14. Preparedness: Thriving in a World of Uncertainty, with Canadian Prepper

Prepare to have your perspective on preparedness reshaped as we sit down with Nate from Canadian Prepper, a voice of reason and guidance in the world of survivalism and self-reliance. Amid the chaos of a global pandemic, Nate's insights on the surge in demand for trustworthy information over basic survival skills and gear reviews underscore the complexities that content creators face, especially when navigating the realms of censorship and demonetization. His dedication to providing authentic analysis is a beacon for those seeking to understand and adapt to the uncertainty of our times.

Venturing further into the heart of readiness, our chat traverses the landscape of the Bugout Roll, Nate's invention catering to the organized prepper. Yet, it's not just about the gear; it's about the evolution from simple emergency bags to the grand vision of a self-sustainable homestead, a testament to the depth of the prepping community's journey. We confront the post-pandemic proliferation of exploitative companies, the stigma of prepping, and the indispensable role of community in forging a bulwark against burgeoning global threats like climate change and cyber warfare.

Rounding out our discussion, we tackle the societal vulnerabilities laid bare by the pandemic, emphasizing the necessity of preparedness for personal freedoms and societal resilience. Nate's perspective on the preparedness of the wealthy versus the resourcefulness of indigenous communities offers a profound take on global instability and technological advancements. Our exploration doesn't just inform—it empowers you to take ownership of your preparedness in a world where personal responsibility is the cornerstone of collective security. Join us for this profound episode that will leave you contemplating the role of preparedness in an unpredictable future.

Canadian Prepper Links

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@CanadianPrepper
Website
canadianpreparedness.com
Facebook
facebook.com/Canadianpreparedness
Instagram
instagram.com/canadian_prepper/?hl=en
TikTok

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

So I'm here with Nate from Canadian Preppers this is our first time. Well, we had a brief conversation yesterday, first time we've actually met by voice and we've tried to connect. We've probably communicated a little bit. For what? Two years, maybe, maybe more, three years.

Speaker 2: 0:22

Yeah, a little back and forth. I think our first interaction was during the pandemic. It was brief, but it was like I think it was a comment on a video and then kind of, you know right, yeah, it's great to be here, man. I'm excited to chat with you.

Speaker 1: 0:40

It's been a long time coming, but I think it's becoming more and more appropriate. You mentioned the pandemic. Of course I think we're, isn't it still the pandemic it's been. It's been almost four years now, but I don't know much has changed, lisa. But I guess it's your depends on your perspective, but it feels like to me we're still under the same regime, controls, but there's definitely a lot of consequences that are still you know, being still coming to fruition, it seems.

Speaker 2: 1:12

So, yeah, there's, there's, there's a bullwhip effect to the pandemic that seems to have impacted a ripple effect that got sent through the whole world. And you know, that's a lot of things that we couldn't have imagined that we're going to talk about today have transpired, and yeah, it's, it's a brave new world.

Speaker 1: 1:34

It was a bit of an awakening, like I'm assuming you, like you've probably kept your stats, you know what, like how much you grew from that period to now. Like I know you were struggled with a little bit of, probably censorship even before the pandemic, but I think your, your viewership has probably gone up substantially, I would imagine.

Speaker 2: 1:54

Well, I mean, it's been a long time right and you know how growth curves are obviously doing this for around 10 years, I'd say the last four years. Typically. You know you're going to have the bulkier growth within the last. You know what period of whenever, especially when you know how growth is on YouTube the more subs you get, the more you grow. So definitely the bulk of our growth has been in the last four years.

Speaker 2: 2:20

In terms of censorship, you know, I don't know. I mean, I always try to take accountability. So a part of me wants to just look at okay, well, what can I change in order to, to appeal to a broader audience, like how much of it is my responsibility and how much of it is the algorithms? And there's undeniably some search issues with search, when you pull up my, when you search Canadian prepper, the results are a little scarce. But above and beyond that, I mean, we are still growing steadily. So you know a part of me wants to. You know, is it even worth complaining? Is it just? Is it not constructive? So you know I'm just going to take what I can get, but are your videos monetized?

Speaker 2: 3:09

Yes, they are yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Okay, I thought you had lost monetization a few years ago. That's why I said that. So if not, I mean that's good.

Speaker 2: 3:16

Yeah, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Okay, well, there was a brief period there, where they're even on Facebook, they were actually deleting anything to do with survival or forget what the terms were, but they literally were deleting accounts and the personal accounts behind the business profile.

Speaker 2: 3:32

So During the pandemic, there definitely was a period of demonetization for almost every video, yeah, yeah, and they've rattled our cages a few times with respect to not just YouTube but multiple platforms, even though we tend to be quite apolitical and moderate in our approach to presenting these issues. So we're pretty safe. You know, we have a team of people who put their heads together and make sure that everybody's checked to ensure that we're not doing anything that is too risky and outside the overton window. So, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 4:10

All right. Well, that's the reason I bring all that up. I guess let's tell the audience who you are and why. That would potentially be an issue, why I would think that. So who are you, what's your brand and what are you all about?

Speaker 2: 4:23

Well, I'm the Canadian Prepper. You might have seen me on YouTube. We talk all about preparedness related topics. I'd started off as a personal interest, of course, and it just sort of grew to be dealing with you know how, to skill development, gear reviews. But we've also had a foray into current events, and I think part of the reason why the current events analysis is resonating with people is because it's almost a commodity at this point in time. Information has become an item.

Speaker 2: 4:58

There was a time when I used to get a little frustrated with people, because when you try to show a video that it's showing people how to do something that is involve skill development or even a gear review. I mean, usually gear reviews will get more hard because people love to just spend and solve their problems that way. But I used to criticize you know how come? You know, I can make a video and we'll take two weeks to make it and, you know, do high production and it's very informative, at least from our perspective, but it just doesn't, you know, trend well with people.

Speaker 2: 5:34

And so I had a phase there where I was thinking well, maybe people just want, you know, bad news, they just want to hear the shocking news, right, and then I realized that perhaps it's because we're living in such tumultuous times that there really is a genuine thirst for authentic information and information that can be trusted by a person who you can trust, who you know is just trying to figure it out, just like you are, and so it's become a commodity. It's not so much that people are lazy and they don't want to do the hard aspects of prepping, like what you do, which is a huge commitment. It's more so that maybe at this point in time, the thing that is most valuable is discernment of what is real and what isn't, and that's going to be more important as we enter the age of AI and deep fakes and information war, which is ramping up.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Well, there's a good psychological reason that we seek out bad news because we need to protect ourselves from it. We don't really need to protect ourselves from the good news, right? So exactly, yeah, and then looking for the silver bullet, as you say, if there's an easy solution. If this is happening, this is bad, it may affect me. Is there a product I can purchase that'll alleviate that or protect me, mitigate the risk? Then that's the easiest route.

Speaker 1: 7:02

The hard route, as you said, is to actually get fully prepared, and we talked about sustainability of your prepping. So is it buying a week's worth of food or is it growing a year's worth of food, or having the system set up to do that? So, yeah, it's the same in any hobby as well. Let's say, you're a hunter. Most hunters spend probably 90% of their time shopping for hunting gear rather than being out in the field actually learning something about hunting and participating in the actual pastime or self-reliant skill. So I think it's pretty natural, I think, to do that. So, basically so, canadian Prepper, you talked about the content creation, but you're a brand and a retail outlet as well, I believe, right.

Speaker 2: 7:53

Yeah, I mean we had a. It's funny how it started because I originally created this product called the Bugout Roll, which was a system that rolls up. It's kind of like a backpack sort of thing that rolls up. You can see visually what's in each compartment, and it's kind of built really ruggedized. I hated losing my stuff in the field and I liked having an organization, so I wanted to create a rugged portable closet that incorporated vinyl and heavy-duty YKK zips and heavy-duty corduroyal all that stuff. So we made that and then people were like, well, what do I put in this thing? And so we started reaching out to a few companies and it really just started with that. We make them here in Saskatoon, we manufacture that Bugout Roll here in a couple variations, different colors, and then we reached out to a few companies to put some trinkets in there and then it just kept building and building and now we have like 2,000 products and my whole goal with that is just to try to get people quality products, because there's a lot of, especially since 2020.

Speaker 2: 9:02

And I didn't really want this to be the focal point of the interview and I certainly, you know I'm not trying to sell people on anything, but we one of the things that I've discovered is that there's a lot of exploitation of people's fears in preparedness and a lot of people who simply don't have the time to go and research well, what is a good water filter, you know, what is a good backpack, what is a good survival knife, and things of that nature. So, basically, there is a lot of opportunistic companies right now and they're not all bad, and I would say that it's better to have nothing than something, and I guess everybody has to start somewhere. Even if it's that crappy knock off Rambo knife that you can put the fishing line in, you know that you can get off Amazon for 10 bucks. If you can start somewhere, that's great. But what I want to do is just create a place where people can get vetted gear. A lot of it's been tested by fellow YouTube gear reviewers.

Speaker 2: 10:05

It's not always the cheapest stuff and I can tell you it's not the stuff that has the best margins either from like a dealer, distributor point of view, but it's stuff that's actually going to, you know, last in the field and not just be a gimmick. That's the most important thing, because there's so many gimmicks nowadays, and just like when you said about hunters who can spend 90% of their time shopping. I mean, really, it comes down to getting yourself an orange, best you know, walking around for a bit with a shotgun or a rifle, and you know that's like that's most of it, right. So all of this fancy stuff, you know, I mean, yeah, it can come in handy, like I'm not going to say a thermal imager can't come in handy. It absolutely can.

Speaker 2: 10:47

But you know there's a lot of this is we don't want to overcomplicate it either, but yeah, so that's that in terms of the, the market aspect of it. It's never what I sought out to do initially, so I would be fine to just not even have the store at all. To be quite honest, it's it's a big stressor and I always have to endure comments like, oh, you're just doing this to sell stuff and you know I could be perfectly content not selling anything and still be, you know, be good financially. So it doesn't. It's not like a huge, it's not a hill I'm going to die on, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 11:29

But in terms of your, the sorry. You're more focused, your more focused. Your interest is more in education, then Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 11:36

I mean, the day that I have to force anything, you know, is the day I just, you know, call it quits, because we have a board that is a massive whiteboard that's full of preparedness video ideas. So we're nowhere near coming close to that point yet, but you know, the it's always been a passion, whether it's just being out there in the outdoors. The goal ultimately is to get into a situation like yourself, where you're more off grid, you're more remote. Right now I struggle with the whole gray man how much do I disclose? And I'm quite a public figure at this point, so I kind of stand out like a sore thumb. So eventually getting myself to a point where I'm in a more a self-reliant, off grid type situation is the goal. And maybe we can, we can talk a little bit about the evolution of people who get into prepping from what I call a micro preparedness standpoint and progressing kind of to where I'm at now and then ultimately, you know, getting into what you're you're interested in, which is like a micro stead, homestead, self-reliant lifestyle, which I think is the ultimate goal for a lot of people.

Speaker 2: 12:51

Some people start there, but not everybody has the means to do so. That's why I don't harp on people who just go and get a three day bug out bag, because that's a start and really the bug out bag is like a microcosm of everything you need to survive. But you know, if you're taking it to the level that you're taking it to and I've seen you build out your property over the years you know you're slowly adding all of the macro components, whether it's like a power system, maybe a better system to get water, a better system to store your food. You know you've done the foray into hunting more recently and you know, just starting to check all the boxes, and really the bug out bag is like a micro version of critical infrastructure in society. I view it as so you have your water, your light, your power, your self defense. You know those things are all essential.

Speaker 1: 13:50

I think that's a good place to start. I mean prepping the word prepper has negative connotation in society is going probably back to more of the like the survivalist type you know American survivalists in a bunker kind of connotation. I think that's what people visualize. But preparedness I mean if you look at your local government, you know health department, for example, you usually have a list of prepping items, preparedness schedule, where they'll tell you where you should go, how you should communicate and what you should have on hand. People don't, for the most part, I would say 99, maybe even percent, at least 90 percent of people don't have even that basic level of preparedness. This is common sense items. It's not preparing, I think probably also prepping.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Seems people think it's like preparing for aliens or preparing for the zombie apocalypse, when really what we experience with the pandemic if that didn't wake people up, I think they should go back and revisit that time period in their mind. Just a week or two, that's pretty significant. But there's also natural disasters. We've had ice storms here where power has been out from three to three days to several weeks. We have all kinds of weather events. We're so electronic now that it wouldn't even take a major cyber attack. It could be some kind of failure at one point, critical point that shuts down the grid for a certain amount of time. So there's lots of reasons to prepare, other than the big events that you normally think of when you're thinking of prepping.

Speaker 1: 15:36

So that bug out bag that you're talking about, people again they think bug out, I have to run to the woods and hide, so what do I need? My bug out bag for that? But there's also just getting home. When the pandemic hit, my daughters had to leave the city and come up to the country with us. So what did they need to have on them to do that trip if things had gone sideways and it taken a little bit longer? What's in their car, for example? So maybe we should start with that. What is that basic level of preparedness? What would be in a bug out bag or a bag that would be in your car, for example, or something you just have at the house already always ready to go?

Speaker 2: 16:16

Yeah, I mean, geez, there's a lot of places we could start here in terms of threats. Just to comment briefly on what you were saying there about the stigma of preparedness, typically it was a market that was cornered by the proverbial right wing survivalist and I think a lot of people like myself, who I'm a person who I'll veer right, I'll veer right, I'll left if the situation calls for it. So I'm not like a political purist, but I do think that we've tried to normalize preparedness for a broader audience and provide people content that's less alienating, and I think it's important. Especially during the pandemic, what we found is that a lot of, a lot more women became interested in preparedness and a much more left-leaning audience came in. It's still predominantly a more right-leaning audience. I myself consider myself a moderate. So that's what we're trying to do is we're trying to demystify the process In terms of the big threats?

Speaker 2: 17:24

Yeah, I think as we move into the future, the big threats become more palpable, they become more plausible because of a variety of different factors, but of course, anybody can have a small scale emergency, anything up to a weather-related event, possibly something like the pandemic, which is a bit more serious, and things can get far more serious than that. I mean we're having all sorts of climactic shifts around the world. It's December 21st here and there's zero snow on the ground, and it's in the plus temperatures, yeah, but I've never seen it like this in Saskatchewan.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Typically we're renowned for our very cold winters and I can't even set up a winter tent to do a winter tent camping video yet, which is completely unheard of. But we got all kinds of things coming down the pike, from potential for large-scale cyber attacks, hybrid war, world war, potentially Like. I mean all, just all sorts of things supply chain disruptions, decoupling from de-dolarization. I mean there's just a variety of mega threats I guess you could call them that eventually are going to materialize. How they materialize? It might be incremental. How do you prepare for it? Well, I think you just start. You know, start with a. I always say the Bugle Bag is a great place to start because it gives you and some people will disagree with this, you know there's different approaches, but I think any interest in just taking more responsibility for the sustenance of your own life is a good start. So that's why I say the Bugle Bag is like a microcosm of what you need. It's not like the focal point of my videos or anything, but in terms of what you need, like you know that good old fashioned saying beans, bullets, band-aids, you know if you have, if you're a person with chronic medical health issues, then you need your medicine. You know that's like the first thing you need. Obviously, in wintertime you need some form of shelter in Canada. Here that's number one. Like you said, 90% of the time you're not running out into the woods. I mean, if it's that bad, then things are really bad, right. So Bugle Bag is not going to take you too far in that situation. But there's all sorts of rules of thumb, like the rule of threes, you know. Okay, so you can die. What is it? Three seconds without personal protection, three minutes without air, I guess, three hours without shelter, you know, three days without law and order. I mean you can keep going. So, generally speaking, yeah, you want your, you know your water, your ability to make fire, your, I mean, these are all things which are pretty easy to find on the internet. Like you know, a checklist of sorts Food, of course, is very hard to come by, depending on where you live.

Speaker 2: 20:32

You know, if you live in a zone that you can't grow a lot like we do up here, your place is a little, maybe slightly better. But you know, up here in Saskatchewan we can only grow like grasses, grains, that sort of thing. So food storage is absolutely essential. You know, in terms of what else you would want communications, some way to communicate with your loved ones. A plan is one of the most important things. A map of the area, like a topographical map, would be very handy, something that provided more depth and was analog. You know a compass.

Speaker 2: 21:17

Obviously you want your knife, you want your means of self-defense. In Canada, here, that's a little bit harder to come by, but a person can't go wrong with a good old shotgun. I mean, it's highly versatile and you can basically hunt anything that walks or flies or swims with it. So that's always good, you know. And the other component of that beans, bullets and band-aids is brains and body and brotherhood, which is because there's not another good word that all encompasses women as well, but beans, bullets, band-aids, brains, body, brotherhood, because body is probably one of the most important things, because, when it comes down to it, your ability to run out of a burning building or carry somebody or you know, I mean physical health is so important. And that's why if a person is calling themselves a prepper and they're not paying attention to their physical health, then I question the priorities, because if the goal is to live longer, then you know that's which is what prepping is about, right Live longer so you can protect your progeny and hopefully maybe even have more if you're of the childbearing age, then that's the goal. So you should be number one, focusing on your physical health, because that's likely what's going to die first. So I understand that people have mental health issues and there's certain barriers that sometimes get in the way of Max. And I'm not saying you got to be an Olympic athlete, but you got to focus on your physical health, like that's number one. When it comes down to having to hump a bag, I mean, you know, walking through the forest or in wintertime, I mean that's hard ass work.

Speaker 2: 23:04

And then the brains component is just the mental acuity to and the knowledge, and that's a lifelong thing that I don't think will ever be complete, and I'm nowhere near an expert on hardly any of these topics quite yet. So and then the brotherhood component is just like a word for community. You know to that you do need some level of some people you can trust. This is probably one of the things that's different in our culture. Other cultures are far more like collectivist and they're far more focused on that community element and the benefits that come from having a community. And I think people will find out really quick that you know you can't keep watch by yourself all night, you can't grow your own food, you can't specialize in every possible, you can be a jack of all trades, but you're going to need people you can trust if only family and extended family to help. You know, act as a community defense and just protect and help each other to acquire all the resources that are necessary for life. And so you know that's kind of my philosophy.

Speaker 2: 24:26

With it. I treat it like a martial art. It's.

Speaker 2: 24:30

A lot of people say well, you're just wasting time, you focus, your ruminate on the negative and this and that. Well, if you ask any, you know karate sensei, who's thrown like 50,000 punches in his life and maybe has never gotten in a fight. You know and you ask him well, you know, was it worth it? Because you train your entire life thinking that you're going to get in the fight and you never gotten a fight once. Because you know, maybe it was the karate that had about, maybe it was the mental component to that martial art that helped you avoid getting in fights, avoid getting in bad situations, but for me it's.

Speaker 2: 25:16

I mean, we can go into the psychology of why. I think you know, as the proverbial, shit will hit the fan, and when it does, it probably isn't going to be good, but it's more about it. Prepping can make you a better person, because it's when you take responsibility and when you're aware of all of your vulnerabilities. There's something, there's an appreciation for the grid, there's a greater appreciation for this, the ability to have this communication, this online communication. And we don't I don't think we don't we don't really truly appreciate that until we know how vulnerable we actually are. And so the the cynicism that brings you to preparedness in a way, helps you appreciate what we have even more.

Speaker 1: 26:06

So have you have you seen that Netflix movie that's out.

Speaker 2: 26:11

Leave the Runtime.

Speaker 1: 26:12

Yeah, yeah, so the one. So Ethan Hawke and I mentioned this in another podcast. Ethan Hawke Hawke says to Kevin Bacon something about I'm a useless man and I can't even protect or, you know, help my son, which is. I think that, and it doesn't matter how competent you are in you know your, your city life or your, your corporate job or whatever that is that you deal with your, with your career in particular, because people tend to to find themselves by their career and spend too much of their time and energy on that and then they lose sight of who they are and and as a man, we're husbands and we're fathers and we're sons. You know we have a responsibility and we're community members Like we. We have a responsibility to be the best that we can be so that when the situation arises, we're there and able to, we're competent enough to actually be helpful and not a burden, because the opposite of you're not just not helpful, when you're not prepared, you actually become a burden. So you, it requires somebody else to be there to to carry your load, and that's the workplace to be as a man. And we've taken for granted I mean it's very true that that hard times create strong men and and easy times create weak men and we've been living through very easy times for a long time and it's hard to put your mind and put your, put your, put yourself in that position where we're likely to become Like I believe that we can get into it a little bit, but I believe that there's going to be some major events too.

Speaker 1: 27:49

But the pandemic itself. I mean that, even that brief period when they said, okay, we're shutting the schools down, we're locking things up, my kids, like I said, had to get to a place where we could collect and prepare together and there was, I mean, such an overblown scare at the beginning that everybody, including us, believed that we were at real risk and we needed to do whatever we could collectively to protect ourselves. I had started this process many, many years ago, so I was in a better position than most, but it's still exposed some weaknesses and I've spent the last three, three and a half years building up my resources financially, physically, mentally, and I'm at that point where I feel like now, whatever is thrown at me, I can't deal with everything, but I can certainly be the anchor for my community and I feel that is my responsibility If I can educate people. If I get through discussions like this, we can inspire people to get prepared and just become better well-rounded people to begin with. If there's no event, then they're going to be better prepared for their lives regardless.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Like you said, if it's the martial arts, if that's what your training is, that all skills and that mindset is something you carry throughout your life so you're able to apply it to every part of your life. So this prepared mindset set I think we're all we've got this anxiety when we're not prepared and that fear. That anxiety became fear at the beginning of the pandemic, and the antidote to that is be prepared. Then the anxiety has gone, the fear has gone. Now it's like, okay, now I can act. So what actions do I need to take? Which is a stress in itself, but there's no underlying anxiety, like I have no idea where to start.

Speaker 2: 29:43

Yeah, it definitely brings peace of mind. And you talked about that movie, leave the World Behind with Ethan Hawke. And I think one of the things people come to realize is the more you surround yourself with the conveniences of life and a lot of urban occupations, it's almost like the farther you are up the supply chain, the worse off you're going to be when it hits the fan. And now not everybody can have a cabin in the woods right and not everybody can do that full time. It's becoming more possible to do that because of things like this where you can do a lot of work remotely. But there is definitely a trade off between the convenience and the creature comforts that come with an urbanized lifestyle and you're diminishing in your raw survival skills and capabilities. And I mean that guy in the movie. He was getting lost. He couldn't function without GPS. And there's all kinds of incredible symbolism in the movie, like when he gets lost on the. I don't know if you noticed this, but when he got lost, the scene where he finally pulls the car over, there's a horse on the side of the road which kind of symbolized like regression towards 20th century or I guess it would be like 18th century modes of commuting and there was just so many other parts where he was inept as a man to take care of his family. And I think the system and I don't want to have a big cultural critique rant here, but the system has in a way taken people out of their roles in that respect, because we've offloaded a lot of that responsibility onto the grid. We've offloaded the responsibility of self-defense to the police, we've offloaded the responsibility of growing food to farmers, and so you know it's just, you don't have to be an expert and you're never going to be an expert. But if you just have that appreciation for how fragile things are and the more complex and complicated our society becomes in terms of, like, the division of labor and the supply chains, and you know that the greater the risk becomes when there's even a small bottleneck somewhere in the system, the greater the risk that it's going to have a bullwhip sort of effect throughout the rest of the world. And you know that's when it's going to affect everybody and you just got to be prepared to mitigate it.

Speaker 2: 32:27

And you know some people will question. You know our method of trying to get this message out as being fear-mongering and you know a wise person told me once he's like, unless there's a small element of fear to start out with, people just simply won't prepare Like. If there's, like fear is a is a very essential emotion. It's not something you should be overcome by, but there's a reason why we all have it, and so that almost has to be. The impetus to prep is like a existential fear for your own life and your family and your community. So if that's not there initially, then it's very likely that you're not ever gonna take this seriously. You might just do something and throw it in the closet, which is better than nothing, but in order to genuinely appreciate what we have, we almost have to be fearful of losing it, and so- it will maintain that fear.

Speaker 1: 33:31

There's a time element too. It's to be after the pandemic. I mean, people were very serious about their lack of preparedness at that point and their fear and anxiety. They were very aware of it. But then how quickly did they return to status quo, to their normal lives and kind of put that on the back burner.

Speaker 1: 33:48

So it's essential that, yeah, the message is still guys are like yourselves still providing that message and you have to be curious as well as a person. So not you have to be seeking out maybe the truth in a multitude of genres, and that's people will get overwhelmed, like economists. For example, if you invest your money with a financial planner, they do no better, typically, than the market index, and that shows you how complex that even an expert can't really figure out the system and win against the system. So when you broaden that out to what, like you said, water, food protection, there's so many facets to self-reliance that it's overwhelming. So it's very easy just to put that back in the closet and just go on with your modern life and it's like you had very minor disruptions.

Speaker 1: 34:51

That was like grocery stores. They say three days where the groceries are in a typical grocery store, there's lots of minor events that can prevent distribution and availability. In three days where the food and water is the same, there's so many gas like you'd have to go back against the 70s to the oil embargo to remember when there was lineups for gas. But that's very possible again as well, and that's mainly now because we're so electronic that one glitch in the system and the pumps just don't work, or your car doesn't work, as you saw in that movie with the Teslas.

Speaker 2: 35:29

Yeah, and.

Speaker 1: 35:29

I mean.

Speaker 2: 35:32

I like the. You use finance as a. I thought that was a great, definitely something I'm gonna ponder. You know, the best investors at one point they were probably called crazy at some point. Right, and I'm sure Elon Musk.

Speaker 2: 35:49

You know, years ago everybody was calling that guy crazy and not many people are calling him crazy anymore. And the same thing is with a person who's ahead of the curve in terms of, you know, preparing for things. That might not be apparent right now, but we know, based on metadata, that, yeah, shit's gonna hit the fan, probably because there's all these vulnerabilities within the system. And you know, preppers will seem crazy right up into the moment when they don't. And but it really all depends on how you classify crazy and mental illness. I mean, there's a variety of different ways.

Speaker 2: 36:29

I could say that it's completely insane to spend thousands of dollars on season tickets or to buy a brand new crystal chandelier, or to go into debt to own two cars and, you know, a home that you're never gonna pay off, and you know there's all kinds of you know metrics that we can call somebody crazy To me.

Speaker 2: 36:49

You know, at this point in time, I mean, if you even have to justify it to a person you're talking to, it's like you know what planet is this person really on at this point? And this is not to say that, you know, for me I wanna emphasize too like with fear, I'm not saying like be fearful, I'm saying like what you said originally, which was when you're prepared, like you were when the shit hit the fan, you were just like, okay, you know, I'm as good as I'm gonna be right, and so, like when you are prepared, the fear is almost non-existent, but it's the fear of not being prepared right, so you don't have to fear. You know the pandemic and you know like, even during the pandemic, I wasn't like afraid because I was prepared, you know, I was ready to go, I mean. But of course we were all concerned that well, shit, that maybe this could be the big one, you know. But that was short lived, you know. And then it just turned into this draconian, authoritarian society, whatever the hell.

Speaker 1: 37:52

And and people should hold on to that. The threat actually became the authoritarianism and we are still under that threat and it's, if anything, it's, increased since then. So don't like. And of course, there is potential health, real health pandemics that are likely with the population that we have, worldwide population and our distribution and our contact. So don't lose sight of any of those things.

Speaker 1: 38:19

But definitely I think government overreach is gonna be one of the things that, and I hate to say, protect yourself from. But definitely be prepared, cause when I know I know that's my greatest fear, my lack of my infringements on my freedom would be probably my number one fear. And there's not a lot you can do about that other than to set yourself up so that, if it happens that you can bow out of the system to some level, some degree, and that, if that means, like you know, I don't have access to as much fuel or I can't buy meat and I have these backups that aren't really infringing on me too greatly and they're not affecting my family too greatly. So I did, yeah I'd say don't lose sight of what's happened in the past and assume it can't happen again in the future, cause that was shocking when being locked up in your homes. I mean, that's not anything I don't think anybody in our generation could have ever anticipated or prepared for for that matter.

Speaker 2: 39:18

Yeah, that component of things, you know, I used to watch. I've watched a lot of movies and so I recall, back in 2014, I had made a video where I said that you know, there's likely going to be some component to this that is forcing people to stay in their homes, but not nearly to the extent that I thought like to the point where we would completely destroy the economy. And I mean, I'm just thinking myself like holy, like you know, since when did they care this much about human life that they were willing to put the breaks on the entire economy? So that the extent of it caught me off guard. I thought that that would be a thing. If you know, say, we had a virus that had like a 20% kill rate, and you know, okay, well then, maybe it's justified to have people locked in their homes or something you know like, and I think, if it was, that you wouldn't have to tell people to stay in their homes. Ain't nobody going out if people are dropping dead. But yeah, man, I mean, there's lots of unforeseen circumstances and I think one of the preparedness misconceptions is that the government's just gonna, you know, go away. Usually, the opposite is true. So you know it's gonna be.

Speaker 2: 40:35

I call it like there's excessive. There's some acronyms in preparedness we use, like excessive rule of law and without rule of law, and there's two kind of opposites. So without rule of law is like anarchy, it's like Mad Max. There's no centralized power structure. But with excessive rule of law it's kind of what we were drifting towards with a pandemic and, I think, a. You know, if we did have a full blown like nationwide crisis scenario, you would see these islands of excessive rule of law amidst a sea of lawlessness. So it would almost be like the five domes of the medieval area would be Sure. It would be like in order to maintain law and order because resources were limited, it would be highly controlled, and I mean, that's an extreme sort of view of it. But you know, it can definitely help explain what happened there.

Speaker 2: 41:37

And you know I've heard it simply put that the government typically will underreact, as they did at the beginning. They were like, oh, nothing's gonna happen. You know, masks don't work, don't worry. Then all of a sudden they completely flipped 180. And it was like, you know, forcing you to wear your mask. So you know and I don't even like talking about the politics of that sort of thing, because I don't want it to affect your podcast at all, because it still is. It's still, you know, over our shoulder, right, we still feel the weight of it. Oh, can we talk about this, can we not?

Speaker 2: 42:09

But absolutely, and I might get like it might affect where this is viewed, but well, I still think we're speaking about it in a cursory enough manner, in a way which is well within the Overton window. Now I think you know if we were. We're not talking about any interventions, we're not talking about. We're just talking about yeah, we're just talking about what was obvious to everybody, I think at this point, like the majority, and this is what we've found time and time again, even with the war, we can talk about that.

Speaker 1: 42:47

But Well, I think, just one point on that and I think, really deciding where you want to be in that situation. Because these islands of overreach are urban generally I mean Canada especially being a vast country with a lot of rural areas, very hard to police that. So what you could see, and what's being, I'm even encouraged, is more urbanization in these 15 minute cities that are popping up even close to me here, that are going to be very mechanized, very integrated and easy to control and it's highly likely that rednecks like ourselves won't even be allowed in those jurisdictions. But it's certainly very limiting, Like it's impossible to be self-reliant living in an apartment building in a city. I mean you can have a slightly higher level of preparedness than your neighbor by having some water and some food on hand, but beyond that, I mean you're not even getting out of the city if you're in certain situations. So it's really a time and I've been saying this for 15 years probably like you choose where you want to live, Like I chose always to live closer to where I played, recreated, rather than where I live. So I had a longer commute, but it didn't mean just to be in the suburbs, that meant to be on the edge of where I hunted and fished and gardened. So, like the people listening to you are following you because they want to be prepared.

Speaker 1: 44:21

My audience probably the majority, I would say, in my audience is just enthralled or sort of living vicariously through me at this cabin life and it's kind of romantic. They're not really following me to become more prepared. Now that's the people I'm really trying to reach out to and wake them up a little bit, Like maybe hopefully nothing happens and that your lack of preparedness is not going to affect you and your family. But what's the worst that can happen? If you are prepared, Like if you are admiring my lifestyle, I'm prepared, but I'm also loving my life, Like I'm doing these things that are so rewarding. And let's say you are in a suburb and you have done nothing but hoard some food and some water and some ammunition, whatever it is to be prepared. What's the worst that can happen? Nothing happens and you have to eat that food. I mean, there's no downside to being prepared.

Speaker 2: 45:21

Well, I think the people who are watching you, whether they know it or not, I believe there's some unconscious calling. There's a reason why we go camping in the first place, like a person will have to ask themselves, like why do I put myself in this situation where it's cold? I got to sleep on the ground. The standard of living is noticeably lower. I got to go get water. Like what rational person would take themselves from a nice high rise apartment with all the amenities and go into the woods Like? The reason why we do that is because I think there's something we know inside us that not only is it maybe speaking to us for like because we've did that for thousands of years, but it's also this reminder of potentially just like how, how vulnerable we are and also how important it is to know those things. And maybe they're not, maybe they're just watching you for therapy, but they're still getting lessons kind of along the way and you know, if they ever were put in a situation, they might, might occur to them. Oh yeah, I remember. You know I've seen Sean do this once. Or you know this is how I should organize this, or you know this is how I do this. So either way, it's a good delivery system for information and you know, I think you I mean I'm not giving you advice here or anything, but I think what you're doing, if it's working, I think great, if it's bringing people closer to that and it's it's providing them with a pseudo educational experience of sorts, where they're getting educated and entertaining sort of way, then you know, I don't know if I'd rock that boat per se by trying to, like, encourage people to prep, but if there is a thirst there for that, which there might be, you know, because I know personally it's always great to hear people talk about these sorts of things that don't typically talk about them. You know, like I want to know what Sean thinks about, you know, whatever issue that's currently going on in the world, sure, and you know, because they've built that relationship with you, they probably, you know, do trust you in some respect to share your opinion on things.

Speaker 2: 47:53

And you know I mean, but in terms of having to justify prepping, it's just insurance. You know, I can't remember the exact statistic, but it's something to the effect of like half a million dollars, for the average person is spent in their life on insurance. That's going to vary from where you live. I mean that's all insurance like home insurance, fire insurance, you know car insurance. Over the course of your life you're going to spend that much. So to spend to put like 1000, 2000 bucks aside for some bulk food, dry food storage or you know a few water filtration systems and a shoddy and you know a variety of different types of rounds. You know, I mean that's, that's a pretty small commitment and the thing with that is that you're always going to have a use for it. You know you give your money to the insurance companies you ain't never getting it back. But so yeah, I mean that's. I don't think there's any more need than that to justify it.

Speaker 2: 48:54

Besides and you're right, I mean the there is a limit in terms of how much you can prepare in the city. I think everybody has to kind of evolve to a place where they're capable financially, socially, of making that move. If only just you know saving up and getting a second cabin. You know, like a, that that's been a thing for a long time to have. You know the family cabin. You know it doesn't have to be a full on commitment, but you know there are things you can do that don't necessarily involve a full lifestyle change towards the direction of, you know, gotta pack up my life, because that's not practical for a lot of people, especially if you have family, if you have kids. They got to go to school unless you home school them, which is, you know, quite the chore.

Speaker 2: 49:56

But there's, there's an entry point into preparedness for everybody and you know, having started off in the realm of the apartment prepper, you know, I know there's things you can do and it can be. It can be fun too, because you know you're, you're learning new things, you're improving yourself as a person. Preparedness will only develop a person's character in a positive way, like the only way it's developing it in a negative way is if you are getting really political with it and if you're becoming radicalized in some way with it, then, yeah, it's probably not healthy, especially if you're like isolating yourself and you know it's become the. Some people might take a little too far in terms of like paranoid about super specific events going to happen on such and such a date, but by and large, I mean if you're doing it right. I mean you know the biggest tech tycoons in the world are preppers and I mean that should be the biggest red flag for everybody Mark Zuckerberg building a bunker.

Speaker 2: 51:06

Sam Altman, a devout prepper. You know Bill Gates having bunkers on each of his properties. And this is not speculation. This is all open source information.

Speaker 1: 51:15

Well, actually, robert, robert Kiyosaki you just heard him a couple of days ago talking about their collective community that a bunch of extremely wealthy people have in North Carolina a bug out property, essentially and he talked about them having a lake with fish in it that they can fish for and said lots of wild, wild boar and white tail deer and land to grow all their food on. And you know that land currently is prepared and would likely have at least one, but probably several, caretakers preparing that land and keeping it productive and making it more productive for such an event. So you're right, if the people that are part of the inner circle of the elite and are, you know, making rules and they're prescribing and predicting the future, such as the World Economic Forum does which is worth spending some time on their website just to see what, and not from a conspiratorial viewpoint, but just look at it as maybe predictive, and you'll see that people at every level of society are taking the current threats very seriously and they're preparing for it. So to be vulnerable, to be one of the vulnerable, less fortunate, it's not quite necessary.

Speaker 1: 52:37

You know there's something you can do to not be the most vulnerable. Maybe you're not going to have the resources that these billionaires have, but, like community, you have enough community members that are collectively working together on and with various skill sets. You mentioned the division of labor. That is the way we operate today. So if you have the right community members with this, with individual skills that collectively make a hole, then you don't need to own the land in that case per se. If you can't financially afford it, you don't need to have all of the things prepared, but what you do need to have is some accountability and some competence so that you have something to offer that community.

Speaker 2: 53:19

Absolutely like. You know, the more I get into this, and absolutely 100%, guys like the rich people are prepping. Okay, and I don't claim to I'm not rich, but you know you get into interviewing people who are adjacent to that crowd and, yeah, you realize, holy shit, they have a plan in terms of, like rich poor. You know you hit the nail on the head there because I know so many like Aboriginal people, for example, live up north. You know you know poor, as poor can be, but these guys can like live off the land, like if shit hit the fan. You know people are going to be going to these guys for advice on how to survive. Right, and it's not about money, because all of these guys the reason why they're preparing with gold and silver, because they know that you know, if the lights ever went out, all of those ones and zeroes in the bank are completely meaningless and they're basically what they have. So when you talked about competencies and having some barrable skill set or something that you can offer, you know there's so many different ways that you can prepare yourself. That doesn't involve you. You know having the best bunker and 1400 acres in Hawaii and you know every, every, every little trinket that you know a prepper wants in their arsenal. You don't need all that stuff. I mean it's it's kind of like it's helpful, it is going to give you a little bit of an edge, but it's not the main thing. The main thing you take care of your health, make sure of sound mind, make sure you have a competency and you know your, your willingness to build those communal bridges and work with people in your community.

Speaker 2: 55:20

And you know there's there's other ways to navigate this. You don't have to be rich. You know we, we sell gear at Canadian Preparedness. Like I say, I kind of stumbled into that, but it's nothing that I would ever. You know we have a lot of budget prepping videos too. I mean, if there is a component that requires a bit of, you know, investment.

Speaker 2: 55:40

But you can go down to the wholesale food store where nobody you know everybody shops at Sobe, safe way, those places, that's what we have here for your American viewers, just the run of the mill. You know grocery stores. But if you just go down the street to and not Costco, but typically there's going to be a place where the restaurant shop and that's where you want to go, like, just go buy a 40 pound bag of rice, 66,000 calories. You know it's going to last. You know you can we have it so good right now. You know the ability to do that is incredible and there may come a point in time where you know to get 66,000 calories from nature. As you know, I mean good luck. It's going to take you, you know it's probably, it's almost going to take you, as much energy invested as you get out of the process.

Speaker 2: 56:34

Whereas now we're still in 100 to one phase. We're still, you know, I go work for an hour at a place, make my 20 bucks or whatever, and I can buy enough food to last me for 15 days In nature. You know we're talking about your. You're just, you know, living on the edge of starvation. You know it's taking you two weeks to cultivate your crops and do all the work that comes, that's associated with, you know, keeping a garden and just barely staying above, you know, level and maybe have a few calories to put away for the winter. So we have it so good now and I would just encourage people to take advantage of this period of time, because things have never as much as we talk about how bad things might be getting. We really are at the peak of. You know we're going to look back someday and say, holy shit, oil was 70 bucks a barrel. You know I could go to the store and there was just this cornucopia of products that I could buy with stuff we called money.

Speaker 1: 57:40

Yeah, right, yeah, that bag of rice that you're talking about. If nothing else, just inflation alone is going to make it worthwhile to buy that bag of rice today, absolutely. The other part of that is that people don't really understand what how many calories they consume in a year and what that is comprised of, how much, how much food it actually takes to make up that million calories and that. So that's a good, there's a valuable insight. So so, 60 or 40 pounds of rice, 66,000 calories. So basically, a five gallon pail in grains is 50 to 60,000 calories, and if you're consuming a million calories per year, you can do the math pretty easily what you need to have. You need 20 pails per person on, and that's a good long term for long term food as well.

Speaker 1: 58:37

So all of these grains, believe it or not, if they're unprocessed, you can get those to last like 25 years, or at least a number of years.

Speaker 1: 58:47

25 years is great, but you don't need likely to have enough food on hand for 25 years. Just think of that pause, the potential of that food. So, 20 gallons of 25 gallon pails of food put aside somewhere, even if it's at a friend's house or a family member's house, that's extremely valuable, not only for your own sustenance, and maybe it's only because you lost your job. That's your crisis, and you don't have to buy food. And you don't have to buy food at the current prices, which may be five years from now when it's you know three or four times what it costs today. So it's such a good idea to have a basic level of food and water on hand or water filters not quite practical not having enough water on hand but to have water treatment, water filtration, knowledge and equipment. That would suggest starting there. If you know, just to go with your three rule there that I think it's three days with the water, yeah, so three days with the water, three weeks.

Speaker 1: 59:53

Yeah. So take care of the basics. You don't have to go build a cabin. You don't need to know how to build a cabin. There's likely always going to be shelter and if there's not, you'll figure it out and pay a little bit of attention to what I'm doing and others for shelter building is concerned.

Speaker 1: 1:00:10

But don't think that's your priority. Don't go outfit yourself and spend your limited money, limited resources now on tools to build a cabin, when you need to take care of the basics first the food and the water and the protection and making sure your family members have the same, because in that dire situation your daughters, like me, are an hour and a half or two hours away. My priority is to get them to where I can protect them. So that's what I'm working on right now and that's my priority, because I've taken care of these other things. But again, something happens a year from now. I'm not starting from zero because I wasn't prepared. I don't have to build a shelter. I don't have to buy the property. I don't have to learn the game patterns and figure out how to fish and hunt successfully. I've done all of that. Now I can focus on my family and my community. What can I do now to be prepared for them.

Speaker 2: 1:01:09

And maybe even be a leader in your community Not that you're aspiring to do that, but potentially helping others. And yeah, what you're saying is so important when it comes to starting where you're at, because it makes no sense for somebody who lives in an apartment to start acquiring tools to build a cabin. At some point you might get there, but you really. And we're living in a day and age where things could just happen any day now, To be brutally honest. So you have to ask yourself when you're preparing, a lot of people try to do everything at once.

Speaker 2: 1:01:47

Well, I got to get at this, this and this and they go into massive amounts of debt. But you have to ask yourself what would I need today that would best suit me towards the end of surviving, for either a short or whatever situation arises, and you build out from there and then as you evolve hopefully things don't happen anytime soon and then you can focus on you, mature in what your needs are in terms of preparedness and you'll become more of a macro scale preparer, as I call it, move from the micro to the macro and you start going from the toy to the tool phase, where a toy is kind of like something you put in your bug out bag. It's not really a toy. It's useful, but it's short term. Whereas you know, one day you're packing a five watt solar panel in your bug out bag, the next, you know, five years later, okay, you're putting solar panels on your roof. You know you're really planning for long term. So there's a corresponding larger.

Speaker 1: 1:02:56

You know gadget, gadgets and you know the big league stuff that kind of you're getting into now, but it's you know that's valuable to know that because, like you said, the quality of Some of these products that people are pushing are not the highest. But if it's a one-time use thing then probably isn't worthwhile spending a lot of money on it. If you don't plan, like, maybe that knife is fine that you described the old Rambo knife and maybe that's fine if you know it's a three-day event, but if you want to seriously be prepared, then there's some things to spend money on and a knife it's always going to be valuable. So maybe that's one of the items that you you splurge on and you know they say you cry by once. What's a by?

Speaker 2: 1:03:46

one yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:03:49

So because the other thing is you can't buy everything because you don't know what you need and you don't know it's very specifically what's valuable to you at that next level, you can buy a bunch of tools and then discover I could have made do with just these. Or let's say, you, you buy that, that Bag of rice. The next you get that home and then the next thing you realize I need some Oxygen absorbers or a food grade pale. So you buy that that thing, knowing now because you've learned that, okay, I have this rice and you do a little bit of research, oh, I need to store it longer term.

Speaker 1: 1:04:25

So then that snowballs. You just keep going down that path to self-reliance, one step at a time, and there's a lot of ways to get to veer off that path and some of them are actually right. There's all kinds of ways to be self-reliant, but you need to take a step every day down that path before you even Hit those obstacles that make you think about what do I need to learn, or need to purchase or build or buy or whatever it is To be prepared for that next step?

Speaker 2: 1:04:56

Yeah, absolutely there's. You don't want to get put the cart cart before the horse, and you know, just start where you're at, and you know it's better. Even if you're just thinking about this, you know that's a. That's a huge leap over when, unfortunately, a lot of the populace is right now. I think we, we as a society, we struggle from what I call generational exceptionalism, where we think that Nothing that has happened in the past, like we almost Misconstrued that our, our institutions have evolved, and you know we've been, we've progressed in a lot of ways. But as human beings, you know, from a biological point of view, we're exactly the same as we were, almost exactly the same as we were 150 years ago, 200 years ago, 500 years ago. Like, maybe we're slightly, a little bit taller and you know, I don't think we have any more brain cells than we did, you know. So we're the exact same thing. But when all of these institutions go away, that's the problem. We're the exact same people and and unfortunately, you know, a lot of people are it's never going to occur to them until enough people get interested in it. That's why, you see, like there's almost like this In psychology. What do they call it? It's like it's social referencing or Social proof that you need in order to feel like comfortable going and doing something. And so you've seen that with the pandemic.

Speaker 2: 1:06:34

When a penette pandemic first started, I was wearing a mask in the grocery store and I was getting ugly looks because I didn't know what was going on. Right, I'm like this shit could be going down. I'm wearing a mask, I don't care if you think I'm crazy, right. And then all of a sudden it it just like flipped and I'm the guy who's not wearing the mask and everybody else. So it's like it crosses that Rubicon, that critical mass of of Just the lemmings, you know, going over the cliff. And all of a sudden, you know everybody's, everybody's doing it. And so you know I had hoped that the pandemic was going to be. All people needed to Clue into the fact that, yeah, you should take this a bit more seriously. But as quick as it came, you know, people became complacent once again. The war came, the war started, people's interests ramped up a little bit more and then it started to dissipate once again. And you know we are. I think that's going to be the eternal struggle. I don't think we're ever going to be able to convince everybody to take this stuff seriously, no matter what happens.

Speaker 2: 1:07:40

I mean, there's a scene in that movie Don't look up, you know where. Have you seen that one with Leo de Caprio? Yeah, yeah, and you know where people are just completely oblivious to. And he's trying to, you know, I think it was either him or Jennifer Lawrence, and you know they're freaking out like why, why don't you people just like? You know, because people will rationalize Right until the end, until you know it's it's just a ploy by the government or something. So, yeah, it's, it's.

Speaker 2: 1:08:17

You know, I hope nothing happens because I have kids, I want them to, you know, I I hope that just in bringing awareness to these things, and I think maybe we have in some sort of way Prevented things from happening because we're calling attention to the things that can. And it's like the power grid, for example. You know the power grid has to be hardened for things like electromagnetic pulse, cyber attack, and the only way that happens is if there's enough people saying, hey, this is a potential threat. You know, like this is something that could happen, especially in the current geopolitical climate. So you know that it's that fear, that that initiates that concern, that potentially pushes the the government, to take steps to to mitigate the risk, and and so this preparedness Stuff can actually have a way of potentially reducing the threat it can, but I don't that you're very optimistic that that's true, that that's actually gonna happen.

Speaker 2: 1:09:29

No, it, financially it's just not yeah right financially.

Speaker 1: 1:09:32

I mean we're out of money. I don't know people understand that, that we're bankrupt. The entire globe, essentially, is bankrupt. We're way beyond so. As a politician, how do you convince that your constituents to that you're going to make their lower, their standard of living to pay for some future event that may or may not happen? It's almost impossible, right?

Speaker 2: 1:09:52

Yeah, but I think that. Yeah, you see, I try to be an optimistic but right yeah my self-reliance wants me to.

Speaker 1: 1:10:00

I Thought I'm supposed to be that negative Nancy yeah, I don't know it's, it's just realism, right, like I just to. I think we should probably talk very briefly about the likely, like what the threats are, you know, maybe prioritize the threat level, the threats and the level and likelihood. Like I, you mentioned the grid. I mean that's a very vulnerable place and I don't think people don't generally understand how reliant they are, and I've been guilty of this even in the past. I've had Off-grid cabin since I was like what?

Speaker 1: 1:10:39

18, and when I'm there, as you mentioned, with camping, we simplify our lives so like such such a low standard of living when we're camping and we're able to function there, but you lose power for two hours at home and your law, like you're literally crippled Because our we're so dependent. We've got our everything. Our food is reliant on that energy or sight, With lighting, everything is, or we can't cook for the most part, like we are so vulnerable within hours, so you can imagine three days of Without electricity how Impacted our lives would be. So I think that's, you know, a good place to start thinking. Okay, what happens in that case? Do I, can I even get water? Can I pump water if I live in an apartment building or a well, main well, anywhere, for that matter, even in the country, have a well that you have to pump water out of.

Speaker 2: 1:11:35

Yeah, I mean that's gonna be. Everything revolves around electricity and you know, without electricity, there's no telecoms, there's no water pumps, there might not even be a system here in Canada to regulate the flow of natural gas. I Mean everything would. Just, you know, no 9-1-1, like you know, I mean it all revolves around electricity and as resilient as the grid might be, it's actually, I mean there's.

Speaker 2: 1:12:08

You get into specifics and I'm not an expert in terms of these things, like I, a lot of this is. I've information I've discovered from people I've interviewed. But you know, generally the grid is a system of Transformers, thousands of transformers, and if even a few dozen of those transformers were to be compromised, the entire grid would go down. So and I'm talking about North America, I'm not just talking about Canada so I mean there's a variety of other potential threats. I mean we're definitely in a age and and you've probably seen this more than me during the Cold War but we're entering a multi-polar world and I don't think people really understand what that means yet, because it means that Everything that we've enjoyed up until this point and you said it best when you talked about the economy, that we're out of money Everything that we've enjoyed with globalization is coming to an end a not not necessarily completely to an end, but you know the good time is over, like cheap stuff from Walmart is coming to an end because the Chinese aren't gonna be making our stuff for much longer. So the multi-polar world is really a Cold war like, but now it's a cold war with multiple nuclear superpowers. So and that you know, this hybrid war, like I just interviewed, andrew Bustamente is a former CIA agent and he talked about how he thought that World War three really started with the Iraq war in September 11 and that it's been a hybrid, proxy war Ever since, and that we fight these what they call hybrid wars, because we want to avoid obviously going to nuclear war. So we have to fight wars in ways that are Conventional but unconventional not unconventional in the nuclear sense.

Speaker 2: 1:14:12

But so these proxy wars and as we as the economy contracts and as the multi-polar world emerges, the, the risk of Conflict is going to increase, and we're seeing that all over. I mean this Houthi situation in Yemen we can talk about, or you know, like just the bottlenecks that are happening there as a result of the, the Bab El Mendeb straight that enters the, the Red Sea, and how all the traffic now has to be re-rooted around Africa. They say it's gonna raise the price of shipping by like 400% for those things. This is gonna have huge repercussions for Europe and maybe not so much us, but of course we live in a globally traded economy. So, yeah, price increases and things will affect us. But, yeah, all of these things are interconnected, I think. And in terms of the, the buffet of threats, I mean, we have Conflict climate contagion. Those are the big three in my mind and they're all interconnected. And then you have things like commerce and cybersecurity. Yeah, commerce in the sense that you know, I've talked to a lot of financial analysts and they all have a different, a Different way that the world is gonna collapse as a result of the.

Speaker 2: 1:15:37

You know, whether it's the failing banks or the government debt, or the Dolarization, I mean, take your pick. We're at the, we're at the precipice of. You know something and you know it's it's really just the party's over, I think, and not everybody has realized it yet People, which is not to say that technology is not going to Offset and postpone some of these things, but you know, I was talking with Peter Schiff a few months ago, the financial analyst and he said that you know all, the only thing keeping inflation down right now which it's still up, but the only thing keeping it down is the fact that we've had cheap labor for 30 years. You know, we've had all this technological deflation where, you know, things become easier and more accessible and like easier to make, and technology gets better so it can kind of Override the amount of you know. That's why you know, the price of a can of coke is still affordable somewhat, but if you took all those things away, I mean, the price would be Astronomical, you know. And now we're entering a period where they're gonna it's very likely we're gonna see that decoupling with China. They're not gonna continue to make our stuff if we're going to war with them over Taiwan or the Korean Peninsula.

Speaker 2: 1:16:56

So you know, it's it, everything is nice and but and the music will stop, you know, and it's like is it? Is it gonna be a hard stop? Is it gonna be a soft landing, as they say, or is it gonna be a? You know it could be incremental and that's the thing people are waiting for, some like big Crisis event, but maybe it's just a gradual, and this is the worst scenario, is that it's just a gradual, slow deterioration of things and you know it's like a 70s kind of thing where it's just you know, everything kind of is sucking and you know. But which is not to say that it's the end of the world. It just means that, from a Financial collapse point of view, you know we're gonna have to readjust and and I mean that's just scratching the surface like I was interviewing Energy, a natural resource expert, the other day and he's talking about oil and how you know, at our current rate of consumption, there's enough oil to last around 20 years because not all the oil that's in the ground is recoverable. So I mean you have resource scarcity. You have all of this crazy climate business going on, which is still hard to quantify and still hard to convince half the population that it's really happening. You have contagions creeping up.

Speaker 2: 1:18:23

There's definitely a potential for a real pandemic because our immune systems are diminished were. You know there's. There's a biological warfare component of that. There's the cybersecurity threats, like I keep saying who I've just interviewed, but I just interviewed a cybersecurity expert and he's telling me all about how the Internet of Things Every like there's supposed to be something like 30 trillion Devices connected to the Internet by 2025 and every one of them is like a vector for Attack into, like the broader ecosystem of which it's a part. So I mean there's so many possible ways that the dominoes can fall. Let's hope they don't. But I mean that the problem is that normalcy bias, people just think this, it's generational exceptionalism, that it that's in the past. We're never gonna experience another depression or a world war or a gas shortage like in the 70s. But you know I mean.

Speaker 1: 1:19:33

Well, you know, I mean people need to pay a little more attention to history and Don't be so arrogant. The thing that doesn't apply to us the rules of nature and, if anything, it's exponential now because we're so connected and we're so much larger in population than we were during any other crisis period. Like we're weird. Yeah, like you mentioned, one one single point in that massive, complex system creates a vulnerability across the entire system. And how could it be possible? I mean, the oceans are another example the soils, like that.

Speaker 1: 1:20:12

We've depleted everything to a degree that it's not a quick fix, like the diminishing rate of return in the oil fields. That's the case in every Mine is mine essentially. So let's say we think we're going to solar power. Oh, we need all these raw Earth materials, for example, and the rate that we're Mining them right now would take like 200 years in some cases in order to mine enough Just to put into the solar panels or, let's say, the lithium batteries in electric cars. So it's it's not even possible within our lifetime. And that's not taking into account that most mines get turned down for environmental reasons. So there's no increased production generally. Or if there is, it takes years or decades to bring new technologies online or new mines, for example.

Speaker 1: 1:21:05

So these are not quick fixes but because we're so stressed financially in a multitude of other ways, but financially the money is not there. We just print money, but that doesn't mean that money is… it's overabundant now, it just means it's been diluted. So it's not like… and there's no solution you don't just come up with…. We don't have primary wealth increases like we used to have because of that diminishing rate of return and all of the resource extractions. We've cut down most of the old growth for us. We've mined all the easy gold and other precious metals or metals required for any processes. We've extracted all the easy oil and the cheap oil. There's no increasing anymore, we're diminishing regardless. So if there was a 70s style sort of depression or recession, that stagnation, that's one thing, but I think we've just hit peak on almost everything. So there has to be multiple crashes. It's just which one happens first and when is it?

Speaker 2: 1:22:17

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you nailed it there With the diminishing returns, is such a…. Yeah, I mean, that's an eye-opener in and of itself that, not only for oil, but every commodity, all the low-hanging fruit has been picked, like all of the watershed ROI, like on energy invested versus return, is gone, and that was what fueled a lot of the boom that we've seen. And, yeah, everything's plateauing, but the population and I'm not one of these, like depopulation people, but because it's by and large how much energy each person uses per capita but the developing world is still trying to catch up and so their energy footprint is only going to increase drastically and I mean, as it should like. I wouldn't want them not to develop. I mean that would be credibly selfish, but just knowing that their populations are also increasing means that we've already plateaued in terms of what we can get, but we're not plateauing in terms of growth and people's desire for stuff. So those things aren't synced and that means that there has to be a contraction, a crunch, and so it's not surprising that this conflict we're seeing around the world is happening, and it might not be obvious at first that it's a do with resource scarcity, but it definitely is on some level, like it's definitely related to the fact that times aren't as good now and the only way we can keep servicing the debt is if we keep growing the economy.

Speaker 2: 1:24:10

Well, how do you grow the economy? You got to put more energy into the system. Well, if the energy is more expensive, then it's just like this. You know, it's this runway effect Like we. You know. So really, the rug could be pulled at any moment.

Speaker 2: 1:24:26

So this is all the more reason why you know it's important to have a plan for right now. I mean, I think the time to prepare for five years from now I don't want to say it's past I think you should still have a long plan as well, and I mean, I'm still not near where I need to be for that. I'm hoping we have a couple more years before things get crazy crazy. But yeah, you got to have a plan for right now, at this point, because there's so many vulnerabilities on so many theaters of war. We have the Ukraine front. We have the Israeli front, which is really just the Middle East as a whole. You know the it's really the Iranian Israeli front. Then you have the North Korean front. There's stuff going on in Africa in terms of, you know, a lot of the Western countries have left, but I don't think they've left for good. So there's probably going to be more conflict emerging there, because there's a lot of resources there that you know globalize or the multipolar world will need.

Speaker 2: 1:25:35

There is the Taiwan-China issue, you know which is. I've heard all kinds of predictions. You know the most near-term one is that, yeah, before the next election, china is going to try to take Taiwan and that could cause incredible disruptions because I think I don't know the exact statistic but a lot more of the global like naval trade, marine trade, goes in between the Taiwan Strait than does the Red Sea that is currently being rerouted. So it would be disastrous for the global economy if that were to happen. Yeah, I mean there's just in, the North Korean Peninsula is becoming more militarized for some reason. I mean I don't know why the US continues to send nuclear submarines into that region to provoke the North Koreans to make more nuclear weapons.

Speaker 2: 1:26:36

So there's this proliferation of nukes that is occurring and weapons delivery systems, and this new space-based arm race, cybersecurity arms race, and I mean I think we've kind of hit on all the heads. I mean. Then there's the tyranny that comes with all of this right is because, and throughout this time of contraction, you know the powers that be only have one solution and that's just to. You know austerity and cracking down, because there is no foresight, there is no plan. One of the things in that movie the guy said leave the world behind. He's like you know. Everybody hopes that there is some cabal of people who are controlling things, but you know that the scarier thought is that there isn't and that we're all just kind of free floating on this big rock in space and nobody's really in charge. I'm not entirely believe that, but what do you think?

Speaker 1: 1:27:36

Well, I think the analogy that I mentioned earlier about the economy is a good example. It's highly manipulated, but it's still volatile. It's not manipulated to the point where the manipulators are winning every time, right. So I think there's some manipulators globally affecting everything, but it doesn't mean they're working in tandem, working together for the same outcome. And even if they were, it's not going to favor us, you know, at our level, right. So you also have the polarization in the US. I think maybe and that's what that movie was kind of alluding to to forget outside attack, just create a little bit of chaos within the countries, especially America, and they'll fight amongst themselves and create enough destruction, and that's quite likely.

Speaker 1: 1:28:28

I'm not excited about the US election next November, I think it's. I don't know. I see a lot of social unrest, so it's internal as well as external, it's global as well as regional and local. So I don't know. I think the bottom line is that it's now. You should be prepared, now, I don't. I see this crisis period and if you read the fourth turning, or the fourth turning is here the crisis period that we've entered. They predict the last, another 10 years. I think that's probably pretty accurate. And if you follow.

Speaker 1: 1:29:02

The World Economic Forum, like 2030, is a key date. A lot of policies are being put in place by governments, especially here in Canada, to follow the agenda that they're proposing and it's. It doesn't matter whether you believe that or not, and it doesn't matter whether that's effective or not it the reality is we're in a contraction period, as you mentioned, and that contraction means a lower standard of living. So it's up to each of us, as individuals, to decide where we want to fall in that contraction. Where we want to, how do we position ourselves, how do we prepare for it and are we satisfied with, let's say, 10 years from now? I'd like to use a 10 year timeline.

Speaker 1: 1:29:49

When I say that somebody becomes self-reliant, I don't think it's reasonable to do it over six months or a year.

Speaker 1: 1:29:54

Really, look at 10 years and start taking, but take a step every day. It doesn't mean prepare 10 years from now. Step every day and probably in 10 years you'll be in an awesome position, right where you want it to be, and it's probably going to be not where you thought you were going to be, because there's just so many paths to go down. But I think today is a day that you better be more prepared than you were yesterday and every day better, be a progression on the right, on the right path or a path toward self-reliance, and hope that 10 years from now we're back to prosperity and that you've weathered the storm and you've weathered it for you and your family and your community, and you're ready to take advantage of the next uptick in society, which is going to be vastly different from the one today. We should look back in history to see how things have progressed, but it's impossible to predict the future because things are exponential now.

Speaker 2: 1:30:54

And there is some optimism for the future. Unfortunately, there has to be this big shakedown because we're on the brink of AI, nanotech, automation and all of these things that just simply aren't compatible with the current financial system. And unfortunately, I think, rightly so. People are justifiably concerned that the old guard is going to be leading the charge into the new world and it's just going to be some dystopian nightmare that is talked about on the World Economic Forum. But we're definitely like we're going through a birth canal right now because, yeah, maybe the future entails nuclear fusion and a big machine that sits on your kitchen counter. You just push a button and it engineers it from nanoparticles. But before we get there, there's got to be a reset of sorts, because this current paradigm that we're in is not compatible with that at all.

Speaker 2: 1:32:04

Think about it like automation who's going to work? So you're talking about universal basic income. What would that really look like? Artificial intelligence, I mean, we haven't even seen like anything yet with respect to that. That is just in its infancy, like biotech, I mean. So I'll just move towards analog by people like yourself as an insurance policy makes perfect sense, because we don't know where these technologies are going to take us. We don't know how they're going to be leveraged in conflict. And really when I say any, I'm not trying to scare people when I say like any day now, this is what I truly believe.

Speaker 1: 1:32:58

So I'm not going to lie to people and say I think it's better than it is Just one disclaimer before you go on with that, because I recorded something today about that. If you respect my opinion, great, listen to it. But I encourage everybody to go and do some research and find the data that supports everything we're saying, and don't even find somebody else who's giving their opinion. Look at the data behind what they're saying as well, because it's there. It's there to support everything we're saying. This is not hyperbole, it's not negativity. This is reality and the facts are there and the truth speaks for itself, and you can find the truth if you wade through all the propaganda. So, regardless of what we're saying here, this is what we both believe, but do your own homework.

Speaker 2: 1:33:53

And you know it's good that you said that, because I always try to be my own devil's advocate. I always try to steal man. Am I thinking too negatively about this? What is the converse of this point of view? That is, looking at all the risks, maybe there's a lot of resiliency and strengths within the system that I'm not identifying. What's that guy's name? Stephen Pinker. He's pretty prominent on the stage of, well, everything's so much better than it used to be and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2: 1:34:23

But there is data to support every single speculation that we've made here today. It's not hard to find. I think the people who are saying that are fewer and farther in between, and I think, like saying that, in the sense that you know, saying that this is like fear mongering or something, they're starting to become less numerous. And I think a lot of that is a defense mechanism at this point, because it's such a huge commitment to do what someone like you is doing. It's a huge responsibility, especially if you're unprepared. I mean, you don't want to hear that. You know, and this is why you try to give a presentation like this to people who are living in downtown Vancouver. I mean, you know they'll think they'll just write you off as some right wing nut job or something. But yeah, I mean, and what I do find too on a political note, is that in self-reliance, politics seems to dissipate, like, if you like, there's like the rednecks and the hippies are kind of doing the same thing. When you think about it, they're both trying to live off the land. So you know, I actually think that a lot of these divides that might lead to some sort of civil unrest in the United States can be bridged by this focus on you know, like just what we need to take care of ourselves and we realize, hey, we all need the same thing and, you know, I think that's one lesson that Hollywood tries to tell us.

Speaker 2: 1:36:13

If there is any lessons that Hollywood can provide us, it's that, you know, in times of great crisis, one of the things I like about apocalypse movies is that you know the people's color, or their ideas, their beliefs kind of go by the wayside and it's like how do we survive? Right? So this can be something that should be a unifying thing, like this should be preparedness, should be something that not only mitigates the risk but possibly even prevents things from getting worse. Then they are by. Not only are you not going to be a drag on a system which is going to be stretched incredibly thin? I mean you look at what's happening in Israel right now. I mean they're struggling to take a little tiny strip of land.

Speaker 2: 1:37:01

I mean, but that is just like one example of, you know, hurricane, katrina or any you know serious crisis that requires a nation wide mobilization just for one little tiny incident. I mean, if we're talking about a widespread collapse, I mean you're on your own. So you know, but getting a little going on a tangent there, but yeah, I mean I think there's a lot of tangents to go on, but there's that reluctance to prep is diminishing but there's still a lot of holdouts. But you know, I mean I'm not going to tailor my messages for those few people who are still in disbelief at all. This. A lot of that is just can be explained by psychology. Yeah, yeah, I mean there's a psychological, many psychological terms to describe that kind of behavior. At this point, I can tell you that.

Speaker 1: 1:38:00

Yeah, I'm a big believer in inertia and then the preservation of energy. And if it's a smart survival technique to take the path of least resistance, because you're you know, in the past, as you mentioned earlier, acquiring enough calories took an awful lot of resources and you have to expend a lot of calories in order to get a net gain. So it made sense to preserve as many calories as possible and that meant you know, you take the path of least resistance at all. You know opportunity and that's what people generally are doing. They've got inertia, they're staying, they're stable, they haven't had to exert much energy to survive and thrive in this modern society where we're so dependent, so codependent. But I find the other part of it and one of my main messages is I find that it's unrewarding to just be part of the masses.

Speaker 1: 1:38:58

You know, if you are controlled, if your AI is taking your job and you've got and you're living on a guaranteed basic income, like, how meaningful is your life? Like humans crave and need adventure and challenge. And if we don't have that, what's our mental state going to be? Like? Sure, you're physically going to be taken care of, likely in this dystopian future, but how meaningful is your life going to be and I find what I'm doing. First of all, I do believe that we're natural beings and that connection to nature is absolutely mandatory in order to have sound mind and body, and I'm going to choose that now, even regardless of whether there's ever a major event that requires this preparedness we're talking about. I'm finding meaning in what I'm doing and I can't imagine living a life that the future is predicting for us or prescribing for us is probably more likely.

Speaker 2: 1:39:53

Yeah, no, it's great philosophy and I am in 100% agreement about it, because there's so much mental illness nowadays and that I think can be explained by that disconnect from, and I can only imagine a world where you're living on universal basic income and a high rise building with your virtual reality headset and having your sludge delivered by some robot drone or something every day, and how meaningless of an existence that would be, especially considering there's not going to be that element of community to see you through. So it's a brave new world, as Aldous Huxley would say.

Speaker 1: 1:40:39

I think that's a good place to end this. We are over an hour and a half into this conversation, but we're going to continue it on your channel, so absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:40:48

I get to turn the camera around on you because I want to hear what you have to say.

Speaker 1: 1:40:52

Like I, haven't said enough. Yeah, I look forward to that. So for my audience, if you want, I'll put a description to all of Nate's social media in the description of this video, but also a link to that future podcast that will be available on his channel as well.

Speaker 2: 1:41:11

I just want to thank you for having me. I'm a little starstruck with all this because I've seen your videos for many, many years and I've seen your evolution and it's just incredible what you're doing for the community and to. I think to bridge this divide between preppers and homesteaders is so important now too, because there was kind of that disconnect for a while. So I'm glad that we've been able to have this interaction and hopefully, hopefully, your viewers have got some use out of it. And yeah, feel free to come check me out. Canadian Prepper YouTube. I talk a lot, so I'll probably say something that will offend you at some point, but you know, it's just how it is.

Speaker 1: 1:41:52

That's why I stay silent. That's great. Well, I appreciate it too. I appreciate you coming on, and we'll talk again next week.

Speaker 2: 1:42:01

Sounds good, sean. Thanks a lot, take care.