4 ms·

Note: This is fun and all, but beware of taking the “Post-apocalyptic” premise too seriously. Down that road lies only hard drive hoarding and becoming a prepp

by teddyh 4y ago

Note: This is fun and all, but beware of taking the “Post-apocalyptic” premise too seriously. Down that road lies only hard drive hoarding and becoming a prepper.

daneel_w 4y ago
In lieu of the obviously better solution of proactively preventing apocalypse, to what degree of seriousness do you instead suggest we acknowledge the "post-apocalyptic" premise? What else than becoming a prepper would you do?
- teddyh 4y ago
  Nothing? Society as a whole will not collapse. The sole exceptions are if you are in a small country either being invaded or having a civil war. Unless these are likely factors for you, you can safely ignore any apocalyptic ideas. These ideas are mostly held alive by people who want to be important and relevant. People with too many guns at home want them and their guns to be important, and readily imagine an apocalypse fitting that dream. People with old computers and old programming skills likewise dream of being important, and start things like CollapseOS. People who live in the countryside and have horses imagine themselves to be cowboys in a car-less world. It’s all based on what kind of apocalypse would make a person important and respected again, not on any real sense of what kind of disaster would actually be statistically likely. I mean, you could be worried about political changes, and act accordingly. You could be worried about the surveillance state to grow steadily, and prepare for that. And various state agencies are always telling people to be prepared for hurricanes, flodding, and other extreme weather events, depending on your region. These would, I believe, be reasonable precautions to take.
hunterb123 4y ago
I can't think of anything more useful than becoming a "prepper" and hoarding data on hard drives these days. There's hardly any difference than prepping and camping, you just take your gear with you every now and then, practice with your gear, use your rations and replace. Prepping is usually pretty ecological as well, it leads to coops, greenhouses, chicken coops, water recycling, composting, solar, repairing skills etc. On the hard drive thing, I bought box sets of all of my shows and ripped them so I don't pay for the 10 streaming services they get passed around on. All of my episodes are there forever and won't be edited/censored or removed. I can even take them all camping with me, the core shows fit on a single flash drive. TBH prepping is just optimizing your life and mitigating the negative effects of an abrupt change (like loss of power, natural disaster, pandemic, etc.) You (should) create fail safes in software, do the same for your livelihood.
- havblue 4y ago
  While I get the idea that prepping can become an unnecessary use of resources and result in people thinking you're crazy, I still think of the simple fact that all civilizations end eventually. Certainly they collapse for different reasons and at different rates. But the lights will go off eventually for our generation, or the next, or the next... Nothing lasts forever so it's probably worth planning for some level of catastrophe.
  - hunterb123 4y ago
    The whole purpose of prepping is to prepare the necessary amount of resources for an emergency. If you stock too much food or water it will expire, you have to rotate it, so you eat it and restock. If you stock too many non-perishables of something you don't need you won't have enough room for more useful things. Prepping and looking crazy aren't coupled. Prepared people can be normal, it's not just what you see on TV. Generally the fun is seeing how long you can prepare for, most likely you won't need to last past a month, but certain natural disasters like a hurricane can hit that easily. I'd definitely recommend everyone have at least a 1 week supply and plan for emergencies (usually specific to your area).
    - seanw444 4y ago
      Unless you want to die, there's no reason not to prep. It's weird that it's looked down on.
      - hunterb123 4y ago
        Yeah it's a strange attitude, everyone preps in some way or another, but people act like you are a doomsday believer if you keep supplies for emergencies. Those same people who judge get helped in those emergencies by those who are prepared.
  - helpfulmandrill 4y ago
    You're assuming civilizations end in abrupt events, whereas it might be just as likely that they decline slowly over generations until one day people are grazing sheep on Wall Street or whatever.
codebolt 4y ago
The threat most developers should be concerned about is what happens once a major solar flare (like the Carrington event in 1859) shows up. That is destined to happen at some point, and not unlikely within the next few decades. Hard to predict the fallout for the internet and other technical infastructure more broadly, but I'm guessing it won't be pretty.
- cheschire 4y ago
  I'm interested in where you feel the numerical value of "not unlikely" falls on a scale such as the one from Lesson 1 of this article. https://hbr.org/2018/07/if-you-say-something-is-likely-how-likely-do-people-think-it-is https://hbr.org/2018/07/if-you-say-something-is-likely-how-l...
  - codebolt 4y ago
    https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-022-01676-5 https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.118... This recent paper from Japan estimates the following likelihood for what it calls "extremely large solar flares": > for 30-, 50-, and 100-year periods to be 0.70−0.76, 0.87−0.91, and 0.98−0.99, respectively
    - cheschire 4y ago
      Perfect, thank you! I find much more value in numerical expression when it comes to topics about future events than the fuzzy and loaded English terms we tend to use in casual conversation. I had the wrong impression about your previous message based on my own preconceived notions, and numbers reduce all that.
      - codebolt 4y ago
        No problem, I should have been more specific when I wrote my initial comment but I was too lazy to pull up the exact reference until you challenged me (I somewhat randomly saw this paper a few days ago, initially).
pantalaimon 4y ago
The premise that in the event of an apocalypse some 80ies CPUs would be more readily available than today's commodity chips already prevents me from taking this too seriously. But those simple Chips are certainly easier to wrap your head around for programming. In the event of apocalypse the most abundant computing platform would be old Android phones however.
atoav 4y ago
Actual prepping as in "preparing for the afternath of some catastrophic event that breaks civilization" is something else than the usual "cosplaying for the zombie apocalypse"-type of prepping you can observe so often. Actual prepping would involve a ton of community networking, trying to be in good terms with your neighbours, creating lasting and decentralized infrastructure for a d with them etc. The prepping most preppers do is just trying to be less fucked than others when the shit hits the fan. Living the ultimate rugged individualist delusion: that you somehow can survive alone if you just buy the right gear to make it through the first week and that you will have to shoot the looters who were too stupid to prepare. The problem with all of this is typically that those rugged individuals have to depend on the work and expertise of other people in some way or another. I mean you might need electrical engineering, a doctor, someone who is good with plants and animals, whatever. Unless you are already live 100% self sustained whatever you are doing is not going to cut it without other people also getting through this.
- bitwize 4y ago
  I think this explains the stereotype of Christian conservatives in rural "fly-over country" in the USA. Frontiersmen were preppers writ large, and could not even rely on the supply chains of their time, let alone the massively interlinked supply chains of today. They had to rely on themselves -- and each other. 150 years ago, the church was not just a place of worship, but also a community center, where neighbors met each other, socialized, and begged for or offered aid. I am neither a Christian nor a conservative. But I think understanding why Christian conservatives are the way they are, rather than declaring them an enemy to be fought or diagnosing them in absentia with mental illness, without a license, would be good for urban liberals like me. Our side has done too little in terms of understanding and addressing the needs of these people, and it's had real costs on our society (like Trump).
  - atoav 4y ago
    I have never been in the US, but I grew up in a rural (catholic) village in the Alps — I think rural people everywhere are alike, especially if they live in somewhat remote geographies. E.g. it is a very important skill in an rural environment to know how to shut up and not say what you are thinking. This is why the recent vreferendum on abortion in Kansas went the way it did. People on the countryside tend to be more comservative, sure. But they also hate being told what they are allowed to do.

by teddyh 4y ago

Note: This is fun and all, but beware of taking the “Post-apocalyptic” premise too seriously. Down that road lies only hard drive hoarding and becoming a prepper.

daneel_w 4y ago

In lieu of the obviously better solution of proactively preventing apocalypse, to what degree of seriousness do you instead suggest we acknowledge the "post-apocalyptic" premise? What else than becoming a prepper would you do?

teddyh 4y ago
Nothing? Society as a whole will not collapse. The sole exceptions are if you are in a small country either being invaded or having a civil war. Unless these are likely factors for you, you can safely ignore any apocalyptic ideas. These ideas are mostly held alive by people who want to be important and relevant. People with too many guns at home want them and their guns to be important, and readily imagine an apocalypse fitting that dream. People with old computers and old programming skills likewise dream of being important, and start things like CollapseOS. People who live in the countryside and have horses imagine themselves to be cowboys in a car-less world. It’s all based on what kind of apocalypse would make a person important and respected again, not on any real sense of what kind of disaster would actually be statistically likely. I mean, you could be worried about political changes, and act accordingly. You could be worried about the surveillance state to grow steadily, and prepare for that. And various state agencies are always telling people to be prepared for hurricanes, flodding, and other extreme weather events, depending on your region. These would, I believe, be reasonable precautions to take.

hunterb123 4y ago

I can't think of anything more useful than becoming a "prepper" and hoarding data on hard drives these days. There's hardly any difference than prepping and camping, you just take your gear with you every now and then, practice with your gear, use your rations and replace. Prepping is usually pretty ecological as well, it leads to coops, greenhouses, chicken coops, water recycling, composting, solar, repairing skills etc. On the hard drive thing, I bought box sets of all of my shows and ripped them so I don't pay for the 10 streaming services they get passed around on. All of my episodes are there forever and won't be edited/censored or removed. I can even take them all camping with me, the core shows fit on a single flash drive. TBH prepping is just optimizing your life and mitigating the negative effects of an abrupt change (like loss of power, natural disaster, pandemic, etc.) You (should) create fail safes in software, do the same for your livelihood.

havblue 4y ago
While I get the idea that prepping can become an unnecessary use of resources and result in people thinking you're crazy, I still think of the simple fact that all civilizations end eventually. Certainly they collapse for different reasons and at different rates. But the lights will go off eventually for our generation, or the next, or the next... Nothing lasts forever so it's probably worth planning for some level of catastrophe.
- hunterb123 4y ago
  The whole purpose of prepping is to prepare the necessary amount of resources for an emergency. If you stock too much food or water it will expire, you have to rotate it, so you eat it and restock. If you stock too many non-perishables of something you don't need you won't have enough room for more useful things. Prepping and looking crazy aren't coupled. Prepared people can be normal, it's not just what you see on TV. Generally the fun is seeing how long you can prepare for, most likely you won't need to last past a month, but certain natural disasters like a hurricane can hit that easily. I'd definitely recommend everyone have at least a 1 week supply and plan for emergencies (usually specific to your area).
  - seanw444 4y ago
    Unless you want to die, there's no reason not to prep. It's weird that it's looked down on.
    - hunterb123 4y ago
      Yeah it's a strange attitude, everyone preps in some way or another, but people act like you are a doomsday believer if you keep supplies for emergencies. Those same people who judge get helped in those emergencies by those who are prepared.
- helpfulmandrill 4y ago
  You're assuming civilizations end in abrupt events, whereas it might be just as likely that they decline slowly over generations until one day people are grazing sheep on Wall Street or whatever.

codebolt 4y ago

The threat most developers should be concerned about is what happens once a major solar flare (like the Carrington event in 1859) shows up. That is destined to happen at some point, and not unlikely within the next few decades. Hard to predict the fallout for the internet and other technical infastructure more broadly, but I'm guessing it won't be pretty.

cheschire 4y ago
I'm interested in where you feel the numerical value of "not unlikely" falls on a scale such as the one from Lesson 1 of this article. https://hbr.org/2018/07/if-you-say-something-is-likely-how-likely-do-people-think-it-is https://hbr.org/2018/07/if-you-say-something-is-likely-how-l...
- codebolt 4y ago
  https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-022-01676-5 https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.118... This recent paper from Japan estimates the following likelihood for what it calls "extremely large solar flares": > for 30-, 50-, and 100-year periods to be 0.70−0.76, 0.87−0.91, and 0.98−0.99, respectively
  - cheschire 4y ago
    Perfect, thank you! I find much more value in numerical expression when it comes to topics about future events than the fuzzy and loaded English terms we tend to use in casual conversation. I had the wrong impression about your previous message based on my own preconceived notions, and numbers reduce all that.
    - codebolt 4y ago
      No problem, I should have been more specific when I wrote my initial comment but I was too lazy to pull up the exact reference until you challenged me (I somewhat randomly saw this paper a few days ago, initially).

pantalaimon 4y ago

The premise that in the event of an apocalypse some 80ies CPUs would be more readily available than today's commodity chips already prevents me from taking this too seriously. But those simple Chips are certainly easier to wrap your head around for programming. In the event of apocalypse the most abundant computing platform would be old Android phones however.

atoav 4y ago

Actual prepping as in "preparing for the afternath of some catastrophic event that breaks civilization" is something else than the usual "cosplaying for the zombie apocalypse"-type of prepping you can observe so often. Actual prepping would involve a ton of community networking, trying to be in good terms with your neighbours, creating lasting and decentralized infrastructure for a d with them etc. The prepping most preppers do is just trying to be less fucked than others when the shit hits the fan. Living the ultimate rugged individualist delusion: that you somehow can survive alone if you just buy the right gear to make it through the first week and that you will have to shoot the looters who were too stupid to prepare. The problem with all of this is typically that those rugged individuals have to depend on the work and expertise of other people in some way or another. I mean you might need electrical engineering, a doctor, someone who is good with plants and animals, whatever. Unless you are already live 100% self sustained whatever you are doing is not going to cut it without other people also getting through this.

bitwize 4y ago
I think this explains the stereotype of Christian conservatives in rural "fly-over country" in the USA. Frontiersmen were preppers writ large, and could not even rely on the supply chains of their time, let alone the massively interlinked supply chains of today. They had to rely on themselves -- and each other. 150 years ago, the church was not just a place of worship, but also a community center, where neighbors met each other, socialized, and begged for or offered aid. I am neither a Christian nor a conservative. But I think understanding why Christian conservatives are the way they are, rather than declaring them an enemy to be fought or diagnosing them in absentia with mental illness, without a license, would be good for urban liberals like me. Our side has done too little in terms of understanding and addressing the needs of these people, and it's had real costs on our society (like Trump).
- atoav 4y ago
  I have never been in the US, but I grew up in a rural (catholic) village in the Alps — I think rural people everywhere are alike, especially if they live in somewhat remote geographies. E.g. it is a very important skill in an rural environment to know how to shut up and not say what you are thinking. This is why the recent vreferendum on abortion in Kansas went the way it did. People on the countryside tend to be more comservative, sure. But they also hate being told what they are allowed to do.