Relatedly, the thing I don't get is why people think preppers are so crazy. Didn't Vancouver and London just have serious riots in 2010 and 2011 respectively?

Relatedly, the thing I don't get is why people think preppers are so crazy. Didn't Vancouver and London just have serious riots in 2010 and 2011 respectively? Didn't the US have massive unrest in Katrina in 2005 and LA in 1992? Didn't most countries around the world, including Germany, Japan, Russia, and China have seriously tyrannical governments within living memory? You'd have to do the calculation but probably 50% or more of the world's population has lived at some point under a tyrannical government. Many progressives agree that the US military has committed atrocities overseas. They have seen Bush and Obama's unstinting increase in executive power, they know about the existence of kill lists that allow Predator Drone-based attacks on any American citizen suspected of being a terrorist, and they've seen the coverups revealed by Pfc. Manning. So, whether or not you agree there is a nontrivial chance of significant financial instability in the near future, why is so much blind trust placed in US society, government, and military? We've seen civil society break down all over the world, live on our TV. The Anglosphere has been mostly immune over the 20th century, but it can happen here.