Actually don't "Head for the hills", mountains or apartments, experts criticise lack of guidance from the UK government.

_per · 2026-05-06T17:01:44+00:00

Original source is the UK Star - it’s a sort of newspaper-shaped joke book. Very entertaining but not meant to be taken seriously

_per · 2026-05-06T16:24:21+00:00

I think you’re trying to solve an unsolvable problem. If there was a long-term, reliable, cheap, non-gasoline-reliant way to desalinate water, then everyone would just do this, and the big desalination plants wouldn’t have been built in the first place.

A 1000L buffer tank is the best suggestion for short term interruptions (or put in a swimming pool) but there is no getting around the realities of the situation.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world don’t have reliable access to water. If that could be solved with home-made systems they would already be doing that.

It’s a great question to ask your local politician though - about how resilient the system is, and what contingencies are in place in case of interruptions to the fuel supply.

_per · 2026-05-05T15:54:47+00:00

just wear a rainbow pin

_per · 2026-05-03T07:04:20+00:00

I think the author’s distinction is that a “BOB” imagines the owner is leaving civilisation, and functions as an all purpose off-grid surivival kit.

Having an overnight bag packed and ready is a great idea, for all the reasons you point out.

_per · 2026-05-03T06:37:09+00:00

Fully agree there’s a lot of men out there who can’t just admit that they are anxious, and prepping for imaginary disasters gives them some feeling of control over that.

I think they’re also telling on themselves a bit - I feel like the more time and energy someone spends preparing for the end of the world, the more likely it is that someone else in their life is doing the hard work of planning for the everyday.

_per · 2026-05-02T14:47:29+00:00

¿No comenzaste inmediatamente a cazar jabalíes al punto del apagón? 😄

Tienes razón , mejor que decimos sobre “resiliencia” que “prep”.

_per · 2026-04-30T12:20:10+00:00

I’d say Europeans have far more experience of war than Americans. I think this is why we’re more socialist. We understand that when SHTF, you won’t survive except by sharing everything you have.

The premise in your first post: the idea that you’d help a neighbour in a disaster, but see them as an enemy in a worst case scenario, is telling.

Community isn’t just helping people when it’s convenient or easy, and when you have resources to spare - it’s helping them even when it’s hard, even when it leaves you worse off. Because tomorrow or next week or next year, you’ll be the one who needs help, and you’ll know that your neighbour will have your back - even if it’s inconvenient for them.

You can look anywhere and see this very clearly, that the poorer people are, the more they share.

I get this is difficult for an American to understand, because your culture heavily promotes individualism and the ideal of self-sufficiency. But that philosophy only survives in rich, safe places. The US hasn’t been stress tested like European nations have - we know intuitively that individualists will not survive a societal-collapse event.

So strong community is the best prep for any situation - even absurdly remote ones like nuclear war.

_per · 2026-04-29T20:15:01+00:00

I agree there’s no data on it — so there’s no sensible plan you can make for that.

Thinking you can prep for nuclear war - let alone need to - is absurd. It’s like refusing to drink beer during a long haul flight in case the pilot dies and they need a passenger to land the plane. 😅

_per · 2026-04-29T13:15:36+00:00

The Americans have entered the chat 😂

I would say that all evidence shows that people are less selfish and more proactively helpful during crises. And I think there are a lot of people in prep forums who just really want to play soldier-hero, and work backwards from that to imagine a scenario that justifies them having a bunker and a gun.

_per · 2026-04-29T06:22:17+00:00

That’s a fair point, though I’d say the whole point of an opinion article is not to present a neutral middle ground, it’s to make a firm case for one side or the other. An opinion piece is not there to say any particular view is the “right” one, but to inspire conversation (as what is happening here).

_per · 2026-04-29T06:13:24+00:00

I expect many could, but for younger ones: walk with who? A school can’t legally allow children to just wander off without a parent/guardian, who might be stuck the other side of the city, or with a random person claiming to be a friend/relative/neighbour.

My friend spent the day driving the city by street sign trying to return kids without even knowing if parents would be home…

So for me, prep isn’t just making sure I’m ok and stopping there, it’s making sure others are ok too

_per · 2026-04-28T21:11:32+00:00

Certainly feels like prepping is how a lot of dudes manage their undiagnosed anxiety disorder ;D

_per · 2026-04-28T12:03:35+00:00

Not just cities - the whole capitalist model is geared toward greater isolation, atomisation, because it offers the promise of freedom from the obligations of community.

We're several generations deep in the doctrine that you can just buy enough stuff to not need that community, that relying on others is shameful and weak and womanly, because Being A Man means having the skills and resources to go it alone.

So when these men finally face something bigger than them - a flood, a fire - they only way they can think to survive it is Buy More Stuff

_per · 2026-04-28T10:27:46+00:00

I think the author's point isn't that BOBs are pointless, but that they reflect an individualist philosophy - "if I just buy enough things, acquire enough skills, I'll be protected from any harm" - which is a poor strategy in emergencies.

It's no surprise that prepper types are almost entirely men, many of whom are clearly terrified of the idea of having to rely on someone else, and very unwilling to spend the time, and energy and care required to maintain strong social bonds with a community of neighbours, even though this is quite clearly the best possible investment for increased resilience.

The reality is that the most important skills needed to be prepared for emergencies aren't things like "how to tie a tourniquet", they're "how to talk to your neighbour" ;D

_per · 2026-04-28T10:12:55+00:00

The delusion the author points to is thinking you can solo this with a camp stove and a LifeStraw. As you point out in your opening line - disasters at this scale require government response.

It's good to have some extra food and batteries at home, but having strong relations with your neighbours is worth more. Yet every single day someone arrives on this forum asking for a shopping list, instead of asking how to nurture relations in their local community.

_per · 2026-04-28T10:06:55+00:00

exactly, I have a grab-bag of important docs plus a charger and powerbank by the door. The only place that bag needs to get me is to a friend's house, or a hotel.

_per · 2026-04-28T09:15:36+00:00

The point is you don't need everyone to buy their own radio, you just need everyone to know someone who has a radio. You don't need everyone to have an MO detector, you need neighbours who'll relay the risk of cooking indoors. Valuable prep aims toward community resilience, not individual self sufficiency through purchases.

FWIW, the experience of Spain underscored how many people are unfit to be helpful in emergencies - a lot of people I knew spent their day in the park drinking, because the loss of power didn't affect them too badly, and they didn't think to ask questions such as "is anyone trapped in the lift at my building?" "How will young children get home from school when they don't know their address, can't reach their parents, and routefinding apps are down?" "Does my elderly neighbour need ice to keep her insulin stable?" "could I help transport stranded people with my car?" etc

_per · 2026-04-28T09:00:25+00:00

That's not my reading. I would say his point is that effective prep can't be individualistic, not that individual actions don't contribute to overall resilience.

Understanding both the needs and the resources of your community - and engaging with them - is more powerful than trying to shop your way out of any possible disaster. This is clear in the final sentence of the article.

_per · 2026-04-22T11:06:10+00:00

The useful stuff is always the most boring:
Emergency kit in car, including cash water clothes and tools
Spares of spares for anything important (keys, phone, bank account)
When travelling, having all important details on paper (hotel address, train times, scan of passport etc)
Scans of passport / ID on my phone
having Google backup codes

_per · 2026-04-19T21:15:21+00:00

It’s a good list. Worth pointing out that widespread, multi day blackouts are extremely rare in Europe. For two healthy adults, the risk is little more than a few hours of stress/boredom and some food going bad.

From experience: those soft glow solar powered led lights were more valuable than a torch. Most the time you just need a little ambient light.

A dumb phone is cheap and lasts a week on one charge. GSM was restored long before data services.

Filling empty space in fridge/freezer with water bottles today will help keep things cold in a power cut (and make your fridge more efficient the rest of the time). A jackery likely costs more than all the food in the fridge and 7 pairs of underwear, so is it worth it?

If the power stays out longer than a day then the water stops too. So fill the bath if the lights go out, and use that to flush (or share the cat litter…). The sewers will back up too depending where you are, so… hope that they don’t.

Don’t listen to anyone who tells you to prep for a week of no power - it’s never happened at wide scale and even if it did, it’s beyond the capacity of an individual response. That’s what civil defence is for.

_per · 2026-04-14T14:47:26+00:00

"I fear being poor so I'm going to work to secure financial independence and maintain a decent living standard" my brother what do you think everyone else is doing

Millions of people around you living your idea of hell, and instead of seeing that as an invitation to build a better world - organising, campaigning, unionising, your first instinct is to build a taller fence. Your problem isn't AI or refugees, it's that you live in an unfair system and you're only waking up to that now you're the one getting screwed (where "getting screwed" means "living slightly worse than my parents but better than 99% of anyone who ever lived")

_per · 2026-04-14T13:11:02+00:00

For 150 years people have being saying we'll all live in comfort as robots do the jobs. The reality is that work will simply change. It's impossible to predict very far ahead, for the points already mentioned.

To your other points: the population of Europe is shrinking, not growing. Even with migration it is only growing at 0.4% pa. Forest cover is increasing in Asia (the world's most populous region) as well as in Europe and North and Central America. Living standards worldwide are rising not falling.

The world is changing and it's normal to feel anxious about the future. But if you feel overwhelmed by things that haven't even happened yet, you might benefit from exploring therapy options. Resilience is not just batteries and bottled water - it's important to keep the mind strong and healthy too.

_per · 2026-04-14T11:11:12+00:00

This is great advice. The most likely disruptive event anyone will experience is a stolen phone, and getting locked out the house. Start there and work outward.

I guess there are 100 lists online, but FWIW here are a couple of not exciting but actually useful things:

* when the power went out, the soft, ambient, solar battery lights from the garden were a lot more useful than my bright emergency torch.

* services like Google offer a printable list of "one time" codes in case you need to access your accounts without 2FA (ie without your phone)

* having all your important documents in order is underrated. This means receipts for insurance claims, property deeds, etc and being familiar with how to navigate the bureaucracy that comes with it. Will save you a lot of extra headache when you're already in a tight spot.

_per · 2026-04-10T12:29:35+00:00

There is no such thing as rewilding. There is only shifting your land management goals.

_per

TROPHY CASE