortably, which was nice.
But that's not "prepping" so much as just common sense. Building a fortified cabin in the woods and stocking it with AR-15s is something else entirely. It's getting ready for a scenario that I'm not sure it's entirely possible to ever be "ready" for.
Seriously. Just play a few hours of DayZ and you learn that there is no such thing as a stronghold if the enemy has the same guns you do. In fact, being stuck in one place makes you extremely vulnerable. If a fight happens, people on both sides will die. And no matter how well you shoot, you'll run out of ammo, or just get shot by a guy you couldn't see.
That is the problem I see with this kind of "prepping": its isolationism. The focus in such a situation should not be an every-man-or-family-for-itself attitude. The focus should be on getting all the people who aren't "zombies" together to begin rebuilding long-term living solutions.
Besides, turning away starving people and keeping everything for yourself is just plain wrong.
All that is not to say that there wouldn't be "bandits", and that it wouldn't be necessary to defend the "good guys." But the fundamental attitude seems wrong to me.
I used to live in hurricane country, and having a week's worth of water and food in the house was just common sense. As well as a few hundred dollars in cash, for when the power goes out and ATMs & credit-card machines stop working.
Fun story: I got onto I-440 around Raleigh after Floyd came through, and there was this long line of cars driving really slowly. Really bizarre, since most of the time the road is a racetrack. I get to the head of it, and they're all following an ice truck to it's next stop so they can top-up their coolers.
From what I've observed it's not a terrible way to live. (the problems my Mormon friends have had don't seem to have anything to do with food storage)
The thing people lose sight of when they hear "those guys are storing years worth of food in their basement" is that those people aren't necessarily storing it for themselves. In a real disaster, those people are in a better position than most to help their neighbors out.
It's a pretty big contrast between that mindset and the common prepper/survivalist mindset.
> It's a pretty big contrast between that mindset and the common prepper/survivalist mindset.
That's an excellent point. The "prepper" mindset seems to be about isolationist survival, Castaway style. That's not a good long-term mindset. If a real Bad Thing happened, after the immediate aftermath, people would need to start coming together to rebuild societies and communities and infrastructures, not disappearing into the wilderness.
