Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

I felt a lot of the same way with more extreme prepping during the pandemic. Sure no harm with stocking up some extra staples. You’ll use them sooner or later. But if there really is some sort of complete collapse what then?

View on HN

I really wish we had distinct words for "being ready for a disaster that might reasonably happen" versus "making a core part of your identity the idea that civil order might collapse, and gleefully anticipating being able to shoot people in the street without fear of law enforcement", because it feels like there's quite a wide spectrum there.

Being in California and preparing for wildfires and earthquakes for the few days before the civil authorities reassert themselves and things return to "normal"? A good idea. Anticipating an incident which collapses civil authorities beyond the point at which they can recover? Not only does this feel psychologically unhealthy I think it also ties into pro-collapse politics that actively speed up this outcome. Also tied into the deep American fear of that which pervades everything.

I’ve heard things like having a grab bag or an evac bag and things along those lines. The more common model than the pandemic is that you have to hightail it out of Dodge in your car in a hurry.

Over here in the cold Nordics I always keep warm blankets and at least two ways to make a fire in a small bag in my car.

The fire is just a bunch of (waterproof) matches and a few cheap Bic lighters and a german military stove from an army surplus store. Cost me maybe 8€ a decade ago.

In northern climes it’s really good idea to hav a kit in your car if you have a winter breakdown or go off the road for some reason.

Days of food at home absolutely. Some water containers ready to go yes. Some heating source either alcohol or gas bottles, reasonable and not big investments.

Going to weeks or months start to be reach.

And beyond that, what are you expecting to come back to? Subsistence farming? That is a very large step up... And well then you have lot of people to compete with. If we are talking about total systemic collapse, well that is very complex mess to prepare for.

On other side large scale wars, well probably some support will come relatively quickly.

Given the relative practicality of disruptions of various types there were a ton of sensible things you could do for a few hundred dollars that weren’t really wasted money anyway. You didn’t need to fill rooms and load up on the automatic weapons and ammunition.

This is such a US thing. A rifle for hunting and self-defense, sure. Piles of fully automatic AK-47s that chew through 600 rounds per minute, not much.

And the old trope about ammo becoming currency, has this ever actually been a thing anywhere?

I was being somewhat sarcastic and hyperbolic. Fully automatic weapons aren’t even legally sold.

There's an interesting paper from WW2 about the shadow economy of a prisoner of war camp, fuelled by imports of Red Cross humanitarian parcels. Cigarettes became currency even among non-smokers. I'm not sure what the equivalent goods would be now.

Cans of tuna serve the same purpose in many jails.

Two weeks of food shouldn't be hard for most people on this forum. There's a lot of people whose financial situation is so permanently on edge that they can't do that kind of preparation for a healthy balance diet*, but for everyone here, two weeks should be fine.

IIRC, Mormons store a few months stockpile as standard.

* For an unhealthy diet, my university meal planning for a significant fraction of each semester was two large bowls of cereal in the morning and ramen noodles for dinner. I didn't realise how far below my caloric requirements that was until comments on this forum many years later. But that cost 50p/day in the UK in 2004, and if you're consuming 500ml of UHT milk/person/day then the six litre multipack one person can lug up a hill with no car will last 12 days before needing replacement, while dried grains and cereals like oats, rice, etc. are even easier to stockpile.

Not everyone I know has months of food storage, but I know a couple who lost their job during the pandemic and it helped them get through that.

Food storage is not just for apocalypse type stuff. It's for what the heck ever.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com