You can't be sent to the antarctic if you have one, because the risk of suddenly dying is small but very real and the extraction times impossible.

Given that, having your appendix out would probably be pretty far down the list.

There was a Soviet doctor there in the 60's who successfully removed his own appendix, but I think in general that's a situation that you want to avoid.

Every person who has adequate preparations for themselves and their family is a person who who's allowing societal resources to go to someone else in greater need. It's one less person standing in line for water and food after a disaster.

Far from an anti-solution, it provides distributed herd immunity.

The people hiding in their shelters will live just a bit longer. If that means they survive: great. But they could also die alone instead of having defeated the danger together.

It comes off like you're saying "well if shit really goes south I'm screwed so these people should be too". A few thousand preppers who are too busy prepping to "fight for a solution" isn't gonna make the difference between shit going south or not.

Not to be an ass but the kind of people I picture saying something like that are stuffy politicians who likes to use phrases like "antisocial behavior", "community norms" and "if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem" and who is completely out of touch with what shapes the decisions of everyday people.

If someone wants to prep for something that's highly unlikely to happen then I see no problem with that. If anything their prepping stands to be useful in a hurricane Katrina type situation. What's the problem with that?

I think it's more a recognition that we are social creatures, and that the minimum-viable unit of social reproduction is the village cluster, not the lone-wolf individual.

The notion that these folk are going to "survive" in any meaningful sense is a fantasy.

If we all disagree what the solution to societal problems is, it is tempting to think I can have my solution independently of others. With this convenient illusion, it is easier to walk into societal collapse. Just live the sweet life now, and when it hits, I run off.

And hurricane Katrina? You realize that many deaths would have been prevented if the levees had been constructed properly? Sure, in hindsight that is easy to say. But that's exactly the issue here: The prepper mindset does not include collective protection. It doesn't scale.