9 ms·
Exploring briefly with a binomial probability calculator: If there is a 1 in 1000 chance of one of these per year, and you are curious what the odds of this occ
by camkego 4y ago
Exploring briefly with a binomial probability calculator:
If there is a 1 in 1000 chance of one of these per year,
and you are curious what the odds of this occurring over
a 80 year period is, its a little more than 7%.
The chance of a 1 in 1000 event (in a year), over 50 years is ~5%.
Maybe the preppers are onto something here.
- lettergram 4y agoI always find it funny preppers tend to get made fun of for … being loners and preparing for the worst. Seems kinda similar to what many of us do for work (think of the worst case scenario and mitigate the risk), albeit it in the physical realm. As an aside, preppers are often some of the most knowledgeable people where I’m at. They also know the odds of a solar flare and I’ve spoken with them about this very topic before. Perhaps they simply know the risks and what they mean better than we do haha. My neighbor is a prepper, he build his own off grid house, grows his own food, etc. definitely like having him around if I need help any day of the week.
- adrianN 4y agoPreppers get made fun of because the stereotypical prepper is actually not preparing properly against realistic threats and instead prepares against perceived threats at the expense of preparing for plausible scenarios. Your neighbor apparently doesn't fit the stereotype.
- UweSchmidt 4y agoPeople who are successful in a system count on its continuation (and often won't invest in a few hundred $/€ worth of emergency food, water, heat and light), people who are not successful in a system count it's failure (and do real, or ceremonial 'prepping', telling themselves and others that they will be relatively more successful when the inevitable disaster strikes).
- lettergram 4y agoBased on the community out here, you’re not correct. I’m surrounded by Ex-military, business owners and people in the medical field. Most of whom “prep” to some degree. They’re all very wealthy by most standards (multi-millionaires in wealth). We also have the amish, which do fit your “out of the system” reasoning. But I’d argue they didn’t fail, nor are they classic “preppers”.
- _hypx 4y agoThey do this because they think it is a kind of "cheat code" where they are allowed to gain a huge advantage over other people. It is the same kind of thinking as what conspiracy theorists often use. Rich people often do it because they are obsessed with being superior or more successful than others.
- Maken 4y agoBeing off-grid is not going to make a difference whenever all electronic devices become paperweights.
- lettergram 4y agoYes, but when you live off-grid most of the systems you use don’t use power (if you can avoid it). You can also build a faraday cage and store replacement electronics in it. My neighbor does both. I actually also store my emergency solar power source and radios in a faraday cage for this reason. It’s like $100 to build one that can likely survive one of these major events.
- fy20 4y agoWould a broken microwave be good enough?
- ben_w 4y agoDepends what you're protecting against. IIRC, most of the energy in solar storms is extremely long wavelengths, and the damage is primarily via continental-scale conductors such as power grids and telegraph lines, and you can defend against that by just not having stuff plugged in. On the other hand, I have no idea what you need to protect against the EMP from a high altitude nuke.
- lettergram 4y agoTBH I’m more concerned about the nuke, but I need a box to store stuff anyway. May as well just make it a faraday cage lol you can probably just use a grounded steel garbage can
- Maken 4y agoIf nukes are falling down, how good is your EMP shielding will probably be your least concern.
- 4y ago
- jason-phillips 4y ago> My neighbor is a prepper, he build his own off grid house, grows his own food, etc. definitely like having him around if I need help Having the reputation as the smart guy who does great research and has things pretty well sorted, I find this to be incredibly annoying when someone from the kept class pops in and asks something along the lines of, "Oh hey, so umm, what do you think about the thing?"
- s1artibartfast 4y agoTo each their own. Some people love it. I have noticed that people, especially older retired folks, love the interaction that arises from being a subject matter expert.
- jobs_throwaway 4y agoWhy is that? Don't you want to share your hard-earned knowledge with your friends?
- jason-phillips 4y ago> Why is that? Because there is little to no reciprocity.
- jobs_throwaway 4y agothen why are you friends with these people?
- jason-phillips 4y agoThat's a great point, thank you
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoThe whole thing is a dialectic that makes certain groups look crazy. The main takeaway, in my opinion, is if communities learned to source their food and energy locally, and looked out for each other more, there would not even be need for so-called prepping. It’s an anxiety response to a loss of what used to be more common in traditional societies.
- hammock 4y agoSome supplementary analysis here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/774%E2%80%93775_carbon-14_spike#Frequency_of_similar_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/774%E2%80%93775_carbon-14_spik...