Disasters
The flipside of this is: how effective is preparing actually going to be? If you look at what most preppers are doing, not very.<p>As an avid hiker and rock climber, when I watch a lot of prepper videos on YouTube, I find a lot of laughable ideas.<p>* About 50% of the preppers I see have seemingly no concern for cross-contamination of their water system, and no anti-diarrheals in their med kits to deal with the giardia they aren&#x27;t preventing.<p>* Paracord is popular among preppers, but it&#x27;s pretty unclear why. I&#x27;ve literally never seen a prepper demonstrate hanging a bear bag, which is literally the only reason I&#x27;ve ever used paracord in the wild. Lashing together structures boy-scout-style requires a lot more cord than they are carrying, and having hiked a few thousand miles in my hiking career, I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ve ever felt that lashing together a structure was necessary or even worth the effort, despite that being a skill I&#x27;m proficient at. The fanciest paracords out there have metal wire (for electricity) and fishing line inside the paracord--maybe it&#x27;s just me, but I would rather just carry the fishing line separately, and I can&#x27;t imagine a situation where I have access to electricity and not wire. It&#x27;s also unclear to me whether any of these preppers actually have any skills as electricians.<p>* Knives: the number one item I find left behind on trails are these giant Bowie knives. People buy them at an army surplus or sporting goods store, and then a few miles onto the trail they realize their pack is really heavy, and the item that stands out as the most weight with the least usefulness is the 3 pound knife. I carry a CRKT NIAD[1] when rock climbing, and a Snow Peak knife (part of a cutlery set--I think an older version of this[2]). What these knives have in common is that they are extremely light. But what do preppers have? In some cases, the Bowie knives aren&#x27;t even close to the largest things.<p>* Guns: while preppers seem unconcerned with the weight of their knives, when it comes to guns, weight suddenly seems to be a concern. To achieve low weight, it seems most preppers are willing to settle for the idea that they&#x27;re never going to hunt for, or defend themselves from, anything larger than a jackrabbit. Almost all the popular &quot;prepper guns&quot;, i.e. this Henry AR7[3] are in caliber .22LR, which beyond being a tiny round, has reliability issues. Of course, there are also preppers who go to the other extreme[4]; if you&#x27;ve got your 9mm handgun, .22LR rifle, 12 gauge shotgun, .308 bolt action, and .223 AR15, I hope you&#x27;re in your gun bunker when the apocalypse happens, because you&#x27;re not moving anywhere with a quarter of of a ton of firearms and ammo. Personally, I think fishing would be far more consistent for food, and I don&#x27;t have the stomach for violence even in self-defense (maybe once, but on a consistent basis?) so I&#x27;d probably rather use the weight for carrying a light fishing kit and more food.<p>I don&#x27;t mean all of this to come across as super harsh on the prepper community. If you enjoy collecting this stuff, do it. I&#x27;m not criticizing what anyone does for fun, and it&#x27;s pretty unlikely that you&#x27;ll ever have to rely on this stuff, so there&#x27;s no real harm. I&#x27;m just saying that if my experience in the outdoors is any indication, a lot of attempts to prepare for life that doesn&#x27;t rely on civilization are pretty ineffective.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crkt.com&#x2F;niad.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crkt.com&#x2F;niad.html</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;snowpeak.com&#x2F;collections&#x2F;cutlery&#x2F;products&#x2F;titanium-fork-and-spoon-set-sct-002" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;snowpeak.com&#x2F;collections&#x2F;cutlery&#x2F;products&#x2F;titanium-f...</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.henryusa.com&#x2F;rifles&#x2F;u-s-survival-ar-7&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.henryusa.com&#x2F;rifles&#x2F;u-s-survival-ar-7&#x2F;</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;prepperswill.com&#x2F;5-guns-every-prepper-should-own&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;prepperswill.com&#x2F;5-guns-every-prepper-should-own&#x2F;</a>