> But the western Roman empire fell and cities depopulated and folks switched back to subsistence farming for hundreds of years.
> And plenty of places have been at war and had much of civilization's usefulness diminished from days to decades. Not to mention straightforward natural disasters.
The only one of those things someone survived by being an individual prepper is the natural disaster, because in the other cases the government didn't just go away, it was replaced by other groups who could kill any given individual and take their stuff. The only way to survive is to leave and become a refugee or to band together in an even bigger group that can kill all individuals and smaller groups and take all their stuff. This is how you get the Carolingian Empire, Los Zetas, MS-13, the Soviet Union, and the Khmer Rouge.
Individual preppers are living in a fantasy land to the extent they think they can wait out political collapse. They might well be competent enough to wait out a terrible natural disaster, but at that point they aren't "preppers" so much as people who listen to what FEMA and NOAA and other disaster-focused government agencies recommend for their regions.
Many places around the world will have gone through five or six vastly different governments seated in very different locations over the last century or two and during the transition 1) most of the people stayed 2) most of the people had no part in whatever new group held power and 3) there usually wasn't mass slaughter of the people living there during the transition.
You overestimate the importance of government and underestimate how it very much can just go away... and how distant it can be even when it exists, particularly historically. And how the local warlord equivalent isn't going around to everybody's house and murdering them.
And yeah in those times having food and a means of defense and whatever else is useful as often times very very many people had no option but to stay wherever they were. Famine and revolution are much more common and more mundane than you expect.
The groups and communities that weathered the collapse of the Roman Empire the best were those with some degree of self-sufficiency and military protection.
Prepper has become an umbrella term that is applied to a huge variety of people and mostly as a pejorative based on the sensationalization in media.
Many people that would be dismissed as preppers are perfectly normal people who approach the problem rationally. They take a layered approach which involves preparing for a range of timespans and events from the most basic like an extended power outage of 1 to 2 days or an unusually heavy snowstorm or minor flooding that may temporarily make roads impassible. Then escalating to natural disasters with week or monthlong power outage, gas and food shortages and damage to infrastructure. Personal disasters such as a housefire, flood or even financial difficulty from loss of job or health crisis. Then larger natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and forest fires. Only after those are sufficiently covered would they consider more speculative events such as extended nationwide financial crisis, large regional disasters like a volcanic eruption, extreme earthquake, tsunami, major civil disruption, war, economic collapse, government coup, pandemic, etc.
What they do to prepare would include basic individual preparedness like having a generator and electrical hookup to power their home, extra water and food, essential everyday medications, alternate heat source, emergency radio, enough gasoline on hand for both the generator and vehicles and equipment like a chainsaw for clearing downed trees. Also vehicle packages or "go bags" with what you would need should you have to leave your house immediately during an evacuation or fire, if these are kept in the vehicle then they also help should you become stranded in your vehicle during a snowstorm or breakdown. They also prepare in their community often by simply having good relations with their neighbors and helping them when they're in need but may also volunteer with local emergency services or be involved in charitable groups or with likeminded people.
A lot of this has a long history in rural communities that required some level of self-sufficiency due to a lack of services, more precarious roads/powerlines and being low priority for aid during disasters.
FEMA's recommendations only address short term problems and evacuation. They're not sufficient for disruptions lasting longer than a week and the difficulties that people face in more rural areas during disasters.
I've personally been through events that have cut off grid power and transportation for my area for a few days as well as large widespread power outages lasting more than a week. When that happens you find out very quickly how important it is to prepare ahead of time.
Disasters are rare but not rare enough that you can be certain you'll never experience one first hand. "Collapse" events are very low probability, low enough that most people in the world won't likely experience one in their lifetimes but they do happen, you can probably name several countries that have recently been through such events due to war and many more that have been through them in the last 100 years. Many of us are lucky to live in very stable nations so you don't need to make those scenarios your number one priority but it's at least worth the effort to consider what you should do now to help yourself and your community to continue to thrive over the long term.
>A lot of this has a long history in rural communities that required some level of self-sufficiency due to a lack of services, more precarious roads/powerlines and being low priority for aid during disasters.
My grandmother and particularly great grandmothers prepared for winter... because it's a cold climate and grocery stores with the varieties they have are pretty new. So shelves in the basement full of canned goods they canned themselves, I remember making soap with my grandmother when I was a child... things like that.
For everyone it's this huge unreasonable hobby for me it's like well this is a bit of a return to a practice that was dying because of modern conveniences... but having a gun, a supply of water, a generator, and a full pantry in the rural midwest isn't exactly a radical concept.
Reflecting on my professional journey through high-stakes environments.
I’ve taken a deep dive into my career trajectory and realized it’s time for a pivot. I’ve been so focused on disruptive innovation and high-velocity execution that even my mentors are questioning my work-life balance.
But I’ve never disrupted a market that didn't need a shake-up. Being treated like a junior associate? Unheard of in my network. You need to be mindful of your personal branding and strategic positioning, or you and your stakeholders might face a total budget freeze.
I’m not one to pivot without a plan, but I have to stay agile. As competitors sunset their products, I see my own vision reflected in the market disruption. I’m the kind of Thought Leader the new hires aspire to be—working late, optimizing workflows under the office lights.
Spending most of our careers
Living in a high-growth startup paradise.
Spending most of our careers
Living in a high-growth startup paradise.
Keep spending most of our careers
Living in a high-growth startup paradise.
Keep spending most of our careers
Living in a high-growth startup paradise.
Look at the KPIs they’ve got me chasing.
I can’t have a 9-to-5; I was forged in the hustle culture.
So I have to be fully aligned with the core team.
Too much time spent on passive content consumption has me chasing moonshot goals.
I’m a highly-educated professional with a ROI-focused mindset.
Got my pitch deck ready and a vision for the future.
I’m a dedicated disruptor, focused on market penetration.
And my team is fully onboard, so let’s keep the synergy positive.
Success is just one breakthrough away.
I’m living a "fail fast, learn faster" lifestyle—it’s the industry standard.
I’ve hit my Q3 targets, but will I reach the Q4 milestones?
With the current market volatility, it’s hard to forecast.
Tell me, why are we so siloed that we fail to see
That the stakeholders we impact are you and me?
Here's the Ten Commandments translated into "Dr. Seuss"
I am the Lord, your God, it’s true!
No other gods will do for you.
Don't use My name in ways that are bad,
That makes the Lord quite wishy-sad.
Keep My day holy, a day for some rest,
Of all of the days, it’s simply the best!
Love your father and mother, too,
In everything that you say and you do.
Don't hurt a person, don't kill or don't strike,
That isn't the sort of thing anyone would like!
Be true to your spouse, don't wander away,
Keep your heart faithful every single day.
Don't take what's not yours, not a pin or a shoe,
Stealing is something that you shouldn't do!
Don't tell any lies or say things not true,
About all the neighbors who live near to you.
Don't want your neighbor's wife for your own,
Leave her with him, and leave them alone!
Don't wish for his stuff, his house or his toys,
Be happy with yours, you girls and you boys!
... and into Maoist Standard English:
I am the People's servant, the vanguard of the masses. You shall serve no reactionary idols before the collective will.
You shall not exploit the name of the Revolution for personal gain or vanity.
Remember to uphold the discipline of the struggle and the collective labor of the masses.
Honor the revolutionary elders and the proletarian family.
You shall not murder your class brothers, but wage relentless struggle against the enemies of the people.
You shall not engage in decadent bourgeois morality or betray the revolutionary partnership.
You shall not expropriate the collective property of the people.
You shall not spread counter-revolutionary rumors or bear false witness against your comrades.
You shall not harbor individualist desires for the companions of your comrades.
You shall not covet the resources of the collective or seek private accumulation.
... and into Donald Trump:
I am the Lord your God, and let me tell you, nobody does it better. You’re not going to have any other gods, believe me, just Me.
Don’t use the name of the Lord your God in vain. It’s disrespectful, it’s a disaster, don’t do it.
Remember the Lord’s day. Keep it holy. We love the Lord’s day, don’t we? It’s very special.
Honor your father and your mother. Great people, very important. You have to show respect.
Thou shall not kill. We want law and order, we want safety. No killing.
No adultery. You’ve got to stay loyal, you’ve got to be smart.
Thou shall not steal. We don’t like thieves. We’re going to stop the stealing, it’s terrible.
Don’t bear false witness against your neighbor. No lying, no fake news. We want the truth.
Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife. Not good. Stay focused on your own life.
And don’t covet your neighbor’s goods. Their house, their boat—don’t worry about it. We’re going to have our own things, and they’re going to be much bigger and better.
You can't. Console makers have these locked-down little systems with all the security they can economically justify... embedded in an arbitrarily-hostile environment created by people who have no need to economically justify anything. It's completely asymmetrical and the individual hackers hold most of the cards. There's no "this exploit is too bizarre" for people whose hobby is breaking consoles, and if even one of those bizarre exploits wins it's game over.
And if you predict the next dozen bizarre things someone might try, you both miss the thirteenth thing that's going to work and you make a console so over-engineered Sony can kick your ass just by mentioning the purchase price of their next console. ("$299", the number that echoed across E3.)
While we're wishing, let's bring back serifs. I, for one, would like to be able to tell the difference between AI and Al without context clues, and using an inherently lossy font is the opposite of "readability".
When I saw yet another crooked google font I configured my browser to display all text in Verdana ignoring fonts chosen by page styles. It's much easier to read when everything is in one font to rule them all.
More to the point, if they required 2FA every time you tried to modify the JS, nobody would do it because it would be too annoying. "Username, password... oh, the 2FA just timed out, gotta wait for the next one... what, that doesn't work? Does it want the old one? Oh... now it wants the next one... just a second... "
> And plenty of places have been at war and had much of civilization's usefulness diminished from days to decades. Not to mention straightforward natural disasters.
The only one of those things someone survived by being an individual prepper is the natural disaster, because in the other cases the government didn't just go away, it was replaced by other groups who could kill any given individual and take their stuff. The only way to survive is to leave and become a refugee or to band together in an even bigger group that can kill all individuals and smaller groups and take all their stuff. This is how you get the Carolingian Empire, Los Zetas, MS-13, the Soviet Union, and the Khmer Rouge.
Individual preppers are living in a fantasy land to the extent they think they can wait out political collapse. They might well be competent enough to wait out a terrible natural disaster, but at that point they aren't "preppers" so much as people who listen to what FEMA and NOAA and other disaster-focused government agencies recommend for their regions.
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