You haven't lived until some needs a knife to open something on christmas and 5 of the 6 adult males in your family are just standing there holding their pockets knives for you to choose from.
I used to work next to this guy. If a box came in, I would just cut the packing tape open with a house key from my pocket… unless he saw me looking like I was about to open the box.
Then I needed to wait for him to walk over with his damn leatherman and flip it to just the right thing. Whole ordeal usually added time to the stupid box opening.
This is why I daily carry a Skeletool, no scratching at nail nicks trying to get the right tool out, the blade opens like any other pocket knife, there's no "which one is it", it's one pull for a screwdriver and two pulls for the pliers. Sure the advertised "tool count" is low, it doesn't open cans, sew leather or steal cable, but I've got a knife, screwdriver and pliers on me at all times.
As the result of apower outage that generally make things not working for everyone and can have adverse effects like people dying, who are dependant on electricity for medical systems, heating in winter, and otherwise adverse effects such as increased injuries etc.?
Wishing for a power outage is nuts. If he wants to try out his toys he can just turn off the main circuit breaker and get a small "power outage" for himself. But that would be boring because the neighbours wouldnt be amazed at how he sits in the light, while the rest of the street sits in the dark.
Fair point. Unfortunately the prepper movement seems to have many people who lowkey, or highkey are hopeing for societal collapse, so they can use their preperations to an advantage and gain of power.
As Tar_Alcaran said, most of them are really really right wing.
...and neck deep in 7 conspiracy theories and get-rich-quick schemes of the week.
As Cory Doctorow puts it, "Prepping is a way of playing out a fantasy in which you are elevated to savior status, not an exercise in disaster-mitigation."
The prepper market is absolutely rife with grifts.
Prepperism is a rabbit hole that your uncle falls down that makes Thanksgiving awkward and makes the whole rest of the family worry about them. Not a benign hobby. And certainly not effective disaster preparedness.
There's of course nothing wrong with having a kerosene heater in your garage or owning a generator in case your power goes out for a few days. But luxury bunkers full of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of MREs bought from Alex Jones' online store? That's someone who thinks the government is all disguised extraterrestrials who drink child adrenal fluid to stay young and and inebriated. Except Trump who is prophesized to throw them all in jail.
There isn't anything inherently wrong with having a properly built bunker with all the food and stuff you need.
I agree there are a lot of right wing nutjobs with more guns than gardening tools, but you're being pretty uncharitable to a very broad hobby that includes just as many hippies and leftish people ready to help their local communities.
Preparedness is something everyone should have, so that when the store shelves empty at the start of the pandemic, no one is concerned about their lack of toilet paper or feeding their kids.