> For instance, if everyone stores several years worth of food and water at home, then even the most catastrophic events are much less likely to kill the vast m

> For instance, if everyone stores several years worth of food and water at home, then even the most catastrophic events are much less likely to kill the vast majority of people in the world. I see a lot of resistance to your suggestion based upon the supposed economic feasibility. However, one angle I haven't seen discussed is: if vast swaths of the labor force did become functionally independent for up to 5 years for example, it would dramatically alter the extant leverage in the job market. Instead of a centralized union negotiating mechanism, a de-centralized negotiation mechanism runs. Wage earners decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not to accept a job offer, secure in that they can last for up to 5 years of nothing before they are in a "must-get-job" state. At scale, it might become a de-centralized lightweight form of UBI, unionizing, and general strike. This doesn't even have to be prepper-style decentralization. If enough people work towards FIRE at the same time, then it functionally accomplishes exerting the same market pressures, except on an even longer timescale.