Quote from: RE on Dec 31, 2023, 10:04 PMOwning an RV was a precaution against ending up homeless, as well as a way to live cheap once I retired.

So when you called the RV a bugout machine you didn't mean it? 30 seconds in.

Quote from: TDoSHow about some optimism?

Quote from: REI don't see any good reason for optimism.  The economy is a mess, the world is swimming in irredeemable debt and while 2024 may not be "the big one", I find no reason to think things will get any better over the year.
RE

Well sure, optimism can be a little hard to come by in the present, but just think about all the years of life and running around you've gotten since all the collapses dodged or not occurred? And I never said things get better, or that getting better is the reason for optimism. The reason for optimism is because we all made it through the last big claimed collapse point, and have lived reasonably non-eaten-by-cannibals lives since then. This gem of a Frostbite falls rant is wonderfully statistics filled from 8 years back or so. It is great...and upon comparing the ideas therein, with the reality that followed, you can't ooze a LITTLE optimism? Because we is all still here! Water comes and goes as it often has (remember the Hoover damn level watching way back when...did it ever get to dead pool status?) and that means it has been more and more years of not being eaten by our fitter and stronger and better armed neighbors.

All us old farts know where this goes should a collapse finally rear its ugly head, and as we see our personal ends approaching we can rejoice in it not being a collapse end, but a normal one! You've got to score that as win.

I say optimism is warranted for these reasons, that after decades of waiting, it looks like we all get to die in bed rather than eaten by the starving hordes. You never needed your RV for bugging out, guns and ammo can be passed on to the children, and surely we can all agree that dying of old age is better than being brained with a club and eaten at the end of the day?