Just found this, my initial thoughts...
I guess they are saying that at first you are interested in forming alliances. Maybe because your skill set is lacking, or it just make sense to have more people (for guard duty etc), or whatever. However every person you include brings with them a risk, maybe they don't fit in and they will cause problems in the group, maybe they are a Trojan horse, or maybe they are useless and eat like a horse, but for a while that risk is a necessary evil that has to be lived with in order to build something relatively secure.
But at some point you decide that you have everything you need, at this point (the tipping point) the risk of accepting a new person just ain't worth it, the risks are not really reduced over time but the benefits are significantly reduced, so why take a chance?
So what's my takeaway from this? Something I already figured I think. In short form alliances ASAP, before SHFT is best but if that's not possible then after but the longer you leave it the less likely any group will have you. The tipping point may be shifted one way or the other on a person-by-person basis, for example if you are a hairdresser with no other skills it will be reached pretty early (day one
), but a Navy seal who knows about blacksmithing or an experienced gardener with a pack full of seeds may find that he/she would be quite welcome some time after SHTF.
The next takeaway is to upskill yourself as much as possible and/or provide something others may need, a good defensible property for example.