In the US at least, stockpiling antibiotics is a little tricky - kind of hard to find a doctor who will just write you a prescription for cipro "just in case."

Or any medications for that matter. I've gone down this path. The best I could do was to get the doctor to double-up my prescriptions for a while, which gave me a 3 month buffer. That is why I am trying to learn how to make my prescriptions. Super dangerous, but I don't want to rely on fragile economies. I just watched a country lose its mind and take all the toilet paper.

You're learning to "make your own prescriptions"? Do you mean forging them or becoming a nurse practitioner?

Some of the more mundane anti-biotics are pretty simple, as far as organic chemistry goes, I take bupropion[1] and the synthesis section doesn't look /too/ complicated. My o-chem has about 10 years of rust on it though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupropion

I understood it as manufacturing/extracting the right molecule.

You can buy anti biotics over the counter in Mexico.

That used to be true about 8 years ago, but not anymore. You need a prescription for any antibiotic.

How about all the other medications? I stay clear of anti-biotics anyway.

>I stay clear of anti-biotics anyway.

You certainly shouldn't pop them for no good reason. But antibiotics can absolutely be life saving in the event of an infection.

For sure, some people need it. Anti-biotics are abused heavily here in the U.S. which in itself is a major health risk, when the person might legitimately need them. People are even eating anti-biotics without knowing it. What beef producers are allowed to do with anti-biotics and plastic waste is obscene.

The meat industry certainly overuses antibiotics, but the claim that "people are even eating antibiotics without knowing it" doesn't seem to be accurate.

https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/food.html

> Food animals should not have any antibiotics in their body when they are slaughtered or processed for food. Antibiotic residues are small amounts of leftover antibiotics or pieces of antibiotics that are not completely absorbed after an animal is given antibiotics. USDA, with FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), administers the U.S. National Residue Program (NRP) to prevent residues that pose a potential threat to human health from entering the food supply.

I don't disagree, but I think part of the reason they can say that is that it has not been exhaustively studied. There are various articles on nih.gov [1] that summarize the problem and what would be required to properly study this. There is also a big monetary advantage to using antibiotics in animals which makes me skeptical of any documentation. Perhaps I am too skeptical.

[1] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216502/

You don't need a prescription to buy antibiotics that are sold for pets, like fish. And you can buy antibiotics that are sold for pets that happen to be the same as the antibiotics manufactured for humans.

>And you can buy antibiotics that are sold for pets that happen to be the same as the antibiotics manufactured for human

Yes, but there's a quality control aspect there that makes one a touch uncomfortable. My fish getting a little something extra in their amoxicillin is something I stress far less about then if I'm the one taking the pill.

That was my first thought too, but if I think I might go septic soon, I'm gonna take that risk. Additionally, I believe if the imprint codes match on a commercial product, you can be reasonably sure it was forced to go through all the same process: https://www.drugs.com/article/imprint-codes.html. I'm not a doctor, obviously. Sharing my possibly flawed understanding, not giving advice.

If the apocalypse was happening outside my bunker a little extra amoxicillin would be the least of my worries.

I've had doctors prescribe me antibiotics "just in case" when I was going to be traveling.

It's probably not something you could ask for too often, but I don't think it'd be that hard to do.

Depends on the destination. For trips to Africa, India or East Asia, that's not hard over here neither.

You can buy pet antibiotics online from canada. It's the same shit as human antibiotics.

I thought people often bought aquarium antibiotics over the counter to stockpile? I guess dosage could be a little more tricky, though.

It's easy to find a pet store, though.

https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2019/11/26/veterinary-anti...

Pretty easy if you're willing to smuggle drugs across the border, though. You'll get away with a trip to South or East Asia and returning with a stockpile.

It's not smuggling when the drug isn't controlled.

It’s not hard to buy medication from India online.

Anecdotally, my doctor suggested a script for cipro for a trip to Thailand - and we ended up using it.

About 5 yrs ago a pharmacist in Bangkok sold me amoxicillin no questions asked. In the country side or in Laos or Cambodia it's even easier. Same for India and probably most of Africa. An extra 10$ goes a long way.

A lot depends on what failure modes you're preparing for and protecting against.

At the time of the original virus shutdown in the US, I saw a ton of essentially panic buying of things (like canned goods and rice) and bottled water that seemed to be aimed at a complete infrastructure breakdown. Yet, I'm guessing that most of the people preparing to hole up for months lacked many of the other things they'd need if they actually lost electricity and water for an expended period of time.

While of course they would need many other things as well, if you actually believe that there's going to be widespread societal breakdown, you probably do want a gun and ammo in addition to food, large quantities of water, and so forth.

I think what those people were trying to hedge against was a short term loss of basic infrastructure like water or power. It wasn't meant to last for 2 months, it was meant to last for a few days.

I definitely know people who were posting online about how they had 6 months supply of dry and canned goods socked away. A few days makes sense in any case; I actually lost power for 2-3 days this summer just because of a storm. But I could easily cover that with just what I normally have in the house.

To be fair to those people, at the beginning of the pandemic there was a lot of uncertainty around COVID-19 transmission rates. Buying a few weeks of food was a good way to hedge against the potential case where COVID-19 was so virulent that even going to a grocery store presented a high risk of transmission. Of course, we now know that even in a hotspot grocery shopping using basic precautions is fairly safe. But it was not clear at the time.

They're prepping for different disasters than you want them to prep for.

When there's a disaster and there's no police to call having guns and ammo you can trade off is likely far better than gold bars, solar panels, etc because everyone without guns and ammo is gonna be wanting enough to keep themselves safe.

The people whose preparation supplies seem to be 85% tactical/weaponry related and 15% everything else, whether they will acknowledge it or not, seem to be preparing to become the people who would take others' food and supplies by force in the event of a real nuclear war level catastrophe.

Not necessarily. The guns and ammunition are more valuable. You could trade them (or your time in protecting them) for the other things without stealing.

Besides, I think it's a moot point because I know a lot of preppers and they're all very aware of concerns like safe drinking water and food.

>seem to be preparing to become the people who would take others' food and supplies by force in the event of a real nuclear war level catastrophe

Or simply preparing to defend against those sorts of people.

The thing is, "those sorts of people" don't really exist. There have been PLENTY of disasters resulting in short or long term societal collapse all over the world in the last century, and none of them resulted in widespread banditry.

Didn't ISIS do that in Iraq and Syria? Kidnapping is also a common way for armed people to get money from others in insecure countries, possibly more than they could get by directly stealing their possessions.

ISIS didn't arise spontaneously after an earthquake. It was intentionally built over a period of 10 years by a coalition of political parties and religious movements as a continuation of the insurgent war against occupiers, with the eventual goal of establishing a new society with new laws: their mission was inherently social and cooperative (by means of military conquest).

That's hardly the prepper expectation of "there will be a solar flare and then the whole world will instantly be filled by roving gangs of psychopaths, like in The Walking Dead"

They are simply preparing for those "people who would take others' food and supplies by force" in any type of event.

The thing with guns and ammunition is that you can use those to get the goose down from people like me.

If it's any consolation, the type of person to do that is the type to have their house burned down around them because the solo king-of-the-castle, all plunder survival strategy has a very limited lifespan.

Only in the most simplistic case.

In less simplistic cases, people will gather and organize and decisions will get made over how resources will be allocated and distributed. The people who stockpile other resources are unlikely to be in a better bargaining position than those with the guns. And it might not require any shooting.

Not that any of this is likely--I just don't think it's limited to Rambo / Scarface types.

Haha, you're right. Any notion of private property will be subsumed by the needs of the collective. We already saw that in the early days of this pandemic where it was unacceptable to keep your masks if you had them.

Stockpiling goose down will mean that the tribe will decide that the old man gets the goose down. And the doctor.

Maybe, or maybe not. If they have guns and you don't, it'll be up to them to decide.

And if one tribe has guns, and the other doesn't, guess who gets more of the goose down and who is tasked with locating more goose down?

Here, try this comment a little up in the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25060550

Might help you answer that.

You make a good point that I grafted the "lone holdout" connotation onto your plain statement about being armed. All other things being equal then yes the armed contingent can have the stuff belonging to the unarmed contingent

Exactly this. People severely underestimate the power in communities when this happens. If word gets out that you stocked up weapons and you’re on the prowl for food, it’s going to be a 50-to-1 situation against your favor.

In this situation, I’m hoping to barter my computer skills

As someone with myopia, I'm just hoping to barter my ability to die rapidly without corrective lenses.

Not sure if this is serious or bad sarcasm? Hope you get some good glasses :)

Haha! I use contacts but I do have backup glasses. I do know that my societal position is what it is because society has been made safe and able.

Hijacking this with a quick tip: don't hoard doxycycline. It'll wreck your kidneys if it's expired. https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expired-doxycycline-what-e...

Aren’t we talking about dying from a bacterial infection here in a SHTF situation?

Wow I haven't seen straighdope in a while!

I think you're being uncharitable to preppers. Most of the ones I know are into camping, and as such, have basically all of A) and D). Many of them are into SAR/EMT stuff and so have B). C) is just normal to have in many rural areas of the US.

My wife and I prep, but as a former member of the military with a great deal of "field experience", I agree with your assessment of most preppers.

We own revolvers, no ARs, no Glocks. No need for that. Even the FBI shows than in drastic situations like home invasions, the average number of shots fired is 3. The zombies are not coming. We are not going to end up in a Walking Dead situation. I know enough preppers and have listened to enough to know a lot of what they write is coded and has meaning. Zombies are not real, even though they use this term in their writings. They are referring to inner-city people or city dwellers (or even the unprepared) who may attack during a protracted emergency like a hurricane that removes power for weeks and people start looting to survive. I based my preps on water purification, medical (wife has doctor after her name), and calories. As a guy who has carried a 65# ruck for hours on end for days, I can assure you, you don't need as much as you think. While the military does have a supply chain for soldiers in the field, there have been times when that wasn't a reality for a week or more and you had to make do with what was in your ruck.

The military sends troops into harm's way with 180 rounds of ammunition for rifles, and 45 rounds of ammunition for handguns. That's it.

I focused on water purification, caloric intake, regulating body temperature, medical, and have two solar chargers. Have two of everything (two is one, one is none). I'm not worried about a protracted battle with anyone. Smart preppers will avoid any fight because it's just plain dumb as hell to get into it with anyone when there is no medical help around. To the people that have amassed thousands of rounds of ammunition, I laugh. Why? Military experience. I often ask these people when they brag about their "warehouse full of preps", "How many gunfights do you reasonably expect to survive?" What if someone launched flaming arrows into your home in a protracted situation? How will you carry your stash? Do you have children? Any babies? If so, your job is to protect your family by fleeing. Not trying to pretend you're a warrior. Discretion is ALWAYS the better part of valor.

Good preps: - Light tent for your family. Waterproof. In warm regions, two light tarps. - Water purification tablets for a year. Takes up no space. Also water purification straws, pref. the 25,000 gallon variety. Again, light and no space. - Revolver with 200 rounds of quality ammunition. One for each adult. - High-quality light rucksack with waterproof cover. - Two folding solar panels. - Two full medical kits. - Steel canteens and canteen cups for cooking and water purification. - 1000' of 550 paracord. - Two fixed blade knives and two folding knives. - Light thermal technical clothing. - Hand warmers and space blankets. - Lighters and matches along with ferro rod for fire. - Compass x2 (learn how to use it. Most people fail land navigation, even basics, because they think using a compass is easy. Get grid maps for your area and learn the difference between grid, true, and magnetic north (declination). Learn the declination for your area and program your compass with the correct settings. At even a mile, the wrong declination will send you off by hundreds of yards. - Safety goggles, shemaghs, and expanding toilet paper wipes (light, 250 take up the space of a can of soda) - Pack according to your weight, height, and abilities. Children should carry their own clothes and water and nothing more. Adults should limit it to 35#. - Firearms should always be out of sight.

So with the exception of the gun, that is basically reasonable camping gear. Maybe even the gun, if camping is to happen in, say, the Canadian wilderness.

Given how fast outside help is reaching disaster zones, that would be more than enough. Of course, exceptions proof the rules.

> The military sends troops into harm's way with 180 rounds of ammunition for rifles, and 45 rounds of ammunition for handguns. That's it.

I am reminded of the apocryphal tale:

> Shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: 'You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?' The soldier replied: 'We will shoot twice and go home.'

Having a stock of ammo is sometimes more about making it through droughts of ammo availability and still being about to out and train/practice regularly. Supposedly over the last few months there's been limited ammo availability?

How many hundreds of hours have you spent finding reliable versions of all of those products? Most people just don't have the time.

“expanding toilet paper wipes (light, 250 take up the space of a can of soda)”

Most of the items listed are familiar to me except for this. I’ve been sterling the short ends of big commercials toilet paper rolls (no center tube so toilet paper all the way to the middle), but this sounds better.

Also, revolver for the reliability?

Map and compass seems excessive for most. Even if you live in a very rural area you probably know the surrounding 5 miles by heart (I do at least). More critical imho is making sure your gas tank is always half full (or charged) and that you've downloaded maps on your phone.

Magnetic declination cancels out. Pretend magnetic north is true north. Walk a mile north, then walk a mile south. The error cancels out perfectly, returning you to your origin.

Outside of national parks, the land is usually either featureless or full of roads. Navigating by topological features is thus more of a hobby than a survival need.

Any particular knives you recommend?

Perhaps a naive question, but where does one acquire antibiotics without a prescription? Whenever I've needed an antibiotic, I've seen a doctor and that doctor's prescription seemed necessary to purchase the antibiotics at a pharmacy.

Pet store. It will not have passed the quality controll for human consumption, but it's maybe better than nothing

Are the guns & ammo not enough so you can acquire the other stuff from your neighbors?

(Putting it more seriously, doesn’t a lot of prepperdom assume there will be warlords and pillaging and all that? And better to pillage than be pillaged?)

Also, basic skills: If we experience a true societal collapse, then simple things like basic wood-working skills and tool maintenance are critical. You won't get far in the post-apocalyptic, zombie-ridden wasteland if you don't even know how to sharpen a knife properly.

>a) water purification equipment with supplies/filter changes good for 6+ months of continuous use

It's easy enough to make a particulate filter yourself out of sand and charcoal. Then just boil the water to kill any microbes

You can also render water relatively safe to drink using small amounts of bleach. I've done it a few times whilr camping. EPA.gov has instructions for it, you only need a few drops of bleach per gallon (roughly 3.75L) of water. One large bottle of bleach is enough to purify water for months at least.

https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/emergenc...

In Peace Corps we used a filter bucket and added bleach. Took very little bleach, though I don't recall how often we had to change the filter. It was essentially this: https://www.outbackwater.com/outback-5-gallon-gravity-powere...

It's probably a bit safer (easier to control) to use iodine which I carry for camping, even if only as backup. Once it's done it's thing, you can then put in some Vitamin C to neutralize most of the funny taste.

I don't think Iodine is safe to use for long periods.

Thru-hikers use it for six months at a time. It's safe enough for emergency use for someone with no preexisting thyroid issues.

But you don't know if you have pre-existing thyroid issues. Prolonged use should include monitoring thyroid function.

see https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/travel/backcountry...

Water that has been disinfected with iodine is NOT recommended for pregnant women, people with thyroid problems, those with known hypersensitivity to iodine, or continuous use for more than a few weeks at a time.

Ok, so if clean water is unavailable for more than a few weeks, hop on down to the clinic and trade some ammo for a thyroid checkup? If you're planning for the end of the world, then yes you'll want a backup water plan. For realistic emergency scenarios iodine is a practical water treatment option.

Even easier to buy a few camping water filters and skip the boiling.

You’ve haven’t used those much then. Pumping water in the backcountry is a giant PITA. Even the clearest mountain stream ends up clogging the filters after a few liters and require you to back flush them. We despise using them and will often just boil unpurified water for our dinners.

Sawyer filters tend to be our favorite. Although if you only want to do a Nalgene amount of water and don’t mind some grit, then Steripens are a good option too.

My experience is quite different from yours with regards to clogging.

I used a Sawyer Squeeze daily for 4 months and probably only backflushed it 2 or 3 times. It definitely slowed down, but nowhere close to the amount of time it takes to boil water and wait for it to cool down.

The Katadyn Befree is my favorite right now because it's lighter with a considerably faster flow than the Squeeze. Some reviews from thru-hikers say it clogs faster than the Squeeze but I haven't had any issues so far. (Haven't thru-hiked with it yet though...)

Whole heartedly agree. A gravity system is highly recommended if people go the water filter route.

Second voice for the Gravity filter. Only way to go if you want liters of water at a time.

You don't even need that. You can filter through a piece of cloth and boil. It may not taste great but it's safe.

How many preppers have you seen, as opposed to videos about preppers?

>I've seen in the USA that has many thousands of rounds of ammunition, and none of the following:

[...]

>c) lots of gasoline or diesel generators but no knowledge or tools and supplies related to implementing off grid photovoltaic or wind power systems

>d) lots of tactical clothing and accessories, plate carriers, dropleg holsters and such but no $400 goose down sleeping bags, 4-season camping equipment.

This is confusingly worded. On first reading it sounds like they don't have "lots of gasoline [...]", but as you read on further it sounds like you actually meant they do have "lots of gasoline [...]".

you're absolutely right, I'm not fully awake... the order there has been edited to be reversed now.

Do you have that stuff?

I have never seen a prepper video on Youtube that doesn't mention a, b, and c.

The "antifa bus" incident in Forks, WA this year was eye opening on how the peanut butter of small-town corruption can mix with the chocolate of spoiling for a fight paranoia to turn any situation into absolute madness very quickly.

The lone prepper holed up with their canned food and guns is the substrate ideology of the American Civil Religion taken to its conclusion. It's, uh, gross. Not a fan!!

I realized recently that at some point as the Rugged Individualists have become more shrill, that many of them have crossed the line from Libertarian into Anarchist and I don't think they know they have.

What's funny-sad is that I'm pretty sure they (used to) hate anarchists, and now they've become Them.

Guns instead of supplies is a very anarchist mentality. Guns make sense (at least in a self-consistent way) when you have something worth taking. If you have the guns but nothing to take, then you have a very different plan for an actual emergency. Whether you acknowledge it or not is a different story.

If you have guns and nothing to take you have a commodity that is very valuable among the people who have things to take but no guns.