What do I mean by “It’s time to move beyond Thunderdome?”
Admit it
We all do it… we sit around and envision The End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI)… and the overwhelming, crushing concern over what would happen drives us to prep.
The simple truth is that, sooner or later, TEOTWAWKI will happen. The poles will swap. The Sun will flare. A rogue state will pop an Electro-Mechanical Pulse (EMP). Yellowstone will erupt. An asteroid will come. The economy will tank. A massive pandemic will hit. Something WILL eventually happen.
We envision the country we live in to turn into a society like the one depicted in Mad Max. Thunderdome.
Photo courtesy https://szorny-stock.deviantart.com/
Likely disasters vs Thunderdome
But here’s the thing… while one or more of these catastrophic events will eventually happen, each one is a low-probability event for happening TODAY, so we might want to hold off on designing plans for the Thunderdome combat arena.
Instead, we are much more likely to have a PERSONAL TEOTWAWKI. We are much more likely to have an illness in our family, a job loss, be hit by random violence in our community, suffer an auto accident, have our house burn down from a kitchen fire or some bad wiring, be a victim of identity theft or one of a hundred other personal disasters in today’s world that will end our personal world as we know it.
We are also much more likely to be hit by temporary (but still serious) lifestyle interruptions such as medium-term power or water outages, weeks without our main heater working in the winter, etc.
That’s why we need to, as preppers, move “beyond Thunderdome”. That’s why we need to start concentrating not only on the worldwide catastrophes, but even more so on disasters that are most likely to happen to us.
Why?
Opportunity cost.
What is opportunity cost? I’ll let Investopedia define it for you: “Opportunity cost refers to a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action. Stated differently, an opportunity cost represents an alternative given up when a decision is made. This cost is, therefore, most relevant for two mutually exclusive events.”
In prepper terms, it’s where we spend our resources preparing for low-probability events which leaves us without the resources to prepare for things far more likely to happen today or tomorrow.
Food, not Master Blaster
For example, buying enough food to last a year is something a person is often encouraged to do, whereas for the same money (the cost of feeding two people for a year) the family in the Midwest could have installed a storm shelter. Which is more likely to happen in the Midwest, severe weather or Thunderdome?
There’s good news, however… prepping for short and long term does not need to be mutually exclusive… they can easily be combined with a bit of planning. Many, many preps can be used for both, and we support the idea of drawing up a prepping plan and figuring out which preps are “dual purpose” and concentrating on them, with the emphasis (if needed) placed on the items more likely to be needed.
Beyond Thunderdome
Spice and I try to funnel our efforts towards the most likely disaster, while not forgetting TEOTWAWKI will one day happen… it’s just that we recognize what is more likely to happen to us in our lifetimes, and start with that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwRPXmcggdY
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