Everyone's a prepper. It's just a question of what they prepare for, and over what period of time.
For example, today Sydney and I went to the store and stocked up on our groceries for the week. We also went to Costco and bought a bunch of larger items that will last for the next month and a half or so.
So, we've prepped for the next week of normal eating, and an additional month of basics. But that's about it. We've prepared our house for living assuming services like water, gas, electricity, and internet all keep flowing. We don't have any substantial backup systems if any one of those services stop. We haven't prepared in that domain.
What to prepare for is probably the biggest question. Each one of the many systems we depend[1] on has a probability of slowing or encountering issues, as well as completely failing[2]. What are those probabilities? How much do we want to prepare for the chance that something does happen? It's a question every family must ask, but most don't and assume all will continue as it has. Places like cities even more so; the number of systems that everyone depends on is even greater and more precarious should an interruption occur.
I wonder if there's a good way of estimating the probabilities the systems that support us will encounter issues or fail? Seems like an important exercise to run.
Last updated Sun Jul 17 2022 in Berkeley, CA
1: /thought/interdependence.gmi
2: /thought/a-societal-precipice.gmi