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Comment by joering2 | Hacker News Reader

Just recently I spoke to my friends that literally are living in LaLa land. They are making fun of me prepping and saving dry food, water, stacking up on legal guns and munition. I took upon challenge last xmas to meetup with them and they brought my prepardness as one of laughing subjects. It really saddens me when they believe that when gloves of society are off, we all gonna be happy singing kumbaya and respecting rules that has been put in greatest part by bodies of virtual government. They laugh when I tell them the history proved the nicest kind of people turn into murders and cannibals when its their turn to die of starving.. or eat someone and survive. This example of maddnes on Hawain streets proves me I am right in my theory :(

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Thinking prepping is silly is not synonymous with believing "when gloves of society are off, we all gonna be happy singing kumbaya and respecting rules."

I think prepping is ridiculous, but it's precisely because I know the nature of humanity. (Among a bunch of other reasons.)

It's also ridiculous to think this particular incident has anything to do with, well, anything...

>I think prepping is ridiculous, but it's precisely because I know the nature of humanity. (Among a bunch of other reasons.)

Could you share this insight? The US gov't recommends that you do some amount of emergency preparedness ("prepping"): https://www.ready.gov/build-a-kit

Having 72 hours of shelter/water/food, a first aid kit, and some other bits and pieces is not how prepping is colloquially used.

Given a disaster with a 1% yearly chance, and a lifespan of 80 years, lifetime odds of encountering that disaster are close to 50%. Given a disaster with a 0% or a 0.000001% chance, lifetime odds are still pretty close to zero. Disaster preparedness worries about the 1%, prepping worries about what many people including me would consider the 0.000001%, which is why having a pack of water bottles and a first aid kit in a cupboard seems like common sense, but prepping for the fall of civilisation seems ridiculous.

You really think the probability of such a disaster is 0.000001% per year? The cold war wasn't that long ago and came very close to the brink a number of times. If we were just lucky, and there is an expected rate of 1 nuclear war every 73 years, that already gets us over your 1% threshold. And nuclear war is far from the only risk. Nuclear weapons are already 70 year old tech, we are always progressing towards scarier technologies. I think your estimate is off by a factor of a million.

After the Spanish flu, multiple near-missed accidental nuclear launches as well as political crises during the Cold War, September 11, SARS scare, Ebola scare, weather events like Katrina or the Ottawa ice storm, as well as your bog-standard surprise wars from history, it seems obvious to me that the chance of a mass-destruction event requiring over 3 days of supplies far exceeds 0.000001% chance per year.

I agree that the odds of "society" dissolving are very small. However, the penalty for encountering a blizzard without preparation -- maybe not having enough food to eat full meals for, say, a week -- is FAR lower than then penalty for encountering armageddon without preparation. I'm not saying you're wrong, but if the fall of civilization is 1,000 times less likely, and the consequences are 1,000 times worse, the calculus gets a little more complex.

"Prepping" (colloquial) and "being prepared for a (common/realistic/reasonable) emergency" are two very, very different things.

One is entirely realistic and logical and one in crazy pants.

Yes, one should be reasonable, but that's not how "prepping" is use colloquially, and words have meaning.

Right! I think extreme prepping (the mild sort where you just prepare for a normal disaster is merely prudent) is dumb precisely because I know that people won’t be all friendly and nice after a collapse. Your stash just makes you a target for the meanest guys still around.

Perhaps they don't think the gloves of society will come off - that is, that no catastrophic event will occur which will affect their life/area, so that life will continue as normal for the foreseeable future. In that case, no preparations would be necessary.

if you want to come up on top after civilizational collapse you'd better join a gang or have a cabin in an extremely remote and secluded location, otherwise sorry but your stash will be seized by aforementioned gangs regardless of your prepping and shooting skills

"What you need to understand about the apocalypse is that you aren't Mad Max. You're part of the skull pyramid in the background."

(I can't seem to find the original source--some internet forum.)

Why would I join a gang?? I have enough brothers in arms to create my own.

gangs have an hierarchy, experience with violence and disregard of ethics. if you and your "brothers in arms" are veterans you have pretty good odds otherwise not so much.

It's actually an interesting point. How many of these preppers have received military training, and when shit hits the fan, do they have plans to organize, communicate with each other, and defend themselves?

Here in Idaho at least, a lot & yes. No scary militia type stuff, just folks getting together and sharing knowledge. Still a lot of wild wide open spaces in this country. If you're into winter sports come visit McCall, beautiful mountain lake town, excellent restaurants, and always fresh powder to shred on Brundage Mtn. Just as great to visit in the Summer, way more crowded but it's a good size lake, plenty of room for everybody

I think you missed the whole point of this threat, that there are no ethics when there is no policing or government oversight.

Are you saying the only reason you're not already looting others' homes is because the government tells you not to?

If so, you're the problem, not everybody else.

No. But I am saying without government policing ENOUGH people go for looting other homes and eventually turn to their animal instincts. And my whole thread was about how majority of population chose not to believe that. They believe that nice neighbor living next door will rather starve to death or eat its own feet, rather than turn into cannibal and butcher someone else.

Why do you think your preparation will be enough? If things do go that bad then it'll be very few people that will survive because of just how much of our mechanised infrastructure is needed to feed us.

Now your friends know where to go to steal ammo and other supplies when the revolution comes.

This sounds sarcastic but I don't mean it that way. True prepping is leaving (and maintaining!!) caches for adequate time in various locations (you don't know where you'll be when things go sideways, nor what routes will be available).

How long are you preparing for? Days? Months? Years?

> mercilessly fires handgun into a nuclear mushroom

The fact that they are laughing at you does not mean that you are not actually living in lala land. The whole 'prepper/suvivalism' movement took a big hit after Sandy Hook. To date survivalists have caused more deaths than their preparations have saved.

“LaLa Land” = Los Angeles

Source, please? I was unaware of this sentiment.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mother-of-s...

What a source!

If you reason that survivalists have caused some many death because Lanza was survivalist, then lets continue with your thought process:

- Lanza was white - hence to date white people have caused more deaths than their preparations have saved. - Lanza was male - hence to date men have caused more deaths than their preparations have saved. - Lanza was a minor - hence to date minors have caused more deaths than their preparations have saved.

Did I miss something?

Yes, you've missed something.

If the lady had not been a prepper then she would not have brought a whole bunch of guns into a house with a kid that was clearly having problems. And instead of preparing for the problems that she never had she might have spent more time on the problems that she - and he - clearly did have.

Being white, male or a minor has nothing to do with it.

So to clarify, does this describe the gist of your original sentiment? "She was a prepper. She prepped for nuclear war. Her son had problems. She did not prep her son for day-to-day life problems, and her son used her weapons to kill people. Therefore, being a prepper has killed people."

Honestly trying to understand your POV.

What maddnes?

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