You’ve often wondered about those people who build a nuclear bunker in their back garden and buy all the special kit to survive a nuclear war, would they make it?
There are two things you need to survive a disaster:
(1) Mobility: if you can move a long way from the event, you don’t have to shelter—the people in the worst situation in any disaster are the people who can’t move (think about Hurricane Katrina, the people in the worst position couldn’t move or were too stupid to move).
(2) People: man is a social animal—Robinson Crusoe is a great fantasy, but most people would hate that; we’re attuned to have slots for 150 faces, the Dunbar number—i.e. our “norm” is to live in a village or area with about 150 people in it. People are the asset—you can achieve a lot with 12 people you trust, much more than you ever could alone with your generator kit, axes, and guns.
Preppers put emphasis on the wrong things: they think that what’s important is a fancy shelter, lots of great kit.
But if you are very mobile you can move a long way from any disaster and retain flexibility after the disaster—the prepper is stuck with his shelter, a psychological anchor.
What about nuclear war?
Have you heard about the caves we have in the countryside? Ready made nuclear shelters—deep, anti-fragile (survived many extreme geological events).
I’d prefer to be in a cave than in a domestic shelter in a city, even if that shelter were well constructed.
Besides, people are the real asset: if you’re one man with your family but with lots of kit then you’re not in a great position.
But 12 people you trust—intelligent people, people with skills—can achieve a great deal with almost no material goods, because people are the real asset.
And you don’t have to be afraid of “raping, pillaging mobs” either—that’s just porno mass entertainment.
The stupid and violent people live in the city centre—and they’ll be too anti-social or stupid to evacuate, or will be largely. So they will be killed in large numbers—hence the “marauding, raping mob” is not real.
Your impression as regards disasters comes from the mass media. In the mass media, sex and violence sell—so the post-apocalypse is displayed as filled with licence, rape, and murder.
But it wouldn’t be like that.
Hence Threads (1984) is a terrifying film about nuclear war in Britain—it’s really well done, really bleak.
But it was made by the BBC, by leftists, for propaganda purposes—to make people anti-nuclear weapons, to sap their will to resist.
So it makes nuclear war look terrible, “the end”—for example, the council bunker that coordinates the post-war response is shown as falling into squalor within a week, ash trays filled with ciggies appear strewn everywhere.
But, in reality, people carry on as before—they’re in a command bunker, they have a certain intelligence level, and certain personality characteristics. They’re not just going to stop tidying paper up and being as clean as possible in the circumstances.
So the bunker, even under stress, wouldn’t become so squalid.
It’s only leftists, people who think the environment is everything, who think “everything will go to pieces post-war, nobody would do anything”. It’s because they think the environment is bad, so if the environment is bleak then people will be bleak.
They also catastrophise—so every nuclear war in the media is “total”, because that’s more dramatic and also because leftist hysterics (women) think in total either/or terms (like climate change—it’s either “the end”, or “we’re saved”).
But if you read the documents by the people who actually use nuclear weapons, they have many scenarios long short of “total annihilation”—limited strikes, medium-sized wars; now, those “small” nuclear wars may well kill the same numbers as WWII in five days, since
technology just speeds everything up and reduces distance, but it’s not armageddon.
And that’s how the people who would actually use the weapons think, not the people who fantasise about “the end”—and do so in total terms where everyone dies.
Hence you should ignore these very atmospheric but leftist films about “the end of the world”, except as entertainment—after disasters, people return to baseline within 24 hours.
So people who were pro-social and cooperative before will carry on—I saw that after the riots in my city; people came out and tidied the glass straight away, it was a spontaneous act.
So helpful people will continue to be helpful—because behaviour is innate; only people who think in environmental terms will believe that everyone will become cruel and violent when society collapses. They might become harder and more practical—but the man who customarily obeys the law will not suddenly become “an animal”.
The preppers and the catastrophists are both incorrect—you could say “right” and “left” are incorrect. The reason is that they think in material terms—the preppers think that safety is to have lots of kit, the catastrophists think that without material products everyone will tear each other apart.
But the real advantage is mobility—followed by people. These are not material assets—you’d be surprised what the collective cooperation and the intelligence of 12 people who trust each other can do, even with minimal resources and in the most severe circumstances.
Alive! (1993) is a true-life film about an air crash in the Andes where a group of survivors from a rugby team lasts for months after the search has ended, eat their fallen comrades, and eventually send a small party to climb out of the mountains with only what they make from the aircraft’s wreckage.
That is a testament to what the spirit can achieve—fed with the human flesh, in a kind of Mass, and driven by “the hidden God”; the God that, as one character says, “is everywhere today”—his father is an artist and “a bit of a mad man”.
This is more accurate as to the actual situation—now, to be fair, some preppers do plan to take a small group to a shelter far away from the city; but I think that for many it’s like a cozy hobby—you collect kit, daydream about it happening.
This is another Taleb “extreme” scenario—the benefits accrue at the extremes, the billionaire or the government official who can live in a shelter complex that can self-sustain for years is safe; and so is the man who can take off with a rucksack to the hills—to a cave.
It’s the people in the middle, including the people who have made some preparations, like a shelter in the back garden good for three weeks, who are exposed—because they have some provision, but not enough; and, at the same time, they have lost the flexibility that comes from having nothing.
These two books and a penknife constitute all the “kit” you need to survive a catastrophe. And you could ditch the medical textbook and the penknife—because the guide tells you how to shelter, navigate, and hunt for food (plus basic first aid). If you wanted to be even more sure, take a first aid kit with some safety pins in it (very useful things safety pins, you can make fishhooks from them).
Survival depends on mobility, people, and spirit—not material goods, which can be acquired or for which substitutes can be found (with knowledge and intelligence).