Picking a post collapse community like it or not starts with who you associate with now, and it might not be as cut and dry as some people make it out to be. Your friends now could easily become your enemy’s or a threat to your survival in the future. There are just too many variables to say that this or that is exactly how your community is going to be set up in a post collapse world.
Any group we belong to regardless of what it’s based around has its good and bad points, and is constantly evolving and changing. Even with church groups or work groups there are great members of the group and there are some “not so great” members…but none the less they are members.
I was taught a while ago that with any community of group you have the 20/60/20 rule. You have 20% of a group that are the leaders, you have 60% of a group that are followers and the final 20% are just turds. The trick with any group is to make sure that the 60% don’t follow the turds and the top 20% are the leaders you want in place. If you can pull this off you might have a pretty well rounded community.
What category do you fall into?
Throughout life we choose who we associate with, in high school we hung around people with similar interests, even today we choose a church or social group that aligns with our beliefs and ideals. In every group there are people who don’t fit in and therefor don’t last long, and there are people that stick around and hold the group together.
The same will hold true in a post collapse community, only magnified. We will need to decide on who we let into our community, and if that turns into a bad decision, we need to decide how to remove them from the community.
Some of us have enough supplies to be able to last on our own for months or years before we need to reach out to others, and some of us might not be able to last a month on our own. Eventually though we are going to need to rebuild and rebuilding takes a group.
If everything were to go down the toilet tomorrow here are some of the things I would think about when I was deciding what my plan of action was for picking who I was going to associate with.
Remove the bad apples
After a while people who have survived will be the type of people you are looking for, but in the beginning stages of any catastrophic event you are going to need to be on high alert for everyone, including your friends and acquaintances. The people that you think are the ones you can trust could very well be the ones that rob you blind or even worse.
Another thing to consider is that unless you plan on bugging out, your friends and neighbors will be there like it or not, and you will need to make some hard decisions about who you decide to associate with.
This is a good rule to live by even now, who we choose to associate with says a lot about we you are and who people think we are.
Look in your address book and ask yourself how many of those people will be calling you if the SHTF? And how many of those people will you be trying to avoid? The odds are that you only have a handful of people (not including family) that might be a benefit to you in a SHTF situation, the rest could pose a threat to you and your family.
Categorize your contacts
Here is how I have recently dissected my list of contacts…
The Fake Prepper: This is the person that says one thing to your face but when you are not around they are the one calling you a conspiracy theorist doomsdayer. This person might also only act like your friend now because they think that a friendship with you might benefit them somehow in the future. This is the same person that says “I know where I’m going if the SHTF”
This person will definitely be a threat to you unless they find someone else to prey on first. Start working on removing these people from your life now before you get that knock on the door “Hey buddy! How’s it going?”
The Well Intentioned: This type of person probably thinks of you as a true friend, this could be the person that see’s the problems in the world but doesn’t take them serious enough because “That’s never going to happen” or they are just too afraid to see the truth that is staring them right in the face.
Be careful of this type of person, they could go one of two ways in a disaster scenario. They could be one of the people freaking out and doing whatever it takes to survive, or they could turn into someone that will have your back when you need it.
The Deceiver: Most of us choose not to associate with these types of people, but these could be contacts from work or someone you met through a friend. This person it the “turd” I was talking about.
This type of person concerns me the most because this is the person you invite over for dinner and you feel like they are casing your house. They ask questions like “Great T.V.! How much did that put you back?” This is probably the person that calls and you say “DON’T ANSWER THAT!” But in a post collapse situation it won’t be a phone call, they will be at your front door.
The Survivor: Hopefully this is you and I, and hopefully we will make a few of these friends before we are put in any sort of disaster situation. And as I said before, this is the type of person you want to associate with, this person is more likely to survive long term.
Your post collapse community
We will be able to choose some people in our group and just like today some people will be there until we figure out how to remove them from the group without causing bigger problems. I think the choices we make about the roles people play in these groups might be a bigger factor than the members themselves.
Pack animals form groups because there is protection in numbers, if a wolf tried to hunt down an elk by itself it probably wouldn’t survive very long, but in a pack they can coordinate their efforts and increase their odds of survival.
In the beginning stages we might need to play the hand we were dealt, we will need to work on making the pack we currently have a stronger pack.
This article from GrayWolfSurvival.com does a great job of explaining how to read people. Knowing how to read people and knowing when someone like the “deceiver” we talked about earlier is trying to gain your trust might be the difference between having a group that others want to join, or having a group that needs to join another stronger group.
Nothing is going to be as cut and dry as we would like it to be, there will be tough situations that challenge the group. There will be members who you thought were going to be strong additions to the group that turn into a liability and vice versa, someone in the group that you thought was going to be a “turd” could turn into someone that might save your life.
To insure the integrity and longevity of the group I think that the rules should be laid out very clearly and very early because everyone need to know the consequences of their actions and they need to be able to choose whether this is the right group for them, or if they should just move on.
Like it or not there is going to have to be some sort of governance or leadership roles set up in the group, but this doesn’t mean the leaders make the decisions. Bradley wrote a great comment below about how this might be set up.
Decisions will need to be made by the entire group about adding members. What will you do when a stranger comes along? What will you do with the members who don’t feel like they need to follow the rules?
Adding people to your group will also depend on your resources, will they add to your group? Or will they weaken the group? What skills do they possess and are they willing to teach others to benefit the community?
At some point or another a community is going to be necessary, and like it or not the people you associate with now will either come to you with their hand out, or come to you and say “well you were right, so now what so we do?”
Just like building a house, you might start with a pile of wood and some nails, but eventually you get rid of those bent nails and broken boards and have a home that will protect you and sustain you as long as it’s standing.
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
– Jim Rohn
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6 replies to "Will your friend become your enemy?"
Comment By Bradley:
Speaking from a Canadian point of view we operate a little differently than the American top down authority structure, this (in my opinion) is a bit more protective from authority getting out of hand.
In any small or large group there usually is an unofficial ‘leader’ who either emerges or ‘appoints’ him/herself to lead…so to speak. Now (again, in my opinion) as we all have found out this can work out,but it also can be disastrous with ego misplacing wisdom.
I feel elected leaders with terms and only one vote amongst the ‘counselors’ who would also be elected for terms. This ‘leadership’ would initiate the contracts and regulations/rules of the day-day goings on of the community, make the tough decisions but leaving the life & death, voting a member out or in to a vote from the whole ‘community’. 3 strike rules should apply with only reasonable exceptions and this would apply to even the ‘leader/s’.
Recall/Responsibility/Review by piers will enable/empower each leader but also embody a healthy sense of ‘respectful fear’ for their office. Lead by example in all things from scrubbing toilets/latrines to the discipline of health conditioning and character. I am of the belief in the principle of duplication.
This is the art of “working oneself out of a job”, everybody should be responsible for training others within the group their ‘specialty’ skills. And everybody needs to train,train, train in defensive/offensive arts, weapons,hand to hand, camouflage, hunting, evasion, snares/traps.
These are just some outstanding points that (in my opinion) should belong within an after TEOTWAWKI situation. Hope this stirs/stimulates some grey matter. Cheers
Comment By Heather:
I would say have some sort of community guidelines in print and signed by the original community members. As members are added (or possibly die/decide to leave) their names can be crossed off. Clear rules as to who is in charge of what – security, food, most medically knowledgeable, etc.
How will you decide to add members, by vote or the leaders decision alone? If only the leader can make some decisions, how can the others challenge that decision? If a member decides to leave, what supplies will they be allowed to take?
If there is a member that needs to be kicked out, who makes that decision and what guidelines will be followed to determine cause?
This is a good article. The solution we have thought through and have applied is this.
We have a secured self sustaining location which came to pass at a great cost. We also need others to join to make in function in a crisis event.
We profile and vet everyone and to keep things fair everyone has the very same list they need to fill out for each person. Also each person must be a sold out prepper. Their mentality towards this is critical along with what is good for the group out weights what is good for the individual.
We measure a preppers self drive AND ability to prep by what is both in their pile of stuff and in their wallet. Sorry folks but building a secondary alternate life insurance policy is very expensive. Our policy require one full years worth of food, clothing, TP, all meds and many other things suited to this location. If an item does not apply to them then we confirm and skip it.
That is the minimum requirement level to even get to first base here. What is in your stack of stuff speaks more clearly to us than what comes out of your mouth and or your good intentions. If you don’t have the full year then get back to us when you do….
Next upon getting one full year done… the wallet part really comes in because you must go to THREE years with no gaps and do it within 6-8 months 100%. Period. When we have an new member qualify both we and they know we are good for a long time. Long enough to start growing and raising yet more food and supplies. No one needs to start feeding others within the group and we combine or all chip in for meals so if we run out of food we do so all on the same day. However all your stuff remains your personal property and no one touches it.
We do not play the head game of trading skills and service for food and shelter… Why? because each fully stocked member here will be working the same long hours 24/7/365 and so would the person wanting to trade. So after we all put in the same 14-16 just like you did why should be then feed you? Feed yourself like we will be doing. Otherwise how about we all just not prep and just group together and stand watch and come to dinner and ask what in the pot today? My answer is the soup is made of hot water and good intentions….
We absolutely will not work with non-preppers or under prepped people. Tough love but then again how much do you love yourself. That might be answered by how large your stack of stuff really is. Do you love yourself for two weeks of food? Two months? Three years with the ability to produce more or until things begin to get better again?
You can not afford to prep that much? No worries we are just not your huckleberry….
Friendships
I believe that this will be stressed relation between the parties.
Family
Will be one of the most trusted relations. And only for those that recognize and respect it.
Partnerships
Partnerships will be what it will boil down to. Both parties will gain what is desired for that moment.
This is how see it. Post SHTF, there is no law and everyone will be vulnerable. Trust will be miniscule since initial trust was violated. The majority of the population will be needy since they didn’t see this coming. They are the 60%. The ones that never cared for the law are the turds the 20%. And the first 20%. (Leaders are not that great in numbers I would guess 2% of the 20%. The 20% breaks down to Leaders (2% of 20%) Preppers (50% of the 20%) and Optimists (48% of the 20%)
Followers, Victims, Needy, Pessimists are not to be trusted.
Turds, Those who don’t care for rules are not to be trusted.
My impression is a simple one. Not much can go wrong with things being simple. When the SHTF moment impacts the population. Consider this.
What would you do to feed your starving child.
What would you do to provide care to a family member.
The answer is simple. Anything.
You don’t know what your friends ‘anything’ encompasses much less those knocking on your door
So being the simple person that I am there will be trust in my family. All parties that are not family are outside the circle of trust. Partnerships will gain limited trust since all parties will gain. And over a period of time in the Post SHTF limited trust will be gained through many partnerships.
But your life and your families life is not one gamble with.
Hungry people are dangerous people.
i think that intell we live it we wont understand what will happen they want to lead bad deshions can kill the holl grupe and most people will look out for number one or turn there bake on you when you need help if they treat me like im a ascet then i will stay if not i will go but im skilled a most things and wont follow a fool
I like the information very much. It is a good site for some great discourse. I believe that those percentages given to good,bad,&ugly is that generality of terms etc. When shtf hits then your decisions are made. I’m sure everyone has considerations for multiplication of the wheel of fortune or unfortunate. Yes , hard decisions will also be made daily as fubar gets worse. That bug out bag is an essential to escape overpowering force. Even us macho jarheads knows when you live to fight another day. I , personally would make the hard choices. My county is rural and remote but this seclusion is not a hedge for marauding gangs. I think more information on tricks,traps,self armed, foraging, etc. and the psychology of making a decision correctly is a great topic among a plethora of possibilities for the shtf.
My 2c
Butch