NaughtyWombat, I would like to ask first one question: How do you define a prepper? Because you said putting aside a few stuff wasn't being a prepper but preparing for an event was being a prepper. BUT aren't you putting away stuff for a potential event? That makes one a non-prepper-prepper based on your definition.
Do you own a gun and a large number of bullets? Isn't that prepping for an event? You are also preparing for an event that someone might enter your house, threaten your family.... then following your definition, you are also being a pessimist because you are preparing for that event by owning a gun and bullets, then that makes you a prepper, again by your own definition, which makes you also a "Pessimist Prepper", again by your own definition....
1) Have you ever had to sit on top of the roof for 12 hours during a hurricane because floods were 2.5 meters deep that rose in just 15 minutes holding your one-year old child in your arms who hasn't had a drink of water or food to eat because you had to rush to the top of the roof.
2) Have you had to survive for two weeks on food you ask from people, water from the rain, because you weren't prepared?
3) Have you had a major injury during a disaster yet had to wait for 4 days to go to the nearest medical mission that was about 4 miles away?
I will answer you, I have! Am I a pessimist prepper? No, why? That major flooding (and I am talking the whole metropolis consisting of 22 cities and municipalities) was again repeated 3 years after.
When that flooding came (this was actually last year 2012), there was no food nor water available in the groceries and anywhere.... What saved us for the 6 days of no food and no water were my supplies.
In a major southern island, due to a major typhoon, people in a whole province had no access to food/water/medical services for 4.5 months. In case you will say I just read it in the news, my buddy prepper here who heads the Army Reservists in the South and is in charge of all rescue efforts told me this.
Now I ask, is this a pessimist prepper?
If you haven't been there and always stayed in a glass house with all its glitter and shine, you wouldn't be able to understand. But beware of that day when that glass house comes crashing down on you... Do I hear "enough to kill me instantly"?
You said that "I can only hope the damage from the volcanic eruption, nuclear bomb or solar flare is great enough to kill me instantly". What would you do if it didn't? Are you going to take the coward's way out? What about your family? Your kids?
If you kill yourself because you can't hack it.... I pity your family.... Unless you would be putting them out of their misery too... Now that, in any one's perspective, is definitely wrong....
In my country nowadays, whenever the rainy seasons come, we are told by our government to prepare for potential disasters like setting aside enough food, water, communications, etc. for the family to last for a week. So does that mean that our government is telling us to become pessimist preppers?
Did you know that the US Government is also stockpiling a lot of food, water, ammo, etc. "in the event of" a major disaster. Why not tell them that they are the "Pessimist Preppers" who are "playing out some sort or childhood fantasy" and "seem to get off on the idea that they possess some sort of secret knowledge that the rest of the world is ignorant to"?
On various items like Solar Flares/EMP, it has happened several times:
In 1859, what was to become known as the Carrington Effect.
The major solar flare that erupted on Aug. 4, 1972 knocked out long-distance phone communication across some states, including Illinois, according to a NASA account. "That event, in fact, caused AT&T to redesign its power system for transatlantic cables," NASA wrote in the account.
March 13, 1989 Canada experienced a major disruption of electricity for 9 hours
July 14, 2000, The Bastille Day event caused some satellites to short-circuit and led to some radio blackouts. It remains one of the most highly observed solar storm events and was the most powerful flare since 1989.
October 28, 2003, an X45 Class Solar Flare was detected but did not hit Earth. This was part of 9 Major Solar Flares at the time.
Dec. 5, 2006, it registered a powerful X9 on the space weather scale. This storm from the sun "disrupted satellite-to-ground communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals for about 10 minutes," according to a NASA description. The sun storm was so powerful it actually damaged the solar X-ray imager instrument on the GOES 13 satellite that snapped its picture, NOAA officials said.
May 13-14, 2013, X3.2 Class SF were detected but did not hit the Earth directly. Effects included slight disruption of communications
If you think we don't have fun and just simply live in fear, that is one of the biggest misconceptions you can make. I live a normal life like everyone, have fun, go to the beach, have vacations....
And have a very positive view of life....
The reason we prep is because life is good and beautiful and we want to be ready in case anything happens that may disrupt it and be able to go on living.... God/Allah/Yaweh/Jehovah (whatever you want to call HIM) gave us this life, we have No right to just take what He has given us away, just because we don't want to be ready...
A little word of advise, choose wisely what you watch on TV, "Doomsday Preppers" makes preppers look bad. I should know firsthand the way media twists some things, I was interviewed on local TV on disaster prepping last December but they made it appear that I believed in the Mayan Prophecy...
PS: Clyde, sorry for the long post....
