Comment on That's how the world works.

Emi@ani.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

• dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  just a reminder that none of us can sufficiently “doom prep” and avoid the consequences of large catastrophes like being discussed

  beyond typical disaster preparedness: www.ready.gov

  probably the best thing would be to develop community ties - get to know your local weirdo farmers doing a CSA, make friends with EMTs, get to know your neighbors, get connected with a local community garden, etc.

  We will survive or die together, individual prepping is not going to save you.

  source

  • HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Individual prepping is only meant to bridge the gap between distaster and community or national assistance/cooperation.

    So have some emergency food, water, but prepping properly is actually things like learning to garden well, save seeds, learn to preserve, learn how to forage, build community connections.

    source

    • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Gardening and foraging won’t get you anywhere if you live in an urban area. You need an absurd amount of arable land per capita if you want to survive. A vegetable garden is useful in times of war not for raw calorie input but for supplements (either for specific nutrients not commonly found in rationed food supply or for taste).

      The good news is that food production is a “solved” issue. Any industrialized country is capable of producing enough calories to feed itself and then some, even without gas imports. Worst case you just stop growing bioethanol and beef to double the amount of available arable land at no tangible human cost.

      Those who’ll get fucked by Trump’s war are not Americans or Europeans, it’ll be poor economies that can barely support industrial agriculture in the best of times. Their ability to buy fertilizer is very price-sensitive, which we already saw in 2022, though at the time the US had leadership willing to intercede and guarantee grain shipments.

      This time, millions will die, but not in a prepper fantasy kind of way, but in a “they live in a ‘shithole country’ and we won’t care to help because our money finances ICE and bribes now” kind of way.

      source

      • dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I think this somewhat ignores the way markets kill people during times of famine - see the Late Victorian Holocausts or the Great Famine, in both of which there was plenty of food available, but the problem was the introduction of markets and artificial austerity measures that failed to distribute food to people dying of famine

        so, food production might be a solved issue (I think that’s a bit more debatable given soil degradation and the threats to supply chains necessary for the industrial inputs needed to keep those food production systems going in their current, post-Green-Revolution format), but the distribution issue has not been solved and will likely result in many of us dying due to lack of economic power to afford food that will simply expire and rot in storage and then be destroyed and disposed of in a way that denies us access to the waste

        source

        • -> View More Comments
• SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Prepping gets a bad rap from the crazy people building bunkers and zombie traps that people saw on reality tv.

  I look at what my grandparents had. They had a garden and canned quite a bit of stuff. They had tools and enough stuff on hand to do basic maintenance and repairs on roofs, plumbing and cars. They sewed quilts and baked their own bread regularly. They had enough cash saved to make sudden purchases for anything else. They had a shotgun for emergencies.

  That doesn’t sound crazy or paranoid, but resilient. I know most people can’t do all of that but it would be nice to get closer to the mindset that governments and companies are nice but may not always be able or willing to help you.

  source

  • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    I understand the mindset, but civilization hinges on working together. Being resilient enough to survive on your own is rarely going to involve growing some significant portion of your own calories for an urban population. Being handy will certainly help in general, and having a method to repel bad actors are useful in a complete collapse, but relying on gasoline powered vehicles doesn’t make sense if you think society is going to fail.

    source

    • SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      That’s the thing, they didn’t think society was going to fail, even though they’d been through the depression, a world war, the oil crisis, blizzards etc. They weren’t the only ones either, they were essentially in a suburb and they knew their neighbors well

      source

      • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

        What I’m saying is, either civilization is going to fail or it isn’t. If it is, urban centers are going to collapse and a lot of people are going to die and most gasoline cars will be useless in a couple years. If it isn’t, utilizing the frameworks of civilization to handle disasters will be as effective as anything else we can do, hence no need for extreme resilience (growing you own food, canning, making your own clothing) or rugged individualism.

        source
  • fizzle@quokk.au ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The way I look at it is, the easiest 10% of the prep might get you most of the benefits.

    A few weeks worth of water, a few days worth of tinned food, that kind of thing.

    source
• BurgerBaron@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Preppers will just get robbed.

  source
• Screamium@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  If you have land it wouldn’t hurt to have some survival crops. Something like sunchokes (a.k.a. jerusalem artichokes, bad name because they’re not an artichoke and more like a sunflower) can grow well in a sectioned off space where they can’t spread. In an emergency the tubers can be dug up and cooked, though they’ll probably give you a lot of gas from the high incline.

  Personally I love raspberries and black raspberries, which are easy to grow just don’t plant them where they can spread and run wild. It’s nice to have fresh berries!

  source

  • Emi@ani.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    We do have small hut with few apple trees and some blackberries that we cook from when they grow(we get plenty of apples). Planning to plant something this year but didn’t decide yet, probably tomatoes. Not sure what could grow well in soil that has clay and with low maintenance.

    source

    • dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      sunchokes are fairly weedy and hard to get rid of, and don’t really produce enough calories to be worth it in a survival situation.

      Also, you should grow stuff you already eat - don’t expect to grow a bunch of food that you aren’t used to cooking or eating and to enjoy it.

      tbh, it might make most sense to identify what you spend the most money on and what’s easiest to grow that would replace the money you spend with time tending - usually that’s fresh herbs. Growing sage, thyme, rosemary, green onions, basil, etc. is usually fairly easy and will save a lot of money (a bundle of fresh herbs can cost like $5 for a very small amount).

      Garlic is also fairly expensive per 100 g, and I found it not too hard to grow - I managed to grow enough garlic in one season in a small area on a suburban plot to not have to buy grocery store garlic for over a year.

      But on the other hand, you don’t tend to buy a lot of garlic by weight, so it may or may not make sense given the amount of time it takes to garden.

      People need to understand that gardening is a huge amount of labor and time spent - it’s not economical compared to working a job and buying what you need.

      So, if you’re unemployed and unable to work, but able to garden, it’s unlikely to be a great way to spend your time if your concern is saving money.

      If your goal is to survive a catastrophe, I think it’s delusional to expect gardening to fully provide for your calories, and the same calculus applies: your time will be better spent making yourself valuable to someone who has excess food to give away (like your local CSA farmer friend); even just volunteering on their farm is a better use of time than trying to provide for your own calories by making your small urban or suburban lawn into a food production system.

      source

      • Screamium@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

        I feel like you just avoided the subject. If everyone fully relies on someone elses agriculture for all their calories then that’s putting all your eggs in one basket for an emergency. A farmer suddenly getting a thousand volunteers doesn’t increase the number of potatoes ready for harvest.

        Sunchokes are a suggestion because they are perennial, store in the ground, and require no care so long as they are contained.

        Something like potatoes would be great for more people if they perennial and hands off.

        source

        • -> View More Comments
    • plyth@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Potatos.

      source

      • Emi@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Potatoes <3

        source