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Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

lcamtuf.coredump.cx

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Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

#161

Post by Alex3917 »

f- wrote: post #102
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #56

The major thing overlooked here is mindset. After 14 years in the military and experience with several armed conflicts and humanitarian disasters, I have seen that pretty much all your plans and preparation will go out the window, so you need to learn to move adapt and improvise. If you're going to survive any contingency scenario you need to be resilient, excruciatingly innovative and mentally tough. Think more like…

[Author here] The mindset is actually a large component of this guide, and it intentionally delays any discussion of "prepper gear" until it gets through a long laundry list of lifestyle tips and discussing the need to plan ahead, figure out what is likely, what can go wrong, what the decisions points may be, etc. In contrast to most other prepping docs, weapons are literally the last thing discussed, and only in a p…

> I'd wager that for 90%+ of the events that a typical person in the US is likely to experience, heading into the woods to forage on berries and hunt wildebeest is not the way to go.

I think a better question is to what extent having the skills to forage, hunt, and survive in the woods will improve your life quality/expectancy. Of course that's not going to be your #1 plan most of the time, but that seems orthogonal to the value of having those skills.

Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

#162

Post by beebmam »

How about we plan on not having a doomsday in the first place?

Why are nuclear weapons not banned? Chemical/biological weapons are. Let's end nuclear weapons too, and take this world back from the possibility of doomsday.

Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

#163

Post by randyrand »

beebmam wrote: post #162

How about we plan on not having a doomsday in the first place? Why are nuclear weapons not banned? Chemical/biological weapons are. Let's end nuclear weapons too, and take this world back from the possibility of doomsday.

it worked for the dinosaurs!

sadly, planning for unknown unknowns is kind of hard. doomsday is possible with or without nuclear weapons.

Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

#164

Post by uabstraction »

lb1lf wrote: post #66
knz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a 2m radio model that you would recommend?

Also the Yaesu FT-60 (2m/70cm) or FT-270 (2m) are absolutely, positively indestructible units made for professional use year in, year out. More than $60, but not obscenely so - somewhere around the $150 mark, methinks. It would often make sense to have two units, by the way. (Oh, and by all means get a licence - it is not difficult, and it gives you opportunity to learn how to use the device before you need it...

Second on the FT-60. These things have a remarkable amount of functionality built into them, are built like tanks, and can access their full range of features without a programming cable and PC. They can also receive a very wide range of frequencies outside of the ham bands.

The FT-60 can also be modified to transmit on other radio service bands (like FRS/GMRS/Marine VHF), though it is only legal to transmit on those bands with non-type-approved hardware in honest-to-god emergencies.

I always cringe at the prepper types who boast about how much they spend on their arsenal, but cheap out on radio gear. Realistically, cooperation ensures the best chance of survival. A good radio and an aftermarket whip antenna will be more useful in all situations besides the end of the world.

Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

#165

Post by icebraining »

afterburner wrote: post #131
saryant wrote: post #19

I've been in a number of major natural disasters at this point. Fukushima, Ike, Colorado's 2013 floods. I've also been in two shooting incidents (where fortunately only the shooter was hurt). My point is, I've been lucky so far because none of these posed a major problem for me. I made it out with manageable inconvenience. However, I can only get lucky like that so many times. So now I keep the following at home: * 5…

"I've been lucky so far" I'd say you were UNlucky so far to have been involved in all of those incidents in the first place. Or was it not by accident?

Yeah, reminds me of Orwell's comment upon having been shot in the Spanish Civil War :)

No one I met at this time — doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow-patients — failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives it is the luckiest creature alive. I could not help thinking that it would be even luckier not to be hit at all.

Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

#166

Post by stale2002 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #118
ChuckMcM wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a middle ground? My kids went as part of a team to help people rebuild after Katrina and one of the folks they met was rebuilding their house but building it as a boat. They had re-done the foundation so that the house rested on it, and its sewer connection was just the house pipe inset into the city pipe (so it could easily lift out). That, 15' of chain to allow the house to float above the foundation and c…

There certainly is a middle ground - however why stay in the same place and expect a different future? New Orleans isn't that much more prepared for another flood. Houston re-did the entire bayou system about 5 years ago and yet here we are. People's aversion to moving, especially after a major disaster, boggles my mind.

The vast majority of emergency situations that a person is going to face isn't going to require something so drastic as moving.

Most people are not going to have to worry about a hurricane or a flood. Most people have more mundane problems, that are still potentially life altering.

Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

#167

Post by altotrees »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #118
ChuckMcM wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a middle ground? My kids went as part of a team to help people rebuild after Katrina and one of the folks they met was rebuilding their house but building it as a boat. They had re-done the foundation so that the house rested on it, and its sewer connection was just the house pipe inset into the city pipe (so it could easily lift out). That, 15' of chain to allow the house to float above the foundation and c…

There certainly is a middle ground - however why stay in the same place and expect a different future? New Orleans isn't that much more prepared for another flood. Houston re-did the entire bayou system about 5 years ago and yet here we are. People's aversion to moving, especially after a major disaster, boggles my mind.

To take it a step further, the area in which I come from has been hit hard with economic and social disasters. Even though factories are closing down and heroin deaths are rising each day, people choose to stay here. Family and other social networks are a big part of it I think, as someone said downthread.

I bolted as soon as I could to gain employment and the resources of a bigger city. It still boggles my mind that more people my age don't, as things seem to be getting worse rather than better. But it's home, it's familiar, it's comforting, no matter what issues may loom. I had cousins refuse to leave post-Katrina New Orleans for similar reasons.

Sorry, just a comparison to your line of thinking from a different angle, slightly related.

Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

#168

Post by yourapostasy »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #104
f- wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Author here] The mindset is actually a large component of this guide, and it intentionally delays any discussion of "prepper gear" until it gets through a long laundry list of lifestyle tips and discussing the need to plan ahead, figure out what is likely, what can go wrong, what the decisions points may be, etc. In contrast to most other prepping docs, weapons are literally the last thing discussed, and only in a p…

I dunno, I re-read the beginning and I didn't see anything about the points I raised. I think your point that overzealous people who as you put it: begin by shopping for ballistic vests and night vision goggles; they would be better served by grabbing a fire extinguisher, some bottled water, and then putting the rest of their money in a rainy-day fund. is right on point, but IMO that just says - hey don't be insane.…

> Literally right now, my good friends are being rescued from a rooftop in Houston. No number of bottles of water in their basement or generators are going to help them.

Some of this outcome is a direct result of conforming to commercially-fabricated social pressure. In this particular case, floodplain maps are publicly and freely available, so anyone can build structures that rise well above the highest-projected floods.

Except that developers don't want to have to build on top of stilts or as tethered floating structures. It decreases the available pool of customers looking for a pre-packaged vision of what they "should" buy, and it's more expensive than "conventional" building designs.

This illustrates that for some, a preparedness mindset can include thinking for oneself and outside social norms, with the aim of avoiding placing themselves in a situation that calls for preparedness to begin with. Teaching youngsters how to deconstruct the marketing that militates against this kind of mindset to externalize a future cost upon them in order to lift an immediate profit into the commercial entities standing behind those forces, can passively preempt many preparedness scenarios.

Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

#169

Post by aslkdjaslkdj »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #56

The major thing overlooked here is mindset. After 14 years in the military and experience with several armed conflicts and humanitarian disasters, I have seen that pretty much all your plans and preparation will go out the window, so you need to learn to move adapt and improvise. If you're going to survive any contingency scenario you need to be resilient, excruciatingly innovative and mentally tough. Think more like…

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Eisenhower

The idea being that the process of planning makes you more easily able to react when everything goes to shit. Eg don't treat a plan like a recipe for success.

Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk

#170

Post by the_prepared »

notadoc wrote: post #150

Is it just perception or is 'prepping' becoming mainstreamed?

100% going more mainstream.

I know it'll seem like I have an ulterior motive, but it's the opposite - we recently started our site after teaching people one-to-one for a decade because we've seen it go mainstream just in the last 1-2 years, and particularly since the election.

Almost everyone starts off thinking it's a fringe thing until they find out their friends and neighbors are into it too.

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