Ultimately I do agree, the people that will survive in a post-apocalyptic scenario are the ones who can collaborate as a tight group. Pre-existing trust is much

Ultimately I do agree, the people that will survive in a post-apocalyptic scenario are the ones who can collaborate as a tight group. Pre-existing trust is much more effective preparation than any bunker or stockpile. However, there's no shortcut to creating a tight group. If the zombie apocalypse comes and you just go to your neighbor and say, "Hey, we'll have a better chance of surviving if we collaborate!" there's nothing that keeps him from saying "Sure, let's collaborate!" and then killing you in your sleep and taking your stuff. And in fact, from his perspective, there's nothing that's keeping you from saying what you're saying and then killing him in his sleep and taking his stuff, so he's got a strong reason to do that to you before you do that to him. And I don't think that just living next to someone and saying "Good morning" is enough to counteract that. You have to actually know someone at a deep level, and have shared ideology, and possibly even shared trauma, before you're willing to take a risk trusting them with your life. One of my frustrations as an atheist is that there's not really a cohesive atheist community, but I don't really see how their could be: we don't have a cohesive ideology (beyond "there's no god") and no real shared goals. If the SHTF, my guess is that the groups that will survive will be the religious groups, the gay community, the addiction/alcoholism recovery community, the military and veterans, immigrant communities and various groups that cross over between those: all these are large groups with cohesive group identities, and in some cases shared trauma that has given them opportunity to be there for one another.