Amigo wrote:Actually Paaskynen my plan was more based on Pestilence or Global warming. (if that makes any difference).It was a casual one. It would probably be my three life long friends and hiking partners. We didn't really plan for starting a new civilization.
OK, a pestilence scenario (à la first part of "The Stand"?) makes sense in the light of your preparations; isolation is the best short term solution, but how will you avoid contamination after your return (the people who survived the infection may be carriers of the disease).
Global Warming is a very long term scenario, that will probably allow governments to prepare their population for changing circumstances: Rising sea levels, different growing season, extreme weather, the redistrubution of tropical species of both plants and (disease carrying) animals. In certain countries we already see this happening. A collapse of society is less likely.
It all depends on the scenario. I read a survivalist web site the other day about preparing for the Y2K bug. The really had some Doomsday visions of the collapse of urban society and advised people to get out into the country and dig in with their guns and a well-stocked larder. They also predicted that there would be no New Year's parties... There were no entries on the site post 01.01.00, but I got the impression the survivalists must have felt very disappointed when the electronic Armageddon did not materialise.
On the whole the impression I get from survivalist web sites is that the whole survivalism scene is a kind of escapism for grown ups. For some an excuse to collect a substantial battery of firearms, for some a way to dream of an ideal pastoral Christian society (back to basics, living pure like the Amish in a way, but armed to the teeth).
I find it a very interesting phenomenon, because it seems very typically American (At least, I do not know of any such movements outside of the Americas). The European approach is rather to survive as a nation/society/community. Why would the US, which has not seem war rage on its territory since 1899 (and then it was very local massacring of native Americans), have so many people who wish to turn their backs on the achievements of their own democratic society and hole up in a log cabin with a medieval distrust of anyone but their closest neighbours?