When did they start being called Preppers? What happened to Survivalists?

Personally, I'd rather be a Survivalist; someone who's got his shit together, weapons at the ready, self-defence skills honed to a deadly art, and ready for action in any scenario.

A Prepper on the other hand sounds like someone who's getting ready to cook a meal and has all their vegetables neatly sliced, meat marinating in a trendy colour co-ordinated dish, sauces mixed and sitting in glass dishes on a granite worktop, utensils at the ready and oven just coming up to temperature.

Hopefully it won't be much longer before these two camps cancel each other out.

I doubt most liberals would even know how to light a fire ( it's bad for the environment y'know ) without using matches or a lighter...I'm dong ok on that score...I know at least 18 different ways :-)

The only thing you need to know how to "survive" is the will to be able to do anything. It's really that simple. Majority of people fall apart at even the slightest problem that arise. You could spend your life training for something to happen that may never happen or when it happens it'll just crush you physiologically. For example you could have a family and the "apocalypse" happens and your family dies and you just give up on life at that point. It's things like that very few actually think about.

#4. You got that dead right...as they say 'It is not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, the ones that survive are those most adaptable to change'.

The worst part is that such people exist, even if this is supposed to be a parody.