to the bigots amongst us

[The Local Ned]

I've not been a member of this forum very long at all.

What I noticed was some really , really strange posts , the content of which - to forum lurkers , would seem paranoid in the extreme.....it nearly put me off joining the group.

I had the idea that this site was dedicated to preparing for , and surviving the total breakdown of our social structure. It had hints and tips on a lot of good shit , reviews of equipment , and even had the forward thinking idea of actually trying to form workable plans to be acted upon, come the time.

All it needed was for it to be filled with like-minded individuals.
Which hasn't really happened , because we are all individual , with our own priorities , opinions and views.

Some people might say - whats all the 'big brother' orwellian shit got to do with prepping ?
Some people might say - whats the economic . political structures of the rest of the world got to do with uk preppers ?
Some people might say - whats a comms network got to do with me survivng SHTF ?
Some might say - whats music videos got to do with uk prepping ?
Some might say - whats fat pats shingles - thats stopping her from building her earth-ship right now - got to do with prepping ?

Now I know there are areas to put certain 'narrow interest' (if you'll excuse the term) - posts in , things which aren't directly connected with prepping , and I am all for retaining these , but please can we divert from the 'some people are narrow minded and want to control our views' type of posts , it only serves to create more division ?

I don't want to come onto this forum and see endless youtube music vid links ( sorry hrusai ... ) , I can goto youtube for that myself , by reading down through it , I was actually cutting down the time in catching up elsewhere - but here's the thing - some of us obviously DO think its appropriate to post up what music they are into , and are interested in what the others are into , which is fine with me too , who am I to over-rule anybody else ? If people get offended by something like that then take it to a PM , don't involve the rest of the forum , leaving because of something like that can easily be avoided.

The point I am trying to make is - different strokes for different folks.
We need to establish where our posts are going to go before we post them up, we need to make the decision - is it prepping related or not ? , if not , then it goes in one of the other sections.

Nobody wants to watch noobs like me waffle on all the time , but we have to realise that this site is led by the 'elder' preppers , people whom I have already learned a lot from...if we are doing anything on this forum which is driving THEM away then we need to stop,look and listen.

I respect nearly everyone on the site , frankly some of the members are very susceptible to internet related paranoia , and dont realise how gullible they are by thinking that those 'underground' news sites they trust implicitly are any more factual than al-jazeera.
Others would have had us heading for our bug-outs when the riots started up last year.

Its good to have a human interest side on the site too , but that isn't what brought me here , and probably not what brought YOU either.
This is , after all , a UK prepper site - not facebook , youtube , ATS , friends reunited yadda yadda yadda.