This page will list any and all critique on this guide sent to prepper2501@proton.me if you wish so in your email.
Received by JankyCoyote 19.11.2023 on Dread:
Tried to email this, but seems Proton doesn’t like TorBox. So here it is.
Here’s my critique.
While there has obviously been a lot of effort put into thinking out this guide, it is failing in one very major way: timescale.
You have effectively planned to ride out an event that lasts, at most, a year before some kind of return to normalcy. This is a critical error. Normalcy will not return. As the pandemic clearly demonstrated, global supply lies are already stretched to breaking. Everything is so reliant on things from around the world that when it falls, it will all fall with no hope of coming back in any meaningful way. We are facing a Class 2 Apocalypse Event (global societal collapse). Even if AI doesn’t cause it, something eventually will.
With that in mind it means most of the guide is horribly misaimed. You shouldn’t be trying to just outlive the people around you. You will need to build them up into a self sustaining community.
I will skip over the Threat and What to Expect sections as they are both fantastically speculative. That doesn’t mean they are inherently wrong, just that they are ultimately irrelevant in the face of long-term survival.
The Plan
The vast majority of this entire section is hostile, xenophobic, and will result in your untimely demise. That demise will be at least nine months from the collapse (assuming your planning works flawlessly), but it will still be a demise. The question it fails to confront is “What happens when your supplies run out?” You have just spent the better part of a year hoarding survival to yourself behind a wall of guns. Actions like that will not be forgotten by those you’ve spent that time denying help to.
Instead, the focus should be on becoming a producer of some valuable resource to your local community. This will mean you might have to tighten your belt some times, but is a much better long-term solution. You won’t need to stockpile food or supplies if you can trade for it.
One thing it did get right is that you will want to bring in people on your plan. The more people you can build into a self-sustaining community, the stronger it will be regardless of what the outside world is doing. It also means each of you will be able to specialize your skills better. Learn subsistence farming. Learn basic machining and blacksmithing. Learn first aid. Learn animal husbandry. The more useful you are to more people, the better off you will be.
This is not to say stockpiling supplies isn’t important. The fall, regardless of being fast or a slow decades-long event, will have rough patches. Having stocks of emergency supplies is going to be vital to smoothing those over. Just what those supplies are will be discussed in the next sections.
Water
Here again we are faced with short term solutions. Focus instead on long term sustainable practices. In this case, make a charcoal/sand filter. Take a barrel with no lid. put a hole in the bottom with your collection pot under it. In the barrel put a layer of crushed charcoal (make sure you learn how to make more). Then a layer of sand, a layer of gravel and a layer of rocks. Pour your water through this to filter it. Change out the filter every month or so. Lastly, boil your filtered water before use. This process is much more sustainable than iodine/chlorine/store bought filters. Even in the most water starved areas, there are sources that can be used (rain, rivers/lakes, canals, wells, etc) so stockpiling is not likely to be very important, but production on demand is. The filter will be large and bulky, but that’s fine. Build it in a public place and let the public use it. This will increase your value even more.
Food
This is where subsistence farming and animal husbandry will really shine for you. Learn them or make sure someone in your group has learned them. But beyond that…
This is the first bit where I will preach stockpiling. Food production, even in the best of times, is a cyclic thing. Make sure you have enough to last you through the growing season until harvest. Study preservation techniques. Smoking, curing, sausages, canning, etc. Practice them. Know them.
For plants, find what grows well in your area. Even if drinking water is easy to produce, irrigation uses a lot more (does not need filtering at least) and getting it from source to field can present issues The less you have to work to make stuff grow, the better. Just what you grow is going to depend greatly on where you live. About the only exception to that are potatoes and onions. These are hearty, high-yield plants that grow just about anywhere and require next to no skill. Share them with your neighbors to help them get a fast start on food production (potatoes alone will give you almost everything you need to survive except protein). Also find out what grows naturally in your area. Local wilderness survival guides are your friend here. Teach the people around you what to forage for and how. The faster you can get the people around you self sufficient, the more important you will be to them and the less they will be reliant on you.
For animals, chickens and goats are probably your best options. They can both live in urban and suburban space. They both will eat any scraps left over from your own food (or otherwise). They are both excellent foragers in their own right (if your situation allows them to roam). They both produce food without needing to kill them (eggs and milk). Their poop makes excellent fertilizer.
In this scenario you are not hiding in fear from the community, you are building yourself into an indispensable resource for them. You will need to share your stockpile with them, but because you’re the one who’s producing the food to begin with this gives you a strong bargaining position that you at least save enough for yourself and have the community support you in it.
Weapons
Repeat after me: “guns are not the answer to everything”. In fact, in the vast majority of situations, the threat of deadly violence is going to make a situation worse in the long term. This is in no small part due to the fact that after you run out of ammo, you have an expensive stick. 500 rounds might sound like a decent stockpile but will disappear in days even with only a single person using it. Keep in mind, we are planning for decades. Your fancy short barrel suppressed S&W with collapsible stock, scope and night vision will mean dick all if there’s nothing to put in it. That doesn’t mean guns are useless, but we need to step back and try to figure out what you actually need the guns for.
You could use them for siege defense. Once. It’ll chew through your ammo stockpile so fast your head will spin. Then you’ll get horribly murdered by the rest of the siege group. This is absolutely a last resort option and if you’re facing this kind of situation, it may be best to consider packing up everything you can carry and sneaking out the back door in the middle of the night.
You could use them to raid other people for supplies. This will work until you run out of ammo. Then you’ve got every last community in your area looking to skin you alive. Would not recommend for anything but an emergency.
You could use them to defend against raiders while traveling. Until your ammo runs out. This is probably the best option and your ammo stockpile could potentially last years (or be gone in a month). In this case you could still carry the empty gun to warn off people who don’t know it’s empty.
You could use it for hunting. In this case a pistol is just crap and a 5.56 round is even crappier. It was specifically designed as an anti-personnel round. It has horrible stopping power and is designed to wound and maim rather than kill. That deer you shot? It’s going to run off and die of infection a week later. No venison for you. That rabbit? You just hamburgered half the poor thing. And after you run out of ammo? Best learn how to use a bow and set snares.
So the big thing here is ammo. Instead of trying to be G.I. Tacticool, be practical. A high powered hunting rifle easily doubles as a sniper weapon, is much more effective on its targets and much leaner on ammo. It would still be a ‘special situation’ tool, however. Ammo is, after all, not replaceable.
And even better option would be a muzzle loader. Black powder is surprisingly easy to manufacture and lead rounds easy to cast using a heat source as low as a camp fire. Keep track of your percussion caps so you can re-charge them (or even learn to press-form your own). You’ll have a rifle that’d still be usable when you pass it down to your grand kids.
And what of the pistol? Get a Colt single-action Navy. It’s a six-round black powder revolver. Again, solves the ammo issue. And if you find yourself in a defensive situation that can’t be gotten out of with six rounds, you’re probably in a bigger situation than you can handle.
Moving on, a machete is an excellent suggestion. They are useful for FAR more than just weapons. They are also simple enough that even a completely untrained person can use it relatively effectively. They are also easy to manufacture so if something happens to the ones you have, you can replace them.
A fixed blade knife is… questionable at best. The range they are useful at in combat is so close that it is horrifically dangerous for all parties involved. Best to back off and re-engage with the machette or baseball bat.
The pepper spray confuses me. What possible use would you have for it that wouldn’t be better served by other means? Also, you can’t refill them. Once they’re used, they are useless.
A bow and arrow, in the hands of a skilled user is a fantastic hunting tool. They can be used in the capacity of a weapon, but only really work well that way when massed together. The real advantage here is that ammo is relatively easy to manufacture and generally reusable.
A crossbow is a bit of a mixed bag. They have a much lower skill threshold than bows to be used, are physically easier to draw, and don’t require the user to hold that draw until release. Like bows, the ammo is easy to manufacture and generally reusable. Unlike bows, they don’t make great hunting weapons as the bolts are lighter than arrows. They would likely be best suited as sidearms for protection while traveling. I’d rather have a six shooter though.
At the end of this section is the one point in the entire article where you suggest attacking and killing people might not be a good idea. The rest seems like it was written by someone who had watched far too much The Walking Dead. In case it wasn’t clear from everything I’ve written up to this point, your best option for survival is going to be working with and becoming a valuable member of your community, not fighting them.
Equipment
I feel this section best demonstrates the disconnect on time scales. The emphasis on thinking everyone is out to get you continues through here as well. Again, your best defense against the community attacking you is to make yourself more valuable to them as you are.
You have essentially built a very robust emergency response kit. We are looking at the collapse of global society, not an earthquake. Emergency response kits are very important, especially since the collapse of society means there likely will not be any kind of outside emergency response. However, it lacks the foresight of “we can’t replace the things we use”. Instead of stockpiling irreplacable items, plan for what you’re going to do when they are gone.
This brings up more skills that could be learned to make yourself more valuable. Learn how to make rope. Learn to distill alcohol (and not just for drinking, but if you’re “the booze guy”, that’s going to be quite the feather in your cap). Alcohol has a whole list of uses particularly as a flammable material and a disinfectant. If you have a flex-fuel vehicle, you can drive it on distilled alcohol, for example.
and now to to fuel storage, vehicle use, electricity generation…
Don’t worry about fuel storage. You are unlikely to ever be able to replenish it in any meaningful amount anyways. And if you can replenish it, the storage is redundant. For this same reason, don’t worry with gas/diesel generators. They’ll just burn up your fuel and be dead weight. Instead, get a solar setup for your house. With a back-up battery this will give you electricity even if the grid goes down. It will also let you charge an electric car. If you are in need of mobile mains power, a couple 300 watt panels and a Bluetti power station is your best option. Don’t use lead-acid batteries for storage. They simply degrade too fast. A good li-ion setup, although more expensive will last much longer with much better energy density.
And, because I’ve been harping on it this whole time, all these bits are basically unreplacable (aside from salvaging other systems for parts). They should last you 15-20 years though, and if you haven’t figured out a replacement by then, you’re doing it wrong.
On pedal crank chargers, unless you have a ROBUST food supply, don’t. Do not. You are expending personal energy for electrical energy. And that personal energy is coming from your food. Instead hook it to a windmill or water wheel.
Your digital section here is the one bit I can just nod along with. Expect to lose the internet. Expect to lose mains power. Expect to have the only information available to you that which you have saved.
But don’t forget to visit your local library too.
Medical
This, again, runs into being a very short term solution. The advice isn’t inherently wrong, but when your meds are gone, they are gone. Make sure to study up on first aid and emergency trauma response. Also find out what local plants make at least passible substitutes. This is, in fact, one of those skills that is in-depth enough that you will likely want to have at least one person dedicated to it and it alone. There’s a reason villages had “the healer” and not just everybody trained in first aid.