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Can you really call yourself a prepper if you don’t have a faraday cage with a spare laptop inside? (The intersection of doomerism and tech is amusingly cyberp
by sillysaurusx 2y ago
Can you really call yourself a prepper if you don’t have a faraday cage with a spare laptop inside?
(The intersection of doomerism and tech is amusingly cyberpunk sometimes.)
Actually, what’s the most useful way you’d prepare for a worldwide grid outage? This isn’t that, but sometimes I wonder if a future CME might be as catastrophic as some say.
- Muromec 2y ago> Actually, what’s the most useful way you’d prepare for a worldwide grid outage? Be on a government payroll and have the skills necessary to repair the damage.
- belter 2y agoOr load on ammunition, and be ready for your neighbor to go cannibalistic within 3 months...
- remlov 2y agoTry days, not months. Especially in densely populated areas.
- mberning 2y agoThe government has done studies showing that the vast majority of the population would be dead not long after a sustained nationwide power outage. All it takes is people missing a few meals before the fun starts.
- N0b8ez 2y agoDo you have a link to the study?
- mberning 2y agoI had to dig around but I think this the one I remember. There are two other reports linked in the comments. https://old.reddit.com/r/preppers/comments/11tblpp/found_it_the_2008_study_on_the_effect_of_us_grid/ https://old.reddit.com/r/preppers/comments/11tblpp/found_it_...
- N0b8ez 2y agoThanks! This is the doc I found the "90 percent of our population is dead" quote from, which is asserted indirectly: https://irp.fas.org/congress/2008_hr/emp.pdf https://irp.fas.org/congress/2008_hr/emp.pdf It's referring to a fictional story in that quote, but the scientist says that 90% is accurate for the real world if that scenario were to happen. Pretty chilling.
- big_whack 2y agoThis is an interesting read. I noticed also that Roscoe Bartlett, the rep running that hearing, moved entirely off the grid after retirement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscoe_Bartlett#Personal_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscoe_Bartlett#Personal_life
- defrost 2y agoHe was born in 1926, he grew up "of the grid" and likely spent most of his early life mostly off grid. It's not especially noteworthy .. to those of us that also grew up away from large connected services - you have your own sewerage, generators, mail, drive | walk to town to pick things up. Currently I'm "mostly" off grid - I have internet connection, a well, leach drains, solar + wind (electric) + wind (mechanical mill), etc and live in a rural community with a lot of people older than 60 who also grew up off grid.
- jll29 2y ago> Their cabin lacks electricity, phone service, and municipal plumbing. Bartlett currently works as a senior consultant for Lineage Technologies, a cyber security group that seeks to protect supply chains.[39] Bartlett is a vegetarian and does not drink alcohol or smoke. He also grows his own organic vegetables. Reads more like a self-written personal home page than an encyclopedia entry produced by independent volunteers.
- wing-_-nuts 2y agoYou do realize humanity has had countless famines before right? I grant you, a few of them brought out a regrettable side of humanity but by and large people come together during times of hardship, they don't tear each other apart. I feel like only those who've never felt hunger could contemplate such a savage reaction.
- belter 2y agoAnd I hope you realize China had multiple famines with cannibalistic events as recent as 1959: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
- wing-_-nuts 2y agoI hope you realize that about a million people died during the Irish great famine with almost no events of cannibalism. Suggesting that it's a normal occurrence during famine is very insulting to the character of those that survived those famines while still upholding basic human decency.
- decremental 2y ago[dead]
- fullspectrumdev 2y agoIrish person here: the “almost no” is being disputed by more recent scholarship/research. And was even featured in a documentary from the national broadcaster a few years ago. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/role-of-survivor-cannibalism-during-great-famine-detailed-in-new-tv-documentary-1.4423323 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/role-of-s...
- throwway120385 2y agoI hope you realize that these events are notable because they are unusual and not because they are the rule.
- holoduke 2y agoDays. After the soviet union fell in Armenia there was no supply of food the first days. Also no gasoline nothing. The first day people were normal. Second day people started stealing. Third day all birds and rats were shot for food. Luckely soon food became a normal thing again. But chaos is quickly there. I believe even quicker in rich western countries. Most men and women cant survive on their own for a week.
- vbezhenar 2y agoYou can survive with no food for a week. And you can use water from toilet tank for this week.
- ianburrell 2y agoMost people have a weeks worth of food in their house. Unless they are people who don't cook. It is easy to make that longer by keeping extras of stable food they normally eat. I like to keep extras of everything I use regularly. Which really helped during the pandemic.
- b112 2y agoWhile I agree, I think many apartment dwellers have less storage. Home owners tend to have more, just due to that extra space. But the other factor is, some people literally only eat pre-made food, which often a large portion consists of frozen things. I've been in some homes, mostly single people, which have no flour, rice, oats, etc. No real raw materials, such as eggs or butter. No canned food. Maybe a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread, and a package of processed meat in the fridge. The rest are frozen things like prepared chicken wings, and so on. What I wonder is, what are the percentages of people in these situations? 20%?
- Terr_ 2y agoTangentially, that's a reason not to use any "cleaning" additives in your toilet water tank, since you are rendering some emergency water undrinkable.
- gosub100 2y agoPart of what makes me take prepping seriously is that the majority of payments are electronic now and there is no failover as far as I'm aware. In ~2015 I saw a power outage briefly take down the payment processsor at a grocery store. despite having cash I could not check out. If something like that happens but sustained long enough to cause a mob to loot the store (which the media would of course amplify), it wouldn't be long before there was widespread panic. It's not the CME itself that terrifies me, but the knock-on effects.
- javajosh 2y agoIt's really too bad we didn't have a major CME in the 90's. That was the perfect time for a good lesson in redundancy and why you can't and shouldn't jettison "the old ways" so quickly. Perhaps its not too late now, but the pain will be considerably higher. Earth lucked out in so many ways, but a CME spanking in the 1990's is asking for too much I guess.
- lxgr 2y agoThat's just the anthropic principle for you: If we'd have been any less lucky, we wouldn't be here to write about it :)
- gosub100 2y agoI think you miss the point s/he's making: back in the 90's we were much less reliant on computers than today, much more cash based. It would have been a wake-up call, today it would be a calamity.
- freshpretzels 2y agoThe 90s were not that long ago, we should restore and document and know the old cash-based ways while we still have those experts and those workers with us. Great thread and reminder about these things.
- gosub100 2y ago
- dan_can_code 2y agoI would also like to know any practical answers to your question. My assumption is that there would be widespread panic, and I'm not sure how I would go about dealing with that other than waiting it out.
- morkalork 2y agoAccording to pop culture, a closet full of old sports equipment will be indispensable. Goalie masks etc.
- bigDinosaur 2y agoIgnoring unrealistic preparations for most of us (such as bunkers and whatever else), an adequate supply of food and water to handle disruptions to logistics for a realistic amount of time must surely be the lowest hanging fruit (e.g. a month?). This is fairly trivial if you aim for things like rice and pasta, and if the grid goes down for longer than a month a lot of us are dying regardless of how we prepare.
- calvinmorrison 2y agoIf you are in the US, the best preparation you can have is to be able to relocate during an emergency. Do not get stuck in Katrina so to speak. Having transport to other parts of the country is the best bet.
- steve1977 2y agoNot sure if and how modern cars with all their electronics might be affected. Also maybe have some paper maps and a compass somewhere (and know how to use them!) and don’t purely rely on GPS.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sillysaurusx 2y agoThe water seems like the hard part. Are there any tricks for cheap, safe hydration for a family? I guess we could just start building walls of unopened water bottles in our basement… (In my teens I saw a family friend had a bag full of food supplies. I asked someone if that was a prep bag, and they said yes. I thought they were a bit weird. Now I’ve come full circle browsing Amazon for cheap doomsday food.)
- ceejayoz 2y ago> Are there any tricks for cheap, safe hydration for a family? Live near a lake, stream, etc. and enough firewood to boil water.
- 2y ago
- kyleblarson 2y agoI have a 50kw generac tied into my house with a 1000 gallon propane tank.
- voisin 2y agoWhat will you do once the propane runs out? Solar (and battery) is the way to go.
- csteubs 2y agoNot OP, but I use solar and H8-size AGM batteries as primary with a backup diesel generator that I've converted to run on wood gas (and occasionally coal gas). Added a triple stage water filter to the gasifier last year to keep the tar and creosote down. The generator is an old clunker but it's easy to disassemble, which made it an ideal candidate for tinkering and the eventual retrofit.
- hersko 2y agoPlease tell me you have a youtube channel or blog on that thing.
- Marsymars 2y agoNot very useful for much of the year at high latitudes though. If you're off-grid, you basically need wood to heat your home, and if you clear the snow off your panels you can get enough juice to keep your phones charged.
- jtriangle 2y agoThat's when the shooting starts. Let's hope it never gets that bad.
- kyleblarson 2y ago2a
- wcoenen 2y agoI don't understand what 50 kW could possibly be needed for. Part of the electricity bill here in Flanders is based on monthly power peak. I charge an EV at home, and by setting up the charging station to take into account consumption data from the meter, I have no problem staying below 7 kW. Okay, that's averaged over 15 minute time slots, but even the connection for my house is only rated 13.8 kW!
- ortusdux 2y agoOne less obvious CME prep suggestion that I have heard is to prepare for extensive forest fires. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18291443/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18291443/
- lxgr 2y agoInteresting, what's the proposed mechanism for CMEs causing fires? I unfortunately can't access the paper text.
- tejtm 2y agoCurrent is _generated_ in static lengths of wire. At any point the voltage exceeds the design, it arcs. Current passing through imperfect conductors are heating elements. Both sparks from shorts and excess heating of conductors are possible ignition points. n.b. I have not look at the paper.
- lxgr 2y agoOh, so you mean it might just be power (or other metal) lines causing fires indirectly? I'd be very surprised if anything naturally occurring in a forest would be long and/or conductive enough to be a problem even during very strong geomagnetic storms.
- daemonologist 2y agoThe paper's a bit hard to read but I don't think it suggests a mechanism, or that the correlation between CMEs and forest fires is statistically significant for that matter. If you email me (address in profile) I can send you a copy. It does seem plausible that you could get fires as a result of electrical sparks off of long conductors (transmission and communication wires, pipelines, fences), such as with the Carrington event (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetically_induced_current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetically_induced_curren...).
- colechristensen 2y ago* Have a well stocked pantry. Costco business centers sell large bags of rice, beans, etc. very cheap. It just doesn't hurt to have some of these things on hand and use them. * Have solar installed on your home. Have some spare disconnected inverters, maybe even a couple of uninstalled panels. * Grow some of your own food in a garden. * Have good relationships with some of your neighbors. * Know how to do stuff yourself, have some tools and building materials in your garage * Have a bicycle * Have a method to purify water None of these things are bad ideas anyway. Just don't be absolutely reliant on just-in-time purchasing of life necessities and know enough to be able to figure stuff out on your own. More or less just go on an overnight backpacking trip once in a while without buying prepackaged everything and you'll be pretty good.
- V__ 2y agoIn a lot of places you can get permission to have your own water well. You may not even need to filter it.
- fl0ki 2y ago> * Grow some of your own food in a garden. This will get you a handful extra meals, assuming the ideal case where everything was fully grown, harvested, and preserved before the incident. It's one thing to have a village harvest & jam cycle for the seasons, it's another to need to be prepared for the situation to change overnight, all alone and with only a home garden to work with. You're better off using the money, time, energy, etc. to buy provisions that are immediately and near-permanently useful without the variability, climate sensitivity, and labor intensity of gardening.
- colechristensen 2y agoYou would be surprised how much you can grow in a small space. But also small additions of fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, and greens to your long term stores of rice, beans, and preserved foods can go a long way towards making those foods more pleasant and making up for some of the nutrients which are either not present or destroyed by preservation processes. In situations of major food shortages even a little bit goes a very long way. And also, gardening is a high quality activity for you and your family at any time. It feels good eating a little bit of what you've grown, and there are lots of things that are either not possible or rather expensive to buy but simple to grow.
- steve1977 2y agoHave some water, food which doesn’t require cooking, and a weapon.
- voisin 2y agoBest way to prep is strong community connections around you. Community is resiliency.
- ryandrake 2y agoLOL we saw how that played out with COVID. 1/2 your "community" is going to deny the disaster and deliberately worsen it. 1/2 (with some overlap) is going to go from grocery store to grocery store buying all the necessities to resell them later. EDIT: Wow, I know HN wears rose-colored glasses when looking at the past, but come on, people. We didn't hallucinate the antimaskers, antivaxxers, and thousands of protestors deliberately ignoring stay-at-home. I worked with a health official who had her home picketed because she dared to involve herself in health policy. It's only been a few years and y'all are in denial already.
- digging 2y agoThat was actually more of a demonstration of the utter lack of community in our society, among other things.
- tetris11 2y agothat's the parents point though
- anigbrowl 2y agoThat's the point. In many respects, community life is just a polite facade.
- bee_rider 2y agoI think both sides of this thread agree that most of us (in the US at least) don’t have a robust community in the “community resilience” sense. The only disagreement I think is in the definition of community. We could either say that community is just, like, our extended circle of acquaintances; we’ve all got one and it isn’t very robust against disasters. Or we could say that a resilient community is some deeper thing on which people can lean in a disaster, but which needs to be carefully tended to, and most of us lack. The latter is, I think, what the original poster meant.
- encoderer 2y agoWith limited resources you have to choose: are you trying to prepare to keep life ~normal for a brief period waiting on a recovery or rescue, or are you trying to prepare for survival in a drastically less resourced world. These are very different things.
- marcosdumay 2y agoJust reminding that you don't need a Faraday cage to protect against giant coronal mass ejections. You just need to unplug from the grid. Even the grid is probably fine if it's unplugged from transmission.
- swader999 2y agoYou don't need a Faraday cage for CME, just EMP.
- zikduruqe 2y ago> Actually, what’s the most useful way you’d prepare for a worldwide grid outage? Read One Second After by William R. Forstchen. It's probably the most accurate description of what may happen. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4922079-one-second-after https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4922079-one-second-after
- BenjiWiebe 2y agoI really like that book but it is still highly unrealistic, since the grid going out != every small electronic circuit being fried. I'm not really clear on the issues with EMPs vs CMEs, but CMEs at least aren't going to induce dangerous voltages on a 5 foot long conductor routed inside a piece of metal (car). For sure not inside a cell phone or wristwatch. It's more about tripping out the grid, or sensitive inadequately-protected grid-connected electronics. Even then, the short will likely happen in the input stage of the power conversion, where repairs with salvage parts are not infeasible.
- swader999 2y agoWorld wide grid outage prep? Assuming transformers out continent wide? That's very bad imo. One of the hardest to prepare for. Cities will be impossible. A year of food stored and a really good place to hide from the hordes that want it. Very difficult imo.
- lxgr 2y agoA continent-wide transformer blowout would pretty much be the end of modern civilization, as far as I've read. The capacity of both spares and teams capable of swapping them is orders of magnitude too low to do it in time to prevent large-scale collapse of interlinked systems.
- hinkley 2y agorestarting a dead grid is the blackest of magic.
- gosub100 2y agoNot joking, I have LTO tapes in an ammo can.
- javajosh 2y ago>Can you really call yourself a prepper if you don’t have a faraday cage with a spare laptop inside? What do you call someone who puts their tablet and phone in the microwave? Preppy?
- sandworm101 2y ago>> most useful way you’d prepare for a worldwide grid outage? Put gas in your car. Impacts are likely to be regional, one town might loose power and another not. Be ready to move if needed.
- lxgr 2y agoWhat use is a spare laptop in a faraday cage if I can't brag about having one on this site?
- jtriangle 2y agoDepends, does it run arch?
- holoduke 2y agoClothing, weapons, some tools, some survivial books. And muscles and brains. And last but not least. Gold and silver. Because that will become the only money.
- yks 2y agoLast part is a trope but human societies around the world use different things as money, including counterfeit notes in Somali http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2013/03/orphaned-currency-odd-case-of-somali.html http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2013/03/orphaned-currency-odd-c... In fact I doubt gold/silver becomes money because it’s generally too rare and inconvenient (hard to cut the gold bar without tools even if you have one). Realistically people will just keep using cash.
- nonameiguess 2y agoI'm curious what a realistic estimate of service loss even is. We had pretty close to this happen three years ago in Texas and only had about two hours of electricity a day for two weeks. That was more than enough to make it barely a disaster, even though we lost all vehicular services and could not shop or receive deliveries for that entire time. We still had water service, which does not seem to universally rely upon long-range electrical grids being consistently up. Simply surviving something like this, provided you can rely on the grid coming back eventually, is mostly just hunkering down. The water requirements here are referring to what is needed to sustain activity. I was also a logistics officer for a combined arms battalion and the water needs of an infantryman fighting a war are quite a bit greater than a family hunkering down in their house. Drink whatever non-perishable liquid you have, slowly, and it will take at least a week before you dehydrate. If you're not already anorexic or some kind of extreme endurance athlete, it's going to take most people at least a month to starve. You won't have a pleasant existence, but as long as you stay in place and don't try to do anything, you can easily stay alive without much. If you're talking true Walking Dead level post-apocalypse LARPing civilization is gone and not coming back, stored supplies do nothing but delay the inevitable. You need to learn how to live off the land and probably fight for it. Look at people taking shits in the street that Hacker News hates so much and see what they do to survive without working utilities and access to grocery stores. Eat trash. Drink rainwater. Stay out of sight as much as possible and look insane and dangerous when you're not out of sight.
- karaterobot 2y agoShotgun and a big canvas bag.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dreamcompiler 2y agoYou're more likely to experience a weekslong power outage by living in Texas in midwinter than by a CME. Of course if you're in Texas in midwinter when a CME happens, you are well and truly screwed.
- b112 2y ago? Just put on some sweaters?
- keepamovin 2y ago> what’s the most useful way you’d prepare for a worldwide grid outage? It's the same as asking: how would you prepare if you were to travel back in time to 600 CE? You need to be self-sufficient. You cannot rely on money for at least 18 months. You need to be somewhere with access to water, shelter and food. And not that many people. The only safe bet is to have an off grid 'bunker' or holiday home that you could ride out the global chaos for 2 years. Worldwide grid outage is pretty low likelihood but if it happens everyone will be reminded of the worst aspects of human nature, and the cruel indifference of nature pretty fast. Also, gasoline.