> It's the complacent "everyman for themselves" mentality I don't understand.
It's a classic prisoner's dilemma game: you don't know what's the winning move is until you see what others are doing. And this kind of preparation is just getting ready in case this prep is needed. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and etcetera.
Prisoner's Dilemma posits that you can't talk to the other party. In most real life situations, you can talk to your neighbors and what not.
I used that fact to good effect during my divorce, which involved no lawyers and was amicable. So I have first-hand experience with how well it can work to actually talk to the other party instead of waiting to see what they will do and reacting, based on an unnecessary assumption that it's clearly a hostile situation and we will be enemies.
There's over a thousand people living in my building, and a lot more in just a few hundred meters around me. I have very similar experience with my divorce, but I don't think I would be able to effectively communicate with this community, or to trust all these random people.
Sorry, I can't really relate. I'm dirt poor. I attend public meetings and do pro bono work trying to help make my community healthier and better.
I don't think I need to personally speak individually with the thousands who live in my town to do something constructive or to effectively communicate with people around me.
That would make sense if efforts were made and posts were written about making the state/city/community more prepared. Of course, one could always prepare for themselves too.
But most I've chanced are mostly ignoring the community/city/etc aspect, and go directly to the "how I, personally me, and my family at most, will survive, and screw the rest of them suckers".
At best they don't think they can influence the community/city/etc preparedness (or think it's already great). At worst, they don't care as long as they are prepared.
If you prepare, and your preparations were unnceccessary, you just spent a lot of resources for nothing. (Of course, this could start a whole converation aboud hindsight and a priori knowledge, but point still stands).
It's a classic prisoner's dilemma game: you don't know what's the winning move is until you see what others are doing. And this kind of preparation is just getting ready in case this prep is needed. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and etcetera.