Survival

[chenda]

I think with natural hazards it's possible to take a more objective risk/reward analysis. Hence I wouldn't necessarily discourage moving to Iberia or Italy if you know the risks and long term climate projections. Political risks are harder to assess, or maybe just more prone to personal biases.

There was a very wealthy Austrian Jewish family who woke up one morning to hear the Anschluss had started. Utterly unprepared and hitherto in denial about the risks, they ordered their servants to load up there fleet of cars with all their artwork and valuables and headed straight to the swiss border. They got out in the nick of time.

All for nothing by Walter Kempowski is a great semi-autobiographical read about a wealthy family in eastern Germany during ww2. In similar denial about the situation, they seal themselves away in their remote estate as the red army inch ever closer.

[zbigi]

I consider it highly likely that those expats are more likely to be foreign students and professionals who had an opportunity to move work or study abroad and simply decided not to come back.

In my experience, the professionals were a minority of Ukrainians living abroad, at least in Poland. Before 2022 there was up to a million Ukrainians living in Poland, mostly doing unattractive jobs (construction and similar for men, cleaning and caretaking for women). That number has swollen to 3 million within weeks of start of the war, showing that it was very viable to escape even after shit hit the fan, provided you were not a military age man (and even then it was doable, you just needed around $10k for a bribe).

[RogueCipher]

While there are some disasters where salvation comes in the form of stockpiles and hunkering down, most disasters are averted when people simply move away from them.

Moving away requires
1) situational awareness to determine when moving is necessary
2) a willingness to move
3) the ability / means to move and
4) somewhere to go

For many, a stockpile of preps and possessions provides the exact opposite motivation. The motivation to stay. People want to protect their property. They make poor decisions to avert loss. Their stuff makes them feel insulated from danger. In short, the things they own, rather than help the survive, cause their undoing.

Sadly, many in Spain died trying to save their cars parked in underground parking garages. Others stayed with their cars on the motorway as the floodwaters rose around them.

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I find survival stories fascinating. We Were the Lucky Ones tells the survival stories of a Jewish family from Radom, Poland, a city with a pre-war population of more than 30,000 Jews. After the holocaust, three-hundred remained. In all, twenty members of the family survived in various ways. The book and miniseries tells the stories of eight. Recommended.

It's the same with planes. When a fire starts, no one rushes for the exits; they just want to grab their luggage first.

[RogueCipher]

I think with natural hazards it's possible to take a more objective risk/reward analysis. Hence I wouldn't necessarily discourage moving to Iberia or Italy if you know the risks and long term climate projections. Political risks are harder to assess, or maybe just more prone to personal biases.

There was a very wealthy Austrian Jewish family who woke up one morning to hear the Anschluss had started. Utterly unprepared and hitherto in denial about the risks, they ordered their servants to load up there fleet of cars with all their artwork and valuables and headed straight to the swiss border. They got out in the nick of time.

All for nothing by Walter Kempowski is a great semi-autobiographical read about a wealthy family in eastern Germany during ww2. In similar denial about the situation, they seal themselves away in their remote estate as the red army inch ever closer.

Is there a book about that Austrian Jewish family as well?

[chenda]

It's the same with planes. When a fire starts, no one rushes for the exits; they just want to grab their luggage first.

Often they can't even unbuckle their seatbelts as they are so used to pressing a button in their car seatbelts they forget they need to lift the flap. In high stress situations we revert to learned behaviour., which is unlikely to be optimised for dealing with crisis.

I don't know if there's a book about the family. It was mentioned in a BBC documentary series about Vienna, which was very good.

I believe a key reason the Jews often went into the jewellery business was because it was an easier way of leaving a country with your wealth in your pocket. Property was often confiscated or has to be left behind during a pogrom (although there's no etymological connection between the words Jew and Jewellery, as is often assumed)

[RogueCipher]

Often they can't even unbuckle their seatbelts as they are so used to pressing a button in their car seatbelts they forget they need to lift the flap. In high stress situations we revert to learned behaviour., which is unlikely to be optimised for dealing with crisis.

I don't know if there's a book about the family. It was mentioned in a BBC documentary series about Vienna, which was very good.

I believe a key reason the Jews often went into the jewellery business was because it was an easier way of leaving a country with your wealth in your pocket. Property was often confiscated or has to be left behind during a pogrom (although there's no etymological connection between the words Jew and Jewellery, as is often assumed)

I find that aspect of jewellery fascinating. Perhaps it’s connected to the gold standard, long-term thinking, and understanding true value. The Jewish philosophy and way of life in the face of adversity is also something to learn from.

[Ego]

Eventually you will find millions of people living elsewhere who used to live in a place that was wiped from the map. However, that's essentially "affirming the consequent" saying that they're now elsewhere, therefore they saw it coming. I doubt that.

In situations involving human-induced change, the change usually does not happen overnight. It is not necessary to predict the future blindly. There is no need to envision something before there are signs. When change is actually happening right before your eyes, you can see it, then anticipate where it might lead. Then you can act.

Surely you understand this dynamic. Climate change has been slow to unfold, allowing people plenty of time to adapt. While wars and other human-induced chaos is not quite as slow as climate change, it is not instantaneous. People have time to change course.

Allow me to tell the story of my Ukrainian relative, a young woman who watched her older brother fight and get arrested during the 2014 Maidan Uprising in Kiev. She saw the writing on the wall and looked for a way out. Back then, her options were very limited. She got one of the few visas available to her. She applied to teach at a daycare in China. While there, she met and eventually married one of her fellow expat teachers.

When we were in Ukraine in 2019, she happened to be there trying to renew her Chinese visa. Little did she know, the Chinese were no longer interested in expat teachers, and her visa was denied. Her husband was going through the same process in his country, and they were trapped without a common place where they could live together.

Then came the invasion. Doors opened everywhere, and she hit the ground running. She was able to emigrate to his country, where they now live happily with their child. If things get worse in Western Ukraine, she can sponsor her parents and her brother's family to emigrate.

This is not a unique story. Six million Ukrainian refugees are registered in EU countries alone. Many more Afghans, Syrians and various Africans are here as well. They were not lucky. They did a cost/benefit analysis and concluded that they were better off leaving. We can argue about how their influx affects the host countries, but it is obvious that most of those people are better off here than they would be if they had stayed in their home countries.

[jacob]

@Ego - I dislike nitpicking a single example and I'm not sure we disagree as much as we use different lenses or explanations. Using my lens, the incongruent parts is the claim of "seeing on the writing on the wall" and leaving a conflict zone in 2014 + but then being back in the conflict zone in 2019 and even inviting people (you guys) to visit said conflict zone + then leaving again when new visas opened up + but still leaving the entire rest of the family behind.

To me this does not suggest "fleeing to survive" as much as a cost/benefit analysis of someone who would rather live in another country and took the chances offered to them when available. In short, I see that more as an economic/lifestyle decision than a "you have 48 hours to leave"-type of survival situation.

I still see this as being closer to what I would call the "visa"-lifestyle or the guest-worker lifestyle. My sister also did the "speaking English to young children in China"-thing as well as a bunch of other underpaid "stipend+room+board" volunteering in various countries for 6-12 months at a time throughout her twenties. It was an inexpensive way to experience the world. I myself lived that lifestyle as a grad student and later as a postdoc (for 3-4 years at a time---higher education = longer visas).

The lack of stability from always having to "look one country ahead" is both a feature and a bug. The feature is that the eventual move is pretty much forced by when the visa expires and it may happen sooner as one must constantly be looking for the next position. This also means that unstable/unattractive countries can be deselected in favor of more attractive/stable countries. Basically, the globally mobile workforce "flows" to where it's treated the best. The bug is basically having to live out of a suitcase and spend a material amount of stress dealing with permits and worrying about not finding the next place in time.

It also means closing off any opportunities that don't fit in a suitcase. This is why "nomads" are usually "digital nomads" and not "carpenter nomads". To comment on the whole Jewish jeweler thing... being a jeweler is not so much a way of fleeing with your wealth. Jewelers are not necessarily wealthy because they work on expensive things. It's that the associated tools fit in a small box weighing perhaps 5 pounds whereas a useful set of carpentry hand tools is easily 50-100 pounds. Effectively, this means that to join the "global guest worker force", one either has to take a job that the locals don't want (low skilled and underpaid labor) or that the locals can't do (highly skilled labor). Everything else is off the table.

Likewise, it is hard to bring along family (that's another opportunity closed), so what usually happens is that one person leaves and then sends money back to support the rest of the family. Bringing the rest of the family requires jumping off the mobility train and somehow setting roots and establishing a more permanent presence which ironically defies the original strategy of being able to leave in short order.

Worse, living out of a suitcase makes it pretty tricky to "leave the area" if given a 48 hour evacuation notice because a hurricane is approaching. You have no car and public transportation is sold out/unavailable. Also the suitcase certainly doesn't contain 3 weeks of food and water, nor does it have the various heavy tools to get through a collapsed wall or improvise emergency sanitation. So ...

So yeah, being globally mobile kinda-sorta works as a lifestyle. This lifestyle in turn allows one to escape bad environments more easily while at the same time making it harder to escape bad situations. It does however also close the doors to many lifestyles or situations that people find desirable from a cost/benefit analysis.

[ffj]

Survival is about threat assessment and prevention. Now we can't plan for freak events such as a meteor hitting your home but if you live next to a river then there is a possibility that your house may float away in the right conditions for example.

So assess and plan for the 99% of problems that are possible if not improbable. Hurricanes, wildfires, floods, tornados, civil unrest, wars, drug-addled neighbors, lack of utilities such as electricity or potable water, etc, etc. You don't have to be paranoid, just aware and prepared. Think about what a good Boy Scout would do to have prevented an emergency.

Fortify your home but have the ability to move quickly if needed, preferably well before it is critical. Develop relationships with your neighbors although this may require you to put your books down and actually talk to someone. The first time they get to meet you shouldn't be in an emergency. Stay current on local and world events. Tune into gossip as this is a goldmine as to what is really happening on the ground, although a lot of it is bullshit but filtering nonsense is a skill-set in an emergency. The ability to read people is a real asset.

You can get as deep into the weeds as you would like in this subject. I once worked with a guy that carried an inflatable raft in his truck in case a bridge went out. That's dedication, haha.

Also, think about what the masses would do in a predicament. The unprepared. And try to keep yourself out of their company when times are rough.

[black_son_of_gray]

Two quick points to contribute:

1. In the rapidly warming world unfolding before our eyes, one of the biggest, most likely mass-casualty scenarios is a wet-bulb event. Unlike e.g. a tornado, millions of people could potentially be killed in one of those. I just bring it up because it hasn't been listed yet among this thread's catalogue of horrors. And because...

2. ...the worst survival scenarios do not usually result from only one disaster. For example, a heat wave is bad. A power grid failure is bad. The combination of the two multiplies the effect. Bad * Bad = Catastrophe. Perhaps the Texans on the forum want to recount their recent experiences with (bad weather) * (grid down)? The overall point here is this: being adequately prepared for individual disasters does not mean you are adequately prepared for their combination. Sometimes the combinations are linked causally, sometimes they are not.

[chenda]

When I was at primary school in the late 1980s there were a number of South African children from families who had left the country, fearing the collapse of apartheid. Their parents would have emigrated to SA most likely in the 1950s as children. As it turned out the end of apartheid was a mostly peaceful affair, but instead the country has entered a long period of gradual but steep decline, to the point the utility grids are now failing and violence is endemic. Those with the means are increasingly fleeing the country to avoid the likely collapse, and many more have moved to safe-ish enclaves like Cape Town. Yet, conversely, 100 000s of immigrants are fleeing into South Africa (legally and otherwise) because, as bad it is, much of southern Africa is even worse. SA has Africa's largest economy with plenty of employment opportunities.

[Ego]

@Ego - I dislike nitpicking a single example and I'm not sure we disagree as much as we use different lenses or explanations. Using my lens, the incongruent parts is the claim of "seeing on the writing on the wall" and leaving a conflict zone in 2014 + but then being back in the conflict zone in 2019 and even inviting people (you guys) to visit said conflict zone + then leaving again when new visas opened up + but still leaving the entire rest of the family behind.

@Jacob, I am not advocating that everyone follow your sister's lifestyle.

From a survival perspective, seeing the writing on the wall is often something that happens over months, years, or decades. WWII is a good example. As @Seppia frequently says, the human ability to adapt is our greatest strength. We are very good at it. Trouble is, our ability to adapt can blind us to the gradual but steady change that is happening all around us.

The question I believe my Ukrainian relative asked herself was whether her situation was improving or declining, and which way it was likely to go in the future. She was always on the lookout for ways to increase her options and knew that those opportunities were probably not going to suddenly appear in the small town in Western Ukraine where she lived. So she went out into the world to increase her chances for serendipity.

That doesn't mean she couldn't (or shouldn't) also buy carpentry tools, have kids, buy a home, or whatever else she wants to do. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive. They can be. Some doors lock behind you when you walk through them. But others do not. Indeed, she did get married, have a kid and buy a home.

While it is never possible to keep every option open, it is possible to keep one's eyes open to new options as they arise.

[7Wannabe5]

While it is never possible to keep every option open, it is possible to keep one's eyes open to new options as they arise.

Yup, and it's also possible to change one's eyes and see new options within that which seems stable or given, and thus the other great human capability of inventiveness. The hard limit might be that any sentient being requires some level and/or form of "ground" or "frame" around which abstraction, options, invention, and exploration can vary. To the extent that you don't choose your own "ground/frame" one will almost certainly be chosen for you. For example, many/most of the members of this forum are choosing a metric "frame" approximating "Maximize Production/Consumption" on the "ground" of the value(s) this metric represents for each of them. And "survival" could be one of these values, but it's unlikely to be the only one.

One of the reasons that youth is more inventive and adaptable than old age is that the sunk costs become increasingly heavy to the extent that the swim to the next island of "meaning" seems less possible. The fuzzy reality of waking and wondering, "Where am I?" often becomes more attached to "Who am I?" Grace Paley ,in one of her excellent short story collections, describes an older couple who decide to move into a senior facility at a much earlier age than usual, because they want to settle in and feel like it is their home before they really get old.

I think it may fairly frequently be the case that our need to "prep" is more psychological than practical or even strategic. I recently attended a performance by a 70 year old friend leading a band he had formed/re-formed of similar age musicians, playing some jazz pieces he had composed when he was 20 years old. Zero-percent possibility that the 20 year old version of him was considering the potential benefits for 70 year old him when he was creating/producing/composing those pieces. One of his pieces had been inspired by a French ballerina. If "survival" is your primary motivation within a context that is not inherently risky-in-the-moment then it seems like your own "future you" (or the "what next?") must be your primary "French Ballerina" and this projection can disappear as easily as when engaged in any other infatuation or quest. If "self-aware self-care" is the healthy boundary, to what extent does current care towards survival of future self aid or inhibit creativity or development in the moment? Maybe we simply vary in the extent to which we find inspiration for the art of life by staring into the dark abyss which might swallow French Ballerina whole. Dunno.

[jacob]

To summarize the situation/recommendations, there are essentially 4 strategies to OP's how to deal with a SHTF situation.

• Read the tea leaves and be gone long before TSHTF. More precisely, when the theater is on FIRE, be near the exit, don't hesitate, and beat the crowd for the exit. Always be moving or ready to move in a direction away from "theaters".
• Establish or join a community of sorts. This can be romantic partner(s), family, ride or die friends, and/or mutual support networks that can be formed both deliberately (before TSHTF) or spontaneously (after TSHTF). The presumption is that someone in the network will have the resources (supplies and skills) that you or others lack.
• Increase self-reliance. This means storing enough supplies and learning the relevant skills. I find that this integrates very well with ERE as it is also a way to live efficiently. (This is also why "prepping" is but a side-effect of ERE-WL7.) Contrast with conventional prepping wherein people buy a bunch of supplies only to store them in the basement and never use them, or focus on cool but rarely-used skills like making fire with a bow drill.
• Wait for the government to arrive. This is the default choice and by far the most popular. It's quick and easy to do nothing, but also not a very good strategy for when TSHTF. In prepper lingo, "zombies" or the "zombie apocalypse" is a dog whistle for this category. When preppers talk about the zombie apocalypse, it's not a joke but rather what to do when the unprepared get desperate.

[RogueCipher]

To summarize the situation/recommendations, there are essentially 4 strategies to OP's how to deal with a SHTF situation.

• Read the tea leaves and be gone long before TSHTF. More precisely, when the theater is on FIRE, be near the exit, don't hesitate, and beat the crowd for the exit. Always be moving or ready to move in a direction away from "theaters".
• Establish or join a community of sorts. This can be romantic partner(s), family, ride or die friends, and/or mutual support networks that can be formed both deliberately (before TSHTF) or spontaneously (after TSHTF). The presumption is that someone in the network will have the resources (supplies and skills) that you or others lack.
• Increase self-reliance. This means storing enough supplies and learning the relevant skills. I find that this integrates very well with ERE as it is also a way to live efficiently. (This is also why "prepping" is but a side-effect of ERE-WL7.) Contrast with conventional prepping wherein people buy a bunch of supplies only to store them in the basement and never use them, or focus on cool but rarely-used skills like making fire with a bow drill.
• Wait for the government to arrive. This is the default choice and by far the most popular. It's quick and easy to do nothing, but also not a very good strategy for when TSHTF. In prepper lingo, "zombies" or the "zombie apocalypse" is a dog whistle for this category. When preppers talk about the zombie apocalypse, it's not a joke but rather what to do when the unprepared get desperate.

Thanks for the summary! I'm very impressed by the fellow forum members here. There have been so many great book recommendations, TV series, and helpful tips exchanged—it's way better than Google!

[candide]

Perhaps the Texans on the forum want to recount their recent experiences with (bad weather) * (grid down)?

Who are some outed Texans on the forum?

[ThoreauGoing]

Love this, remarkable what is being discussed here from the original prompt.

I have two practical questions I'd like to pose:

• What are some best practices around water access and storage in an urban setting?
• What medical supplies would go the farthest in an urban setting? So, less of a setting a broken leg in a forest and more of having 3 months of prescription drugs available at any given time, etc.

This thread is reminding me of a recent suggestion for the book Where there is no doctor and a thread on DIY medicine and preparedness: viewtopic.php?p=294261#p294261

That thread made me think that knowledge and non digital reference materials are critical but they are greatly enhanced with the right tools and prepped resources.

[oldbeyond]

Interesting to note that many of the more preppy (hehe) ERE-ers (jacob, AxelHeyst et al) have a gold plated social networks populated by resource-rich, highly competent individuals dispersed in desirable locales across the globe.

Speaking of the strategies not being mutually exclusive.

[TrailMix]

@ThureauGoing and RogueCipher, you might be interested in the preparedness manual for the LDS church: https://www.ldsavow.com/ If you are unfamiliar with Mormons/LDS, they are a church that believes the apocalypse will come before Jesus returns to Earth. As such, prepping and preparedness is a part of their religious practice. I am not Mormon, but I found their manual comprehensive and fascinating.

[Western Red Cedar]

[*] What are some best practices around water access and storage in an urban setting?

I probably deviate from a lot of peppers and best practices when it comes to water storage and access in urban settings. I have a high quality water filter for backpacking that has the ability to purify water from a stagnant puddle (though doing that regularly shortens the life of the filter significantly). I typically use it in mountain streams and lakes. I don't worry about storing water in case of emergency, as I could filter hundreds of liters with something that fits neatly in a small bag in my closet. If something happened to the filter, I have iodine or would feel comfortable boiling water as backups.

My backpacking gear serves as my prepping gear. It just requires significantly less space.

I mention this because it serves as an example of where skills (in my case experience in the backcountry) minimize the necessity for more "stuff" such as a basement full of water cubes.