This is obviously a joke since I dont have that many friends. (Two observations: Lea Thompson can share my bunker any day. Swayze is rocking a sweet Valmet in that picture.)
It brings up an interesting question, though…how many friends (or family) would you feel comfortable riding out the apocalypse with as a trusted partner/teammember? Someone you could trust with the GPS locations of your cache, the password to the encrypted files, the directions to the BOL, the manifest of your hidden supplies, that sort of thing. For me, its probably…hmmm….three people.What about you?
Maxine Watters Warns about Trump Supporters Training in Them Thar Hills for Civil War!
Okay, I’m assuming not counting myself in the number.
Three sounds about right. If I were to be tagged by authorities and/or BGs, that many could move a stash (hopefully) before it all becomes property of BGs. I’m assuming the other three already have supplies of their own.
Non coupled (singles, not married). I figure married might cause some internal frictions of their own, the entire group becoming affected. Being cooped up can do that to a relationship.
It takes only one rotten apple to spoil the whole shebang.
The biggest issue, as I see it, is that you wind up with someone who you feel you’d have no trouble riding out Ragnarok with, but he has two kids and a wife who thinks all that survivalist stuff is silly. Is it worth one trusted and competent individual if his baggage includes one sheeple and two mostly useless-for-our-purposes kids?
This was an issue for me in the past when I was a member of a MAG and we were recruiting. If you have someone that is a great fit for the group – but – they have a wife that is not. That can be a problem so the wife or whomever has to be vetted as well.
A question regarding survival groups that rarely gets asked, “Do you have someone – friend or family – that is the S hit the fan and they come asking for help you could not leave them? This means the group member may show up to the retreat with a sister, or best friend. Considerations to make now.
Depends on the threat of betrayal.
Not cool to have an “anonymous” call in to your site.
There ARE levels of trust and need to know. Not everybody needs to know everything.
This is why my trusted people are meatspace friends and family.
The idea of some Rawsian fantasy group where everyone abandons their families to come to some super survivalist group is weird to me. If their family can’t rely on them I sure as hell can’t.
Trust is way more important than stuff or skills. Admittedly the flaw of this is a “lot of people splitting the pie” scenario but I’d share with those folks anyway.
Not saying anyone is wrong, just my .02 on it.
It’s a lot easier to buy a few more sacks of rice and beans than to turn one’s back on family and friends.
Even more so if those people may react to being abandoned by going to the authorities. “I’d rather he was inside the tent pissing out than standing outside pissing in” as they say.
One, a brother, … perhaps two, but I still have doubts about the second person. I have a very good friend, retired AF Lt. Col., who flat out will not acknowledge that something bad is coming, even though he talks about the symptoms on a daily basis. He worked civil service for the AF for many years after retiring from the Reserves, and in my opinion, his bias in favor of our government, has clouded his judgment. I have told him this to his face, but he just can’t get past it. As a result, there are some things I will just not tell him or even hint at.
One, I live with her. We tell no one anything about what we have especially family. Most of them only show up when they want something. The exception is one nephew that might be helpful when he decides what he wants out of life.
“Nobody puts baby in a corner.”
The military has a vetting process to weed out the non-performers, then they deal with them by job assignment. If a person is a low level performer then they get a low level job like peeling potatoes or moving crates around. Only the top notch people they can trust get to enter Norad, work on aircraft or get to shoot missiles.
We need the same type of process for friends and family. One of the great things I used to do was go on back-packing trips over several days. You quickly get to see who is up to the task and who needs constant attention or assistance. Sharing a foxhole with someone is going to show their mettle pretty quickly and it would be best to know ahead of time who to trust and who to leave behind.
That’s the old military. The new woke .mil promotes not by ability but DIE Diversity points
not including myself and wife–4 others
I don’t know anyone who could resist an aggressive interrogation, so none.
I recall reading a sci-fi book once where the grizzled veteran was talking to the new troops and the subject of capture and interrogation came up. The young recruits all started pounding their chests about how they would never talk under any torture, etc. The veteran waited for them to calm down and said that if they were captured, they should tell them everything they wanted to know. The reasoning was that if you had any critical knowledge, those plans and tactics wouuld have been changed when the higher-ups found youd been captured. And by escaping being tortured, you were in better physical shape to resist/escape when the opportunity arose. Not sure it would work like that in real life, but its interesting to think about.
I have heard that in Viet Nam, it wasn’t considered weak or cowardly to give information in interrogation. Everyone was tortured, they knew what it was, and they expected most people to eventually break. The thing was, though, not to give up easily…to make them work for it.
I don’t know. I expect that’s right. But I haven’t ever been there.
It was called “Bounce Back”. Everyman breaks….sooner or later.
I’m an Old Fart. I’d be the Grandad telling the boys to head to the hills.
This made me think about a post on Bayou Renaissance Man Blog headed “Lessons learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005” it starts with ‘I’ve had over 30 people staying with me since Sunday, evacuating from New Orleans and points south in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina. Only two families were my friends – they told other friends of theirs that they knew a place where they could hole up, and so a whole bunch arrived here!’
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2008/08/lessons-learned-from-hurricanes-katrina.html
Inner circle? 1. Maybe 2.
Moderate expansion for Useful Skills? 4-6
I think the key is knowing Useful People before they know you. “Hello, ER doc. Hungry?” That, and what will it take to hold what you have. Squad of 6 at least to allow sleep shifts…
But yes – it is always the hangers-on that must be managed.
One factor of people with critical skills – do they HAVE in their possession the necessary tools to effectively contribute. Many doctors rely on high technology tools to do their job. They may not even own a Merck manual that can be read without electricity.
Figure also that electricity will become extremely limited, if not gone entirely. A master lathe operator becomes rather useless if they don’t have other skills. Or tools that can be used with no electricity – that goes for all of us. A lot gave away or sold their hand tools because they got a nifty rechargeable plug in that saves all kind of time. No more electricity – Now what ?
Several. About an even mid of family and friends.
Hmm, took 2 pages of “search” before the first mention of Red Dawn turned up for Lea.
BTW, did you know she has a home in Montana?
I’m amazed at how no one I know has bothered to stock up on ANY extra amount of food or other useful or necessary supplies. This, after the empty shelves due to “covid time” got their attention not that long ago. The most common responses are:
Why should I?
I don’t have room.
I can’t afford it.
Those 3 pretty much cover everyone. These are all intelligent people of both sexes. Married and single. Also, none of them expect any sort of notable “unrest” connected to early November.
Ain’t no cure for stupid.
Even worse are the ones who recognized a need for preps when COVID dropped in for a visit, and now think that “COVID is over, it’s a waste of money/paranoid/pointless to hoard stuff that I will ‘never need.'”
Three. Yeah, not family either for various reasons. Families tend to be chaotic I suppose. I’d lookout for family, but it’s not like I’m telling most family anything but what they need to know.
I just don’t have that level.of trust with many people . Seen too much of life to think you can trust many people. It’s a sad state of affairs really, but maybe I’m just more realistic than jaded?