From one of my Marine Corps buddies on this article:
"He acknowledged the small sample size but “37% chance” fails to account for a lot of other variables, or is at least subject to abuse as a statistic cited in support of prepping, given that the most recent qualifying event ended 157 years ago and the majority of Americans have lived and died after that happened. Also his comparison with other failed nation states would benefit from discussion of the fact that even if the US federal government fell, every citizen is still subject to the sovereign jurisdiction of a state which -maybe- would help us mitigate complete doomsday-style collapse of society of the sort that warrants building a bunker and stockpiling food and guns."
Me: You should post this on the Substack.
"I dunno, that feels like I’d be inviting discourse that would require me to do a lot of math and that’s precisely the sort of thing I became an attorney to avoid."
"1. 37% is not an accounting or precision number - rather the intent is to hypothesize that the number is probably greater than 1% and less than 90%.
2. The fact that many Americans have lived and died since the last even is exactly the point. By his math, they all had a 63% of NOT experiencing a civil war.
3. You would THINK that the gubmint at some level would step in, but as evident by Portland and Seattle and Kenosha, it clearly would require something extreme since those didn’t seem to move the needle."
To point 3, it would take a government that either doesn't see Portland and Seattle and Kenosha as a feature or stops seeing Portland and Seattle and Kenosha as a feature: "the worse, the better." I'm starting to feel like some kind of Mirror-universe Objectivist ("Read _Atlas Shrugged_: It explains all"), repeating over and over, "Read _The State and Revolution_: it explains all."
1. The 0.5% probability of collapse year-to-year is not uniform, and is probably stochastic (that is, if last year's probability was lower than 0.5%, it's likely that this year's probability is too, and if last year's probability was above 0.5%, it's likely that this year's is as well). So if you have a lower than 0.5% probability because things are going pretty well, then it's likely that you'll have a long run of low probability. But if your probability of collapse starts to increase to say 2% or 3%, then sh*t starts to get real. We see it in a lot of ways: Dred Scott decision, Bloody Kansas, John Brown, people singing about John Brown, arguments over tariffs that help the North but are paid for by the South, caning in the Senate, election of Lincoln in a 4-way race.
2. The USA is not uniformly vulnerable. The most fragile parts of the country are the inner cities. If and when a collapse occurs, it occurs there first. Most of us would likely never be affected by it.
The problem is that not everything that Rural America needs is produced in Rural America, and there is national critical infrastructure that Rural America needs which has had major population centers grow up around it.
Rural America is less vulnerable than Urban America, but that doesn't mean that it's not vulnerable at all. Spare parts for tractors and power plants don't grow on trees.
If we experience systems collapse on that level I'd expect something like 99% of the population to be wiped out. The knowledge of how to run simple systems is mostly lost.
Thanks. As one who must deliver 5 nines reliability for certain communication links, I am aware of what that entails and costs. The extra nines add up fast. Dealing with the double digits is a lot less expensive and wise insurance for most of us. I can go for three months easily and could push for six but I have friends who are ready for a year. My arms are limited to a shotgun and some pistols, but I'm a bit too old to hunt. Middle aged folk should be a bit more prepared should society break down but we are addressing those who might find your work. I worry more about protecting myself should things go bad.
Thanks for your 10/4/24 pointer to this post, which was before I began reading your blog. My professional probability work dealt with ship design (What are the odds of a ship needing X number of AAW missiles in a given geopolitical scenario? And what should we expect the REAL cost of that acquisition to be?). Now that I'm retired, I just deal with figuring out the chain of events in a given societal upset scenario and the relative odds of needing this or that in my storeroom. That would be boring to most people, but it keeps me off the streets.
Afghanistan is pretty much the opposite of America. The idea that even 500,000 AR-15 armed preppers could take on the US military, at home, in a densely populated, mostly urban, country is not a viable idea. I can't do maths so I have no charts. America is also a divided country, so in any SHTF situation you'll be fighting not just the gubmint but your neighbours and armed "militias" (read, find, rob, rape, torture, kill, gangs)
I 'prep' but not for a revolution, I prep for natural disasters and the like. I have no guns as the idea that I could "defend" my goods from armed bands of marauders is silly too. I actually like and can use any kind of gun. I am NOT a pacifist.
But hey, good luck with your pee shooters and 'hiding in the mountains like an Afghan' when a fully armed Marine division shows up. All that aside, you are too fat anyway. LOL
Afghanistan is pretty much the opposite of America. The idea that even 500,000 AR-15 preppers could take on the US military, at home, in a densely populated, mostly urban, country is silly. I can't do maths so I have no charts.
I 'prep' but not for a revolution, I prep for natural disasters and the like. I have no guns as the idea that I could "defend" my goods from armed bands of marauders is silly too. I actually like and can use any kind of gun. I am NOT a pacifist.
But hey, good luck with your pee shooters and 'hiding in the mountains like an Afghan' fantasy when a fully armed Marine division shows up. All that aside, you are too fat anyway. LOL
I think the idea that a fully armed Marine division is going to go head to head against a bunch of citizens they probably know and hang out with when on leave is mostly a liberal fantasy, not a conservative one.
1. The logistical tail of modern military forces is very, very vulnerable and mostly operated by civilian contractors. Even if the Marines could be convinced to fight their fellow countrymen, that Marine division would likely never get there in the first place, but if it did, it would consume so much of its combat power protecting its own backside that it would be able to project very little of that power against an adversary.
2. Recognizing that the Marine division is just a metaphor (there are, in a best-case scenario, two of them), any large group of military forces deployed against Americans is likely to come from the National Guard. They have families and homes. So again, assuming they could be convinced to fight their fellow countrymen (there would be mutinies), they would not only have the logistics problem and the need to protect supply lines, they would also have an additional protection problem.
3. So realistically, internal power projection could only be done by smaller, more politically reliable units that could be convinced to follow higher HQ's orders. They would still have the logistics problem, but would be much easier to defeat if it ever came to that.
From one of my Marine Corps buddies on this article:
"He acknowledged the small sample size but “37% chance” fails to account for a lot of other variables, or is at least subject to abuse as a statistic cited in support of prepping, given that the most recent qualifying event ended 157 years ago and the majority of Americans have lived and died after that happened. Also his comparison with other failed nation states would benefit from discussion of the fact that even if the US federal government fell, every citizen is still subject to the sovereign jurisdiction of a state which -maybe- would help us mitigate complete doomsday-style collapse of society of the sort that warrants building a bunker and stockpiling food and guns."
Me: You should post this on the Substack.
"I dunno, that feels like I’d be inviting discourse that would require me to do a lot of math and that’s precisely the sort of thing I became an attorney to avoid."
37% is less than a coin flip, but enough to prevent you from getting a mortgage for a home in a floodplain.
I replied to him with this:
"1. 37% is not an accounting or precision number - rather the intent is to hypothesize that the number is probably greater than 1% and less than 90%.
2. The fact that many Americans have lived and died since the last even is exactly the point. By his math, they all had a 63% of NOT experiencing a civil war.
3. You would THINK that the gubmint at some level would step in, but as evident by Portland and Seattle and Kenosha, it clearly would require something extreme since those didn’t seem to move the needle."
To point 3, it would take a government that either doesn't see Portland and Seattle and Kenosha as a feature or stops seeing Portland and Seattle and Kenosha as a feature: "the worse, the better." I'm starting to feel like some kind of Mirror-universe Objectivist ("Read _Atlas Shrugged_: It explains all"), repeating over and over, "Read _The State and Revolution_: it explains all."
Way too much from historical fiction is happening as we watch.
FYI the correct/updated "firsthand experiences" link is: https://www.shtfplan.com/emergency-preparedness/a-survival-q-a-living-through-shtf-in-the-middle-of-a-war-zone
This is so good. Ended up here after watching you on Rebel Wisdom.
Welcome to HWFO. :)
Two observations:
1. The 0.5% probability of collapse year-to-year is not uniform, and is probably stochastic (that is, if last year's probability was lower than 0.5%, it's likely that this year's probability is too, and if last year's probability was above 0.5%, it's likely that this year's is as well). So if you have a lower than 0.5% probability because things are going pretty well, then it's likely that you'll have a long run of low probability. But if your probability of collapse starts to increase to say 2% or 3%, then sh*t starts to get real. We see it in a lot of ways: Dred Scott decision, Bloody Kansas, John Brown, people singing about John Brown, arguments over tariffs that help the North but are paid for by the South, caning in the Senate, election of Lincoln in a 4-way race.
2. The USA is not uniformly vulnerable. The most fragile parts of the country are the inner cities. If and when a collapse occurs, it occurs there first. Most of us would likely never be affected by it.
In fact,this same case you make is made by global warming proponents in regard to floodplain analysis.
The problem is that not everything that Rural America needs is produced in Rural America, and there is national critical infrastructure that Rural America needs which has had major population centers grow up around it.
Rural America is less vulnerable than Urban America, but that doesn't mean that it's not vulnerable at all. Spare parts for tractors and power plants don't grow on trees.
You could say the same thing about the USA vs China.
All conflict is ugly.
Given that I'm expecting systems collapse along the same lines as the late Bronze Age, ugly may be an understatement.
If we experience systems collapse on that level I'd expect something like 99% of the population to be wiped out. The knowledge of how to run simple systems is mostly lost.
Like, good luck trying to figure out how to grind grain into flour without electricity at scale.
Thanks. As one who must deliver 5 nines reliability for certain communication links, I am aware of what that entails and costs. The extra nines add up fast. Dealing with the double digits is a lot less expensive and wise insurance for most of us. I can go for three months easily and could push for six but I have friends who are ready for a year. My arms are limited to a shotgun and some pistols, but I'm a bit too old to hunt. Middle aged folk should be a bit more prepared should society break down but we are addressing those who might find your work. I worry more about protecting myself should things go bad.
Right scholarly work, as usual.
I need to buy more ammo.
Thanks for your 10/4/24 pointer to this post, which was before I began reading your blog. My professional probability work dealt with ship design (What are the odds of a ship needing X number of AAW missiles in a given geopolitical scenario? And what should we expect the REAL cost of that acquisition to be?). Now that I'm retired, I just deal with figuring out the chain of events in a given societal upset scenario and the relative odds of needing this or that in my storeroom. That would be boring to most people, but it keeps me off the streets.
>But if he isn’t going to do either of those things, all he must do to ensure it doesn’t hurt anyone is not shoot anyone with it.
Also, someone else doesn't steal it and shoot someone with it. So better that attic have a good lock.
Afghanistan is pretty much the opposite of America. The idea that even 500,000 AR-15 armed preppers could take on the US military, at home, in a densely populated, mostly urban, country is not a viable idea. I can't do maths so I have no charts. America is also a divided country, so in any SHTF situation you'll be fighting not just the gubmint but your neighbours and armed "militias" (read, find, rob, rape, torture, kill, gangs)
I 'prep' but not for a revolution, I prep for natural disasters and the like. I have no guns as the idea that I could "defend" my goods from armed bands of marauders is silly too. I actually like and can use any kind of gun. I am NOT a pacifist.
But hey, good luck with your pee shooters and 'hiding in the mountains like an Afghan' when a fully armed Marine division shows up. All that aside, you are too fat anyway. LOL
Afghanistan is pretty much the opposite of America. The idea that even 500,000 AR-15 preppers could take on the US military, at home, in a densely populated, mostly urban, country is silly. I can't do maths so I have no charts.
I 'prep' but not for a revolution, I prep for natural disasters and the like. I have no guns as the idea that I could "defend" my goods from armed bands of marauders is silly too. I actually like and can use any kind of gun. I am NOT a pacifist.
But hey, good luck with your pee shooters and 'hiding in the mountains like an Afghan' fantasy when a fully armed Marine division shows up. All that aside, you are too fat anyway. LOL
I think the idea that a fully armed Marine division is going to go head to head against a bunch of citizens they probably know and hang out with when on leave is mostly a liberal fantasy, not a conservative one.
1. The logistical tail of modern military forces is very, very vulnerable and mostly operated by civilian contractors. Even if the Marines could be convinced to fight their fellow countrymen, that Marine division would likely never get there in the first place, but if it did, it would consume so much of its combat power protecting its own backside that it would be able to project very little of that power against an adversary.
2. Recognizing that the Marine division is just a metaphor (there are, in a best-case scenario, two of them), any large group of military forces deployed against Americans is likely to come from the National Guard. They have families and homes. So again, assuming they could be convinced to fight their fellow countrymen (there would be mutinies), they would not only have the logistics problem and the need to protect supply lines, they would also have an additional protection problem.
3. So realistically, internal power projection could only be done by smaller, more politically reliable units that could be convinced to follow higher HQ's orders. They would still have the logistics problem, but would be much easier to defeat if it ever came to that.
That fact is why the Left is currently importing mercenaries across the open southern border.