1. Preppers are not who you think are – they are a multitude.
  2. It’s not only Preppers who are preparing for the end of civilization – your government is too!
  3. You will always miss one thing on your prep list.
  4. Beware of ‘apocalypse swapping’.
  5. You can spot a Prepper because they buy… chickens!
  6. Preppers are secretive, and have to be.
  • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Please explain #4. I don’t get it.

    I’m not a doomsday prepper (I found this post on all) but I want chickens and ducks. I guess doomsday prepping is similar to poverty survival - buy bulk foods that will last, grow what you can for perishables (ideally those that produce too much so you can share and increase your standing - money or reputation, whatever the currency is) preserve what you can.

    I mean don’t get me wrong - I am preparing for the collapse by doing the same things anyone in poverty does because poverty is a slow personal collapse, I just know I’ll likely be an early casualty, being disabled, depending on the ultimate “cause”. I have about 6 months worth of non-perishables if that’s all I ate (grew up very food insecure) and as long as electric doesn’t die before I can harden off my plants to UV, I have some hydroponic crop plants that should keep me afloat until I can sow more seed (I do have a doomsday prepper pack of 45 food crop seeds in sealed containers in my freezer, but it’s unrelated to prepping, and more about the variety of seeds I wanted and never got around to planting)

    • bartleby@lemm.eeOPMEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I guess it’s about prepping being addictive, and I guess “apocalypse swapping” is basically rationalizing such an addiction with whatever is the most pressing threat at the moment.

      To quote the article:

      This ‘looking forward to the end of the world’ mindset, can lead to a strange Prepper behaviour that I call ‘apocalypse swapping’. In apocalypse swapping, a prepper who believed say in Nuclear War, shifts their believed in apocalypse to an entirely different one – say Meteor Strike, after their belief in impending Nuclear War collapses. Normally a person who believed in impending Nuclear War would cease to believe in the end of the world, after their fear of such a war diminished, however the apocalypse addict simply moves to another apocalypse so they can keep their prepper behaviors and belief in the end of the civilisation intact.

      One prepper I know has, over twenty years, moved from a passionate belief in imminent nuclear apocalypse, to imminent asteroid strike, to imminent ‘Artificial Intelligence takeover’. It doesn’t matter to her if the reason for stocking up her cellar or practicing karate have changed completely. She seems only to be contented when she has an apocalypse to believe in. She has in the past become depressed and demotivated during her brief transitions from apocalypse type to the next. She needs the end of the world to give herself a sense of identity, purpose and self-esteem. In this sense, whichever apocalypse she believes in doesn’t really matter, what does matter is the discipline and focus of the prepping life. A daily routine of ‘being ready to face the end.’ She is, I should add, one of the happiest and most energetic people I’ve ever met.

      I’m personally prepping more for disasters. Most of my friends who are into the same lifestyle basically want to have a certain standard of life/living in the aftermath of a disaster. I mean, I don’t want to be living in some tent city relying on government rations.