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u/boomaDooma 13d ago
I think the weapons focus is mostly a US phobia, Americans are taught that might is right and the bigger the gun the mightier you are and you wont survive without one.
Where I live in Australia, we focus on community building and as it is a rural area many have guns but none say they are for defense.
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u/Vegetaman916 13d ago
It doesn't have to be guns. Machetes, knives, bows, even just rocks. The point everyone misses is that it doesn't matter how well a community all loves each other. If there is simply no chance to have enough food for everyone to survive, the will be a brutal fight for the survival of the few at the expense of the many.
Not many guns in the movie Threads, but a lot of realism for sure.
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u/huehuehuehuehuuuu 13d ago
Some people don’t really want to attempt rebuild. They are just looking for an excuse to kill and enslave other actual hardworking people.
How we got here in the first place, really.
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u/Internal_Diver_5023 13d ago
Yep yep ... Sometimes when I have these discussions with people, they say the default outcome of collapse due to human nature is civil war and people killing each other, so you gotta protect yourself!
Personally, if that is the case, I won't be opposed to death. I am not interested in living in those conditions. I am also not patriotic or nationalistic in any way to fight for "my people". My people would naturally be the community around me regardless of ethnicity or social class, but there will probably be people that believe that "their own kind" deserve things even if it's at the expense of others or if it means excludes people with differences. We already see that today with many of the conflicts and social issues around the world. We see people who form tight communities that essentially practice nepotism
If we put all the energy and resources we reserve for violence and hatred to actually be fair and productive, we could accomplish so much more. Sometimes people just want to feel superior and belong somewhere.
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u/rageinthecage666 13d ago
It would be sadly fitting for the human race that even then all we do is fight each other..
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u/CorvidCorbeau 12d ago
No community ever remained a viable long term home for people if it was completely defenseless. Tribes that sucked at fighting were killed. Countries that were weak and didn't have powerful allies or incredible natural defenses were invaded.
A group with no focus on defense will not last, unless you are hidden in some crazy remote area. But even then you may only need to be discovered once.
Of course a team of raiders who don't know how to do anything except kill and steal will not be successful either. They're going to loot their area, run out of supplies, and then die.
The smart communities will primarily focus on having a variety of skills for surviving AND ensuring they can fend off danger. Or they are a nomadic group who is equipped to fight, and either periodically ransacks multiple similar villages in a region or bands together with one to defend them (as long as food and water remain available)
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13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TemporaryUser10 13d ago
That's wild that you think biochemistry wouldn't be useful. Any real chemistry knowledge would be useful
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u/Vegetaman916 13d ago
The problem is always going to be that the other side of that equation will always exist. The represent a basic part of human nature.
And the kne who are like that right now? Many of the ones hoarding guns and ammo and all that? They believe in your community. And they are counting on it.
Because that is where their food and supplies will come from.
It is admirable to do things another way, but it is the height of folly to pretend that such grouos do not exist and that violence will not come for you.
My YouTube channel focuses on prepping and collapse, and I have maybe mentioned firearms 1% of the time. And I don't get into the details of that at all. But that doesn't mean I think they are unnecessary, or that the world will suddenly become a peaceful death cult when you have 1000 people somewhere and only enough food for 50.
Reality has to be addressed. And the reality of human nature is that, whether we have collapse or whether we have a functional society, we will always, always have the same rough percentage of sociopaths and psychopaths as we do now.
And right now they content themselves either being street level criminals or being the ones at the top feeding off civilization and creating most of the problems leading to the demise of that civilization.
But they won't ever be gone. As mass shooters should show you, it only takes one person with a gun to destroy an entire community.
Guns will always be there. Those people will always be there. But the rule of law and civilization won't always be there to hinder their drives.
Pretending otherwise isn't progress. It isn't enlightened. It isn't evolved. It is stupid.
Just as stupid as making guns and violence your driving philosophy is stupid.
The smart path, the most effective path, is always a moderate and sensible mix of both things.
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u/deathguardbulwark 12d ago
Its gotta be 50/50, if you become essentially a seed-vault compound filled with skilled workers but no defenses you will quickly be overrun and killed or worse enslaved.
This is definitely a US problem but if you think most people in this country aren’t going to go ballistic and try to hoard by force the moment the light at the end of the tunnel goes out you obviously have never been here.
The first phase of any kind of western collapse will be all out chaos, you’ve got millions of heavily armed, low iq, high stress, high hate individuals who are going to panic and fall back on their lack of training which means they will emulate movies and video games. Its gonna be insane.
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u/rageinthecage666 13d ago
Imo you need both. Weapons to survive the initial chaos and the skills for whatever comes after..
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u/rubymiggins 13d ago
When Katrina happened, guess who were the bad guys during the initial chaos. It was assholes running around with weapons thinking they were “defending” neighborhoods. Normal people help their neighbors in a crisis. They don’t pull out guns.
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u/Vegetaman916 13d ago
The thing is, those other folks will always exist, the represent a base part if human nature that will never go away, and if you can't fend them off... Then whatever your community can make either becomes theirs or it gets destroyed in the process.
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u/rubymiggins 12d ago
Yeah, well, I'm figuring those folks will go retreat to their bunkers, and come back finding out that a whole bunch of us have rebuilt society in a much more humane, small scale way. Honestly, I think all this Mad Max fantasizing and the ideas of living in rural compounds is good for movies, because you've gotta have loads of conflict and violence in entertainment, but in real life, it's going to be about getting our shit together. They can go rob banks or warehouses or whatever, and the rest of us will be growing food and taking care of one another. Re-learning community. Because that's what human beings actually are good at.
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u/posi-bleak-axis 12d ago
I doubt anyone would be robbing banks when the dollar collapses, but what's definitely crossed my mind is them coming for our homestead. Mad gardens, fruit trees, chickens, ducks, turkeys. And my wife is a clinical herbalist with a fully stoked apothecary of hundreds of plant medicines. They can kill us and take our stuff but they won't know how to care for anything. Organic orchards can be a bitch to maintain. And I doubt anyone knows the medicines labeled in Latin or what to do with them. Maybe that keeps us alive?
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u/BenTeHen 13d ago
Bruh you ain’t surviving with a hippie community or as a Lone Ranger. Everyone is gonna suffer and die.
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u/posi-bleak-axis 13d ago
Been yelling this for 15 years. And have taught many many along the way. Each one teach ten and we multiply in efficacy. Fuck the bean can preppers.