(Part 3) Reddit mentions: The best safety & first aid books

I'd made this comment when you'd first posted about a week ago, but it was caught in the spam filter. A new mod, WellEndowedMod was added and took me out of the spam filter and suggested that I resubmit my comment so that you see it. I hope this helps you out.

Well, I want to stress that you need to consider how much money that is and what it can earn you. If you're say, in your twenties then you have a golden opportunity. Hell, if you're older than that you're still in a good spot.

First consider what bank you are keeping the money in. Is it insured? Is it all in one account? Many banks only insure up to $100,000.

Second, consider inflation insurance in any of your investments. Especially bank accounts. There are bank accounts that offer this.

Third, consider whether you want growth or something else. You have to risk money to see high returns. Every investment is a risk, let no one tell you otherwise.

Depending your age, your options should be different. If you are retiring in 5-10 years, then you'll want less securities than if not. Either way, don't consider putting even half of your money in bonds or stocks. Let no one tell you different.

I want you to read a book.

It's titled "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham.

It was first published in 1949.

If you don't have an economics background except from context, or even if you do, check out the thoughts of Milton Friedman, personally I believe he is one of the most brilliant economists to ever live. Others have thought that too, he won the Nobel prize for economics.

Consider what your cost of living is now, as well. Could you buy land and a modular home or build your own home for a reasonable price? Overall would that be cheaper than paying for where you live for the next 15 years? Are you a simple-living type of person or does being self sufficient interest you? If so, /r/homestead or /r/SelfSufficiency might be for you.

Personally, if I were you this is what I'd do.

A) Decide if I have a good car for every use that I might have or want to have. If not, sell your current car and opt for one better for you needs or supplement your car with a truck. I'd buy the truck used, as new trucks that will do work run $30,000+. Pay cash unless you have reasonable but not great credit. Then pay mostly cash and build a little credit by buying the car if it is cost effective. Be diligent in this.

B) Settle every single one of your financial obligations. Debts and bills are a bad thing.

C) Build credit if you don't already have it.

D) Look into land purchases

E) Look out furthest first to what goals you have or can come up with. Look to retirement and not early retirement. Do you have enough money to now retire? If the inheritance is all you have, no. Okay, re-assess your situation for now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now and all the way out until you retire. Figure out what you need to have done during each of those periods to meet your retirement goals. Your current retirement goal, beyond a house, car and expenses up until then should be around 1 million dollars. This is feasible for you, especially if you are young.

F) If you want to play with stocks or other securities, the most important thing that anyone trading is self control. That means not overbuying or buying more when the price drops. Make your decisions and stick to them. Do not make conditional decisions unless they fit orders. Like, sell if it drops a dollar is fine. Buying more of the same or another stock when you lose money on a given stock is not fine.

G) Don't invest in precious metals more than anyone else would. Even the survivalists who do invest in precious metals more than other people as a demographic only invest 5% to 10% if they're smart. If it loses money, you lose and you can neither eat, drive or trade gold easily. ;)

H) Talk to twenty people before making a decision. This may takes months or a year. I don't mean ask twenty people on reddit. Make a self-rule that you will talk to 15 people or 20 people (all who don't charge for a consultation or to talk to) before you invest in anything larger than 5% of your total money.

Futhermore, talk to students and the like. Let me warn you, though. Whether you tell people you have money or not, many will ask to borrow money or suggest investments. Do not let your decisions to be based upon excitement and emotions unless a chick asks you our and the only decision you are making is to buy her dinner and a movie, then maybe a hotel room.

I) This is about you, not others. I resent my mother for it, but I understand why she has made and does makes decisions herself. I invited her to invest in Dell, Microsoft and Intel in 1994 through 1997 and she refused to. She lied to me about it later on, telling me she'd put all of her money into it. She had a trust a bit larger than yours. She'd be worth quite a bit now. I knew I wouldn't be wrong, but she didn't. It's no one's decision but yours, regardless of whether wrong or right. You'll regret investing more than you will not investing. Not investing can make you beat your fist and get drunk. Investing and losing it can turn you into a scarred and depressed person who hates their life.

J) Invest in what you know. Gold has gone from $30 an ounce in the 1950s or 1960s to $1,800 now. Consider that. I don't trust things that gain a great deal of money based upon experience. They fluctuate too. Look at silver, it's gone up higher than $40 and now is probably somewhere around $30. I don't know because I don't care because I don't invest things that change value up and down quickly. More than one man has become an alcoholic or given up on life when their investments have plummeted. Sadly, some have even killed themselves before their investments changed value near or past what they were worth when originally invested in.



Please don't hesitate to contact me sometime if you ever question an idea or investment of yours or advice someone has given you.

If you like, buy my book ($3) on the Amazon Kindle Marketplace. It's titled [The Guide To Living, Volume 1: Urban, Rural & Bush Living, Emergency Preparedness & Survival] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006KRIAPO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=amazonwww-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B006KRIAPO). Click the title and check it out. Your best investment is your own life, your knowledge, your preparation and your well being. I also have a blog you might appreciate, Survive2.com.

I think front stance should be 1 wide and 1.5 deep, both knees bent, with the legs pressuring into the floor, the pelvis slightly forward and up, and the abs and shoulders pressuring down. That way, you are rooted, and have the freedom to rotate your hips to generate power in your hand techniques. A book that help describe this is Karate Science: Dynamic Movement.

I think kata is a collection of techniques that can be used in fighting. Look at this technique in bassai dai. I think that is raising your opponent's arms against a punch or grab and executing a double leg takedown. Any motion in a karate can be analyzed to find some interpretation. No guarantees on effectiveness.

One issue I have with kata is why the techniques are hidden instead of simply being taught as techniques. For example, the bassai dai takedown above isn't immediately apparent. Kata may be a method to transmit techniques before video, maybe its a relic from an older time. Why should we practice kata if I can improve more from practicing fighting with another person?

Another issue I have with kata is when aesthetic is prioritized over application. When you change things, like making the stances super deep to look nice, you lose application, like rotating your hips for power. If we're practicing fighting, I'd rather focus on effectiveness rather than looking pretty.

• Primitive Technology on YouTube
  
  
• The book by primitive tech
  
  
• The recent AMA by the primitive tech guy
  
  
• Townsends A channel dedicated to exploring the 18th Century lifestyle.
  
  
  
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIqCzQJXvYj9ssCoHq327g how to make everything channel on YouTube that shows how with fairly minimal knowledge and practice you can make functional (although inefficient) tools and items
  
  
• The Society for Creative Anachronism Researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe, non-LARP medieval reenactors that take it quite serious.
  
  
• /r/bushcrafting
  
  
• /r/PrimitiveTechnology/
  
  
• /r/Homesteading/
  
  
• /r/Leathercraft/
  
  
• /r/Fishing/
  
  
• /r/Hunting/
  
  
• /r/Trappit/
  
  
• /r/HomemadeTools/
  
  
• /r/soapmaking/
  
  
• /r/weaving/
  
  
• /r/knitting/
  
  
• /r/candlemaking/
  
  
• Book Country Wisdom & Know-How: Everything You Need to Know to Live Off the Land
  
  
• Book Restoration Agriculture
  
  
• Book Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition Paperback
  
  
• Book The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 40th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual for Living off the Land & Doing It Yourself Paperback – October 30, 2012
  
  
  
• Book Five Acres and Independence: A Practical Guide to the Selection and Management of the Small Farm Paperback
  
  
• Book Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival
  
  
• Book Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival
  
  
• Book The Trapper's Bible: The Most Complete Guide on Trapping and Hunting Tips Ever
  
  
• Book The Traditional Bowyer's Bible, Volume 1 ALL of the volumes in this series are great and for that matter all of his books are.

Naked Pilot: The Human Factor in Aircraft Accidents ...as well as being an excellent gift for Brady is a book made of paper that a friend reads on planes. Very bad form indeed.

tl;dr dozens of examples of perfectly safe and functional planes experiencing "controlled descent into terrain" at the hands of unsafe and dysfunctional humans.

I might also suggest the following manuals. You can probably find digital downloads of them as well, but they are pretty cheap and I like paper:


U.S. Army First Aid Manual


U.S. Army Improvised Munitions Handbook


U.S. Army Special Forces Guide to Unconventional Warfare

"Where There Is No Doctor" has some useful information in it, but keep in mind that it was written to introduce very basic information about health and hygiene to people who were clueless about the subjects. For this reason do not buy this book and call it a day for your medical library. Also add a much more thorough book like Medicine For The Outdoors by Paul S. Aurbach M.D., Wilderness Medicine by Wm. Forgey, M.D., or Wilderness & Travel Medicine: A Comprehensive Guide by Eric A. Weiss, M.D.

Whereas most medical and first aid books for laypersons are written with a "do your best to stabilize and then get the patient to a real doctor" perspective, these books are intended for people isolated in the wilderness, and therefore the instructions are much more likely to be of service in a true survival situation.

Or this one, The SAS Survival Handbook, it’s a great little book to have. It shows you how to skin animals, build a shelter, make tools, which plants and fungi are safe to eat etc.

There’s even a section for a nuclear attack that tells you how to best avoid radioactive contamination and steps to take to stay alive. I highly recommend it.

I agree, limiting yourself to an IFAK is definitely not a good idea. Having them as part of a more comprehensive "family kit" would be best. Some of the wounds described can be obtained from more scenarios than just combat. For medical care when there is no trauma center/ER to go to, this book has a lot of great info.

look at ken whiting book "whitewater kayaking" https://www.amazon.ca/Whitewater-Kayaking-Ultimate-Ken-Whiting/dp/1896980309/ref=dp_ob_image_bk

for river rescue this book is really good https://www.amazon.ca/Whitewater-Safety-Rescue-Essential-Knowledge/dp/0762750871/ref=pd_sim_14_6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MHFWX122X998Y99609AN Its a good book. I had it reccomended to me and I reccomend it to others

for video channel check out calgary aquabatics channel https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrLrUmPL86mZsfO_4q120nDDZ5HmMXChK

or Ken when whitings paddling.com

Multipitch climbing often includes climbing pitches as long as your rope is. There are rope rescue techniques that a belayer can use to rescue a leader who is unresponsive and more than half of the rope length up the pitch. Check out https://www.amazon.com/Self-Rescue-2nd-Climb-David-Fasulo-ebook/dp/B005Q90UI2 Or (if you can find it for a better price) https://www.amazon.com/High-Angle-Rope-Rescue-Techniques-ebook/dp/B00TYYUM3S/

If you enjoyed this give Clint some love and buy his books! - https://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Deadly-Skills-Operatives-Surviving/dp/147679605X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499109325&sr=8-1&keywords=100+deadly+skills and https://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Deadly-Skills-Operatives-Surviving/dp/1501143905/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1499109325&sr=8-2&keywords=100+deadly+skills

Although it's a little old (my copy is from 1986 but there's a revised edition from 2000), chapters 9-11 The Complete Book of Outdoor Survival is great if you live in North America.

There are others that are okay as well but I've stuck to that one and advice from my grandfather mostly (he's awesome).

Another protip (haha): You can eat acorns without the foul taste by repeatedly boiling them repeatedly and then drying them. From there you can grind them and make them into bread. Never tried it though.

These aren't under $5, but definitely worth getting and HAVING. I've been increasingly interested in surivalism (as a result of hanging out with my paranoid dad), so definitely get these books:

• Basic survival..........
  
  
  http://www.amazon.com/SAS-Survival-Handbook-Revised-Situation/dp/0061733199/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363171748&sr=1-1&keywords=wilderness+survival
  
  http://www.amazon.com/98-6-Degrees-Keeping-Your-Alive/dp/1586852345/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363172088&sr=1-1&keywords=98.6+degrees+the+art+of+keeping+your+as+-+cody+lundin
  
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Alive-John-D-McCann/dp/1440218307/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363172163&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=stayalive
  
  
• Bug out bag.....
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Build-Perfect-Bug-Out-Bag/dp/1440318743/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363172312&sr=1-1&keywords=bug+out+bag
  
  
• Prepping.....
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Preppers-Instruction-Manual-Disaster-ebook/dp/B008OXF0BY/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1
  http://www.amazon.com/31-Days-Survival-Emergency-Preparedness/dp/161004648X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363172535&sr=1-1&keywords=31+days+to+survival
  
  
• Urban.....
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Doomsday-Guide-Disaster-ebook/dp/B00B020FKC/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1
  
  
• Novel......
  
  http://www.amazon.com/One-Second-After-William-Forstchen/dp/0765356864/ref=la_B000APZ9N8_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363173072&sr=1-1

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

Available in Kindle or Hardcover.

Edit: Woo! Thanks for the Gold! The book is worth a read if you're so inclined.

For Wilderness: Auerbach or the WMI/NOLS Handbook. There are also CME wilderness options out there through WMA.

Before PA school I was a ski patroller and SAR team member for almost 10 years. Having done a bunch of first aid in the woods, both Auerbach's book and the NOLS book are great for skills. More important than hard skills are decision making. To that end I'd highly recommend taking a wilderness medicine class. Or Avy I/II if you're a skier. The hard part is deciding when to make the call to evacuate.

I really recommend the two Ray Mears books, his Outdoor Survival Handbook has some great illustrations and is separated by seasons and his Essential Bushcraft book is extremely detailed about all sorts of things you might need or could want to know

You should check out:

Cody Lundin 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive

Dave Canterbury Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Surviva

Mors kochanski Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival

Lofty Wiseman SAS Survival Handbook: The Definitive Survival Guide

George Washington Sears Woodcraft

Horace Kephart The Book of Camping and Woodcraft: A Guidebook for Those who Travel in the Wilderness

Warren H. Miller The Sportsman's Workshop

I also compelled a list of youtube channels that are worth checking out for another thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bushcraft/comments/40e53a/field_dressing_game_rabbit_for_meat_fur/cytpjd5

And lastly the common sense answer go out and enjoy the wilderness.

Tools For Survival, by Rawles as well
https://www.amazon.com/Tools-Survival-What-Survive-Youre/dp/0452298121


giant wallet tease, but very interesting

You can pick up for only $15 on Amazon right now

http://www.amazon.com/Bushcraft-Outdoor-Skills-Wilderness-Survival/dp/1551051222/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368375342&sr=8-2&keywords=kochanski

http://www.amazon.com/The-Outdoor-Survival-Handbook-Navigation/dp/0312093594/ref=pd_sim_b_5

http://www.amazon.com/Survive-Essential-Skills-Tactics-Anywhere/dp/0061373516/ref=pd_sim_b_22

http://www.amazon.com/Wildwood-Wisdom-Ellsworth-Jaeger/dp/0936070129/ref=la_B001K8CVQW_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368375505&sr=1-1

I dunno, read this book maybe?
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Survival-Medicine-Handbook-guide-ebook/dp/B00HQNCGM4

Practical bunkai is pretty much not taught by the Japanese instructors who came from the JKA. I was with the ISKF for over 20 years. Bunkai was only ever used for demonstrations at tournaments, and then it was only the pre-arranged multiple attackers doing karate techniques thing.

That's not to say that practical bunkai oyo is entirely absent from their group. I'm sure there are some high-level critical thinkers among their ranks. The author JD Swanson is a member of the ISKF.

You might want to check it out anyway. It is about urban survival rather than wilderness survival. It covers stuff like dealing with violence in the city, natural disasters, terrorism, defensive driving, medical emergencies etc.

Edit

It's this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/SAS-Personal-Survival-Handbook/dp/0006532381

(Not this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/SAS-Survival-Handbook-Definitive-Guide/dp/0007595867 )

Looks like there's a more up to date version too: https://www.amazon.co.uk/SAS-Urban-Survival-Handbook-survival/dp/0002558033

Alternatively, this website:

http://urbansurvivalsite.com/ebooks/