The ones who build bunkers, castles, or remote homesteads believe that "the apocalypse" (or whatever they call what they're preparing for), will last a certain

The ones who build bunkers, castles, or remote homesteads believe that "the apocalypse" (or whatever they call what they're preparing for), will last a certain amount of time and then blow-over. They think they'll be able to go back to normal after some kind of social system-reset. The problem, for them, is that no one actually knows how "doomsday" will actually unfold. What kind of doomsday, exactly, are we talking about anyway? How many different scenarios can one actually prepare for? I think there's a lot of different ways doomsday can happen, a lot of different ways, in wildly different timescales: a global warming catastrophe occurring over a span of a century and lasting forever is very different from, say, an asteroid impact or global war or the second coming or the serfs revolting and coming after you with pitch-forks. There was a talking head on the internet about 10 years ago that spoke about social collapse and theorized upon it based on what he observed when the Soviet Union collapsed (Dimitri Orlov). A lot of what he said was just predicting a future collapse in terms of stages but that was mostly forgettable because predicting the future is, IMHO, a fool's errand at best. The thing that stuck with me, however, was Orlov's assertion that how well you fare during collapse is all about how adaptable you are to new situations and the resiliency of your social network (your physical social network). Ultimately the "bug-out bag" people are going to run out of bullets, beef-jerky and clean socks. They'll need to adapt themselves to a new social group or just die alone in the woods. The same goes for rich people in bunkers. The fresh water, freeze-dried peaches and toilet paper will only last so long.