[slackercruster]

Yep, taking to the hills is nothing new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O6AeJfYj1c

In 1951 the 'bug out' devotee was thought of as a traitor and coward. Great archival footage.

[Subjectivist]

There are always people both ahead of the curve and behind. If the USSR had made an attack the bugout crowd would have had much better prepared to survive. As is they look foolish, but that is the thing about the future, you take your best guess and sometimes you lose.

[Outcast_Searcher]

There are always people both ahead of the curve and behind. If the USSR had made an attack the bugout crowd would have had much better prepared to survive. As is they look foolish, but that is the thing about the future, you take your best guess and sometimes you lose.

The future is unknowable. You can play the odds, and probably should (i.e. diversify to be ready for various scenarios). However, since you can't know, why is being "wrong" losing? This sounds like loss aversion or the sunk costs fallacy to me (which are issues we ALL have -- this is NOT personal. Google has plenty on this.)

For example, when I retired in 2008, part of my investments were placed in inflation hedges. Some of those hedges were relatively expensive at the time (like copper). Luckily, most of those hedges had been built with DCA over 20 years, so those did better (like oil stocks, since I was lucky/observant enough to sell most of those near the top. (Once in a while I'm right. Just not often enough to be able to count on it -- not even close)).

But here we are 9 years later and inflation has been very muted. So overall, my inflation hedges have done poorly (gold has been muted but not terrible, and OK re an inflation hedge).

So do I look back and say "I lost", with regret? Or am I happy that we haven't had scary levels of inflation, and how good that as been for the other 80% or so of my portfolio, and how great it has been for my relative cost of living, including how much my small corporate pension (with no COLA) still contributes to paying most of the day to day bills? I choose the latter. If that makes me an idiot, sign me up.

And, OTOH, a person who makes no provision for inflation can get really hurt in a time like the 70's, since stocks generally tend to hate high inflation, and bonds tend to hate rising interest rates.

I'd far rather be prepared, be diversified, and know that to some extent I'll be wrong, than be unprepared because the economy/events do take big unexpected swings at times.

So to me, the bug-out / doomstead idea could rationally be the same kind of venture. Instead of going all-in because folks who have serious concerns about the stability of the system, could have the bug-out plan/resources as one part of their assets. If things meander along sort of normally (as they generally do over time, on average), they could be OK. If things get really nasty, they could be OK, especially relative to not being prepared.

OTOH, if the whole doomer/bugout thing is mostly a psychological thing, to make one feel better or "get back" at the evil world by being smarter than the world, etc., then that's a whole different thing.

Good luck to all in their ventures. We all could use plenty of that too.

Disclosure: If it's total failure and cannibals/zombies, then I'm toast. I'll hopefully shoot a handful, but they'll get me in the end. For me with my personal situation, health, etc. I decided against all that investment/effort.

My gun-loving, country-dwelling, chicken raising, etc. prepped brother in law's family might do relatively well if the zombies come. His adult kids roll their eyes when they mention "dad talking about doomsday", so too much focus on doom can have impacts on family relationships too.