Resiliency and You

by **the_alias** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:46 am

There is an existing division between prepping and survivalism - many on this forum describe as preppers, some describe themselves as survivalists.

I want to entertain a more basic look at both and propose that the idea of resilience is the ‘third way’. I don’t intend to create a debate about “prepping vs survivalism” so please don’t segway into that.

At the core prepping is about withstanding shocks and overcoming them. Having enough fuel and food to outlast that winter storm in comfort and safety, for example.

With prepping you rely on the return to normalcy. Survivalists are slightly more end of times orientated (and there is nothing wrong with that) - perhaps they fear nuclear strike, or economic meltdown that produces that Mad Max scenario that so many in WWYD dream of. Regardless they are more focused on the long term, but it is a long term ruled by the gun and a total collapse.

Both these viewpoints stress stockpiling and the BOB or INCH. And for many situations evacuation is likely (flooding, tornado damage) so these aren’t bad suggestions. However what preppers AND survivalists should be doing is striving for resiliency which is, I believe more holistic than simply prepping.

What is Resiliency?
I’m going to loosely define it as the ability of systems, individuals and objects to avoid permanent damage from serious shocks.

How can something be resilient?
Example 1) Your personal file system
A file system can be made resilient using data backup options. For example one can back up their files using free programs such as Sugar Sync or Dropbox - this adds a layer of resiliency to your personal file protection. Of course such a solution is contingent on internet backups so an additional failsafe could be manual backup to an external hard drive.

When building resiliency complexity needs to be considered - the simpler a solution and the less dependencies it has the better. In this case a backup solution that can function independently of the internet is a good idea.

Example 2) The global transportation network
Does anyone remember the icelandic volcano no one could pronounce? That was a classic systems disruption that showed how lacking in resiliency modern transport is. Something stops us flying across the Atlantic and it is virtually impossible. Ocean crossing have not existed for quite some time - in this example if you were stranded how could you be resilient?

Consider the object is to avoid permanent damage - this could be loss of life to loss of a business deal. Luckily the interconnected world allows many of us to work remotely and at the very least get by remotely. Having your information in the cloud is a definite advantage here.

Of course if you wanted to get somewhere a few things would have been helpful:

I hope those two examples have you thinking about the broader idea of resiliency.

I now want to borrow from my friend and use his 7 patterns of resilience.

Lets apply them to traditional prepping and survivalism

1: Avoidance and deflection
One can avoid a dangerous area by applying knowledge. Or as we like to call it Bugging Out!
If you know a riot is going on it is better to avoid that area. Interested in this aspect? You need to look carefully at threats you can avoid - through moving or evacuating. You also need a realistic time scale - getting stuck in traffic is not a successful avoidance.

2: Protection and isolation
An isolated person or object has a degree of safety that a non isolated does not. Protection of your house is a good one, defensive landscaping, use of firearms for effective defense etc. How do you protect yourself, how do you protect your supplies?

3. Toughness
How strong is your gear? How strong is your immune system? What can you do to increase toughness. Do not forget mental toughness! Are you mentally tough enough to shrug off setbacks and overcome challenges? The tougher a system, object or person the more resilience it has.

4. Redundancy
Backups and replacements. We all know 1 is none, 2 is 1. How do you use redundancy as part of your preps? Are you redundant down to a skill level? How can you increase your redundancy when prepping - caches etc? Do you have two streams of income?

5. Regeneration
Are you able to fix and repair damage? Can you rebuild your income loss? The ability to regenerate what you have lost is VITALLY important for resilience. Self sufficient practices suddenly are a lot more important if you think about being resilient. Food production is a really important area to consider.

6. Flexibility
Specialisation is for insects! That being said there is always going to be a trade off. Humans are omnivores - being an omnivore is a prudent choice for someone interested in resilience. Narrow diets can be a hindrance (though of course this is a very personal choice I’m not judging as someone trying to eat paleo!). Other examples of this would be picking gear to fill multiple roles.

7. Adaptation
A system or a person that can adapt successfully to a massive change to its environment is going to survive. Changing of routines in a disaster, ability to adjust to a new more stressed way of living. We as humans are VERY good at adaptation - but not everyone is equipped for this.

Whew - still with me?

Great so now look at yourself - this is just an example.

How can I be resilient:
Create a second income stream.
Work on savings and investments that build on resilience. Invest in strong banks - ones that can weather a storm.
Make myself tougher - work on fitness, diet and lifestyle.
Grow my own food! Or at least try to supplement it.
Build a community and network with other people.

Identify systems disruptions.
We do that a lot here but really breaking down how systems are likely to be disrupted and the outcomes will help you prep more efficiently. Trying to use more resilient systems is always going to be better. Transport networks are a good one to look at - can they suffer partial shut down? Electricity companies are also worth looking at, what are their redundancies?
So on and so forth.

Build resiliency!
Engage in community projects, how can you lessen your reliance on systems that can be disrupted.

My point of this post is to encourage you to think about resiliency in what you are doing as a prepper or survivalist. And that it is a useful analytic tool you can use to look at the world around you.

Further reading:
http://www.resilientcommunities.com/
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/
http://www.theresilientfamily.com
http://www.reddit.com/r/resilientcommunities/

by **raptor** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:40 am

This is a great post with lots of very good advice. Thank you for sharing it.

by **maldon007** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:13 am

I reported this thread... for being awesome.

by **phil_in_cs** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:32 am

This works very well with the "slow decline" idea many of us are prepping for, as well as more sudden events (a government collapse, as in much of eastern Europe in the 1990's) or a currency failure (Argentina, etc)

by **Scout308** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:31 pm

Good analysis. It helps to look at problems from multiple perspectives, and this proveds a very nice framework.

copying to my notebook.

Our EveryTrail page · by **eugene** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:54 pm

I work hard at being resilient. I (direct) deposit my pay check into two banks to start with. We've been out of town and whatever problem with the ATM network couldn't take cash out of the primary bank so I pulled out the card for the secondary. Both banks are setup with all our bills in their online bill pay so if we couldn't access one we could pay a bill from the other.
Direct deposit because if a storm messes up the mail and your check can't be delivered your out of luck. During hurricane Katrina people in NO couldn't get their paychecks, but our company kept direct depositing the pay into bank accounts that were setup for it because if the employees were still alive and maybe had evacuated they might need it.
I track bills on a spreadsheet, 12 columns for the months so when I pay one I mark it off so if the bill or e-mail alert that its due doesn't come for some reason I just pay it anyway.

We have multiple computers, wife and I run netbooks and the kids have Dell latitude (corporate) laptops I bought used for under $50 each. I have another laptop as a file server and IDS and another one for testing stuff. We all run the same firefox, thunderbird, LibreOffice, etc. So I can access any of our documents from an of them should one be down. I have over 80G of pictures, use rsync to copy them up to the server onto an external drive then swap that drive with another in the safe at regular intervals. I can't do the internet based backups since I have too much data and can't get high speed at my BOL.

So then our BOBs have some redundancy built in, all the same brand (Camelbak) so they share some features. Each has some basic gear. Wife and I have the exact same GPS so we are redundant there. Then all the gear in my new bob is duplicated in my old bob so if we go out on a hike or such I take the old bob to restock consumables in the new bob so if something were to happen after we use our gear we are not empty.

I have my camper in the garage stocked with some food and water, then food in the kitchen and food and water the pantry.

I keep some travel gear pre-pakced for the bug out to a hotel instead of the woods scenario. I keep basic first aid supplies and nay medicines and toiletries there. When we run low in the medicine cabinet and I go buy new I put the new in the travel bag and the old in the cabinet.

by **doitnstyle1** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:34 pm

Very good post. I agree with your views. I think resiliency is good for reactive situations but I truly believe in being proactive. Everything with me is like a game of chess. I thought out five, six or even more moves ahead of my opponent and apply that to life.

I can however offer a shorter version of this. The Marine Corps have always had an unofficial mantra that states; "Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome" Since I first heard this, i liked it very much as it was always my mantra before I could actually put it into words. Being the analytically person I have always been, also had to add Assess to it. So in short, "Assess, Improvise, Adapt and Overcome. "

Assess your situation by using a SWOT-RT analysis
S-Strengths W-Weaknesses O-Opportunities T-Threats and finally R-Resources T-Training
Gather your initial information for a complete assessment and plan your next couple of moves. incorporate redundancy in everything you do
and always find more than one way out if possible. See what is available for you to use.

Improvise a generalized method of accomplishing a task or reaching a goal.

Adapt to any of your changes to make it work for that specific situation and with the available resources

Overcome the obstacle and file this methodology in your mental Rolodex for future reference. it allows for quick reference to experiences and allows you to respond quicker to an event.

Training on specific and generalized events gives you the practical hands on knowledge to be flexible and work with established practices applied to similar situations with success by adapting your established training and experiences to changing scenarios.

by **AnonEmous** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:03 pm

Yes, I agree. Excellent. What I find interesting (although not surprising) is that some people seem to invert their priorities. It is hardly a statistical sampling, but a recent commercial on NatGeo for that channel's upcoming prepping show included people who were grossly overweight. At the risk of sounding judgmental, I would think fitness would be a priority if people really thought their world was about to change dramatically. But instead, it seems some people have focused on stockpiling-- food, weapons, and anything else. Of course, this is based on a 30 second commercial and I expect the show will highlight the most extreme cases. Maybe the "stockpilers" also have insurance, cash reserves, and a health plan.

Yes, resiliency is a great quality to cultivate, maintain, and encourage.

by **prepper7** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:49 pm

Excellent post (and resultant thread), OP. ZSer Majorhavoc mentioned this post in another thread, and I mighty glad he did.

by **Scout308** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:23 pm

AnonEmous wrote:Yes, I agree. Excellent. What I find interesting (although not surprising) is that some people seem to invert their priorities. It is hardly a statistical sampling, but a recent commercial on NatGeo for that channel's upcoming prepping show included people who were grossly overweight. At the risk of sounding judgmental, I would think fitness would be a priority if people really thought their world was about to change dramatically. But instead, it seems some people have focused on stockpiling-- food, weapons, and anything else. Of course, this is based on a 30 second commercial and I expect the show will highlight the most extreme cases. Maybe the "stockpilers" also have insurance, cash reserves, and a health plan.

Yes, resiliency is a great quality to cultivate, maintain, and encourage.

As someone who resembles that description :oops:

It is (a priority) Gear/Supplies and other stuff is easier and faster to deal with - dropping 60lbs takes a while - especially when your over 40, or WAY over 40 :shock:

Do what you can as you can - prioritize. Mental Prep (mindset), Health and fitness, Knowledge, financial, supplies for you/family, gear you/family, supplies for friends/relatives/neighbors, gear for f/r/n - At least that's my priorities - the health and fitness is an ongoing thing (and going, and going and.....)

by **WhoShotJR** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:41 pm

Excellent post. I would add diversification to the list. Since none of us can predict what lies ahead, it's best to have a wide stable of skills and supplies available. Many tend to focus on one area too much. An arsenal doesn't make one more resilient to a house fire, a BOB is not needed for a spell of unemployment, cash usually talks but on rare occasions gold may be better.

The best way to get your car back on the road is to have a box full of proper tools.

by **the_alias** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 4:47 am

Thanks for the positive responses guys - its nice to take the mod hat off for a bit and contribute in such a way again!

doitnstyle1: SWOT-RT is certainly a good thing to sit down and brainstorm. I think being resilient is being proactive - creating a second income stream is being proactive vs having a "oh shit I lost my job" saving fund which is more reactive. The second stream - say its doing custom kydex gear - can be shifted up when you loose your primary income. If you don't have that you are always reacting to the system by starting new when the shock has hit. Bit of semantics but I hope you follow my reasoning.

eugene - great point on redundancy with brands - a lot of the time we see people talking about that with firearms but not building it out into your other gear.

by **AnonEmous** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 5:40 pm

Scout308 wrote:
AnonEmous wrote:... a recent commercial on NatGeo for that channel's upcoming prepping show included people who were grossly overweight. At the risk of sounding judgmental, I would think fitness would be a priority if people really thought their world was about to change dramatically. But instead, it seems some people have focused on stockpiling-- food, weapons, and anything else. Of course, this is based on a 30 second commercial and I expect the show will highlight the most extreme cases. Maybe the "stockpilers" also have insurance, cash reserves, and a health plan.

Yes, resiliency is a great quality to cultivate, maintain, and encourage.

As someone who resembles that description It is (a priority) Gear/Supplies and other stuff is easier and faster to deal with - dropping 60lbs takes a while - especially when your over 40, or WAY over 40

Do what you can as you can - prioritize. Mental Prep (mindset), Health and fitness, Knowledge, financial, supplies for you/family, gear you/family, supplies for friends/relatives/neighbors, gear for f/r/n - At least that's my priorities - the health and fitness is an ongoing thing (and going, and going and.....)

Yes, I agree again. The main point-- as you note-- is that health and fitness is an ongoing thing. It is great that you see your health as an ongoing and important factor in your preps. I have started back on a lot of cardio and this helps me with stress, overall health, and the ability to cope physically in an emergency (walking down or up 20 floors of stairs, walking miles home, carrying a person some distance). Some individuals who prep strike me as people who focus on stockpiling food, or having 1,000s of rounds of ammunition, or a having a dedicated bug out location, but have ignored (willfully or not) the basics, such as health. It is similar to someone having a field surgical kit in a FAK without having nitrile gloves or even bandages.

I particularly like this observation, found here

Hydrostatic wrote: Untill now, my preps have been centered around dealing with civil distress and disease outbreak. After two weeks of putting my preps through hard use, I have found that I was lacking in many areas. One problem that I ran into, was that I had devoted to much of my resources to self defense. While having an AR15 and enough ammo to hold off a small army, provides myself with a sense of security to no end, it holds little practicality in the situtaions that I am most likely to be in.

My premise of preparing for emergencies, found here, focuses on a mix of what is most important to survival in an emergency and the most likely threats facing an individual or family. Most people are far more likely to face personal ruin through crippling personal debt, poor health, or imbalanced planning instead of through a horde of scavengers; however, that does not mean that adequate planning, training, or personal security are not relevant.

Maintaining fitness helps keep a host of health problems at bay AND is useful in an acute or extended emergency.

Our EveryTrail page · by **eugene** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 9:03 pm

I've neglected health and fitness over the last couple years and am having to play catch up now.
So some of my policies/standards/guidelines/procedures is to standardize.
Thats why I tend to buy some of the same brands, standardization, familiarization, etc.
So another part of my overall is to be able to operate no matter that the situation, the I don't want to survive, I want to live. My kids are still young so while I am starting to teach them about being prepared I still want them to shelter them some from situations that may be more than they can handle currently. So I want to keep some normalcy and routine while throwing in some mock situations. I make sure whatever we need for normal functions is portable so if we had to bug out it can easily go with us. So technology is portables like laptops or netbooks. First aid,medicines, etc are kept in kits instead of cabinets. An example is part of my day to day process. When I get ready for work in the morning I take my kit out off my closet and into the bathroom and shave, brush teeth, etc then put my kit back in its pre-staged bug out area. I restock the supplies and recharge the razor at least weekly and my INCH layer contains the refills for everything, so if we did INCH out I have more than just whats in that bug out layer. So if we bug out temp or INCH out permanently my tactical (day to day) process is the same. Thats how I do resiliency. Much the same as our servers at work switching to the DR location to make the app resilient and operate the same to the users no matter if running from the prod or DR side. So no expensive gear sitting in a closet collecting dust, just a minor change in tactical processes.
So the other change in processes like I mentioned is portable tech. No more computer desk with computer, keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc taking up space and impossible to even move a little to clean behind. Instead a netbook that lives on the arm of the couch for day to day work sync'ed with a bigger laptop that operates as a file server and backup system. I run the same linux distro on both then the file server I use virtualbox and have a test environment so when I want to test upgrading something I can. Then any software I do install that didn't come with my distro is kept there and I list the shell history from the test machine and copy that as an install script so if I did need to ever rebuild one from scratch it goes quick.
So prepping and resiliency isn't something I have to stop and spend time doing, it just changes how I do everything else.

by **Collie of Doom** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 9:47 pm

Looking at a larger scale, our infrastructure needs some resiliency. Stat. It's not even up to minimal standard, let alone resilient standard (ie with back up capacity/routes/alternative energy sources for short term emergencies) since a lot of it dates from the 70s. In the case of some East coast water mainlines it dates back to 1900s! No kidding. There's actually WOOD pipes under some cities. We have systemic vulnerabilities all over the place. We should do something about it. But of course there's no political or community will for it right now...

by **Murph** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:41 pm

eugene wrote:I have over 80G of pictures, use rsync to copy them up to the server onto an external drive then swap that drive with another in the safe at regular intervals. I can't do the internet based backups since I have too much data and can't get high speed at my BOL.

Durrr... I can't believe I haven't thought of this before. Buying two (or more) identical external hard drives and rotating them between on-site and off-site(s).

Now to wait for a sale on External HDs...

And a small "Resiliency" kit could be included in the rotation, all packed up in a nice Otter Box or something. I'm starting to like this idea, but not how much I see the $$ ring up in my head.

I'm going to have to give some more thought to Resiliency in general, because using gear to support the concept seems very myopic to the overall idea.

Our EveryTrail page · by **eugene** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 3:28 pm

Murph wrote:
eugene wrote:I have over 80G of pictures, use rsync to copy them up to the server onto an external drive then swap that drive with another in the safe at regular intervals. I can't do the internet based backups since I have too much data and can't get high speed at my BOL.

Durrr... I can't believe I haven't thought of this before. Buying two (or more) identical external hard drives and rotating them between on-site and off-site(s).

Now to wait for a sale on External HDs...

And a small "Resiliency" kit could be included in the rotation, all packed up in a nice Otter Box or something. I'm starting to like this idea, but not how much I see the $$ ring up in my head.

I'm going to have to give some more thought to Resiliency in general, because using gear to support the concept seems very myopic to the overall idea.

Don't buy external drives, buy a couple drive enclosures then put your own drives in them. I buy the newer bigger drive and it goes in my main system then the one from it goes into one of the backup cases, this saves some $ because you split the cost.

by **williaty** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:52 pm

It is, BTW, a TERRIBLE time to consider buying a new hard drive. There was severe flooding in the small geographic region (tens of miles) where basically all the HDDs in the world are made. All of the plants, which have to operate as clean rooms, were under water. Global hard drive production basically has been stopped for the last quarter. Prices have roughly doubled.

Our EveryTrail page · by **eugene** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 9:09 pm

Which shows that the hdd manufacturers failed their resiliency test.
I work for a bank, IIRC the minimum is 300 miles between data centers if the company is above a certain size.

by **the_alias** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:49 am

Ok lets not turn this thread into data backup or hard drives... :wink:

I'm going to take the example of yourself - your body and your basic ability to survive violent encounters or potentially violent encounters. Your personal resiliency.

Avoidance and deflection
Protection and isolation
Toughness
Redundancy
Regeneration
Flexibility
Adaptation

Applying our 7 principles:

1) Avoidance and deflection
I can avoid bad situations by not being there. I can avoid bad areas where people might be more inclined to hurt me - failing that I can attempt deflection.
Deflection here could be a number of things: clothing attire (wearing a suit in a dodgy area? might highlight you as a person with objects worth stealing), language (are you clearly from out of town, dialect, accent or language can give you away and make you more of an appealing target to bad guys).
Both those deflection tactics are 'ranged' - what if the bad guys have still approached you.

You likely now need verbal skills - can you convince them to leave you alone if their intent is to hassle? Are you able to engage in dialogue whilst getting into their OODA loop?

Ideally your verbal skills and management of the bad guy would mitigate their intentions and you can be on your way.

2) Protection and isolation
Does your clothing offer adequate protection from the elements and your environment? if you are wearing flip-flops and need to sprint over an uneven surface it might be wise to rethink your footwear choices!

What are you carrying with you for protection - flashlight, defensive knife, pepper spray, a gun. Doesn't matter what it is you need to be trained with it and ready to use it. Training courses are the best bet, Force on Force scenarios, a self defense class all will help you with protection. There is A LOT written on this subject so I think we can broadly cover it with a means to protect yourself - empty hand, blade/blunt object, firearm.

3)Toughness
Now this is important. Making yourself tougher has many facets.
Firstly - can you swim? If not go call the local pool at sign up for lessons. Now.
All round fitness - can you outlast the guy trying to hurt you if you need to run or wrestle him?
Mental toughness - never say die, can you keep fighting and push on?
Are you strong enough to retain a grip on your weapon or on him?
Ways to improve this - develop a training program, eat better food, get enough sleep, put yourself in difficult situations and come through them (like entering the winter mock bugout!)

4) Redundancy
What if you have to go somewhere your personal protection item is prohibited? Do you have enough skills to replace it - do you feel confident replacing it.
If you get in a fight and suffer a stoppage - can you fix it after the immediate danger passes?
Building redundancy requires all round set of skills to protect yourself by - verbal skills, hand to hand skills, running, knife so on and so forth.

5) Regeneration
Do you take adequate time to recover from injury or strain? If not why not? Running yourself down is pretty bad - you need to take time to unwind and let your body heal and rest. Physical therapy if needed can play a role here. Stretching and joint mobility are also over looked.
On another scale - do you have medical equipment on your person if you do get injured?

6) Flexibility:
Are you flexible to deal with different threats? Training a wide range of scenarios helps this and you need to be able to deal with different levels of danger - an angry confused drunk is different to a knife wielding crack head.

7) Adaptation
If in the middle of a fight you loose your weapon or your adversary suddenly produces his - can you adapt and shift to deal with that threat?

by **Biggin** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:33 am

Very good stuff, the_alias. I like the bit about avoidance and with that situational awareness.

by **Murph** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:36 am

Here's an outline for: Financial Investment Resiliency

Avoidance and Deflection
Knowing what NOT to invest is important, avoiding bad deals. You need to do your homework on at least: where your money goes, what the return could be, account fees, and how to cash out.

Protection and Isolation
Again more homework, you need to protect your money against being stolen. If it sounds like a scam, it probably is.

Toughness
Investing for the long term, so that if you lose money in one quarter, you don't pull out and cut your losses, but stay in and rebuild for the years to come.

Redundancy
This speaks to diversification. You don't want all your eggs in one basket, so make sure to pick different investment firms, and different funds.

Regeneration
Having a steady job is important to be able to weather through the storm when the market is bad. A second income is another way.

Flexibility
Begin able to quickly change what your invested in can be an extremely advantage.

Adaptation
Being able to take advantage of new investment opportunities takes liquid capital.

by **Tetra Grammaton Cleric** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:57 am

I read this thread when you first posted it, did some extra reading, some of it at the links you gave, some of it from surfing links in the links, some of it from my own subsequent research/searches. Mostly I was looking at resilient communities as I can relate it to the similarities in permaculture theory I'm familiar with.

I'm noticing it everywhere now, there was a whole Big Ideas discussion on it repeated recently on our national broadcaster which I managed to catch.
Even NUTNFANCY references it in videos from 2009! :shock:

Clearly I haven't been paying enough attention to this sort of stuff over the last few years.

Interesting Stuff.

-

by **run faster** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 10:18 pm

so what is this third group called? preppers, survivalists, _______?

resilietants? lol