by Selco Begovic
April 14, 2026 - The competition for the worst prepping advice out there is pretty sharp. It has been going on for many years and tends to get even more ridiculous as time passes. One reason is that a lot of the advice pushes you in the direction of buying something, and when you need to buy something, things can go weird and false.
Another reason is the fact that there are numerous “experts” out there, and it does not have to be about selling. Often it can be that people just want to be known as experts because they feel more important.
There is a chain of people who share advice, and if you follow the trail where that advice is coming from you are usually going to find a self-proclaimed “expert” at the end, or even worse, some fictional character from movies or books.
Here are a few pieces of bad prepping advice I have seen.
“Handle everything with violence.”
Yes, I do agree, nothing can put things in the right perspective like a few shots from an assault rifle in the correct place and time. Brute force can very efficiently solve some situations. But I see a lot of advice that goes only as far as being well-armed and having that “out of my cold dead hands” attitude.
Violence and being ready for violence are critical, yes, of course, but it is not only about that.
“Oh no, we are different here, so it will not be like that.”
You cannot know exactly how it will be once the SHTF because it depends on many factors.
It is only about how serious the event is and how long it is going to last. In other words, it is about how quickly and how bad (deep) the layers of society will devolve.
In the end, all that is going to be left is just a bunch of folks looking for resources, in different ways and means.
“Do this (have this weapon, choose that solution, be at that place or other, or whatever) and you’ll survive.”
Prepping is a very personal thing. What works for me here might be completely wrong there for you because of many reasons, from the simplest one like a different climate to more detailed things like different weapons availability.
There is no universal way. There are principles and skills that can be shared of course. For example, you can learn a lot from my experiences, but you should take my experiences and choose what makes sense for you there.
It is not only about taking advice and putting it in your perspective, it is about understanding what advice is perfectly wrong or what advice (or techniques) are actually good, but only for certain places and time.
“Do good and expect good” or advice in that tone is out there, and I do understand the place for those philosophies. Actually, I share them too.
But not when the SHTF. First, do not expect that in hard times, doing good deeds will be taken in the correct way, and that the person will do good back to you. Second, do not expect that you’ll be able to do only good things all the time.
It is a messed-up world when the SHTF, so things get blurred and weird.
All of the above are bad advice mostly from the point of the “philosophy” of survival. If you are using the wrong foundation in your prepping, you can end up there.
Aside from that, there are all sorts of weird and wrong advice that come from one simple thing: failing to adopt a survival mentality. It is about people thinking in old terms in a new world and they fail to adapt to the new reality.
In real SHTF in urban settings, it is hard enough to move on foot and stay silent and safe with all dangers that come from a “more people than resources” situation, let alone riding on your skateboard.
Think about what the world would be like.
The SHTF is much different than the world we live in today, so whichever advice you are considering whether or not you should take it, think about how the world might look around you and ask yourself, “Is that going to be usable at all?”
