Canaan The Tribeless

So one of the sub-cultures that has emerged in the last several years is the "prepper" community. The group, normally self-identified as Preppers, focuses a lot of time and resources to the goal of becoming ultimately prepared to survive in the midst of imminent "Shit Hits The Fan" scenarios. These include economic collapse, civil war, infrastructure collapse, meteor strike... basically anything that loosely resembles an apocalypse. They boast huge arsenals of every kind of weapon with thousands of rounds to feed through them, underground bunkers, years of food, camouflage clothing and tactical military surplus vehicles, night-vision goggles, flak vests, etc. The ultimate survivors. I believe there is a distinct difference between being a Prepper and being prepared, and it is attitude. The Prepper dreams of the day he gets to use all his cool shit. To him, the normality of a functioning infrastructure is just a temporary illusion filled with sheep who will all die soon enough. He likens fellow humans to zombies that he has to defend his bomb-shelter from. He has grand visions of bugging out into the woods and being a hyper-sufficient military survivalist. Misguided and naive. The problem is that many of these people have never spent more than a few days in the woods. A good portion of them are not military trained nor are they in any sort of shape to be skillfully evading or battling these "zombies" that they anticipate. They also don't realize that it's not going to be as romantic or cool as they see in the movies. Tactical camouflage shit just draws MORE attention to them which makes life harder. Ammo is fucking heavy and fear is a killer. Now I fully believe that being prepared is very important. The vast, vast majority of people, especially in cities or suburbs are not ready in case things really do happen. Our infrastructure is indeed very fragile, and only a few pieces of it need to be destroyed in order for chaos to start. But in those situations, I think a rational person only should be allocating resources and time for about 6 months of emergency preparation. Here's why: -Preparing for years and years of survivalist living follows a J-curve of resource consumption. It can take up all your time and money. Then what's the point? -Who cares how many cans of green beans you have if all your friends and family are dead? -After 6 months, either 1) everything has stabalized or 2) you should have found ways to sustain yourself for the long-term. If you're still relying on your emergency supplies, you're just delaying the inevitable You should be prepared for anything, but HOPING that you never need to utilize your preparations. That is the distinct difference. Keep a half-year supply of food, tubs of water, medical gear, medications, warm clothing, tools, etc. Have family plans, vehicle emergency bags, means of self-defense (because people will want your shit) and recreational stuff to get your mind of off the situation. You don't need to look like rambo. A final thought about the zombie mindset. If some shit really does hit the fan, then you should be thinking of ways to help as many as possible, not figuring out how many of them you can kill if you need to. There will absolutely be roving bands of murderous, hungry thugs, yes, but there will also be desperate people who need help. Don't get lost in the movie mindset of slaughtering hordes of people in the apocalypse, because chances are you have more humanity in you than you think. If not, then YOU are going to be the problem for the rest of us to deal with.

I agree. From an evolutionary standpoint, humans relied on their abilities to immediately judge surroundings and situations as a matter of survival. I think our instinctive judgements of people based on appearance are a side-effect of this ancient survival technique. However I believe that philosophically, these immediate judgements should hold no water until they've been confirmed through behavior. So it's one of the aspects about humans that is naturally at odds with what is logical.

I see I need to work on my introductions.

What effect does this have? I understand that Asian buffets drown their foods in MSG. I'm willing to bet you cut out soda. The main culprit behind obesity is sugars in the form of liquid.

I lust after sweet, salty, fatty and oily food. However, I usually am able to fight the constant urge to stuff my face with Burger King and pizza. I make myself pretty balanced meals of chicken or salmon with veggies and the works when I can. I work-out pretty religiously so that addiction overpowers my yearning for junk food. Every time I see junk food I want to eat I think of it in terms of gym progress lost and it helps a lot. However, I do still eat it occasionally. I'm not really worried about how it is going to affect my body because I maintain my physical health pretty well. I'm more curious about the effects it has on mental or cognitive ability. From what I understand, fast food and loads of junk food are more than capable of really tweaking the chemistry of the brain. It messes with the reward functions, dopamine, etc. There is a ton of information out there. I've skimmed some of it but I was wondering if you good folks had any insight. What is the short-term affect on the brain of eating a bunch of McDonalds or Dominos? Does it have to be constant abuse of poison food to have a significant impact? Also, what are some of your diet philosophies and rules? Any particularly noticeable affect a certain food has had on your life you'd like to share?

Resources are scarce. They are made scarce by the limitations of humankind to access them, not by physical existence.

...and I'll tell you what, the legalization of marijuana has led to riots in the streets! The cities are on fire and bodies litter the allies! How dare we think that we could handle that amount of freedom! O mighty and righteous government, save us from ourselves! Canaan is a fun name to have as a atheist. I look forward to figuring out the universe with you folks, as I'm sure there is much we agree on. I am, however, even more excited in figuring out where we disagree and doing battle on the front of philosophy! Sincerely, Promised land, Land of milk and honey, Land of filthy, sinful heretics worthy of divine extermination, Canaan.