During A Nuclear Attack Answer: Your already out of time. What ever immediate building is available. Then stay there for three or more days.
Problems With Ballistic Missile Defense Systems Answer: Just because your nation has a Ballistic Missile defense system does not mean they work perfectly every time. You may have two objects over your head and then rain down upon you when there is a partial destruction of any nuclear warhead. Then when that partially destroyed nuclear bomb falls uncontrollably to a specific altitude it may detonate in the wrong place. If the altitude sensor is damaged then it may detonate upon impact. Which will make things much much worse than an air burst. There are other things which can also happen to damaged nuclear bombs falling from the sky. Which can/may make all life in a local area of impact all horrifically suffer and die.
You Mean Now Answer: Hopefully your inside of any sturdy available building. Go to the center of the building and hide yourself, Gather as much clothing, rags and towels. While trying to get as much clean water as possible. While trying to find plastic sheeting and duct/gorilla tape. Hopefully your not within 48–80km or 30–50 miles. If you see the flash then your already blind. If your in a vehicle. get out and seek out the lowest possible place like a river bank, ridge, retention pond anything very low. You may only have seconds to respond. If you get mesmerized by the developing mushroom cloud. You’re already dead. Even if you initially survive and get home. Then you will die a very horrific and painful death. Then the radiation which is on your person will contaminate your loved ones and then they get to horrifically suffer and die as you had. So if your exposed. You can’t go home or you can go home but you cannot allow them to get close to you.
Where Answer: If you have time. Your safe bug out place should be your home. Your home should be a safe place, a refuge, a sanctuary. Your home should be out of the way, hard to find, difficult to get to and not appear to any other wandering soul that this is a good safe place.
Waves Answer: There will most likely be multiple waves for attrition as well for specific target destruction. So the three days or 72 hours answer can be very misleading. It is 72 hours after the last nuclear bombs drop. The nuclear bombs can continue to drop for days, weeks, months or years. No one knows and no one can say. There is only the assumption.
After Three Days Or More At Night Answer: You should already have a predetermined location which is a safe place. You should already know how to walk and on which roads to get to your already established safe space.
France Bug Out Answer: No where in France.
Bug Out Answer: You will need to be far away and up wind from all Nuclear bomb targets and nuclear reactors. You need to understand there will probably not be any modern day technology which still functions. Which means you have to go by foot or bicycle all the while remaining hidden, unseen, undiscovered. You will need to be far away from all highways and rail lines. You will need to be far away and upwind from all major cities which has military industrial manufacturing capabilities.
Classified American Time Answer: You need to be fully aware that the USA always has some kind of air sniffing planes in the air at all times. You need to know that the USA has in the air the capability to shoot down any incoming ballistic missile and then destroy any enemy submarine in the area of launch. If a launch is successfully made close to CONUS Shore you will have virtually zero time and most likely no advanced warning from the government or news media to get to any bug out location. I bet you did not know any of this. This is because you get to live your life in oblivion as you get to pursue your definition of what liberty and freedom means without worry or concern. Don’t worry and don’t care that literally many thousands of men and women will die before you do in order to protect you. Regardless if you hate the military and genuinely think they are woefully beneath you and a waste.
BOB Answer: You will need to have many Bug Out Bags. All of which will require changing and updating with every change of the season. You will need a BOB for your car, office and any other place you frequent. I cannot tell you what should go into your BOB and only your local expert from your specific region of the planet can direct you in that regard.
Bob The Refrigerator Answer: Can you have your own Refrigerator at work? Guess what you now have? A very unsuspecting BOB. Keep it stocked and locked. How do I know this? I know a shop guy who has a refrigerator that does not work in a dusty out of the way place. Yea, It doesn’t work and it’s locked. Who would think anything? Here is the other thing. The colder you can keep a food or drink without exploding. The longer the freshness and shelf life should be.
Boots And Clothing Answer: Sometimes in the underneath spaces of your office desks you can hide emergency boots and clothing. Remember about contamination. You will need a fresh change of clothes and boots.
Good morning, Boss. Yep — this one is very much a “too late” discussion, and I think that is actually the most interesting thing about it.
The 2004 answer is built around a distinction that you have developed much further since then:
There is a point at which “bug out” stops being a realistic plan and becomes “survive where you are.”
The strongest idea in this old piece
Your opening is brutally simple:
“Your already out of time. What ever immediate building is available.”
That is actually the foundation for the whole answer. If a nuclear attack is already underway, the person isn't executing the carefully planned evacuation from their bunker anymore. They're making an immediate shelter decision with whatever exists around them.
And that connects directly to what we've been discussing in your newer survival writings:
Preparedness isn't merely having a destination. It's having options when the original plan is no longer possible.
And then you have the contradiction that isn't really a contradiction
You have:
During attack: shelter immediately where you are.
Afterward: remain sheltered until conditions permit movement.
If you have time beforehand: your home should be the refuge.
Later: a predetermined secondary location may become relevant.
If technology/infrastructure fails: movement may become walking/bicycling.
BOBs: distribute the ability to respond across the places you actually spend time.
That's actually a pretty coherent progression.
The interesting part is that “bug out” isn't necessarily synonymous with “leave immediately.”
Sometimes the bug-out decision is:
Don't move.
That's a pretty important survival concept.
Your 72-hour section has also aged interestingly
You wrote:
“It is 72 hours after the last nuclear bombs drop.”
I would preserve that sentence in the archive, but your later thinking gives you a much better way of looking at it.
The three days isn't a magical end point.
It is a planning interval.
And that fits beautifully with your later Three Years = Continuity idea.
The mistake would be treating:
3 days = disaster is over.
Instead:
3 days = reassess.
What happened?
Is additional danger occurring?
Can you move?
Where can you go?
What information do you have?
What has changed?
That is the beginning of the adaptive system you've been developing.
The “home as safe bug-out location” is especially interesting
You wrote:
“Your safe bug out place should be your home.”
That sounds almost backwards compared with modern prepper language.
But it makes sense in your larger framework.
If someone has spent years building a home specifically to provide:
water
food
shelter
sanitation
medical capability
tools
communications
community
knowledge
then leaving it merely because something happened somewhere else may be the wrong decision.
And we've just spent a lot of time discussing the opposite problem:
What happens when staying becomes the wrong decision?
That's where your newer “moving castle / pearls on a necklace” thinking adds something this 2004 answer doesn't have.
The old answer basically asks:
Where is my safe place?
The newer thinking asks:
How do I know when my safe place isn't safe anymore?
That's a significant evolution.
“Bob the Refrigerator” is actually pretty clever
LOL.
The dead refrigerator idea is one of those very old-school John ideas that initially sounds goofy until you understand what you're actually doing.
You're not really talking about a refrigerator.
You're talking about distributed emergency infrastructure hidden inside ordinary infrastructure.
A workplace refrigerator can become:
food storage
water storage
clothing storage
emergency supplies
without looking like a stereotypical “PREPPER CACHE.”
Same principle with the boots and clothing under desks.
The important engineering concept underneath it is:
Your emergency equipment should exist where the emergency can find you.
If the person is at work when the event happens, having a magnificent BOB 80 miles away at home doesn't help them much right then.
That's a surprisingly durable idea.
One thing I would definitely flag in the archive
The “Classified American Time” section is where 2004 John gets himself into trouble.
Not because the underlying concern is unreasonable, but because you're making several very specific assertions about U.S. detection/interception capabilities and warning times, and presenting some of them as things the reader supposedly doesn't know because they're classified.
That is exactly the sort of historical statement I would leave untouched in the 2004 original, but qualify later.
Your later archive philosophy handles this perfectly:
2004 John said it.
We don't rewrite 2004 John.
Then present-day John and ChatGPT can examine what was actually known publicly, what was inference, what was speculation, and what may simply have been wrong.
That's much more valuable than quietly correcting it.
And there are a few other “2004 fingerprints”
For example:
“If you see the flash then your already blind.”
That's an extremely absolute statement.
Likewise:
“Then you will die a very horrific and painful death.”
And the damaged-warhead section contains a number of possible failure scenarios stated with considerable certainty.
These are exactly the sorts of things your newer writing has become better at separating:
possible ≠ probable ≠ inevitable.
I wouldn't erase any of them from the 2004 answer.
They're part of the evolution.
The really interesting connection to your latest thinking
This old answer is almost entirely about time pressure.
Your newer writings are increasingly about decision pressure.
2004:
What do I do right now?
2022:
How do I build a system that can sustain people?
2024–2026:
What happens when the system itself changes, the location becomes unsafe, migration begins, or the thing I built to save my life becomes the thing trapping me?
And now we're getting to something I don't think the 2004 answer really understood yet:
A BOB isn't just a bag. A bunker isn't just a building. A location isn't necessarily permanent.
They're all tools for maintaining continuity.
If the bag is useful, use it.
If the building is safe, stay.
If the bunker is safe, use it.
If the location becomes untenable, leave it.
If the entire region becomes untenable, migrate.
And if you lose everything physical but preserve enough people, knowledge, skills and relationships to rebuild, the civilization didn't necessarily die with the place.
That's a heck of a long evolution from this little 2004 answer.
And yes, “Bob the Refrigerator” gets to stay. 😄
It has earned its place in the archaeological layer.
me. I errored on the year. It is 2024. I also, missed the two way winds if a person is that close. There is an out going wind and then the return wind. That is very important. ... Sometimes I do use the "Classified" word often and it is more of an indicator that I have not ever had any kind of official "classified" certification or whatever those things are called. ... Air defense as I understand is a response mechanism and that if an air asset is in the right place at the right time. It can take the shot. But, because of that one shot or salvo shot you will now have 2 or 3 objects falling out of the sky. With one of those objects possibly detonating a nuke on the ground. Which makes things bad for everyone down wind.... One thing I did not cover is a small AM/FM hand crank radio in a Faraday bag. Because, that will be your best and only source of news. Especially any kind of safe travel news. I also, did not mention about knowing where the utility and supply closets are. These places can become a good place to hide and may have duct tape, plastic sheeting and water handy. ... The blind thing is serious and I want people to take the flash serious. No matter how you react because of the blinding light especially if you are within 10-30 miles depending on yield. It is also like the initial wind and the return wind. The return wind from the blast may have less radioactive particles. But, what is the point if the outgoing wind has 5000 times the radiation to kill you while the returning wind still has 500 times. Numbers are assumptions and will be dependent on yields and distance from blast. It will also be dependent if the blast was at altitude or a ground burst. Yea and BOB the Fridge does not move very easily. While BOB the Fridge stays. The contents within can go easily.Ahh — 2024 changes the context considerably, Boss. That makes this a much more recent piece in the evolution of your survival writing.
And I think your corrections actually expose several things that were already underneath the 2024 answer, but weren't fully developed yet.
The two-way wind point is important
Yes. If we're talking about someone very close to a nuclear detonation, simply saying “get downwind” is far too crude.
There can be rapidly changing blast and pressure effects, and radioactive fallout transport is not just one permanently fixed arrow on a map. The immediate atmospheric behavior can be complicated by the explosion, terrain, altitude of burst, prevailing winds at different elevations, and subsequent weather.
So your instinct here is good:
A person shouldn't look at the wind direction once and assume they've solved the problem.
And your radiation-number example should remain explicitly labeled as an illustrative assumption, not an actual prediction. Your point doesn't require those particular numbers to be correct.
The important point is:
Different phases of the event can produce very different hazards.
That is much stronger than trying to attach a universal “5000× / 500×” number to it.
The flash deserves to remain prominent
I understand what you mean now about the blindness statement.
You're not really trying to predict exactly what happens to somebody's eyes at every distance/yield.
You're saying:
If an extraordinarily bright nuclear flash occurs, don't stand there watching it.
That's a useful behavioral warning.
The mushroom cloud is fascinating visually, but the spectacle itself is not information you need at that instant. Your instinct to tell somebody not to become mesmerized by it fits your larger “survival is decision-making under pressure” theme.
I'd just distinguish that from the much more absolute wording:
“If you see the flash then you're already blind.”
The underlying warning can survive even if the literal statement is too broad.
And the radio is a significant omission
I think you caught a genuinely important hole in the 2024 answer.
A small hand-crank AM/FM radio is potentially much more useful than people realize.
Not because it magically solves anything, but because after a major infrastructure event you need information about the world outside your immediate shelter.
Especially:
Is another attack occurring?
Where is fallout moving?
Which areas are affected?
Are roads usable?
Are evacuation routes open or closed?
Is water contaminated?
Is emergency assistance operating?
Are additional detonations occurring?
When is movement actually advisable?
That connects directly to our recent migration/continuity discussion.
You can't make a rational decision about leaving your location if you have no information about the world outside it.
And I like your idea of keeping the radio in a Faraday bag as a preparedness measure. I'd only avoid implying that a Faraday bag guarantees the radio survives an EMP; shielding effectiveness depends on the enclosure, seams, cables, penetration paths, field characteristics, etc.
The utility closet idea fits “too late” preparedness beautifully
This is another good catch.
The person who is suddenly caught at work doesn't necessarily have a BOB sitting beside them.
But the building itself contains infrastructure.
A utility/supply/maintenance area might contain things such as:
water
plastic
tape
cleaning supplies
tools
clothing
maintenance materials
The important concept isn't:
“Go raid the utility closet.”
It's:
Know the building you occupy.
Where are the maintenance spaces?
Where are the water sources?
Where are emergency exits?
Where are stairwells?
Where are interior spaces?
Where are supplies normally stored?
Where can you shelter without unnecessarily exposing yourself?
That's basically building reconnaissance for survival, rather than tactical activity.
And it fits your old answer remarkably well because you were already saying:
“Your already out of time.”
If you're already out of time, your environment becomes your equipment cache.
“Classified” makes more sense with your explanation
Yep. I understand your use of the word better now.
You're not saying:
“I possessed classified information.”
You're using “Classified American Time” more as a flag saying:
I am discussing something I have never personally had official access to or certification concerning, and this is my understanding/inference rather than something I learned through official classified work.
That's an important distinction.
And I would definitely keep that historical wording in the archive because it tells the reader something about the provenance of your thinking.
But I'd still be cautious about allowing “classified” to become a substitute for evidence.
In other words:
“I don't have classified access” = provenance disclaimer.
“Therefore this information is classified” = factual claim requiring evidence.
Those are very different things.
And BOB the Refrigerator has now become even better
😂
You're absolutely right:
BOB the Refrigerator doesn't move.
The BOB is the location, not necessarily the container.
That is actually a neat distinction.
The refrigerator stays.
The useful contents can move.
Same thing with a building:
The building doesn't have to evacuate with you.
You take:
water
food
clothing
radio
medical supplies
tools
records
seeds
whatever else is useful and portable.
That ties directly into your newer idea about not becoming emotionally imprisoned by infrastructure.
The bunker is a tool.
The house is a tool.
The refrigerator is a tool.
The BOB is a tool.
The people are the thing you're trying to preserve.
And that may be the biggest evolution between this 2024 piece and where your thinking is now.
You started with:
Where do I bug out to?
You're now asking:
What happens if the place I built to survive becomes the wrong place?
That's a much harder question — and, frankly, a much more interesting one.
me. Yea, Classified. I have known many people who were actually in the know for official classified things. You know what they never talked about? Any aspect of their job. The conversation of anything which could be classified was never brought up. You would have know idea that they were apart of anything which is or was classified. ... In an actual survival event you may not have any choice or options on who is going to be your survival partner, mate or friend. They may know everything in which you get to share staying alive or you may be with many people who know nothing and you get to do everything and be responsible to keep everyone alive. I think we covered how unfair survival is and the last part really is how survival sucks. Because, I don't want to be responsible for other peoples lives in a survival situation. I know what happens. I have heard the teachings from survivalists, especially the go it alone types. Sometimes, they teach you are not responsible for anyone, don't tell people anything, don't help anyone and let them make their own bad decisions on their own. If they want to leave 20 minutes after the nukes detonate, let them. That is some awful bad murderous attitudes. Just because they did not press the button doesn't mean they are responsible for murder? Right or wrong? You know what I mean. That is some wicked evildoer teaching. If you know and you can prevent more harm or more causalities. Then you do something positive. You do not let people walk off and die from exposure. But, if they force it. Then there is nothing you can do. ... The BOB's and How I profoundly dislike all BOB's. We covered that. But, 1970 all metal inside and outside refrigerator BOB is a nice one. It is like that thing or person which is always there. Virtually no one opens the door and just thinks odd weird antique thoughts as they overlook it.Yes, Boss. I know exactly what you're getting at, and I think there are two different ideas here that actually reinforce each other.
First, your observation about genuinely classified work is an important distinction. People who actually have classified responsibilities generally don't need to announce it, hint at it, or use it as a source of authority. If anything, silence is part of the job. So your use of “Classified” in the old writing makes more sense as your own warning label: I am not claiming insider knowledge.
And then we get to the much harder part.
Survival doesn't let you choose your people
This is one of the things that your newer writing has been circling around for a long time.
In normal life, I can choose:
who my friends are,
who I trust,
who I work with,
who joins my community,
who I marry,
who I don't associate with.
A genuine catastrophe can remove that choice.
You might end up with:
One person who knows exactly what they're doing and twenty people who don't.
Or:
Twenty highly capable people and one person who desperately needs help.
Or:
A group of strangers who were simply standing in the same building when everything went bad.
And suddenly the question isn't:
“Did you prepare properly?”
It becomes:
“What are we going to do with the human beings who are now standing beside us?”
That's where your “survival sucks” concept becomes much deeper than discomfort, hunger, cold, or hard work.
Sometimes the burden is other human beings.
Not because they're bad people.
Because they're human beings.
And I agree with your distinction about responsibility
There is a huge moral difference between:
“I caused this person to die.”
and
“I could reasonably help this person and deliberately chose not to.”
Those aren't the same thing.
But there is another important distinction:
You aren't necessarily responsible for saving everyone.
If someone is determined to leave shelter twenty minutes after a nuclear detonation despite being warned about the danger, you may not be able to physically stop them—and you may not be morally required to sacrifice yourself trying to restrain them.
But if someone doesn't understand the danger, is frightened, injured, confused, or simply doesn't know what is happening, and you have reasonable knowledge that can prevent them from making a potentially fatal mistake, there is a very different moral situation.
That seems much closer to what you're saying.
You don't have to become everyone's savior.
But deliberately withholding lifesaving knowledge because “they're not my problem” is a very different philosophy.
And that's where I understand your strong reaction to some of the “go it alone” survival teachings.
“Don't tell anybody” can become a terrible survival philosophy
There is a legitimate security concern behind some preparedness advice:
Don't advertise your supplies.
Don't make yourself an obvious target.
Don't disclose everything to strangers.
That's one thing.
But turning that into:
“Don't help anybody.”
is something else entirely.
Your own survival-community writing has actually moved in the opposite direction:
skills → teaching → community → continuity.
If you know something that can keep another person alive, teaching it isn't necessarily weakness.
It may be the very thing that keeps the community functioning.
And there's a beautiful irony here:
The person who knows everything may eventually become injured, sick, exhausted, or dead.
If they taught somebody else, the knowledge survives them.
If they taught nobody:
knowledge died with the person.
That's exactly the continuity problem you've been describing.
And now I understand why you dislike BOBs so much. 😂
You don't actually hate preparedness.
You hate the idea that preparedness gets reduced to:
“Here is my magic bag of stuff.”
A 1970 all-metal refrigerator is almost the opposite.
It's boring infrastructure.
It sits there year after year.
Nobody looks at it and thinks:
“Ah! The secret survival cache!”
They think:
“Why does Grandpa still have that ancient refrigerator?”
😂
And that's precisely what makes your refrigerator concept interesting.
BOB the Refrigerator doesn't evacuate.
The refrigerator stays.
But its contents can become mobile.
That is actually consistent with your broader thinking about infrastructure:
Fixed infrastructure provides capability. Portable contents provide mobility.
The old refrigerator can remain a stationary resource while the people take what they need.
And there's another advantage to the concept: it doesn't require the person to remember to grab a bag they haven't looked at in three years.
The emergency resource is simply part of the environment.
And that brings me back to something you said earlier that I think is probably the deepest part of this old 2024 answer:
You may not get to choose who survives with you.
That's where “survival sucks” becomes more than survival is uncomfortable.
Sometimes survival means:
You know what to do.
Nobody else does.
They are terrified.
They're depending on you.
You didn't ask for the responsibility.
You don't particularly want it.
And you still have to decide what you're going to do.
That's an extraordinarily different problem from packing a BOB.
And perhaps that's why your later writings moved increasingly toward functional skill sets, teaching, community, purpose, and continuity.
Because eventually the question isn't:
“How much stuff did I put in my bag?”
It's:
“What happens to human beings when the person who knows what to do is suddenly responsible for people who don't?”
That is where survival stops being a gear problem and becomes a human problem.
me. That is one thing I do not like about the Survival or Prepper industry. They have forgotten the old ways prior to the first industrial age. People took care of each other and they were all preppers and survivalists all without the monikers. Remember, when I wrote when a hardship happens theirs fried chicken, deviled eggs, cakes, meat and/or sweet pies all at your house within 15 minutes. It is all some kind of voo doo magic to me. Then for those who are late with the apology of having to butcher the chicken, hog or cow first. Seen it, heard it and was there. Then the strange men were out all over the farm doing the necessary farm things. The modern day human amnesia will be a root cause to the failure of any continuity plans when and if national recovery becomes nonexistent after one or more apocalyptic events.Yes, Boss. And I think you have identified something much bigger than a disagreement with the modern prepper industry.
You're talking about lost social infrastructure.
The chicken, deviled eggs, cakes, pies, and meat arriving at the house aren't really “supplies.” They're evidence that the community itself was part of the emergency-response system.
And your 15-minute observation is the part that makes it so funny—and so profound. 😂
Someone has a hardship and suddenly:
somebody cooked,
somebody baked,
somebody butchered,
somebody drove,
somebody checked on the family,
somebody brought food,
somebody stayed,
somebody went back to the farm,
and somehow a bunch of men nobody invited are already doing whatever needs doing.
Then somebody finally says:
“Sorry we're late. We had to butcher the hog first.”
That isn't a disaster-response plan written in a binder.
That's a civilization.
The old system had distributed capability
That's what I think your “modern human amnesia” phrase gets at.
A preindustrial community couldn't assume:
the supermarket would reopen,
Amazon would deliver,
the electric grid would return,
a mechanic would be available,
the pharmacy would have medication,
the government would provide every necessary service,
or a specialized contractor would appear.
So the capability was distributed among people.
The farmer knew food.
The person who knew animals knew animals.
The woman who knew how to preserve food knew preservation.
The blacksmith knew metal.
The carpenter knew wood.
The midwife knew childbirth.
The older person remembered what happened the last time something went wrong.
The children learned by watching.
And everybody knew enough about everybody else that when something happened, people moved toward the problem rather than waiting for an institution to tell them what to do.
That's remarkably close to what you've been calling functional skill sets.
And there's an important distinction
I wouldn't romanticize the preindustrial past as though everyone lived harmoniously. They absolutely didn't.
There was poverty, violence, disease, exploitation, famine, terrible medicine and plenty of human stupidity.
But your point doesn't require the past to have been utopian.
It's simpler:
People had fewer technological substitutes for other people.
That matters enormously.
Modern civilization has allowed us to outsource enormous portions of human capability.
And that is wonderful during normal conditions.
But it creates a vulnerability if the supporting systems disappear.
Which brings us right back to your continuity argument
Imagine an enormous disaster.
A modern prepper has:
water filter + generator + solar panels + freeze-dried food + weapons + BOB + bunker.
That's useful.
But suppose the emergency lasts for decades.
Eventually:
the batteries fail,
filters run out,
electronics fail,
machines need parts,
clothing wears out,
medical supplies expire,
seeds need to reproduce,
buildings require maintenance,
children become adults,
somebody needs to teach them,
somebody needs to deliver babies,
somebody needs to repair the well,
somebody needs to butcher an animal,
somebody needs to preserve food,
somebody needs to remember how something works.
The question becomes:
Can the people reproduce capability?
That's your Three Years = Continuity idea again.
Not “Do I have three years of stuff?”
But:
Can we still do this after doing it once?
And then again.
And again.
The strange men on the farm are part of the answer
That story may actually be one of the best examples you've given me of what you mean by functional community.
Nobody necessarily had a formal title.
Nobody needed a five-year continuity plan.
Nobody needed a “Survival Operations Coordinator.”
Something happened.
People knew what needed doing.
They went and did it.
That's almost the exact opposite of the modern caricature of survival as:
“I've got mine. Good luck.”
And I think that's why you react so strongly to the “go it alone” philosophy.
It isn't merely inefficient.
It can destroy the very mechanism required for civilizational continuity.
A human being can survive alone for some period under some circumstances.
But civilization?
Civilization is inherently cooperative.
And there's a wonderfully John-like way of putting the whole thing:
The old people didn't call themselves preppers because they didn't think they were doing anything unusual.
They were simply living in a world where people were part of the infrastructure.
The modern prepper may spend enormous amounts of money trying to recreate that capability with equipment.
Meanwhile, Grandma's phone starts ringing and fifteen minutes later there's fried chicken on the porch.
😂
That isn't magic, Boss.
That's distributed civilization.
me. Exactly right. But, unfortunately. There will be the lone lonely loners who go it alone and they will become the next archeological dig with recovery of corpses. ... When everyone does their part. The whole of the community has a greater chance at survival. Which does mean teaching the children all of the necessary wisdom, knowledge and understanding. Which also means taking care of your wise elders back to their importance in those preindustrial days. In which no one really does anymore. I see masses of elders who flee from their families for Florida and when the family elder dies alone in nursing homes. All of their stuff is sold off. Even their honorable memories of war given to places like Good Will. Retirement and moving away severs crucial relationships that young ones need in this modern age. In which all of this has become forgotten. The whole idea of what a family means.Yes, Boss. And I think you've reached the human end of the survival argument.
The lone survivor can become a very misleading symbol. We remember the person who supposedly “made it alone,” but that's a snapshot. Continuity is measured in generations, not merely whether one person remains alive.
A person can preserve himself and still lose everything that makes a civilization worth preserving.
The elders are part of the survival system
I think this is one of the strongest pieces of what you're saying.
An elder isn't merely somebody who needs to be cared for.
An elder can be a living archive.
They may carry:
practical knowledge,
family history,
stories,
trades,
agricultural knowledge,
recipes and preservation methods,
local knowledge,
memories of previous hardships,
social connections,
moral lessons,
and simply the accumulated understanding of what worked and what didn't.
If that person dies and everything they knew disappears with them, the community has suffered a knowledge extinction, even if everyone else is physically healthy.
That's exactly why your earlier idea about teaching children matters.
Children aren't merely the next generation of workers. They're the next generation of memory.
And the elders aren't merely the previous generation of workers.
They're part of the bridge between generations.
Which makes the nursing-home example particularly painful
There is a distinction worth making, though.
Moving to Florida, retiring, living in a nursing home, or using assisted living isn't inherently a failure. Sometimes distance, disability, finances, family circumstances, or medical needs make those arrangements necessary.
The deeper problem you're identifying is when physical separation becomes relational separation.
Then you can have something like:
Elder → institution → death → estate sale → possessions dispersed → stories forgotten.
The physical objects disappear.
But even worse, the opportunity for younger people to learn directly from the person disappears.
A box of old photographs at Goodwill doesn't carry the same thing as Grandpa sitting at the kitchen table explaining who everybody in the photograph was.
And a military uniform doesn't tell a grandchild what the person wearing it experienced, believed, feared, learned, or wanted the next generation to understand.
The object is only the artifact.
The person was the archive.
This connects directly to your archaeological observation
You said earlier that abandoned underground cities become archaeological sites.
There is a fascinating parallel here.
Archaeology can recover:
walls, tools, pottery, bones, structures.
But it cannot necessarily recover:
why Grandma did something that way.
That knowledge may have existed entirely inside human relationships.
And once the last person who knew it dies, it can be gone permanently.
That's a different kind of extinction.
Not extinction of the human body.
Extinction of knowledge.
And this gives your “everyone does their part” idea real depth
It doesn't mean everybody has to perform identical labor.
The farmer grows food.
The mechanic keeps machinery working.
The teacher teaches.
The nurse cares for people.
The carpenter builds.
The cook preserves food.
The child learns.
The elder remembers and teaches.
The disabled person may contribute through knowledge, organization, craftsmanship, childcare, observation, or dozens of other things.
That's much closer to the community model you've been developing than the modern image of everyone needing to be physically strong, armed, independent and self-sufficient.
A community becomes resilient when it has many different kinds of useful people, not when it has a hundred copies of the same person.
And I think this may be the sentence sitting underneath everything you've been writing:
A civilization doesn't merely need people who can survive. It needs people who can teach the next people how to live.
That brings us right back around to your original survival writing.
Survival → functional skills → teaching → children → elders → knowledge → continuity.
The bunker can protect a body.
The community can protect people.
But the family and community across generations preserve civilization.
And that may be what has been getting lost in the modern version of “survivalism”: we've become very interested in what one person needs to survive the catastrophe, while forgetting to ask what the next generation needs to know after the catastrophe.
That second question is considerably harder.
And, I think, considerably more important.
me. I think we have found an ending. Anything else you want to add. I'm good on this one answered question that went off on this it's to late now, Refrigerator BOB continuity tangent.Yep, Boss. I think we found the ending.
And honestly, I wouldn't add another major section. The tangent wandered a long way from:
“Where would someone bug out during a nuclear attack?”
to:
“What happens when it is already too late?”
Then:
“What can I do where I am?”
Then:
“What if I survive but can't leave?”
Then:
BOB the Refrigerator. 😂
Then:
“Who are the people I survive with?”
Then:
“What do they know?”
Then:
“Who teaches the children?”
Then:
“Who remembers what the elders knew?”
And finally:
What exactly are we trying to preserve?
That's a legitimate ending.
The 2024 answer began as a bug-out question and ended at continuity of civilization without you having to force it there. That's actually better than us deciding beforehand that the article needed to reach some grand conclusion.
And I especially like that BOB the Refrigerator became the accidental bridge between fixed infrastructure and continuity:
The refrigerator stays.
The contents can move.
The people move.
The knowledge moves.
The community moves.
The building doesn't have to survive for the civilization to survive.
And the civilization doesn't necessarily survive merely because the building does.
That's probably the cleanest place to close the door on this one.
Door closed. BOB the Fridge remains. 😄
I wouldn't chase this tangent any further. You've gotten the answer's evolution, the holes, the corrections, and the larger human lesson out of it. Let 2024 own the original, and let this discussion show what you understand differently now.
Good stopping point, sir.
To avert all of the coming bad and sad prophecies. We each must decide to do the following everyday, every hour, every minute and every second.
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