Where does this pervasiveness come from that "SHTF" always mean we're tossed back into the stone age in a matter of minutes? Like KellyDude says, that's not always the case. Likewise, 'bugging out' does not always mean one leaves their home and treks into the forest to hunt, fish, trap and garden with nothing more than a flint and steel and a good knife, only to end up living in a log cabin they built with their own hands.