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Doomsday prepping – Disaster planning for less crazy folk (2016)

173 points by VBprogrammer 6y ago

idlewords 6y ago
In the event of a real emergency, preppers will be a convenient source of resources and supplies to be exploited by whatever roving bands are marauding the landscape. If you nerd out on preparedness, you're just increasing the chance that the local Blood King will turn your skull into a goblet when he comes looking for the stash of canned goods you bragged about online in the Before Times.
- 13415 6y ago
  In real emergencies people tend to be solidaric and help each other out.
  - f-- 6y ago
    Yeah, usually. It's a common trope, but also a pretty tired one. We have a pretty long history of plague, famine, war, and other "apocalyptic" scenarios, and in almost all accounts, people tend to help each other, and most would die of hunger rather than steal from an innocent person. The main problem is that what we are very good at is building narratives that portray some class of "others" as not-so-innocent, and therefore, deserving all the pillage, rape, and murder we can muster. That's variously the neighboring nation, some minority ethnic group, political opponents, the rich, the clergy... you name them, there's some brutal revolution or war targeting 'em. So, basically, the worst-case scenario is ending up on the wrong side of the pitchfork if / when the revolution comes. Something that, quite frankly, the Silicon Valley should be mindful of.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- metiscus 6y ago
  While I suspect a certain level of sarcasm was intended, a valid point for discussion does exist within your comment - The idea that preparing is merely forwarding supplies to your local warlord. This basically assumes a TEOTWAWKI scenario, which should be very far down the list of any preparation. It is always recommended in preparation circles to get to know your neighbors and integrate yourself into your local community. Under any reasonable set of circumstances, a well functioning local community should be able to stand up to any war lord types and would be the atoms from which a new society is formed. The classic advice goes something like this - in a survival situation you will be killed by the first critical problem you can't solve yourself. Communities form for a reason and knowing the geography of your operational area includes the social geography.
  - wing-_-nuts 6y ago
    I find it funny that the 'lone wolf' survivor is the archetype of a prepper. It doesn't matter how much food, water, guns or ammo you have. Isolation makes you vulnerable. You cannot hope to have a proper 'watch', even with a small family. I'd expect 'tribe' size groups to be much more successful.
    - corpMaverick 6y ago
      Yes. I think this proverb applies. "Want to go fast go alone, want to go far go together"
    - metiscus 6y ago
      There are a lot of people, some that I know in person, who live in a fantasy of surviving on their own. I've tried, through casual conversation, to get them to understand that you want to build a community around you for mutual benefit. From what I've seen it comes down to a few different things. 1. Some people have trust issues, possibly to a clinical level. They don't trust their neighbors to not be zombies etc knocking at the door to take their stuff. Ironically, when you spread awareness of preparatory issues through community building, you reduce the chance of that happening. 2. Some people are overly focused on one or two particular scenarios and 'optimize' their and preparations on those scenarios. E.g. A real-life neighbor has CBRN gear, firearms, and food but doesn't have a chainsaw or basic hand tools. Like most stereotypes, the lone preppper has some truth associated with it. It really comes down to definitions. I'm not prepared for TEOTWAWKI by any means, but if I lose my job, or we get hit with a hurricane, or my car dies, or my house burns down, I've got reasonable contingency plans for those. Am I a prepper?
- anonymousse1234 6y ago
  If that would be the case prepare to defend your stash or at least take some of the bandits with you like many preppers do. Don't be an easy target.
  - wing-_-nuts 6y ago
    Attackers have the element of surprise. Unless you are part of a group yourself, you cannot hope to have enough people to keep a sufficient watch. The isolated 'living off the land' types with big stockpiles of supplies would be easy targets.
    - anonymousse1234 6y ago
      How are you going to be surprised sitting in your home in case of emergency with not much other to do? Gun guys aren't liked here but if somebody is going to get a nasty surprise it would be the bad guys. If you are a hard target bandits will most likely choose another one.
      - metiscus 6y ago
        You have to sleep. You have to get water and maintain certain other things outside your home from time to time. You may get sick and need additional rest. Or to go and get firewood etc. If 10 people really really want your food and supplies, they will burn you out or crash a vehicle into your home, or drop a tree on it. Alone you are nothing, you are much more in a community. Think minute men vs a lone wolf. It is no contest.
        anonymousse1234 6y ago
        Robbers will choose the easyiest route. They just want stuff and not assasinate specifically someone, they will rob somebody other if they find a hard target. Probably somebody like you. It works the same with muggings. 2 people is enough to get some sleep and run errands.
        souprock 6y ago
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > In the event of a real emergency, preppers will be a convenient source of resources and supplies to be exploited by whatever roving bands are marauding the landscape. If you nerd out on preparedness, you're just increasing the chance that the local Blood King will turn your skull into a goblet when he comes looking for the stash of canned goods you bragged about online in the Before Times. That's why meatspace social networking is part of prepping for some people: they recognize that, if there is a collapse, the way to survive isn't just to have stuff for yourself, its to have a well-prepared tribe. To be (well, hopefully kinder and gentler than the title sounds, for most preppers who take this strategy) the Blood King, rather than worry about him.
cbanek 6y ago
"Pandemic. It's been a while since the highly developed world experienced a devastating outbreak, but it may be premature to flat out dismiss the risk. In 1918, an unusual strain of flu managed to kill 75 million people." Well, this aged well! I'm glad to see this very reasonable take so far. One thing that I don't see mentioned is a "go-bag" or "bug out bag", which I find to be one of the more useful preparations. Have a bag with some clothes, your documents, medication, whatever you might need if you need to leave your house in a couple of minutes notice for a couple of days. Super useful even if it's not a total life and death emergency, but you need to see or help someone, and won't know for how long. A lot of good advice here about what to put in it though! And a lot of useful advice on good skills to have. One other small note: always have a roll of paper towels and toilet paper in your trunk in a bag. Just trust me on this one, you'll thank me later.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > Well, this aged well! I'm glad to see this very reasonable take so far. The article is from 2018... we got a glimpse with SARS/MERS and had sheer luck that these two didn't turn into 'rona-scale pandemic.
  - rasz 6y ago
    This page is at least 5 years old.
  - mongol 6y ago
    If SARS had turn pamdemic... damn. I don't think I realized how bad that would have been. Still can't.
- tedmcory77 6y ago
  Also: Headlamp Ultility knife (aka leatherman) Charging necessities for your phone Some food that can be eaten cold (I use protein bars) Water container Note pad and pencil emergency poncho I also have a portable water filter; it wont get everything but since I live in Florida most likely there will be fresh water nearby. Source - boyscout, millitary time
kochb 6y ago
Discussion from prior submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15110850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15110850
- dang 6y ago
  Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10906232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10906232 from a year earlier (2016). Reposts are fine after a year or so (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html), but this one was pretty clearly a follow-up to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25059984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25059984, and we probably don't need two of these on the front page.
jcims 6y ago
A perennial HN favorite - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=coredump.cx https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=coredump.cx Have been following Michal's exploits (card carrying dad here, sorry) for almost my entire infosec career. Always appreciate his practical and rational take on things. This is no exception, great article and something I think allows people to think about the topic without getting sucked into the editorializing that typically goes with it.
dom96 6y ago
> Now a word of caution: beware of debt. Many of us are taught that owing money is normal, even desirable; indeed, for middle-class folks, some forms of indebtedness may be difficult to avoid. I find that surprising. Perhaps this is the difference between growing up in a middle-class household vs. a working-class household, but personally I have seen first hand why debt is bad and been taught to avoid credit cards and debt like the plague. Perhaps this does not fit the middle-class lifestyle and now that I am personally earning far more than my parents ever did I wonder if I should be less averse to debt, can anyone chime in with what the right balance is here?
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  The right balance is what let’s you sleep at night. But I have seen people more averse to debt limit their economic growth. If your goal is to get rich, you need to be comfortable with levering up, because your competition will be. Also, some debt is politically more favorable than others. Debt to purchase land is more easily bailed out and less risky than buying options on margin. It’s also easier if you have supportive friends/family/spouse with high income so that you can at least have the basics in the worst case scenario.
  - hyko 6y ago
    If your goal is to get rich, you need to be comfortable with levering up That really depends on the economic environment.
    - thotsBgone 6y ago
      Pedantic. If your goal is to get rich, you need to be comfortable with doing what it takes depending on the economic environment.
      - hyko 6y ago
        It’s not pedantry. There may be some circumstances where strategic use of debt contributes to making you rich, but leverage is not a necessary condition for building wealth. Stating that it is gives people the impression that debt instruments are the road to riches, when in fact they are often the exact opposite.
cjohnson318 6y ago
If you're storing water, make sure you check on it periodically. $1 of water can quickly translate to $1,000 of mold remediation.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  Adding a little bleach to the water can help extend its shelf life. There are also specialized chlorinated tablets and drops for this exact purpose.
  - vkou 6y ago
    I think the person posting above is not referring to the water going bad, but rather, to your water container rupturing, and flooding your basement.
    - ravenstine 6y ago
      Oh! facepalm
- rustybelt 6y ago
  I plan on tapping my water heater for water in case of emergency. Is this a dumb idea? Seems like the easiest large storage solution.
  - kingnothing 6y ago
    Water in a water heater may or may not be potable. If the heater is kept below 140f, the water is not safe to drink. There's also a question of various soft metals in the tank itself as well as any connecting plumbing that may leech into the water. That's not a concern in a life or death situation, but you generally shouldn't drink hot water from your tap. All in all, you're probably better off with iodine tablets or some sort of filter.
  - myself248 6y ago
    Have you practiced it? It doesn't count until you have.
m3kw9 6y ago
Best to just start noticing immediate risks, not rare risks. Immediate risk would be like losing a job that could make you homeless. Live in rural area with no med kit? Get one. Is stuff like that people should really think about and do, but it takes time to introspect where the immediate risks are
ajsnigrutin 6y ago
I think reality TV has ruined what normal preppers are trying to teach us. There are many, many realistic situatiations, where you might end up without power, outside, or even locked at home (like going abroad when the neighbouring country is in a "green" covid state, and your government changing their mind overnight, how they decide 'colors', and classifing it as "red", and you need to quarantene for 14 days). Plus all the "i have the flu, I don't want to go to the supermarket today" situations. Having some supplies at home (canned food, pasta, etc.) and some extra other stuff, a barbecue or something to cook stuff in, and an extra pair of socks & a shirt in your car is a very smart thing to do. Our grandmothers, living in villages had full cellars of food not that long ago, with sacks of flour, salt, and knowledge how to bake bread, and it was a totally normal thing to do and have (and people outside of big cities still do that). And reality TV? Show a nutter, thinking about rapture, with a cellar full of some dry freezed crap, some 5 year food supply pack on a couple of pallets, still unopened, with an expiration date two years in the future, a huge amount of guns and ammo, and a "tactical" toilet bag, with a tacital, camo colored emergency toilet paper cutter, ...just in case. This makes preppers look stupid, their prep cases look unrealistic, people having half a slice of toast and a jar of mouldy mustard as only food items in their house and people literally starving when their delivery driver cancells their order due to icy roads.
- lazide 6y ago
  FYI.- This is what reality TV does for literally everything it covers. Pawn shops don't run the way it shows. Gold miners don't work that way (if they want to stay solvent), etc.
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    Of course not... but most people don't have a pawn shop and don't mine gold. On the other hand, with prepping, (just to point at a weird, funny case), a huge amount of people were without toilet paper this spring, both due to media panic and not having an extra pack in the basement, for "just in case" scenarios (for me it was my gf using it all, and me being too lazy to go to store that day, so I have two packs (20 rolls) just for that...). Because people here (in slovenia) watch international news, they bought all the toilet paper here too, and it was hard to get it for like three days (luckily, slovenia is small, and distributon is not hard). And toilet paper is easily replaced by a bidet or a shower... food isn't.
Natsu 6y ago
> If a person over the age of 40 tells you that they have never lost a job, they are pretty lucky (or lying). How lucky is this, I wonder? I suspect it's not evenly distributed, though.
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  It depends on the career. Blue collar union workers (up until just recently) could easily go a lifetime without losing a job in certain parts of the country. But the flip side of it is the more job security you have today, the worse off you’ll be if you are ever out of a job (again like blue collar workers today).
bhelkey 6y ago
I believe this is an old submission. Should '(2018)' be appended to the title?
throwaway5752 6y ago
I like how this is realistic, even though it is a frequent re-post. Do risk-based planning. You are likely to have an accident. Have a practical first aid kit a buffer of critical medicine you might need. You are likely to lose power for some amount of time, consider your plan if you lose power (and plan accordingly. A battery backup for your phone might be practical, a generator might not be). Understand you needs: you need potable water. Most can go days to weeks without food, and you can go months without a balanced diet. Don't plan for things you can't mitigate. Some things aren't survivable: recognize that.
ravenstine 6y ago
As someone who's been "prepping" for years, I got a few apologies after the pandemic began by people who used to think I was nuts. However, I think the reason they thought I was nuts wasn't because I was doing anything that was nuts; having extra food;clothing;water;medicine, a "bug out" bag, and some firearms isn't really extreme in any way. The problem with prepping is the term "prepping" itself, especially its association with "doomsday prepping", which is mostly an invention of the sensationalist media. Sure, such preppers do exist, but they are an extreme minority. The media focuses on them because they are the most entertaining. Practical preparedness is boring, at least in the TV sense. The average prepper is more concerned with weather events(inc. fires, earthquakes), civil unrest, pandemics, etc. Don't get me wrong, I've met some preppers IRL that are kind of delusional, but even they aren't "doomsday" preppers. I don't think I've ever knowingly met a "doomsday" prepper. Unfortunately, I do think that the media's mockery of prepping did nothing to encourage people to prepare in a practical way, and if anything it discouraged people who have a distaste for things they believe are right-wing. In my opinion, prepping needs to be rebranded. We should probably drop the term "prepping" all together and just call it something like "civil preparedness". A little promotion from FEMA would help, too, especially if done under Biden, since FEMA has pretty much abandoned any meaningful public communication about preparing people for emergencies. FEMA, and formerly the US DoD as well as Office of Civil Defense, used to publish more literature on emergency preparedness and response, but you'll notice that after the late 1980s those efforts significantly declined. In any case, the title of the article implies that lots of preppers are "crazy folk" and provides what seems like an alternative that is not crazy. The reality is that this article describes exactly what at least 95% of preppers do. Well, besides the zombie apocalypse part.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  I find that folks are in denial. They don't want to think of being on their own, with civil society in disorder. They feel (understandably) helpless in such a situation. So they cling to the idea that it "won't happen here" and anyone preparing for it is foolish. We'd have to get over that mental hill, before folks can come out on the other side and start sensibly preparing. I've thought a civil preparedness plan could be building-by-building for instance. Multi-family dwellings could have a set of shared resources. Makes it more palatable, when 'everyone is doing it'.
INTPenis 6y ago
It could also be called preparedness. We got a brochure last year about being prepared as a society and little things you could keep in mind. I don't mind having a wind up radio/usb-battery/torch in my cupboard. Or even some jugs of water, water cleansing tablets, first aid and stuff like that. Costs barely anything to be a little bit prepared.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Its all about how long you can last. A radio, some water, some batteries can last a couple of days. Anything longer requires a bigger investment. You have to decide what you're planning for. In Scouts we teach about a bug-out bag (for being self-sufficient in a civil event like a flood or fire). Then there's home preparedness with canned food and first aid.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
I paid accident claims for five years. The vast majority of claims were either people working the system and finding ways to get their regular chiropractic treatments covered as accidents or "an accident waiting to happen." In some cases, the "accidents waiting to happen" were egregious enough that the policy didn't pay anything. Accident policies always have a list of provisos that boil down to "Were you doing something egregiously stupidly dangerous for funsies when you got injured? We aren't cutting you a check!" It was only a really tiny percentage of claims that were clearly and obviously "Damn. Wrong place, wrong time. It sucks to be you, dude." In five years, there were only about three claims that made it hard for me to sleep nights, even though I routinely read police reports and ER reports describing quite serious injuries (plus lots of really minor injuries -- see above about getting regular visits covered as "accidents"). I tend to not like articles of this sort. I don't like reading, for example, about millionaires and billionaires who have bunkers in New Zealand and a jet waiting "just in case" things go to hell over night. All that does is it tells me the rich people running the world aren't doing enough to run the world well. They foolishly imagine that after they run the world into the ground they can handily escape the consequences of their actions and only the little people will really suffer because of it. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells was published in 1895. The crux of the plot is that "in the dystopian future, the descendants of hard working servants will be eating the sheeple descendants of the helpless rich." (a message that tends to get lost in movie versions of the story). That's a much more likely scenario if things truly go to hell. The rich people whose wealth and comforts depend upon stocks and bonds and working financial markets and the like will not likely come out on top. It will be soldiers and hunters and people with real survival skills pertinent to the dystopian scenario who will suddenly be the people with power and social backing. Rich people skills only work to keep you on top if you keep your civilized world humming along nicely and don't let it go to hell in a hand basket. Kind of like the scene in The Titanic where the rich guy tries to bribe his way onto a lifeboat and gets told "Your money isn't worth anything to me at the bottom of the sea." The guy he was trying to bribe was going to go down with the ship. He had no further use for money. He would be dead within a few short hours, tops, and he knew it. I know why these articles appeal to people, but I wish they had less appeal. I wish actually resolving our problems was a more popular topic, but any time I try to talk about real solutions I'm given a ration of crap. No one wants to hear that we should be doing x, y and z practical, unexciting thing today. It isn't any fun to talk about that. Most people just want to imagine some fantasy in which things get really and truly crazy bad -- as if they aren't bad enough currently -- but bad in a way where heroics somehow save the day rather than, say, washing your hands and not rudely blowing your nose next to people under your mask while standing in a crowded Walmart. Articles like this are mostly escapist fantasy where people imagine themselves the hero in some future that plays out like an exciting movie. It helps them forget the dull reality of our current serious problems for a bit while not requiring them to actually fix anything in earnest.
uhtred 6y ago
In my worthless opinion it's not worth spending all my free time making sure I am prepared for a major disaster. If society really does collapse and I'm the only prepared person in a mile radius, with all the gear listed in that article, someone bigger and tougher is going to come take it off me pretty quickly.
- bingerman 6y ago
  Prepping beyond basic bugout-bag and having some extra food is pretty worthless if you are alone. Once you have a real community doing it to some degree it's absolutely worth it. City folks have very limited possibilities in any case.
  - Kluny 6y ago
    I'd say that building a real community has far more prepping value than stockpiling ammunition and cans.
deleted 6y ago
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tiborsaas 6y ago
I would add lock picking to the "skills to learn" list. Most of the locks we encounter are designed to keep an accidental thief away. In an emergency situation it could be life saving if you can open a door to gain access to something valuable.
- bob1029 6y ago
  Not just life saving, but you could potentially save very expensive property or business as well. We have been in a situation where electronic door locks failed in a power outage (hurricane) and we needed to access an email server behind those walls for an emergency retrieval of data. Everything was lights out, we were just trying to get the physical box out of the locked room. Ultimately had to crawl through ceiling tiles to circumvent the inoperative door lock.
  - rtx 6y ago
    Do you work for a former politician or something.
  - asdff 6y ago
    couldn't hire a locksmith?
    - tonyarkles 6y ago
      During a hurricane-induced power outage? Probably challenging.
- mankyd 6y ago
  If it's really life saving, break the lock and/or door. You're right - locks are generally meant to keep out less committed thieves, but lock-picking is hard for the average person. It takes a lot of practice, good light, and a steady hand. Picking a lock in an emergency situation seems impractical when you can just wrench the mechanism open.
  - paxys 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
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leashless 6y ago
This is a pretty good write up, overall. If you're interested in a more model-driven and systemic approach, try this, which is a pattern language for human risk management. http://resiliencemaps.org/files/Dealing_in_Security.July2010.en.pdf http://resiliencemaps.org/files/Dealing_in_Security.July2010...
corpMaverick 6y ago
How do you prepare for a military coup ? Asking for a friend.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  Realign your expectations about democracy and avoid having strong political opinions.
deleted 6y ago
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ptcampbell 6y ago
I've lived in the US for around 6 years. When I served on the board of a co-operative apartment building, I was taken aback by the level of detail tenants and some board members made for themselves in the event of a major catastrophe. How gleefully some sprung into action with their N95 masks and crank-powered radios when the pandemic struck! Unfortunately their foresight did not extend to the more pressing existential issues in the building, such as mould, fire safety, security, insurance etc.
ifokiedoke 6y ago
I quite enjoyed the beginnings of this essay & the parts of assessing risk and mapping out problem spaces. But the essay seems to take a weird turn about halfway through ("3: The Prepared Lifesylte") where the author begins to give their opinion on how folks should best live their lives _in general_, under the guise of suggesting that it's a "Prepared Lifestyle". For example: - 3.3. Learn new skills --> supposedly this is to counteract the risk of your job market shifting ("develop useful and marketable secondary skills"), but the example list is pretty random and not necessarily all that economically pragmatic. So it just seems more like the author believes people should have hobbies... - 3.4.5. Don't Hurt Yourself: Just in Case, Keep your Senses Razor Sharp --> Which basically says, don't drink or do drugs because that raises the possibility that you'll get hurt? I mean, absolutely it'll be crappy if an earthquake happens while you're high & sure if you're piss drunk you might do something dumb to harm yourself but if you really wanna talk about avoiding injuries... taking recreational drugs is probably like on the bottom of the list of things to worry about for anyone who doesn't have substance abuse problems. Feels a lot more like the author just being prescriptive about lifestyle choices. - 3.6. Get in Shape ---> The author proceeds to dedicate 4/5 of this section to how (in their opinion) someone should change their diet to lose weight. There is then 2 sentences on how "being able to walk or bike for several hours is likely good enough to deal with all practical scenarios we talked about thus far". If that was really what mattered, one could recommend an actual exercise routine and probably spend less time lecturing folks on their theoretical obesity. Physical fitness is correlated with weight, but they're often unrelated. After all, plenty of regular (non-obese) people can't bike for hours at a time (myself included! I have terrible hip problems from a desk job, even though I can do plenty of pullups & work out regularly). If you want to be able to run long distances, you have to run. Same for biking. To focus on weight seems disingenuous. ...and so on and so forth. I do wish that the author wouldn't couch their personal opinions on how others should live under the guise of disaster planning. But the rest of the article is fantastic & very well thought out. (EDIT: formatting)
neuralRiot 6y ago
Living in a hurricane zone makes prepping a once a year event if you’re just a bit smart, we stock water, canned food, snacks, dry groceries (pasta, beans) alternate cooking fuel (propane), batteries, a few gas cans, rope, tarp. Not hard to do, just rotate the food once the season is over, the rest can last forever. The idea is not to survive a zombie apocalypse but just a few weeks without power or a light flood.

173 points by VBprogrammer 6y ago

In the event of a real emergency, preppers will be a convenient source of resources and supplies to be exploited by whatever roving bands are marauding the landscape. If you nerd out on preparedness, you're just increasing the chance that the local Blood King will turn your skull into a goblet when he comes looking for the stash of canned goods you bragged about online in the Before Times.

13415 6y ago
In real emergencies people tend to be solidaric and help each other out.
- f-- 6y ago
  Yeah, usually. It's a common trope, but also a pretty tired one. We have a pretty long history of plague, famine, war, and other "apocalyptic" scenarios, and in almost all accounts, people tend to help each other, and most would die of hunger rather than steal from an innocent person. The main problem is that what we are very good at is building narratives that portray some class of "others" as not-so-innocent, and therefore, deserving all the pillage, rape, and murder we can muster. That's variously the neighboring nation, some minority ethnic group, political opponents, the rich, the clergy... you name them, there's some brutal revolution or war targeting 'em. So, basically, the worst-case scenario is ending up on the wrong side of the pitchfork if / when the revolution comes. Something that, quite frankly, the Silicon Valley should be mindful of.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
metiscus 6y ago
While I suspect a certain level of sarcasm was intended, a valid point for discussion does exist within your comment - The idea that preparing is merely forwarding supplies to your local warlord. This basically assumes a TEOTWAWKI scenario, which should be very far down the list of any preparation. It is always recommended in preparation circles to get to know your neighbors and integrate yourself into your local community. Under any reasonable set of circumstances, a well functioning local community should be able to stand up to any war lord types and would be the atoms from which a new society is formed. The classic advice goes something like this - in a survival situation you will be killed by the first critical problem you can't solve yourself. Communities form for a reason and knowing the geography of your operational area includes the social geography.
- wing-_-nuts 6y ago
  I find it funny that the 'lone wolf' survivor is the archetype of a prepper. It doesn't matter how much food, water, guns or ammo you have. Isolation makes you vulnerable. You cannot hope to have a proper 'watch', even with a small family. I'd expect 'tribe' size groups to be much more successful.
  - corpMaverick 6y ago
    Yes. I think this proverb applies. "Want to go fast go alone, want to go far go together"
  - metiscus 6y ago
    There are a lot of people, some that I know in person, who live in a fantasy of surviving on their own. I've tried, through casual conversation, to get them to understand that you want to build a community around you for mutual benefit. From what I've seen it comes down to a few different things. 1. Some people have trust issues, possibly to a clinical level. They don't trust their neighbors to not be zombies etc knocking at the door to take their stuff. Ironically, when you spread awareness of preparatory issues through community building, you reduce the chance of that happening. 2. Some people are overly focused on one or two particular scenarios and 'optimize' their and preparations on those scenarios. E.g. A real-life neighbor has CBRN gear, firearms, and food but doesn't have a chainsaw or basic hand tools. Like most stereotypes, the lone preppper has some truth associated with it. It really comes down to definitions. I'm not prepared for TEOTWAWKI by any means, but if I lose my job, or we get hit with a hurricane, or my car dies, or my house burns down, I've got reasonable contingency plans for those. Am I a prepper?
anonymousse1234 6y ago
If that would be the case prepare to defend your stash or at least take some of the bandits with you like many preppers do. Don't be an easy target.
- wing-_-nuts 6y ago
  Attackers have the element of surprise. Unless you are part of a group yourself, you cannot hope to have enough people to keep a sufficient watch. The isolated 'living off the land' types with big stockpiles of supplies would be easy targets.
  - anonymousse1234 6y ago
    How are you going to be surprised sitting in your home in case of emergency with not much other to do? Gun guys aren't liked here but if somebody is going to get a nasty surprise it would be the bad guys. If you are a hard target bandits will most likely choose another one.
    - metiscus 6y ago
      You have to sleep. You have to get water and maintain certain other things outside your home from time to time. You may get sick and need additional rest. Or to go and get firewood etc. If 10 people really really want your food and supplies, they will burn you out or crash a vehicle into your home, or drop a tree on it. Alone you are nothing, you are much more in a community. Think minute men vs a lone wolf. It is no contest.
      - anonymousse1234 6y ago
        Robbers will choose the easyiest route. They just want stuff and not assasinate specifically someone, they will rob somebody other if they find a hard target. Probably somebody like you. It works the same with muggings. 2 people is enough to get some sleep and run errands.
      - souprock 6y ago
dragonwriter 6y ago
> In the event of a real emergency, preppers will be a convenient source of resources and supplies to be exploited by whatever roving bands are marauding the landscape. If you nerd out on preparedness, you're just increasing the chance that the local Blood King will turn your skull into a goblet when he comes looking for the stash of canned goods you bragged about online in the Before Times. That's why meatspace social networking is part of prepping for some people: they recognize that, if there is a collapse, the way to survive isn't just to have stuff for yourself, its to have a well-prepared tribe. To be (well, hopefully kinder and gentler than the title sounds, for most preppers who take this strategy) the Blood King, rather than worry about him.

cbanek 6y ago

"Pandemic. It's been a while since the highly developed world experienced a devastating outbreak, but it may be premature to flat out dismiss the risk. In 1918, an unusual strain of flu managed to kill 75 million people." Well, this aged well! I'm glad to see this very reasonable take so far. One thing that I don't see mentioned is a "go-bag" or "bug out bag", which I find to be one of the more useful preparations. Have a bag with some clothes, your documents, medication, whatever you might need if you need to leave your house in a couple of minutes notice for a couple of days. Super useful even if it's not a total life and death emergency, but you need to see or help someone, and won't know for how long. A lot of good advice here about what to put in it though! And a lot of useful advice on good skills to have. One other small note: always have a roll of paper towels and toilet paper in your trunk in a bag. Just trust me on this one, you'll thank me later.

mschuster91 6y ago
> Well, this aged well! I'm glad to see this very reasonable take so far. The article is from 2018... we got a glimpse with SARS/MERS and had sheer luck that these two didn't turn into 'rona-scale pandemic.
- rasz 6y ago
  This page is at least 5 years old.
- mongol 6y ago
  If SARS had turn pamdemic... damn. I don't think I realized how bad that would have been. Still can't.
tedmcory77 6y ago
Also: Headlamp Ultility knife (aka leatherman) Charging necessities for your phone Some food that can be eaten cold (I use protein bars) Water container Note pad and pencil emergency poncho I also have a portable water filter; it wont get everything but since I live in Florida most likely there will be fresh water nearby. Source - boyscout, millitary time

kochb 6y ago

Discussion from prior submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15110850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15110850

dang 6y ago
Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10906232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10906232 from a year earlier (2016). Reposts are fine after a year or so (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html), but this one was pretty clearly a follow-up to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25059984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25059984, and we probably don't need two of these on the front page.

jcims 6y ago

A perennial HN favorite - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=coredump.cx https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=coredump.cx Have been following Michal's exploits (card carrying dad here, sorry) for almost my entire infosec career. Always appreciate his practical and rational take on things. This is no exception, great article and something I think allows people to think about the topic without getting sucked into the editorializing that typically goes with it.

dom96 6y ago

> Now a word of caution: beware of debt. Many of us are taught that owing money is normal, even desirable; indeed, for middle-class folks, some forms of indebtedness may be difficult to avoid. I find that surprising. Perhaps this is the difference between growing up in a middle-class household vs. a working-class household, but personally I have seen first hand why debt is bad and been taught to avoid credit cards and debt like the plague. Perhaps this does not fit the middle-class lifestyle and now that I am personally earning far more than my parents ever did I wonder if I should be less averse to debt, can anyone chime in with what the right balance is here?

lotsofpulp 6y ago
The right balance is what let’s you sleep at night. But I have seen people more averse to debt limit their economic growth. If your goal is to get rich, you need to be comfortable with levering up, because your competition will be. Also, some debt is politically more favorable than others. Debt to purchase land is more easily bailed out and less risky than buying options on margin. It’s also easier if you have supportive friends/family/spouse with high income so that you can at least have the basics in the worst case scenario.
- hyko 6y ago
  If your goal is to get rich, you need to be comfortable with levering up That really depends on the economic environment.
  - thotsBgone 6y ago
    Pedantic. If your goal is to get rich, you need to be comfortable with doing what it takes depending on the economic environment.
    - hyko 6y ago
      It’s not pedantry. There may be some circumstances where strategic use of debt contributes to making you rich, but leverage is not a necessary condition for building wealth. Stating that it is gives people the impression that debt instruments are the road to riches, when in fact they are often the exact opposite.

cjohnson318 6y ago

If you're storing water, make sure you check on it periodically. $1 of water can quickly translate to $1,000 of mold remediation.

ravenstine 6y ago
Adding a little bleach to the water can help extend its shelf life. There are also specialized chlorinated tablets and drops for this exact purpose.
- vkou 6y ago
  I think the person posting above is not referring to the water going bad, but rather, to your water container rupturing, and flooding your basement.
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    Oh! facepalm
rustybelt 6y ago
I plan on tapping my water heater for water in case of emergency. Is this a dumb idea? Seems like the easiest large storage solution.
- kingnothing 6y ago
  Water in a water heater may or may not be potable. If the heater is kept below 140f, the water is not safe to drink. There's also a question of various soft metals in the tank itself as well as any connecting plumbing that may leech into the water. That's not a concern in a life or death situation, but you generally shouldn't drink hot water from your tap. All in all, you're probably better off with iodine tablets or some sort of filter.
- myself248 6y ago
  Have you practiced it? It doesn't count until you have.

m3kw9 6y ago

Best to just start noticing immediate risks, not rare risks. Immediate risk would be like losing a job that could make you homeless. Live in rural area with no med kit? Get one. Is stuff like that people should really think about and do, but it takes time to introspect where the immediate risks are

ajsnigrutin 6y ago

I think reality TV has ruined what normal preppers are trying to teach us. There are many, many realistic situatiations, where you might end up without power, outside, or even locked at home (like going abroad when the neighbouring country is in a "green" covid state, and your government changing their mind overnight, how they decide 'colors', and classifing it as "red", and you need to quarantene for 14 days). Plus all the "i have the flu, I don't want to go to the supermarket today" situations. Having some supplies at home (canned food, pasta, etc.) and some extra other stuff, a barbecue or something to cook stuff in, and an extra pair of socks & a shirt in your car is a very smart thing to do. Our grandmothers, living in villages had full cellars of food not that long ago, with sacks of flour, salt, and knowledge how to bake bread, and it was a totally normal thing to do and have (and people outside of big cities still do that). And reality TV? Show a nutter, thinking about rapture, with a cellar full of some dry freezed crap, some 5 year food supply pack on a couple of pallets, still unopened, with an expiration date two years in the future, a huge amount of guns and ammo, and a "tactical" toilet bag, with a tacital, camo colored emergency toilet paper cutter, ...just in case. This makes preppers look stupid, their prep cases look unrealistic, people having half a slice of toast and a jar of mouldy mustard as only food items in their house and people literally starving when their delivery driver cancells their order due to icy roads.

lazide 6y ago
FYI.- This is what reality TV does for literally everything it covers. Pawn shops don't run the way it shows. Gold miners don't work that way (if they want to stay solvent), etc.
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  Of course not... but most people don't have a pawn shop and don't mine gold. On the other hand, with prepping, (just to point at a weird, funny case), a huge amount of people were without toilet paper this spring, both due to media panic and not having an extra pack in the basement, for "just in case" scenarios (for me it was my gf using it all, and me being too lazy to go to store that day, so I have two packs (20 rolls) just for that...). Because people here (in slovenia) watch international news, they bought all the toilet paper here too, and it was hard to get it for like three days (luckily, slovenia is small, and distributon is not hard). And toilet paper is easily replaced by a bidet or a shower... food isn't.

Natsu 6y ago

> If a person over the age of 40 tells you that they have never lost a job, they are pretty lucky (or lying). How lucky is this, I wonder? I suspect it's not evenly distributed, though.

ComputerGuru 6y ago
It depends on the career. Blue collar union workers (up until just recently) could easily go a lifetime without losing a job in certain parts of the country. But the flip side of it is the more job security you have today, the worse off you’ll be if you are ever out of a job (again like blue collar workers today).

bhelkey 6y ago

I believe this is an old submission. Should '(2018)' be appended to the title?

throwaway5752 6y ago

I like how this is realistic, even though it is a frequent re-post. Do risk-based planning. You are likely to have an accident. Have a practical first aid kit a buffer of critical medicine you might need. You are likely to lose power for some amount of time, consider your plan if you lose power (and plan accordingly. A battery backup for your phone might be practical, a generator might not be). Understand you needs: you need potable water. Most can go days to weeks without food, and you can go months without a balanced diet. Don't plan for things you can't mitigate. Some things aren't survivable: recognize that.

ravenstine 6y ago

As someone who's been "prepping" for years, I got a few apologies after the pandemic began by people who used to think I was nuts. However, I think the reason they thought I was nuts wasn't because I was doing anything that was nuts; having extra food;clothing;water;medicine, a "bug out" bag, and some firearms isn't really extreme in any way. The problem with prepping is the term "prepping" itself, especially its association with "doomsday prepping", which is mostly an invention of the sensationalist media. Sure, such preppers do exist, but they are an extreme minority. The media focuses on them because they are the most entertaining. Practical preparedness is boring, at least in the TV sense. The average prepper is more concerned with weather events(inc. fires, earthquakes), civil unrest, pandemics, etc. Don't get me wrong, I've met some preppers IRL that are kind of delusional, but even they aren't "doomsday" preppers. I don't think I've ever knowingly met a "doomsday" prepper. Unfortunately, I do think that the media's mockery of prepping did nothing to encourage people to prepare in a practical way, and if anything it discouraged people who have a distaste for things they believe are right-wing. In my opinion, prepping needs to be rebranded. We should probably drop the term "prepping" all together and just call it something like "civil preparedness". A little promotion from FEMA would help, too, especially if done under Biden, since FEMA has pretty much abandoned any meaningful public communication about preparing people for emergencies. FEMA, and formerly the US DoD as well as Office of Civil Defense, used to publish more literature on emergency preparedness and response, but you'll notice that after the late 1980s those efforts significantly declined. In any case, the title of the article implies that lots of preppers are "crazy folk" and provides what seems like an alternative that is not crazy. The reality is that this article describes exactly what at least 95% of preppers do. Well, besides the zombie apocalypse part.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
I find that folks are in denial. They don't want to think of being on their own, with civil society in disorder. They feel (understandably) helpless in such a situation. So they cling to the idea that it "won't happen here" and anyone preparing for it is foolish. We'd have to get over that mental hill, before folks can come out on the other side and start sensibly preparing. I've thought a civil preparedness plan could be building-by-building for instance. Multi-family dwellings could have a set of shared resources. Makes it more palatable, when 'everyone is doing it'.

INTPenis 6y ago

It could also be called preparedness. We got a brochure last year about being prepared as a society and little things you could keep in mind. I don't mind having a wind up radio/usb-battery/torch in my cupboard. Or even some jugs of water, water cleansing tablets, first aid and stuff like that. Costs barely anything to be a little bit prepared.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Its all about how long you can last. A radio, some water, some batteries can last a couple of days. Anything longer requires a bigger investment. You have to decide what you're planning for. In Scouts we teach about a bug-out bag (for being self-sufficient in a civil event like a flood or fire). Then there's home preparedness with canned food and first aid.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

I paid accident claims for five years. The vast majority of claims were either people working the system and finding ways to get their regular chiropractic treatments covered as accidents or "an accident waiting to happen." In some cases, the "accidents waiting to happen" were egregious enough that the policy didn't pay anything. Accident policies always have a list of provisos that boil down to "Were you doing something egregiously stupidly dangerous for funsies when you got injured? We aren't cutting you a check!" It was only a really tiny percentage of claims that were clearly and obviously "Damn. Wrong place, wrong time. It sucks to be you, dude." In five years, there were only about three claims that made it hard for me to sleep nights, even though I routinely read police reports and ER reports describing quite serious injuries (plus lots of really minor injuries -- see above about getting regular visits covered as "accidents"). I tend to not like articles of this sort. I don't like reading, for example, about millionaires and billionaires who have bunkers in New Zealand and a jet waiting "just in case" things go to hell over night. All that does is it tells me the rich people running the world aren't doing enough to run the world well. They foolishly imagine that after they run the world into the ground they can handily escape the consequences of their actions and only the little people will really suffer because of it. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells was published in 1895. The crux of the plot is that "in the dystopian future, the descendants of hard working servants will be eating the sheeple descendants of the helpless rich." (a message that tends to get lost in movie versions of the story). That's a much more likely scenario if things truly go to hell. The rich people whose wealth and comforts depend upon stocks and bonds and working financial markets and the like will not likely come out on top. It will be soldiers and hunters and people with real survival skills pertinent to the dystopian scenario who will suddenly be the people with power and social backing. Rich people skills only work to keep you on top if you keep your civilized world humming along nicely and don't let it go to hell in a hand basket. Kind of like the scene in The Titanic where the rich guy tries to bribe his way onto a lifeboat and gets told "Your money isn't worth anything to me at the bottom of the sea." The guy he was trying to bribe was going to go down with the ship. He had no further use for money. He would be dead within a few short hours, tops, and he knew it. I know why these articles appeal to people, but I wish they had less appeal. I wish actually resolving our problems was a more popular topic, but any time I try to talk about real solutions I'm given a ration of crap. No one wants to hear that we should be doing x, y and z practical, unexciting thing today. It isn't any fun to talk about that. Most people just want to imagine some fantasy in which things get really and truly crazy bad -- as if they aren't bad enough currently -- but bad in a way where heroics somehow save the day rather than, say, washing your hands and not rudely blowing your nose next to people under your mask while standing in a crowded Walmart. Articles like this are mostly escapist fantasy where people imagine themselves the hero in some future that plays out like an exciting movie. It helps them forget the dull reality of our current serious problems for a bit while not requiring them to actually fix anything in earnest.

uhtred 6y ago

In my worthless opinion it's not worth spending all my free time making sure I am prepared for a major disaster. If society really does collapse and I'm the only prepared person in a mile radius, with all the gear listed in that article, someone bigger and tougher is going to come take it off me pretty quickly.

bingerman 6y ago
Prepping beyond basic bugout-bag and having some extra food is pretty worthless if you are alone. Once you have a real community doing it to some degree it's absolutely worth it. City folks have very limited possibilities in any case.
- Kluny 6y ago
  I'd say that building a real community has far more prepping value than stockpiling ammunition and cans.

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tiborsaas 6y ago

I would add lock picking to the "skills to learn" list. Most of the locks we encounter are designed to keep an accidental thief away. In an emergency situation it could be life saving if you can open a door to gain access to something valuable.

bob1029 6y ago
Not just life saving, but you could potentially save very expensive property or business as well. We have been in a situation where electronic door locks failed in a power outage (hurricane) and we needed to access an email server behind those walls for an emergency retrieval of data. Everything was lights out, we were just trying to get the physical box out of the locked room. Ultimately had to crawl through ceiling tiles to circumvent the inoperative door lock.
- rtx 6y ago
  Do you work for a former politician or something.
- asdff 6y ago
  couldn't hire a locksmith?
  - tonyarkles 6y ago
    During a hurricane-induced power outage? Probably challenging.
mankyd 6y ago
If it's really life saving, break the lock and/or door. You're right - locks are generally meant to keep out less committed thieves, but lock-picking is hard for the average person. It takes a lot of practice, good light, and a steady hand. Picking a lock in an emergency situation seems impractical when you can just wrench the mechanism open.
- paxys 6y ago

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leashless 6y ago

This is a pretty good write up, overall. If you're interested in a more model-driven and systemic approach, try this, which is a pattern language for human risk management. http://resiliencemaps.org/files/Dealing_in_Security.July2010.en.pdf http://resiliencemaps.org/files/Dealing_in_Security.July2010...

corpMaverick 6y ago

How do you prepare for a military coup ? Asking for a friend.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
Realign your expectations about democracy and avoid having strong political opinions.

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ptcampbell 6y ago

I've lived in the US for around 6 years. When I served on the board of a co-operative apartment building, I was taken aback by the level of detail tenants and some board members made for themselves in the event of a major catastrophe. How gleefully some sprung into action with their N95 masks and crank-powered radios when the pandemic struck! Unfortunately their foresight did not extend to the more pressing existential issues in the building, such as mould, fire safety, security, insurance etc.

ifokiedoke 6y ago

I quite enjoyed the beginnings of this essay & the parts of assessing risk and mapping out problem spaces. But the essay seems to take a weird turn about halfway through ("3: The Prepared Lifesylte") where the author begins to give their opinion on how folks should best live their lives _in general_, under the guise of suggesting that it's a "Prepared Lifestyle". For example: - 3.3. Learn new skills --> supposedly this is to counteract the risk of your job market shifting ("develop useful and marketable secondary skills"), but the example list is pretty random and not necessarily all that economically pragmatic. So it just seems more like the author believes people should have hobbies... - 3.4.5. Don't Hurt Yourself: Just in Case, Keep your Senses Razor Sharp --> Which basically says, don't drink or do drugs because that raises the possibility that you'll get hurt? I mean, absolutely it'll be crappy if an earthquake happens while you're high & sure if you're piss drunk you might do something dumb to harm yourself but if you really wanna talk about avoiding injuries... taking recreational drugs is probably like on the bottom of the list of things to worry about for anyone who doesn't have substance abuse problems. Feels a lot more like the author just being prescriptive about lifestyle choices. - 3.6. Get in Shape ---> The author proceeds to dedicate 4/5 of this section to how (in their opinion) someone should change their diet to lose weight. There is then 2 sentences on how "being able to walk or bike for several hours is likely good enough to deal with all practical scenarios we talked about thus far". If that was really what mattered, one could recommend an actual exercise routine and probably spend less time lecturing folks on their theoretical obesity. Physical fitness is correlated with weight, but they're often unrelated. After all, plenty of regular (non-obese) people can't bike for hours at a time (myself included! I have terrible hip problems from a desk job, even though I can do plenty of pullups & work out regularly). If you want to be able to run long distances, you have to run. Same for biking. To focus on weight seems disingenuous. ...and so on and so forth. I do wish that the author wouldn't couch their personal opinions on how others should live under the guise of disaster planning. But the rest of the article is fantastic & very well thought out. (EDIT: formatting)

neuralRiot 6y ago

Living in a hurricane zone makes prepping a once a year event if you’re just a bit smart, we stock water, canned food, snacks, dry groceries (pasta, beans) alternate cooking fuel (propane), batteries, a few gas cans, rope, tarp. Not hard to do, just rotate the food once the season is over, the rest can last forever. The idea is not to survive a zombie apocalypse but just a few weeks without power or a light flood.