Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Several days ago, Valencia in Spain was flooded. I was really surprised at how quickly the water accumulated. I kept following the story, and one day, while scrolling, I noticed a few pictures showing people waiting in line for water and food. It’s been a few days since the disaster happened, and people are already complaining that the government isn’t doing more. It dawned on me how unprepared so many people are for emergencies. You could argue that it’s Spain, and nothing really happens there, but ever since the Danish government issued preparedness materials, I’ve realized how unprepared I was myself. So I started buying water, purchased a go-bag, and am currently in the process of buying a mini gas stove. This is just the beginning.

Is the idea of preparedness just another way for businesses to exploit people, or is it something we genuinely need? Are there any preppers here in this community?

It is possible to make a distinction between prepping as a product one buys and sells; a list of skills to study; or a way of living that is more resilient.

ERE falls into the latter category. It would be weeks before I would be standing in line for food or water. Case in point, COVID lockdowns.

I'm not the only one here.

Note that each step in the distinction builds on the previous. In order to apply skills, you need some supplies; in order to design a resilient lifestyle, you need to learn some skills. If you're familiar with the ERE WLs, it's possible to see the correspondence between buying stuff to WL3-5, learning necessary skills as WL6, and the resulting resilience as WL7.

Generally, the more you know, the less you pay. If you know nothing, you can spend a fortune on MREs. If you know a little, you can buy an N-day box worth of freeze dried goods for slightly less money and slightly more variation, and if you're smart you'll eat them before they get too old. If you're ERE, you'll be canning your own goods, which is not much more expensive than they would be anyway (free from the garden or cheap in bulk).

I don't think preparedness is per se a way of selling stuff, but it can be use effectively to sell stuff.
My preparedness is quite limited, but probably sufficient.
I have staple food for a few weeks, I store my water bottles full (which has the added advantage of allowing them to not stink after a while, and to have the potential nasty chemical leech into water that I most probably won't drink), 6 month of gaz for cooking, about the same time of wood for heating.
The only added cost is space, and maybe some time and money to find and buy container that will detter pests.
I think most people around where i live are in a similar situation, but i might be wrong.
I think it is important to avoid being an extra load on the rescue operation.
Honnestly, I think govt shouldn't distribute any food the first two weeks, because no one is going to starve that quickly, and it misses the opportunity to teach people a lesson.

Some of us ERE folks are explicit "preppers" in ways you might recognize, some are probably accidentally more prepared than average people just as a side effect of ERE-style practices, most are somewhere in between.

As a Californian whose earliest memory is the Loma Prieta Quake in 1989 and lives in wildfire country, I've spent some time reading up on and explicitly pursuing "prepping". But that node cluster is honestly not as active or mature as it could be.

However, as an example of preparedness as a side effect, in late August I returned home after being away for 60 days. I went straight home and then didn't leave the property for several weeks, not even to go to the grocery store, mostly because I didn't feel like it. And I mostly ate what I normally eat and barely thought about it. I wasn't eating through my "preps", that's just how my pantry works. (Also, except for checking the news, I wouldn't know if The Grid were up or down because we're on our own electric and water systems).

ETA: one recommendation for actually learning if your preps are in good shape and you know what you need to know, is to simulate a grid and grocery store down event. Just turn off your electric, switch off gas lines, and don't buy anything out, for a week or a month. Live off your own contained system - you'll learn all kinds of things you take for granted. Very difficult to think through all of it on paper, but easy to find when you simulate the real deal.

Prepping to survive in place is not necessarily the best strategy for severe weather or related events such as wildfires. 21st century meteorology is pretty awesome, so developing the practice of keeping yourself informed about the weather as it develops would likely greatly improve your ability to be an early evacuee or otherwise avoid exposure. Similar logic applies to epidemics, riots, or ethnic internments as they develop. Also, not being tied to a job/location, financially and/or psychologically, will allow you the freedom to make the best choice for survival. For example, I did not hesitate to quit my job and lock myself down for Covid with my best prepped partner before the government got around to giving the order. Since all of my belongings fit into a small car, it also took me no time to pack and go.

IME, it also doesn't hurt to insert a "must somehow help me survive in case of zombie-apocalypse" clause into all of your well diversified solo-polyamorous contracts. For example, if you have 3 partners* and they each have a domicile and a bug-out plan/locale, then you can easily have as many as 8 options at hand for any adverse event, especially if their other partners also have other partners and/or other domiciles. However, if/when you do find yourself in a high risk situation, there may also come a juncture where you need to look out for #1**. For example, if one of your partners is driving his truck with an RV hitched in back up a steep slope in an ice storm, you may need to choose to bail out of the passenger seat if your rapidly updating Bayesian analysis of the situation so dictates. This is true even in situations where your partner is "future you." The marshmallow game is suspended when the fire alarm goes off.

*For those who do not practice solo-polyamory, just sub in "other humans with whom I have graze-their-refrigerator-at-will level of intimacy." OTOH, if you are currently in a sexualized relationship with another human who will not let you graze their refrigerator at will, then you need to quit investing in that thing, because highly unlikely to prove useful in emergency situation. However, this is not to imply that owning a refrigerator is prerequisite for potential survival buddy, because at least one of your three survival buddies should probably have some primitive technology skills and/or fully mobile habitat.

**Of course, you may also hold some values, inclusive of blind loyalty, higher than survival, but off-topic for this thread except to the extent that clarifying these values prior to finding yourself in emergency situation might expedite your tactical decision making. For example, if you only give the value of Patriotism a 2 on 10 point scale, then crossing over the border to Canada in a rubber inflatable might be a decision that if quickly made would save you the trouble of having to learn how to do the super-super-super quick decision-making OODA loop thing in order to save your one wild, rare and precious azz from the cockpit of a jet fighter.

Jean wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:38 pm

I don't think preparedness is per se a way of selling stuff, but it can be use effectively to sell stuff.
My preparedness is quite limited, but probably sufficient.
I have staple food for a few weeks, I store my water bottles full (which has the added advantage of allowing them to not stink after a while, and to have the potential nasty chemical leech into water that I most probably won't drink), 6 month of gaz for cooking, about the same time of wood for heating.
The only added cost is space, and maybe some time and money to find and buy container that will detter pests.
I think most people around where i live are in a similar situation, but i might be wrong.
I think it is important to avoid being an extra load on the rescue operation.
Honnestly, I think govt shouldn't distribute any food the first two weeks, because no one is going to starve that quickly, and it misses the opportunity to teach people a lesson.

The ending of your message is bold, in a very good way. I completely agree that we’re living in a world of convenience, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

jacob wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 05, 2024 1:33 pm

It is possible to make a distinction between prepping as a product one buys and sells; a list of skills to study; or a way of living that is more resilient.

ERE falls into the latter category. It would be weeks before I would be standing in line for food or water. Case in point, COVID lockdowns.

I'm not the only one here.

Note that each step in the distinction builds on the previous. In order to apply skills, you need some supplies; in order to design a resilient lifestyle, you need to learn some skills. If you're familiar with the ERE WLs, it's possible to see the correspondence between buying stuff to WL3-5, learning necessary skills as WL6, and the resulting resilience as WL7.

Generally, the more you know, the less you pay. If you know nothing, you can spend a fortune on MREs. If you know a little, you can buy an N-day box worth of freeze dried goods for slightly less money and slightly more variation, and if you're smart you'll eat them before they get too old. If you're ERE, you'll be canning your own goods, which is not much more expensive than they would be anyway (free from the garden or cheap in bulk).

Jacob, I bought your book, and I’m still reading it. I think my ‘urgent’ need for preparedness came from realizing just how big the gap is, and it feels like I don’t have time to wait. I know that urgency is partly driven by propaganda, and rushing wasn’t really necessary, but I get your point.

AxelHeyst wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 05, 2024 2:35 pm

Some of us ERE folks are explicit "preppers" in ways you might recognize, some are probably accidentally more prepared than average people just as a side effect of ERE-style practices, most are somewhere in between.

As a Californian whose earliest memory is the Loma Prieta Quake in 1989 and lives in wildfire country, I've spent some time reading up on and explicitly pursuing "prepping". But that node cluster is honestly not as active or mature as it could be.

However, as an example of preparedness as a side effect, in late August I returned home after being away for 60 days. I went straight home and then didn't leave the property for several weeks, not even to go to the grocery store, mostly because I didn't feel like it. And I mostly ate what I normally eat and barely thought about it. I wasn't eating through my "preps", that's just how my pantry works. (Also, except for checking the news, I wouldn't know if The Grid were up or down because we're on our own electric and water systems).

ETA: one recommendation for actually learning if your preps are in good shape and you know what you need to know, is to simulate a grid and grocery store down event. Just turn off your electric, switch off gas lines, and don't buy anything out, for a week or a month. Live off your own contained system - you'll learn all kinds of things you take for granted. Very difficult to think through all of it on paper, but easy to find when you simulate the real deal.

The practical exercise sounds interesting. However, with a family, I don’t think it’s feasible. I’ll have to opt for the woods to test myself.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 05, 2024 4:52 pm

Prepping to survive in place is not necessarily the best strategy for severe weather or related events such as wildfires. 21st century meteorology is pretty awesome, so developing the practice of keeping yourself informed about the weather as it develops would likely greatly improve your ability to be an early evacuee or otherwise avoid exposure. Similar logic applies to epidemics, riots, or ethnic internments as they develop. Also, not being tied to a job/location, financially and/or psychologically, will allow you the freedom to make the best choice for survival. For example, I did not hesitate to quit my job and lock myself down for Covid with my best prepped partner before the government got around to giving the order. Since all of my belongings fit into a small car, it also took me no time to pack and go.

IME, it also doesn't hurt to insert a "must somehow help me survive in case of zombie-apocalypse" clause into all of your well diversified solo-polyamorous contracts. For example, if you have 3 partners* and they each have a domicile and a bug-out plan/locale, then you can easily have as many as 8 options at hand for any adverse event, especially if their other partners also have other partners and/or other domiciles. However, if/when you do find yourself in a high risk situation, there may also come a juncture where you need to look out for #1**. For example, if one of your partners is driving his truck with an RV hitched in back up a steep slope in an ice storm, you may need to choose to bail out of the passenger seat if your rapidly updating Bayesian analysis of the situation so dictates. This is true even in situations where your partner is "future you." The marshmallow game is suspended when the fire alarm goes off.

*For those who do not practice solo-polyamory, just sub in "other humans with whom I have graze-their-refrigerator-at-will level of intimacy." OTOH, if you are currently in a sexualized relationship with another human who will not let you graze their refrigerator at will, then you need to quit investing in that thing, because highly unlikely to prove useful in emergency situation. However, this is not to imply that owning a refrigerator is prerequisite for potential survival buddy, because at least one of your three survival buddies should probably have some primitive technology skills and/or fully mobile habitat.

**Of course, you may also hold some values, inclusive of blind loyalty, higher than survival, but off-topic for this thread except to the extent that clarifying these values prior to finding yourself in emergency situation might expedite your tactical decision making. For example, if you only give the value of Patriotism a 2 on 10 point scale, then crossing over the border to Canada in a rubber inflatable might be a decision that if quickly made would save you the trouble of having to learn how to do the super-super-super quick decision-making OODA loop thing in order to save your one wild, rare and precious azz from the cockpit of a jet fighter.

That’s an interesting take on preparedness. Instead of stockpiling supplies, be a 'free agent' and stay flexible. I totally agree with the argument about the flag. The government keeps promoting loyalty to the flag, but when you think about it, they don’t care about you, me, or anyone else.

RogueCipher wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 06, 2024 5:43 am

Jacob, I bought your book, and I’m still reading it. I think my ‘urgent’ need for preparedness came from realizing just how big the gap is, and it feels like I don’t have time to wait. I know that urgency is partly driven by propaganda, and rushing wasn’t really necessary, but I get your point.

My general recommendation when it comes to to practical resilience/prepping is to commence on a "Buy Nothing Year". This will teach alternatives to being dependent on the supermarkets. Search for the threads on the forum discussing BNY. One of the few things you are legit allowed to buy during a BNY is food. Increase the challenge by going longer and longer in between food shopping trips. Shift diet towards staples and garden produce and away from food that needs refrigeration or freezing for increased disaster resilience. Storing water is boring but easy---you can make an exception in the BNY for equipment and other tools that increase resilience but only those. Scrounge and learn alternatives for the rest. Pro-tip: One thing that's available now that wasn't available when BNY first became a thing is youtube and dedicated forums. Whenever you feel the neeeed to buy anything, always google "DIY thething".

A BNY is also an excellent gateway for ERE as it will take you into WL6 within half a year or so. If you do the BNY while reading the ERE book, the ERE philosophy will make more sense, since the theory is fundamentally built on BNY experiences. I personally started my journey with a BNY before BNY became a thing. The ERE theory was added later to explain why this lifestyle is so incredibly effective in saving money---because after a year you really have become independent on spending and found a way to enjoy it. The FI follows automatically from that a few years later.

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.

-------
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.

RogueCipher wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 06, 2024 5:51 am

However, with a family, I don’t think it’s feasible. I’ll have to opt for the woods to test myself.

It's often the case that one person is more enthusiastic about a change of lifestyle than the rest of the family. It is also the case that the most enthusiastic person often ends up carrying the load so to speak. There are plenty of threads on the forum on how to convince spouse and/or children to come along, but it's definitely harder and slower than it is for power couples or power families where everybody is on the same page.

This is why I generally insert somewhat of the opposite clause to @7wb5's social contract when it comes to this stuff, specifically that people "must bring own oxygen mask". A loose network or community of people, who are mainly connected by the idea of "helping each other", tends to fracture when the amount of help needed exceeds the amount of help available. You see this effect in volunteer communities, study groups in school, rural communities, small countries,... as these associations eventually suffer a brain drain when the more competent people leave.

In ERE vernacular, a network or community is formed out out of people's individual WOGs. However, if those WOGs are net-pointing in different directions, it will put stress on the combined WOG. In practice a stressed WOG eventually fractures into smaller and more internally coherent WOGs insofar people are free to leave. This may not be the case in a family or the public school system or other walled in systems (whether literally or figurative), where people are forced to stay. However, in the work place, in volunteer organizations, or freely formed communities and associations, this fracturing is a known pattern.

Whether "the center holds" in a combined network very much comes down to the size of the problem vs the net-solution capability of the network. If too much energy is wasted on solving internal contradictions in the network (for example by arguing about everything or even voting in favor of bad choices given the nature of the problem), the combined network collapses. OTOH, if the problem is sufficiently small that the network can easily solve it along with the internal tension with spare energy to boot, the solution will be seen as a success of "people coming together".

Ego wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 06, 2024 9:23 am

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.

In similar vein, I've read a story of Jewish boy (he was around 9 year old I believe) who survived on his own in a forest in Poland while Poland was under German occupation. He was taught basic surivival skills (what to eat in a forest, how to make a fire etc.) by a Polish family that was harbouring him, before they had to send him into the forest as it became too risky to continue hiding him in their house. The boy survived in the woods till end of war, and is still alive.

There's a good film called the way back with Colin Farrell about a bunch of inmates in a Siberian gulag who escape and walk all the way to British India during ww2. It was supposedly based on a true story by Sławomir Rawicz, although it now seems Rawicz made the whole thing up. Although it's vaguely plausible.

There's also a good biography about a polish Jew from Łódź called Michael Thomas (born Moniek Kroskof) who amongst other things escaped from various concentration camps and fought in the french resistance in the mountains around Grenoble. It's a great read but there's been some suggestion that a lot of his stories were highly exaggerated, and he does come across as a bit of a narcissist. He later became famous for pioneering his heavily marketed language learning method, which imo is very overrated.

Jacob wrote:This is why I generally insert somewhat of the opposite clause to @7wb5's social contract when it comes to this stuff, specifically that people "must bring own oxygen mask".

Okay, but even Maslow's hierarchy places "sex" as basic physiological need at the bottom of the pyramid at Survival level. So, any human who helps you get laid (in the manner you prefer) or at the very least does not interfere with your ability to get laid (leaves you with your default level of freedom) will likely be considered net positive contributor at Survival level. Similar applies to other "needs" such as "food to be found in stores willingly shared" at Survival level and also as you work your way up the pyramid from base.

The fact that sexual needs clearly inhibit some aspects of resource conservation can be seen in the conventions generally followed in human shelter design and usage. In "A Pattern Language", the psychological need for "couple" space as well as "family" space and "individual" space is an important design consideration. This is also seen in the social desire to not be a "third wheel." For example, how many modern humans want to live with their spouse and their mother-in-law? If a monogamous couple rents out a room in their house to a third human, their preference would generally be somebody neither of them find attractive who is out of the house working or engaged in their own social life most of the time and reasonably neat in their habits. Neither of them wish to have somebody who is a more "competent" peer or likely "competitor" in house. IOW, individual "competence" may be net negative in any communal situation in which it is likely to produce negative emotions such as jealousy or envy. This may also occur within the dyad of a "power couple" if/when one partner becomes more powerful to the extent that the tension is too great to be motivational. In fact, the basic self-sufficiency of each partner in a Modern "power couple" makes the likelihood of split under changing power-dynamic greater than in a more mutually dependent Traditional relationship.

Also, the extent to which all the WOGs in a network only benefit by being in alignment depends a great deal on the topology of the network. If your social network is well-diversified, asynchronous, overlapping star topology then this is not much of an issue. In a social network that is well-diversified, synchronous, and with a ring topology (or some other typology that would better model need for consensus) it is a huge issue. In fact, ultimately the only survival skills a highly-functional center hub in star formation would need would be something like "openness" or "flexibility" and "intelligence" or "general knowledge." And this would also apply to other types of network formation such as multiple independent streams of income. In the discard market, this sort of node/operator is known as a "matchmaker." In a survival situation this might be somebody who uses social/trading skills to transfer mutually exclusive needed resources (maybe bullets and butter) between two other nodes, claiming some share of each for self as "commission."

It is also the case that if you are an open hub in star network over which multiple forms of survival resources may flow, the temporary unavailability of one resource flow/need may not necessarily fully sever the established connection. For example, when one of my poly-partners became involved in a relationship with another woman who demanded monogamy, he was still available to me as somebody to help me haul stuff with his van or fix my air conditioner, etc. Then when he broke up with woman who demanded monogamy, he was once more available for sexual exchange. Thus, the average length of my 3 current attachments is now over 10 years with 3 men who at least "love me as one of their best friends", but none of them have ever even met each other, because I generally strive to not have my family space or my individual space overlap with the space of more than one partner if any. I demand that they usually provide our couple space and maintain mutual virtual communication space privacy. To the very small extent that I initially attempted to make my first two poly-partners tolerate interacting with each other conflict did arise, so I abandoned any notion of a more mesh-like network. I must admit that I am actually kind of amazed that this is the result of my late mid-life experiment with simply applying the principles of permaculture (systems science) to my sexual and/or formerly sexual relationships. I do occasionally consider the possibility of reverting to monogamy/marriage or a 40hr/week job/career, but then I think, "Why?" That said, I am more sturdily attached to my adult children, extended family, and region of birth than many others on this forum, although lucky in that they are also good company and a good locale to ride out the climate apocalypse. So, MMV significantly...

@7wb5 - I think we're talking disaster survival, not alternative living arrangements. The general rule of thumb is 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 hours of naked exposure to the elements, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. Having sex is definitely NOT a critical physiological need. People don't die from not having sex. Sex is more up there with "love and belonging" or even "self-esteem" for those who are just looking to show off their trophy wives and girlfriends.

Flooding, wildfire, and power outage situations, which are the most likely scenarios for most people, come down to the oxygen and exposure time scales; and if you get through those, then the water time scale. Then comes food shortages,yet as noted, at worst, it is but a very unwelcome diet for the majority. People also don't die from skipping breakfast, lunch, or dinner even if they commonly act like it.

The food time scale is much longer, usually enough time for outside help to arrive ... but even water happens very quickly and possibly before that. Hence the 72 hour expectation of people being able to take care of themselves.

WRT limits on the competent minority, a strong swimmer can keep one cooperating non-swimmer above the surface, but not two or three. I
These limits are fairly non-negotiable. It's also pretty hard to widely share a single set of warm clothes in case the power/heat goes out on a frosty day. And so on.

Trading in goods happens on a longer timescale (weeks, years) and trading for sex or profit in these situation is generally not advised although it is of course possible, but so is looting, which is also a bad idea for similar reasons. These are all asymmetric/high risk strategies.

@others - Some good World War 2 stories, but they very likely demonstrate an overwhelming amount of survivor bias. After all, we only have the stories of a handful or a dozen surviving for 3 years in the woods. If this was a robust strategy, it should have been millions of survivors. This speaks to the security element of the needs-pyramid. I figure that the average person, who doesn't want to be found, will have somewhere between 3 hours and 3 months before they get found anyway. Of course some will last longer, but those are the ones that stories will be written about. When it comes to human-induced problems, it is certainly safer to shelter in place than to be out on the streets or in a traveling situation.

The survival time floating even in relatively mild open water is measured in a few hours at most. Hyperthermia will kick in long before you die from exposure (which sometimes leads people to take off their clothes or doing other irrational things) Fat people can last a bit longer due the extra insultation.

The coastguard have a saying; survivors are found in life rafts, bodies are found in lifejackets.

jacob wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 06, 2024 2:13 pm

When it comes to human-induced problems, it is certainly safer to shelter in place than to be out on the streets or in a traveling situation.

Leaving before the fighting intensified was a good survival strategy for the more than six million Ukrainians who are now living, studying and working in the EU as refugees. I could list many other examples of those who fled early, before chaos erupted, and fared far better than their brethren who stayed to shelter in place.

jacob wrote: People don't die from not having sex.

True, but we are also considering "prepping" and my point is that forming and maintaining a number of varying relationships that are comfortable at the "share bed" or "raid fridge" level during the good times may also serve as a resource network during a disaster, especially when a disaster is one for which fleeing to a new secure location is advisable. However, this may be more something somewhat unique to me since I often tend to attract partners who would eagerly volunteer to head-up neighborhood watch or be designated air warden, so not unlikely for one of them to text, "Big blizzard starting tomorrow. Why don't you come stay with me. I have those cookies you like." What's the point of even entering into sexual contract/relationship with somebody with core masculine energy if they won't offer to provide help in emergency situation?" I mean "inherently useless" and "useless in relationship to me" is six of one vs. half dozen of the other. OTOH, if most heterosexual men wanted partners who were super useful in an emergency situation then they would shop differently than most of them do. I am just functioning as self and environment aware rational actor in the open dichotomous market. I do agree that heterosexual males who wish to maximize likelihood of disaster survival would be well served to make long-term contract with EMT certified females capable of carrying their body weight down or up 4 flights of stairs. I'm not sure exactly how this metric should be weighted vs. their earning/saving ratio, but I would happily volunteer to write the dating profile pitch or suggest best pose to convey attractive vulnerability in photo. HINT: Imagine you are a puppy stuck in a storm drain and gaze right into the slightly-fuzzy-filtered camera held arm length above you.

Ego wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 06, 2024 3:44 pm

Leaving before the fighting intensified was a good survival strategy for the more than six million Ukrainians who are now living, studying and working in the EU as refugees. I could list many other examples of those who fled early, before chaos erupted, and fared far better than their brethren who stayed to shelter in place.

It's trickier in practice.

The Russian/Ukranian war actually began in 2014 but remained local to the Donbas province and low intensity for 8 years until chaos erupted and drew international attention with the full scale invasion in 2022. At that point, people only had (IIRC) some 2-3 days to get their affairs in order and leave before the country closed its borders. However, for 8 years there were many "false positives" each of which might have had people leaving and moving back again thinking it was over until "the big one" finally hit. 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. I note that a similar story can be told about the physicists and philosophers (the two fields where I recognize most famous names, but I'm sure it holds in general) in Europe pre-WW2 wherein people started leaving years in advance of "the big one". I don't think they had foresight as much as they were offered an opportunity and decided it sounded better than the uncertainty of staying. IOW, their cost of transaction was in their favor rather than the other way around as it is for most people.

It's analogous to the hurricanes that regularly hit the US-SE or the wildfires that regularly hit the US-SW/W or EU-S. Very very many warnings and the certain knowledge that in the future any given city will be hit and wiped out eventually. Yet, what is not known is whether that will happen next month or next year or 60+ years from now... so most people stay. This is also why Florida beach estate still has value. You'll even find suggestions on this forum where someone recommends moving to Portugal, Spain, or Italy on a regular basis.

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. I consider it unlikely that it was because they suddenly saw an unambiguous sign and quickly left as they had few possessions holding them back. Of course there are some (like you) who choose to live thusly, but I think for the majority of the "diaspora" it was a slow and planned move that happened long before.