Should Preppers be on Facebook?

I get emails and comments saying I’m a fake prepper because I’m on Facebook. I am not making this up. Their argument is that having a Facebook account is such a violation of OPSEC that no one can be a prepper and have a Facebook account.

But consider the flip side of their question: Should people on Facebook prepare for emergencies?

Of course they should. Even people on Facebook need to be ready for power failures. Even people on Facebook need to stock up food and water, administer first aid, change a tire, and rescue damsels in distress. Even people on Facebook need to know land navigation, how to purify water, and how to preserve meat.

If you’re not “in the system,” staying out may or may not be a good idea, but for me and the majority the issue is strictly academic. I have a social security number, so I’m already in the system. I have a driver’s license. I have a passport. I have a cell phone. I have an email address. I don’t know how many NICS checks I’ve passed. I’m a lawyer, so they already have my fingerprints, and the judges, the Sheriff, the US Attorney, and the local FBI agents know me or know of me. I have a carry permit, so they have my fingerprints again. I have Class 3 weapons, so they have my fingerprints yet again, in quadruplicate.

It is too late for me, son. [/Vader]

If you’re wanting to get out or stay out of “the system,” then avoiding Facebook is essential. I know and admire an Amish community that is far more “out of the system” than anyone who sends me email saying I need to avoid Facebook. These Amish don’t have email. They don’t even have social security numbers, electricity, or street addresses. They deliver their own babies and their own mail. And I have to admit, they don’t have Facebook.

Staying out of the system is good, and people who are out of the system are glad about it, but I’m not trying to “stay out of the system.” Its not that I don’t like the off-grid prepper. On the contrary, I admire him almost as much as I do the Amish. It’s just that the people in the system are at greater risk. Even people in the system need to eat, drink, and apply a bandaid. My purpose is to teach those people (and encourage them to learn) to be less dependent on undependable institutions. My purpose is to encourage a paradigm shift in their thinking. A very simple one:

If my regular source of [food, water, electricity, heat, etc.] fails, I will get it by another means [stock, generator, spring, whatever].

This is something you can do. Yes, even if you’re on Facebook.

~SnoMan