Build Your Ark

I've been a really half-assed prepper. I've stockpiled some MRE's and we've got a good water filtration system. Depending on where you live and what your home environment is like, it could also make sense to be armed and prepared for physical confrontations. If things really went sideways, Mad Max style, life would be so hard and random that I don't think anyone could be adequately prepared. For starters, for people who think that's a plausible scenario at all, but live in a city, or anywhere near the coasts of the United States, the first step to "prepare" would be to move.

If you're not in a megalopolis region, though, the most important thing step would be to get to know your neighbors and have a community of trusted people. Why stop there, though? It makes even more sense to establish a functioning and economically vibrant and self sufficient town/village/county. Beyond some geographical size, that exercise stops being worthwhile.

I don't think the Mad Max scenario is likely any time soon, or really worth worrying about. I do think, though, that the United States is wandering into a period of relative instability and maybe some chronic economic problems.

I think the credibility of the federal government and other institutions will probably be reduced to zero over the next few years. The level of corruption and weirdness of the Federal government is probably more in the realm of people like Alex Jones and David Icke--pedos and satanists and lizard men--than 6 o'clock news coverage of embezzlement or routine criminality.

Rather than a big "boom" collapse, I'm betting the "white flight"/Rome style collapse happens. My current pet idea about Rome is people just abandoned it as it became an unlivable freak show of corruption and perversion. The same shit is happening here in the US on a daily basis. The signs and signals are there, but they're pretty faint. It's more like a rust spot on a car bumper than an accident.