Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Bug-out-bag vs back-up-plan

One of the things that folks here in tin-foil-hat land are always talking about is there bug out bag.  Much time and much effort are placed into the planning and execution of these little critters.  While many have intrigued me, my favorite has been over at Survival Chick.  

I can't really say as I have a bug out bag per se.  I am hard pressed to figure out a situation where a sixty year old man will need to instantly grab a bag and run away from the mutant zombie hordes.  The only thing that a bug out bag offers you is a means of having everything in one place so that you don't have to think in the case of an emergency, you can just get going.

And that is where my biggest complaint about the concept lies.  If it is an emergency, if you feel you need to be able to react without thinking, then you will be visiting with Mr Darwin soon.  An emergency is where you need to be able to think the most clearly.  Your bug out bag may very well allow you the luxury of running headlong into a meat grinder.

Bugging out is something that you have to think about.  Plans must be laid for the contingencies that exist to the current situation.  Truth be told, it damn well better be your last resort, to be undertaken with great trepidation and even greater certainty of failure.

I look at bugging out as a bow to a catastrophic failure at multiple levels.  Kinda like the stupid "crash positions" found in the safety pamphlets in planes.  If something happens like a stuck landing wheel, it might do you some good, but if the plane augers it in, it is a waste.  Making big plans and obsessing about low-probability events is a good way to allow natural selection into your life.

I have always counselled the need for multiple back-ups and flexibility.  A plan usually doesn't survive unless it resides within a specific set of conditions.  Change those conditions and your plan becomes a useless affectation.  It is much more important to be able to react effectively to unknown conditions.  That is a trait of the mind, not a piece of macho stuck over there in corner, gathering dust.

But to be truthful, I am spending this morning updating mine.

3 comments:

Survival Chick said...

Thanks for the link! I agree that you can't be prepared for everything, and my bug out crap is probably worthless if anything ever did actually happen, but it helps me sleep at night. And really that's all that matters.

Mayberry said...

I've got a whole bug out vehicle (well, a trailer anyways), but given my coastal location, and dizzying altitude of 15 feet above sea level, I think it's just good planning. At some point, I will have to bug out in front of a hurricane (again). 300,000 plus evacuees fill up the inland hotel rooms pretty quick...

russell1200 said...

A bug out bag makes some sense for certain urban locations I guess. Presumably you have your larger stash somewhere else and travel to it.

I think it is along the lines of the book "Patriot" (which I have not read) where they all travel to their fortified compound in the hinterland so they can productively spend their time shooting straw men/ biker gangs.