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Boiling Frogs

Everyone knows the story that if you put a frog in boiling water it will just jump out. Putting it in cool water and then raising the temperature until it is boiled seems to be the way to cook frogs. I don’t know if that story is true but it seems to fit our situation. We have a status which we may be unhappy with but then it is made slightly worse. Do we do anything about it? No. We just carry on. Then a little bit later it gets just a little bit worse again. The temperature is slowly being turned up. The best example was the fuel blockade. We screamed and shouted and then something was done. Now the fuel costs are well above the value that triggered the blockades but we all sit and do nothing.

It actually makes me wonder if we will ever reach the stage that we will be involved in riots. Maybe those that are having problems with social security payments, those that are being persecuted by the DWP and those that live in inner cities will be the only ones to riot. Mainly because their changes are coming so quickly that they are being heated too quickly to stick to the metaphor. There is little that can be done to slow that down as they are simply running out of money. In the more affluent areas and for those that are in employment then the heat is just turned up a little bit more. We won’t do anything but whine.

How long can we go along like this? There is talk about September being a key date but with the borrowing still going on with little sign of an ending and the stock exchanges reacting positively to everything that the government is doing I wonder what will be the trigger. After all there are several examples of what a crash does over the last 100 years or so and although I was expecting this one to be one of the worst I am now wondering after listing to people talking whether anything would actually motivate the people to do anything. I originally envisaged that there were plans for troops and plod in the streets but after seeing them being cut to the bone and still the screw is tightned I’m not even sure there is any joined up thinking at the top.

I’m now just seeing a large proportion of the country simply not having enough to live on and they, instead of turning on those better off, turning on their own and breaking into their neighbours and sticking to the local area. Sure there will be spillover but nobody will want to go to far until it is too late and they won’t have the strength to do so. Only the affluent that live close will be impacted as gated communities are not that secure without quick response from Plod.

I now just don’t see a mass exodus from the cities. I simply see people starving in their bed and a few, more feral types, raiding their neighbours. That will keep them going for a while until the stocks run low but they will then be too fixed in their ways and too uncertain to take the leap into searching the countryside. For one they will want to return when it gets dark and who will defend their property when they are gone?

I think we credit these people with more ability than they have although I think it is right we do so. We must not underestimate what they can do. I just don’t see it though. The more I listen to people the more I see them just getting warmer and warmer in the water.

Of course if it all blows up and there is a sudden collapse then the burst of hot water could change it all. So I’m not changing my plans. I just now think the risk has decreased slightly.

13 comments to Boiling Frogs

  • Kenneth Eames

    SD, your post makes a great deal of sense, people don’t normally venture into unknown territory. In a collapse scenario, most have a feeling of safety near their home. I feel that the only people that would cause any problems, are gangs. But, these too, do not tend too move great distances. Again, they are aware of other gangs in surrounding areas.It would be the people on the periphery of an urban area that might be tempted to move into a rural area, but again, they would not venture far. Most would wait until fuel was no longer available so vehicles would no longer be useable. Kenneth Eames.

  • bigpaul

    their NOT going to get very far without fuel, thankfully i am nowhere near a city, i’m right in the middle of rural Devon, i wont say it can’t happen, but most unlikely.

  • Skvez

    I think there is a misconception in that just because *most* of the sheeple/golden horde won’t move very far from their own home doesn’t mean that we don’t need to fear the still large “minority” who do.
    My rough guess as to what city-dwellers would do in a major event are:
    10% Roll over and die
    50% Sit and wait for Government help
    20% Loot locally
    15% Disorganised march to somewhere on the assumption that the next city over must be better than here
    5% Serious bands of long distance raiders

    In a town of only 500 000 people that means we need to worry about 25 000 raiders perhaps 5000 groups of 5 people out looking for “opportunities” like us.

    Even if only 1% of that band of raiders (the 5%) have access to working vehicles (diesel engines will run on home hearing oil and if the electricity is down there will be lots of homes with tanks of home heating oil for the taking) that’s still 50 groups of 5 raiders scouring the countryside for targets of opportunity from just one moderately sized town.

  • Northern Raider

    Comfort breed complacency, people dont like moving out of their comfort zone, and often get quite aggressive if you try to persuade them to move, and in some cases as we all know very well that on occasion that comfort zone makes people complacent, The ” It will never happen to me” scenario.

  • half_pint

    Farms and isolated places are already targeted today and have been for the last 10 years or so. Lots of stories in the news about fuel, equipment and animal thefts with a few deaths as well.

  • bigpaul

    its no good someone coming out from the cities and expect to just fall over stuff, you have to know in advance where the resourses are located, ok the farms will be targetted for their diesel and maybe a few sheep but anything more specific has to be found, there is no point in raiders post SHTF going around in ever decreasing circles just hoping to find something, they will be wasting their time and fuel, the longer they are away(from their base)the more chance they have of being spotted and dealt with.

  • iaaems

    Many moons ago in the days of b&w one channel t.v. I recall seeing a ‘science’ feature which dealt with rats. Rats were used in the experiment because they are like humans in many respects. One rat was kept under observation in a box with food and water, but he got bored. So a female rat was introduced and much fun was had by both and lots of little rats were the order of the day, all fed and watered and one big happy family.
    And then a behavior pattern emerged and the big daddy rat started attacking the littler rats and doing all sorts of gruesome things like eating them. Then he and other male rats started killing newborns and the whole thing ended up in total ‘bloody’ chaos. Still fed and watered. Nothing had changed except the number of rats in the box.
    In a way this is very nearly the reverse of SD’s article except that the result, death in a violent fashion, is the order of the day. The human similarity is overcrowding and I feel that we might just be getting there in the UK – in some districts. Suddenly coming to the boil and whoosh! Watch out.

  • bigpaul

    once TSHTF the big cities(overcrowded & overstretched) will see a bloodbath as everyone fights for the scraps that are left. best place to be is NOT there.

    • Northern Raider

      I’m trying to explore options for urban preppers that may improve their odds such as if they are adamant they are staying put then move into an older soldid built building with a cellar, or with toof space that can be knocked through into neighbouring properties, roof top gardens, water condensors to capture water etc.

  • northumbriman

    I agree both completely and disgustedly withSD on this. I raised this point in the forums recently. As individuals we may well see theimminent collapse of life as we know it but as a nation we accept and absorb. As much as we may dislike our current situation “the people” are very hard to motivate. There may be protests but when they turn even modestly rowdy we condemn those involved as out of control. Other nations like Greece and France set fire to barricades and storm government buildings…British stoicism and stiff upper lips hold us back and allow our government to walk all over us. We barely even raised a murmur when those same politicians were caught using our much needed money for themselves.

  • Luci Ferson

    Just finished reading the main article, and all the comments regarding it.
    May as well add my own two-peneth in.
    when calculating the amount of preppers and raiders and just people caught up in the middle etc. you all forget to mention the possibility of a few who are neither preppers or raiders surviving.
    then you will have the moral questions of what to do with them or how to treat them.
    Personally I am not a prepper, and would have absolutely no intentions of stealing from or raiding anyone.
    I am however , one of the many unemployed city livers mentioned in the article who are struggling daily just to get by.
    I live right in the centre of one of the tinder boxes that is only waiting for a badly placed match.
    Its not a matter of If, its a matter of When.
    Why does he not prep I hear you ask.

    personally I dont believe we can prep for what is coming.
    we can only learn to adapt.
    I know if i did prep and a starving person came to me for help I would have to help them even though I know this would be risky for myself and for my family.
    how do you tell the difference between a raider and someone who just needs help.
    Do you just stop caring for others altogether.
    All I do know is , those who have prepped are going to be targeted by everyone.
    the hungry, the cold, the sick, these are the people who will be raiding you,
    I have nothing, there is nothing to take, and nothing to attract others to me.
    Whilst you fight to defend the few rescources you have hidden. (some will die doing so) I will be buisy finding others like me, People who just want to live, and adapt, and find a new way of living.
    maybe il even find myself amongst a few of you.
    afterall , sometimes when the shit hits the fan , its better to have a lot of able shovels ready to dig out.
    Safety in numbers will always be the key to human survival.

  • Undertaker

    There is a lot of validity in many of the comments made, Luci you are right with the strength in numbers argument, but only if that strength is applied and controlled, the gangs may just come and cut you down for the pleasure it gives them or if it gets bad enough like the rats there may be cannibalism. Some of you may think it would never get this bad but it really doesn’t take that long, history tells of sieges where people of once good ‘god fearing’ character have snatched new born babes from their mothers and ripped apart and eaten. Avoiding the brutal gangs will be part of the key to survival, and no matter how big the number is, if it’s a number made of sheeple there may be a lot less strength than you think; because most people do have a common decency even in the worst situations (see black hole of Calcutta etc) but the scum won’t have that decency.
    Mind how you go

  • Luci ferson

    Yup its the survivors im woried about. it dont take much to set off a mob, once the mob gets hungry.
    I can only hope that going undetected works out as planned.
    I have now started to prep a little better
    ive reconsidered many of my ways of thinking in last few days of being here.
    My plan went from a little plan to 4 nice interlocking ones that cover me for more a lot more than i had thought about. all in space of just a few days
    Most of my worries are gone.
    sadly the worry I do have theres millions of them , and theyre hungry cold people who are scared.
    these are my biggest threat. and defence is my weakness.