E-Mail 'The Survival Community's Dirty Little Secrets' To A Friend

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1. This is rampant on the internet in general. Basically, people have learned how to write high-ranking articles, but they need the other part of the SEO magic: a site with a good reputation to at least link to it or link back to whatever they’re shilling with those keywords as the link.

   I will say that writing a book/article will make you reinforce what you “know” and have you go research and verify certain things. I tend to feel more confident in a skill I’ve practiced (be it on the farm or writing code or doing design work) after writing through the steps as if I were speaking to a beginner.

   You did miss one of the best scammy emails, tho: “I just visited your site and wanted to let you know that you could be getting a LOT more traffic if you just let me help you with SEO.” Uh huh. Yup. Buh bye.

2. Every time the preparedness industry heats up, Johnny come lately companies come out of the woodworks and new “authors” with little experience come out of no where.

   This happened again in earnest in the 2006-2008 time period wherein the term “prepper” started being used. Whole boatload of people came about determined to reinvent the wheel because they assumed they were the first to ever think of storing food long term or preparing for bad times. This gave rise to all sorts of cr**py books, websites, blogs, etc. 90% of which were utter garbage. The “new prepper” however could rarely tell the difference between the good and the bad and was sucked in to a great many bad ideas. When there was idiots out there suggesting putting “sheetrock dust” and “lime” in with your storage grains to “help keep long term” those of us that have been around a few decades knew the movement hit a NEW LOW… It took countless hours to reeducate the masses that these ideas were mindless drivel concocted by cheapskates that neither had ever stored food long term previously, nor really assumed things would ever get bad enough to actually NEED the storage food. Being one who’s family has lived off of storage food for a year or more during tight times, I can tell you it’s important not to cut corners.

   Further you had (probably still have) a boat load of new “authors” that gave all sorts of cr**py advice and got their little books published due to the seeming demand for “prepper” books. The epitome being the lady that was giving all kinds of bad advice and then ended the book saying she “began my journey almost two years ago”. Sorry, but if you just got started, you have absolutely no right to write a book. That’s terribly irresponsible and the horrible info in the book proved that.

   So we have to be careful what we read out there. The gullible among us assume everyone is “good people” and if they call themselves “preppers” they are out to help us right?? Not always the case.

   In 31 years of being a survivalist, I’ve seen numerous booms and busts in the industry. The strong weather the storm and stay the course. The Johnny come latelys move on to the next thing, when the boom slows.

3. Isn’t human nature grand!
   My mother used to tell me “if you put 10 people on a desert island with 10 bucks a piece, sooner or later someones going to have 100 bucks”

   1. Ha! The first (and only) time I watched the Survivor series with my wife, I told her if I was a contestant, the morning of day two all the other contestants would have died in their sleep, and I would be the only one standing. She said that was more realistic than what they were pawning off as survival on that show.

4. I treat all unsolicited salesmen like the door to door variety, “If I wanted a product like you are selling I’d research it and call you if your product met my requirements. Now go away”. No matter what form the sales pitch comes from it’s dead on arrival.

5. There is good and bad in almost everything and we have to be careful not to fall into traps. The advantage of age is experience and having lived thru many stupid mistakes. Now I don’t believe anything I read until I am able to triangulate the information using reliable sources.

6. John, Hugh and Pat: Your loyal readers know the standards you adhere to. That’s why we’re here every day. I sometimes read other sites and sometimes pick up useful information, but you’re the gold standard to your readers. Thanks for being the kind of people you are.

7. Personally, I find the booms and busts associated with the self-dependency world refreshing (literally). My lady and I have been walking the path for a whole lot of years. We started back when there was no ‘Big-Prep’, and had to figure out a lot of things for ourselves. We’ve stayed pretty true to that system ever since. The quiet times kill off the hucksters and we continue to support those that have been walking the path with us. One thing that’s for sure; there will be another disaster coming along by and by and the perennially surprised will be back. No matter, we’ll still be here to teach and learn. Merry Christmas to SB and our prayers to you and yours for a safe new year. Don and Patrice

8. THE FALSE COMMUNITY. The false community is conjured by mass media and TV. All types of poseurs appear in a false community fostered simply by a feeling of belong created by viewing a TV show or listening to a radio program. These false communities use luring techniques. DO NOT fall for the traps and snares in life. Take care of your personal business and family needs. Be careful about what you read watch and listen to and work to perceive the agenda of source information. KEEP YOUR HAND on YOUR WALLET.

9. I have been a Survival Blog reader for many years. I do appreciate all the effort you put into “filtering” the things that would degrade it. I have stopped reading other blogs because they have become so political. I would like to read about problems and solutions without the mention of a politicians name or political party. The Survival Blog writers are more restrained in this respect but there exists a clear bias in some articles. Remember the two things that should not be discussed if you don’t want a fight. I really don’t want to hear others “opinion” unless they are knowledgeable in that subject and any mention of politics becomes an opinion. I have a relative that for 8 years said they were coming for his guns and his hate ran deep . It was obvious he was reading the wrong blogs. In an interview JWR said why it would be unlikely to happen. It didn’t happen. Thanks for your all your work.

   1. good points. though given how much politics effects modern life now, sometimes it’s hard not to mention it.

10. People just don’t have the TIME it takes to be a well informed prepper. I have the time because I have a disability that makes it difficult to get a normal job due to safety precautions.

    That also means I don’t have much money. However, I do have knowledge. Now, I haven’t put much of my knowledge to the test, but I’ve absorbed enough information to understand who is talking out their ears and who actually knows what they’re doing.

    One quick example is building your own manual well pump. You can go to “simple pump” and get a well pump for $500-700. Or you can build one out of PVC for $20. If you have the knowledge and spend $20 before the crash, you’ll have a simple and effective well pump.

    However, I do realize that the issue I have is that I don’t have the real world experience, so I seek out multiple people that have done it and verify it’s doable and/or pay attention to the physics of what they’re doing.

    Another example is chopping down a tree. By the time you watch 3-5 videos you can get an idea of what techniques you need to know to chop down a tree. Don’t bet that the first fellow you watched knew what he was doing. Check out several people and take away best practices from all of them. Do you know where to start chopping down a tree, height wise? Do you know what angles you should be using? What pattern of cuts?

    How many people do you know that would rather spend 2-3 hours watching NFL than exploring real world questions and finding answers? Or thinking things through enough to figure out what answers they want to know before the internet vanishes?

    One quick example: Wicks for kerosene lanterns. I found out today that it’s simple and easy to cut blue jeans into strips for wicks for kerosene lanterns. Any cotton material can be used and just sew a few layers together with your manual sewing machine. You have one, don’t you? They’re cheap.

    On the sewing machine- are you mechanically inclined? Do you have the concept of force lodged in your memory? Do you know how much force it takes to break off a 1/4″ bolt with a 1/2-3/8″ socket wrench? How about a 3/8″ bolt? Or a 1/8″ bolt? Things like that can only come from experience. I’ve been a mechanic all my life and grateful for the experience.

    Take something apart and put it back together again. Start with a remote control car. A few electronics around the house. Learn how to use a multimeter to check the resistors if you feel like it. Then move on to a lawnmower. Learn how they work. Check out the valves. If the mower is junk anyway, tear it all the way down and then reassemble it. Start it again and see if it’ll run again after being taken apart and reassembled. Then move on to a car. Stove. Refrigerator.

    There’s so much to learn and the world is a huge place. Please don’t waste your life on TV.

11. I am late to the prepped/survivalist life style, but I really like it and appreciate it and life a lot more now that I’ve found it and I really enjoy ya’lls blog a lot. Thanx to all you participate. Keep up the good work. God Bless.

12. The article regarding the survival community dirty little secrets caught my attention. I remember seeing those articles from the author Angela Williams on another website and thought them childish. It was obvious she had no clue about prepping and regurgitated information from other sources. I’m glad your site sees through these amateurish tactics.

13. You are right about inexperienced people trying to pass themselves off as an expert. I read a story on solar and wind power a couple of weeks ago. After the first few paragraphs I realized they had no clue what they were talking about. It also had links to amazon but the stuff they recommended was junk from china. Probably wouldn’t run 1 light bulb. It’s very frustrating for real preppers to see this kind of ripoff for people that are trying to learn new skills. I’ve had wind and solar power for years ,it works very good but you can’t spend a $100 on amazon and expect good results. Do your research.

14. Interesting, I had just finished reading an article about how one can buy six prepper supplies and forget them because they require no skills to use. I found the article lacking in personal experiences of using these six items by the author. Links to these supplies were also lacking. I suspect the author is one that Hugh is talking about here.
    I do question Hugh’s statement about, “but we never accept payment or free products in exchange for the product exposure”. It seems to me that Pat Casico has mentioned several items being provided to him for a review, and does not mention having purchased all of the items he has reviewed. Hugh, can you provide some clarity on this?

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