can anyone who lived through the past four years seriously doubt that possessing an independent capacity to withstand disruption is beneficial?
is anyone predicting the systems that most people rely on are going to become more resilient?
is anyone predicting the systems that most people rely on are going to become more resilient?
The cool part about focusing on community resiliency is it increases the mental health and well-being of the community members, as well as helping the local economy by focusing on self-sufficiency!
In many cases, there are benefits to scale, but the optimal scale varies from one setting to another. Sometimes, the optimal "unit" is your block. Sometimes, your village. Sometimes, your family. And sometimes, yeah, just you.
At a massive scale, things start falling apart again, because the government - or any other organization notionally responsible for the well-being of millions - is not going to be particularly invested in your individual outcome. You're just a small part of a statistic that might be tracked somewhere. You don't quite qualify for a particular benefit because of your unique circumstances? Tough luck.
Otherwise, we're either asking local government to invest in resilience or reinventing local government to ask this new body to invest in resilience. In either capacity, we are not investing in individual capacity, we're just trusting that the resources we need will be made available in time of need and sufficient to the needs of all.
community resiliency is also often overlooked in media - it's easier (and better marketing) to make a show about "preppers" buying merchandise. but the community aspect exists, probably even among those individuals, and gets much less attention.
but we live in times that make it difficult to build, find, and keep community. many people find individual projects more accessible. and in the end, individual capacity contributes to community resiliency.
the most radical (not reactionary) people i know are working all of these angles at once.
Not sure I'll ever get over it
and yet the world keeps spinning. does that not suggest that the detractors were right all along?
we got a new current thing for the media and twitter checkmarks to yell about, and COVID quickly ceased to be a problem - less than three months after "winter of severe illness and death" promised by the white house in december 2021.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
For starters, the virus itself has changed.
We had a mild disease making rounds - far less serious than some of the pandemics of the early 20th century, let alone before that - and we had multi-week shortages of TP, followed by multi-year shortages of ICs and cars.
Yeah, no one died due to not being able to buy TP, but it wasn't all that confidence-inspiring. Pre-COVID, would you have thought that the supply of such a basic and easily-manufactured good is so weirdly inflexible?
If prepping were divorced from reactionary doomsday scenarios it would be much cooler. It’s not that different than people who fantasize about being the “good guy with a gun”.
I get that it's fascinating, but the "bunker prepper" argument has no place in a good-faith discussion of emergency preparedness.
[Edit: added "private" to address some irrelevant rebukes below.]
Finland and Sweden were also big on fallout shelters.
uhm? Ever heard of Zwitserland?
In the PNW of the US, there are many thriving prepper communities of all political persuasions and I find that the vast majority of them are not doomers, and in fact, try to avoid doomers and satirize them.
But now we have major, extended weather-related events once or twice a year (wildfires and winter storms). And then there was the pandemic.
So now, it's a mission-critical thing.
"No we are not going to be in a Mad max world in 2 years!"
When it happens at the atomic level, the larger government elements aren't really supplying timely assistance or even functional law enforcement.
Most long term preppers advocate for a deeper pantry, so a few months instead of a few weeks, a few gallons of water in a shed. A focus on personal health as there is no point hoarding guns if you cannot run 100 meters. Increase personal skills that can be useful in a time of disruption such as basic medical aid. And community, that is key - "If you want to fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others." African proverb
A lot of them point out about how the stereo type of the food hoard on your own land with a small military of guns is foolish. That even if the worst case Zombie situation did arise, that just makes you a target for others and would have to become endlessly paranoid just to maintain a terrible lifestyle.
Interesting that you chose this example when nearly every socialist/communist revolution that has ever happened in history started with mass murder.
If we get another covid-scale disease, lockdown, closed borders, a year's wait for vaccination, etc., with similar risks to life and quality of life?
Then life goes on as normal, after a brief initial period of just enough people simultaneously choosing to make sure they have the basics for the those basics to no longer be on supermarket shelves.
If Russia rolls through Ukraine, then decides to keep going until it reaches the old Iron Curtain?
Then I'm 170 km on the wrong side of the new border for someone whose entire knowledge of Russian is [da, nyet, vodka, mir, privyet], but they'd probably let me leave.
If an EMP or solar flare destroys the power grid, I don't think there's much I can do; even if I bought some farmland and some oxen to pull a plough without needing to maintain a tractor, my total experience of blacksmithing consists of making some hoops on an activity day at the Weald & Downland Living Museum some time around 1993 when I was about 10.
This is something that Garrett Hardin was writing about in the 1960-80's. 'Tragedy of the Commons', 'Lifeboat Ethics' and 'Filters against folly' are all works of his worth studying as it shines a spot light on the ugly side of humanity and our impacts.
This unfortunately lead to him adopting a lot of anti-immigration stances and some downright racist ideas. It is an a damn shame considering he had a real knack for cutting through the crap and highlighting some of the bigger long terms issues of our behaviors.
I really hope we don't go down this path, but everyday it looks like we are slowly taking another step there. May we live in interesting times.