4 ms·

As you say, apocalyptic thinking seems to be deeply wired into the human psyche. If your threat model predicts a high probability of nuclear war, civilization-

by declan 11y ago

As you say, apocalyptic thinking seems to be deeply wired into the human psyche. If your threat model predicts a high probability of nuclear war, civilization-threatening pandemics, or other end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenarios, you should probably move to a defensible rural homestead with solar panels, a long growing season, and a fresh water supply -- that's an hour away from the nearest interstate. I hear the intermountain west is nice this time of year. What's interesting is that few prepper/survivalist discussions -- that I've seen, maybe I'm missing them -- mention the opportunity costs of moving to the backwoods. I interviewed Y2K prepper/survivalists who quit their jobs and followed approximately the above advice. The problem arises when the collapse, well, doesn't happen. And you're two hours (in the summer) and six hours (in the winter) from the nearest emergency room. Also once you sell that city condo or suburban house and move to your self-sufficient rural homestead, you then have a strong incentive to predict the collapse is coming. Maybe it's not going to be Y2K after all, but how about suitcase nukes in big cities? Or bioterror? Etc. There's also a subset of religious survivalists who seem to want an ungodly and immoral secular society to meet its doom; I wrote about this for Wired here: http://archive.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1999/01/17193 http://archive.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1999/01/1719...

anigbrowl 11y ago
There seems to be a very high overlap between the prepper 'community' (I hesitate to use the term about such self-avowed rugged individualists) and those who anticipate a race war, war with Islam, or some similarly catastrophic political event. There are many people who still have a chip on their shoulder about the civil war, and seem to yearn for a different social order.
- netcan 11y ago
  The problem I have is that anticipation and desire or problematically intertwined, especially when the anticipation becomes communal. Where I come from we term this the Messiah's Donkey thinking.
- alphapapa 11y ago
  > a race war, war with Islam, or some similarly catastrophic political event. At least one of those is, essentially, already in-progress. At least one of those is, essentially, a farce. Determining which is which is left as an exercise for the reader.

by declan 11y ago

anigbrowl 11y ago

There seems to be a very high overlap between the prepper 'community' (I hesitate to use the term about such self-avowed rugged individualists) and those who anticipate a race war, war with Islam, or some similarly catastrophic political event. There are many people who still have a chip on their shoulder about the civil war, and seem to yearn for a different social order.

netcan 11y ago
The problem I have is that anticipation and desire or problematically intertwined, especially when the anticipation becomes communal. Where I come from we term this the Messiah's Donkey thinking.
alphapapa 11y ago
> a race war, war with Islam, or some similarly catastrophic political event. At least one of those is, essentially, already in-progress. At least one of those is, essentially, a farce. Determining which is which is left as an exercise for the reader.