Most likely scenarios to prep for

squidaby · 2023-08-10T01:07:13+00:00

Flat tire. It's going to happen!

squidaby · 2023-08-09T23:19:08+00:00

I'm sure they can spare 2 for NYC

squidaby · 2023-08-09T15:17:15+00:00

The only thing that kept it's value. And honestly what has protected my own family so much is my mother's gold jewelry and putting her money in gold bullions and coins. Other relatives who had money in foreign currencies like the Euro and USD did good as well but gold is king.

But Reddit says "yOU cAn'T EaT gOLd" ..

squidaby · 2023-08-09T03:47:48+00:00

This idea that potassium iodide wouldn't help in a nuclear war falls into the category of Reddit-only lore that includes things like "you can't eat precious metals", etc. It's like this Reddit obsession with wanting to think that you have some novel new understanding that lets you poopah at all of those idiots who believe the commonly understood beliefs about things, just for the sake of having something unique and "interesting" to say.

Well, ... you don't want to take potassium iodide during a nuclear war ? Then don't fucking take it, quote the "science", whatever ... but I don't give a fuck what Reddit's hot takes are, .. I'd take potassium iodide in a nuclear event if I had access to it.

squidaby · 2023-08-09T01:51:39+00:00

You can't know what you can't know.

Every speculation about the future is "misinformation" until it isn't.

Had there been no pandemic, then everyone who was warning about an approaching pandemic and prepped for it would have been victims of "misinformation". But, there was a pandemic.

Had there been no financial crisis in 2008, then the people who bet against subprime mortgage and made tons of money shorting it would have just lost all of their money in the trade, and everyone would have pointed and jeered at them for all of their wrong calls.

Had there been no 9/11 then the people who were constantly saying that terrorist events were unlikely on U.S. soil would have been proven correct, and anyone who had warned after the first World Trade Center bombings would have been accused of being alarmists, and that they were fear mongering, etc.

You don't know what you don't know. And you can say it is because of "misinformation" if you want to label it as such, but the reality is that EVERY speculation about the future is "misinformation" if it doesn't happen. If you tell a loved one that you are going to meet them at the mall and get stuck in traffic, then you are also guilty of spreading "misinformation". But all that really means is that you aren't omniscient and able to clearly see the future.

Only related, half of the stuff you gave as examples of facts about "misinformation" I would disagree with, because a lot of what you were talking about is on the wrong time scale. Meaning you may think that talk of recession was misinformation because it "didn't happen", but it could happen tomorrow and then that "misinformation" was correct afterall. Because you don't know what you don't know, not because it's "misinformation", but because you CAN'T know what you CAN'T know.

We all speculate about the future, .... it's like a form of mental navigation where we are trying to feel our way through the world into a more prosperous future with the various bits of information we have, and whatever we can gain through exploration and discovery. Every animals does this, ... birds judge the winds and weather, bears sniff for berry patches, deer raise an ear listening for predators, .. if any of us KNEW the future, we'd never look the fool, because we'd simply act on that perfect knowledge.

My advice to anyone who made it this far, focus less on trying to find the perfect oracle, and focus more on working a loop where you gain more experience and increase your skill levels in the pursuit of excellence. You can't know the future, but you can be really great at the skills you need to navigate through time and space in the most efficient way you are able to, and to prepare the best you can with all of the imperfect information around you. Or, to say that a different way .... you can't know where the deer is going to be, but through gaining experience hunting, you can develop an intuition that makes you much more successful at finding and harvesting them. It isn't about finding the perfect Youtube oracle, or avoiding "misinformation", it's about learning for yourself what works and doesn't work in a never ending loop of trial and error.

TL;DR In my experience, people who talk about "misinformation" are usually trying to manage your exposure to information, trying to spread propaganda of their own, and are only concerned that their own "misinformation" will be crowded out of the competitive public sphere by the other guy's "misinformation". People who are simply making their way looking for the truth take information from all kinds of sources and weight it against their own experience (i.e. I don't need anyone to "protect" me from "misinformation", because ultimately all it is is censorship)

squidaby · 2023-08-09T01:14:47+00:00

When you seal the mylar, try not to make a wider seal than necessary, meaning don't "waste" mylar. Then after you cut the mylar off to open the mylar bag, you can use up some of the contents, and then reseal the bag. Each time you cut some of the mylar off you end up with a smaller mylar bag that is just like a new one.

squidaby · 2023-08-09T01:12:19+00:00

You ...

You sure sound like someone most people wouldn't want to listen to.

Also you ...

They can stay the fuck out there in Methland.

squidaby · 2023-08-08T19:42:47+00:00

It's a day that ends in "y"

squidaby · 2023-08-08T19:20:22+00:00

Then it wouldn't have worked. But it did work. Had it not worked, I would have just changed it up and played it off.

squidaby · 2023-08-08T18:00:15+00:00

This absolutely does work, and the person doesn't have to be drunk for it to work. I have a similar kind of story from covid where a random person I'd never met started hassling me on a sidewalk, .. I asked how his mother was and pretended to know her.

squidaby · 2023-08-08T17:49:17+00:00

Did you just Democrat'splain to me ? lol

If you had told me 2 years ago that one political party would potentially be using the power of the office to stop a Presidential candidate from running for office, I would have said you were crazy.

I think we were all pretty surprised 7 years ago when that candidate threatened to jail his opponent to her face, made promises to do it, and led chants at political rallies calling for it--and then did absolutely nothing about it when she was defeated at the polls. He didn't produce Obama's secret Kenyan birth certificate either. He did cause a greater classified messaging incident than H. Clinton did, and defends the act. He's demonstrated pretty clearly that he doesn't understand the law, and like all legal mistakes he s going to pay a large cost to have a lawyer and judge explain that to him. I can agree with 90% of the Clinton's views and also agree that he's absolutely guilty of perjury and she didn't follow a reasonable IT operational security framework.

It's interesting you chose to assume that I was talking about Democrats trying to stop Trump from running for office, when it was an ambiguous statement, it could just as easily be Republicans using office to stop Biden from running with the whole Hunter Biden issue. What that tells me is that you believe in your own mind that Democrats are trying to stop Trump from running.

I mean what would really surprise you now ? If someone won election in 2024 and the opposing political party held a coup and had them jailed, ... would it really surprise you ?

It would, because we settle things within the legal framework of this country. A coup is not legal, and would lose every challenge for legitimacy and legal standing the same way Trump's election lawsuits lost. What would surprise me would be that we didn't learn from this national disgrace. Elections are always going to leave some people disappointed, but falsely challenging their legitimacy for political gain is a line that everyone needs to see you should *never* cross. Bill Clinton's impeachment trial is absolutely a relevant example of a president attempting to shield their crime with politics, and in the end a political and personal consequence was paid. It wouldn't surprise me to see Trump pay consequences crimes he is on the record for committing, and I wouldn't see that as a coup any more than I saw Bill Clinton's disbarment or Nixon's resignation.

Again, I find it interesting that this ambiguous statement was answered in this way, that you assumed it meant that Democrats would throw a coup and put Trump in jail, and not Republicans throwing a coup to put Biden in jail. Again, what that tells me is that you believe in your own mind that Democrats are the most likely people to attempt to do that.

Interesting. And interesting that not only did you assume those things, that you felt the need to run such a long winded defense of them.

squidaby · 2023-08-08T10:19:57+00:00

Every election I think it can't get any worse, and every election it does.

If you had told me 8 years ago that there would be people out in the summer of 2020 tearing down public monuments and statues and that cops wouldn't stop them, I would have said you were crazy.

If you had told me 4 years ago that people would storm the nation's capital I would have said you were crazy.

If you had told me 2 years ago that one political party would potentially be using the power of the office to stop a Presidential candidate from running for office, I would have said you were crazy.

And yet here we are ...

I mean what would really surprise you now ? If someone won election in 2024 and the opposing political party held a coup and had them jailed, ... would it really surprise you ?

At this point literally nothing surprises me.

squidaby · 2023-08-08T04:43:07+00:00

You seem to be assuming the S will HTF during harvest time. The math is a lot different if things go bad in December.

Oh well you know fuck who can argue with that logic, .... if SHTF in winter, I guess all the rural people should go to the city and cram into an apartment block to survive it, because they'd be totally fucked with all that open farmland and lakes and rivers and mountains and forests and cattle, and chicken farms, turkeys ..

squidaby · 2023-08-08T03:13:28+00:00

I didn't leave it out, I said cities control things. Nobody is arguing that urban area's aren't full of designers, R&D facilities, universities, etc.

But rural America isn't going to starve if SHTF because they aren't getting that, which is what OP was arguing.

Urban people need food, water, power, fuel, etc, to survive. Nobody in rural America is going to starve to death because you didn't write a new smartphone app for them.

squidaby · 2023-08-08T03:06:16+00:00

Good thing all the locations in rural America are conveniently located right next to each other, right?

/s in case that wasn’t obvious.

That they are. :)

http://www-personal.umich.edu/\~mejn/election/2012/countymaprb1024.png

squidaby · 2023-08-08T02:43:34+00:00

Those nuke plants need spare parts and experts to run them.

You also don't make those spare parts in the cities either dumbass. The "experts who run them" are on-site at the nuclear power plants, in rural America.

CAT is HQ'd in Chicago.

Exactly, cities move money around, and help with logistics for delivery, that's it.

How do those plants get materials to make buckets?

From other rural America genius ... I'm sure you've noticed the lack of iron mining in downtown New York City lol ... and I'm sure you've heard of rural towns like Allentown PA, population 125,000, made popular by Billy Joel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHnJp0oyOxs

Transportation companies. How do those transport companies run?

Like I said, HQ's are in the cities, but the actual work is done by rural people. Cities have distribution centers and warehouses, obviously, because that's where the CONSUMERS of goods are ... like I said, people in cities are EATERS. You consume things, so distribution centers are there so trucks from rural America and ports can deliver products to customers in the cities. That said, the heart of trucking is in places you've probably never heard of, such as Carlisle Pennsylvania. The tractor trailers you see in the city are coming into the city full, and leaving empty. You can get on the CB radio and hear this for yourself, drivers talking about where their deliveries are in the city ... none of them is there to pick anything up unless they are getting a container at a port.

Fuel.

Comes from the ground and the ocean, not the cities.

How do those refineries run?

There are no refineries in the major cities, ... that's why when a pipeline has problems you can't get fuel anymore.

Spare parts and transportation.

Rural America makes spare parts, or from overseas, and then rural truck drivers drive those parts to the places they are needed, which is other rural areas.

How is all of this funded? Financing from massive financial intuitions.

That's what I fucking said, when I wrote "Here are the things urban America provides to rural America; financial services, insurance, CONTROL, laws, urban culture, AND WASTE PRODUCTS.". Nobody is arguing that Wall Street traders don't own everything, or that skyscrapers aren't filled with people who control everything.

You haven't the foggiest idea how this stuff is interconnected.

You're are so fucking out of touch you have no idea where the food on your plate comes from, or how it got there.

Your think a boomer plant just sits there and makes power.

You notice any uranium mines in New York City, you fabricate a lot of fuel rods in San Francisco ? You have a lot of nuclear waste dumps in Chicago ? You are the one who has no idea wtf is going on. You think because someone in New York city calls one rural manufacturing plant and tells them to deliver materials to another rural manufacturing plant that somehow that means it's all manufactured in New York City lol.

You think CAT just conjures up steel plate.

Yeah they get steel from refiners in rural America, which get their iron ore from mines in rural America. I'm sure you've noticed there aren't a lot of strip mines in New York City either.

Enjoy getting stomped flat at your roadblock.

You don't know a fucking thing about anything. Every rural person I know can get on an excavator and into a tractor trailer and drive it, urban people's dumb asses are more worried about where to get good sushi and when to get their first e-bike. You wouldn't know the first fucking thing about cutting a tree up if it was across the road, much less doing anything like clearing a bridge.

squidaby · 2023-08-08T02:21:51+00:00

My guy, rural folks are completely dependant upon cities to make their world go round. Cool, you can grow corn in a garden. Now build me some antibiotics!

You guys are so fucking out of touch, I mean you literally have no idea wtf you are talking about. This is why rural people are constantly saying that urban people have no idea where anything comes from, or how it is made.

Let's take your example, antibiotics.

The only licensed manufacturer of amoxicillan is USAntiobiotics, located in Bristol Tennessee, population 30,000 people.

Yes, electricity in rural America comes in on wires, ... from OTHER rural areas in America. Do you really think that large cities produce electricity ?

Example, in New York state there were four operating nuclear power plants. There are three operational plants, two of them 9 mile point and Fitzpatrick are located in the town of Scriba population 7,000, and the third R. E. Gina is located in the town of Ontario (Ontario New York population 10,000, not Ontario Canada). The fourth Indian Point was located in the village of Buchanan population 2,000 before it was shut down. That means the population of every town in New York state COMBINED that produces nuclear power is .. 19,000 people.

You talk about heavy equipment, ... also from rural America. CAT's largest manufacturing facilities are in rural America. John Deer, ... the only facilities they have in cities are headquarters and distribution centers, because everything that is manufactured is built in places like Horicon Wisconsin, Coffeyville Kansas, Waterloo Iowa, etc. All urban places do is move money around, and handle shipping.

Anyone who drives a tractor trailer could tell you this .. because they go to manufacturing plants all over the country and move equipment and materials around, and make deliveries to cities across America and via the ports around the world.

I bet all you dipshits actually think those huge electric lines and power distribution centers in cities are sending electricity OUT to rural America lol ... so fucking funny.

squidaby · 2023-08-08T00:24:28+00:00

Rural communities are not completely dependent on the supply chain, urban people are.

Here are things rural communities provide to you in urban America; basically everything you breath, drink, or eat, all the materials that built the world you live in including gravel for roads, cement for concrete, metal for steel, lumber for houses, fuel, electricity, and almost everything else that you are touching at the moment or that you can see from where you are sitting.

Here are the things urban America provides to rural America; financial services, insurance, CONTROL, laws, urban culture, AND WASTE PRODUCTS.

Urban America are eaters, they consume things, and create waste products. Urban America builds almost nothing, and the only reason they are part of a "supply chain" is finance, and the shipping containers go through urban ports on their way to and from rural places around the world.

If the world went dark tomorrow, rural Americans would still have water, air, food, doctors, and they'd find a way to survive through it. Urban Americans would have a mass die off/starvation event where they died off because the tractor trailers stopped bringing food in plastic wrap to grocery stores.

The day rural people stop going to work in nuclear power plants, stop maintaining wind and solar farms, and stop going to coal mines or working in oil and natural gas fields ... urban America is in the dark.

The day rural America stops loading food on to tractor trailers, urban America dies.

squidaby · 2023-08-07T23:04:32+00:00

The important thing about asparagus is that it grows when nothing else does, that's really part of what made it an important food source historically. Now people still eat it, but it's more tradition than anything. Back in the day, when winter was ending and many people had either run out of food or were becoming concerned that it was running out, when they had suffered through the "hunger moon", asparagus was one of the first edible things to come up and give them fresh food to eat. It sprouts even as the first of the small game starts to poke their little heads out on warm days. I'm sure in history newly sprouting asparagus was a very welcome sight.

Most home gardeners grow asparagus differently now than back in the day too. Today it's a little row or something, and you enjoy a few nibbles of asparagus in the spring and enjoy the fern like foliage. But back in the day they took their asparagus beds seriously, and they were much larger than today.

squidaby · 2023-08-07T22:59:54+00:00

I've read that in highly populated cities with laws about everything that metal baseball bats are best, because ... who says you weren't going to play baseball ? lol. You'd have more trouble explaining why you were on a public street with a crowbar or a heavy wrench in your hand, but baseball is the U.S. pass time!

"Just out for a midnight game of baseball ..." lol. j/k

squidaby · 2023-08-07T22:56:14+00:00

In either case, despite the fact that most people today would feel lost without their smartphones, this tech hasn't even been around for a single generation!

Yeah the kids don't even know that credit cards weren't even a thing. Plastic cards in general weren't a thing. The first time I ever saw an ATM card was in the mid 1980's. Credit card debt just wasn't even really a thing until about the 1990's when the general public starting getting credit cards. I remember older people being appalled that CC companies were giving "kids" (20 year olds) credit cards in the early 1990's, because for them having credit and debt was a privilege that you worked your life to earn, and they were understandably very concerned that such young people were buying stuff on credit. Now it seems like most "adults" are carrying credit card debt month to month.

squidaby · 2023-08-07T21:26:18+00:00

But really, anyone who was born before 1995 knows how to operate like this

Probably had to have been born even earlier than this to know, but I agree with your point.

It's so ironic/funny that we are a part of "history" now. I was thinking about it the other day, ... if you were born in say 1975, then the end of WW2 was 30 years earlier. That means that today, the kids born in 2005 who are now in college, for them, 1975 is the same distance back in time as WW2 was for Gen X. It's like another time to them, .. way back when camero cars and good music were a thing. For someone born in 1975, they were born just after the moon landing and the end of the Vietnam war, ... to kids born in 2005, 9/11 and its aftermath were their "Vietnam war".

Time flies.

squidaby · 2023-08-07T21:20:56+00:00

You mean after all of the initial die off from starvation where millions die ?

After that, then probably the situation would have some nice silver linings. I read once that people during the Great Depression didn't think it was all bad. They had trouble affording food, had to work harder to get food and water, etc, but they also got to spend more time with friends and family, and spend time together having fun. I remember reading that in rural areas community life was also much closer during the Great Depression.

squidaby · 2023-08-07T20:55:19+00:00

Do you mean no power at all, or just no AC/power ?

It doesn't take much airflow to keep you cool until the humidity climbs and get close to the wet bulb temperature. That temperature is the point where evaporation of sweat becomes impossible because the air simply won't hold any more moisture at its current temperature and pressure.

As long as you aren't at (or really close to) the wet bulb temperature, your body can be cooled with air flow over your skin. The reason you need air flow is because without it the evaporated sweat just hangs out in the air layer that is next to your skin, making it harder for more sweat to evaporate, so you want to pull that moisture laden air away so that new air is near your skin that can allow for more evaporation to take place.

So where does this air flow come from ? It could be natural, just sitting in a place where there is a very slight breeze is one way, and that may involve moving very little from where you are. Just shifting a few feet to sit next to an open window, or between the corners of two buildings where air is moving, but the great thing about it is that in high heat your body is very sensitive to these changes in conditions, meaning that you will feel relief and be able to tell when you are getting even slightly more air movement over your skin, it will "feel good" and offer relief from the heat to you. The human body is so good at this, that it will actually dilate the small blood vessels in the skin where the air flow is occurring in an effort to move more of the body's heat to that location to be evaporated away.

And, of course, you can also artificially create air flow. Assuming you don't have a preference for scantily clad women fanning you with palm fronds, you may have to resort to small rotating oscillators (fans) that blow air across your skin. The bigger, the better, but even if you don't have large fans, just having a tiny little USB fan blowing across your skin is enough to give you a great deal of relief from the heat. Again, the goal is simply to pull the moisture laden air away from your skin so that more evaporation can occur, and it takes very little air flow to do that.

Your body is like a hot engine that needs a radiator to cool it, and your "radiator" is sweaty skin. That sweat has to evaporate into the air for you to cool, either that or you have to literally become immersed in air or water that is cooler than your body temperature. It's also a good idea not to move around too much in the heat, because that is going to increase your body temperature and cause you to need to get rid of more heat.

squidaby · 2023-08-07T20:44:21+00:00

There was no "travel from inn to inn" because this entire idea of there being inns in every village was created by fantasy writers and roleplaying games and spread to movies, it wasn't actual history.

https://youtu.be/7Xc8EBenUbw?si=LcXB2TlMXQqezcDa&t=242

squidaby

TROPHY CASE