All good points.

You know, you can talk about prepping and watch movies like the road but having a little brush with real-life austerity is really eye-opening.

I do think that hunger makes people crazy. One thing to do is try and drink hot or warm water/make soups out of anything possible to kind of stave off the crazy painful hunger. The pain of hunger is odd in that it kind of comes and goes. You can adapt to it in some stages but there are certain stages that are truly crippling.

Aside from the physical, it's really important to just generally keep a calm mind and like other posters are saying to take care who you align with.

In the event of a real collapse/extended failing of infrastructure I do think a lot of people will have trouble forming effective groups though because our society does not really support that setting.

Aside from when you're a college student, group living is practically unheard of and almost frowned upon in our society. If you live with friends or family, people almost look down on you thinking you must not be able to afford to live "alone." A lot of this "take care of me and mine" going on--with "me and mine" meaning immediate wife/husband/kids. Even parents are outside the loop.

And btw, as one poster noted, many families are so dysfunctional perhaps this is a good thing.

Interesting how I am in the process of extricating myself from a very selfish and judgmental "family" and thinking about who else will take their place and other posters mention this.

Blood is not really thicker than water. If the blood is bad, perhaps you're better off with pure water.