The Schism Breaking Apart the “Prepper” Community (opens in new tab)

(slate.com)

22 pointserbdex3y ago4 comments

4 comments

One problem is that both sides of this "schism" tends to easily fall into a Cosy Catastrophe mindset [0]. Not always, but it happens quite a bit. They touch on this in the article, but it's too common in my opinion. It's tempting to start daydreaming about an escapist fantasy where you've prepped exactly right and society collapses exactly how you want it or thought it would happen. Maybe it's a world where you can violently defend your homestead against bandits. Maybe it's a world where all your hungry neighbors band together in harmony to protect one another. The truth is a long-term scenario that would require prepping would be chaotic beyond anything you can imagine and yet parts of society would continue on exactly as before.

[0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CosyCatastrophe

codefreeordie3y ago

This is not an article about preppers, it's just another article about Reddit drama.

pawsforthought3y ago

The headline is hyperbolic, but I still found it interesting to consider an alternative take on prepping: one which includes eminently practical concerns such as childcare and contraception, and which regards mutual aid as the best strategy for surviving through plausible disaster scenarios.

From the article:

> Looked at from this emerging angle, where people discuss which children’s books to pack in a bug-out bag or which movies to store in a portable device, “prepping” starts to drift awfully close to “living.” The users are aware of this, and skeptical of some of the bright lines the mostly male preppers draw between “normal” life and the emergencies they’re readying themselves for. It’s a fascinating question: Is the objective of prepping to create some kind of continuity with life as it is ordinarily lived, or to adjust (violently, if necessary) to a jagged new reality characterized via pared-down survival measures?

toss13y ago

Thx for saving me the time...

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