Prepping is Not Based on Fear
Kevin Felts 04.28.17
Awhile back, someone posted a comment on one of my YouTube videos that stated, “Prepping is based on fear.”
The comment made me take a step back and look at why I prep. What are the reasons why someone would spend time and money on prepping?
The honest truth is, prepping is based on genetics, history, and current events.
Genetics
Looking at the big picture, humanity is only a few generations from a hunter-gatherer society. Agriculture and animal husbandry were only developed around 10,000 years ago. Using Anthropology and archaeology we know our ancestors faced periods of starvation. Those periods of starvation were imprinted on our genes.
For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors did not know when their next meal would be. Their daily lives were based on following the herds, hunting, foraging, and fishing.
It was not until the innovation of modern canning processes, irrigation, and commercial fertilizer that we had a reliable food supply.
We cannot go 100,000 years wondering when our next meal will be, to suddenly not worrying about food in just a few generations. This may explain why we have an obesity epidemic, overeating, and sugar laden foods.
History
Throughout our history there have been events resulting in great numbers of people dying. Sometimes this was caused by famine, sometimes disease, sometimes for political reasons.
A few examples:
- 26 BC – Famine of Judea, estimated 20,000 dead.
- Plague of Justinian (541–542) – Estimated 25 million – 50 million dead.
- 1348 – 1350 – Black Death, estimated 1/3 of Europe dead. It took an estimated 300 years for the population of Europe to return to pre-plague levels.
- 1665 – 1666 – Great Plague of London, estimated 100,000 dead.
- An estimated 90% of Native Americans died from European diseases. Entire tribes and cultures were decimated.
- 1918 flu pandemic – An estimated 50 million – 100 million dead.
Common sense tells us that it is just a matter of time before humanity faces another Black Death level event.
Climate change: The Inca Empire and the Aztecs faced long periods of drought. The lack of food caused social unrest.
Man made: Holodomor, an estimated 7 million to 10 million people were starved to death under Soviet policies.
Current Events
World War I, 1918 flu pandemic, The Great Depression, World War II, The Cold War, 1968 flu pandemic, Chernobyl, the Swine flu outbreak of 2009, the entire 20th century was filled with reasons to be prepared.
The world health organization is telling us the next big one might be another flu epidemic, maybe bird flu.
Rather than a disease taking months to spread from nation to nation, with modern transportation, it could take only a few hours.
Rogue nations such as North Korea, who threaten world peace, are another example.
Realistic Prepping
Prepping is based on historical and current events.
When a new disease arrives, it could take the science community months, years, or even decades to develop a vaccine.
Something I hear from time to time, “Do not worry about a new disease, because scientists can develop a vaccine.”
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was discovered in the early 1980s. Here we are in 2017 and we still do not have a vaccine. Some vaccines are beyond our current level of technology.
From the HIV example, there is no guarantee scientist will be able to develop a vaccine for a new disease.
Those are the reasons why I maintain a certain degree of readiness.
