Here is a great read, about 1 hour. Gold and silver are memes. When shit hits the fan you need bullets, food, antibiotics, clean water, tradable small items like cheap lighters, one or more practical skills, and most importantly family and/or community. Read about Selco, he was in an actual SHTF situation for a year during the Bosnian war. Everything collapsed instantly, no police, hospitals, nothing. Roaming gangs of people looking for food and firewood. Back to the stone age. Anyways near the end of hisQ&A (written <2014) someone asks about patterns leading up to SHTF:
-Things that make differences between people are more and more problematic (race, religion, political opinion).
-Polarization is getting obviously stronger.
-People want to come to your country, but they do not want to “assimilate” or contribute to the greater good. They want to preserve their way of life which is often absolutely contradictory to the way that your country (society) works.
-The political way of solving those problems often fails, because, in essence, those problems are hard to solve in a democratic way (in the spirit of democracy).
-Your freedoms are “shrinking” as a result of that.
-Calls for “radical solutions“ for the problems are stronger and stronger.
-The media is absolutely working a dirty job, and it is hard to find out what is the truth anymore.
-Suddenly people and events from history are “brought back” so people can judge and argue about it, to write history again, to build myths sometimes.
Full interview:
https://lulz.com/surviving-a-year-of-shtf-in-90s-bosnia-war-selco-forum-thread-6265/ 
