[brian]

Anyone else here got a doomsayer survival mentality?

Got something of it here - had it in my head for ages that if I had the money I'd take the family to some fairly remote place and grow our own food and learn self-sufficency. Keep modern trappings, of course - simply not reliant on them for survival.

Thing is - what is this mentality, and why do so many people have it?

My pet theory is that my own comes from growing under the bomb - during the "Cold War". Who couldn't take an interest in the fact that entire cities could be wiped out with the relevant magatonnage?

Local paper once published an item that showed the radius of damage if an "average" bomb were dropped on the middle of our town. Not encouraging reading.

But now, although the threat of global nuclear destruction appears over, we now have mutiple local nuclear destruction threats - seems that MAD no longer has teeth - especially when countries such as India and Pakistan cannot annihilate each other with nuclear weapons - merely cause extreme but localised destruction.

Maybe also there's the notion of the human biological drive to adapt to threats - nowadays we are aware of a whole range of threats of various magnitude - from local bioterrorism to global information/ power shutdown through reversal of the earth's magnetic field. And our drive tells us to find ways of facing, addressing, and conquering those threats in a way that keeps us safe. So far as possible, anyhow.

So the question is - anyone else here feel affected by the same mentality? If so, to what degree? Not doing much (simply worrying), looking to address in future (like myself), or already there (nuclear bunker already fully kitted out)?

If anyone does, what's your own reasoning, if any, for your own drive? Do you really expect something?