So, we rise from the rubble...
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Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Dan, I Allegedly, "This Is What Economic Desperation Looks Like"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 2/24/26
"This Is What Economic Desperation Looks Like"
"The cracks in the economy are getting harder to ignore. In today’s episode of i Allegedly News, we break down the growing instability across multiple sectors - from threats to Mexico’s silver production (which supplies roughly 25% of the world’s silver) to rising cartel influence in mining regions, supply chain risks, and what this could mean for precious metals markets. Why isn’t mainstream media covering the severity of these disruptions? At the same time, traditional TV news continues to shrink, public trust in institutions is fading, and Americans are turning to independent sources to understand what’s really happening.
We also cover falling real estate prices in Southern California, commercial property distress at iconic locations, student loan co-signers being forced to repay debt, rising tax sales, consumer strain, and what all of this signals about economic stability in 2026. This is bigger than silver - it’s about institutional credibility, financial pressure, and the warning signs many networks refuse to connect. Subscribe to i Allegedly, your independent news channel covering real economic stories, financial trends, and the headlines others won’t touch."
Comments here:
"Peak People"
In Japan, a generation of childless
women is referred to as “bare branches.”
"Peak People"
by Joel Bowman
“As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd
what happens in a world without children’s voices. I was there at the end.”
~ Miriam, from the dystopian movie "Children of Men" (2006)
Osaka, Japan - "This year in Japan, adult diapers will outsell baby diapers. In Germany, the number of young people (aged 15-24) has fallen to a record low. In Denmark, there is a nationwide advertising campaign called “Do it for Denmark,” aimed at (ahem...) “stimulating” the plummeting birth rate there. And in Italy – Catholic, family-friendly Italy – the fertility rate has hit a historic nadir (1.18 children per woman) as the rapidly aging population steps silently into the shadows.
Alas, for human beings who are interested in the future of... well, human beings... the situation is not at all promising. Dire though Italy’s predicament is, it is not even the worst case in Europe. Spain’s fertility rate is 1.12 per woman. Malta’s is 1.06. All told, not a single country in Europe is even at the baseline replacement level, 2.1 children per woman. France tops the list at 1.56 children per woman. The European average is just 1.38.
The numbers are even more stark here, in what may well be called the “Land of the Setting Sun.” From the Asahi Shimbum (December, 2025): "Japan’s 2025 births likely to hit new low in 10-year streak.The number of Japanese children born domestically this year will likely be around 667,542, which underscores the nation’s accelerating decline in this demographic, according to an Asahi Shimbun projection on Dec. 23. This would be the lowest number since statistics became available in 1899, and it is expected to mark a new record low for the 10th consecutive year.
[…]
If the declining birthrate continues, there is a risk it will lead to a decrease in working-age workers, accelerating labor shortages in many fields. The projection comes even as the central government implements a 3.6 trillion yen ($23 billion) annual package to combat the falling birthrate."
If “demography is destiny,” as the French philosopher Auguste Comte is alleged to have said, the destiny of the species here on planet earth is, for want of a better word, grave.
Cradle to Grave: Noticing this phenomenon, data scientist and documentary filmmaker, Stephen Shaw, thought it worth further investigation. If populations really are collapsing across the industrialized world, as the data unequivocally demonstrates, what might this mean for modern welfare states, which rely on ever expanding tax bases to fund Social Security-type retirement programs? What might happen to pension systems, healthcare services, public utilities, without future generations to capitalize and operate them? What might the socio-economic fallout look like when states begin refitting public schools and kindergartens to function as aged care facilities, hospitals...and cemeteries?
Shaw spent four years traveling the world and interviewing hundreds of fertility experts, demographers, sociologists, professors and – of course, importantly – everyday women, both with and without children, to try and understand what is going on. The resulting documentary is called “Birthgap – Childless World.”
According to Shaw’s findings, seventy percent of the world’s population live in a country where the fertility rate is below replacement level. Not a single industrialized country stands in exception. Not one. At 1.00 children per woman, China’s fertility rate is now barely above Italy’s. In nearby South Korea, where marriage rates have fallen by ~40% in the past decade alone, the fertility rate has dropped to just 0.78. And in neighboring Taiwan, designated by the UN as a “super-aged” society, where one in five people is over 60 years of age, the fertility rate has vanished to just 0.72.
Assuming roughly constant fertility and mortality rates, and no meaningful uptick in immigration (and even then, from where?), South Korea’s population is set to halve within a few decades. Taiwan’s even sooner. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that these nations are leading human beings onto the “endangered species” list. And yet, almost nobody notices. Why? Broadly speaking, two factors mask this phenomenon:
1. Decaying vs. declining – At present, extending life expectancies are offsetting much of the visible impact on the planet’s net population which will continue to grow over much of this century. In demographics, this is known as the proverbial “pig in the python,” where the “bulge” of more populous cohorts moves through the system.
2. Africa vs. Other – When it comes to demographic trends, the world is basically divided into Sub-Saharan Africa, where birth rates are well above replacement levels, and the rest of the world, where they are substantially below...and falling, rapidly.
Hard Math: Further compounding the problem for industrialized nations: Math. The lower fertility rates fall, the faster they will further decay (back to the intractable “less children = less future mothers” reality). Shaw further explains exponential decay in his documentary: "Nations with [fertility] rates at one point four children per woman will see their rates decay by one-third per generation, meaning that in two generations, the underlying population will fall by over half and in three generations, by seventy percent.”
What does this mean for the industrialized world? Even in the United States, where immigration has lately been absorbing headlines for other reasons, the fertility rate for all women stands at just 1.64 children per woman. It has been declining steadily since the 2007-08 recession. (A related topic for another time.)
In a note to Bloomberg news, billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller warned about the nation’s un- and underfunded liabilities, writing that spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will have to be cut drastically in the future… if not yesterday. Citing Congressional Budget Office estimates, Druckenmiller wrote that spending on seniors will account for 100% of tax revenue by 2040. And after accounting for future entitlement payments, he estimated the actual US debt burden to be closer to $200 trillion, far more than the official $38 trillion (and change) we keep hearing about in the “news.”
Such is the gloomy arithmetic for an aging population, as nations around the world are fast coming to discover...many for the first time in recorded history. As the Japanese economics professor Noriko Tsuya warns, we are very much in uncharted waters here: “For a society with a sizable population to experience continuous and very rapid population decline, in a prosperous and peaceful time, has never happened before in history. There is no precedent.”
Suicide by Virtue: One might think that, given such dire statistics, Shaw’s investigation would at least garner some interest at our own leading institutes of higher learning, perhaps prompt a polite exchange of ideas, maybe even lead to a spirited debate about what might be causing such a worrying trend. Indeed, Mr. Shaw was invited to showcase his documentary at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.
That was, until the students threw their toys out of the stroller, leveling against Shaw the all-too predictable accusations of “misogyny,” “transphobia,” “homophobia,” and “racism” such as we have come to expect from the unfailingly “tolerant and inclusive” student body. Naturally, the event was canceled less than 48 hours before it was scheduled to begin.
But is it “racist” to notice that Sub-Saharan African nations are producing more children than the Americas, Europe, here in Asia or even Northern Africa? Can facts even be racist? Is it “homophobic” to notice that it takes a male and a female of the human species to produce a child? Is it “misogynistic” to notice that every single human being in recorded history has... dare we even utter the word... a person with a womb mother?
The (one is tempted to say “childish”) response echoed objections against the “Do it for Denmark” and subsequent “Do it for Mom” campaigns, when a British publication not worth naming accused them of carrying “explicit heteronormative and ageist tones” that “reflect a pro-natal and youth-oriented culture.”
Well... yes! Babies do tend to be “pro-natal” and “youth oriented” and, had the authors of unsaid publication bothered to attend a biology class between their intersectionality grievance workshops, they might have learned about the “explicitly heteronormative” activities required to reproduce in the first place. Alas, as with so many important conversations in our modern age, activists would rather shout than listen, protest than participate, cancel than communicate.
Time was when indolent commencement speechwriters used the hackneyed phrase, “the children are our future.” Which leaves one left to wonder: when children are our past, the future may already be behind us."
"America’s Streets Are Filled With Poop, And Billions Of Gallons Of Untreated Wastewater Are Being Poured Into Our Lakes And Rivers"
by Michael Snyder
"All over the United States, the streets of our major cities are covered in poop. So exactly what does that say about us? It isn’t as if this is a new problem. As long as human societies have existed, human and animal waste has been a problem. Civilized societies have always found ways to deal with it, while uncivilized societies have always struggled to keep things clean. Unfortunately, despite all of our advanced technology, we seem to be fighting a losing battle. In fact, one New York City resident recently complained that there is “poop everywhere” this winter…“It’s horrible: It’s, like, garbage and poop everywhere,” Mott Haven resident Lulu Gerena, 28, fumed to The Post while walking her Beagle-mix Pinkie near the stench-filled stretch. It’s not fair, because everybody has to step in the poop, because nobody is picking it up.”
Residents are steaming over the slobs who are turning city sidewalks into a sewer trail. For months, snow has been mixing with poop to create gigantic mountains of “snow poop”. Now that those mountains have been melting, people are posting videos of what is being left behind…
Of course conditions on the west coast are even worse. At one elementary school in San Francisco, students have turned jumping over piles of human excrement into a game…But the school, located a block from the 16th Street BART Plaza, has been dealt a tough hand, geographically. Six school staffers and six parents told Mission Local about their routine sights: Drug use, drug dealing, public intoxication, public urination, public defecation, littering, sex and nudity. All are in the school’s immediate environs. “My daughter covers her mouth and nose,” said Karen Puc, the mother of a seven-year-old student, in Spanish. “Sometimes we play that we jump poop on the street,” she said. They make it a game, like hopscotch.
Isn’t that horrible? No student should have to grow up in such conditions. Further north in the once beautiful city of Vancouver, the human waste problem has become so severe that local businesses are actually hiring “poop fairies” to help clean up the mess…Vancouver, renowned for its natural beauty and laid back lifestyle, has a human waste problem so bad that businesses have hired “poop fairies” to speed the cleanup on city sidewalks.
Dodging human and dog waste has become a real problem for pedestrians navigating the city’s sidewalks, and it’s not just a problem plaguing the Downtown Eastside. The city’s own feces removal response program can’t seem to keep up so business improvement districts have hired the “poop fairies.” “Everybody down here feels that you end up walking in stuff no matter where you go. So, basically, it’s getting tracked around,” said Dave Hamm, vice president of the Vancouver Network of Drug Users, which counts about 3,000 people in its membership."
Sadly, this is a crisis that isn’t going away any time soon. As the ranks of the homeless and the ranks of the drug addicts continue to expand, the number of people pooping in the streets will only continue to grow.
Meanwhile, America’s crumbling pipes are pouring billions of gallons of untreated wastewater into our lakes and rivers. I know that sounds crazy, and so let me give you some examples. When a section of the Potomac Interceptor recently failed, 243 million gallons of untreated wastewater went directly into the Potomac River… "In Montgomery County, Maryland on Jan. 19, a 72″ diameter section of a sewage pipe known as the Potomac Interceptor collapsed. The pipe carries about 60 million gallons of wastewater daily from near Washington Dulles Airport in Virginia to a station that pumps it to an advanced wastewater treatment plant. As a result of the collapse, more than 243 million gallons of untreated wastewater have flowed into the Potomac River, DC Water, the utility responsible for the system, reported on Feb. 6."
That was a major disaster, but an incident that occurred in Wisconsin last August was far worse. When the city of Milwaukee was overwhelmed by a giant rainstorm, 5.14 billion gallons of untreated wastewater were “discharged into nearby waterways and Lake Michigan”… "For example, intense rain in Milwaukee in August 2025 led to 5.14 billion gallons of untreated wastewater from the city’s combined sewer being discharged into nearby waterways and Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported."
Needless to say, incidents like this are just the tip of the iceberg. There are more failures of our rapidly aging wastewater systems literally every single day. Some of the pipes that are in the ground are more than 100 years old, and that is a major problem…"While the average lifespan of a wastewater system is 40 to 50 years, many of the plants and pipes installed across the nation could be twice that old or more. In cities like Washington, D.C., for example, Olson said, wastewater systems were put in well over a century ago.
In some cases, those pipes may have been replaced, but in many cases, including Chicago, the pipes have not been replaced, he said. “They may have been repaired or maintained at times, but there are still pipes (sewers) in the ground throughout the United States that are well over a century old.”
According to the EPA, it would take more than 300 billion dollars over the next two decades to properly upgrade our wastewater systems. And of course this is just one element of the unprecedented national infrastructure crisis that we are now facing. Overall, we literally need trillions of dollars that we do not have to deal with America’s crumbling infrastructure. Since we are absolutely drowning in debt, it is highly likely that our rapidly aging infrastructure will continue to be neglected. So more pipes will break, more bridges and tunnels will collapse, more roads will crumble, more accidents will happen, and power grid failures will become more frequent. We have a giant mess on our hands, and it is really starting to stink."
o
Meanwhile, elsewhere...
Full screen recommended.
"Moscow Walking Tour", 12/18/25
Like the above article says, "Civilized societies have always found ways to deal with it, while uncivilized societies have always struggled to keep things clean." What do you see here? Better question, what do you not see? Not a scrap of litter or trash anywhere, no homeless or drug addicts infesting the streets, no "tent cities", everything everywhere spotlessly clean...
Bill Bonner, "Calm...Like A Morgue"
Cafe Rotonde, Paris, at night.
"Calm...Like A Morgue"
by Bill Bonner
Paris, France - "Paris 2026 is not the same city we first knew in 1969. We wrote about it for next month’s issue of our magazine, International Living. Here we share some of it with you. But first, a financial update. It looks more and more as though the Golden Age is an imposter. A fraud. The four wheels of it - inflation, growth, deficits, and employment - seem to be stuck into the mud. To make a Golden Age work...
Inflation had to go down; instead it is holding steady near 3% with much larger increases for essentials such as energy and food… Growth had to go up; it did not. The last quarter was disappointing with only 1.4% GDP increase. Overall, there is no sign of an upward trend…
Deficits were supposed to go down, too, thanks to the tariff revenue. For a few months, it seemed like it might be happening; but the long-term trend, towards a growing Everest of debt, never changed. And now that the Supreme Court has struck down the president’s improvised tariffs, there may be no tariff revenue at all. (This looks like the worst possible outcome; all downside; tariffs alienated friendly nations...and the US could end up with no manufacturing boost and no tariff revenue.)
So, what about jobs? Washington Monthly reports: "Almost all of the jobs created in January were in just two sectors, healthcare (82,000 jobs) and social assistance, e.g., therapists, counselors, and social workers (42,000 jobs created)." Those jobs are not exactly the kind that will power a dynamic economy. They are ways to spend money, not make it. But back to WM for the rest of the story: Now the bad news for Trump’s base:
• Manufacturing jobs aren’t growing.
• Coal mining jobs aren’t growing either.
• Fewer white men are working.
No Golden Age in the USA, not anytime soon. But how about here in Paris? ‘Non plus!’ What does the over-70 American see when comes to Paris? A gray city? Old? Tired? Or is he looking at his own reflection?
We checked the faces when we got off the train at the Gare Montparnasse. Gloomy...as gray as the roofs and the sky. Downcast. Only one lady smiled as she swept up her grandchild who had come to visit. “Paris is a disaster,” says a Parisian colleague. “It hasn’t stopped raining for two weeks. Or maybe two months. There are no jobs. Everything is frightfully expensive. I don’t know how anyone can afford to live in central Paris...except maybe rich foreigners. And it’s going to get a lot worse. The elections are coming and we’ll have a chance to vote for evil right wingers or stupid left wingers. The responsible middle seems to have disappeared.”
Paris had its Golden Age too; probably in the 1960s, when we first visited. French movies were exotic and fascinating. Who can forget the theme song from ‘A Man and a Woman?’ Or Brigitte Bardot in ‘And God Created Woman?’ They were catnip for hip, young people. And French cars - notably the Citroen DS - were the wonders of the automotive world...with front wheel drive, radial tires and pneumatic suspension (you turned the key and the car rose up).
The city was also cheap back then. If you had dollars, you could rent a ‘chambre de bonne’ (a maid’s room) for only $50 a month. A hearty glass of red wine cost only about a dollar. But it was easy to get confused about the prices. Inflation in France had run up to over 18% in 1958, prompting a devaluation. The French franc was devalued - 100 to 1 - in 1960 and again, though less dramatically, in 1969. Merchants often quoted their prices in ‘old’ francs. So, you would have a glass of wine and the waiter would ask for cent francs (100 francs). You’d have a moment of panic and then realize that one new franc would do the job.
But even with inflation and devaluations...and the end of the empire at Dien Bien Phu and Algiers...the French economy boomed. It wasn’t until the election of Francois Mitterand in 1981 that the French feds were able to stop it. Today, the French government spends 57% of GDP, compared to 40% in the US. The difference is largely a feature of education and medical spending, which are controlled by the government in France and considered mostly private in the US. For a further comparison, America’s big devaluation began in 1971...and is on-going. In gold terms, the dollar has lost 99.2% of its value. And it is being devalued - though not officially - everyday.
We recalled these things as we walked the streets of Paris once again, fifty-seven years later. The difference is night and day...and a lot of crepuscule, between being a poor student in 1969 and a (relatively) rich American visitor in 2026. We went to the Louvre on Saturday. It was cold and rainy. Still, a long line waited to get in. Not wishing to wait, we paid for a guided tour and entered smoothly.
The tour guide was Italian. Earnest, knowledgeable...and friendly, he gave the tour in English. A pair of women from Northern Ireland joined us, as well as an extended family from somewhere in the Near East. There was also an Italian couple who always seemed to lag behind and get lost.
Tourism has been an important industry in Paris since the days of the Grand Tour in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a different kind of tourism then. You needed letters of introduction to get you into the best salons. Here in Paris, you might have run into Ben Franklin...a much-appreciated dinner guest. Or, maybe you would have met a Russian count fleeing the Tsar...or a down-on-his-luck aristocrat from a kingdom you’d never heard of.
Paris always seemed to collect outcasts...and talent. Writers...artists...architects...composers. Even as late as 1969, it was as if Hemingway’s half-smoked cigars still smoldered in the ‘cendriers’ (ashtrays) of the Ritz bar...and Picasso’s scribbles still littered the floor at the Rotonde.
Our first stay in Paris was like being on a bridge between the old and the new. We had a friend who had been in Paris in the ‘50s and who had acted as a translator for the ‘Beat Poets’ - particularly Allen Ginsburg and the novelist William S. Burroughs.
They came because it was cheap...and arty. And they could get away with almost anything. This group must have taken its cue from Oscar Wilde. The disgraced homosexual was run out of Victorian England and took refuge on the rue de Seine in Paris. But it is not the same water flowing under the Pont Neuf today as it was in 1969. The city is no longer cheap. There is air-conditioning (la clime) in many hotels. Fancy (expensive) shops line the Rue Jacob. And the people who come to visit are not necessarily like Franklin or Wilde.
When we recently searched for an apartment for friends, we scarcely found anything for less than $1 million. They settled on something for $2 million. “I’m probably paying a foreigner’s price,” says our friend. “But I’m only going to live in Paris once in my life. I want to be at the center of things...where I will get the whole experience.”
Paris is chic. While there are many chic neighborhoods, our friend judged the 6th arrondissement, where we had hung out as a student more than half a century before, between the river and the Boulevard St. Germain, as the chic-est.
It certainly wasn’t very chic when we lived there. It was a student hangout. It was where you could go to a student cafeteria and get a decent meal for 35 cents. It was where, in 1968, students had pried up the paving stones to barricade the streets. And it was where you could sit at a sidewalk café, drink wine, smoke Gauloise cigarettes (with their very strong and unique odor), and BS each other about Nietzsche until the wee hours.
Now, the waiters close up early - they only work 35 hours per week, by government decree. And the sidewalk space is much too valuable for vagabond students; better to sell old antiques...or new handbags. Paris, back in the ‘60s, was a hotbed of art and insurrection. Now, it is calm, like a museum…or a morgue. Often, we thought we smelled lilies.
The city is still beautiful, however. Physically, it is much the same as it was in 1969 - and about the same size. And it still attracts people from all over the world. But now, there are more people in the world. And more of them want to come to Paris. As many as half the people waiting at the Louvre were Indians, Chinese and Russians. There would have been none of them a half century ago.
Neither Soviet citizens nor Chinese peasants were allowed to travel. And Indians couldn’t afford to do so. But now, they come to take in the sights. To shop. To strike Notre Dame and the Louvre from their ‘bucket’ lists. They fill the cute little hotels of the rue Jacob...spill into the many cafes near St. Germain des Pres...and discover that many of the most authentic Parisian dives still don’t have air-conditioning. “This is where Jean-Paul Sartre worked,” proudly announce the waiters on the second floor of the Café de Flore. “Who?” ask the tourists."
Monday, February 23, 2026
"Would End Trump Politically; Top Generals Reportedly Warn Trump Against Attacking Iran"
Scott Ritter, 2/23/26
"Would End Trump Politically; Top Generals
Reportedly Warn Trump Against Attacking Iran"
"Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, talks to The Trends Journal about the reports in The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post about top U.S. military officials warning President Donald Trump about the risks of war with Iran. The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
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"The Biggest Foreclosure Crisis In US History Just Got Worse"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist,2/23/26
"The Biggest Foreclosure Crisis
In US History Just Got Worse"
"Foreclosures are surging across the United States, and the numbers are hard to ignore. In January 2026, over 40,000 homes were seized, marking a 32% increase compared to the same month last year. This is the 11th consecutive month of rising foreclosures, and experts are warning that things could get even worse before they get better. In this video, we take a closer look at what's really happening with the housing market right now and why so many American families are losing their homes.
States like Florida, Delaware, Nevada, New Jersey, Texas, and California are being hit especially hard. Thousands of new foreclosure proceedings are being filed every month in major cities like New York, Chicago, Houston, Miami, and Los Angeles. Behind every single one of those numbers is a real person, a real family, and a real story. People who bought homes believing they could keep up with their payments are now finding themselves in impossible situations as the cost of living continues to rise while wages remain stagnant.
We also look at personal stories from people going through foreclosure right now. Some homeowners are dealing with unexpected HOA assessments worth tens of thousands of dollars. Others bought condos that are now losing value due to circumstances completely outside of their control. These are not people who made reckless financial decisions. Many of them did everything they thought was right and still ended up on the wrong side of a system that offers very little forgiveness when things go sideways.
On top of that, more than one million homeowners in the U.S. are now underwater on their mortgages, meaning they owe more than their home is currently worth. That number has jumped 60% since the start of 2025. Mortgage delinquencies have also hit their highest level in nearly a decade. Meanwhile, people who bought homes between 2020 and 2023 are finding themselves stuck, unable to sell without taking a significant financial loss and unable to refinance into better terms.
For first time buyers, the situation is even more discouraging. Home prices have nearly doubled in just a few years while average incomes have barely moved. In 2019, housing costs represented about 21% of the average income. By 2023, that number had jumped to nearly 49%. Add in student loan debt and the rising cost of everyday essentials, and it becomes clear why so many Millennials and Gen Z Americans feel like homeownership is completely out of reach.
Whether you are a homeowner trying to hold on, someone stuck in a property you cannot sell, or a young person wondering if buying a home will ever be realistic, this conversation matters. The housing market affects everyone, and understanding what is happening is the first step toward making better decisions for yourself and your family."
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"15 Common Dynamics Of SHTF Collapses"
"15 Common Dynamics Of SHTF Collapses"
by Fabian Ommar
"When it comes to how we see and prepare for SHTF, thinking in terms of real and probable rather than fictional and possible can make a big difference. Even though SHTF has many forms and levels and is in essence complex, random, diverse and unsystematic, some patterns and principles are common to the way things unfold when it hits the fan. With Toby and Selco’s "Seven Pillars of Urban Preparedness" as inspiration, I came up with a different list of the 15 dynamics and realities of collapses.
#1 SHTF is nuanced and happens in stages: Thinking about SHTF as an ON/OFF, all-or-nothing endgame is a common mistake that can lead to severe misjudgments and failures in critical areas of preparedness. Part (or parts) of the system crash, freeze, fail, or become impaired. This is how SHTF happens in the real world. And when it does, people run for safety first, i.e., resort to more familiar behaviors, expecting things to “go back to normal soon.”
By “normal behaviors,” I mean everything from hoarding stuff (toilet paper?) to rioting, looting, and crime, and yes, using cash – as these happen all the time, even when things are normal. But no one becomes a barterer, a peddler, a precious metals specialist in a week. Society adapts as time passes (and the situation requires). That’s why preppers who are also SHTF survivors (and thus talk from personal experience) insist that abandoning fantasies and caring for basics first is crucial. This is not a coincidence. It is how things happen in the real world.
Recently I wrote about black markets and the role of cash in SHTFs, emphasizing these things take precedence except in a full-blown apocalypse – which no one can say if, when, or how will happen (because it never has?). Now, I don’t pretend to be the owner of the truth, but those insisting changes in society happen radically or abruptly should check this article about the fallout in Myanmar.
#2 Everything crawls until everything runs: Number two is a corollary to #1. SHTF happens in stair-steps, but most people failing to prepare and getting caught off-guard is evidence of the difficulty of the human brain to fully grasp the concept of exponential growth. It bears telling the analogy of the stadium being filled with water drops to illustrate this.
Let’s say we add one drop into a watertight baseball stadium. The deposited volume doubles every minute (i.e., one minute later, we add two more drops, then four in the next minute, eight in the next, then sixteen, and so on). How long would it take to fill the entire stadium? Sitting at the top row, we’d watch for 45 minutes as the water covered the field. Then at the 48-minute mark, 50% of the stadium would be filled. Yes, that’s only 3 minutes from practically empty to half full. At this point, we have just 60 seconds to get out: the water will be spilling before the clock hits 49 minutes.
This is an important dynamic to understand and keep in mind because it applies to most things. Another example: it took over 2 million years of human prehistory and history for the world’s population to reach 1 billion, and less than 250 years more to grow to almost 8 billion.
#3 The system doesn’t vanish or change suddenly: Based on history, the Mad Max-like scenario some so feverishly advocate is not in our near future. The Roman Empire unraveled over 500 years. We may not be at the tipping point of our collapse or the last minute of the flooding stadium, as illustrated in #2 above. But time is relative, and those 60 seconds can last five, ten, fifteen years. Things are accelerating, but there’s no way to tell at which point in the curve we are.
That doesn’t mean things will be normal in that period. A lot has happened to people and places all over the Roman empire during those five-plus centuries: wars, plagues, invasions, droughts, shortages, all hell broke loose. Our civilization has already hit the iceberg, and the current order is crumbling. There will be shocks along the way, some small and some big. But SHTF is a process, not an event.
#4 History repeats, but always with a twist: That’s because nature works in cycles, and humans react to scarcity and abundance predictably and in the same ways. Also, we’re helpless in the face of the most significant and recurring events. But things are never the same. Technology improves, social rules change, humankind advances, the population grows. This (and lots more) adds a variability factor to the magnitude, gravity, and reach of outcomes.
What better proof than the COVID-19 pandemic just surpassing the 1918 Spanish Flu death toll in the US? It’ll probably do so everywhere else, too. Even if we don’t believe the official data (then or now), we’re not yet out of this new coronavirus situation.
#5 SHTF is about scarcity: A shrink in resources invariably leads to changes in the individual’s standard of living or entire society (depending on the circumstances, depth, and reach of the disaster or collapse). Then it starts affecting life itself (i.e., people dying). Essentially, when things really hit the fan, abundance vanishes, and pretty much everything reverts to the mean: food becomes replenishment, drinking becomes hydration, sleeping becomes rest, home becomes shelter, and so on. Surviving is accepting and adapting to that.
#6 The consequences matter more than the type of event: I’ll admit to being guilty of debating probable causes of SHTF more often than I should, mainly when it comes to the economy and finance going bust. That’s from living in a third-world country, with all the crap that comes with it. It’s what I have to talk, warn, and give advice about. I still find it essential to be aware and thoughtful of the causes. But it’s for the consequences that we must prepare for: instability, corruption, bureaucracy, criminality, inflation, social unrest, divisiveness, wars, and all sorts of conflicts and disruptions that affect us directly.
#7 Life goes on: Humankind advances through hardship but thrives in routine. We crave normalcy and peace, and over the long term, pursue them. Contrary to what many think, life goes on even during SHTF. And things tend to return to normal after the immediate threats cease or get contained. At least some level of normal, considering the circumstances. For example, in occupied France, the bistros and cafés continued serving and entertaining the population and even the invaders (the Nazi army). It was hard, as is always the case anywhere there’s war, poverty, tyranny – but that doesn’t mean the world has ended.
#8 SHTF pileup: Disasters and collapses add instability, volatility, and fragility to the system, which can compound and cause further disruptions. Sometimes, unfavorable cycles on various fronts (nature and civilization) can also converge and generate a perfect storm. It’s crucial to consider that and try to prepare as best we can for multiple disasters happening at once or in sequence, on various levels, collective and individual – even if psychologically and mentally. And if the signs are any indication, we’re entering such a period of simultaneous challenges.
#9 Snowball effect: Daisy based her excellent article on the 10 most likely ways to die when SHTF on the principle of large-scale die-off caused by a major disaster, like an EMP or other. This theory is controversial and the object of endless discussions. Some say it’s an exaggeration. But in my opinion, that’s leaving a critical factor out of the equation.
Consider the following: according to WPR and the CDC, before COVID-19, the mortality rate in the US was well below 1% (2.850.000 per year, or about 8.100 per day). If the mortality rate increases to just 5%, this alone would spark other SHTFs, potentially more serious and harmful than the first. That five-fold jump in mortality would result in more than 16 million dead per year or 44.000 per day. That’s 5% we’re talking about, not 20 or 30. If there’s even a protocol to deal with something like that, I’m not aware. It would be catastrophic on many levels over a shorter period (say, a few months).
Early in the CV19 pandemic, some cities had trouble burying the dead, and the death rate was still below 1%. Sure, other factors were playing. But the point is, things can snowball: consequences and implications are too complex and potentially far-reaching. Think about the effects on the system.
#10 SHTF is a situation, but it’s also a place: Things are hitting the fan somewhere right now. Not in the overblowing media but the physical world: the Texas border, third-world prisons, gang-ruled Haiti, in Taliban-raided Afghanistan, in the crackhouse just a few blocks from an affluent neighborhood, under the bridges of many big cities worldwide, in volcano-hit islands. There are thousands of places where people are bugging out, suffering, or dying of all causes at this very moment. If you’re not in any SHTF, consider yourself lucky. Be grateful, too: being able to prepare is a luxury.
#11 Choosing one way or another has a price: Being unprepared and wrong has a price. However, so does being prepared and wrong. Though some benefits exist regardless of what happens, the investment in terms of time, finance, and emotion to be prepared could be applied elsewhere or used for other finalities (career, a business, relationships, etc.) rather than some far-out collapse.
Since so much in SHTF is unknown and open, and resources are limited even when things are normal, survival and preparedness are essentially trade-offs. We must read the signals, weigh the options, consider the probabilities, make an option, and face the consequences. That’s why striving for balance is so important.
#12 SHTF is dirty, smelly, ugly: This is undoubtedly one of the most striking characteristics of SHTF: how bad some places and situations can be. Most people have no idea, and they don’t want to know about this. Those who fantasize about being in SHTF should think twice. Abject misery and despair have a distinct smell of excrement, sewage, death, rotting material, pollution, trash, burned stuff, and all kinds of dirt imaginable. And insects. The movies don’t show these things. But bad smells and insects infest everything and everywhere, and it can be maddening.
During my street survival training, I get to visit some really awful places and witness horrible things. The folks eventually going out with me invariably get shocked, sometimes even sickened, when they see decadence up and close for the first time. Even ones used to dealing with the nasties – it’s hard not to get affected.
For instance, drug consumption hotspots are so smelly and nasty that someone really must have to be on crack just to stand being there. It’s hell on earth, and I can’t think of another way to describe these and other places like third-world prisons, trash deposits, and many others. Early on, being in these places would make me question why I do this. It never becomes “normal.” We just adapt. But seeing these realities changes our life and the way we see things.
#13 The Grid is fragile: It’s baffling how this escapes so many. Most people I know are in constant marvel with modern civilization. They look around, pointing and saying, “Are you crazy? Too big to fail! There’s no way this can go away! Nothing has ever happened!“
We have someone to take our trash, slaughter, process our food, treat our sick, purify our water, treat our sewage, protect us from wrongdoers and evil people (and keep them locked), control the traffic, and defend our rights. Peeking behind the curtains is a red pill moment. What keeps The Grid up and running is not something small, but it’s fragile. The natural state of things is not an insipid, artificially controlled environment. On the positive side, it makes us feel more grateful, humble, and also more responsible.
#14 The frog in the boiling water: That’s you and me and everyone around us. There’s no other way around it. We’re the suckers who get squeezed and pay the bill whenever something happens, anywhere and everywhere. It’s always our freedom, rights, money, and privacy that gets attacked, threatened, stolen.
Not only because the 1% screws us at the top, but because we’re the big numbers, the masses. And only those who work and produce something can bear the brunt of whatever bad happens to society and civilization. Make no mistake: whenever the brown stuff hits the fan, it will fall on us. It’s no reason to revolt but to acknowledge that, ultimately, we’re responsible for ourselves.
#15 People can make things worse: Just have a look around and see what’s happening. Selco himself will tell you that the most dangerous thing about the SHTF is other people.
Conclusion: Sometimes, the mechanics, brutality, and harshness of SHTF end up in the background of personal narratives and emotional accounts. Being more knowledgeable and cognizant of some general aspects of collapses may allow flexibility, creativity, improvisation, adaptation, resiliency, and other broad and effective strategies. Or, simply provide material for reflection and debate, really.
Either way, even those who haven’t been through collapse can still learn from history, from others’ experiences, from human behavior, from the facts. Just be sure to see the world for what it is and not from what you think. Because it will go its own way, and reality will assert itself all the same.
What are your thoughts about the dynamics of an SHTF scenario? Are there any you want to add? Does this match up with your personal expectations? Let’s discuss it in the comments."
"The Brutal Truth About Violence When The SHTF"
"The Brutal Truth About Violence When The SHTF"
Selco interviewed by Daisy Luther
"Are you prepared for the extreme violence that is likely to come your way if the SHTF? No matter what your plan is, it’s entirely probable that at some point, you’ll be the victim of violence or have to perpetrate violence to survive. As always, Selco is our go-to guy on SHTF reality checks and this thought-provoking interview will shake you to your core.
If you don’t know Selco, he’s from Bosnia and he lived through a year in a city that was blockaded with no utilities, no deliveries of supplies, and no services. In his interviews, he shares what the scenarios the rest of us theorize about were REALLY like. He mentioned to me recently that most folks aren’t prepared for the violence that is part and parcel of a collapse, which brings us to today’s interview.
How prevalent was violence when the SHTF in Bosnia? It was wartime and chaos, from all conflicts in those years in the Balkan region Bosnian conflict was most brutal because of multiple reasons, historical, political and other. To simplify the explanation why violence was common and very brutal, you need to picture a situation where you are “bombarded” with huge amount of information (propaganda) which instills in you very strong feelings of fear and hate. Out of fear and hate, violence grows easy and fast, and over the very short period of time you see how people around you (including you) do things that you could not imagine before.
I can say that violence was almost an everyday thing in the whole spectrum of different activities because it was a fight for survival. Again, whenever (and wherever) you put people in a region without enough resources, you can expect violence.
We were living a normal life, and then suddenly we were thrown in a way of living where if you could not “negotiate” something with someone, you solve the problem by launching a rocket from an RPG through the window of his living room. Hate stripped down the layers of humanity and suddenly it was “normal” to level an apartment building with people inside with shells from a tank or form private prisons with imprisoned civilians for slave work or sex slaves.
Nothing that I saw or read before could have prepared me for the level of violence and blindness to it, for the lives of kids, elders, civilians, and the innocent. Again, the thing that is important for readers is that we were a modern society one day, and then in few weeks it turned into carnage. Do not make the mistake of saying “it cannot happen here” because I made that mistake too. Do not underestimate power of propaganda, fear, hate, and the lowest human instincts, no matter how modern and good your society is right now and how deeply you believe that “it can not happen here”.
You’ve mentioned warlords and gangs in several of your articles. Were they responsible for the majority of the violence or was it hungry families? Fighting of the armies through the whole period of war brings violence in terms of constant shelling from a distance from different kind of weapons. For example a few multiple rocket launchers (VBR) could bring in 30 seconds the destruction in an area of 3-4 apartment buildings, and being there in that moment and surviving it gives you a completely new view on life. Snipers were a constant threat and over time you simply grow a way of living that you constant scan area in front of you where your next steps gonna be. Are you gonna be visible and from where? Etc.
Most brutal violence was actually lawlessness and complete lack of order between different factions and militias, so in some periods there were militias or gangs who simply ruled the cities or part of the city where they were absolutely masters of everything in terms of deciding of taking someone’s life. In lawlessness, you as one person could be really small and not interesting, or join some bigger group of people to be stronger, some family or militia or gang.
An example of a gang would be group of people of some 300 or 500 people who “officially” were a unit or militia and operate for some faction, but in reality they operate mostly for themselves. That included owning part of the black market, having prison (for forced labor or ransom), attacking people and houses for resources, smuggling people from dangerous areas. Violence from those kinds of group was the most immediate violence, the most visible in terms of SHTF talking. If those people came on your door you could obey, fight, or negotiate, but mostly you could not not ask for help from any kind of authority, because there was no real authority.
In any society, no matter where you are living, there are a great number of people who are waiting for the SHTF to go out and do violent things. Small time criminals or simply violent persons who are not openly violent because system is there to punish them for that. It is like that. Some gang leaders that I knew were actually completely sick people with a strange type of charisma that makes people follow them, weird situations that can happen only in a real collapse. They are people who just waited for their time to rise. Those kinds of people together with criminal organization that are already there in any city in the world will be the backbone of SHTF gangs.
Who were the most likely victims? A very simple answer would be that the most likely victims were people who had interesting things without enough defense. But it was not always that simple. For example one of the first houses that got raided in my neighborhood, right at the beginning of collapse while there was still some kind of order, was a rich family’s home. They had a nice house with bars on the windows, a pretty good setup for defense, and they had enough people inside so they could give pretty good resistance to the mob. But they got raided simply because they were known that they are rich, so they were attacked with enough force to be overwhelmed.
It was not only about how much manpower you had and how well-organized defense of your home was, it was also about how juicy a target you were. If you are faced with 150 angry people attacking your home because they are sure you have good stuff inside your chances are low, no matter how good and tough you are. People who were alone were a pretty easy target and old people without support of family or friends.
It was not always about killing someone or violence. For example, if you were alone and without resources but you had something else valuable like some kind of skill or knowledge you could easily be “recruited” for some faction or group, not by your will of course.
What were some ways to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of violence? How do you recommend that people prepare themselves for the possibility of violence? It can be done in steps, or in layers:
• Do not be interesting (or attract attention) when the SHTF. This means a lot of things, for this article I can give a few examples with shortened explanations because it is a huge topic:
• Do not look like a prepper (before or after SHTF). There is no sense in announcing that you are prepping for EMP, civil collapse, apocalypse, or whatever. With that you are risking the probability that when the SHTF, people will remember that you have interesting things in your home. Your home should look ordinary. For example, if you are living in the city on a street where all houses look similar, there is not much sense in making your home look like a fortress. You’ll just attract attention.
Your defense should be based on more subtle means. Some examples are having means to reinforce doors and windows quickly when you need it, or to reinforce them from inside. Make changes in your yard to funnel possible attackers where you want them to be (trees, fence, bush…). You can make your home look abandoned or already looted.
• Think about what survival is! Survival is about staying alive, it is not about being comfortable at the expense of losing your life. I have seen many times people lose their lives simply because they were too attached to their belongings (house, car, land, goods…) so they simply did not want to leave something and run in a particular moment.
• Everything can be earned and bought again except life. Forget about statements like “I will defend it with my life” or “over my dead body” or similar because the real SHTF is usually not heroic or noble. It is hard and brutal. When you are gone you are gone and there might be nobody to take care of your family just because you have been stubborn or trusted in movies when it came to violence. To rephrase it: Be ready to leave your home in a split second if that means you and your family will survive, no matter how many good things you have stored there.
• Be mentally ready for violence: In a way, it is impossible to be ready for violence, especially widespread violence when the SHTF, but you can minimize shock when that happens with some things. If you are not familiar with what violence is, you can try to get yourself close” to it today (in normal times). It can be done, for example, by doing some voluntary work for example in a local hospital, ER or similar… or simply by working with homeless people. Sounds maybe strange but activities like this can get you a bit of a feeling of what it is all about, not to mention that you can learn some practical and useful skills for SHTF.
• Have means and skills (physically) to defend – or to do violence: No matter how old or young you are, your gender or religion I assure you that you are capable of doing violence. It is only a matter of the situation and how far you are going to be pushed. It is not just “some people are capable of violence.” Everybody is capable. Not everybody enjoys doing it or is willing to do it so easily.
In today (normal times) you can learn some violence skills and you should do it, again no matter if you are a woman or old or young. You should own a weapon and know how to use it. You should practice with it, or have at least some basic knowledge about hand-to-hand combat. The worst case scenario is to have a weapon that you try for the first time when SHTF.
Be familiar with your means for defense, let your family members know what they need to do in case of attack of your home, have plan, and go through it. Only through practice will you minimize chances for mistakes.
• Use common sense: I know lot of survivalists almost dream about how they are going to use weapons against bad guys when SHTF, and that they will be something like super heroes from movies, saving innocents and killing villains. Truth is that in a real collapse, a lot of things are kind of blurred and you are not sure who the bad guys are. Good guys turn out to be lunatic gang members who want to bring food to their kids. There are no super heroes when SHTF, and if some of them show up they end up dead quickly.
There is only you and your skills and mindset and what you prepared. Use violence as a last resort because of the simple fact that by using violence you are risking of getting killed or hurt. Remember when SHTF there is maybe no doctor or hospital to take care of your wound. It is a time when even a small cut can eventually kill you through infection and lack of proper care.
I’m a single mom with a household full of girls. In an SHTF situation, what would our best strategies be to remain safe? Just like I have mentioned before, strategy is always same for any part of survival, and shooting from the rifle is pretty similar no matter are you man or woman. Being single mom with household full of girls on first look make you as a ideal target in some situations, but we are talking here in prepper terms so there is no reason not to be perfectly well prepared as a single mom with girls.
But yes I admit it is not perfect situation, even if you are prepared well, some things are sure, you need to connect with other people even more. House with couple of girls will always look like easy prey for some people. It is like that.
Were people in the city safer than people in the country? Can you tell us more about rural living during this time? In my case definitely no. In the essence it always come to the resources and people. City meant more people less resources, country (rural) meant less people more resources, and because that level of violence simply was lower. That was most important reason.
There are few more reasons why it was much better in the country. People in the country (rural settings) were much more “connected to ground” they were more tough if you like, they grew their own food, had cattle, lived more simple life prior SHTF and when everything collapsed they had less problems getting use to it. Yes they also did not have electricity and phones, running water or connection to other places but they adapted easier to the new life because they had more useful skills then people in the city. Life was harder for them too than prior to the collapse, but they had means to get resources: land, woods, river…
Another thing is that people in small rural communities “in the country” were more connected to each other, people knew their neighborhood and some things were easier to organize, like community security watch, help in case of diseases and similar.
What types of weapons did people have for self-defense? It was different political system prior the collapse where it was not so usual to own a weapon legally. And to own one illegally could mean a lot of troubles. Right prior to SHTF, it became possible to buy different weapons on the black market but still, a majority of people did not own weapons. When it all collapsed, it was possible to get a weapon through trade.
Because of the military doctrine here prior to the collapse, we used “East Bloc” weapons. A favorite was AK-47 in all different kind of editions, or older weapons like M-48 rifle, SKS rifle, 22 and similar. People used what they had, so in one period you would be lucky if you had any kind of pistol and knife. Later through the different channels weapon become more available so people had them more. A lot of that was actually junk that some warlords somehow “imported”. Weapons 50-60 years old without proper ammunition, or not in operating condition. A lot of people simply did not have a clue how to use any kind of weapon so a lot of accidental deaths happened.
I remember people storming abandoned army barracks that was mostly looted, but they found in one building a lot of RPGs while other part of the same building was burning. Two guys were trying to figure out a single-use RPG, and while they were messing with it clearly not knowing how that thing worked, they accidentally armed it and launched a rocket that flew through the crowd, not hurting anyone and exploding in wall 100 meters from where they stood. They were smiling, clearly happy because they thought they figured out how that thing worked.
What weapons do you suggest to have for SHTF? It is a never-ending discussion and a favorite prepper topic, and I must say that whole discussion is overrated. I have used them in a real situation, and tried and tested lot of different kind of weapons and what works for me may simply not work for you. For example, here for me good choice is AK-47 rifle, maybe for you wherever you are it is very bad choice.
Good advice is: you need to have a weapon that most people have around you because of multiple reasons: spare parts, repairing, ammunition availability, possibility that you can pick that rifle from other people and you know how to use it. What caliber and similar is a matter of discussion again. I am talking from the point of owning a rifle. Another thing is that you need to know how that weapon works. Luckily, most of my readers live in an area where gun laws are great comparing to region where I am. You have much more choices when it comes to owning a weapon and practicing with it. Use that.
And do not forget that using a weapon in a real life situation is not like shooting at beer bottles with your friends after a barbecue. In real life you might be in a situation to use a weapon while you are tired, dirty, and hungry and while someone is screaming next to you. It is going to be maybe when you are not ready to do that, maybe in pitch dark, maybe after you have been awake for 48 hours. At least think about that.
When should you use violence? Contrary to some popular beliefs in the prepper community, the point is to use violence only as a last solution. The reason is as I mentioned already, the risk that you can be hurt or killed too, but also once you do violence you change your own rules, or push it more forward, and it is easy to get lost in violence. There are consequences to that, and you are not going to be the same person ever again.
Violence is a tool, not a toy. You need to know how to use it as best as possible, but also to avoid using it when it is not necessary. It is a good idea to set up a clear set of rules (mentally too) when you are gonna use violence and to try to stick to it. For example you will use weapon if someone tries to break your home and attack you, and you need to be ready to do that without hesitation.
What else should we know about post-collapse violence? Think with your head and research. One thing that is absolutely important when it comes to understanding how violent it is going to be and what can you expect in your own case of SHTF, is to understand how much media can influence people in making their decisions about violence.
In my case, the media built up situation where people feared so much from other people that they actually hated them. They hated them so much that they actually strip them down from humanity. In a real-life example, it works in a way that people killed other people, including kids and women, because they hated them so much because media told them.
It may look ridiculous and not possible to you, and you might again think “that can not happen here” but please trust your own resources, look for independent information, not mainstream media, in order to get the right information about what is really happening in the beginning of collapse. Do not be pulled into “popular opinion” just because the “man from TV” (whoever he might be) told you so. It is easier today. Because of the internet, you have much more choices for correct information than in my time. But still be careful, you might find yourself rioting together with 500 people just because you trusted some media."
• Do not be interesting (or attract attention) when the SHTF. This means a lot of things, for this article I can give a few examples with shortened explanations because it is a huge topic:
• Do not look like a prepper (before or after SHTF). There is no sense in announcing that you are prepping for EMP, civil collapse, apocalypse, or whatever. With that you are risking the probability that when the SHTF, people will remember that you have interesting things in your home. Your home should look ordinary. For example, if you are living in the city on a street where all houses look similar, there is not much sense in making your home look like a fortress. You’ll just attract attention.
Your defense should be based on more subtle means. Some examples are having means to reinforce doors and windows quickly when you need it, or to reinforce them from inside. Make changes in your yard to funnel possible attackers where you want them to be (trees, fence, bush…). You can make your home look abandoned or already looted.
• Think about what survival is! Survival is about staying alive, it is not about being comfortable at the expense of losing your life. I have seen many times people lose their lives simply because they were too attached to their belongings (house, car, land, goods…) so they simply did not want to leave something and run in a particular moment.
• Everything can be earned and bought again except life. Forget about statements like “I will defend it with my life” or “over my dead body” or similar because the real SHTF is usually not heroic or noble. It is hard and brutal. When you are gone you are gone and there might be nobody to take care of your family just because you have been stubborn or trusted in movies when it came to violence. To rephrase it: Be ready to leave your home in a split second if that means you and your family will survive, no matter how many good things you have stored there.
• Be mentally ready for violence: In a way, it is impossible to be ready for violence, especially widespread violence when the SHTF, but you can minimize shock when that happens with some things. If you are not familiar with what violence is, you can try to get yourself close” to it today (in normal times). It can be done, for example, by doing some voluntary work for example in a local hospital, ER or similar… or simply by working with homeless people. Sounds maybe strange but activities like this can get you a bit of a feeling of what it is all about, not to mention that you can learn some practical and useful skills for SHTF.
• Have means and skills (physically) to defend – or to do violence: No matter how old or young you are, your gender or religion I assure you that you are capable of doing violence. It is only a matter of the situation and how far you are going to be pushed. It is not just “some people are capable of violence.” Everybody is capable. Not everybody enjoys doing it or is willing to do it so easily.
In today (normal times) you can learn some violence skills and you should do it, again no matter if you are a woman or old or young. You should own a weapon and know how to use it. You should practice with it, or have at least some basic knowledge about hand-to-hand combat. The worst case scenario is to have a weapon that you try for the first time when SHTF.
Be familiar with your means for defense, let your family members know what they need to do in case of attack of your home, have plan, and go through it. Only through practice will you minimize chances for mistakes.
• Use common sense: I know lot of survivalists almost dream about how they are going to use weapons against bad guys when SHTF, and that they will be something like super heroes from movies, saving innocents and killing villains. Truth is that in a real collapse, a lot of things are kind of blurred and you are not sure who the bad guys are. Good guys turn out to be lunatic gang members who want to bring food to their kids. There are no super heroes when SHTF, and if some of them show up they end up dead quickly.
There is only you and your skills and mindset and what you prepared. Use violence as a last resort because of the simple fact that by using violence you are risking of getting killed or hurt. Remember when SHTF there is maybe no doctor or hospital to take care of your wound. It is a time when even a small cut can eventually kill you through infection and lack of proper care.
I’m a single mom with a household full of girls. In an SHTF situation, what would our best strategies be to remain safe? Just like I have mentioned before, strategy is always same for any part of survival, and shooting from the rifle is pretty similar no matter are you man or woman. Being single mom with household full of girls on first look make you as a ideal target in some situations, but we are talking here in prepper terms so there is no reason not to be perfectly well prepared as a single mom with girls.
But yes I admit it is not perfect situation, even if you are prepared well, some things are sure, you need to connect with other people even more. House with couple of girls will always look like easy prey for some people. It is like that.
Were people in the city safer than people in the country? Can you tell us more about rural living during this time? In my case definitely no. In the essence it always come to the resources and people. City meant more people less resources, country (rural) meant less people more resources, and because that level of violence simply was lower. That was most important reason.
There are few more reasons why it was much better in the country. People in the country (rural settings) were much more “connected to ground” they were more tough if you like, they grew their own food, had cattle, lived more simple life prior SHTF and when everything collapsed they had less problems getting use to it. Yes they also did not have electricity and phones, running water or connection to other places but they adapted easier to the new life because they had more useful skills then people in the city. Life was harder for them too than prior to the collapse, but they had means to get resources: land, woods, river…
Another thing is that people in small rural communities “in the country” were more connected to each other, people knew their neighborhood and some things were easier to organize, like community security watch, help in case of diseases and similar.
What types of weapons did people have for self-defense? It was different political system prior the collapse where it was not so usual to own a weapon legally. And to own one illegally could mean a lot of troubles. Right prior to SHTF, it became possible to buy different weapons on the black market but still, a majority of people did not own weapons. When it all collapsed, it was possible to get a weapon through trade.
Because of the military doctrine here prior to the collapse, we used “East Bloc” weapons. A favorite was AK-47 in all different kind of editions, or older weapons like M-48 rifle, SKS rifle, 22 and similar. People used what they had, so in one period you would be lucky if you had any kind of pistol and knife. Later through the different channels weapon become more available so people had them more. A lot of that was actually junk that some warlords somehow “imported”. Weapons 50-60 years old without proper ammunition, or not in operating condition. A lot of people simply did not have a clue how to use any kind of weapon so a lot of accidental deaths happened.
I remember people storming abandoned army barracks that was mostly looted, but they found in one building a lot of RPGs while other part of the same building was burning. Two guys were trying to figure out a single-use RPG, and while they were messing with it clearly not knowing how that thing worked, they accidentally armed it and launched a rocket that flew through the crowd, not hurting anyone and exploding in wall 100 meters from where they stood. They were smiling, clearly happy because they thought they figured out how that thing worked.
What weapons do you suggest to have for SHTF? It is a never-ending discussion and a favorite prepper topic, and I must say that whole discussion is overrated. I have used them in a real situation, and tried and tested lot of different kind of weapons and what works for me may simply not work for you. For example, here for me good choice is AK-47 rifle, maybe for you wherever you are it is very bad choice.
Good advice is: you need to have a weapon that most people have around you because of multiple reasons: spare parts, repairing, ammunition availability, possibility that you can pick that rifle from other people and you know how to use it. What caliber and similar is a matter of discussion again. I am talking from the point of owning a rifle. Another thing is that you need to know how that weapon works. Luckily, most of my readers live in an area where gun laws are great comparing to region where I am. You have much more choices when it comes to owning a weapon and practicing with it. Use that.
And do not forget that using a weapon in a real life situation is not like shooting at beer bottles with your friends after a barbecue. In real life you might be in a situation to use a weapon while you are tired, dirty, and hungry and while someone is screaming next to you. It is going to be maybe when you are not ready to do that, maybe in pitch dark, maybe after you have been awake for 48 hours. At least think about that.
When should you use violence? Contrary to some popular beliefs in the prepper community, the point is to use violence only as a last solution. The reason is as I mentioned already, the risk that you can be hurt or killed too, but also once you do violence you change your own rules, or push it more forward, and it is easy to get lost in violence. There are consequences to that, and you are not going to be the same person ever again.
Violence is a tool, not a toy. You need to know how to use it as best as possible, but also to avoid using it when it is not necessary. It is a good idea to set up a clear set of rules (mentally too) when you are gonna use violence and to try to stick to it. For example you will use weapon if someone tries to break your home and attack you, and you need to be ready to do that without hesitation.
What else should we know about post-collapse violence? Think with your head and research. One thing that is absolutely important when it comes to understanding how violent it is going to be and what can you expect in your own case of SHTF, is to understand how much media can influence people in making their decisions about violence.
In my case, the media built up situation where people feared so much from other people that they actually hated them. They hated them so much that they actually strip them down from humanity. In a real-life example, it works in a way that people killed other people, including kids and women, because they hated them so much because media told them.
It may look ridiculous and not possible to you, and you might again think “that can not happen here” but please trust your own resources, look for independent information, not mainstream media, in order to get the right information about what is really happening in the beginning of collapse. Do not be pulled into “popular opinion” just because the “man from TV” (whoever he might be) told you so. It is easier today. Because of the internet, you have much more choices for correct information than in my time. But still be careful, you might find yourself rioting together with 500 people just because you trusted some media."
More from Selco:
•Selco: The Reality of Barter and Trade in an SHTF Economy
•Selco: Who Survives and Who Dies When the SHTF?
•Selco: How to Stay Warm During a Long-Term SHTF Situation
•Stories from an SHTF Christmas: An Interview with Selco
•Selco: What an “Average Day” Is REALLY Like When the SHTF
•Selco: The Reality of Barter and Trade in an SHTF Economy
•Selco: Who Survives and Who Dies When the SHTF?
•Selco: How to Stay Warm During a Long-Term SHTF Situation
•Stories from an SHTF Christmas: An Interview with Selco
•Selco: What an “Average Day” Is REALLY Like When the SHTF
More information about Selco: Selco survived the Balkan war of the 90s in a city under siege, without electricity, running water, or food distribution. In his online works, he gives an inside view of the reality of survival under the harshest conditions. He reviews what works and what doesn’t, tells you the hard lessons he learned, and shares how he prepares today. He never stopped learning about survival and preparedness since the war. Regardless what happens, chances are you will never experience extreme situations like Selco did. But you have the chance to learn from him and how he faced death for months. Real survival is not romantic or idealistic. It is brutal, hard and unfair. Let Selco take you into that world.
Read more of Selco’s articles here: https://shtfschool.com/blog/
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Related:
Laurence Gonzales, "The 12 Rules of Survival"
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