Prepper Myths

The Survivalist Blog recently had a couple articles addressing common prepper myths: the golden horde, without rule of law, shoot first, bugging out to the woods, the safety of the rural retreat, and harvesting wild game for sustenance.

The golden horde is the idea that people will flee from the cities into the countryside to seek food and safety. As the author notes, history tends to show that when countries experience significant economic problems, people actually head to the cities to try and find work. However, I would note that the source of the "golden horde" strategy was with the early survivalist movement that was concerned about nuclear war. Under that scenario, the idea of the "golden horde" has some bases in reality: if there was warning of a nuclear attack, people would be warned to evacuate; and if there had been a widespread nuclear strike, the cities would not offer refuge for survivors. However, on the whole, history does not support the idea of a golden horde. Even when people have fled cities for refuge (such as to avoid bombing during WWII, or to flee outbreaks of the plague), those that have fled have tended to head to known places of refuge, such as to live with relatives. Most people stayed in place because where would they go?

Without rule of law and shoot first assumes a complete breakdown of government and social order. There are plenty of examples of this occurring in Europe in the wake of devastating warfare, such as in the aftermath of the 30-years war and, very briefly, following the end of World War II. It would take a serious war, with the concomitant destruction of travel, freight and communication infrastructure, to produce a widespread WROL situation. The author of the article at Survivalist Blog argues that even if there was a period of WROL, it would be localized and temporary. Likely so, but WROL doesn't necessarily have to apply to everyone--what if the law turned its back on certain members of a community or society? History is replete with populations that lived at peace, and suddenly erupted into ethnic or religious violence, or other pogroms.

Bugging out to the woods is generally laughable ... unless you were the Bielski brothers trying to save fellow Jews from the Nazi death camps.Still, in most situations, it would be unrealistic. And, even in the case of the Bielski's, the refugees still had to "liberate" food from peasant farmers. They did not survive on the "bounty" of the forest.