How do you tell the difference between making use of what you have, and confirmation bias?

[Magus]

It all boils down to this:
Give one of us a knife, a tomahawk, a bedroll, a compass, and a tarp, and set us down in the middle of Cornhole nowhere, We'll likely find our way out eventually. Give the average 9 to 5 Starbucks skittlehead the same outfit and his corpse will be found missing a few fingers looking for a signal on his cellphone. The great culling is not for us, it is for them!

 

[Amish Heart]

People around where I live absolutely make use with what they have, I see it all the time. Stuff I wouldn't of thought of doing or using. How many uses are there for baling wire. There's always more than one way to cook rice. Can't say one is better than another, depending on how you want to get it done.

 

[elkhound]

People around where I live absolutely make use with what they have, I see it all the time. Stuff I wouldn't of thought of doing or using. How many uses are there for baling wire. There's always more than one way to cook rice. Can't say one is better than another, depending on how you want to get it done.

i watch 3rd world videos over poverty and desperate times of folks and see them making incredible items from trash and junk. i seen some guys making diving goggles and snorkel on a beach once from washed up trash...their ability to manipulate plastic was incredible.

i see one russian guy lives very remote save EVERYTHING...down to foil pack.he turns it into something to help him further his daily life along. i seen him fix and repair everything.

 

[Aerindel]

So it comes down to "Run what you brung" and make the best of it. deciding others methods are wrong is a pretty narrow view. I can think of a few thousand times where people who seem to never make even close to a functional decision can always decide what another person should do

I'm more interested if what I have done wrong. I generally think other people are all already dead.

 

[Supervisor42]

What tha'heck is 'confirmation bias'?
I've had lice before, does it itch like that?

 

[Aerindel]

What tha'heck is 'confirmation bias'?
I've had lice before, does it itch like that?

It's the tendency for people to only believe evidence that confirms their past actions as correct, and ignore evidence that they made a mistake.

It makes people defensive about choices they have made, even if that choice is hurting them.

It also relates to the 'sunk cost fallacy' where you throw good money after bad, because you figure you've already invested so much, you have to keep investing to fix something even if it was a bad mistake.

An example from my own life.....putting $500 worth of aftermarket parts, into a $700 gun, just to make it reliable...instead of just selling the gun and buying one that doesn't need extra parts to make it work.

 

[Magus]

What tha'heck is 'confirmation bias'?
I've had lice before, does it itch like that?

Brain hemorrhoids.

 

[Tim Horton]

Of the roughly 3900 forum members here there will be roughly 3900 definitions of ...what is a prepper...

My definition ...today... is doing the best with what I have on hand at this moment.. Doing the same with what is available tomorrow..

 

[Aerindel]

My definition ...today... is doing the best with what I have on hand at this moment.. Doing the same with what is available tomorrow..

The potential problem with that view...and part of what I am getting at.....is the implied passivity of it.....I'm not saying this is true, because this is my question of myself....but perhaps the wiser person looks at what he has and says "this is crap, tomorrow I'm doing something else"

Or, perhaps that way lies madness and failure.

 

[INresponse]

I see this all the time:


People who live in cities think its better to be in a group.

Most city folk tend to expect the government to save them and provide for them. I guess that depends on the city and how many people live there (all metro areas included in that population)

People with short range rifles don't think long range rifles will be needed....people with long range rifles think they are the best way to win a fight.

Long range is great if you have a hill top to settle in to, but they will work close up if needed. Short range have their purposes too, and if you practice enough you can get them to reach out a few hundred yards. But both will require continued practice.

People don't have a BIL, think no house is defensible. People with a BIL, think all the BOL people are going to die on the road.

If city folk are hoping to bug out of the city they need to do it sooner than later. The longer the trouble makers have to figure things out and make plans the more possible it will be for them to block the exit paths. Many highways have choke points where turning around is nearly impossible. And, bugging out is only possible if the tank is full and extra fuel is accessible.

People in open land think that will protect them, people in the woods think the concealment will protect them...

Both have their pros and cons.

People without a 4wd vehicle think 2WD is better, people with 4WD think 2WD is useless....

2wd may be better for fuel economy, until some vehicles are dead in the road and there is a need to get off the pavement to get around the obstacles.
Don't forget the vehicle of choice needs to be large enough to pack up whatever clothes, jackets, boots, meds, food, weapons, etc., plus however many people. Even if the BOL is supplied you need some or most of these items for the drive getting there. What some people think may be a few hour drive may end up being a 3 day adventure in reality.

I see it everyday, and am 'guilty' of it myself.

The question is, how do you tell the difference between making smart use of the situation you are in, with letting the situation you are in, determine your views on the situation you SHOULD be in?

Is it even possible? or desirable? Are we all just victims of circumstance or past decisions?

Also, it depends on the situation dealt to each area. We saw people upended by fires last month. This month they claim mud slides will be a major problem, even for those who were lucky enough to survive the fires. Some of them mud slides will be impassible with most 4wd vehicles so vehicle choice is a moot point in that situation. Oh, which brings me to the point that MOST 4wd and AWD vehicles are not truly 4 wheel drive. If the front and rear axles are not "locking" axles you will have 1 front tire driving/spinning and on rear tire driving/spinning. Most people find this lack of true 4 wheel drive after they are stuck, they just never truly studied the vehicle before buying it, and except for a very few locations in the country where the dealership manager and the customers know what is needed for major snow storms or heavy mud issues on back roads or in fields the dealerships wont order the 4wd trucks with locking axles. Both my Avalanche and my Dodge Ram have locking axles, because I ordered them that way for a reason.

 

[Tirediron]

I spend a lot of time looking through the junk i have to find parts for my next project, i try really hard not to avoid not parting things out because I might need them in the future. this doesn't apply to things that are actually useful now and or can pass the is this really usefull test,

 

[LadyLocust]

The potential problem with that view...and part of what I am getting at.....is the implied passivity of it.....I'm not saying this is true, because this is my question of myself....but perhaps the wiser person looks at what he has and says "this is crap, tomorrow I'm doing something else"

Or, perhaps that way lies madness and failure.

Isn’t this part of why we are on sites like this? And read various books? And try alternate methods of doing all sorts of things? So we can gather more knowledge and hopefully have more fodder for a wise decision when it needs to be made. I can’t even think of how many times I’ve read something here and elsewhere and thought or said “Why didn’t I think of that?” Or maybe I’ll try doing whatever different and see how it works out.

 

[Hardcalibres]

The potential problem with that view...and part of what I am getting at.....is the implied passivity of it.....I'm not saying this is true, because this is my question of myself....but perhaps the wiser person looks at what he has and says "this is crap, tomorrow I'm doing something else"

Or, perhaps that way lies madness and failure.

Agreed.

If I don't have a good version of a particular thing or capability......then I work hard, earn enough money to buy that thing.......and use that to replace the inferior thing.

This "make do" paradigm, is often over-rated.

Something I see too often on these forums is the "make do" idea gets extended to the idea that the inferior thing is actually better than the best thing.

.......and that is on the path to madness and failure.

 

[Aerindel]

Isn’t this part of why we are on sites like this? And read various books? And try alternate methods of doing all sorts of things? So we can gather more knowledge and hopefully have more fodder for a wise decision when it needs to be made. I can’t even think of how many times I’ve read something here and elsewhere and thought or said “Why didn’t I think of that?” Or maybe I’ll try doing whatever different and see how it works out.

Yes. It is.

Sadly for me though, there has only been a handful of times ever on forums where I've had an 'ah ha' moment. They exist but sometimes years pass between them.

Far more often is an 'uh oh' moment.....where I question if what I am doing is relevant. Or a facepalm moment, where something someone else is doing seems so moronic to me, I don't even know how to deal with them.

I do wish I knew how to ask the right questions....or find the right people, to get to more 'ah ha' moments.

But like everyone, I don't know, what I don't know.

As some of you may have guessed, I'm approaching some big decisions on my homestead, and trying to figure out how to even ask the questions that 'might' lead to something useful.

 

[Michele My Belle]

Search your gut.
Is what you plan or what you are doing SUSTAINABLE?

You might not ask this question, but I always pray, and then my next question is...
Does this (whatever it is) glorify God? Am I surrendering in keeping with God's plan?

I saw a bumper sticker once, it said, "You wanna make God laugh? Tell him YOUR plan."