I don’t consider myself a prepper, but I do prepare for unlikely scenarios with highly negative outcomes. In terms of expected value vs. investment, I think having a “go” or “get home” bag is cheap and useful. I have two weeks of food and water supplies to shelter in place. I have face masks and hazmat suits (they came vacuum sealed so they just sit in the bottom of the shelter in place Tupperware bin). A solar generator and battery. A few medkits and some basic medicines including prescription antibiotics. And then my camping/hiking stuff: so more mres, water purification, water filter, fire kit etc.
All in all, it didn’t cost much, it doesn’t take up much room, and it’s good to have. I’m not necessarily worried about a revolution so much as, in order if likelihood: a bad storm, electrical grid issues, natural disaster, or mild civil unrest. All of which I’ve been through before, so I guess they’re not exactly black swan events. I wouldn’t really call those “SHTF” events, since, again, I’ve experienced each one and yet things are now fine.
What I consider “preppers” are thinking about (and seemingly hoping for) civilizational collapse.
Yeah, I feel much the same. Shit happens sometimes and it’s good to be prepared. That goes for situations where civilization is collapsing and also in day to day life too. “Preppers” are so hyper fixated on one particular hyper-individual fantasy outcome. The merits of, say, integrating into a mutual aid network are completely missed.
It’s always so much more useful to have AND KNOW WHERE every one-off necessity you might need is. A flashlight and spare batteries. First aid supplies. Spare medication. Superglue. A good utility knife. Emergency bedding. Enough shelf stable food for a few days. Some card games to pass the time. A few creature comforts that are easy to keep on hand. An appropriate weapon you practice with regularly. Some space an unhoused friend could crash for a week.
You get whatever you can together and organized and then you SHARE IT, because these things will all solve day to day problems for people in your life who maybe don’t have them on hand. And then you pay attention to other needs that come up and make small additions so you’re prepared for the needs of people you care about. And then boom there you go you’ve done actual fucking preparation! And get to sleep a little easier knowing you’re ready for a lot more that life could throw at you.
Margaret Killjoy has a great podcast on effective preparation that comes from a very practical community readiness perspective. Definitely worth a listen. Live Like The World Is Dying
An appropriate weapon you practice with regularly.
You know someone’s American when…
Yeah I fill up some whisky bottles with tap water and keep them in the cupboard. I guess in an insane scenario I might need to use it as drinking water, though I’d probably want to figure out how to boil that water first since it’s been sitting there for awhile.
I have actually used that water… but just to wash my hands when they turn off the water in the building when they’re doing some maintenance.
Sometimes some disaster preparedness is just useful for relatively banal circumstances.
Make sure the antibiotics don’t expire. Most of them just become useless when they expire, but Tetracycline becomes poisonous when it expires. Also, not all antibiotics are good for all infections, so make sure the ones you have are useful for the kinds of infections you anticipate.
Good to know about tetracycline, but drugs don’t magically become useless after an arbitrary expiry date.
Most prescription medicines are still quite effective after the expiration date. Various studies have shown they’re still effective even decades after the expiration date.
As someone who works in medicine, I would just caution you to take that with a grain of salt, especially since they repeatedly mention the storage of said medications. Not all pill bottles are airtight, and if you keep them somewhere that isn’t always less than 75 degrees Fahrenheit or so, I wouldn’t trust them more than a year past the expiration date. Note also, when they say “cool, dark place” that is not accounting for freezing temperatures which can also mess with the medications.
All this to say: if you have emergency medications, cycle them out with new ones as often as possible, and store them in airtight containers in a climate controlled area of your house.