It’s no big secret that many doomsday preppers yearn for the apocalypse — if for no other reason than the opportunities it will provide them to say “I told you so” to all those who doubted their paranoid fantasies. And to possibly shoot some of these unprepared scoffers when they come begging for food.
Nowhere is this more obvious than amongst those apocalypse-fantasizers who’ve convinced themselves that it will be feminism, rather than volcanic eruptions or nuclear war or Donald Trump, that will bring about the end of the world.
On the Men Going Their Own way subreddit, the regulars are talking apocalypse, as modern misogynists are wont to do. And it is as revealing as these exercises always are.
A fellow called BagOfBrokenBits dreams of a not-very-distant future in which uppity ladies “will do whatever they are told.”
The future as I see it, is that as society collapses around us (5-15 years?) most women outside of a tightly controlled patriarchal group simply will not survive, because nobody will put up with their sh*t long enough to feed them. When resources are scarce they will not be able to defend what they have and most lack the health, strength and abilities to obtain or build what they need. There will be no feminism, there will be patriarchy. Men will work together as they always have, in challenging and horrific conditions. Women will do whatever they are told because conditions will be too harsh to tolerate dissent.
And Mr. Bag will be one of those doing the telling, because of all the toiletries he is hoarding:
I am a Prepper. I currently have stores of food, toiletries etc for five years with tools, seeds etc to extend that.
He’s apparently filling his doomsday bunker with as many canned goods as he can get his hands on:
It has been noted that in past shortages due to wars an afternoon with a woman can be had for a tin of … anything really.
You know what I mean, you know what I mean? Nudge nudge say no more!
The pros and cons of the apocalypse:
Cons:
- Death of most of the human race
- Contamination of water sources with dead bodies
- No medical care beyond basic first aid
- Return to stone age civilization
Pros:
- Women will have sex with you for a can of beans
AOF_Semiramis suggests moving to New Zealand. And he has some interesting thoughts about Pokemon GO.
Go complete ghost in New Zealand or the likes.Heck even in the US with private as fuck properties.Grow your own food,have stable ways to get water and raise animals a la farm.Fish too if your near a lake.Assuming your far away enough,lake is isolated enough,your too far from idiot humans and any large concentration of them,then nukes won’t land on your spot too since it would be a waste of resources.(Its why the CIA funded Pokemon GO. So the brainless droves would fill the map for them.Obviusly there are still holes.)
Surviving the apocalypse is so easy that even a kid could do it!
Also..a 15 year old discovered an ancient city due to studying the stars in Central America.So you can bet that there are other places in the world where you can live safely.
Make sure to pack popcorn, for all the gloating you’ll be doing.
I know its f*cked up,but nothing you can do to stop it. You can only save yourself at most.So just chill,get some popcorn,and just accept the f*cking up.
timoppenheimer, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to be doing any prepping beyond living as selfishly as he can:
WWIII is coming, and I am horrified too, OP.
My plan is to enjoy my life. They already took my foreskin; fuck society, I’m living my life for me.
Talkytalktalk is evidently a fan of Alex Jones:
This is the great culling of the human population. The eugenics population reduction freaks are going to kill billions and out the rest under the yoke of totalitarianism. It takes a woman to pick the runts and dispose of them.
But which woman? WHICH WOMAN!?
I need to know now so I can mangina my way into her good graces before the culling.
But since the post-apocalypse world is going to be dominated by MGTOWs, PUAs, etc., there will surely be very limited demand for soap!
You’re right, we are terrible at short term thinking. I’m trying to become more impulsive and selfish, like you dudes who yearn for the apocalypse because the suffering of billions will enhance your personal boners and status. But it really doesn’t feel natural. I keep coming back to how harmful “every man for himself” is to humanity’s long term prospects. Any tips on how I can make my thought processes more blinkered?
Why would we waste time reading the “oeuvres” of some fourth-rate fringe racist who’s barely known outside the confines of the Mises Institute? There’s a good reason he’s obscure. Hoppe literally wants to carve up the world into private gated communities for wealthy whites only and expel hippies, minorities, gay people, Democrats, dissenters, etc. into outer darkness where they’ll be homeless and starve to death. He’s an embarrassment and a stain on humanity.
Libertarian power fantasies are catnip to mediocre white men who can’t function in an increasingly merit-based democracy. They get to make up the rules of their imaginary post-apocalypse society, so of course they’ll prevail. It’s a fantasy Calvinball league for people who suck at regular sports and don’t want to put in the effort to get better, but still think they deserve the World Champion trophy.
(I’m also amused that someone named “Sedentary Reactionary” is lobbying so hard for the end of civilization. Yeah, couch philosophers should do well in a society where survival relies on heavy pre-industrial manual labor.)
I’m going to start collecting “they laughed at Galileo” retorts. I am seeing them more and more often, usually from flat-earthers, climate change denialists, anti-vaxxers, and now migtoes (if that’s what the sedentary guy was).
Indeed, we have our very own Galileo Movement here, as other mammotheers from Oz will testify. Bet you can’t guess which of the above categories they fall into 😛
(I’m pretty sure no-one laughed at Galileo as such. ‘Twas a bit more unpleasant than that).
I always joke that i’m aquiring skills for the coming apocalypse, though i like neither zombies or post apocalyptic stories.
Currently, i can sew, quilt, knit, occasionally crochet, preserve food in both a boiling water canner and a pressure canner, and make beer. I can also cook and bake, and we have a lovely garden.
I’m aware that some of this knowledge depends on our current level of convenience for irrigation and power, but i’m pretty sure that knowing SOMETHING about how to produce food and suppliesis better than just consuming them.
I can also tell an amusing story and work well with others.
All of this doesn’t really matter because i, and chances are all of these MGTOWs, live in an urban centre. If there was a bomb dropped on Canada, it would hit me. If there was an outbreak of something that could ruin the world, i can’t see people in these huge megacities surviving.
So prep all you want! Maybe you’ll be near enough to your house and able to get back to your base of operations to take advantage of it. Sure do hope you don’t commute to work, you will be shit out of luck then!
(I’m seriously thinking of dedicating some space in the garden next year to barley, so i can say that i grew and malted the grain, as well as growing the hops. And i want to find out about this ‘yeast ranching’ thing!)
Re : “oeuvres”
Forgot to add that if you’re gonna pull that word like that to try and sound fancier, I should tell you that I am not impressed. Keep this up and I may have to write you a full retort, in french, and then you’ll have to go ask someone actually knowledgeable to explain to you what it means because no Google translation will help.
Also it’s œuvre.
Tsk.
@Mish
I looked up that Galileo Movement… wait what. They’re not climate change deniers, but apologists ? WAT.
Having a support network is also going to be critical to survival. I wonder about these angry loners extolling the virtues of riding out the apocalypse by themselves on Fuck Off Acres (or with a community of like-minded hostile, suspicious, selfish loners, which is bound to end well). Most of them don’t seem to have very close relationships with parents, family, significant others, neighbors, friends. They view other men as competition. They bounce from job to job (under a cloud of “false accusations” – it’s always the HR feminazis’ fault). Their sex life consists of plates, bar pickups, porn, masturbation, and one-night stands. They pursue solitary hobbies. They may think they can make it on their own, because essentially they’re on their own now – but what they don’t realize is the extent to which modern Western society, with all of its conveniences and entertainment, enables lonerdom.
In the aftermath of apocalypse, I just don’t see them being accepted for long by any group. They have nothing positive to contribute. Even if they were the most skilled outdoorsman in the world, before long the group would get fed up with their incessant whining and their outrageous demands for the best cuts of meat, the nicest house, the most nubile virgins. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I am inspired by all the people in this thread who have practical post-apocalyptic skills. I can, um, do maths? Write SQL? Calculate orbits? I’m trying to think of a post-apocalyptic scenario in which my skill base is useful, and I’m coming up blank.
I’d better do my best to avert the downfall of civilisation. That was my plan anyway, but it’s nice when these things coincide.
@Rhuu:
Your garden sounds really fun. Growing barley sounds like a big undertaking, but I can only imagine how satisfying it must be to make not only your own beer, but all its ingredients too.
@Buttercup
Eww. I hate that word. ‘Hey, we all know what your proclivities are, fella. Don’t worry, she’s 216 months exactly’. Ewww…
I’m reminded of the scene in Daredevil season 2, where the pawn shop guy tries to push some less than legal nubility on Frank. He didn’t take kindly ?
@EJ
We’ll need you to be harbinger of the harvest time by careful study of the constellations’ procession. If all of society crumbles, i doubt there’ll be a lot of 2025+ calendars lyin around…
@EJ (The Other One)
Well I’m with you in the “useless after the Apocalypse” camp. I can’t imagine that there will be a lot of use for translators after the fall of civilization. Well, at least once all the remaining books have been copied and translated and all that fun stuff. Although then again my penmanship will take my usefulness down quite a bit…
Ah well, I guess I’ll just try and be one of the people who die during the apocalypse itself. 😀 That or I’ll just hope that Great Cthulhu rises from watery R’lyeh before then.
@EJ
My only practical survival skill is… yeah, I don’t have one.
But I’m a decent bartender, writer, and story-teller. That’s useful in communities, I think.
Plus I have lots of words. I have the best words.
Monzach – I’m with you, but not only am I a translator, I’m one of the ones that are mostly useless as interpreters, as I do best with written material and a lot of time to fuss about with dictionaries and phrasing. Still, don’t underestimate language-learning.
@Axecalibur:
I like that idea. I can be the official Predictor of the Seasons. (Just so y’all know, this will absolutely require an advanced infrared telescope. And beer. Lots of beer.) Otherwise, I’ll have to rely on my jar-opening and getting-things-off-top-shelves skills.
I think Buttercup Q. Skullpants is right, though: the ability to take orders and to work harmoniously as part of a group is probably the most important skill anyone can have when things go badly. These are also useful skills when things don’t go badly.
@Monzach:
Translators would be absolutely vital, at least here in Europe. If our group of survivors is forced to flee across national borders or encounters a group who have, then we would need to be able to communicate with them. Warning people about danger and cooperating on larger projects would be vital.
@Penny Psmith
Yeah, I’m not very good at interpreting either. I’ve done a couple of sessions of interpreting and it’s such exhausting work. I’d really do almost anything else language related before interpreting. 🙁 I really enjoy checking word definitions in dictionaries, though, so it makes translating pretty much my dream job.
Also, I’m guessing that you are a fan of P. G. Wodehouse? If not, I have to applaud the coincidence of your username containing the name of one of my favorite literary characters, namely (Rupert) Psmith. 🙂
ETA
@EJ (The Other One)
That’s actually good thinking. I’m pretty good with English and German, which are the two largest languages in Europe, as well as Swedish and Finnish which are of slightly less usefulness. 😛
How long is that stash of canned goods going to feed the dude in his way? And does he know how to grow a garden?
If the apocalypse hits, all the rich countries are screwed. We’re so interdependent and densely populated, almost nobody is getting out alive: most of us can’t feed a family on our own, and the few that can will get robbed so they can’t either.
Subsistence farmers the world over will have a rough time, but that’s normal — and their descendants will inherit a lot of space.
Monzach – Yeah, that is definitely a Wodehouse reference, although oddly enough I haven’t read much of the Psmith stories. Do like the faux-alliteration though.
By the way, since so much media tends to depict translation and interpretation as being the same thing (“I have studied these ancient scrolls for years, of course I have no problem fluently speaking to the magic people who appeared here in their own language!”) it was quite thrilling to find a little part in Terry Pratchett’s Jingo that showed the difference quite well: a young officer is taken to the negotiations with foreign empire Klatch because they thought he knew Klatchian, but when there, he explains he can only read it. There’s a wonderful bit where one of the Klatchians says to his friend, of the Ank-Mopork commander, something like “This idiot is in charge of an army?” and the poor translator is left mumbling something like “Errr, there was something about to lead, or command…”
I really felt for him.
Sinkable John:
@Sedentary Reactionary
Yes, yes, I’m sure those awful democracies with social safety nets that allow women to vote are going to be the end of us all. *smiles and pats SR on the head* I’d refute your claims, but I find MRAs, MGTOW and PUAs really aren’t interested in real world facts, so why waste my time? It’s much more amusing to just mock your ridiculous views.
numerobis:
I used to read the ramblings of bitcoin enthusiasts (a rich mine of comedy gold, libertarian variety). Some of them are convinced that a big stash of bitcoin will be useful to have after the collapse of society, when government-issued currency becomes worthless. And yet… this is a crypto-currency which relies on electricity and the Internet. It made me realise that, for some people, plausibility doesn’t play a large role in their end-of-the-world fantasies.
I mean… I can sort of get that. I sometimes daydream about becoming very rich with little effort. The mechanism involved in my sudden wealth doesn’t stand up to examination, but that’s ok, because it’s just a comforting daydream, to be indulged for a few minutes when I’m in the mood. But I would never share the details and expect people not to shoot them down.
Monzach and Penny Psmith, maybe I could join your team? I can only offer a pretty common combination (Fr Sp It Port & Cat -> Eng) but I’d be glad to help out around the place if I can 🙂
I’m a written-only, too – always lots of checking and tweaking to do, and loads of things to catch on that crucial second draft. I’ve done a few small interpreting gigs and whew is that exhausting! It feels like it’s a whole other kind of brain you need, maybe.
You know. I wonder if these kinds of fantasies are a response to too many women telling them “not even if you were the last man on earth.”
They really wanna test that.
Also, how sad is it that they think their only chance to get laid is the death of billions of people? If that’s the only prospect you feel you have dude, maybe you should really reevaluate your life choces.
Team translators!
I have Hebrew-English down quite well, know Arabic but mostly written, only little of any spoken dialects (and will probably need a dictionary), and very very basic knowledge of Italian, French, and Brasilian Portuguese. I think I’m more or less okay at picking up languages but it takes time and patience, which are not abundant in survival situations.
Have to admit that one of the reasons I really hate thinking of apocalypses is a very selfish one: I’m in a (very) long-distance serious relationship, so losing modern infrastructure will also mean losing contact with the man I love. 🙁
@ sedentary reactionary
You do realise that monarchies often end up with a woman in charge? In fact, I think that might have even happened here.
*checks postage stamp*
Yup.
If we’re going to talk post-apocalyptic survival skills, here are mine:
Knowledge of culinary, medicinal, and traditional magical uses of herbs. I can identify a number of useful plants growing wild in my area, and some of the most dangerous ones as well. I have a basic starting knowledge of how to get use out of plants that aren’t helpful from the get-go, like knowing that you need to leech the tannic acid off of acorns by soaking them in running water for a couple of weeks before trying to make food out of them, and if the apocalypse doesn’t take away my access to books, I have more in-depth guides, and if you think “traditional magical uses” won’t be a tradeable skill in the apocalypse, there are some things about humanity you are failing to understand.
(Just the other day, I was in a class where the [male] teacher decried our modern lack of connection to the land, and asked, since nobody in class was a hunter, how any of us would survive if society collapsed tomorrow. I couldn’t help but point out that I can forage. People can figure out how to hunt a deer a lot easier than they can safely guess which common plant is hemlock and which one is healthy and nutritious wild carrot.)
Observed and practical experience in canning, preparing stores of wood for winter burning, gardening (including some pretty simple methods of growing potatoes), sewing, and similar skills: I may not do these things routinely, but I have engaged in all of them and have a better working knowledge than many people around me.
Abstract knowledge of trivia that can translate into essential knowledge: for example, birds can be trapped by coating branches with quick-lime. I don’t know how to do this, but can figure it out through trial and error, giving me an advantage over people who didn’t know you could do it at all.
@ moggie
Your daydreaming reminded me of this;
(Ted goes on to explain that he was thinking more along the lines of a raffle)
I think in the Mammotheers Post-Apocalyptic Commune, I would do best as a floater. I don’t have many developed skills, but I have a very basic idea of a lot of different ones, and a good brain for building on that foundation. Basically, point me at whatever task needs hands the most and I will damn well learn. In the meantime, I can sew, make candles (scented and fucking optional), and mind children.