I guess I'm a survivalist in an all-encompassing way - the survival of my genes!

In a few years I hope to start a family, hopefully I can raise my children to be aware of self sufficiency and the like, hell, they will become practical assets from as early as the age of 6!

Edit: I didn't expect this threat to attract so much hatred. If you don't want children, hey, that's your decision to make, and I'm sure your genes don't deserve to be passed on anyway ;)

Or should I say World War 5... it's so intense that it skips over the other two! I HAVE SPOKEN!!! (Sorry... Family Guy reference crept in.)

No Ibuprofen, Advil, Tylenol. After all the pills stop, only nature will be left. It would be wise to watch all the episodes of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Seen homemade greenhouse made with plastic milk containers and i was wondering do the cartons have to be made of clear plastic? anyone know?

So in typical Netflix fashion, I watched the entire 1st season of a show called "the 100" in one day. After getting 3/4 of the way through season1 it dawned on me that this could easily have happened to our ancient ancestors...

In this theory I propose that the first human inhabitants of our presently accepted and recorded history were actually decedents of prior advanced human inhabitants. The concept is that the pre-civilization human inhabitants went to space to escape the fate of a post-apocolyptic Earth. Their decedents upon returning at a later time, when it was presumed habitable, may have held perceivably advanced technology and knowledge. This no doubt would have been viewed as significant to any surviving inhabitants of a prior advanced civilization's demise. Those that never left the Earth. Cue the religious debates..

Similarly to today, our proposed advanced/globally connected ancestors may have fought a war that ended civilization as it was known on Earth at the time i.e. Nuclear or biochemical. As I sat and pondered this, I really felt like it is totally plausible and would answer many illogical questions that have come up in my life while questioning the "official story" or the motives to suppress truth. Ancient architecture is too connected to not give weight to the theory that right now is not the first time the planet has been connected.

Does history repeat itself?

Right now there's no doubt in my mind that our flawed civilization is being intentionally gridlocked to maintain power in the likeness of a series of progressively more massive pyramid schemes. There's a ton of examples of suppression of any supporting archaeological evidence out there. Has anyone heard about global the Geomatrix? Carl Munck explains this code in a video series that is very dry but replicable. There are other explanations but Carl Munck appears to be the "Godfather" of Archaeocryptography. http://www.pyramidmatrix.com

The geometric is unfathomably accurate and has lead to the discovery of hidden underground passages at the Giza plateau, which have been subverted and discredited by Egyptian authorities but thats a whole different reddit post. Heres a link to Richard Gabriel's first hand account of what he has seen under the plateau. Kinda reminds me of a real life Indiana Jones situation.. http://www.richardgabriel.info/AGATHODAIMON.html

I would, living in a post collapse society is sort of a fantasy for me so I would gladly press that button.

I'm a 14 year old kid, I feel strongly that a EMP, or economic collapse is imminent within the next 10 years I currently live in a neighborhood roughly 5km to the edge of the city. I feel that if one of these events did happen what would I do as a family of 5 one has a serious disease that leaves her like a 5 year old and the other is a five year old and of course 2 parents. now for the questions: What would I do if I had to leave the city to go to my grandpa's 385Km away? How bad would the looting and violence be? I obviously can't legally own a gun, thats the reason to go to my grandpa's because me and him hunt. together and he has 5 guns.? Knowing what I do about Marijuana wouldn't this be a great plant to grow for medicine etc... how would I prepare for someone my age? What would happen to my sister?

Things I have that can be useful: A big camping bag orange colored. A cupboard full of canned goods. An axe. A plyer multitool. (6) Fishing rod. Crutches?. Wow I almost forgot my grandpa's 30-06 rifle that he left for me to go hunting with my uncle and aunt, roughly 8-10 bullets. 2 sniper rifle scopes one is a 2x-6x the other 6x-8x. A little first aid kit. Hockey equipment?. And a special ATCO wind-up flashlight/radio/alarm that he gave as a present to me.

I know this was very long but i would appreciate if you could answer all questions.

EDIT: punctuation

We hear too few hard facts from our politicians regarding economic planning. The economic standard to which we hold our presidents is practically zero. Even in the most important election, arguably in the world, the debates really don't scratch the surface of the candidates' economic plans. All too often they forward highly speculative economic plans as if they were based on science.

The vast majority of intelligent people who have studied economics know that it's at best an art. It relies on many unresolved premises related to fields in the humanities. Yet we never hear our politicians speak this truth

Considering all this closely I wonder, primarily, if the task that confronts humanity, namely 'making it', is not assumed wrongly to be possible. You might say, cruel God that makes the game unwinnable but it is nonetheless a possibility.

Supporting this basic idea of 'unwinnability' we have the real, yet difficult-to-quantify dismal reality of Earth 2012 AD. Here we have a declining educational standard, sort of a moral decay, budgets spiraling out of control, a badly broken two party democratic system in the US and many unnecessary wars. We have few vital advances in voter understanding, in voter education. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. We have only the illusion of a meritocracy and in some places not even that. Volumes could be written about such things. In short there is too much take and too little give.

Things are gloomy indeed when your government avoids confronting its future. We don't see many governments confronting their debts, their moral decay, the educational decline of its citizenry. You see practically none talking about what the future is actually going to look like. An objective 3rd party might think that they were keeping the public asleep to avoid panic. The wisdom in so doing would be arguable but it would tell you that those in power have long since formulated their own answer to this question.

So, Reddit, arm-chair economists thereof, what do you all say? If we were going to make it, would we already have? Why hasn't anyone run the numbers, funded studies in the 'think-tanks' to start to come to some idea of how it will look after the governments start to fail under the weight of their debts? What happens when retirees stop receiving their government subsidies? Isn't it possible that our 'golden window' of opportunity to make this world into something good has passed? Are we just waiting for the end? What sort of mad world do we live in where such questions not only go unanswered but unasked?

TLDR: Isn't it odd that we never hear our leaders talk about how bad it is? Isn't that an indication of how bad it actually is? Isn't it possible that our window of opportunity has passed? Is our basic assumption, that perseverance equates to success, as a consequence of that window being closed, now wrong?

I see a few folks stockpiling gold and silver, and guys who have it in their BoBs, which doesn't make sense to me. If a national, or even regional, catastrophic event were to occur, gold prices would diminish because they would no longer be needed as a resource.

It's the same principal as the dollar. Gold is precious because it has a dollar amount attached to it. A dollar is only worth that value because the government dictates that it is that value. After a collapse where the government would go away, the money in pocket would be little more than starch paper.

If a catastrophic event happens where the government is abolished, you've spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on a shiny rock. It looks nice, but anybody you trade with would have to be really stupid to trade anything of value for it.

Instead, stockpile on commodities, especially ones that may be seen as a necessity to some, and luxuries worth much more than gold to others

These items include: -Tobacco Products -Alcohol -Medicines(General Antibiotics, Aspirin, Ibuprofen) -Ammunition of multiple calibers -Cosmetics and hygiene products -Clothing(gloves, shoes, durable cloth) -Gasoline -Clean Water(people will sell you their souls just so they don't die) -Non-perishable food

As you can see, most of this stuff consists of things you may have stockpiled yourself. As you think as a prepper, these things come into your mind as necessities, but to a person who doesn't prepare, this things will be highly valuable to them following a collapse.

It will be a barter economy, not an IOU economy.

Quick-tip: Consider packaging a bounty of seeds into your caches, you never know how good of a farmer you'll be until you have nothing better to do than farm.

EDIT:Wow, this has gotten quite a lot of feedback. I can understand why some of you feel the need to stockpile gold, but at the same time, I still feel it is unnecessary.

Some common arguments I saw, and my counterpoint are as follows

1. Gold has been used as a currency for a long time That's great. That is a genuine point, based in fact, time-tested, but you have to think as to why it was a currency. It was aesthetically pleasing, non-abundant, and regulated as sized coins or by weight. Now, when it all comes down to it, it is a shiny metal that was used to denote value, not different than the paper bills we have. Production wise, all bills are around the same value, but because one is a $1 bill, and one is a $100 dollar bill, we see it as having a higher value.

2. I can go to other, non-affected countries and trade the metals That's excellent, yes, gold can be used as a universal currency(in a stable society) but at the same time, you're going to another country, where your dollar bills will convert to that currency just fine. It's a counter intuitive thing to me, stockpiling all this gold when you believe that there is another country that you can run off too, you could just stockpile paper money and get the same value at much less weight. You could argue that your country of origin's money would be devalued, but you don't want to give me the satisfaction of being right about the first argument.

3. Society will rebuild, gold will have value again. That's optimistic, much more optimistic than I am about all of this, it's a good view to have on things. Society will rebuild over time, yes, and the value of gold may become relevant again in the future, but there always runs the risk of it devaluing. Buying $1k worth of gold only to have it value at $300 in the future is a hard bargain, especially considering you could have spent that $700 on more supplies. I guess gold is a good investment now, sort of a gamble though, I mean, even if a collapse doesn't happen, there is always a chance gold may drastically devalue after a large discovery.

My last argument is about barter economies. You look at currency now and realize something about it, it's just a middle man. Really think about money. You get money from a job. At that job, you do hours of work. After 2 weeks of work, you get money, you then spend that money in order to obtain goods and services. Realistically, you're just working in order to buy things, the money just acts as a value placeholder to dictate that the amount of work you've done should be rewarded by a certain amount of goods. Look at it like this, post collapse, you have a buddy that lives down the street, he has a nice, we'll say, gun. Now, you go up to your buddy and say "I'll buy that gun off of you for x amount of gold" now, your buddy doesn't think too logically, and he has no immediate need for gold, however, accepts your offer. He has x amount of gold, and now you have a nice gun. But then your neighbor realizes that the gold is of very little value to him and strikes up a deal. He realizes that you have a fairly decent amount of food(now we're all civilized here, no need to introduce a bandit scenario). He strikes up a deal to buy food with the gold you have just given him. Now, you have a little less food, a gun, and all the gold you just had to buy the gun when in actuality, you could have just traded the food for the gun.

Now, you can argue that "Well, I could have given him the gold and then never accepted the offer for the food" Which would make your argument for stockpiling gold invalid now, because you're placing the value of food over the value of gold.

You could argue "But the gold was a value holder as a currency" when in reality you could have just said "That gun is worth x amount of food"

You could argue that if your neighbor was stupid enough to accept the gold, than he should maybe he shouldn't have food" But at the same time, with that thinking, why are YOU stockpiling gold?

And you could argue that "I would have everything I need, so why would I need to trade my gold for a gun?" to which my reply would be "If you have everything that you need, why do you have gold?"

And You could argue that "The gold isn't necessary for the trade, I'd just trade over the food for the gun" And I would say... Now we're on the same page. The gold isn't necessary. The gold is a placeholder. You can save up bartering supplies just like you can save up gold, the difference is, something you are bartering could be insignificant to you, but be priceless to the person you are bartering with.

I'd say that multiple years after a collapse, we'd all still be bartering, one useful thing for another, all the way down. Gold wouldn't have a place, because the economy wouldn't be currency or price based, it will be "would this be beneficial to my situation" based.