14 ms·

Wait, so we're now approaching risk levels high enough that's its economically feasible for businesses to prepare for situations where their stores lose power,

Wait, so we're now approaching risk levels high enough that's its economically feasible for businesses to prepare for situations where their stores lose power, telecom, and resupply? Are we already preparing for land war across western Europe?

quantummagic 1y ago
The economic collapse of the west. The great reset is coming...
- neets 1y ago
  If this is the sentiment on the Silicon Valley Bulletin Board that is Hacker News it may be time to take this stuff seriously
  - malfist 1y ago
    Silicon valley is hardly an oracle of all things to come
  - et-al 1y ago
    This is a perennial topic: - 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val... - 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep... It’s tougher to quantify and building a connected community than just profiting off users, though.
  - mh- 1y ago
    > Silicon Valley Bulletin Board The participating commenter base on this site has been much wider than could be described that way for many years.
    - lovich 1y ago
      At least a decade. I’ve never been there and joined early in my career when I was told by mentors that it was a good source of up to date news on technology and the industry
    - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1y ago
      I think the implication with that phrasing is that HN is more left-leaning (like Silicon Valley), which traditionally isn't into "prepping", so this "pro-prepping" article is an interesting anomaly, perhaps even a harbinger.
      - gitremote 1y ago
        This is incorrect. Left-leaning preppers grow food and medicinal plants in their garden, install solar panels, and get vaccines, rather than stock up on guns and ammo.
- maxerickson 1y ago
  How is 72 hours of rice going to matter?
  - catlikesshrimp 1y ago
    That depends. How many people from the list are we leaving in for dinner?
- mordae 1y ago
  Yeah. The way we run our countries is idiotic. Zero resilience. First concern after floods is getting back to job, even before all the water is drained and mud cleaned, because working people live paycheck to paycheck and so on. Businesses try to keep minimum stock. Single disruption in integrated circuit supply disables whole industries. And so on. Capitalism is incompatible with resiliency.
maxbond 1y ago
Everyone should give that some thought but look at Texas. In 2021 they were devastated by a snowstorm. This year they were devastated by flooding. Not to pick on Texas, they aren't the only ones caught under prepared for severe weather. Wildfires and drought in the western states is another thing we're under prepared for. And look at the hoarding of toilet paper etc. in 2020. I presume there's been problems in Europe that I'm not aware of that are more relevant to Denmark's calculus. The climate is changing. Natural disasters are going to be more common. It's prudent to prepare for it.
- heartbreak 1y ago
  Texas also has a grocery store chain that is particularly well-prepared for disasters. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/us/texas-heb-winter-storm.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/us/texas-heb-winter-storm...
  - maxbond 1y ago
    Fantastic. Good on HEB.
  - saguntum 1y ago
    Yup, sometimes people joke that H-E-B is the 4th branch of the Texas government given how much they do during disasters. When food was going to go bad and payment terminals were having issues during the big 2021 winter power outage, pictures of them just giving out cartfuls of groceries were circulating on social media.
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1y ago
    The Fat Electrician did a great video on them on his second channel https://youtu.be/23sehACMR6s https://youtu.be/23sehACMR6s
- TazeTSchnitzel 1y ago
  Just this last week, all the major cargo train lines in northern Sweden suffered big derailments simultaneously, and several dozen roads were made unusable. This was all from a single incident of unusually heavy rain. The country will have badly damaged logistics on the North-South axis for weeks to come, maybe months. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasternorrland/stora-problem-for-godstagen-landet-avskuret-pa-mitten https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasternorrland/stora-probl... Preparedness is vital!
TazeTSchnitzel 1y ago
I don't think Denmark in particular is preparing, because at the end of the year their national postal service will cease to deliver letters (after the government removed the legal requirement for it to do so), and more than 85% of Danes will only be able to receive government and commercial letters in digital form via a privately owned cloud service (e-Boks). That is an alarming level of concentration. If I were hypothetically in control of a state that was planning to go to war with Denmark and had the resources for hybrid warfare, I know which company's servers I'd want to take down first.
- TowerTall 1y ago
  Denmark are. Only two days ago the danish PM on public TV said the had ordered the head of the danish military to "buy, buy, buy" [1][2] [as many weapons as the can get their hands on]. This is repeatition of of what she said 6 months ago[3] [1] https://www.dr.dk/drn-video/67b5f9f966d82a0507aeda6a https://www.dr.dk/drn-video/67b5f9f966d82a0507aeda6a [2] https://www.berlingske.dk/politik/mette-frederiksen-vil-slaa-haardt-tilbage-mod-russiske-kraenkelser-af-polen https://www.berlingske.dk/politik/mette-frederiksen-vil-slaa... [3] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/denmark-boost-2025-26-defence-spending-by-7-bln-2025-02-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/denmark-boost-2025-26-d...
  - Eupolemos 1y ago
    Not 2 days ago, but in February, iirc. We are thankfully on quite the shopping spree, we have also decided to include women into conscription (and that conscripts can be used for real missions, iirc) and we are financing and building Ukrainian weapons like the Flamingo. Also, Scandinavia has pooled our airforces into one airforce, surpassing the UK, France etc. in size.
    - W3zzy 1y ago
      Belgian youngsters aged 17 wil get a voluntary call for 'vacation camps' in the army in a few weeks. Recently a lot of people were hired four the federal and regional governments to handle strategic supplies. All Belgians were asked to stock their own 3 day emergency kit.
amarant 1y ago
I sure am! And as a strategical prepper, I've left the entire continent behind well before shit hits the fan. Hopefully I'll have my new life sufficiently set up to help those I love and left behind, and even more hopefully they'll be able to get out, once the shit actually hits. I'd like for them to come to me earlier, but I don't think I'll get more than visits until bombs start falling. If I'm lucky some of them will already be here visiting me when that happens. Then they can just stay. The rest will at least know they have a safe haven if they can just manage to get here.
- Izikiel43 1y ago
  Asia, Australia or south America?
  - amarant 1y ago
    Technically North America! But people don't tend to think of Mexico that way. It's not trouble free, not by a long shot. I have family connection to here though and I recon Mexico is not very likely to partake in WW3 in any meaningful way, so should be safe from what I worry is coming soon for Europe. For now tho, I'm definitely less safe than my friends and family back in Sweden. In the short term at least. I don't think Putin is going to change that this year, and probably not next year either, but honestly who knows.
    - lm28469 1y ago
      How would you feel if ww3 never happens and you moved from Sweden to Mexico for nothing? It seems like a major step down except if you have Mexican relatives
      - jandrewrogers 1y ago
        I dunno, Mexico is a pretty great place. You could do a lot worse than Mexico. Many people have moved there “temporarily” and then never went back to their native country. The lifestyle is legit. No one requires you to go to the famously sketchy parts.
Barrin92 1y ago
we may or may not but I don't think this is reflective of it. This is just the fragility of digital societies were one hack or outage can kill entire national payment systems. A few decades ago any store could run three days without power or telecoms. Here in Germany foreigners often scoff about how prevalent cash is, but to this day nobody has yet invented a payment technology that works without electricity, without transaction costs, and without a third party. As far as I'm concerned cash is still the most futuristic technology we ever invented
- anonym29 1y ago
  Precious metals fill all of your requirements. They do have other challenges, some shared with FIAT, some unique, but we've had the "technology" to solve this problem for thousands of years.
  - XorNot 1y ago
    Tell me, what weight in gold do I exchange for a loaf of bread? Do you have a way to measure and subdivide it to hand? Do you trust the scales being lent to execute this?
    - anabab 1y ago
      Check "valcambi combibar". Its a gold plate pre-divided into 1g pieces you can break away (like a chocolate bar). 1g is ~100 of money today, which would be enough for a weekly supply of groceries for a person in HCOL areas.
      - anonym29 1y ago
        Additionally, one need not use gold; silver is easier to subdivide into manageable units for even smaller monetary values.
- jandrewrogers 1y ago
  The US experiences these situations regularly due to its somewhat unique exposure to a dizzying array of severe natural disasters. Having survived an above average number of these in my life myself where basic services were down for many days, I have a pretty good idea of what happens. Having cash versus digital doesn’t matter. No one is keeping track, people just take care of people. Everyone writes it off, moves on, and the community becomes stronger. This is pretty wired into the culture. No one will accept your money in these scenarios even if you have it.
maxerickson 1y ago
3 days isn't very long, it's reasonable to look at this as a generic resiliency thing rather than response to some identifiable risk.
- lovich 1y ago
  It’s also reasonable to look at it as a “the populace goes nuts every time there’s some minor shock to the logistics chain, so might as well prepare for that reaction”
  - wisty 1y ago
    Yeah, there doesn't need to be a shortage of toilet paper to cause problems, just the fear that panic buying might start so you better stock up before they hit. It's basically a prisoner's dilemma, you know you shouldn't panic buy, but if you don't and other people do it's rational to do it. What would be a signal that you should panic buy to beat the rush? A drone shot down over Poland? Article 4 being invoked? What if a falling drone causes a casualty? Simply having deeper stocks will let them avoid the empty shelf photos that can tip the balance into panic buying.
- georgeecollins 1y ago
  In the USA I try to have what we need for one week with food and without power or potable tap water. This just seems like common sense. After the SF earthquake in 89 you weren't supposed to drink the tap water for a couple days. Lots of things have taken out power and COVID made shopping difficult. Resilience is good.
- jandrewrogers 1y ago
  3 days is a pretty long time unless the damage is catastrophic and very broad based. Extended preparations come with an overhead cost that must be offset by the benefit. Denmark specifically is not a populous country. You could probably keep the entire country fed with just the capacity of e.g. the US military airlift capability, which has been used in these situations. The emergency reserves mostly only need to exist until supply chains are established. It is a balancing act.
wojciii 1y ago
This is because of the Ukraine war. We as a country are exposed to being attacked by Russia. Be that cyber attacks or destruction of assets by sleeper agents. So instead of decentalizing the electrical grid and making sure it's secure someone at Dansk Supermarked thinks it will earn them money to be prepared for some future crisis. I find the article native.. it says they trust Nets (payment company) to work offline ..
- dmix 1y ago
  I have a feeling tens of thousands of drones would be a better investment if your concern is Russia vs NATO. But if it’s just a business reacting to popular sentiment then it’s a fine business strategy I guess. Or just useful spin / wealthy owners paranoia.
  - brendoelfrendo 1y ago
    The people in a position to buy thousands of drones and the people in a position to build emergency supermarkets aren't the same people. And regardless, if you do find yourself in a war--especially if it's a defensive one--you need both.
  - scrollaway 1y ago
    Don’t worry, most countries are buying tens of thousands of drones. That investment is happening. (Source: I work in this sector) (Worth noting: Your comment sounds like “I have a feeling fixing (critical bug 1) would be a better investment than (fixing critical bug 2)”. You fix both.)
    - wojciii 1y ago
      I don't want to fix any legacy code. I want a design that doesn't contain the bugs. Attacking a distributed grid would probably not be cost effective.
      - scrollaway 1y ago
        A distributed grid is not a one-and-done solution to everything. Supply chain can stop for a number of reasons, not just electricity.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mschuster91 1y ago
We are not preparing for war in Europe. Europe is at war with Russia, with all the murders and sabotage acts of the last years.
- ileonichwiesz 1y ago
  Very true, but there’s still a huge difference between acts of sabotage and missiles hitting cities. We might be at war, but so far it’s a comfortable one.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    Well, just a day or two ago Russia sent drones into Poland, most likely intentionally. Not to mention we get to deal with all the refugees from that godforsaken war.
xp84 1y ago
Yeah, in my humble opinion anyone in Europe that considers wider war breaking out to be farfetched is not paying enough attention. You can be forgiven however if you're a millennial (as I am) or younger, because the long peace has been so long that it seems crazy that Russia might start dropping bombs, say, on Copenhagen or London. "They wouldn't dare attack NATO" we would have said 10 years ago. But today, NATO is at risk since too much of its credibility is tied to the US and the US is now unpredictable. With one stroke of an "executive order" pen the US could just call backsies and pull out if one man considers it politically advantageous to him to do so. That has been unthinkable for 75 years and now it's just reality. Russia is a lot less afraid of Western Europe than they were/are of NATO. Would they win? IDK. But my perception is that the very notion of war would shock the s**t out of the 20-somethings that Western Europe would need to conscript in order to fight an all-out war. If too many refused to fight, Putin might just roll in there relatively unchallenged. Note: US civilians are certainly not any more ready to enlist than Europe's! But the US is the only Western country with (almost) enough people already enlisted to be a credible threat in a major war.
- riffraff 1y ago
  All out war shocked the shit out of the 20 somethings in Ukraine too, many fled, and yet Russia has not made significant advances in the following three years. There's no plausible world in which Russia has the strength to take on the rest of Europe, in, say, the next ten years. (Let's assume nukes are out of the question)
  - wiseowise 1y ago
    > There's no plausible world in which Russia has the strength to take on the rest of Europe, in, say, the next ten years. Sure they do. Total war + support from norks and China will do it.
  - scotty79 1y ago
    Not conventionally, but they still can cause a nuisance with long range weapons and even few nukes out of thousands they advertise might still be accidentally operational.
autoexec 1y ago
Between the threat of war, the fragility of the systems we depend on, and the uncertainty of climate change it seems like a good idea to be a little more prepared for disaster than we've felt the need to be.
lm28469 1y ago
Better be ready and nothing happens than being sitting duck thinking Europe will be free of wars forever. Governments spend money on much more ridiculous things These things are the equivalent to people having an emergency backpack with their travel documents a bottle of water and a few dehydrated meals, statistically you will never need it but if anything happens you'll be glad you're not roaming the streets in pyjama, barefoot and without any documents/food
mihaaly 1y ago
There is land war in Europe. With the Russians agressively pushing for continuation! Germany had their nationwide emergency test yesterday. there are various suggestions in countries about how to stack essentials for few days without anything - mostly means power that drives everything -, keeping some amount of cash at home, train citizens (mandatory) for basic defensive abilities. Since there are these stupid 'we are good, fuck everyone else' kind of movements all around the world including US and parts of EU (look at the practically Russian ally Hungary by the way, protecting Russian interests directly inside EU) the whole thing became very reasonable, approaching essential level.
mordae 1y ago
Denmark is exposed via sea and practically neighbors with Poland that is already being probed by Russian military. People I know are volunteering for army training in Czechia and reportedly the number of such volunteers is rising.
mytailorisrich 1y ago
The risk level for a land war across Western Europe is probably the lowest it has ever been. The balance of power is tilted against Russia much more than during the Cold War. That threat does not stand the most basic scrutiny. Russia couldn't reach Western Europe if they tried. Claims that it is the worst since WWII conveniently ignore the Cold War and even the 90s. Western Europe is better off now. It is incredible the amount of BS we are spoon-fed by the media and governments in Europe... but perhaps even more worrying is how docile the people are and just eat it. The good question is: what is the ulterior motive of the alarmists?
- wiseowise 1y ago
  >> Russia started open war against neighboring European country >> Russia openly subjugated Belarus >> Russian jets, drones and war ships routinely enter NATO without any response > Urop has never been safer than this, comrades! No reason for panic at all!
- impossiblefork 1y ago
  Yes, we are much stronger than they, but once we decide to actually have a war with them some difficulties will arise. They do have some useful weapons which will have effects on us, so we'll have to be ready so that disruption is not excessive. My view has been that we should be going in, bombing the Russian positions in Ukraine with stand-off weapons, bombing war-relevant infrastructure in Russia and going in where they don't have forces to oppose us-- seizing ships at sea. I'd like to see the Russian Baltic fleet sunk. It'd like to see parts of the Russian Northern Fleet sunk. I'd also like to see a surrender of Kaliningrad forced by means of blockade. If we want to do things like this we have prepare a bit.
- scotty79 1y ago
  > The balance of power is tilted against Russia much more than during the Cold War. That's exactly why the full scale war is going to happen. There wasn't any better time to deal with russia than it is now.
numpad0 1y ago
It doesn't have to happen as last-ditch everyone gets a pike situation right on Danish soil, could be downstream effects of e.g. China closing all international ports. I think that much would be starting to get within realms of possibilities now.
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
That's only one possible scenario, but more realistic and actual is a regular power outage, like the one that hit Berlin the other day. (ok that was sabotage / someone started a fire, but you get what I mean). In the Netherlands the power grid is at capacity, which effectively means new businesses are on a waiting list to get connected; they do that to try and prevent power outages, but it does imply (to me, a layperson) that it wouldn't take much for the grid to get overloaded and shut down. It happened a few years ago [0], with high-voltage cables getting so hot they started sagging etc. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9J5D8jzrRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9J5D8jzrRo
throw310822 1y ago
We're nowhere near that, but EU leaders keep hinting that there is a big war coming and we should all be prepared. In fact my impression, as a European, is that if any war is coming is because EU leadership are actively rooting for one and waste no opportunity to stoke the tension. This news is just one of the many examples of this. The Ukraine- Russia war is a regional war that is happening outside our borders- all we should have done was to use diplomacy to make sure that our interests and good commercial relations with all sides were preserved.
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  Yes this is all BS but I don't think the EU is rooting for war. My suspicion is that EU countries want to build a stronger military and one more integrated at EU level. Both are hard sells especially when governments also keep telling us that there is no money for anything... So Ukraine is a very convenient scarecrow to "manufacture consent".
  - throw310822 1y ago
    I would understand that but in the end we're going to spend enormous amounts of money to buy most of our weapons from the US and each on its own. In fact, just by integrating our militaries we could increase our strength and keep the expenses at the current level. The impression is that all this, including cutting ties with Russia (who is selling us the gas now?), is done to the benefit of the US rather than ours.
    - mytailorisrich 1y ago
      There is no doubt that Ukraine has benefited the US a lot while Europe loses (including by keeping shooting itself in the foot).
- egman_ekki 1y ago
  > EU leadership are actively rooting for [a war] and waste no opportunity to stoke the tension Yes, we should all just stop building our defenses and increasing our resilience and roll over. Let's roll out a red carpet for Russians all the way to Paris (or maybe Lisbon?). The same peaceful folks who talk about bombing our cities every week on their national TV.
scotty79 1y ago
Yes. War with russia is optimal course of action right now for Europe as russia extensively proved it can't be just left alone for any period of time. So some inconvenience for western Europe is expected and everywhere there are efforts to prepare for it.
bxsioshc 1y ago
[dead]

quantummagic 1y ago

The economic collapse of the west. The great reset is coming...

neets 1y ago
If this is the sentiment on the Silicon Valley Bulletin Board that is Hacker News it may be time to take this stuff seriously
- malfist 1y ago
  Silicon valley is hardly an oracle of all things to come
- et-al 1y ago
  This is a perennial topic: - 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val... - 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep... It’s tougher to quantify and building a connected community than just profiting off users, though.
- mh- 1y ago
  > Silicon Valley Bulletin Board The participating commenter base on this site has been much wider than could be described that way for many years.
  - lovich 1y ago
    At least a decade. I’ve never been there and joined early in my career when I was told by mentors that it was a good source of up to date news on technology and the industry
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1y ago
    I think the implication with that phrasing is that HN is more left-leaning (like Silicon Valley), which traditionally isn't into "prepping", so this "pro-prepping" article is an interesting anomaly, perhaps even a harbinger.
    - gitremote 1y ago
      This is incorrect. Left-leaning preppers grow food and medicinal plants in their garden, install solar panels, and get vaccines, rather than stock up on guns and ammo.
maxerickson 1y ago
How is 72 hours of rice going to matter?
- catlikesshrimp 1y ago
  That depends. How many people from the list are we leaving in for dinner?
mordae 1y ago
Yeah. The way we run our countries is idiotic. Zero resilience. First concern after floods is getting back to job, even before all the water is drained and mud cleaned, because working people live paycheck to paycheck and so on. Businesses try to keep minimum stock. Single disruption in integrated circuit supply disables whole industries. And so on. Capitalism is incompatible with resiliency.

maxbond 1y ago

Everyone should give that some thought but look at Texas. In 2021 they were devastated by a snowstorm. This year they were devastated by flooding. Not to pick on Texas, they aren't the only ones caught under prepared for severe weather. Wildfires and drought in the western states is another thing we're under prepared for. And look at the hoarding of toilet paper etc. in 2020. I presume there's been problems in Europe that I'm not aware of that are more relevant to Denmark's calculus. The climate is changing. Natural disasters are going to be more common. It's prudent to prepare for it.

heartbreak 1y ago
Texas also has a grocery store chain that is particularly well-prepared for disasters. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/us/texas-heb-winter-storm.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/us/texas-heb-winter-storm...
- maxbond 1y ago
  Fantastic. Good on HEB.
- saguntum 1y ago
  Yup, sometimes people joke that H-E-B is the 4th branch of the Texas government given how much they do during disasters. When food was going to go bad and payment terminals were having issues during the big 2021 winter power outage, pictures of them just giving out cartfuls of groceries were circulating on social media.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1y ago
  The Fat Electrician did a great video on them on his second channel https://youtu.be/23sehACMR6s https://youtu.be/23sehACMR6s
TazeTSchnitzel 1y ago
Just this last week, all the major cargo train lines in northern Sweden suffered big derailments simultaneously, and several dozen roads were made unusable. This was all from a single incident of unusually heavy rain. The country will have badly damaged logistics on the North-South axis for weeks to come, maybe months. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasternorrland/stora-problem-for-godstagen-landet-avskuret-pa-mitten https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasternorrland/stora-probl... Preparedness is vital!

TazeTSchnitzel 1y ago

I don't think Denmark in particular is preparing, because at the end of the year their national postal service will cease to deliver letters (after the government removed the legal requirement for it to do so), and more than 85% of Danes will only be able to receive government and commercial letters in digital form via a privately owned cloud service (e-Boks). That is an alarming level of concentration. If I were hypothetically in control of a state that was planning to go to war with Denmark and had the resources for hybrid warfare, I know which company's servers I'd want to take down first.

TowerTall 1y ago
Denmark are. Only two days ago the danish PM on public TV said the had ordered the head of the danish military to "buy, buy, buy" [1][2] [as many weapons as the can get their hands on]. This is repeatition of of what she said 6 months ago[3] [1] https://www.dr.dk/drn-video/67b5f9f966d82a0507aeda6a https://www.dr.dk/drn-video/67b5f9f966d82a0507aeda6a [2] https://www.berlingske.dk/politik/mette-frederiksen-vil-slaa-haardt-tilbage-mod-russiske-kraenkelser-af-polen https://www.berlingske.dk/politik/mette-frederiksen-vil-slaa... [3] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/denmark-boost-2025-26-defence-spending-by-7-bln-2025-02-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/denmark-boost-2025-26-d...
- Eupolemos 1y ago
  Not 2 days ago, but in February, iirc. We are thankfully on quite the shopping spree, we have also decided to include women into conscription (and that conscripts can be used for real missions, iirc) and we are financing and building Ukrainian weapons like the Flamingo. Also, Scandinavia has pooled our airforces into one airforce, surpassing the UK, France etc. in size.
  - W3zzy 1y ago
    Belgian youngsters aged 17 wil get a voluntary call for 'vacation camps' in the army in a few weeks. Recently a lot of people were hired four the federal and regional governments to handle strategic supplies. All Belgians were asked to stock their own 3 day emergency kit.

amarant 1y ago

I sure am! And as a strategical prepper, I've left the entire continent behind well before shit hits the fan. Hopefully I'll have my new life sufficiently set up to help those I love and left behind, and even more hopefully they'll be able to get out, once the shit actually hits. I'd like for them to come to me earlier, but I don't think I'll get more than visits until bombs start falling. If I'm lucky some of them will already be here visiting me when that happens. Then they can just stay. The rest will at least know they have a safe haven if they can just manage to get here.

Izikiel43 1y ago
Asia, Australia or south America?
- amarant 1y ago
  Technically North America! But people don't tend to think of Mexico that way. It's not trouble free, not by a long shot. I have family connection to here though and I recon Mexico is not very likely to partake in WW3 in any meaningful way, so should be safe from what I worry is coming soon for Europe. For now tho, I'm definitely less safe than my friends and family back in Sweden. In the short term at least. I don't think Putin is going to change that this year, and probably not next year either, but honestly who knows.
  - lm28469 1y ago
    How would you feel if ww3 never happens and you moved from Sweden to Mexico for nothing? It seems like a major step down except if you have Mexican relatives
    - jandrewrogers 1y ago
      I dunno, Mexico is a pretty great place. You could do a lot worse than Mexico. Many people have moved there “temporarily” and then never went back to their native country. The lifestyle is legit. No one requires you to go to the famously sketchy parts.

Barrin92 1y ago

we may or may not but I don't think this is reflective of it. This is just the fragility of digital societies were one hack or outage can kill entire national payment systems. A few decades ago any store could run three days without power or telecoms. Here in Germany foreigners often scoff about how prevalent cash is, but to this day nobody has yet invented a payment technology that works without electricity, without transaction costs, and without a third party. As far as I'm concerned cash is still the most futuristic technology we ever invented

anonym29 1y ago
Precious metals fill all of your requirements. They do have other challenges, some shared with FIAT, some unique, but we've had the "technology" to solve this problem for thousands of years.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Tell me, what weight in gold do I exchange for a loaf of bread? Do you have a way to measure and subdivide it to hand? Do you trust the scales being lent to execute this?
  - anabab 1y ago
    Check "valcambi combibar". Its a gold plate pre-divided into 1g pieces you can break away (like a chocolate bar). 1g is ~100 of money today, which would be enough for a weekly supply of groceries for a person in HCOL areas.
    - anonym29 1y ago
      Additionally, one need not use gold; silver is easier to subdivide into manageable units for even smaller monetary values.
jandrewrogers 1y ago
The US experiences these situations regularly due to its somewhat unique exposure to a dizzying array of severe natural disasters. Having survived an above average number of these in my life myself where basic services were down for many days, I have a pretty good idea of what happens. Having cash versus digital doesn’t matter. No one is keeping track, people just take care of people. Everyone writes it off, moves on, and the community becomes stronger. This is pretty wired into the culture. No one will accept your money in these scenarios even if you have it.

maxerickson 1y ago

3 days isn't very long, it's reasonable to look at this as a generic resiliency thing rather than response to some identifiable risk.

lovich 1y ago
It’s also reasonable to look at it as a “the populace goes nuts every time there’s some minor shock to the logistics chain, so might as well prepare for that reaction”
- wisty 1y ago
  Yeah, there doesn't need to be a shortage of toilet paper to cause problems, just the fear that panic buying might start so you better stock up before they hit. It's basically a prisoner's dilemma, you know you shouldn't panic buy, but if you don't and other people do it's rational to do it. What would be a signal that you should panic buy to beat the rush? A drone shot down over Poland? Article 4 being invoked? What if a falling drone causes a casualty? Simply having deeper stocks will let them avoid the empty shelf photos that can tip the balance into panic buying.
georgeecollins 1y ago
In the USA I try to have what we need for one week with food and without power or potable tap water. This just seems like common sense. After the SF earthquake in 89 you weren't supposed to drink the tap water for a couple days. Lots of things have taken out power and COVID made shopping difficult. Resilience is good.
jandrewrogers 1y ago
3 days is a pretty long time unless the damage is catastrophic and very broad based. Extended preparations come with an overhead cost that must be offset by the benefit. Denmark specifically is not a populous country. You could probably keep the entire country fed with just the capacity of e.g. the US military airlift capability, which has been used in these situations. The emergency reserves mostly only need to exist until supply chains are established. It is a balancing act.

wojciii 1y ago

This is because of the Ukraine war. We as a country are exposed to being attacked by Russia. Be that cyber attacks or destruction of assets by sleeper agents. So instead of decentalizing the electrical grid and making sure it's secure someone at Dansk Supermarked thinks it will earn them money to be prepared for some future crisis. I find the article native.. it says they trust Nets (payment company) to work offline ..

dmix 1y ago
I have a feeling tens of thousands of drones would be a better investment if your concern is Russia vs NATO. But if it’s just a business reacting to popular sentiment then it’s a fine business strategy I guess. Or just useful spin / wealthy owners paranoia.
- brendoelfrendo 1y ago
  The people in a position to buy thousands of drones and the people in a position to build emergency supermarkets aren't the same people. And regardless, if you do find yourself in a war--especially if it's a defensive one--you need both.
- scrollaway 1y ago
  Don’t worry, most countries are buying tens of thousands of drones. That investment is happening. (Source: I work in this sector) (Worth noting: Your comment sounds like “I have a feeling fixing (critical bug 1) would be a better investment than (fixing critical bug 2)”. You fix both.)
  - wojciii 1y ago
    I don't want to fix any legacy code. I want a design that doesn't contain the bugs. Attacking a distributed grid would probably not be cost effective.
    - scrollaway 1y ago
      A distributed grid is not a one-and-done solution to everything. Supply chain can stop for a number of reasons, not just electricity.

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mschuster91 1y ago

We are not preparing for war in Europe. Europe is at war with Russia, with all the murders and sabotage acts of the last years.

ileonichwiesz 1y ago
Very true, but there’s still a huge difference between acts of sabotage and missiles hitting cities. We might be at war, but so far it’s a comfortable one.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  Well, just a day or two ago Russia sent drones into Poland, most likely intentionally. Not to mention we get to deal with all the refugees from that godforsaken war.

xp84 1y ago

Yeah, in my humble opinion anyone in Europe that considers wider war breaking out to be farfetched is not paying enough attention. You can be forgiven however if you're a millennial (as I am) or younger, because the long peace has been so long that it seems crazy that Russia might start dropping bombs, say, on Copenhagen or London. "They wouldn't dare attack NATO" we would have said 10 years ago. But today, NATO is at risk since too much of its credibility is tied to the US and the US is now unpredictable. With one stroke of an "executive order" pen the US could just call backsies and pull out if one man considers it politically advantageous to him to do so. That has been unthinkable for 75 years and now it's just reality. Russia is a lot less afraid of Western Europe than they were/are of NATO. Would they win? IDK. But my perception is that the very notion of war would shock the s**t out of the 20-somethings that Western Europe would need to conscript in order to fight an all-out war. If too many refused to fight, Putin might just roll in there relatively unchallenged. Note: US civilians are certainly not any more ready to enlist than Europe's! But the US is the only Western country with (almost) enough people already enlisted to be a credible threat in a major war.

riffraff 1y ago
All out war shocked the shit out of the 20 somethings in Ukraine too, many fled, and yet Russia has not made significant advances in the following three years. There's no plausible world in which Russia has the strength to take on the rest of Europe, in, say, the next ten years. (Let's assume nukes are out of the question)
- wiseowise 1y ago
  > There's no plausible world in which Russia has the strength to take on the rest of Europe, in, say, the next ten years. Sure they do. Total war + support from norks and China will do it.
- scotty79 1y ago
  Not conventionally, but they still can cause a nuisance with long range weapons and even few nukes out of thousands they advertise might still be accidentally operational.

autoexec 1y ago

Between the threat of war, the fragility of the systems we depend on, and the uncertainty of climate change it seems like a good idea to be a little more prepared for disaster than we've felt the need to be.

lm28469 1y ago

Better be ready and nothing happens than being sitting duck thinking Europe will be free of wars forever. Governments spend money on much more ridiculous things These things are the equivalent to people having an emergency backpack with their travel documents a bottle of water and a few dehydrated meals, statistically you will never need it but if anything happens you'll be glad you're not roaming the streets in pyjama, barefoot and without any documents/food

mihaaly 1y ago

There is land war in Europe. With the Russians agressively pushing for continuation! Germany had their nationwide emergency test yesterday. there are various suggestions in countries about how to stack essentials for few days without anything - mostly means power that drives everything -, keeping some amount of cash at home, train citizens (mandatory) for basic defensive abilities. Since there are these stupid 'we are good, fuck everyone else' kind of movements all around the world including US and parts of EU (look at the practically Russian ally Hungary by the way, protecting Russian interests directly inside EU) the whole thing became very reasonable, approaching essential level.

mordae 1y ago

Denmark is exposed via sea and practically neighbors with Poland that is already being probed by Russian military. People I know are volunteering for army training in Czechia and reportedly the number of such volunteers is rising.

mytailorisrich 1y ago

The risk level for a land war across Western Europe is probably the lowest it has ever been. The balance of power is tilted against Russia much more than during the Cold War. That threat does not stand the most basic scrutiny. Russia couldn't reach Western Europe if they tried. Claims that it is the worst since WWII conveniently ignore the Cold War and even the 90s. Western Europe is better off now. It is incredible the amount of BS we are spoon-fed by the media and governments in Europe... but perhaps even more worrying is how docile the people are and just eat it. The good question is: what is the ulterior motive of the alarmists?

wiseowise 1y ago
>> Russia started open war against neighboring European country >> Russia openly subjugated Belarus >> Russian jets, drones and war ships routinely enter NATO without any response > Urop has never been safer than this, comrades! No reason for panic at all!
impossiblefork 1y ago
Yes, we are much stronger than they, but once we decide to actually have a war with them some difficulties will arise. They do have some useful weapons which will have effects on us, so we'll have to be ready so that disruption is not excessive. My view has been that we should be going in, bombing the Russian positions in Ukraine with stand-off weapons, bombing war-relevant infrastructure in Russia and going in where they don't have forces to oppose us-- seizing ships at sea. I'd like to see the Russian Baltic fleet sunk. It'd like to see parts of the Russian Northern Fleet sunk. I'd also like to see a surrender of Kaliningrad forced by means of blockade. If we want to do things like this we have prepare a bit.
scotty79 1y ago
> The balance of power is tilted against Russia much more than during the Cold War. That's exactly why the full scale war is going to happen. There wasn't any better time to deal with russia than it is now.

numpad0 1y ago

It doesn't have to happen as last-ditch everyone gets a pike situation right on Danish soil, could be downstream effects of e.g. China closing all international ports. I think that much would be starting to get within realms of possibilities now.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

That's only one possible scenario, but more realistic and actual is a regular power outage, like the one that hit Berlin the other day. (ok that was sabotage / someone started a fire, but you get what I mean). In the Netherlands the power grid is at capacity, which effectively means new businesses are on a waiting list to get connected; they do that to try and prevent power outages, but it does imply (to me, a layperson) that it wouldn't take much for the grid to get overloaded and shut down. It happened a few years ago [0], with high-voltage cables getting so hot they started sagging etc. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9J5D8jzrRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9J5D8jzrRo

throw310822 1y ago

We're nowhere near that, but EU leaders keep hinting that there is a big war coming and we should all be prepared. In fact my impression, as a European, is that if any war is coming is because EU leadership are actively rooting for one and waste no opportunity to stoke the tension. This news is just one of the many examples of this. The Ukraine- Russia war is a regional war that is happening outside our borders- all we should have done was to use diplomacy to make sure that our interests and good commercial relations with all sides were preserved.

mytailorisrich 1y ago
Yes this is all BS but I don't think the EU is rooting for war. My suspicion is that EU countries want to build a stronger military and one more integrated at EU level. Both are hard sells especially when governments also keep telling us that there is no money for anything... So Ukraine is a very convenient scarecrow to "manufacture consent".
- throw310822 1y ago
  I would understand that but in the end we're going to spend enormous amounts of money to buy most of our weapons from the US and each on its own. In fact, just by integrating our militaries we could increase our strength and keep the expenses at the current level. The impression is that all this, including cutting ties with Russia (who is selling us the gas now?), is done to the benefit of the US rather than ours.
  - mytailorisrich 1y ago
    There is no doubt that Ukraine has benefited the US a lot while Europe loses (including by keeping shooting itself in the foot).
egman_ekki 1y ago
> EU leadership are actively rooting for [a war] and waste no opportunity to stoke the tension Yes, we should all just stop building our defenses and increasing our resilience and roll over. Let's roll out a red carpet for Russians all the way to Paris (or maybe Lisbon?). The same peaceful folks who talk about bombing our cities every week on their national TV.

scotty79 1y ago

Yes. War with russia is optimal course of action right now for Europe as russia extensively proved it can't be just left alone for any period of time. So some inconvenience for western Europe is expected and everywhere there are efforts to prepare for it.

bxsioshc 1y ago

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