Why is this nectar for HN? When I saw the headline I just knew it would rocket to the top.
Serious question.
Serious question.
2. Another part of HN sees this as an opportunity. "In a gold-rush, sell shovels".
3. Yet another part of HN has been trying hard to get rich without results, and sees the super-rich as having had unfair advantage, and therefore now has an aversion against this group. This leads to upvoting to fuel discussions about survivor bias, wealth inequality, fairness of the economy etc.
5. For myself, I always find doomsday prep stuff interesting
And the proportion of preppers who are legitimately disconnected from reality is quite a bit higher than the general population.
I actually think all people should do some limited "prepping" and there are things that can be learned from the people that are really into it.
I try to think about how I might survive for a few weeks if crap hits the fan to a limited extent.
In the most basic terms that means food and drinking water for a couple of weeks. This can be done pretty simply for like, $20USD per person - rice, beans, water, maybe some multivitamins, etc.
In 6-12 months you can just eat that stuff and replace it in your "mini-prepper" kit. So in a way it doesn't really cost anything, just some shelf space. You'll also obviously need a way to cook the food, too so -- maybe $40 for a little camping stove and some propane.
If you have a large-ish chest freezer, that's an excellent asset. Fill it with ice packs, will stay cold for weeks even after the power goes out.
An emergency "go bag" / "bug out bag" is worth thinking about as well. The nature of some emergencies is such that you'll need to hit the road. IMO this is more expensive/challenging to do well but it's also the case of "literally anything is better than nothing". A $5 backback with a Leatherman, a purifying water bottle, and a blanket is 1000x better than nothing.
(I don't bother thinking about how I might survive individually in the face of complete societal breakdown. The rules for surviving that will be completely different - things will quickly coalesce into gangs/tribes/mob rule, that kind of thing)
Side note, this article appears to be removed from the front page now... interesting.
Like someone on the docks watching cargo being loaded on one side of a ship, anyone paying attention to the increasing imbalance between the have's and have-not's is anticipating that this will not end well.
(And paying attention to this maybe is more the HN crowd?)
It's kind of a "fun" challenge to solve -- like how can I fit enough stuff to survive for $DAYS into a backpack? Or $SOMEOTHERTIMESPAN at my home? What would that stuff be? How can I do it for $X or less?
(I put "fun" in quotes because obviously, the idea of needing your prepped stuff is not fun at all)
It's the kind of engineering-ish, working-within-constraints challenge that tends to apply to HN types.