Anonymous
I think the best answer I can give is: for as long that you see a gain from using that strategy. I think of it as using camouflage. You’re not wearing green in the snow, do you?
If is 0 degree outside and you’re wearing you parka, whoever you are going to see around will be either similarly equipped or dead. So you could say that the gray man strategy still works. 🙂
If the food supply chain stops, and similarly important the drug supply chain, I tend to believe those figures are correct just based on what I see around. As you I use Walmart as a location for my “people study” because most of the people around here (including the military) shop there and I am feeling pretty good about it. So, given the four of us are going to survive, the next person would be some 3 miles away. In that case probably the grey man strategy would be to loot the dead’s houses because everyone would do that. I still think that not sticking out too much could be a good idea. While some of the survivors will be people like you, there will be bad guys around for sure who survived robbing others and who will continue to do so. You do not want those to pick you out unless you can overpower them.