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Comment by DanBlake | Hacker News Reader

I run a site that deals with alot of these people. I look at it like a risk vs reward. I think for the vast amount of calamity's that could happen, you only need to 'survive' for about 6 months before things would stabilize. If after 6 months you are still in trouble, chances are you are not going to particularly enjoy life moving forward anyways.

So with those thoughts, it almost seems prudent to just buy 1k in freeze dried food ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-YEAR-MOUNTAIN-HOUSE-FOOD-ENTREES-R...? ) which can last you a year if needed. The only other things you really need is water (tons of purification options out there).

The next steps are protection and information. You can get a firearm for about 500$ with ample ammo and a world radio with a solar charger for 100$.

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The page talks about it a bit, but in an attempt to differentiate itself from the usual, mildly paranoid "prepper" content, it does its best not to get hung up on more outlandish scenarios, such as fighting off zombies and surviving for months without water and food.

I basically tried to approach it from the perspective of threat modeling / risk management for real life; and by that metric, incidents such as losing a job are far more likely than a zombie apocalypse. I have seen far too many people in the Silicon Valley discover that the hard way :-(

Prepping is a hobby and its supposed to be fun. Fantasizing about fighting zombies, or dropping everything(mundane life/boring job), grabbing your SHTF bag and adventuring into the mountains is fun. It is a modern version of D&D/Larp.

I feel a lot of people want to prep, but there's a social stigma around preppers as they're usually associated with conspiracy followers (the crazy type) and therefore use zombies as a way to lighten the tone and make it more socially acceptable. You're now prepping for a cool zombie fighting apocalypse instead of some scenario such as martial law or natural disaster, which people tend to think you mean some Day After Tomorrow event rather than realistic event like flodoing/earthquake that could lead to mass power outages and spread of resource thievery/violence/gangs.

It doesn't even have to be zombies. If you live in an area of the country with foreseeable natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes even), it makes sense to have at least some shelf-stable food and bottled water in the house. Enough to get you through a couple of weeks.

Extra credit for installing off-grid solar, and a water reclamation system that can be used for showers and toilet flushing. Both of which also have benefits during everyday life.

Story time: After Hurricane Fran came through Raleigh, I was driving on I-440 and was passing a long line of cars driving really slowly. When I get to the head of it, it turns out they were all following a Triangle Ice truck to it's next stop, so they could load up their coolers and preserve the contents of their refrigerators (the power still being out in parts of the city).

A lot of people have a more ignorant outlook. In the winter I always keep some water, body warmers, salt, blanket, and some other basic supplies(utility knife, lighter, whistle, flashlight, etc) in the trunk of my car because a group of friend and I tend to go hiking in the back country a lot with little to no cell service and sometimes it can snow out of nowhere. This is some basic covering your own ass stuff, but I'm look at like I'm crazy. If the car gets breaks down or it starts snowing when we're a few hours out and come back to a snowed in car or icy steep roads, I'd rather have everything I need to either hang in the car and wait it out until the next day or make a few mile hike to a house we saw down the mountain or access road.

I think most people are totally fine with prepping if it's explained in terms of risk management and basic disaster preparedness.

In my eyes it's a fine line based on risk management. It makes total sense to protect against probable disasters, accidents, and threats (power outages, burglaries, weather events, medical emergencies etc). Everyone can easily be convinced of this.

It makes some sense to put some resources toward protecting against outlier events (100 year storms, riots / widespread violence, great depression level financial instability etc). People can be convinced of this when it's explained in terms of opportunity cost.

It makes no sense to use resources towards protecting against incredibly improbable events. People that have fallback compounds, bunkers in their backyards, multiple years worth of food, and thousands of rounds of ammunition are literally throwing away money.

I agree on your risk management, but even when I mention something such as power outages, flooding, or riots/violence(due to the previous), and that it's better to be prepared and not need it than need it and be prepared, I'm still taken as crazy even though I mention a valid scenario(flooding has been increasing here and power outages more common). Then again, all my friends are a little more on the blind eye/ignorant side.

In reference to the zombies...

I'll come back and post the link if I can find the reference, but apparently real life zombies are somewhat possible. A few years back (2008ish?), I read an article about a German scientist that was able to alter rabies so that humans don't die when they get it. The resulting claim was that they would become super aggressive and attack others, similar to rabid animals, and would create a zombie-like virus. Granted you won't see humans walking around with half their limbs off after dying, but I thought it was interesting how the claim was that it could essentially create a World War Z type of scenario.

Now idk how much of this is true, but I'm almost certain I read it on phys.org, which if I did, would lead me to believe that it's a valid article. I'll see if I can find the link tomorrow.

Getting a lot of hate for this comment...

Couldn't find the article I read, could very well be that it wasn't on phys.org and was just a bullshit article. However, here is an article where scientists mention that it could be possible to one day exist:

www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112964783/zombie-virus-could-be-reality-exclusive-100213/

A long term World War Z or The Walking Dead scenario just can't happen without the sci-fi "undead" component. A "rage virus" producing effects like in World War Z would probably devastate society, but within a week or so most of the infected would be so weak from hunger that they were not a significant threat, and a few weeks after that they'd all be dead from some combination of starvation/dehydration/exposure.

Yeah, that's the bit where I always have to remind myself that it's meant to be "hand waved" away in those stories. I watch The Walking Dead and start rambling about how they started off talking about some virus/agent that kills the brain and "restarts" just the drive to eat and kill. Even so, without the fantasy aspects, there's just no way that a living body (regardless of how crazed or hijacked by a pathogen) would still be able to move around after the organs are damaged or deprived of blood.

The closest thing to a zombie outbreak would be some sort of plague like rabies or encephalitis that makes you lose your mind and then kills you. If it was virulent enough and hard enough to treat you'd end up with huge disruptions but more like any other massive pandemic. The whole bit about victims somehow sticking around for months or years, waiting to infect more people is just impossible as far as I can tell.

Zombies are used in the survivalist/prepper community as a euphemism for people looking to take your stuff.

Because describing how to defend your home against humans can be legally risky, and off-putting.

With the exception of the actually crazy, people aren't actually talking about zombies.

It also injects a degree of humour.

Sure, and I'm using "space zombies" humorously, to broadly refer to all sorts of apocalyptic / TEOTWAWKI scenarios that many hardcore preppers are preoccupied with.

Most prepper guides devote a lot of time to societal collapse, complete self-sufficiency, urban combat, and wilderness survival topics, while dedicating much less attention to more pragmatic risks that one can prepare for without making profound lifestyle changes or buying a farm.

buying a farm is a huge huge risk tho, isn't it? in a scenario where society truly collapse, at least, it makes you a prime target.

I'd like the other approach more: secret stash, going dark for a year, wait for tribes to stabilize the territory they control, emerge with some useful skill and bargain access/protection of a well armed/established tribe.

You could barter out access to land in exchange for mutual defense.

Any sort of real collapse is going to be accompanied by a lack of diesel and there aren't a whole lot of draft animals around, so farming is probably going to involve quite a lot of human labor.

If I were to prepare for an apocalypse scenario, I would hoard bottled water, canned food, ammunition, and fuel. Roughly prioritised in that order. Possibly also batteries.

I feel like these are the things that will become scarce and valuable. Or at least help survival (food/water + ammunition). This makes them useful to me and also useful for bartering.

Of course, my stash needs to be safe both from the apocalypse scenario itself (will it still be in usable condition after a nuclear explosion, for example?) and from other survivors. It also needs to be somewhere I can actually get to it (safely). This, coupled with the fact that I would need large enough quantities of these items makes it rather difficult.

But, regardless, that is my I haven't done anything about it and likely never will plan to survive the apocalypse.

Once you start talking about weeks, drinking water is easy. A relatively clean source, a big pot and a fire are all you need.

It's also easier to move around an empty several gallon pot (or just break into a house and grab one) than it is to move around hundreds of gallons of water (a short supply for several people).

(re fire, if you build a stash, you really want there to be trees around, and pretty good annual precipitation)

Also basic medicine/medical supplies. It's a staple plotline in apocalyptic fiction but it seems legit for any natural disaster or major civil unrest as well. Whether you're stuck out in a remote location for safety or in the middle of the aftermath of a natural disaster, having a good first aid kit and a supply of medication could save the life of you or someone else in need.

The only bit that seems difficult (but again, this is from apocalyptic fiction so grain of salt) is that so many important medications like insulin, antibiotics, and strong painkillers can't just be purchased at generic wholesale and kept for use or trade in major emergencies or times of real hardship. In the stories it's always the pharmacies that get looted first and there's always some chapter or episode where a family member or friend is sick/injured and the characters desperately need to find antibiotics or insulin or the like.

I understand that this is a bit silly going from fiction but those stories are appealing because they get you to think about how you would deal with life-threatening challenges. In a way it's odd that we have all of these important and effective medicines but whether the emergency services and doctors are blown to smithereens, bitten by zombies, or just overwhelmed with patients after an epic earthquake/flood/eruption there's really no way to access them without looting or black market.

I just know that in the event that "shit hit the fan" to use the prepper terminology, I'd prefer to be the guy with a case of antibiotics and painkillers stashed in the basement than the guy hoping I can get treatment at a hospital or local medic.

I'm not sure what the current status is, but it used to be that you could just go to a pet store and buy antibiotics intended for animal use (but hey, same drug). This is practically a prepper trope though.

> an apocalypse scenario

Which scenario?

If it's a cat 5 hurricane, you can fill up your tub, cooler, washing machine, rain barrel, etc. with plenty of notice. Maybe keep a few collapsed containers around for that purpose.

If you're planning for an earthquake, then bottled water makes some sense.

If you're planning for the social upheaval when the Ogallala Aquifer dries up and America's breadbasket turns to dust, then bottled water is the least of your worries - move now and settle in somewhere wet before the Okies ride again.

If you think global climate change will bring 30' snowfalls and ice storms to your area, then you'll have access to plenty of fresh water - if you have the fuel to melt it, and keep yourself warm.

Without probability estimates, apocalypse scenario planning is irrational.

> buying a farm is a huge huge risk tho, isn't it? in a scenario where society truly collapse, at least, it makes you a prime target.

Not really - you can always walk away, so at worst you're no worse off than you were without it.

but you would basically have wasted all the resources spent to purchase the farm pre-apocalypse

Sure, but if you instead spend them on something "normal" like videogames you've probably also wasted them in an apocalypse scenario.

Sure, but the apocalypse scenario - and there have been uncountable apocalypse scenarios even in my lifetime, starting with 'The Jupiter Effect' - is also very unlikely to happen. Buying farmland you never use or enjoy, and which brings in no rent profit, is a waste if there is no apocalypse. While playing videogames brings a lot of enjoyment.

The premise of this piece is to be "rational". To do that you need some idea of the odds. If you think another Tunguska event is something to prepare for, then having a farm is probably no better than playing video games - I can't even guess which would be safer from a random 10+MT event, and playing games is more fun and safer than doing the extra drive back and forth to the farm or operating the farm.

<...> emerge with some useful skill <...> : Learn to make moonshine or any other type of distilled beverage. I really believe that it would be a great trading coin in a apocalypse scenario.

To me, there's something else that seems to be the case.

The emphasis on headshots in zombie preparedness. As an extension of "zombies as human surrogates" concept, there's one group of humans for whom a headshot is the surest way of ending hostilities. Law enforcement/military.

It's not politically correct to openly admit that you're preparing to resist against a military occupation.

This still falls foul of the simple numbers problem: there's going to be more people without then with, that's why its a disaster in the first place.

Now, humans are social animals - we naturally form groups. And the group which will have the most necessity is anyone without sufficient immediate resources. And who has the most resources? Why, the guy with 6 months of food rations. 6 months of food rations will feed him for 6 months, or my group of 30 for 6 days - which gives us say, 10 days to find more.

The real question in that scenario then, is how stupid is the guy with 6 months of supplies planning to be about distribution?

A much better risk-mitigation plan is this: either die preventing the catastrophe, or prevent it.

How do I prevent the Cascadia earthquake?

Vote for earthquake preparedness programs, neighborhood initiatives, plan for an actual realistic disaster like that and not some absurd "everyone for themselves" survival scenario?

You achieve a lot more campaigning for community preparedness then stockpiling beans. Make more friends too.

Absolutely the most insightful comment this side of Texas.

And applicable to disaster preparedness and terrorist actions and banking failures

If you are looking for freeze dried food then http://shop.honeyville.com/ is a good place to buy.

They also sell bulk quantities of food ingredients that are otherwise pretty expensive to buy.

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