Humanity Losing Survivability With Every Generation
Kevin Felts 09.24.18
Most of the readers should know what happened to native peoples around the world when European explorers arrived. With the explorers came diseases such as Small Pox, Flu, Whooping Cough… etc. With no resistance to the diseases millions of natives died. In the time span of a few years, entire cultures were wiped out.
If we take those history lessons and apply them to modern prepping, humanity is losing survivability with every passing generation.
Why are we losing our survivability?
- How many millions of people have never grown a single piece of their own food?
- How many millions never fished?
- How many millions never hunted and skinned wild game?
Demographic Shift
What contributed to our current situation? A lot of it has to do with jobs. For centuries there has been a slow, but steady, exodus from rural to urban areas. This exodus was accelerated by World War II veterans using their GI Bill to go to college. Rather than returning to the rural farms they grew up on, veterans became engineers, geologists, and other professions.
As more people settled in urban areas, there was no need to hold onto the family farm. This meant when papa and granny passed away the farm was sold or lost to the county over unpaid property taxes. On a personal note, my family lost around 400 acres during the Great Depression because the family could not pay the property taxes. A local timber company bought the land for back taxes. That is banter for another article.
In the mid to late 1900s, hunting and fishing may have been a short drive for most families. Then urban sprawl happened and cities took in thousands of acres to build subdivisions. The land people may have hunted on was turned into HOA governed neighborhoods. Rather than driving a short distance to hunt or fish, families now made to drive for hours.
Eventually fewer people made the trip to go hunting, camping, and fishing. Stories of squirrel hunting, fishing and gardening faded to a memory passed down from one family member to another.
Losing Resistance
What do native populations and the modern young generation have in common? Neither groups had (has) resistance to change.
- Native tribes could not fend off new diseases.
- The newest generation can not fend off starvation.
In the past hundred years, developed nations went from growing a large portion of our food, to being totally dependent upon grocery stores and the modern food supply chain.
People have become so spoiled to having easy access to food, some call the police when a fast food place runs out of a certain item. For example, a woman called 911 when McDonald’s ran out of chicken nuggets.
How about this example – Children starting school unable to hold a pencil. Rather than giving kids crayons and coloring books, parents give their children tablets.
Another example is the lack of coping skills amongst college age young adults. When Milo went to speak a Berkley there were so many protest, the speech was canceled.
How did we go from school age children knowing how to read, write, fish, dig potatoes, pick peas…. to not even being able to hold a pencil?
Final Thoughts
When I was a child of no older than 5 or 6 years old, my brother and were helping granny collect eggs, helping milk a cow, dad took us squirrel hunting and fishing. I remember mom and dad taking my brother and I fishing at a local pond, and we were maybe 4 or 5 years old.
While going through my grandparents letters, I came across some World War II ration books. I fear the day when a generation that has never been told no faces the grim reality of disease, or war.
- What do you mean we have to conserve fuel?
- What do you mean we can only buy certain types and amounts of food?
Take that person and place them in a grid down situation such as after a hurricane made landfall, or in a situation as my uncle says, “After the bombs fall.” If college age young adults are threatened by an opposing idea, how can they be expected to make personal sacrifices?
Just as native populations did not understand disease, neither will future generations understand hunger and sacrifice. If society does not reverse course and teach young people long forgotten skills, such as fishing, and gardening, humanities survivability decreases with every generation.
