2016 predictions...By C5

Ya. Its a little late...but it is volunteer work and I am not on the clock

Ah, Hell and spamnation. I think this post ends up in the X-Files....so I deliberately posted it in the Religion and spirituality section....not because of religion or spirituality...but because its predictive...and I am gazing into my crystal ball.

Nothing mystical going on here. I am a prepper. I prepare for things unseen. Obvious to me. Why is it obvious....Because it is soooooooooooooooooo fucking obvious. People tend to ignore the obvious. So it is one of my social responsibilities. For me to prepare for the future, I spend way too much time examining the news and making forcasts. I'm sort of good at it because I have no commitment to flags, counties, entanglements, oaths, religious or political positions... Or even my own perception in interpreting events....


Take the info...and do with it what you will...while you are preparing for your own future. Warning. It aint windmills, unicorns, drum circles and jet packs. Conversely, No Illuminati, weather modification, shape shifting aliens either

http://internationalpreppersnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=6051

I gave up on "prepping" because the preppers were such negative doomers. My life has greatly improved since I stopped following the doom news, and I am much more productive with my time. I originally got involved with prepping around 2005?, I think, and no doom has occurred except the collapse of my particular professional specialty. Most doomers I knew did not prep for personal doom, but instead for culture-wide doom, even though losing their job is a far more likely scenario than society-wide economic collapse. None of them seemed to want to discuss the most likely scenarios such as illness, injury, or loss of income.

It wasn't until I watched the show "Doomsday Preppers" on TV that I realized how out of touch with reality most of those folks were. At that point I dropped them like a hot potato.

I tend to be a broken record in this space, your grandparents prepped for each year, prepping is good, but you don't need and doom or theory to do it, just do it out of love for yourself and family, you will tend to stock less death sticks when you prepare for life rather than prepare for death. Plus like Tyler said, it's better on your psyche.... The biggest obvious is to prep for winter.....I think we all collectively see that coming!

I have guns and ammo don't get me wrong, but they are a short term solution.

Chadwick Holmes wrote:it's better on your psyche..

The prepper/doomer thing is especially dangerous for people with depressive or psychotic illnesses, because it is very difficult for us to keep track of reality even in the best of times. Both my sister and I have bipolar disorder, and I may have triggered a major psychotic event for my poor sister by trying to convince her about "peak oil." She got very ill and ended up being hospitalized. I still feel guilty about it, even though she may have gotten that ill anyway without my unhelpful input. My husband tried to get me off the doom thing for years before we watched "Doomsday Preppers" together.

Even without being preppers we're actually quite well prepared for the loss of our primary income, as we've paid off the house and, thanks to permies (NOT preppers) I can now grow a good amount of our food. So a form of personal doom has come upon us and we're doing great.

I still think it is important for everyone to prepare for likely natural disasters.

I agree with Ludi's take on being personally prepared. Personal catastrophe is common place. Health changes, businesses fail, injuries happen, spouses leave or die. These are the storms we must survive.

If I wind up broke next year, it won't be due to massive bank failure or nation wide economic collapse. It will be because of something that I have done or failed to do. If I'm unable to work next year, it will most likely be because of some risk I took. If my body fails, it will be due to natural wear and tear, not something caused by cigarettes or a poor diet.

I remember hearing that about half of US bankruptcies had their roots in health care costs and loss of income, due to health. Although a change in the system would help; putting these costs onto the government is only a partial solution. In any real break down of the system, those with failing health are likely to suffer the most.

Soooooo.....Let me get this straight. You started in 2005 (an important date to remember- the year of peak conventional oil, lead up to the 2008 financial crash). 10 years later, your profession isn't around anymore and you are unemployed...while we are in the midst of a commodities crash (The result of 2005). You "Prepped" buy paying off your house and putting in a big friggin garden (Same as me)...and now we are golden, un panicked and well placed while others are homeless and on food stamps. Yay Prepping!

But your advice to people is "Pretend to the bitter end", You will be happier. Don't push people out of the way of the approaching truck.

Me. I had the complete opposite experience.
True story, When I first watched The Crash Course end to end, http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse .....I sat dazed for a few minutes...and then burst into tears. A full on cathartic blubbery mess. Snot in my beard and everything.....But I wasn't morning or anything like that. It was relief. My response was "Thank god I am not the only person seeing all this. Thank God I Am Not Crazy".

The end result is I am Happier, More self confident and I like myself more. I was motivated to sell the city house before it lost value, Not get into any debt and get way more self sufficient. It motivated us to do some world travelling. Cuba, Mexico, Jamaica, Spain, France, Germany, Holland and the former soviet block, and the US. We did this because we knew a time was coming when we would Never be able to do this again. Ive had a richer life for it.

Prepare skills, they are a longer term solution.....carpentry, blacksmithing, gardening, these things will be what you lean on.

Ross Raven wrote:

But your advice to people is "Pretend to the bitter end", You will be happier. Don't push people out of the way of the approaching truck.

I gave no advice whatsoever, except "prepare for natural disasters."


(and incidentally, I'm not unemployed)

Dale Hodgins wrote: In any real break down of the system, those with failing health are likely to suffer the most.

Yep. Besides trying to be generally healthy otherwise, those of us with chronic genetic conditions who are dependent on pharmaceuticals are just gonna be out of luck. But fretting about it only damages my health further, so I "pretend" that each day is a lovely day (which it is, to me) and that life is good (which it is, to me). And I plant some more seeds.

I'm sure most folks here have already seen it, but Geoff Lawton addresses the prepper/doomer thing in a useful way in this video: http://geofflawton.com/videos/surviving-collapse-designing-way-abundance/