WTF? Grownups playing war....

[Linnea]

I'm not up to speed on Revelations (or nutty 19th-century interpretations of it), but don't some of these folks believe there will be a period of chaos on earth before the rapture happens?

There are a lot of weird contradictions here. Some fundies have adopted the survivalist dogma that, when society falls apart, you'll need lots of guns to defend your stockpiles from people who didn't prepare their own. Sounds just like what Jesus would do, right?

[Kitchen Princess]

Conuly said

Nooo!! You can't read My Side of the Mountain too often. I so much wanted to dig up cattails and make my own flour. Also, I was sad when the author wrote a sequel and made him set Frightful free. I realize that was the correct thing to do, as it is against the law to keep wild birds, but heck, I wanted my own falcon!

As an adult, I belonged to a cult that (fortunately) kicked me out just before they all started stockpiling beans and water in their basements. I've always wondered what happened to all those beans after the prophesied catastrophe failed to appear . . . .

I also went through a phase of reading stacks of Vietnam era war memoirs. One of the things I gleaned from them was that MREs were widely hated. The ham with lima beans, in particular, was known as "ham and motherfuckers."

MREs didn't exist during the Viet Nam war. They had c-rations. I had plenty of c-rations during my time in the Army (in the '80s). MREs in their current form were introduced while I was in. My son who has been in the Army since 2002 says they are vastly improved from the ones I brought home from drill for him to try when he was a child. Still, not gourmet cuisine, but not so bad, considering. Of the two, I prefer c-rations, but MREs are more high-tech and have more variety than c-rats did.

[CanadianHippie]

With that said, they are DEFINITELY doing it... well, not right, anyway. The emphasis on prepared and pre-ground spices? Not good value for your money, too full of sodium, and yes, they lose flavor faster.

The emphasis on guns as a weapon? I've long since thought that guns, in a survival situation, are totally overrated. They're noisy (scare away your game while attracting looters? No thanks!), they're hard to make and repair, you can't re-use your ammunition, and everybody wants them. It's easier to make a bow and arrow or atlatl (even if making a good one takes some skill) and any idiot can ultimately make a sling (even if they take practice to use effectively). And you can *reuse* arrows, and throwing spears, and rocks. You're never running out of rocks!

When I imagine a complete collapse of society, I imagine things like guns, most portable stoves, spices, prepared food, etc as not suitable for long term survival.

I'll stick with knowing which plants are edible, how to hunt and fish and smoke the food, and build a fire with limited resources thankyouverymuch. These people can have their urban warfare when society collapses, but if anyone at FJ wants they can join me in my mountain home where we won't have to count bullets to see how long we have left before we are defenseless.