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Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

The most important preparation: be friendly enough with your neighbors that you look out for each other. You can hate each other in general: so long as you won't allow looters in the neighborhood, and you can force yourself to get along enough to share/divide labor (in whatever way it turns out you need).

In the worst disasters preppers prepare for - odds are they die, so make sure your neighbors know what plans you have, if you die (or just you are out of town on vacation) your preparation can save someone else's life.

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So my neighbours hate me, but somehow major disaster changes that?

> won't allow looters in the neighborhood

My neighbours will be the first one to "equally share" everything I have with random junkies.

> if you die ... your preparation can save someone else's life.

Yeah, my neighbours make sure I die, and my stash will save their life.

> So my neighbours hate me, but somehow major disaster changes that?

Yes. Shared adversity tends to unite, not divide.

> My neighbours will be the first one to "equally share" everything I have with random junkies.

I guarantee you they won't, just out of self-preservation. They'd rather have you than "random junkies" or a trashed house next door.

For the most part, looters are thieves of opportunity. They'll take the stuff that's easy to take and won't risk a confrontation.

It's like the parable of outrunning the bear: you don't have to be completely looter proof, you just have to be a harder target than the next block over. Most of the time that just means having a couple people per block patrolling with a camera to scare them off.

Depending on the circumstances you may need more than that. A shotgun and an assortment of shot/slugs might be good to include in your planning.

> Depending on the circumstances you may need more than that.

Contrary to urban legends (and fictional entertainment), in times of disaster humans generally pull together:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Paradise_Built_in_Hell

A shotgun is a useful tool to have locked in your house. But carrying it around during a natural disaster will do far more harm than good. Neighbors and looky-loos will almost always give you help if you ask for it; they won't if you're armed.

That is very much a it depends. Most of the time you are correct. However there have been times when a gun was used to stop looters who otherwise didn't care.

The guns were used to protect houses and the neighbor's house though. So this could well fall into what you meant by useful in your home. (but if that is what you meant locked shouldn't have been added)

If your neighbors really hate you, then move.

The most common case of everybody hates me that nobody hates anybody, they just made an incorrect assumption "because of a frown", so get over it and try again. The second one I see is the person who everybody hates is at fault for being a bad person, so if this is the case fix yourself. Discrimination - where they hate you for your group - exists some places in the world, but for the most part it isn't discrimination it is one of the two above incorrectly identified.

You're getting unfairly downvoted. Yes, in a perfect world, we all have great, wholesome, cooperative neighbors who will help us out in an emergency. But we don't really choose our neighbors, and the sad reality is there are a lot of (and more and more these days) really shitty people out there, and by random chance you might be stuck with a neighbor who would rather rob you during a disaster than help you.

> by random chance you might be stuck with a neighbor who would rather rob you during a disaster than help you.

A natural disaster ties together the fates of everyone living in the area. When law and order break down, the people living nearest to you are the most important guarantors of your own safety. Attack or hurt your neighbor and you've only made yourself less safe from outsiders.

All this to say the neighbor would have to be particularly stupid, short-sighted, and sociopathic. Or have a foolproof survival or evacuation plan. Other than that, your survival and co-operation is in their best interest.

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