Nuclear war survival guide reveals seven everyday items if disaster strikes • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear war survival guide reveals seven everyday items if disaster strikes

#21

Post by shalmanese » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

palmotea wrote: post #19

shalmanese wrote: post #9

One test I now use on survival related material, especially ones written pre-COVID, is how long does it take them before they start talking about how to cut hair. One thing we learned during COVID was a significant limitation in people's willingness to stay isolated was their hair was getting out of control. It's the exact, boring, unsexy topic that you omit if you're selling the fantasy of survival and you include i…

> One thing we learned during COVID was a significant limitation in people's willingness to stay isolated was their hair was getting out of control. It's the exact, boring, unsexy topic that you omit if you're selling the fantasy of survival and you include if you want to cover the boring, day to day logistics. COVID wasn't really a survival situation though, and least not in the traditional sense (i.e. staying at ho…

"Survival", as conceptualized as an industry, is that you're holed up in a secure location with adequate food, ammunition and other essentials to last months to years. Plenty of preppers who diligently prepared bunkers for the end of the world emerged from those bunkers, not because they ran out of food or ammo, but because their hair got too annoying to deal with and cosplaying survival did not extend to actually learning how to cut their own hair vs giving up the pretense and having a professional do it..

Re: Nuclear war survival guide reveals seven everyday items if disaster strikes

#22

Post by palmotea » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

shalmanese wrote: post #21

palmotea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One thing we learned during COVID was a significant limitation in people's willingness to stay isolated was their hair was getting out of control. It's the exact, boring, unsexy topic that you omit if you're selling the fantasy of survival and you include if you want to cover the boring, day to day logistics. COVID wasn't really a survival situation though, and least not in the traditional sense (i.e. staying at ho…

"Survival", as conceptualized as an industry, is that you're holed up in a secure location with adequate food, ammunition and other essentials to last months to years. Plenty of preppers who diligently prepared bunkers for the end of the world emerged from those bunkers, not because they ran out of food or ammo, but because their hair got too annoying to deal with and cosplaying survival did not extend to actually le…

> Plenty of preppers who diligently prepared bunkers for the end of the world emerged from those bunkers, not because they ran out of food or ammo, but because their hair got too annoying to deal with and cosplaying survival

Sure, but what I'm saying is haircuts are more of a problem for survival cosplay scenarios than actual survival scenarios. It's actually legitimate to omit haircuts when you're planning an actual survival scenario (or you treat it very briefly: scissors are a tool you should have in your bunker).

For instance: there was a Ukrainian soldier holed up in a front-line bunker for the better part of a year, did he emerge from his bunker when he needed a haircut? Or did he hack away at it with whatever was available?

Re: Nuclear war survival guide reveals seven everyday items if disaster strikes

#23

Post by warshinder » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 3:42 PM UTC

zzgo wrote: post #18

warshinder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No the point, as I understand it, is that with enough missiles, enforcing the JCPOA becomes impossible. Iran can dominate other regional powers, cause global suffering, decide they want to build nuclear weapons after all and not much can be done to stop them. As we are seeing, they are powerful enough now that Trump isn’t having an easy time winning, and it may even impact the midterms it’s that bad.

At the start of 2017, we were in a position where we could have negotiated another deal with Iran to limit their missile production and stockpile while keeping the JCPOA in place. Nine years later, and we're not in a position to even negotiate a durable cease fire. We could have negotiated a diplomatic solution to those ballistic missiles to buttress the JCPOA. > Trump isn’t having an easy time winning I've seen no i…

> hang $5/gal gas and $14 fast food combos on Trump

In my mind, this is anachronistic thinking. The average poor person isn’t as concerned about gas or burger prices as boomer politicos think. The difficulty most Americans face now is neither of those, it is housing and energy costs, and increasingly jobs. Your typical homeless person isn’t stressing on how they’ll get their next burger. There very little sunlight between the parties on these big issues. Neither party has moved the needle on housing aside from inflating costs. They can’t. Nobody that owns wants housing prices to collapse, and the economy wouldn’t stand it, and even if they did want housing prices to collapse, it’s impossible to scale up production enough to lower costs. We can at most flatten the second derivative. And jobs? Jobs can be created through stimulus like the inflation reduction act, but that causes inflation. And those jobs, having been artificially produced, will be quickly liquidated when the stimulus runs dry.

Re: Nuclear war survival guide reveals seven everyday items if disaster strikes

#24

Post by Markoff » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

Systemmanic wrote: post #4

1. Building a shelter 2. Clean drinking water 3. Non-perishable food 4. Radiation fallout meter 5. Valuables, money and vital documents 6. Lighting 7. Protective clothing

not much use for the 5th point in nuclear war, there are better things to burn

Re: Nuclear war survival guide reveals seven everyday items if disaster strikes

#25

Post by zzgo » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 9:11 PM UTC

warshinder wrote: post #23

zzgo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the start of 2017, we were in a position where we could have negotiated another deal with Iran to limit their missile production and stockpile while keeping the JCPOA in place. Nine years later, and we're not in a position to even negotiate a durable cease fire. We could have negotiated a diplomatic solution to those ballistic missiles to buttress the JCPOA. > Trump isn’t having an easy time winning I've seen no i…

> hang $5/gal gas and $14 fast food combos on Trump In my mind, this is anachronistic thinking. The average poor person isn’t as concerned about gas or burger prices as boomer politicos think. The difficulty most Americans face now is neither of those, it is housing and energy costs, and increasingly jobs. Your typical homeless person isn’t stressing on how they’ll get their next burger. There very little sunlight be…

I locked in my $210K mortgage for 3.875% over a decade ago, housing affordability isn't what's on my mind. I'm pissed that I spent $5/gal on gas at Costco and $14 for a combo meal at Carl's Jr. last night.

It may be anachronistic thinking in _your_ mind, but people like me who had been insulated from the affordability problems under Biden are no longer able to ignore just how expensive things have gotten. I assure you that Democrats can target middle class Gen X and Baby Boomer independents to vote blue this fall by pointing out that Chili's has a 3 for $11 deal going on right now while a Famous Star combo at Carl's is $14.