2DREZQ

How many people prepare for the hard times?
I do. I always have. I think I understand why:

I was raised that way. I absorbed the idea that part of being a man was being ready. If a blizzard moved in for a few days, if the power went down for several days, if you lost your income for months, you were supposed to be able to eat and feed and protect youself and your own, as well as being ready to reach out to those who were in over their heads.
I remember clearly (I was a teenager) the uncertainty of the late 70's. Our economy was is trouble, we seemed to be in retreat everywhere. Communism was on the march it seemed. Our rights seemed to be shrinking and they would be coming for our guns any day now.
My family didn't retreat into the woods, we made plans for any eventuality we could imagine, short of Nuclear war.
Then things got better.

Now, things are worse again, maybe worse than the Carter years, maybe even worse than the great depression (kind of an oxymoron when you think about it...) I'm almost as ready as I can be. Yet I pray to God I'm wasting my time.
Here's why I fear I'm not wrong:

Mother Nature has a way of correcting things. Violently. Plagues, Supervolcanos and large Meteorite strikes come to mind.

I fear mankind is due for a winnowing process. It may be needed. We lack the will and wisdom to do it, very well. It will be done for us by forces beyond our understanding.

I don't believe it will happen as any sort of retribution for ecological crimes, as so many tree-huggers seem to hope. It might happen because most of humanity is, frankly, "surplus to the needs of the planet". Thin the gene pool back to a billion or two and you haven't really lost anything.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope my faith in God is the real state of affairs. Even if it is (rhetorical use of the word "if"), we aren't off the hook.


We may still be well and truely screwed.

no great depth of thought here, just ruminating.