
The Economics of Doomsday Survival - mcarvin
http://www.smartasset.com/blog/economics-of/the-economics-of-doomsday-preparations/?ns=1
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hexagonc
The interesting thing is that if the apocalypse or "doomsday" is due to
climate change, then we don't know yet where the safe places to setup are.
Somewhere that is warm now could be cold or flooded or infested with some new
pest in the future. Any plan that involves being root to one place seems
doomed to failure in a true catastrophe. Seems to me that a better plan would
be weapons and unarmed combat training, basic first aid and knowledge of
edible plant species throughout the world. If you want to hoard something,
hoard containers that can be used to purify water and matches/lighters/flint.
Of course, anything I say can be taken with a grain of salt since I'm purely a
city boy!

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the_watcher
My family is from rural eastern Washington, and we have a cabin that is about
as "off the grid" as you can be while still having any kind of modern
comforts. We've got an outhouse (a septic tank as well, but let's leave that
out because of the maintenance piece, even though it was installed and has
been maintained by family members for years now), a well, tons of electric
blankets and really basic winterization, and enough room on the sleeping porch
for 5 beds. There are also plenty of weapons there since it was built at the
turn of the century and has been used by avid hunters for nearly 100 years
now. We've got two generators and every tool imaginable (accumulated over
years of visitors bringing/buying what we need to fix/upgrade the place)

We'd need solar panels (which don't pay off nearly as fast in a forest that
has a brutal winter) or a windmill (surprised this wasn't listed as an
electricity option - some neighbors up there have one, and while it isn't a
replacement for modern electricity usage, it more than powers their
electricity when they aren't there - a good start), and land for growing our
own food (although it is in a forest with lax hunting laws that has wild
edible vegetation, and on a lake filled with fish, some predictability would
be valuable).

That's the original cabin. The new, more modern one that we built recently has
an indoor fireplace and better winterization, but it likely requires more
electricity and is connected to a public water source (should be easily
remedied post-apocalypse since it is right on a lake).

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digitalengineer
Escaping to the country isn't a good plan. During the financial crisis of 2008
I thought it be a good idea to read about the financial crisis of Argentina
during the 2001 crash and what it ment to students/poor people, the middle
class in "Surviving Argentina". In short: "On the country-side" no one can
hear you scream. A lot of sh*t went down. The books a good read, I even took
up the some of the advice and now no longer need lenses or glasses with build-
in contact-lenses inside my eye. My house is strengtened as well, and I
studied Krav Maga for a few years. Always nice to know a little bit. I liked
the first lesson: If you can walk away out of a situation, do it and screw
your "honor".

Book: (no affiliate links) [http://www.amazon.com/The-Modern-Survival-Manual-
Surviving/d...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Modern-Survival-Manual-
Surviving/dp/9870563457/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392825317&sr=8-1&keywords=surviving+argentina)

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the_watcher
The article doesn't spend much time on it, but it does mention the necessity
of weapons to defend yourself. I read the article more about living off the
grid today, which would set you up better than the vast majority of those
should the apocalypse come to pass. It's pretty much impossible to totally
remove yourself from the grid without moving to the country in the modern era.

You're right that this may not be the best possible disaster prep if you are
simply preparing for disaster (and don't plan on going off the grid unless
totally necessary).

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ergoproxy
If the "doomsday" event is hyperinflation, then you would have done better to
invest that $137,000 in physical gold, rather than some rural hermitage.

If the "doomsday" event is "The Great Tribulation," then you would have done
better using the $137,000 doing the 1,050 commands of the New Testament:
[http://www.cai.org/bible-studies/1050-new-testament-
commands](http://www.cai.org/bible-studies/1050-new-testament-commands)

If the "doomsday" event is gamma ray bursts from within the Milky Way galaxy
aimed straight at Earth, extraterrestrial invasion, or a massive meteorite
impact, then kiss your a$$ and your $137,000 goodbye.

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tthomas48
I plan to organize with my neighbors and cooperate to survive doomsday. It has
been a proven effective method in the aggregate for the history of the world.
Lone survivalists have a pretty dismal survival rate.

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jmnicolas
Any preppers on HN ? We need a Prepper News ! ;-)

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oftenwrong
Why not use a hunter-gatherer model instead of depending on agriculture?

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the_watcher
Depends on where you get your land. My family's cabin is in a forest in
eastern Washington that could probably sustain hunter-gatherers. The Great
Plains, however, probably could not (basing this on Native American tribes
being more sedentary near my cabin than the middle American tribes that were
more transient, as well as my limited knowledge of what grows wild on the
great plains).

