Slow breakdown scenario

[Scythe13]

Everything is going wrong nice and slowly.

From today, how long until you need to break into your preps?

Do you see a total breakdown into complete lawlessness (wrol) or do you see everything going bad, and then a major event being the tipping point?

[Mortblanc]

I have asked that questions many times Scythe.

Who announces when SHTF starts?

It's a real pity when you neighbor is having trouble,

Its SHTF when YOU are having trouble.

[Steve]

I'm already using my sustainable preps, all part of a long term plan to mitigate the sliding decline in living standards I expect 99% of the population to suffer.

[Tarrel]

History shows that civilisational collapse often takes a long time. From the heights of the Roman empire to the depths of the dark ages took several hundred years. In "The Long Descent", John Michael Greer likens it to tumbling down a mountainside in fits and starts rather than a straight downward plummet.

FWIW, I don't really see our preps as being used in some sort of end-game (although that's perfectly possible), but more to give us support during tough periods, to be replenished in better periods of the long collapse. Sort of like a battery is used with an intermittent renewable energy system to give constant, reliable supply.

[bigpaul]

a slow collapse would be my theory(not my choice but how I expect it to go), so for a time although there may be some empty shelves deliveries would still get through if a little sporadic, use our food stores when nothing available then replenish as and when new deliveries arrive. I don't think it will take a hundred years for things to go downhill though, there are a lot more people about than when the Romans invaded, I still think we are talking months rather than years. look how quick things went down in Greece or in the old USSR.

[BeardyMan]

Yes, well the Romans didn't have 20 million families on benefits to support, neither were they as soft as we are, so I don't think much of a comparison is possible.

Everything has been slowly going wrong for years, started with Blair. Nothings gonna get better, so make the best of what you can with what you have.
I'm always using my preps. Rotation an all that.

[Midnitemo]

I think we as a country have been in decline long before Blair I'd say from the begining of the 70's , joining the common market , the failiure of our light and heavy industries the sell off's the breaking up of nationalised institutions etc etc

[Tartar Horde]

The collapse of the Western Roman Empire (not the Eastern known as Byzantium which fell in 1453) from a model point of view is very pertinent to the days we find ourselves in now. BM pointed out a difference in social attitudes, but the overall model is familiar to all civilisation collapse. The collapse of Rome wasn't just one incident but a series of shocks that culminated in an irreversible decline in the money and overseas grain shipments. The Empire became too big to control and outward pressure through mass migration and war weakened the once powerful Legions. The fringes were the first to go, as they tried to bolster the centre by withdrawing legions back to Rome, all too little too late. On the 24th August 410 AD the Visigoths led by Alaric entered and sacked the city.
But what has this brief history lesson to do with us? surely we know more than the Romans? the point I'm trying to make is that all civilisations fall in the same way, because of the way we as a species run them, they are all built on the same model, one of perpetual growth that eventually hits the limits to that growth and so ushers in collapse. We are at the same point Rome found itself at the beginning of the barbarian wars, one of increased pressure by people attempting to get into Rome driven by economic and food concerns. The collapse and debasement of the money system. And importantly a reliance on overseas food imports to feed the ever growing population. These are all the symptoms we find now in our current civilisation, yet they mirror exactly the ones that did for the Romans.
Ps
A few decades later Rome was a wrecked city with less than 30k people and sheep grazed where Caesar once stood. Rome became a hideout for cut throats and gangs who controlled the dead city. I'll leave you to ponder with a quote by one of those long gone Romans, Marcus portius Cato. Fortuna favet menti paratae. "Fortune favours the prepared mind". Could he have been the first Roman prepper

[bigpaul]

When the Romans left Britain in the 5th Century, the people who remained were still able to grow their own food, raise livestock and hunt and gather, how many people these days can do that? with our "just in time" food delivery system it wont take very much or very long for it to collapse in chaos. once the power grid goes down, and the current reserves are at an all time low, that will be the end of modern life as we know it.

[WHB]

TH and BP hit the nail on the head in my opinion.
Rome, like other empires, die a slow death when they over-stretch.
I recently read that our farming land gives a sustainable food supply for about 1/4 of our population as of 2014.
So we today, just like the Romano-Britons, are slaves to a greater empire and their rules, somewhat like the rather one sided Pax Romana of the Roman Empire.
The worrying thing is that this Britain has been allowed to get so much out of control that we are now so overcrowded that a peace and security are not anywhere near a given anymore.
I see bad times ahead, that's why we prep and insomuch that is for our survival.

WHB