Chapter 15: Additional Considerations For The Omega Man or Woman
While we have endeavored to make a very good book for beginning Doomsday preppers, this is certainly not an all-inclusive work. There are other considerations that should be part of your planning as well. While we will attempt to discuss these things in greater depth as we release future books in this library, let's now take a moment to pose some of the questions and considerations you should have in mind to be fully prepared for a Doomsday event.
Social Considerations
When it comes to social questions in Doomsday planning, certain obstacles and thoughts come into question. How do we reintegrate into society after a Doomsday event? How do we reestablish society if previous forms of society have been totally destroyed? Do we even wish to rejoin or recreate society? What, if anything, can we do as a community to prevent similar disasters from happening again? How can we support each other in a post-apocalyptic world to ensure the best results for all survivors? How would education be handled?
Long-Term Health Questions
Long-term health concerns are also to be carefully considered. Situations such as elder care, child care, psychiatric health and chronic health issues could create very serious issues in a post-apocalyptic world. Is it advisable or ethical to bring new children into the world in a post-Doomsday scenario? How would birth control be handled? If children were wanted, how would birth complications be handled?
How do we provide proper healthcare for the elderly in a post-apocalyptic world? How do we deal with the psychiatric fallout of surviving a Doomsday event and possibly witnessing deaths or trauma of others? How are chronic illnesses to be handled in a world with limited resources and medical equipment or medicines?
How would life-threatening communicable diseases be handled? Would it be ethical to risk additional human lives in a group to care for a few who had contracted such diseases or should infected individuals be segregated to their own colonies? If these individuals were segregated, how should the division of supplies between the healthy and the infected colonies happen?
Moral and Ethical Considerations
In the total disarray of a Doomsday event, moral and ethical questions arise. At what point does basic human need override moral and ethical behavior? Is it moral or ethical to use force to defend one's stockpile against fellow survivors who have nothing? Does it become permissible to pillage another individual's supplies if you are truly in need? With limited resources, are the needs of the majority more important than the needs of the few? For example, are those with chronic illness or advanced age allowed to place the majority in danger of starvation or lack of medicine to provide for their care?
End of Life Questions
In an extended Doomsday situation or in a post-apocalyptic world, the end of life also poses some profound questions for survivors. Is euthanasia or assisted suicide something to consider in a society with limited resources where age or illness could put others at risk? How do we dispose of bodies? How are the supplies which belonged to the dead individual disbursed between survivors? Who has rights to claim property belonging to people who died or went missing during a Doomsday event? Do such belongings become community property or do they pass through similar chains of inheritance as we use today? If the individual died as a result of disease, how do we ensure that the supplies are safe for dispersal or should they be destroyed to prevent the spread of disease?
These are just a few of the questions and dilemmas that survivors of a Doomsday event would have to face. Carefully considering these points before the event happens gives you the opportunity to truly be prepared for what could happen. Discussions among the prepper community could bring about solutions to many long-term problems and form the basis for new post-disaster society.
The world is in an unusual predicament. From the looks of things, the eventuality of a Doomsday event is inevitable. While they cannot seem to agree on what the final cause will be, the experts almost unanimously agree that it is only a question of when, rather than if, a global Doomsday event will happen. Even if a global event does not occur in your lifetime, it is almost certain that a localized event (such as a tornado, flooding, earthquake or ice storm) will happen at least once and probably more than once, in your lifetime. Making advanced preparations for the eventuality of disaster is no longer the realm of the paranoid and the delusional fringe of society. Being prepared is now the mark of the wise.