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by stinkytaco 1570 days ago
This assumes a rapid, catastrophic collapse, which seems unlikely. Possible, but unlikely. More likely are localized disasters and gradual, sometimes imperceptible decline. These things have trickle-down impacts (migration, food shortages, etc) but are generally unlikely to trigger full on survival scenarios for most people. This isn't to say our industrialized food chain isn't problematic, it certainly is, but a gun is less likely to aid most people in day to day survival.
1 comments
DaiPlusPlus 1570 days ago
> This assumes a rapid, catastrophic collapse, which seems unlikely.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently set the Doomsday clock to 100s to midnight.

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stinkytaco 1570 days ago
OK? But I'm not sure of your point. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists doesn't know much more than the rest of us do about this. Anyone can tell you there's lots of nuclear weapons and that using them would lead to a massive social collapse. But a nuke hasn't been deployed in anger for nearly 80 years. In that time there's been countless natural disasters, pandemics, conflicts and social upheavals. I know what I'm planning for.
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selfhoster11 1570 days ago
We also haven't had a proper pandemic for a century, and then we had one. Nukes aren't something you can do much about, but excluding then entirely from one's disaster planning feels like a mistake.
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stinkytaco 1570 days ago
> We also haven't had a proper pandemic for a century, and then we had one.

I disagree. COVID-19 has certainly been the widest scales pandemic, but in addition to high profile localized pandemics (Ebola and Zika), we've had several smaller serious outbreaks (H1N1 killed between 200,000 and 500,000 people worldwide, and also overwhelmingly impacted younger people).

> Nukes aren't something you can do much about, but excluding then entirely from one's disaster planning feels like a mistake.

Nor would I suggest you should exclude it. But as the parent comment stated, the real problem in such as situation is social (restarting industrial systems), which isn't really something I can prepare for.

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