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Preparedness for when

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  • GreyQueen
    GreyQueen Posts: 13,008 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Karmacat wrote: »
    Very, very interesting about intelligence/psychopathy in relation to terrorists - I hadn't quite thought that through ... thanks all.
    :) I've been thinking about it for some time, in relation to prepping/ surviving in temporary or semi-permanant lawlessness.

    Some people are wired to be indifferent to the rights, needs, sufferings of others. This age calls that psychopathy. Other ages might have called it evil. If you have no inbuilt brakes on your behaviour, you may have enough commonsense not to do certain things because a civilised society will punish you severely for them, and you don't want that.

    But when civilised society is temporarily or permanantly in abeyance, why not do whatever you wanted to do, if there was little chance of getting caught and punished? Scary thoughts.

    :eek: We're having a colourful weekend at Shoebox Towers, with a lot of Police activity and a neighbour running amok and threatening to kill people. Statements have been taken and no doubt our long-suffering housing officer will be hearing all about it come Monday morning. By co-incidence, I had done my usual McCavity act and wasn't here when it all went Pete Tong. A lot to be said for allotmenteering.
    Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
    John Ruskin
    Veni, vidi, eradici
    (I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
  • nuatha
    nuatha Posts: 1,932 Forumite
    GreyQueen wrote: »
    :) I've been thinking about it for some time, in relation to prepping/ surviving in temporary or semi-permanant lawlessness.

    Some people are wired to be indifferent to the rights, needs, sufferings of others. This age calls that psychopathy. Other ages might have called it evil. If you have no inbuilt brakes on your behaviour, you may have enough commonsense not to do certain things because a civilised society will punish you severely for them, and you don't want that.

    But when civilised society is temporarily or permanantly in abeyance, why not do whatever you wanted to do, if there was little chance of getting caught and punished? Scary thoughts.
    Society has a long history of them rising to near the top and being used for the benefit of those who control society.
    I suspect that things wont change much in that respect if we have a breakdown in civilisation, the crud will still rise to the top and control a more brutal, smaller scale, version of "society."

    :eek: We're having a colourful weekend at Shoebox Towers, with a lot of Police activity and a neighbour running amok and threatening to kill people. Statements have been taken and no doubt our long-suffering housing officer will be hearing all about it come Monday morning. By co-incidence, I had done my usual McCavity act and wasn't here when it all went Pete Tong. A lot to be said for allotmenteering.

    Being a McCavity is a very useful prepping skill.
    mardatha wrote: »
    Human nature is a bu**er isn't it lol - the world would be fine without us!

    It will. However it will be a very different place. There is a lot of good in human nature, which is far too easy to overlook.
  • moneyistooshorttomention
    moneyistooshorttomention Posts: 17,940 Forumite
    edited 28 June 2015 at 11:01AM
    GreyQueen wrote: »

    Years ago, a random conversation with a thoughtful friend after one of the mass random shootings revealed that she and I had very different views. She could accept (in theory) being murdered randomly by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What was unacceptable to her is that an individual could know her and hate her enough to kill her.

    I was of the reverse opinion, in that if you're prepared to kill me, it'd better the hell be personal, and you better have the b***s to look me in the face whilst doing it. Being cut down in a hail of bullets/ blown up as part of someone else's conflict isn't acceptable to me. Not that anyone gets asked, of course.

    .

    By and large - I go for the killing would have to be "personal" as you say GQ. I would simply refuse pointblank to go and kill a stranger just because my Government/A.N. Other said I should. The answer would be "You want someone killed - then you go and do your own dirty work mate".

    However, I can see that IF there was good evidence that one particular individual was some sort of threat to Society as a whole (eg major drug-dealer/gone on a personal killing rampage caused by being literally mad/etc) then I could quite calmly shoot and kill them with one clinically-done "get rid of the problem" shot. No "going nuts" and going in for cruelty type way - but just a clinical shot straight through head or heart to ensure they couldn't be a problem to Society any longer. I would have to have been given very good evidence about that particular individual to prove that was what they deserved - but, if I had that evidence, then I wouldn't lose a moments sleep about having "solved the problem".

    At a "personal" level - then...yep...if it got "personal" it would be no holds barred territory and I would have feelings about it (as in being very angry that anyone had driven me to do that to them).

    EDIT: If I were "wrong time and wrong place" and that caused me problems - my own personal reaction wouldn't be to think "one of those things" or to get angry with Society or the like. I would be telling myself off for not being "sensitive" enough to my vibes to get the hell outa Dodge (or avoid Dodge in the first place). My mother would have been dead many years ago if she hadn't avoided a Major Danger scenario that happened VERY soon after she had "listened to vibes and got a move on". People were killed and injured - but she was well on her way safely. To date - I've followed in her footsteps and no longer even question why I take it into my head to go one way, rather than another, or the like. I just adjust my course if I can - whether I've got a thing going on in my head "screaming" at me to get a move on (as has happened and it proved to be for a very good reason) or just taken a vague fancy to taking one road, rather than another. So - yep = purely and simply I would regard it as my fault if I got "caught out".
  • maryb
    maryb Posts: 4,718 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    I worked in London all through the IRA campaigns and I learned a trick or two. Firstly if anything happens they will shut down the trains. You may get turfed off any train you are on and be left in the middle of nowhere. Everyone will try and get a bus going in the direction of their destination.

    Cross the road and get the bus going the other way for a few stops. Then get on the bus going in your direction. You will be one of only a handful to actually get on the first bus.

    Second if you hear an explosion, get out and get home. (Certainly don't pay any attention to tannoy announcements to stay at your desk - if necessary say you are going for a ciggy/coffee)

    I was at an after work event near Bishopsgate when the Baltic Exchange bomb went off. The room went very quiet, then people started showing sang-froid and carried on talking. I downed my drink and headed straight for the station. I got across one of the bridges just as the police arrived to cordon it off. This was sufficiently far from where the bomb went off that it was unlikely to be the scene of another bomb planted to catch people fleeing the first explosion, and it was not where the big targets were but the police were clearly going to shut down everything. I checked with colleagues the next morning and most of them did not get home until after midnight because of the disruption
    It doesn't matter if you are a glass half full or half empty sort of person. Keep it topped up! Cheers!
  • GreyQueen
    GreyQueen Posts: 13,008 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    :( I remember talking to a former housemate whose family lives in N Ireland, in that city of the controversial naming. He's a few years older than me and was there in the height of the Troubles.

    He was nonchalantly telling me about how you had to try to work out how close the blast (and any subsequent blasts) were/ were likely to be, because it affected which way the glass blew (inwards or outwards) and thus which way you should run.

    A vile trick is to place a secondary bomb where terrified people will be running from the primary bomb. If you have been in a blast, and are walking wounded/ unhurt but terrified, it might be best to try and stay put, rather than run, as the incident may not be over.

    SuperGran tells me that the neighbour who was running amok yesterday has been cautioned by the police and told to stay indoors. CID are also going around the neighbourhood, even late at night, waking people up and asking them if they've seen X, Y or Z person. She's phlegmatic about it, as CID don't give a monkey's about doorknocking at midnight if they want to ask you something.
    Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
    John Ruskin
    Veni, vidi, eradici
    (I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
  • CRANKY40
    CRANKY40 Posts: 5,913 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Debt-free and Proud! Name Dropper
    I was trying to explain the Tunisian attack to a 10 year old. The best I could come up with was to tell him to imagine Hitler's ideals but instead of a person waiting until he had a whole load of people willing to do as he said and do his dirty work for him, just striking out on his own killing as many people who he thought were spoiling his world as he could before he was caught and killed (we've had a lot of Hitler conversations because they covered that at school this year).

    I find it reassuring that at this point in time my small son cannot envisage that there could be a reason for such actions that doesn't involve mental health disorders.
  • Frugalsod
    Frugalsod Posts: 2,966 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary Combo Breaker
    maryb wrote: »
    I worked in London all through the IRA campaigns and I learned a trick or two. Firstly if anything happens they will shut down the trains. You may get turfed off any train you are on and be left in the middle of nowhere. Everyone will try and get a bus going in the direction of their destination.

    Cross the road and get the bus going the other way for a few stops. Then get on the bus going in your direction. You will be one of only a handful to actually get on the first bus.

    Second if you hear an explosion, get out and get home. (Certainly don't pay any attention to tannoy announcements to stay at your desk - if necessary say you are going for a ciggy/coffee)

    I was at an after work event near Bishopsgate when the Baltic Exchange bomb went off. The room went very quiet, then people started showing sang-froid and carried on talking. I downed my drink and headed straight for the station. I got across one of the bridges just as the police arrived to cordon it off. This was sufficiently far from where the bomb went off that it was unlikely to be the scene of another bomb planted to catch people fleeing the first explosion, and it was not where the big targets were but the police were clearly going to shut down everything. I checked with colleagues the next morning and most of them did not get home until after midnight because of the disruption

    That would show the necessity to keep some basic kit in the office. A sleeping bag and a sleeping pad would mean that you sleep well. If you are really organised and keep some dried meals in the bag then you could rehydrate food for several days or for a number of people earning you lots of brownie points at the same time.

    If you had it as part of a get home bag then should you need to walk home then you have the basics to walk it even it if takes more than a day or so.
    It's really easy to default to cynicism these days, since you are almost always certain to be right.
  • Crikey GQ at the thought of CID on the doorstep at midnight. I would admit to not being as calm about it as SuperGran - best voice and best grammar would be brought into play and there would be A Complaint to On High.

    Admits to astonishment that any innocent law-abiding person would put up with that. Emergencies (ie your own) are a different matter.

    The police came round calling unexpectedly on me at one point years back - about me protesting about them - and got sent off with a distinct flea in ear. Whilst they were there - another load of protests about police were delivered...:rotfl:
  • herbily
    herbily Posts: 280 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    I know not everyone has a TV, but there was a good Belgian drama series that started last night on BBC4 called "Cordon" about an outbreak of killer flu in Antwerp. The area of the outbreak was cordoned off, leaving a lot of people trapped. and initially told the cordon was only for 48 hours. More episodes next week - it's the typical BBC4 trick of showing 2 instalments per week.


    It made me think quite a lot about what would happen if I was cordoned off while at work, leaving pets at home
  • greenbee
    greenbee Posts: 17,837 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    GreyQueen wrote: »
    ing amok yesterday has been cautioned by the police and told to stay indoors. CID are also going around the neighbourhood, even late at night, waking people up and asking them if they've seen X, Y or Z person. She's phlegmatic about it, as CID don't give a monkey's about doorknocking at midnight if they want to ask you something.

    Before I moved I was on first name terms with the community officers and CID due to my delightful neighbours. And no, they don't care if they have to wake you up at stupid o'clock to find out what you may or may not have seen or heard.

    My friends were always a little alarmed by the fact that the police seemed to know me so well when we were out and about locally :cool: but the twice-daily patrol past the house did at least make me pretty confident that I was unlikely to be burgled while I was away...
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