Almost any situation is survivable if everyone involved stays calm, works together and doesn’t do anything stupid. After all most of your ancestors weren’t genius’ (no offense) or survival experts. They were just people living through times we would consider apocalyptic like the Bronze Age collapse or the Potato famine. They lived because they kept cool and figured it out.
But the comfort of the first world has produced a, shall we say less hardy, kind of person. Among our friends and families we struggle with people with inflated senses of entitlement, complete lack of real world knowledge and increasingly severe miseducation. On top of that our society produces neurotic and pathological people who are not easy to deal with in the best of times.
These people will get you killed in an emergency. After writing about crime for years I can assure you they get their friends and family killed in street altercations or accidents now. So how do you deal with them?
For the most part you need to plan for their nonsense and work around them. It’s that simple.
I’m going to provide two examples from a show called Naked and Afraid which shows very difficult people hampering their teams ability to survive the contest. The show picks two “survival experts” at supposed random (in truth people are matched for the potential for conflict in all shows) who are stripped naked and put into a remote location to survive a week. Usually a man and woman. I’ll tell you what the non-FUBAR partner did right and wrong in each, in my opinion of course.
Needless to say though the videos are blurred this is not safe for work.
First up is the infamous poop in the water scene. A young woman with intestinal distress cleans her contaminated bottom and hands … in the stagnant watering hole she and her partner are using for both food and drinking water. It comes out she’s been doing this the whole time (and is sick) with her rationale that all water has poop in it. She doesn’t understand why this is all bad until she finds a bunch of dead fish where she’s been “cleaning up”
There’s a lot to unpack here but the most obvious is something you will all experience – you never know what odd knowledge gaps people have. The machinery for making our water drinkable is so effective and so hidden that this young woman doesn’t even know it exists. She’s gone her whole life assuming there is literal poop in the water she drinks. But water sanitation isn’t what we’re talking about here.
The guy (I think his name is David and her name is Kaila) should have assessed her knowledge before this, or at least paid attention to where she was bathing. I understand obviously why you wouldn’t want to and since this is a show no harm no foul. But in a real SHTF situation you can’t be lax with the people you don’t know.
He did a great job though in the nuts and bolts of survival. He didn’t stay to argue he just went out to find a water source. He worked around her. When there was time he let her vomit out her feelings which is good for her morale, so that was fine. But where he went wrong was keeping it simple.
He should have explained to her immediately that “poopy water” is safe to drink because of millions of gallons of chemicals we dump in it, and that her gastrointestinal distress is partly due to her drinking where she was shitting. Boiling water isn’t magic, it may not catch everything so keeping the water as clean as possible is a good idea. That way he wouldn’t have to keep dealing with the same issue.
If you’re not sure about a person’s skill level or capacity to get through a tough time you can monitor them discretely. As it turns out in the above video once Kalia had time to get over the personal offense she took she and David were able to hash things out. But what if you can’t?
Next up is a compilation of another episode featuring two teams with very different dynamics. The YouTuber who put it together is not someone I agree with (he’s a stage 3 incel) but he makes some astute observations even though his analysis of those observations is skewed. I include it though because I wanted to address this sort of attitude as well afterward.
But here I want you to focus on two things. The relationships of the two teams from the beginning and the attitude of the narrator of the video to why that is. Some of his points are good some not but just keep track of them in general because I’m going to get back to them
So again, a lot to unpack here. I want to start with the narrator though. He astutely observed the extreme differences between how the two teams interacted but misses one important point. The initial interaction between Cassie and Forrest was him making her uncomfortable. While she was already seemingly hostile in the pre-interview Forrest displayed 4Chan level autistry when he danced naked at a random chick. The narrator doesn’t see that because…he’s looking for problems with women as he admits to. And that’s something I want to touch on.
In an emergency there are three kinds of people I’d immediately bail on because I know they can’t be trusted:
Addicts
Communists/Anarchists
Segregationists
That last one encompasses lots more than you think. The men’s movement often promotes gender based segregation. Gender based segregation (and I’m not talking about people having separate spaces I’m talking going no contact with another group) is delusional thinking. Worse it’s often the product of grandiose and narcissistic thinking – it supposes your bad relationships with the opposite sex is universal to all members of your sex. Like many people with personality disorders people with this sort of thinking unravel easily especially under stress.
They will also be the most likely to start unnecessary confrontations both within and without groups. While this is obviously more true of racists or other types of segregationists the “all women/men are untrustworthy” types will also get you into more trouble than they’re worth when there’s not cops to keep people who feel aggrieved from murdering you.
So if in your life there are people (male or female) who speak like this just remember that when shit hits the fan it’s OK to bail on them. You have my permission to leave incels and femcels to their own devices.
But back to the episode. Cassie is the worst of all survival partners – combative, derisive and lazy. Forrest is skilled in survival but unskilled in dealing with difficult people. He’s also mincing, passive aggressive and sneaky, letting Cassie condescend to him then watching her suffer while waiting for the next team to show up to gang up on his partner. If the Soyjak meme was a personality this would be it.
He should have worked around her. In a real life survival situation he’d be better off alone and should bail. But if he couldn’t because she was family or whatever rather than continue to try to “teach” her things knowing her ego is fragile he should have just got food and minimized contact with her to avoid fights. Since the “game” is for the team to make it to a certain point he had to carry her – but he waited to find other people to give him permission to dump her.
Which I understand because Cassie seems – difficult.
Juxtapose this with Manu and Russel. Both immediately try to put each other at ease. Both are generous with compliments, they take the time to bond. In a long term stressful situation building comradery is make or break stuff for people having to work together. Also Russel knows to look people in the eye while talking. Just sayin’
You’ll notice the experience difference. Russel and Manu form a team right away, they divvy up labor and make time to joke, to relax. But they also get what they need to do done. They are perfect survival partners and this likely comes from their professional experience. Russel teaches survival and Manu works as a security contractor. Both professions rely on building trust. Learning to build trust the way they can is a good skill to have.
Is your friend and family circle filled with Russels and Manus or Cassies and Davids?
Davids are very common in prepping. They are skilled but awkward types who can’t be trusted with social interactions. The easy way to manage them is to give them chores and keep them from poisoning too many relationships with their poor social skills.
There are Cassies in every friend group. They overestimate their value in any given situation and only age and maturity will stop that. If you’re in a survival scenerio, let’s say a grid down situation, you have to realize that she will spend months adjusting and will be somewhat unpleasant. Honesty is the best policy with people like this as the heart to heart with Manu shows. The worst thing to do is to let them be involved in anything important until they have a come to Jesus moment.
There’s a lot of tough talk about leaving family behind but in reality you won’t. So start thinking now about how to ease that situation. Don’t be a Cassie or one of the two Davids. Be like Russel and Manu.
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Author Rob Taylor
