"PPre- & PPost-Apocalyptic Preparation" (Four P's #169)
How to repopulate the human race, while also preventing its extinction.
Are you ready for the End of Days?
I’m not. I don’t have a bunker buried in my backyard. No gas mask. And I've all but repudiated organized religion. Yet every generation experiences its own (perceived) existential threats. Our grandparents had Pearl Harbor. Our parents lived through Cold War fears of nuclear attacks and air raid drills. We had 9/11. Our children will have spent two years wearing masks in schools.
So far, the human race has survived them all. And the global population continues to grow, now over 7.8 billion. Even with 5 million reported deaths in the last 18 months attributed to COVID-19 (obviously catastrophic), it is not proving to the apocalyptic, population-reduction event that some might have thought a year ago.
Still I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I was among the last survivors of our species. There are books, films, and television shows depicting the rebirth of life after apocalyptic events, but it's hard to know what to really expect. There are so many forces that could wipe out the population: war, pandemic, famine, asteroids, tectonics, QAnon, you name it. If these past 18 months have proven anything, it’s that my survival instincts are pretty robust. I was so careful, in fact, that I might be the only person you know who has not gotten a COVID test. If you happened to be one of the sole survivors, would you know what to do? I started a list:
Something Practical: Gathering and Hunting
Let’s start with the basics. After waking up naked in the forest (that seems to be where most of these stories start when the dust settles), your immediate priorities are shelter, warmth, food, and water.
Shelter: There should be plenty of abandoned and empty homes (there are already too many houses). Don’t automatically take the biggest one, because someone is going to have to clean it. And that person is you. And it's not like you're on a desert island, so extra clothing should also be available in abundance by hitting up a local mall or retail centers. (Though malls are where zombies tend to hang out.)
Warmth: Without electricity, it'll get cold pretty fast. Finding matches or lighters and firewood should be another priority. Raid the gas stations for fuel before it goes bad. Keep the fire going. It’s also a good way to let other survivors know where and how to find you.
Food: You've been making shopping lists for years, but do you have your Forage List ready to go? I remember reading somewhere that a single intact supermarket contains enough nutrition to sustain one person anywhere from 55 to 63 years! But you'll soon realize that most of that food will spoil after a short period of unrefrigerated time. Start with the perishables, but remember that you may not see ice again until winter.
Water: Any potable water that wasn't sealed has to be sterilized to drink, so keeping lots of pots to boil water is key. You'll also need to store water in even larger supplies to bathe and flush toilets. Collect large volumes in bathtubs, but keep the supply covered to prevent light from contaminating it and algae from growing in it.
Phase 2: Congratulations! You’ve made it a few months living off old supplies. But it's only a matter of time before the "healthy" foods run out. With the agro-supply chain, the produce will disappear. The goal is for the scavenged food to last until you can build a farm. Growing up in the suburbs of New York City, sustainable farming isn't necessarily something we learn in high school. But having a garden in my backyard for the past five years has taught me a lot. First, not all soil is farmable, and must be broken up as finely as possible. Ideal growing temperatures are different by crop. Too much water can stunt growth. Squirrels and bird are assholes. Crop rotation is real to give soil time to recover year-to-year.
Socialization and Civilization: Ideally, you're not alone in your efforts to rebuild society. Finding others and working together will be crucial for human survival, especially those with complementary skills. For example, I'm not a hunter, but my neighbor, Tyler, is. Whereas I still think of it as unnecessary and primitive, Tyler will be on my short list of post-apocalyptic friends if we both happen to make it. I'm also not as well versed in sophisticated methods of extracting heat energy, such as oil or coal, so I’m hoping some fossil fuel people (just a few) survive, too. While firewood is fine for keeping our houses warm, accomplishing more complicated tasks necessary to build back a civilization will require a fuel, like charcoal, that burns much hotter than wood. Hopefully there's still time for me to practice this, but apparently making charcoal out of old wood is easier than you think. Time to get cracking!
So, yeah, that’s about as far as I've gotten in my thinking and planning so far. But I can't be the only one thinking about it. How are you preparing to re-build society in the aftermath? Let's share tips, but more importantly, make arrangements to meet up in the fallout. How about we agree to find each other at the nearest 7-Eleven, since we know all of the stuff on those shelves can last centuries…
Something Personal: Medical Science
I'm assuming that if I do survive this catastrophe, my family will survive, as well (we'd be hunkered down together). That means I’ll have more advanced knowledge about health care in the new world thanks to my physician wife to take care of us. (See, Tyler, we DO have skills… we’ll trade her medical expertise for some of those venison steaks you fileted). But if you can’t find a good medicine lady nearby, the best advice I can give you is to stay clean! Washing your hands, drinking clean water, cleaning out any cuts or scrapes can effectively deter most diseases.
We have come a long way in the fight against germs thanks to modern medicine, both in the prevention and treatment of all kinds of illnesses . In order to get through a few days of discomfort when I contract a common cold, I typically consume Tylenol, Motrin, Mucinex, Nyquil, Sudafed, Zinc tablets, Quercetin, Azelastine spray, Elderberry, Afrin and cough medicine. And all of that is on top of my normal regimen of multi-vitamins, Allegra and melatonin. But what if none of those things is available in the new world? Could "alternative medicine" actually work long-term?
Maybe for a cold, but for everything else, the answer, in short, is no. Dr. Paul Offit is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, and is a member of the FDA Advisory Panel that has made recommendations about COVID-19 vaccines and boosters. Thanks to physicians like Paul, most of us will be immunized against illnesses. But Dr. Offit also wrote a book about 10 years ago called "Do You Believe in Magic? Vitamins, Supplements, and All Things Natural: A Look Behind the Curtain."
As we've seen during the pandemic, a sizeable portion of our population doesn't trust the science, doesn't believe in vaccines, masks, or data. Right or wrong, many Americans are unhappy with modern medicine: They perceive it as bureaucratic, financially-driven, impersonal, and cold. They’ve heard scary stories about “Big Pharma” and think they know best.
They don't. Alternative medicine lacks evidentiary support. In fact, between 1983 and 2004, poison-control centers in the United States received 1.3 million reports of adverse reactions to "natural vitamins, minerals and alternative medical and dietary supplements." If we listen to the claims of supplement providers and get sucked in by those promising words in their campaigns – natural, bio, organic – then we’re easily convinced that vitamins are a modern miracle. Unfortunately, as Dr. Offit says, this just isn’t the case. In 2004, researchers from the University of Copenhagen reviewed several studies of a total of 170,000 people to determine whether taking vitamins A, C, E and beta-carotene prevented intestinal cancer. The results were surprising and disturbing: death rates are 6% higher in people taking vitamins.
When people choose to get their information from celebrities and influencers, the results can be dangerous. When Jenny McCarthy's son was diagnosed with autism, she became acquainted with an advocate for a controversial (long-since-debunked) study that blamed vaccines for causing autism. It’s due to their campaigns that many parents became wary of vaccination. As a result, fewer people are properly immunized today. In recent years alone, Americans have witnessed an increase of deaths among newborns from diseases like whooping cough. But this isn't a new phenomenon, either. 20+ years ago, actress Suzanne Somers played a large part in promoting a deeply problematic form of hormone therapy engineered in a German factory, which ultimately resulted in heart disease, blood clots and cancer.
I'm tired of these people. I'm tired of watching my wife have to defend her profession, her practice, her pursuits of science from idiots on social media. I'm tired of these outrageous claims and bizarre therapies that have characterized alternative medicine for the past 200 years. I'm tired of the quacks and charlatans and imposter physicians who damage the profession, like Rashid Buttar who offered an anti-autism cream, and “Trans-D Tropin,” an anti-aging drug that remains unapproved by the FDA. Buttar has also treated cancer patients with intravenous hydrogen peroxide, an aggressive substance normally used for bleaching. None of these treatments improve people’s lives in any way, or cure them. So if (and when) we find ourselves in global re-building mode, it’s important to remember that early humans didn't live as long as we do now, and the biggest reason for that is modern medicine.
Until then, the quicker we ALL align behind science of medicine, the better equipped we will be to make the right choices for our health and safety… and may actually prevent an apocalypse from even happening in the first place.
Something Professional: Preventing the Collapse
A decade into our post-apocalyptic recovery, we should see the return of specialized professional and commercial trade. Of course, the ecosystem will look very different, and I'm well aware that my marketing experience will no longer add much value to society.
So perhaps a better way to spend our time, harness our knowledge, invest our capital, and focus our efforts towards preventing the end of the world and protecting the human race.
I believe that our current economic system is massively flawed. Of course, I've personally benefited from our capitalist system and work with large corporations to get better, bigger, richer. Does this make me complicit for whatever disaster may come? Maybe, but I also believe that capitalism can still be reformed for good.
Companies like the ones at which I have been employed over the past two decades usually serve multiple masters. We have clients, customers and consumers, but also boards and shareholders. No matter a company's stated mission, shareholder profit is the ultimate objective. American economist Milton Friedman famously wrote that the only moral responsibility of business was to increase profits – businesses that only sought profit would become more efficient and innovative, and bring broader prosperity. Essentially, the market would take care of everything.
Well… no. In the short-term, maybe. But prioritizing shareholder returns can be linked to most of the problems that we face today: climate change, economic inequality, social inequality, an eroding moral compass. Take the fossil fuel companies. By pursuing a business strategy of short-term profits while ignoring the long-term destruction of the natural world, they’re destroying the very foundations of their business model. Not only will reputational damage hit them hard in the future, it’s rather tricky doing business in a world on fire.
But we are seeing more and more businesses re-focus and start to think about the bigger picture. It starts with accounting and finance reform, accurate reporting and partnering with investors looking to support companies that put sustainability and fairness at the heart of everything they do. This type of investor is less inclined to demand short-term returns. Impact investors are people and institutions seeking to invest in companies that want to make a difference. They seek returns, but they want to affect things positively. Or companies could limit investor power entirely, with strength in numbers. When businesses seek to make progressive change alone, they’re often ineffective. Without full collaboration, individual efforts can falter. If leaders at these companies continuously fail to pitch in, the lack of effort can be contagious. But when they work together, great progress can be made. Like-minded coalitions are more likely to drive progress through mutual accountability, and can even force legislative change for lasting change.
Something Political: Protecting Our Freedoms
Leadership positions in this imagined new world order will be based on whose skills add the most value to the common good. Unlike current society, those positions may also be determined by wealth, property and the ability to organize groups of people around a common purpose. But the lessons of the recent past can, and must, serve as guides and warnings for the leaders of tomorrow on how to avoid the rise of tyranny.
Certain media channels and vocal fearmongers have Americans bristling with hostile attitudes toward “foreign threats.” Ironically, these become the real threats to democracy, the enemies from within. In fact, all of the democratic governments that have collapsed since World War I fell to a single party that seized power from within. Nazis, communists, fascists and conservatives have traditionally used spectacle and repression to enable their takeovers. Mitch McConnell's efforts to pack the judiciary with judges who oppose civil liberties are an example of salami tactics that slice away at the opposition, taking power piece by piece. Often the public is too distracted to notice the threat to their freedom.
Another sign to beware of is paramilitary forces. Private gun ownership hasn't just fallen down the slippery slope, it's dropped off a cliff and quickly become a collection unsanctioned, heavily armed hate groups. Trump formed a private security force that followed his orders at political rallies. They were used to eject dissenting voices from the rallies, and the members even encouraged supporters to remove anyone who opposed the candidate.
Indifference to dangerous language and symbolism is one step away from acceptance. The language and symbolism a political party uses may initially seem meaningless, or even ridiculous, but these simple tools can lead to profound consequences. The Nazis didn't take over Germany and Europe overnight, they started with small gestures. The marking of storefronts in Germany wasn’t just racism; it also exploited people’s greed and survival instincts. Those stores went out of business, which played into the desires of a public that was looking for ways out of their own economic hardships. Propaganda has always been dangerous, but when mainstream digital and social channels perpetuate misinformation, they legitimize misinformation. It would be great to just read books and cut yourself off from the media and the internet, but this is both unnecessary and unrealistic (and you'd miss out on a few good P's here each week). So the least you can do is broaden your sources of information.
In the new communities that we will build in the future, connection will be key. Tyranny succeeds when it separates communities by erecting social barriers that isolate and distract people. But resistance can succeed by breaking these barriers down and bringing people from different backgrounds together to exchange ideas about how they can move forward together.
Therefore, resistance to tyranny starts when different social circles come together and combat misinformation and disinformation. Protecting ourselves from future tyranny is a matter of knowing what to look for. The telltale signs include the slow erosion of personal freedoms, threats to your privacy and a disregard for facts and truth. Unfortunately, these signs are all too apparent in the United States today. We must be vigorous in defending facts, reason and respect for human dignity.
Real change has to start now. The groundwork for any progressive change will have been laid down long before the change happens. And often, those who’ve contributed a great deal will remain anonymous. No matter how small your role seems, you can contribute to progressive change. In a world threatened by serious crises, you can be one of those that put it right!