“””How do you balance helping your neighbors with not letting others know what you have, or thinking they know.”””
This will vary greatly from individual to individual, and also their situation, having kids, having a normal wife who isn’t a Rambo girl, being single, being male or female.
A big consideration is how vulnerable are you, an inner-city apartment dweller would not want to reveal anything to anyone but someone with a few respectable neighbors can chance to help someone as long as you have the personality strength to switch gears and put on your hard face if the time comes.
Use this rough standard, if you think the emergency is temporary, then help, if it is EOW, then drive every single person away to the shelters and govt centers, in time the few remaining people in your area who were prepared will start finding each other and trading goods and helping each other.
Using your supplies on the unprepared at the beginning of an EOW situation is stupid but..... after some time the slackers will be gone to wherever the government is while the few preppers will know who each other are, and with someone like that you may be willing to help them through a rough patch with a little rice, or salt, or whatever.
People have to deal with things in ways that match who they are, a gentle Rambo can get away with taking risks and helping in ways that a fearful person who isn’t capable of suddenly being violent can’t.
I think it also makes a difference how much is going to be obvious during normal times, because it’s going to be hard to pretend otherwise when things happen.
Anybody who has ever talked to me for probably already knows about my seed-collecting obsession. It’s too big a part of my personality to hide it. But they don’t need to know that the bug and rodent repellents mixed with my bean seeds are perfectly edible. Or that a lot of my squash seeds are still inside the squash, because I chose such long-storing varieties.
Wow, that’s great practical advice. I never really thought about it but about the confrontational type so me planning on holding back a bunch of Neighbors probably wouldn’t happen.
And I never thought about waiting it out, until the unprepared have all gone to government shelters etc. I suppose they will be going to their 15 minute cities.