Doomsday Prepping: Reactionary Behavior or Inherited Instinct?

can anyone who lived through the past four years seriously doubt that possessing an independent capacity to withstand disruption is beneficial?

is anyone predicting the systems that most people rely on are going to become more resilient?

People who have struggled to get needed items in the past, or who have lived in poverty and learned how to use whatever is available to fit their needs, may have more of a hoarding propensity. The mindset of seeing an otherwise garbage-bound object, and finding potential utility for its remains means you are less likely to dispose of garbage. In a truly scarce world, you survive with little, but in the current world of abundance you quickly run out of space and then memory of all the stockpiled stuff that could be useful when you really have a use for it.

Ironically, Software Developers do Doomsday Prepping _literally all the time_: Imaginary (aka 'Pretend') Problems are much "fun" to solve.

self preservation is at the root of prepping and is an inherited instinct. However, these days, prepping has been integrated into the social media sales process to the point it has more in common with fashion than instinct or reactionary behavior IMO. I can't think of a single source i would trust for information regarding preparing for large scale disasters, it's all ads.

It almost never snows where I live. It's pretty remote, 4 roads in, 4 roads out of town. Hundreds of miles to a big city.

Anyway, like 6 or 7 years ago there was a freakish huge snowstorm. Dumped feet of snow. Collapsed some roofs in town (including an auto dealership which was a sight). The county doesn't keep snow plowing equipment (and who could justify the expense given how much it snows here?).

Anyway, it shut down the roads for days. No way to leave. The stores were nearly empty. It was pretty wild and eye opening.

This is only one of many things that can happen. Fires, floods, other "acts of God" to say nothing of potential acts of other humans. A lot of things can happen and suddenly everything you depend on no longer works. It can happen, and it can happen where you live too.

Eventually the government may be able to fix things, but they aren't magic either, even when they are competent and motivated to actually help. I helped clean up from a major hurricane once, the military took over. Everything. Distributing water, cleaning up the streets, directing traffic. And it seemed they did reasonably well but it takes a bit to set all that up and assumes the tragedy is local enough help will be able to organize and come in from outside.

Now, I'm not suggesting going full survivor. Surviving years of nuke fallout and zombie apocalypse probably isn't reasonable for most people.

But in my opinion if you aren't prepping to stay alive (food, water, heat, personal protection and a way to get communications with no power) for a week or two, and maybe up to a month or two in case of emergency you are being short sighted and taking unnecessary risk.

Anyone who dismisses disaster preparedness as something only requiring "focus on community" sorely needs a read of HN's Zalewski/lcamtuf's Practical Doomsday book[0]. It is ironic that should some type of Hurricane Katrina situation befall their neighborhood, they'll be the first in line begging their "doomer prepper" neighbors for their 50gal drum of water and bowl of rice after the first few days.

It's also bewildering that software engineers who spend their 9-5 trying to imagine and calculate likelihood of the possible faults and risk in their computer systems fail to extrapolate that to any real world problems, but I guess the human experience of "never happened to me yet, not a problem" is stronger.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1718502125/

If its doomsday scenario, you are dying either way faster or just a tad slower

> While preparing for potential disasters is warranted, it is still best to make sure it does not become an all-encompassing preoccupation.

The article sort of fell apart for me when I realized that only at the end were they making a distinction between prepping and hoarding. Now, I'm not sure whether they've been talking about "the management of stockpiled household items in anticipation of market disruption" or "being insane" the whole time. Which makes sense, because the question of whether keeping additional resources on hand in case you can't get them is reactionary or instinctual is a false dichotomy: you can easily reach the same conclusion in a lot of others ways. For example, by looking at history, or by looking at current events, or from sitting and thinking about what the smartest thing to do with spare resources might be, or by following the emergency preparedness guide provided by the government agency of your choice, just for starters.