Early Retirement Extreme Forums

For those of us, with no TV or no access to US programming, and wondering what the fuss is all about - just do a search on YouTube for "doomsday preppers". Most of the episodes are on it.
I read somewhere that NatGeo killed the series (amazing someone there had the brains to do it). I am no fan, but like this guy who was on the show says.. a lot of the dumbness was staged/manipulated/edited: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgQD4DuK81k

@cimorene12

Anyone can throw someone else that is letting them. Children do it to adults all the time in martial arts classes, it doesn't mean they could do it on the street to an adult. I don't have a ridiculous amount of training, but 4 years of karate, some wrestling, and 10 years of line play in football (which is basically hand to hand combat with the goal of getting to a point or preventing someone from getting there) suggest she just wouldn't be effective at all in hand to hand combat.
She could possibly shoot someone, but pulling the trigger on a real human is much much harder than most of us realize. It's taken years for the armed forces to get a large portion of the soldiers to fire their weapons in combat and she doesn't have that training. Let alone hitting something during all that pressure.
Plus, unless she knows there is an obvious threat, the gun will probably be holstered. Which, per law enforcement experience means a well trained police officer is still in danger from an unarmed or knife weilding suspect at 21 feet. This distance would probably be larger, as I doubt she would train enough to even get to police officer level. Mythbusters did an interesting show on this last night trying to determine if the "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight" myth was valid.

Has anyone watched this season? I think this season is much better than last season. The preppers are more well-rounded in their preps, and I've learned more. For example, one guy had a farm and was capturing the methane from his pigs. They're also focusing more on the family/social aspect. There was a group that lived on a suburban cul de sac that had banded together. They also had one funny couple. He was really into prepping, but she was from Costa Rica IIRC and she kept saying she left there to feel safer and now he was scaring her
Anyway, if some of you gave up on it last year, it might be worth another look.

I watched this show, but I admit, I watched for entertainment purposes rather than actually trying to learn anything. Some of the best scens included....
- The guy with the massive stockpile of guns who managed to blow his thumb off ON-CAMERA while talking about how he was going to protect his family. I bet the irony of not even bring able to protect himself hasn't even sunk in.

- The morbidly obese guy rolling about the place with the rifle was silly, but at the same time, he seemed like he would be a cool guy to go have a beer with.

- The kookiest one without a doubt was the guy who was dressed in the homemade deerskin clothes who looked like Alan from The Hangover. When he started talking about knowing when roadkill was still good to eat, I knew we had a winner. I felt sorry for his kids though. He took them out of school for the day to do survival stuff, also said he didn't waste his time saving for college fees. Ridiculous.

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I felt sorry for the people who were living in the truck because they lost their home to foreclosure. Although at the same time, I couldn't understand why the husband was spending thousands of Dollars on buying camoflage for his truck while his wife was wife was SKIPPING HER CANCER MEDICATION.

Yeah show was just such a hit piece freak show I had a hard time watching it... Why do people sign up for these reality shows (ie: Extreme Cheapskates) when they know they're going to be made the fool?
But thanks for the update jenny, I'll check out the new ones.

The "weapon preppers" are making themselves a big target with their practices.
Loaded weapons scattered about the house scares the heck out of me from an accident perspective. And if the zombies attack, they will address the threats first.
We've had some moderate weather events here, and it's the neighbors/community that returned life back to normal. (Not doomsday preppers.)

I may have to check it out again. The methane idea could actually be beneficial and not just OCD crazy like the most of these people. Though, after 10 minutes I'm usually done with the show. There is only so much "idiot" I can take. Plus, I do feel sorry for them a little. The majority are clearly wasting their own resources for minimal return, if any, and they are clearly being taken advantage of by NatGeo.

The thing I don't understand about this show is how these folks can go public with this stuff. If the shit hits the fan and their fears become reality, everyone in their town will know they've got a year's worth of food, gas, etc and will storm the place. A close friend was raised by a prepper father (they call it survivalism actually) who stockpiles a secret basement with all this shit and if he knew his son had told ANYONE about it, he'd be furious. The point is to keep it a huge secret so you can actually use your stores as planned. I know some folks on the show claim they are trying to educate people or make some sort of community or something, but I can't help thinking they are either idiots or their egos just got the best of them. Except that Texas couple with the storage container compound I guess - they've got acres and acres and rifles and seem like they might be able to handle anyone who tries to interfere.

>>they are either idiots or their egos just got the best of them.
Those are the most likely reasons, but I know those people also get paid quite a bit of money to be on the show. I wonder if they need the money (those elaborate preps are expensive) and that's why they agree to appear. Still...OPSEC is always rule #1.

@Rachel&Jenny.. While I've never seen the show. Most of those people like stated above put on acts for the show to make it more interesting. And also not being paranoid, but being a realist, I would say that it would be better for the general public to see these people as crazy rather than sane. If people thought there really was a good reason to prep, then it might have side effects. After over a dozen years in service to his majesty Uncle Same, I can say that I know all about OPSEC and that another situation is probably that most of these people know NOTHING about OPSEC or military mentalities or just keeping secrets.
I subscribe to a few of these prepper websites, because you do find some neat things on them that will help you save money. I found these water coolers that are basically industrial strength dehumidifiers and after a few hours, they pull moisture out of the air, filter it, and store it in containers. Solar powered too. So.. free water essentially after paying for the unit.
Most preppers that are out there are really stupid though. They think that buying guns and ammo is the way to go. Some of these guys on the websites I belong to will practically save every penny they make in a year because they are growing their own food and making everything they need by hand. Anything they need outside of that, they trade for. That's the community need for them. Someone in Texas is raising sheep, but you're in Maine and are making candles but want to knit some socks? You go online and trade. BUT.. then these dummies take all that money they saved up throughout the year and spend it all on guns and ammo. Then every few years you're going to have to rotate your ammo out because it gets damp.
Now these community ideas and not keeping things secret is half cause their stupid, and partially cause of what I stated above. Also, think about it like this.. let's say severe power outage. everyone gets notified that power will be out like a week or so. (this really happened when I was a kid. Power company drives around putting notices on doors.) Well, you've got a few weeks worth of supplies, while all your neighbors are drivign to town to buy up supplies that everyone else already bought up so there isn't much food. So you know that power should only be out a few weeks, so you start feeding your neighbors. If your neighbors were more aware, they would have stockpiled too. So theres some of that going on with these people. I mean can you really say that if you only have enough food for your family for a year and you absolutely know that you will need it for that long, that you will let your neighbors 6 month old baby die from starvation? I doubt it.

If they get paid a nice sum they may not be so taken advantage of by NatGeo.

I am not too much into this whole preppers thing, but my SO is (i don't have a DW...so sig other? lol). She has watched a lot of the end-of-the-world type shows (although they're all gone now since 12/21 didn't really happen) - my thoughts on this:
Yes, if you have a "secret stash" (she talked me into one, we spent about $300 on it), you shouldn't let anyone out there know you have it. BUT ALSO - if "the world did come to an end", after six months of "no infrastructure", people will know you have it. They'll be rotting away, and you'll be in good health, because you had a stockpile. Don't think for one moment they won't notice. Right?
For entertainment purposes, I know there has been some discussion on here (or maybe it was another forum?) on the tv show Revolution. Sure, that's a good "base" for imagination. My personal fav of all time (and I can't believe they cancelled it) was JERICHO. Look it up if you haven't - - now that was some good thought provoking stuff.
Kudos, ya'll.

I LOVE Jericho. They just started continuing Jericho, but it's only in comic book format. Seasons 3 and 4 are now out in comic format. Or well most of 4 is last I checked. They draw in all the same faces of the shows actors, same names, everything. Just continued in paper. So for all the jericho fans.. it's back.

I remember the episode of Jericho where the young shopkeep labored the trainwreck of foodstuffs back to the store to sell for paper currency. I think they were playing a teenpop song while doing it.
It was more interesting that anything on network TV in the decade.. But it still didn't have credibility, IMO. If Jericho turned around please let me know and I'll finish it.

Season 3 in the comics focuses more on the war and I forget if it's 3 or where they're at in 4 where they start explaining the purpose of all the bombs and the people behind them. So they're getting more into the bigger picture. Of course like I say.. you have to be into comic books as there is rumors of a movie, but most likely the only thing we'll ever see of Jericho again is this comic.