I’ve had a couple of friends ask me if I’m prepping.
Prepping for what?
I see the UK is doing a Be Prepared campaign and Fucking Dan Bongino said something on a podcast. What’s that about?
I live in Japan and we call 3 days of water, meds, and food “tuesday” (well, 火曜日 technically). Then again, we also have earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and the odd tornado or forest fire.
I don’t know the UK, but China is definitely targeting our infrastructure in the U.S, and there is enough PLC hardware online on shodan, that it will be easy for them. I would be surprised if it’s all that much different in the UK, but who knows, maybe they’re not expecting the same kind of attack. Regardless, that kind of resilience promotion is only responsible.
Wish we had that here.
Oh, that and also there’s probably a revolution/civil war coming
The idea is that in a longer outage you’re fucked anyway
but if you have “toilet paper” for 3 tot 10 days that will put less strain and panic in the system
it’s not saying it’s coming or coming soon but having “toilet paper” for a couple of days is good
Fuel protest blockades that caused some amount of supply chain shock have happened at least 4 times since 2000, then there’s been random riots in cities that in some cases materialized out of nowhere (though widely suspected to be a Russian social media op), then covid, and now there’s the super El Nino threatening to cause droughts and global food shortages. So there’s that.
Mostly prepping to go without food, electricity, travelling or communications because of sabotage of vital infrastructure (in Europe and UK is happening on a weekly basis) and climate catastrophes which are regular in the UK since 2020(ish) and increasing. There are also potential lockdowns because of pandemics (e.g. measles from US). Also Brexit Britain is now inoperative in terms of food safety, really, since it relies on mainland Europe food imports to survive. If something fails or there’s a mega-storm, supermarkets will be empty for days like they were in 2018 or 2020.
This writeup here goes into it in some depth. Wish I had the full non-paywalled version, but hopefully that’s enough.
Go back and read the news from after some recent natural diasters - winter storms, hurricanes, landslides. People can be suddenly cut off from supplies and even with an immediate response it could be a week or more until basic food and water is avaiable to everyone. Most stores in cities need daily or at least a couple times a week of deliveries to keep shelves stocked. Rural areas aren’t any better. None of them are set up to have every customer show up in the same 24 hour period to restock. Having a bunch of stuff on hand that doesn’t need refridgeration and can be eaten as is, not cooked, is very important.
Yes, totally agree but, why are they pushing now to have people prep? Stores have been like that for years already.
Have you looked outside? The world is very unstable right now. Most EU countries are implementing preparedness right now.
As far as dumbass dan goes, a broken clock is right at least two times a day LOL
Im very suspicious about this suddenly becoming a thing. If it was earlier I would be suscpicious about wanting to have a spike in spending before the election but way to late to have that have impact. Would have if it was pushed more in spetember so it could come out with october figures.
Not really what you’re asking, but having several days of bottled water on hand is arguably a good idea in general.
Water’s one of the things that you’re going to need before too long if some sort of disaster does strike. It keeps well, and it’s not terribly expensive.
Yep.
I’m not a prepper but I have an emergency water supply that, under the worst circumstances, could last me a month and a half. It’s really nice when the water’s out for whatever reason to have zero disruption.
Same with food, roughly 1.5 months worth.
I agree that when it comes to the essentials to live, it’s just a good idea to have reserves.
Most people that do legitimate emergency preparedness programs tend to only go two weeks out, because unless you have specific geographic restrictions, any emergency that lasts longer than two weeks is essentially going to end the world.
Thank you for that information.
Yeah, you are a prepper.
How much water and food is that? We could easily live for a couple of weeks off what’s in our pantry and freezers. Losing electricity would shorten that considerably.
I haven’t crunched the numbers exactly, but I have six 12-packs of canned, purified water. I’d guess I have about 50-60 packs of dry, shelf stable goods like rice packs and mac-and-cheese, but also have a bulk pack of twelve jars of peanut butter that I bought solely to keep in case of some unimaginable cataclysm.
So yeah, not prepper level, but definitely stocked adequately for any short-term disruptions.
I started building up my pantry after ‘Liberation Day’, because I was concerned supply chain disruptions would get worse and more frequent.
Ok. That sounds totally reasonable. When you said over a month, i thought you had one of those MRE barrels from Costco. We usually have a case of water and a case of bubbly water cans in the garage and we could probably live for 4 weeks if we had effectivity to keep things frozen. We’re bad about throwing stuff into the garage freezer and forgetting it’s there - mostly chicken nuggets, French fries, pizza. Cucumbers, tomatillos, and hatch peppers are growing right now.
Most European countries have a version of this, but what is driving Britain’s “be prepared” campaign seems to be:
- Seeing what happened during COVID.
- Russia et all doing shit.
- Several rounds of cyber attacks.
- America making noises about Greenland and getting concerning and less reliable over all.
- Effects of climate change (Heatwaves and Storms).
Basically a load of civil servants have been asked to figure out how we can be prepared for emergencies and they’ve come back with “people should be ready for a disaster so we have some wiggle room during our response”.
A lot of it in reality is just general advice to save the government some energy if something does happen and a lot of other countries have more extraordinary things (The Netherlands have disaster sirens, Poland has bomb shelters).
Do I think it’s preparation for a war? No. I’m not getting Protect And Survive vibes, but things are getting rather concerning in terms of things like methods of attack (cyber attacks) and climate change (we just had some horrible Heatwaves). Basically the government is asking people to prepare for disasters in case something happens that they don’t expect (like what happened with COVID).
I feel like maybe 10% of people would actually prepare correctly. If those preparations are tested, there will be a huge mess
Yes, we all remember COVID.
I remember my first trip after lockdown was loosened and the shit I saw concerned me.
Climate change affects power generators.
When rivers dry up, it obviously affects hydroelectric generators.
But it also affects nuclear power, because they’re dependent on a constant source of cool water. If a river water level drops below the nuclear power plant’s water intake pipe, the plant has to shut down because it can’t cool the nuclear reactor vessel
Not just Nuclear, Coal and Gas plant use loads of water as well. A typical 1,000 MW plant consuming up to 2.5 billion liters of water per year, mostly for cooling.
Regardless of how you heat water, you need water.
Notice the world is rearming with alarming haste? The post WWII calm, the rules based order, just died, due to Russia’s military agression of conquest, China’s weaponization of trade and America’s unmittigated use of both.
The predictable world marked by moderation in good things and bad, is gone now. When the hits come, you can expect the bullies to take your lunch money. Partnerships with other countries are just one election away from turning on you or changing allegiances. You can’t even count on geopolitical analysis of rational behaviour and self interest. This being exemplified by Russia and the USs self immolation.
The governments around the world understand the risks, and expect more discontinuity of services. Pandemics, freezer hackings, war, AI, planetary boundaries and climate change and more all mean that our previois quests of efficiency and profitability instead of resilience and sustainability as a goal, makes everything hyper fragile.
When the government says stock up to last a while during disruptions, its because they know they aren’t capable of shielding everyone from everything. They are warning you “well take care of the big stuff, but for the small stuff you’re on your own.”
China’s weaponization of trade
Eh, I don’t think the threat of Chinese trade is that it is being strategic. The problem is that China has set itself up so that it only really needs natural resources to maintain its economy and won’t/can’t open itself up to import other manufactured goods of significant quantity.
It is incredibly hard for any industrial or service led economy to export enough goods and services to China to make up for the goods that China wants to export.
In general yes, but don’t forget China’s witholding critical minerals for example. China wields trade policy lile a bludgeon, not a tool. Trade policy of China, between business interests and strategic interests are inseperable.
Honestly this should be the tagline if truth and action is really what’s needed from the populace. “We’ll take care of the big stuff, but for the small stuff you’re on your own.” Back in the WWII days people did much more… take a look at victory gardens as an example. We’re very accustomed to getting what we need easily and I don’t think it’s a bad thing to remind people that can change.
Shit. November isn’t a great time to start a victory garden where I am.
I also have trees blocking sunlight for as long as they have leaves.
I guess it’s mushrooms in the basement for me.
Not a brit but when I think about the kinds of sacrifices people used to make and are still making in some places and I try to apply that to, like, my parents, my mind boggles.
My mom becomes sullen and just so unpleasant if a restaurant takes more than 20 minutes to get her food out, even when she can see they’re very busy. She’s not the kind of boomer that yells at the waitstaff (actually she’s Gen X anyway lol) but she bitches nonstop to everyone waiting with her, which makes it hard for everyone else. It always felt like she was never raised with any expectation to moderate her own feelings about things at all.
Her ONLY HOBBY is TV, and it’s all she has to look forward to after work. She can’t sleep without her one specific box fan. I feel like rolling blackouts would send her into absolute fits.
In my family we have an ongoing argument regarding when instant gratification became the norm. I say it’s the ATM. My husband says it’s the car. Obviously things have increased pretty rapidly since either of those.
My dad talks about the air conditioner. He says how people don’t go out on the porch now which leads to talking to neighbors because the temperature inside is nicer. That not talking to neighbors means doing it all on ones own which requires that instant gratification.
I want to argue but this last summer was definitely a staying inside one.
You have perfectly described Florida after a hurricane. All the neighbors chillin’ together, power comes back, BYE. Just did that two weeks ago.
This is entirely Putin’s plan to dismantle America and attack Ukraine so Europe rearms.
He wants to attack his perceived ennemies so that they can rearm? What kind of plan is that? Also the US can dismantle itslef without him and that would be still be a net positive for the world.
LOL with the Russia stuff. In the meantime, how much did the US do? Israel?
The fact that we’re running out of cheap easy high quality fossil fuels? Nothing? No connection?
Everything is connected. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is driven primarily for the desire for their resources, primarily their fertile black soils. It’s a globally significant breadbasket that under increasing climate change becomes a strategic asset.
Don’t assume that a lemmy post will be a complete picture of everything.
Just preppers being too twitchy as usual. The U.S. military ordered bases to prepare to be without power and now they all think it’s the apocalypse.
There’s a difference between being a prepper and having some amount of societal resilience.
When national governments are the ones issuing recommendations, you can assume it’s the latter and not the former.
These recommendations have been around for decades dude.
The press typically doesn’t care about them. Nor does social media.
Bovinejonyono is a grifter dumbass
That being said, my nearby gas station just ran out of fuel, which is weeeird.
You enjoy bridges? I hate them, especially the super tall ones and the ones with metal grates. What part do you like? What are your favs?
Maybe they meant the card game…
No. Bridges.
What the fuck did you smoke, mate?
… looks at username…
…ooooooh… nevermind…
