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We can live with uncertainly only until there is no food available in the grocery stores (or anywhere, due to loss of production or logistics). If that happens,

We can live with uncertainly only until there is no food available in the grocery stores (or anywhere, due to loss of production or logistics). If that happens, then what happens next is certain, people will take food with guns to feed their family. At that point we reach a place from which there is likely no easy return. This might also happen if enough people have no money to buy food with, or no place to go to be fed. Not everyone is willing to die quietly of starvation. Do we trust our state governments (or the Federal one) to be able to prioritize feeding 350M people, or to concern itself with long term business survival? I fear this more than the disease.

gherkinnn 7y ago
I have family from all sorts of sides in WW2. If they managed to feed themselves despite naval blockades and bombings, without the country completely falling apart, I don’t see why we can’t. Of course, this might mean more agricultural land for vegetables instead of livestock. Changing our behaviour. Make do with less-than-straight carrots. People starting their own vegetable patches on balconies. Not throwing out half the food we buy. Maybe rationing. It might very well suck. We’re from a cushy world. It will take time to adapt. But in the face of necessity we’ll manage. The last thing we should do is to prepare (and hope?) for total anarchy. Serves nobody.
- StandardFuture 7y ago
  For some reason I never thought about using the rational and civilized behavior of people in war-torn areas of WWII (specifically the UK & US) as a response to these kinds of comments. The people then really were ok with things like rationing (mostly of certain types of materials for war use). There seems to be a large number of people who almost look forward to having their favorite (post-)apocalyptic movie/video-game becoming reality. Let's not pretend like there are not far too many people getting a minor degree of pleasure from thinking about how they will "out-maneuver" their fellow man in some sort of "apocalyptic end-game". The plethora of zombie shows, movies, and games probably does not help with this either. But, your WWII anecdote inspired me to tell these people: "be more like your grandparents who remained heroic and civilized in the face of a purely chaotic and even evil era."
  - overthemoon 7y ago
    Couldn't agree more. I think there's a very foolish, immature, and naive impulse to fantasize about a dark future where we're fighting over scraps, but it doesn't have to be that way. Let's not start intoning darkly about the primal selfishness and animal nature of humans and instead plan to help out. It's an opportunity for everyday heroism and civility, not adolescent grindhouse survival fantasy.
    - throwanem 7y ago
      Eh, give the people who say that stuff a break. Whether they understand or not that that's what they're doing, it's still nice of them to tell everyone up front that they aren't to be trusted in a dangerous situation.
    - JackRabbitSlim 7y ago
      You have the privileged position of having something to lose. To a significant portion of our population, fighting over scraps is already the reality. What exactly is irrational about a kid with 300k in debt and no job hoping that a collapse could lead to a real future for himself and/or his kids?
      - gambiting 7y ago
        >>What exactly is irrational about a kid with 300k in debt and no job hoping that a collapse could lead to a real future for himself and/or his kids? For the start.....everything. No matter how much you're in debt and without a job you're still immesurably better than after actual collapse of the society. Unless your plan really is to establish yourself as some kind of warlord with guns and have others serve you. Which is about as realistic as Mad Max is. There's literally nothing rational about it, not even as a fantasy unless you're 12 and don't understand how the world works and what would actually happen if the societes collapsed in some kind of post apocalyptic scenario.
        SereneT 7y ago
        Totally Roman civilization collapsed in britian sometime around early 5th century The next time anybody heard of central heating or plumbing on that island was roughly 1500 years later As an electrician I'm always amazed at the Wonder of how it all works, and at the blissful ignorance of many regarding just how much hard work and professional knowledge is involved in, you know such banalaties as keeping the lights on, the water running, the garbage disappearing, the shelves stocked...
- gwd 7y ago
  > I have family from all sorts of sides in WW2. If they managed to feed themselves despite naval blockades and bombings, without the country completely falling apart, I don’t see why we can’t. I reached this conclusion a few days ago as well. I can't imagine the entire food supply thing having thousands of houses and factories bombed for years and years; and yet it happened. Civilization had a bit of a 'reset', but it was a long way from anarchy and cannibalism. There's no way this virus is going to be as actually destructive in terms of both life and property; so that makes me optimistic.
- everdrive 7y ago
  Most Americans are also somewhat-fat-to-very-fat, which is a very important rationing consideration.
- yazan94 7y ago
  Times definitely have changed in the past few decades. There was widespread looting going on during the 1977 blackout in NYC [1]. I hope that you're right and everything is being blown out of proportion, but lets not forget that: * everything is possible * looting and pillaging has happened before in lesser times * it doesn't help to be unprepared I honestly think that if we had a firmer, more coordinated, and less fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants government response and action plan, anarchy would definitely be reigned in and less of a concern in people's minds. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977
  - masonic 7y ago
    The looting was all opportunistic -- not needs oriented. Nobody starves in 12 hours. From Wikipedia: "Looting and vandalism were widespread, hitting 31 neighborhoods. Possibly the hardest hit were Crown Heights, where 75 stores on a five-block stretch were looted, and Bushwick, where arson was rampant, with some 25 fires still burning the next morning. At one point, two blocks of Broadway, which separates Bushwick from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, were on fire. Thirty-five blocks of Broadway were destroyed: 134 stores looted, 45 of them set ablaze. Thieves stole 50 new Pontiacs from a Bronx car dealership.[3] In Brooklyn, youths were seen backing up cars to targeted stores, tying ropes around the stores' grates, and using their cars to pull the grates away before looting the store.[3] While 550 police officers were injured in the mayhem, 4,500 looters were arrested."
- jsight 7y ago
  Honestly, I think a lot of people would do better with a little bit more sacrifice than what they are being asked right now. A lot of people really want to go back to work, despite the risk. Arguably we should send many (but not all) back soon.
edouard-harris 7y ago
> Do we trust our state governments (or the Federal one) to be able to prioritize feeding 350M people, or to concern itself with long term business survival? This isn't an xor question. The existence of essentially all businesses is predicated on some degree of baseline social stability. If people in country X aren't able to feed themselves, businesses in country X are probably in deep trouble too.
martythemaniak 7y ago
We have to keep in mind that this is unlike a anything anyone alive has seen. Nature is essentially holding a gun to about 1% of the population and demanding we stop working and having fun. So we stop working. However you cannot stop working so much that it causes more damage than that. We cannot and will not stop food production or distribution. This is a voluntary action to save lives, you cannot let it endanger more lives than what it is trying to mitigate.
- eythian 7y ago
  > We have to keep in mind that this is unlike a anything anyone alive has seen. Pedantically not quite true: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/22/be-careful-spains-last-1918-flu-survivor-offers-warning-on-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/22/be-careful-spa...
- danharaj 7y ago
  You're misinformed, but it's ok. No one asked you how to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system and the deaths of millions. Stay posting.
xwdv 7y ago
Some people are already taking food with guns. They are grabbing their guns, going out into the world, and shooting and killing animals. Which they then butcher up and store in pieces in their garage freezer and maintain months of food this way. Tasty deer.
_bxg1 7y ago
Please don't fear-monger. There is nothing wrong with the supply chains. The shelves you've seen empty in pictures are generally full again the next day. The problem of people not having money to buy said products is less far-fetched, but still: - As other here have pointed out, we've seen worse in our history, and nothing like what you describe played out - We have so much wealth as a country and it's just a problem of figuring out how to get it to the right people. Yes, there are bumbling idiots making decisions and there are selfish bad-actors still trying to pad their pockets every chance they get. But when the rubber meets the road, this is too big for anyone to simply isolate themselves financially. The 1% are having their assets tank too. Our fates are bound. And when our country somehow manages to get everyone on the same side - even for the wrong reasons - we're really good at doing whatever needs to be done to solve the problem.
- wakemeupplz 7y ago
  I wish you were right. I really do, but I'm seeing the supply chains breakdown where I live. Meat, Eggs, bottled water are disappearing, its hard not to feel a bit panic.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Bottled water running out is especially silly and indicative of the prepper/hoarding mentality going on. Even if food supplies started having problems, society would have to truly, completely collapse before water/electricity started having problems. It's irrational to clear the shelves of water. Even in your case and the other anecdotes people are mentioning here, I'm not convinced it's a supply-side issue. I would guess that in some areas the supply simply isn't bountiful enough to bear the full weight of the extreme preppers. That's a real problem, to be sure, but it's an artificial one and hopefully once it becomes clear that a true famine isn't on the way those people will calm down and stop putting others in needless danger.
- dx87 7y ago
  Don't over generalize and accuse them of fear mongering when you don't know the situation for the entire country. The grocery store by me has been consistently bare for the past two weeks, low quality pre-packaged food is pretty much all that's been available, and I've had to start making trips to multiple stores to get enough ingredients if I want to eat anything besides canned soup and deli meat. And I don't live in some podunk town, I'm right outside a major city. My wife's family in NC has said that their grocery stores have stayed mostly empty for a few weeks as well.
coldcode 7y ago
I am not saying this is going to happen, I am just stating I fear it more than the disease if it does become an issue. Yes I too have direct relatives who survived German collapse at the end of the war. But they lived in a small rural town with lots of farming. Sometimes people forget the enormity of losses in bigger towns that were bombed but generally it did not affect food production (but did make transport hard). Japan was in even worse shape but again rural cities were not affected as much (and 150,000 people dying in Tokyo in one night makes food logistics less of an issue). But Germany was 1/10th the size of the current US population and not much bigger than an average state in the end. It's a much bigger challenge in some ways.
DavidVoid 7y ago
>This might also happen if enough people have no money to buy food with "Ask for work. If they don't give you work, ask for bread. If they don't give you work or bread, take bread." - Emma Goldman

gherkinnn 7y ago

I have family from all sorts of sides in WW2. If they managed to feed themselves despite naval blockades and bombings, without the country completely falling apart, I don’t see why we can’t. Of course, this might mean more agricultural land for vegetables instead of livestock. Changing our behaviour. Make do with less-than-straight carrots. People starting their own vegetable patches on balconies. Not throwing out half the food we buy. Maybe rationing. It might very well suck. We’re from a cushy world. It will take time to adapt. But in the face of necessity we’ll manage. The last thing we should do is to prepare (and hope?) for total anarchy. Serves nobody.

StandardFuture 7y ago
For some reason I never thought about using the rational and civilized behavior of people in war-torn areas of WWII (specifically the UK & US) as a response to these kinds of comments. The people then really were ok with things like rationing (mostly of certain types of materials for war use). There seems to be a large number of people who almost look forward to having their favorite (post-)apocalyptic movie/video-game becoming reality. Let's not pretend like there are not far too many people getting a minor degree of pleasure from thinking about how they will "out-maneuver" their fellow man in some sort of "apocalyptic end-game". The plethora of zombie shows, movies, and games probably does not help with this either. But, your WWII anecdote inspired me to tell these people: "be more like your grandparents who remained heroic and civilized in the face of a purely chaotic and even evil era."
- overthemoon 7y ago
  Couldn't agree more. I think there's a very foolish, immature, and naive impulse to fantasize about a dark future where we're fighting over scraps, but it doesn't have to be that way. Let's not start intoning darkly about the primal selfishness and animal nature of humans and instead plan to help out. It's an opportunity for everyday heroism and civility, not adolescent grindhouse survival fantasy.
  - throwanem 7y ago
    Eh, give the people who say that stuff a break. Whether they understand or not that that's what they're doing, it's still nice of them to tell everyone up front that they aren't to be trusted in a dangerous situation.
  - JackRabbitSlim 7y ago
    You have the privileged position of having something to lose. To a significant portion of our population, fighting over scraps is already the reality. What exactly is irrational about a kid with 300k in debt and no job hoping that a collapse could lead to a real future for himself and/or his kids?
    - gambiting 7y ago
      >>What exactly is irrational about a kid with 300k in debt and no job hoping that a collapse could lead to a real future for himself and/or his kids? For the start.....everything. No matter how much you're in debt and without a job you're still immesurably better than after actual collapse of the society. Unless your plan really is to establish yourself as some kind of warlord with guns and have others serve you. Which is about as realistic as Mad Max is. There's literally nothing rational about it, not even as a fantasy unless you're 12 and don't understand how the world works and what would actually happen if the societes collapsed in some kind of post apocalyptic scenario.
      - SereneT 7y ago
        Totally Roman civilization collapsed in britian sometime around early 5th century The next time anybody heard of central heating or plumbing on that island was roughly 1500 years later As an electrician I'm always amazed at the Wonder of how it all works, and at the blissful ignorance of many regarding just how much hard work and professional knowledge is involved in, you know such banalaties as keeping the lights on, the water running, the garbage disappearing, the shelves stocked...
gwd 7y ago
> I have family from all sorts of sides in WW2. If they managed to feed themselves despite naval blockades and bombings, without the country completely falling apart, I don’t see why we can’t. I reached this conclusion a few days ago as well. I can't imagine the entire food supply thing having thousands of houses and factories bombed for years and years; and yet it happened. Civilization had a bit of a 'reset', but it was a long way from anarchy and cannibalism. There's no way this virus is going to be as actually destructive in terms of both life and property; so that makes me optimistic.
everdrive 7y ago
Most Americans are also somewhat-fat-to-very-fat, which is a very important rationing consideration.
yazan94 7y ago
Times definitely have changed in the past few decades. There was widespread looting going on during the 1977 blackout in NYC [1]. I hope that you're right and everything is being blown out of proportion, but lets not forget that: * everything is possible * looting and pillaging has happened before in lesser times * it doesn't help to be unprepared I honestly think that if we had a firmer, more coordinated, and less fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants government response and action plan, anarchy would definitely be reigned in and less of a concern in people's minds. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977
- masonic 7y ago
  The looting was all opportunistic -- not needs oriented. Nobody starves in 12 hours. From Wikipedia: "Looting and vandalism were widespread, hitting 31 neighborhoods. Possibly the hardest hit were Crown Heights, where 75 stores on a five-block stretch were looted, and Bushwick, where arson was rampant, with some 25 fires still burning the next morning. At one point, two blocks of Broadway, which separates Bushwick from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, were on fire. Thirty-five blocks of Broadway were destroyed: 134 stores looted, 45 of them set ablaze. Thieves stole 50 new Pontiacs from a Bronx car dealership.[3] In Brooklyn, youths were seen backing up cars to targeted stores, tying ropes around the stores' grates, and using their cars to pull the grates away before looting the store.[3] While 550 police officers were injured in the mayhem, 4,500 looters were arrested."
jsight 7y ago
Honestly, I think a lot of people would do better with a little bit more sacrifice than what they are being asked right now. A lot of people really want to go back to work, despite the risk. Arguably we should send many (but not all) back soon.

edouard-harris 7y ago

> Do we trust our state governments (or the Federal one) to be able to prioritize feeding 350M people, or to concern itself with long term business survival? This isn't an xor question. The existence of essentially all businesses is predicated on some degree of baseline social stability. If people in country X aren't able to feed themselves, businesses in country X are probably in deep trouble too.

martythemaniak 7y ago

We have to keep in mind that this is unlike a anything anyone alive has seen. Nature is essentially holding a gun to about 1% of the population and demanding we stop working and having fun. So we stop working. However you cannot stop working so much that it causes more damage than that. We cannot and will not stop food production or distribution. This is a voluntary action to save lives, you cannot let it endanger more lives than what it is trying to mitigate.

eythian 7y ago
> We have to keep in mind that this is unlike a anything anyone alive has seen. Pedantically not quite true: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/22/be-careful-spains-last-1918-flu-survivor-offers-warning-on-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/22/be-careful-spa...
danharaj 7y ago
You're misinformed, but it's ok. No one asked you how to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system and the deaths of millions. Stay posting.

xwdv 7y ago

Some people are already taking food with guns. They are grabbing their guns, going out into the world, and shooting and killing animals. Which they then butcher up and store in pieces in their garage freezer and maintain months of food this way. Tasty deer.

_bxg1 7y ago

Please don't fear-monger. There is nothing wrong with the supply chains. The shelves you've seen empty in pictures are generally full again the next day. The problem of people not having money to buy said products is less far-fetched, but still: - As other here have pointed out, we've seen worse in our history, and nothing like what you describe played out - We have so much wealth as a country and it's just a problem of figuring out how to get it to the right people. Yes, there are bumbling idiots making decisions and there are selfish bad-actors still trying to pad their pockets every chance they get. But when the rubber meets the road, this is too big for anyone to simply isolate themselves financially. The 1% are having their assets tank too. Our fates are bound. And when our country somehow manages to get everyone on the same side - even for the wrong reasons - we're really good at doing whatever needs to be done to solve the problem.

wakemeupplz 7y ago
I wish you were right. I really do, but I'm seeing the supply chains breakdown where I live. Meat, Eggs, bottled water are disappearing, its hard not to feel a bit panic.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Bottled water running out is especially silly and indicative of the prepper/hoarding mentality going on. Even if food supplies started having problems, society would have to truly, completely collapse before water/electricity started having problems. It's irrational to clear the shelves of water. Even in your case and the other anecdotes people are mentioning here, I'm not convinced it's a supply-side issue. I would guess that in some areas the supply simply isn't bountiful enough to bear the full weight of the extreme preppers. That's a real problem, to be sure, but it's an artificial one and hopefully once it becomes clear that a true famine isn't on the way those people will calm down and stop putting others in needless danger.
dx87 7y ago
Don't over generalize and accuse them of fear mongering when you don't know the situation for the entire country. The grocery store by me has been consistently bare for the past two weeks, low quality pre-packaged food is pretty much all that's been available, and I've had to start making trips to multiple stores to get enough ingredients if I want to eat anything besides canned soup and deli meat. And I don't live in some podunk town, I'm right outside a major city. My wife's family in NC has said that their grocery stores have stayed mostly empty for a few weeks as well.

coldcode 7y ago

I am not saying this is going to happen, I am just stating I fear it more than the disease if it does become an issue. Yes I too have direct relatives who survived German collapse at the end of the war. But they lived in a small rural town with lots of farming. Sometimes people forget the enormity of losses in bigger towns that were bombed but generally it did not affect food production (but did make transport hard). Japan was in even worse shape but again rural cities were not affected as much (and 150,000 people dying in Tokyo in one night makes food logistics less of an issue). But Germany was 1/10th the size of the current US population and not much bigger than an average state in the end. It's a much bigger challenge in some ways.

DavidVoid 7y ago

>This might also happen if enough people have no money to buy food with "Ask for work. If they don't give you work, ask for bread. If they don't give you work or bread, take bread." - Emma Goldman